After spending December 31st with MTV and myself, 1985 was here. I did not have any plans at this point. I did know a couple of things though, Brooke and Grandma were flying down for a visit next month, which is why we moved to a bigger place back in September. I also knew that somehow, I needed to get a job.
At this point in my life, my resume was nearly none existent. I could do dishes, mop floors, clean bathrooms, mount and balance tires of all kinds, and do a little painting. Jeri and the instrument fitting job seemed to be my best opportunity. I had never worked in an oil refinery, but I was willing to learn anything. Jeri was certain that after the holidays had passed, there would be work for us. I needed that. I did not like the feeling of being a burden on my Dad, although he did not complain. I could feel it though.
The month began quietly. I would do things around the house, mostly playing guitar and missing my friends. Recently, I received a letter from my best friend Gary in Connecticut telling me that he had joined the Navy. He explained that he found that the military does everything backward and that he has done things backward all of his life.
Gary and I were different from almost everyone we knew. Our friendship even started uniquely. We always liked to think that we were introduced by John Lennon. On a warm early summer night in 1982, he was blasting tunes from the Beatle’s Rubber Soul album. We started talking and before the night was over we were both sitting on the swings in the playground singing Run For Your Life over and over again. It was nice to find someone who spoke the language. Gary, like me, was a serious non-conformist.
But here he was, telling me that he was doing something that I only could see as an act of conformity. I felt like he had been compromised by the enemy! He needed to be rescued! I needed to do something to save him. I decided I needed to return to Connecticut and stop this madness! I could return things to normal!
What, like high school? My naivety at the time knew no limits. Gary made a career decision and instead of backing him up like a best friend does, I sent him a letter that basically said: “YOU DID WHAT???” Back then my mind could not map out the course I decided to take and identify the challenges and realities of the decision. Looking back, there was no thought about how I could “rescue” my friend. Would I just walk into a Navy recruiter’s office and tell them that he was not thinking clearly and we were not the military type? My gosh! What would John Lennon even say?
Of course, I would never “rescue” Gary from the big bad Navy, but this inadvertently did one thing for me that I needed. I was a person with no guidance system. I spent all 4 years of high school with only one goal, to remove myself from what I felt was the bombed-out industrial wasteland of Waterbury Connecticut. My self-assigned mission to rescue Gary gave me a purpose for the first 10 weeks of 1985 and made me work towards it.
During the 2nd week of January, Jeri stopped in from Flour Bluff to let me know that we got hired at the refinery, and not a moment too soon, I was broke. The following Sunday, I went to Jeri’s to spend the night in the truck camper that was sitting in his yard with the other 20 vehicles that were always for sale. To save on gas, the first week, I would just stay at Jeri’s and cut about 25 miles one way off the trip saving 50 a day.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
I liked Jeri and his wife. They were always great with me. Staying in the little camper made me a little homesick. I had been living in our house for over 3 months now pretty much staying there day after day, hanging out with Dad after he returned home from work and the weekends. Days we spent on the edge of the Corpus Christi bay, wind whipping off the water. Being an instrument fitter’s helper was a humbling experience. Being a laborer on any construction job is the closest thing to indentured servitude there is. People do not treat you nicely and that is how you learn fast.
The refinery was expanding. We were responsible for fabricating the steel trays, brackets, and holders that instruments, tubing, and pipe would run throughout the whole place and up as high as 250 feet off the ground. Everything was new and I had no experience or history to draw from. As I climbed up ice-cold ladders over a hundred feet off the ground, I told myself, I was doing this so that I could save money to return to Connecticut. Somehow this would allow me to rescue Gary, months after he actually leaves and starts his career with the Navy.
New job, everything was unfamiliar, and feeling like I was more out on a limb than ever before, the first four days passed like a month of days. I was perpetually cold, weighed down in tools, a safety harness, and a hard hat. Nothing felt familiar. There was no comfort zone. Well, except for Odette’s breakfast tacos, that we would bring with us, setting the foil-wrapped deliciousness on a hot pipe to warm, that was pure heaven.
On Friday, towards the end of the day, Jeri and I broke away from our normal area of operation and went to the more functioning side of the refinery out back. There was a job office trailer belonging to a company he once worked for. He introduced me to the guys in there. By the conversation that took place, I learned that I owed my newfound employment to these guys. They had put in a stellar recommendation for Jeri and his helper (me) and here we were.
Being able to sit inside a trailer with real heat was nice, and it gave me the feeling, that maybe I would be able to do this after all. For the last four days, I wanted to get in my car and drive home. I could not do that to Jeri and I could not do that to Gary. There was a crockpot on the counter with some slow-cooked beans. Jeri’s friends offered them to us in small 8-ounce Styrofoam cups. They did not have spoons, but tipping those hot homemade beans into my mouth warmed me in so many ways. I made it through my first week. In fact, this was my first real job since high school ended. Drinking beer and throwing darts all day with the occasional tire repair last summer at A Auto Supply evidently did not count as a real job.
The day ended, and I was grateful to bring Jeri back to Flour Bluff and head back to the island for the first time in a week. It felt like it had been weeks.
It was a cold January Friday night. When I opened the door to the trailer, the smell of a turkey stuffing bake hit me. Baking things in Port A was instrumental in warming a home in the winter. Our friend Steve was at the house that Friday night playing darts, and Glenn was there too. Steve asked me in his trademark Texas rasp with formality, “So what have you learned working as an instrument fitter’s helper this week?” I told him I learned how to eat hot baked beans from a Styrofoam cup without a spoon. That caught Dad’s attention. He asked me to repeat that. I told him. He giggled with pride. This was something he would have said. He loved irreverence. He showed such an amazing magnetism to that one simple answer that this remains one of the most memorable nights of our relationship.
Dad was playing Foreigners’ “I Want To Know What Love Is”. It was brand new. He missed me. I could tell. It felt good to be home. We were excited too because we knew that in a couple of weeks, Brooke and Grandma were flying down for a week visit. This was a moment in time I could feel forever.
As we sipped beers throwing darts that night, I knew inside, I could do this. This could be my life. I never told anyone else about the Connecticut plan except for that initial ranting letter to Gary. Thankfully, he tolerated my insanity. I was here, in Port Aransas with my people. I was a contributing member of the human race and it felt good. It was what I had been lacking. Another Monday morning was coming, and I was ready.