Dennis, Part 3

Continuing where I had left off ...

 It was the first day of high school for me, one week late.
(There was a death in the family and I had skipped the first week of classes to attend the burial festivities in Chicago.)

I had arrived at my local bus stop to find nobody I was particularly interested in chatting with. I didn't much appreciate the local kids, nor they me. All my buds were living in other sections of town, or attending a different school.

A little apprehensive... I came from an 8th grade class of less than sixty kids, and was about to enter another world where I knew few (out of the potentially hundreds) by comparison.
That, and everybody else had a one week head-start.
Naturally, I hid all of this behind a posture of faux confidence.
You know: look cool, act cool.
And most of all, Show No Fear.
My stomach was a knot of nerves...

Approaching the stop, I noticed another kid.
Slight of frame, with bent posture.
He seemed overly friendly, exchanging a word or two with everybody, despite whatever indifference they showed him.
He was sporting this huge grin. A baboon came to mind.
He was grinning like a baboon.
A retarded baboon.
I was thinking maybe he missed the short bus, or fell out of it.
Definately.
He fell out of the short bus...
and hit the pavement hard...
head first...
and rolled for 53 yards...
before a truck rolled him...
It was a big truck.

Short Bus looked as out of place as I was feeling at the moment.
I noticed... he was still (briefly) chatting people up while they still appeared indifferent to him.
Who was he?
Is he one of 'ours'?
Can't be.

The bus arrived within two to three minutes  and we all filed on, Short Bus included.
Okay... I guess he is one of ours.
Never seen him before.

I grabbed an empty seat and prepared to stake my claim to the whole bench (it was a body language thing: spread your legs out, recline a bit, take up space, set your backpack next to you... you get the idea)...

Short Bus was a bit slow boarding, and finding no empty  benches was looking at the space beside me...
I slide my stuff closer, and without acknowledgement let the dude take a seat.
We still had several stops ahead of us and I certainly didn't expect to keep that space all to myself, anyway. My attempt to do so was just posturing on my part.
(Remember: no friends among the locals. Me vs The World. I had a statement to make, however briefly.)

Within seconds of the bus proceeding along it's way I get conversationally engaged by Short Bus. I kept it terse. And he kept it up... talking shit about the admin (at the school), talking shit about about the government, cracking stupid (I mean really stupid) jokes about Jimmy Carter (the president at the time, who was failing by the minute). Talking about cars and radios and rock bands. Talking about everything... and everything he spoke about he was an authority on it...
Once again: I kept it terse.
This guy wasn't annoying me as much as he was interrupting my vibe.
The Vibe I was trying to exude.

I tried to be polite without being overtly unfriendly. It wasn't working.
Some people feed off of niceness.
This one seemed to be feeding off of my lack of blatant not-niceness.
Like a wad of gum under my shoe... annoying and pervasive.

Whew!...
We arrive at school, I cooly disembark, attitude in place...where it should be.
I had just spent 45 (purposefully terse) minutes with what had to be the most annoying human being I had met all week... All month.
Hell, probably the last decade...
and that's a lot for a 14 year old.
I was happy to finally be at school where I could get about my business free of his presence.

Pack slung over my shoulder, I made my way through campus and headed to my locker... gazing upon passing faces, hoping to find a friendly...
And finding Not Many Friendlies...
More like No Friendlies Whatsoever...

Damn!... seems I've burnt a bridge too far...

Fuck 'em!
All of 'em!
Fifty-seven  former classmates...
Who all suck.
It's not my fault if they all suck, is it?
(My  best friend... maybe, my only real friend... was attending a different private school, thanks to his misguided parents... who I loved, btw. And still do revere... All these years later.)

Well, they didn't all suck... just the ones who  who were attending my school. I was hip with a few... but they were sent to other schools...
Later, I wondered if skin-color had to do with that...
that 'other schools' thing... wanting to be where kids were a tad more diverse or something...
I'll never know, and it wasn't relevant to where I was at the moment...
I was alone here.

Inside, the first day of  high school was a lonely place to be.
Outside, I would not show it.
On the up, I was now among hundreds of new people... people with whom I was a blank slate.
Taking solace in these thoughts, there remained a 'clomp','clomp', 'clomp'...
just behind me, I was beginning to notice... that steady cadence...
'Clomp', 'clomp', 'clomp'...
That flat-footed, heavy stomp of a one who didn't walk as readily as the rest of us...

'Clomp, 'clomp', 'clomp'...
I remember that sound like it was yesterday.

I navigated through the halls, yet, still...
with every deviation...
'Clomp', 'clomp', 'clomp'...
I turned to look, my fears realized:

Short Bus was following me.

Dennis, Pt 2

"There's more to driving than steering."
What's your trip?
"You're gonna learn to drive for real. Be in control and stay there."
Dennis in the 'Alpha' position wasn't a normal occurrence, more on that later...
OK.
Where we going?
"Camino. Where else?"
He was laughing, and still had the grin of the cat who just discovered the canary's location.
I knew that grin well.

