The First Saturday
I was on call that Saturday. The company keeps one driver on call every weekend in case somebody’s tank runs dry or a farm needs a fill for a dryer. In July it is mostly quiet, but you keep your truck and your phone close.
We were in the lot by seven. The sun was already up over the elevator, and it was going to be a hot one. The air smelled like cut grass from the ball field and diesel from the highway.
Kenzie wore her black tank top and her cutoff jean shorts and her rubber boots. She had her auburn hair pulled up in a ponytail so tight it made her eyes look bigger.
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I wore my plain gray work T-shirt and my ball cap, because I was on call and might have to leave. I set our big blue cooler on the pavement by the corner of the lot, and Kenzie propped her sign against it. I turned a white five-gallon bucket upside down beside it for a seat.
Car Wash $10.
She hooked the hose to Ida’s spigot on the north wall. She unrolled it off the reel. She filled her two buckets and squirted in the soap and stood there in her boots looking up and down the side street.
It was seven-fifteen. There was nobody coming.
“Daddy,” she said. “Can I practice on your truck first?”
I looked over at the bobtail parked along the side street. It is a big white propane truck with a round tank on the back and red letters on the side. It is not a small thing to wash. It had two weeks of county-road dust on it, and the tires were brown to the hubs.
“That’s a lot of truck, Bug.”
“I know it,” she said. “Pull it over here.”
I pulled it over onto the corner of the lot. She went at it with the pressure washer, then the mitt, then the step stool for the top of the cab. She did the wheels with the brush. She did the mirrors with the glass cleaner.
It took her forty minutes. When she was done that truck was whiter than the day the company bought it. The red letters on the side looked like somebody had just painted them.
I reached for my wallet. I took out a ten-dollar bill and held it out to her.
She put her wet hand over mine and pushed it back toward my pocket.
“No,” she said. “You bought the washer, Daddy. You’re paid up for life.”
I did not say anything. I could not. I turned around and looked at the street for a while, at the elm tree and the stop sign and the flag on the post office, until I could see right again.