My Brother, The Oil Man…
My baby brother was a handful. He was far superior at focusing his energies on playing ball or climbing a tree or chasing a frog or pestering me than on studying or doing homework. He was always in trouble over something. I, on the other hand, was the perfect lad, very studious, never in trouble, the glint of my parents’ eyes. Now, may I interest you in some future beachfront property in a remote area of the Florida Everglades?
There was a service station (that’s a gas station to you young ‘uns) between our house and the commercial laundry my mom and dad owned and operated. We passed back and forth frequently, usually to the rear of the station. Brother could not help but find something along the way to investigate. It might be a mouse trapped in an empty bottle, new gravel that provided many good throwin’ rocks, and for targets — anything that moved or didn’t. Or it might be something as simple as a small limb fallen from the black walnut tree. He would beat on everything in sight all the way to the laundry and back, just to raise a ruckus. One just knew that with him having such a gift of investigative curiosity, sooner or later, trouble would find little David. And so it did…
I was on my way to the laundry and David was playing behind the gas station, taking inventory of the fine collection of 55 gallon steel drums. Some were empty, some contained trash, some were on their sides, most were rusty, and one was almost full of spent motor oil drained from vehicles to make room for a few fresh quarts of the slippery stuff. Stations collected it back in those days and the county would come around periodically to get the burnt oil, as it was called, to spray on gravel roads out in the countryside to keep down the dust. They also sprayed it in ditches alongside the roads to control the mosquito population. Baby brother had no knowledge of all that, but the open barrel of oil spoke to him in ways that we can only guess. As he hoisted himself up to get a better view of the contents, David lost his balance and went head first into the thick, black goo. Being the older, wiser, and stronger brother, as well as the only other person within earshot, it fell to me to make a split second decision on whether to save him. My intuition and upbringing conspired and triggered me into action, pulling him out. Of course he was terrified, yelling and crying and kicking and screaming and flailing his arms. He was yelling something about he couldn’t see, and I gently calmed him by saying something like. “Dummy, it’s ’cause you got your eyes closed tight. You keep them that way and hold on to me till we get to the laundry.”
Mama went hysterical as Daddy fought to hold back a belly laugh. They stripped off his oil-soaked clothes and disposed of them, got him scrubbed down, cleaned up, dryed off, and into fresh clothes. Every step of the way was accompanied by Mama’s scolding and chanting, “What were you thinking of? You could have drowned in that barrel if your brother hadn’t been there. Well, I hope you learned a lesson, young man! You could be dead right now! What were you thinking of?… etc., etc.,”
Fifty plus years later, I still remind David occasionally that he owes me bigtime. He usually looks askance at me and mumbles something about being pushed. Then he grins and tells me that when I fall into a barrel of oil, he’ll pull my lazy butt out . And, you know what? He will — I’m counting on it.
15 Comments so far
ha… chances are, you will never fall in in the first place.
lol What a great story! And I agree with Jean, but ya never know!
Nothing like the little brother!
You can laugh at it now, but I bet it wasn’t so funny back then…especially to David. What if you really hadn’t been there? I’d hate to think. I don’t see you falling into a barrel of oil anytime soon…so I guess you’ll have to come up with something else for David to pull you out of. How ’bout a barrel of beer? Then you wouldn’t mind if he hurried to your rescue or not.
Did he smell for days afterwards? There’s something in this that reminds me of a Brer Rabbit story. Was it brer Rabbit? I just have this tiniest memory tickling the back of my brain.
I suppose that one blessing of having a petroleum-based economy is that you (and, now, we) have this story.
Thank you, sir.
heartwarming story. It’s scary sometimes how fast something bad can happen and someone is not always there. Glad you were and hope if you do the same thing someday, he will be.
Great story. Reminds me of the time when, as a boy of about five, I was pushed by a girl (yes, a darling little girl) twice my age into a pool of what seemed to be some sort of liquid tar. I became, in fact, the tar baby. It was only about six inches deep, but since I was soon covered with it by struggling to get out, not a single child in the crowd would touch me (the tar baby thing) to help me get free.
Ask your brother this question: which was more painful and humiliating, the dunking or the cleaning up afterwards? Mine was definitely the latter. I think I was in the tub for three or four days.
The tar baby, that’s it!
This is hilarious! Just the kind of thing that used to happen to us! It must have been some clean-up job, I tell ya’ - head-first into a vat of oil??
Oil…….
. preparing to settle into an evening of shooting pool in the garage, folks . Todays been an absolutely wonderful day and it is time to reflect .. all of this is by the way of saying that I aint……
By gawlly that was a Acidman and GuyK story…combined…I swear.
Excellent writing of a tale.
Great story. Thanks for sharing!!
Who says this country “needs” oil. Hell, y’all were swimmin’ in it. I never had a brother, but my little sister would’ve told on me first, then pulled me out. I think…
I had sisters instead of brothers, but sounds as if they fell from the same tree! Great story