Chapter Seven

Twerking at the Car Wash

“Hurry, string bean, hurry!” Crystal urged me to run up the steps just as fast as I could.

I had been given five minutes to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t wasting any time getting there. I dashed through the living room and past the boys. I could vaguely hear my brother trying to explain the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek to Lloyd.

“So there ARE wars in Star Trek, but there are no Treks in Star Wars?” My dumbfounded cousin was trying to make sense of Science Fiction through the eyes of my sci-fi obsessed brother. If I had time I would have stopped just to listen to their comical exchange.

“Cool your jets, sweet cheeks” Ted cautioned me not to run in the house. He didn’t look up from the television to seem like he actually meant it.

I could hear my Aunt in the yard telling him she gave me five minutes to get my narrow little behind back. I think having to hurry on the toilet because someone told you they would punish you if you didn’t finish in time wasn’t the most humiliating thing I had done that day, but I felt if I had a top ten list it might have been in there.

I closed the door and pulled the double panties down and sat on the bowl in the nick of time.

I felt a deep wave of comfort roll over me. Today had been a series of, what could seem to any outside observer, unfortunate events; that if they happen one after the other are just implausible – who could have this much bad luck?

I was able to breathe easy now. I felt like the butterflies that had been churning in my stomach after each unlucky break were simply coming out my bottom and leaving my body.

Then I heard the door knob jiggle and I reached in vain to stop whoever was opening it.

Lloyd and Conner barged in singing the Jeopardy theme song. There are no words to the song. It just goes “Duhn-nuh-nuh-nuh nuh-nuh nuh NUH! Nuh nuh nun nun.” Then you are out of time and must give your answer.

“You’ve got 3 minutes and 27 seconds,” my brother Conner was timing me with his Nintendo DS.

“Get out of here, you guys!” I cried out. I had my panties/swimsuit around my ankles and my hands in my lap. They had seen me naked but they hadn’t seen me go to the bathroom before.

“Get out of here you, sirs!” Lloyd held his finger up insisting I call them sir.

“Fine Lloyd Sir, please let me go poo in peace? You got to see me naked. I need a little privacy for this!”

I could tell by the look on their face they felt they had crossed the line. I could see especially in Conner’s eyes that this was far too invasive and he looked at me apologetically.

“FRIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!” and then I farted.

“Eeeewwww, I didn’t think girls could fart,” Conner laughed. If he had any plans to leave me, that stinky emission had just canceled them. What is it with boys and farting that never seems to stop amusing them?

“You should hear Savannah after a can of beanie weenies,” Lloyd was chuckling. “Hey, you ate those yesterday didn’t you?” he pointed at me to signal he wanted an answer.

I just glowered at him. I was rapidly running out of time and I needed to finish doing what I was doing. I don’t want to get graphic, but for sake of the story I had one more to do but I was holding it in. I don’t know why, because they were not leaving.

He put his hand in front of his face and waved away my foul scent. “We are smelling day old beanie-weenie farts!” he sounded equal parts grossed out and excited.

“No we are smelling day old beanie-weenie GIRL farts!” Conner corrected. He was hanging on his cousin’s shoulder and laughing about what a rare opportunity that would be “It’s like finding a golden unicorn that is also a Pegasus.”

“FRAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapp!” I could not hold it in anymore. The next sound that came out of my bottom was the splashing sound of someone going poop. They must have heard their own bottoms do this all of their lives and yet they laugh furiously when they hear the same sound came out of mine.

I was not just blushing. I was power-blushing. That is a new term I had to invent, for someone who is so embarrassed that their entire face turns red along with most of their body. I could feel every vein in my body start to course with fear and just as I thought I was done– a completely new batch of butterflies emerged from their cocoon to take the place of the ones I had just expelled into the bottom of the bowl.

The boys were theorizing about what would happen if I was late to return to Crystal.

“You probably don’t have time for toilet paper,” Lloyd prompted me expectantly to spread my legs and wipe myself.

“You two boys are going to need an entire tube of Preparation H when I get done kicking your asses,” my Aunt emerged from behind the boys. She grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and pulled them out of the room. Then *poof* like that they were gone and off into something else.

“I am sorry Ma’am,” I knew I was already past my five minute limit because my brother had reminded me.

