Telephone Pole
This, and the previous story, is from the days of hanging out with the Alatorre brothers, the Quality Maintenance days, and enjoying that lack of wisdom that only comes in our early 20s.
Ruben, Wanch, and Tony Alatorre and I had a business we called Quality Maintenance. It was a business maintenance company. We cleaned department store floors, we cleaned medical labs, we cleaned restaurants. I enjoyed the mindless work, and then applying some smarts into it to make the work easier. And I enjoyed working nights. I could have a life until one or two in the morning, then go to work, then go home, have a snooze, and then have the day free. And the money was good.
One night Wanch and I were cleaning a restaurant. We developed a method that took us much less time and effort than their own workers to clean it, and we also shamelessly overcharged them, but that's another story. The manager came in and told us that we had a call from our boss. We always pretended we were lowly workers and the guys they talked to on the phone, us, were management.
Ruben and Tony were on their way to another account and had run out of gas. They needed rescuing. Wanch and I finished up quickly, and found them in a closed gas station. This was about three in the morning. We drove around and found an open gas station, but the gas guy would not sell us or rent us or lend us a gas can. In the van were a number of containers that weren't really suitable for gas. But we did have empty 12 oz glass soda bottles, left over from our visits to Tommy's.
We washed them then filled up these 10 or so small glass bottles with gasoline to the top. And to make sure that the gasoline didn’t spill out to the floor of the van, we put rag stoppers on the top of the bottles and carefully stood them in a cardboard box.
Off we go to the rescue.
We go back to the dark closed gas station. Ruben is in the passenger seat fuming, Tony is waiting by the side of the van. Wanch gets out of my van and starts screaming and yelling at Tony for being so stupid. Tony is blaming Ruben.
Wanch was a wiry guy. He could still wiggle up door jams. He liked to climb trees. Instead of fighting with his brothers, he angrily climbed up a telephone pole.
I get out the box of gasoline. Tony starts putting the gas into the van’s tank while I am handing him the bottles.
Quite suddenly, there are lights, red lights, and flood lights everywhere. Even a helicopter. And out of maybe a dozen cop cars, and maybe a SWAT van, jump out cops with their guns and rifles out, all pointing at us.
I froze.
Tony, does one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. He takes a couple of steps towards the front cop and says,
"May I help you?"
The cop starts cussing and yelling and Tony calmly says, "My stupid brother ran out of gas and these guys came over to rescue us. Do you guys have a gas can?"
The cops all look at each other, put away their guns, get in their cars and drive away.
In all that fuss, none of the police never noticed Wanch up on the telephone pole.