Luskins

Scott borrowed the car his father had given him. He had gotten his permit a while back but there was ambiguity as to when Scott could use the car. His father had given it to him, but somewhere along the line there were limitations to when Scott could use it, possibly set by his mother or his sister, but something stricter than the just the DMV rules.

You could really sense something was changing about the culture, angles were appearing everywhere. Eyeglasses, clothes, and haircuts, but Scott's car had its four tires firmly placed in the Seventies American car opulence. It had two giant doors, a V-8 engine, electric windows, air conditioning, a caramel vinyl top, a creamy chunky bottom and a huge trunk. It was ugly. It could have been a Ford Grenada or a Buick Skylark.

I rode shotgun and Stephen was in the sticky back seat because the AC never really reached back there. Scott wore aviator sunglasses and drove fast. Years later, in a passing conversation, outside of his home, I learned that he was forced to attend driving safety classes because of speeding tickets. He told me how the class convinced him not to speed. Scott was very logical and swayed by empirical evidence. He quoted the most compelling arguments he found in the seminar. Two cars left from the same starting point. Car A disregarded the speed limit, car B maintained posted speed limits. The cars arrived three minutes apart at the destination.

Scott described the particulars of the experiment. These details worked to support Scott's acceptance of the fact that speeding does not get you there appreciably faster. It was the first time I realized Scott was making a decision about his life. He was exerting his will over his desire. Personally, it never occurred to me before. I was just starting to understand desire.

Our trip to Luskins was before all that.

Scott or Stephen, one of them had heard a story at school. You could walk into Luskins with a receipt for blank tapes and grab a cardboard box filled with a two hundred-dollar tuner and walk out. You had to have balls. You had to walk with confidence. You had to flagrantly wave the bill of sale around, you had to make sure no one stopped you on the way out.

Luskins was a Washington appliance warehouse store that had a vast collection of TVs, stereos, tape to tape boom boxes with detachable speakers. In the back was a giant sound room to test your component choices. They knew a lot about stereo equipment, about amps and watts. Each of them had a stereo. They were concerned with fidelity. I lived in a bedroom filled with my dead grandmother's furniture.

I became inaudible and all my insides started to bubble, hot. It was very hot. In the parking lot they were deciding who was going to go in with the receipt. Was I going to do it? They didn't really even ask me.

Minutes go by as I walked in circles around bins filled with plastic cases surrounded by cardboard boxes located in the front of the store. Each lap I looked around. I had lost sight of them, and was alone. They knew. Everyone knew what we were doing. Just by looking at me, they knew something was up and everyone in the store was looking at me. I was like that beaver at the Rock Creek nature center that had been hit by car on the left side. It suffered brain damage and could only walk to the right. Just looping around and around to the right in his cage endlessly as children on field trips watched. Insufferable, stuck there, I couldn't leave, where would I go?

Then here comes Stephen walking down the main isle heading towards the tinted glass door. There was no cashier in the way, just a glass top counter on the right. The store was run on a commission basis and it was expected that the stereo salesman would ring up the sale and bring the receipt back to the customer. This is what allowed the scam to work.

Stephen is struggling with the box a little bit. He was short, about 5'4" but it was an act. Stephen was strong and incredibly balanced. As he approached the door, he turned around and leaned against the door nodding his head and mumbling something towards the counter. I could not understand what he said, because he had the receipt stuck in is mouth.

I nearly puked as the bright sunlight from the outside parking lot framed Stephen's silhouette. I did one more lap then left. The box was sitting on top of the trunk. Stephen had a huge smile but was still playing it cool. The brightness was hurting my eyes. Scott comes up shortly thereafter and pops the trunk, then makes for the driver door.

Turning off Rockville Pike we took the back way home past the bike trail. Only a few years earlier we used to take that very same trail out to White Flint Mall a few miles from Luskins. Scott rode his silver Mongoose and I would ride my red Sting Ray I had won in a raffle in the sixth grade. We only went for one thing, pizza from the Italian counter at the International Eatery. Each nation lined up across from each other in a wide cafeteria on the third tier. The same kitchen replicated on down a jagged line with changes in the flag and color scheme, but I ignored the others and only went for pizza. I always got one piece of pizza because I couldn't afford more. It came as a small round whole pie. I loved that pizza. It took about an hour and a half for us to get there by bicycle. And on that final hill we would always have to get off our bikes and walk them up in humiliation. It was an all day journey and you would have to think twice before committing to it, but I loved that pizza.