“Honey child,” she shook her head at me sympathetically “You are going to have to learn not to take things so seriously. If you let those boys bust your chops every time they can, then – well then, you will have a lot of busted chops.”

I could tell my Aunt wanted to sound wise; and she was just trying to make up something that passed for a wise old saying and that made me grin slightly.

“I am not going to be punished?” I was still sitting on the bowl and wanting to finish. I didn’t want to let lose while she was in there with me.

“If you get back out there and help wash some cars,” she smiled reassuringly “We’ll get you some clothes tonight and you can talk to your mother in the morning about what happens next.”

She left and let me wipe myself in peace. I was actually excited to return to the yard. I hadn’t been at first. I couldn’t understand how Savannah and her mother could be so excited about it. Crystal had come to my rescue when the boys were hassling me and made me feel like my punishment was over.

When I came out, Savannah was thanking a stranger and counting some money as he drove away in a black truck. She yelled “Woo-Hoo!” and slapped the back of his truck as he peeled out spraying mud all over Savannah as he sped away.

“Fucking dick head,” she groaned. She wiped mud out of her eye and flung it on the ground while continuing to count the money, before putting it in a coffee can.

“Hey Tinkle,” Savannah looked at me “Everything come out alright?”

She was clearly talking about my bathroom break. “Why are you so nice to the customers and so mean to me?”

“Cuz you are part of the reason I am out here,” she reached into a soap bucket and splashed me with a sponge – she was goofing on me.

“You look like you enjoy it though?” I was confused. She shook her head as if I was hopeless and told me to stand there and wash Ted’s truck and let her do the thinking.

“I remember when I told you that,” Crystal said from her lawn chair. “You were flat-chested and wanting to help mommy wash cars!” My Aunt reminisced about a naïve snot-nosed little blonde girl whose fingers were coated in Cheeto cheese powder.

She was nothing like the stunning tall, lean, sexy adult-sized teenager in front of me.

“Yeah, that was before YOU had the boob job!” Savannah splashed water over at her mom. Her mom denied ever having a boob job, but it was obvious she was teasing.

“These are real,” she laughed.

“Yeah, real fucking big and real fucking fake,” Savannah teased her mom in her smarmy southern accent.

“Real fucking expensive, baby!” Crystal corrected. They were going to tell me more but another potential customer drove up.

“Oh, it’s this motherfucker,” Savannah didn’t look happy when she recognized his car “Mom, this one is for you.”

“If he is a mother fucker, then you may be right,” Crystal’s smile reminded me of an alligator’s mouth when she was laying on her stomach. She had big teeth and her smile was very wide. She had on the aviator sunglasses that had belonged to Todd when he was here a few minutes ago. Her body was coated in a fine sheen of sweat and tanning products.

She commented she needed some music out here.

“I can go get it, Ma’am!” I volunteered. I wanted an excuse to go back in the house once I saw Savannah didn’t like who was pulling up.

“No honey,” Crystal told me, “just stay outside and watch how it is done.”

A beat-up white utility van pulled up alongside our yard. There was a grey-haired man in his late fifties with wide-frame glasses inside. He sat there for a few minutes doing something inside the cab. I couldn’t tell what, but it was making the women impatient.

Savannah hurried him in a voice not meant to be heard by him, “C’mon you slow old motherfucker.”

Savannah told her daughter just to keep washing and wiggling. Savannah did exactly as she was told and laid it on thick. She danced around the truck making sure to bend over the hood of Ted’s truck so that her entire ass was visible to the man in the van.

He waited a little longer and I thought he might be masturbating. That made sense given what he was watching, but I shuddered at the thought he was doing it in his van. He opened his van door slowly and got out without saying a word.

Savannah whispered to me “Ten bucks he asks if we are washing cars today like he doesn’t know we are.” I didn’t take the bet and it’s good I didn’t.

“You girls washing cars today?” he asked as if the fact we were in bikinis washing a truck wasn’t obvious.

“Why no Larry, we are sucking cocks today.” Savannah said to him with as much disdain as she could show for anyone.