'Camino' was shorthand for El Camino College, the local junior college we would both be attending eventually.
Camino had a large and spacious obstacle-free parking lot. I wasn't the first who learned to drive in it.

The streets were flooding up to the sidewalks on some blocks. Arriving at Camino we find the lot itself is under a layer of water, inches deep in a few places.
After showing me what to do, Dennis had me hydroplaning and spinning all over the lot.
Slamming on the brakes and winding up in a swerving skid...
Practice control, he said.
Relax.
Don't tense up, Dummy!
Let the car tend where it will, hold the wheel straight, and then use the wheel to nudge it in a different direction.
Wait til the tires make contact again.
Don't force it, Dummy!
Never panic.
Don't fight it, manage it.
Loose your mind, you'll lose the car.

When we were done Dennis was laughing his ass off at me, yet sported this smug grin of a man who knew he had imparted knowledge to an idiot.

Needless to say... I learned a few things that night.
Precious things that likely saved my ass on more than one occasion since.
(Things that would have saved my sister's ass 4 years ago.)
Like Dennis, who drove like he had a Banshee on his shoulder, I tend to push my extremes a bit on the road.

He had taught me the same skills Armando had taught him, and in the same manner.
Armando: Not like other dads.
My Dad would have never taken me out in the rain, in the worst conditions to teach the extreme part of driving, encouraging reckless attempts so as to learn from them.

I don't know of any other friend's dad who did, either.

It was only later, and in some case many years later (like when I rolled my car in '94, or was doing plus 90 when a tire blew out in '99)... I would look back after a hair-raising event... and thank Dennis.

Dennis, Pt 1

It was during one of the baddest rain storms in several years when the doorbell went off. I was tucked away in my room, just chillin, when there was a knock and Mom yelling through the door, "Gino! Dennis is here."
Dennis?
What the fuck...?

The folks liked Dennis. He was always respectful, polite, and viewed them with measurable admiration, as he did all parents... Dad loved 'car talk' with him. Dennis, a car nerd, knew a lot for a kid his age, and was always willing to listen to something new and expressed amazement easily.

Waiting for me in the living room, I see Dennis' travel from curb to door had drenched him through and through.
Dude, what's up?
"Had an idea, let's go..."
He had that grin of a cat who just learned the presence of a canary.
Turning to my folks, he uttered something about a movie.

I got shoe'd, grabbed a jacket and followed Dennis out the door into the downpour. Dad was yelling something about "Careful" and "Don't be stupid".
Darkness had set in, yet it was still early in the evening.

Dennis threw me his keys "You're driving! HA!HA!"
Fuuuuck You. It's raining.

It was April of 1980. I had just turned 16 years old. Dennis had me in the age department by about three months, but his Dad had been teaching him how to drive since he was 13. He got his license, and a car (nothing fancy, a 10yr old Toyota), on his 16th birthday.

My folks weren't near as cool as Dennis' dad:
On my 16th, I was allowed to test for my learner's permit, but not allowed to get a license until I had the cash to pay for my own insurance.
Needless to say, no job yet at barely 16 meant that I wouldn't be getting my license anytime soon.

Unbeknownst to my folks: I had been driving since Dennis got his permit. At 15 1/2, California issues "Learner's Permits", allowing the permit holder to operate a vehicle provided he is accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Dennis' dad made a pact with him: he can drive alone to run errands/short trips around town, but if he got cited, he would not receive his license until after his 18th birthday.
Unbeknownst to Dennis' dad: Dennis was picking me up and giving me the wheel, teaching me how to drive.

Yeah, we were sneaky bastards.
Dennis loved pulling one over on The Man. Even if 'The Man' in this case was the single most revered and respected man in his life.
I cannot understate this: his dad truly was the most revered and respected man in his life. A man of Superhero proportions.

To me, Mr. Flores was just another Dad who was cooler than most other dads.
And I need to add... Mr. Flores was also less-cool than most dads in some respects. He was on occasion raw, blunt and vulgar toward them where I didn't see other friend's dads being.

From the outside: Mr. Flores was a man with a smile that lit up a city block who loved his kids with an overt (if less-than-cuddly) passion.
He had a tough act, raising three kids by himself while holding down two full time jobs.
Yeah, that's right. No time for bullshit.
Yet, his kids always referred to him in the second-person by his first name.
I had never seen this before.
He was "Dad" to them, "Armando" when spoken of.
I was like: WTF?
It seemed disrespectful to me at first.
But when you see Father's Day plans being made weeks in advance by three kids as if it was beyond Christmas or something... a joyful event... it was clear that there was a lot more going on among them than met the eye.
"Armando" was a god. He was revered and feared and loved.
He earned every bit of it.

By extension... I modeled a few of my fatherhood techniques from lessons learned while spending countless hours and nights at the Flores home.

(First in a series of what needs to be said...)