His name was Bill Blount. He was a big guy, about 6’ 1”, well over two hundred pounds. He claimed to be a WWII veteran. And he was an ugly, obnoxious son-of-a bitch. In other words, Bill was a Car Man.
I used to call him the “Hunchback of Hayward Nissan” given the prominent rise on the top of his back. He had no ass, buck teeth, and couldn’t sing. He would use his flat, baritone voice as a weapon, standing in the middle of the showroom, arms extended like a big band crooner singing,
“You picked the wrong time to leave me, Lucille,
Four hungry children and crops in the field…”
He would sing this ditty over and over with unmitigated abandon until you wanted to grab a sharp object and stab him in the neck.
I worked with Bill Blount on and off for about ten years. When I was a green pea he got great pleasure out of terrorizing me. He would stand outside my office window when I was with a customer and mouth my words as I spoke, attempting (successfully) to throw me off stride. He was one of those guys that reveled in conflict. Pardon my French, but he just enjoyed fucking with people.
Bill was a single man with a murky past. He had no apparent family of his own, but there were rumors of a son somewhere. His main preoccupation was cruising the bars with his wingman Roger Marvel. He reveled in grossing me out, telling me stories about picking up older women, who he referred to as “old stoves”.
“I took her back to my house”, he would explain, his face alight with the memory of his most recent conquest. “We had a couple of Manhattans. Then I took her into the living room, put her down in front of the fireplace and grabbed her …
“Stop it!” I would plead. I couldn’t bear the mental image of Bill Blount screwing.
Bill had a soft side. He had four of five little dogs that would get on their hind legs and dance around as he crooned to them in a voice that could peel paint. Every Christmas he dressed up as Santa Claus and visited the house of the salesmen with little children. He seemed to get more of a kick out of this then the kids.
His favorite expression was “a suck is a suck”. There was something curiously disgusting about the way he would say it. For years I ignored the expression, until one day I asked him about it. He told me a story I would never forget.
“During the war I was a bomber pilot,” he said casually.
I couldn’t believe my ears. Bill, a bomber pilot? That crazy bastard? I called him on it. He looked at me and smiled.
“They looked for guys like me,” he explained. “You had to be a little nuts to fly one of those flying coffins into combat. The guys that were straight would never do it.”
I had to admit, it made a crazy sort of sense. If anyone had the ability to throw caution to the wind, it was a young Bill Blount. He told me about getting shot down over the Pacific. Fortunately, he was near an island. He had his crew bail out, and he ditched the plane. He then proceeded to have a mini nervous breakdown. He was taken to a hospital that specialized with guys like him, soldiers that had seen a little too much of the horrors of war.
One day Bill was in the swimming pool. He was sunning himself near the shallow end, arms spread out along the edge, head back, his eyes closed. All of a sudden he felt something. He opened his eyes and looked down. A guy was giving him oral pleasure. Bill’s first reaction was to hit the guy. He raised his hand to strike, then stopped. He thought to himself—
“What the hell. A suck is a suck.”
This revelation shocked me. Was Bill a sick puppy, or a guy so comfortable with himself and his environment that making a fool out of himself was no big deal? I never figured it out.
Bill Blount eventually drifted away. He had quit or had been fired many times over the years. I can’t remember what preceded his last exit from the dealership and therefore my life. He’s passed on now. He’s only a memory. I’ve often wondered to whom. He was a man full of life, but strangely empty too.
So long, Bill. I miss you. I guess.
Oh, well. A suck is a suck.
Talk to you later,
David
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