His face showed of a man who looked bitter all the time and whose pace in life was painstakingly slow. He wore black suspenders over a blue shirt and his polyester pants were pulled up to the middle of his stomach. He looked at Savannah with scorn but didn’t respond to her barb.

“Sorry about Savannah’s dirty language,” Crystal apologized. Her apology sounded like a mother who was genuinely apologizing for her daughter’s behavior. If you knew my Aunt and her permissive attitude about cussing, then you would also know she was clearly play-acting.

“When are you going to let me take that girl into my van and let me put her across my knee and teach her what for?” the old man’s voice was shaky and slow as he stammered his threat.

“I sure wish you would,” Savannah told him defiantly. “You couldn’t get me in the back of your rape-van if you promised me two kittens, a lost doggy and a whole bag of candy.”

If the goal was to be nice to the customer’s then Savannah was doing the opposite. The man just took her abuse.

He flipped the upper plate of false teeth in his mouth and threatened meekly, “You keep going young lady.”

“She does need a good spanking,” Crystal cooed, like the idea of a stranger spanking her daughter was the most appealing thing to her. She stood up from her lawn chair and let her breasts both bounce up and down once. “But you know who needs it more don’t you?”

He nodded that he did.

“We are doing wax and wash today,” Crystal sauntered over to him and flashed her toothy smile at him.

“Do you have a premium wash?” he asked her. It was obvious that he knew they did.

Crystal sucked her lips and glided across the lawn to open his van. It was disgusting inside. The van had no seats in the back. There were dog cages and animal feces everywhere.

Crystal’s lip curled into a snarl of disgust, but she pretended that this was not bad at all.

I was not looking forward to cleaning it but I had already made up my mind I would help my aunt and cousin in any way I could.

“This doesn’t look so bad,” she lied. “I could do a premium wash on the inside of the van and they could wash and wax the outside for,” she paused ever so seductively, “one hundred dollars?”

“One hundred dollars?” the old man shook his head. “Obamacare is coming and I do not have one hundred dollars to spend on you. I need that money for my pills.” He shook and looked visibly upset.

Crystal put her hands on his shoulders and asked him nicely if he would like to sign up for Crystalcare. She puttered her hot breath in his ear and whispered how it worked a lot like Viagra.

The old man stared at her blankly. There was an awkward quiet. Savannah and I stopped washing Ted’s broken down old truck to watch the man look off into space.

He sneezed.

The lower plate of his denture flew out of his mouth and into my Aunt’s yard.

I heard Savannah laugh uncontrollably at him. He muttered to himself about disrespect, but it was clear he wasn’t even going to look at the girl mocking him.

Crystal turned around and bent over at the waist to pick up his dentures. She hid nothing about her shapely ass as she bent down and picked up the denture.

In my neighborhood where we came from, all the lawns had the same uniform length and type of grass. I never noticed before, but my Aunt’s lawn was a mixture of dirt, sand and at least seven kinds of patchy grass and weeds.

What I find fascinating about that observation is that is uniform with all the other trailers in the Buckman trailer park. It is almost like they planned them to all have the same look in the exact opposite way as where I am from.

I tell you this observation not because it is relevant to my story. It is because I had at least as much time to think about that before the old man finally made a decision.

“I will do one premium service but I want to talk with you about your daughter’s attitude,” he put the denture back into his mouth and wiggled it into place snugly.

Savannah’s mom sounded delighted and followed him into the back of the van. “You girl’s behave while Mommy cleans the van,” she offered sweetly before sliding the van side door shut.

The look on her face was one of disgust when the old man turned his back, but her voice sounded sweet and cheerful.

“So do we wash the outside?” I asked Savannah once they were inside.

“Fuck no,” Savannah continued to half-heartedly wash Ted’s truck, “He is only paying for an inside wash.”

I hadn’t seen my aunt take any brush or soap into the van. I did not want to speculate any further on what was happening inside the van.

“Are you sure your mom will be okay getting into a stranger’s van?” I asked, to make conversation. I knew her aunt was tough, but I had always been told not to get in vans with strangers.

“Larry is an old friend of the family,” Savannah told me “I’ve known him since I was six years old.” She didn’t say any more about it.

Savannah yelled to her brother to come out and bring her some hair ties. It took three times for him to finally come out and do it.

“You two girls look like you are having fun,” Lloyd laughed at his sister.

She splashed him with water and they both willingly engaged in a little horseplay before she abruptly told him, “Get off me Lloyd – you fucking douche. You are scaring away business.”

He stopped and went back in the house without saying anything. “Thank you!” Savannah shouted after him as he was walking away as if he should have waited for her to say it before he left. Once he was out of earshot she affectionately added, “You dumb booger-butt.” She wrapped two hair ties into her hair wrapping them and twisting them into long straight pig tails. Then she sighed as if she were waiting.

We continued to only clean the side of Ted’s truck that faced the road. I felt the awkward stares of people from their trailers, but I seldom saw anyone walking down the street.

Two cars whisked by and one hollered at us obscenely, but neither of them stopped when Savannah tried to flag them down. I asked her if she wanted me to help. Savannah looked at me with a conciliatory glance and told me, “I think you might just want to be out here as eye candy and let me be the bait.”

It was less than ten minutes when the sliding door opened on the white van. Savannah whispered to me, “This is the part of this I hate.”

Crystal was wiping the corners of her mouth with her fingers. “That was fun,” she said as she stepped out.

“Momma!” Savannah’s accusingly pointed at her mother like an impetuous child, “That van smells like horse-shit. You didn’t do a very good job cleaning it.” She stamped her foot like she expected it to be clean. I was more confused than ever by the scene that was playing out here.

Crystal had clearly done nothing to clean the van interior. It was still a rusty white van full of dog cages, oily rags and excrement.

Crystal’s tone changed as well. The best way I can describe her tone was that she sounded exactly like my own mother this morning before she left the trailer. She wasn’t mocking my mom’s tone – she was impersonating it.

As you most likely have no idea what my mother’s tone sounded like I would say imagine an uptight soccer mom from the suburbs who sounds concerned but vulnerable, as if she has just lost patience with the situation and is not sure what to do.

“Larry,” Crystal implored the old man “I have tried to teach the girl manners but she just won’t behave. What should I do?” she asked.

The two women were silent while the old man adjusted the big square set glasses on his head. He reminded me of a taller non-pleasant version of the old man from the UP movie by Pixar.

“You know what you ought to do don’t you?” the old man said.

Crystal was growing impatient with this charade and sighed, “What should I do Larry?” she asked him fishing for a response.

“You ought to give that girl a good spanking!” the old man said after another uncomfortable long pause.

“I wish you would!” Savannah dared her mother. She shook her hair ties with the petulant demeanor she had shown Larry since he pulled up. The difference was she was acting like a bratty 12 year old instead of a bratty 16 year old girl.

I felt like a spectator at a street-fair play where all the actors are pretending to be part of the crowd. I was just standing there now with my mouth hanging open.

“I am sorry Larry,” Crystal shook her head defeated, “I don’t think I could do that. Spank my own daughter and teach her a lesson in respecting her elders?” they were laying it on pretty thick, although I had no idea why.

My theory at the time was they just wanted to get a rise out of the old man and enjoyed shocking him and me.

The old man reminded me of a turtle with their long neck, wrinkles and the slow and deliberate way they perceive the world. Savannah and her mother were moving at a much faster pace through life; but despite this were doing their best to be patient with him.

“Fine,” Savannah had lost patience waiting for the old man to answer and began to climb into his van, “let’s get this over with.”

“I believe I could help you with that but I want to do it out here over my knee,” the old man wiped the sweat from his neck with a blue handkerchief after he finished speaking.

“You do?” Crystal looked surprised as if this wasn’t in her script. “Is there anyone else out here that needs a little attitude adjustment?” she even tapped her own thighs.

He ignored her and walked over to me. He looked at me and smiled. His dentures looked so out of place in the wrinkled face, because they were the perfect teeth of a man much younger.

He looked me up and down and I stood there awkwardly while he considered me slowly.

“This one is a good girl,” he finally declared and added, “She doesn’t belong here.”

He said nothing more about me – leaving me to wonder how he could tell I wasn’t from this place.

Savannah protested, but walked willingly over to the front steps of the deck in front of their trailer. She was almost leading him there. The old man found it difficult to sit down on the steps and I could hear his old bones crack and shift as he parked himself. She waited right there for him and protested the spanking to come.

She laid herself awkwardly over his knee. Savannah was almost six feet tall and she had to bend her knees so that she could brace herself against the wall of the trailer and use her hands to hold herself up while she rested precariously on his lap.

“Britches down,” the old man said once she was settled in place.

“Momma. No!” Savannah sounded desperate not to have her swimsuit pulled down. She reached out to her mother for help; but Crystal kept her arms folded and told her it was for her own good.

“Everybody is going to see my dookie-hole!” Savannah protested; but she helped the old man, who has having trouble taking her swimsuit down, to get them down to mid-calf.

The bathing suit had been little more than white cotton panties that were too small and completely see thru – there could be no way a rational person would think a girl who wore that outside to wash cars was concerned about her modesty, but to hear Savannah cry and moan she most certainly was.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” Crystal stopped herself from talking and waited. I could see Conner, Ted and Lloyd’s faces in the window grinning down and watching the spectacle with delight. The old man couldn’t see Savannah shooting them a bird from his angle.

“Let that be a lesson to you then. You will think twice before you disrespect our elders.” He popped Savannah’s ass so lightly with his hand that it made no sound and caused no jiggle.

Savannahs cries however made it sound like she was receiving the spanking of a lifetime. Her nose and eyes were beet red from tears and yet her butt showed no pink from his slaps.

“No one wants to see your dookie-hole young lady. I had to pull your panties down so that you could get a lesson you will remember,” he muttered as he administered nine extremely light and extremely slow swats.

She tried covering her ass with her hands to shield herself from them, as if they stung like fire. He grabbed her wrists and it was obvious she didn’t struggle at all when he pulled her hands out of the way. He would also push her cheeks apart to study and look at the ‘dookie-hole’ in question while Savannah wailed like a baby at the unfairness of it all.

Savannah climbed off him and sniffled while crying real tears. She nodded at him and thanked him, “Thank you Uncle Larry for teaching me right from wrong.”

She learned right from wrong in ten short spanks? I laughed out loud.

Savannah glared at me and pulled her panties back up around her waist. The old man pulled a peppermint candy out of his pants and offered it to her.

She smiled gleefully and hopped up and down, “Momma, can I have the candy now?”

“No baby, it will spoil your dinner. Thank your Uncle Larry because we have to finishing washing Uncle Ted’s car.”

Larry took his sweet time standing up. She waited for him patiently and then gave him a big hug. He reached down and squeezed her ass cheeks while they embraced.

“Ooh Uncle Larry,” she cooed in mock surprise and delight. He got a handful of her backside and then patted it lightly.

He walked away from her without saying a word and got in his van. He sat there for a full five minutes before he would eventually drive away.

“Okay, I have to ask, what is going on here?” I said once he was in his van.

“What is going on here is rent!” Crystal flashed me a look at a small wad of bills that she had kept on the inside of her swimsuit.

“Some of that is going in the coffee tin for us all to split!” Savannah put her hands on her hips. She left the pig tails in, but no longer pretended that the spanking had just split her in halves as she had moments before.

“That was a premium wash, baby!” Crystal chuckled without a trace of pity for Savannah’s concern about the money not being split.

“How much extra did you charge him to spank muh butt?” Savannah placed her hands on her hips and mugged like a precocious young starlet. The old man was still watching the girls talk and it had to be obvious to him that he had not changed Savannah’s true nature even one iota by her body language.

“That was just good customer service,” Crystal laid back down on the lawn chair and bid us to get back to watching for new customers. She put her shades back on and pretended to read her book. “I still remember the first time Larry spanked your ass. You couldn’t sit down for two days.”

Savannah stuck out her tongue at her mother and said, “Yeah and you stiffed me on the cash then too!”

“So you charge money to let old men spank you in the yard?” I was genuinely shocked.

I should have realized that was going on but a part of me hoped there was a less seedy explanation.

“No,” Savannah lightheartedly popped me with a rolled-up wash rag. “Obviously, we do that for free!” she sneered at her mother.

“You girls want to eat at Rowdy’s tonight?” Crystal ignored her daughter’s complaints about not receiving remuneration for her part in the charade they were playing.

There was some cheers from inside the trailer and a jump for joy from Savannah – this was clearly the Danville’s favorite restaurant.

“Then let’s get some music out here and make a little money.” Crystal told Lloyd to bring that radio outside and he clicked on the music.

The first song that came on had a country riff but there was a rapper and a hip-hop beat.

Baby, you a song

You make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise

(Let's go!)

I got my windows down and the radio up, get your radio up

What up Nelly, alright

I got my windows down and the radio up, get your radio up

Yeah, when I first saw that bikini top on her

She's poppin' right out of the South Georgia water

Thought, "Oh, good Lord, she had them long tanned legs."

Couldn't help myself so I walked up and said,

Baby, you a song

You make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise

Down a back road blowin' stop signs through the middle

Every little farm town with you

And this brand new Chevy with a lift kit

Would look a hell of a lot better with you up in it (come on)

So, baby, you a song

You make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise

Crystal and her daughter danced around playfully in the yard to the music like in a Girl’s Gone Wild video. The dog’s howled as if they were backup singers; and Savannah twice danced her top right off and had to adjust it back up over her nipples. They did not care who was watching and they made every effort to make sure anyone who walked or drove by saw them.

They encouraged me to dance too; but I was awkward and moved like a girl who hadn’t ever tried to dance – which was true.

“You are all asses, knees and elbows,” Crystal laughed at me and brushed my hair out of my face with her hand as she looked into my eyes deeply. “I think that is very sweet.”

“She means she thinks that is a good angle,” Savannah snorted skeptically.

A white Cadillac turned onto our street. Rap music was thumping out of the car as it drove ominously towards us. I couldn’t see who was in it because of the deeply tinted windows.

I tried not to be such a fuddy-duddy and jumped up and down waving at the car like I had seen Savannah do for a truck that passed by earlier. I saw that Savannah and Crystal just stood and watched the car drive by slowly without moving. The people in the Cadillac slowed down to watch us and then drove by.

“We don’t wash THEIR car,” is all Savannah said about that. I felt embarrassed I had been the only one jumping around. I could see she did not want to explain, so I didn’t ask any further questions about it.

Crystal changed the subject and explained to me, while we continued washing and dancing to music, what they were doing.

Years ago Crystal happened to be outside washing her car. “It was a slick red convertible Ford Galaxie 500 LTD with a black landau top.”

“We used to have so much fun in that car,” Savannah added, looking off in the distance reminiscing fondly, “small-block 289 V-8 engine - Big inch 427 FE blocks maxed out at 425 horsepower.”

I made a mental note to ask her later about how she knew so much about cars. The topic that most puzzled me now was the story behind what we were doing.

She started to explain how she was in-between boyfriends one afternoon and the rent was due. She was outside washing the car when a guy pulled up in a pick-up “and the devil’s eyes”.

He asked if she would wash his truck and he would pay her. She needed money for “Baby Formula” she said.

Savannah corrected her and explained they were ten years old around that time.

“Okay, I needed money for food and shit like that,” Crystal hushed her daughter over the detail.

The man sat back and watched Crystal wash the car and at the end gave her a fifty dollar tip. She would periodically go out in the yard on the weekend and wash her own car and she started getting regulars stopping by to get their cars washed and enjoy the view.

It wasn’t long before Lloyd and Savannah wanted to come outside and jump around in the garden hose and help their mom. “They were helpful little buggers back then,” Crystal was being impish about her daughter’s current, surlier attitude.

Crystal admitted with pride, “Savannah was a big hit with the guys and she would create the most adorable bathing suits. She would help her momma wash and wax and be just a sweetie.”

“Yeah,” Savannah threw the unwrapped peppermint candy Larry had given her into the road only to be crushed minutes later by a passing car that drove on by us. “I didn’t know why, but the smaller the bathing suit the more candy I got.”

Crystal winked, “I think you knew why.”

“After a while, momma and I got a few regulars who like to make special requests,” Savannah’s wink was more exaggerated to mock her mother.

“That is when we came up with the premium wash. Those cost a little extra.” Crystal had more to explain about the arrangement but we had another customer.

They both put big smiles on and walked over to the approaching car like cats at a fisherman’s wharf walking up to an incoming boat loaded with fish.