I walked straight to the battery rack on the furthest wall at the auto parts store and started my search. I had a picture of the car battery with the part number on my phone for reference. All the numbers and codes on the shelf and labels were close to impossible to read. They had tiny print and were covered in dirt and grease, not to mention my troublesome eyesight that seems to have an unattainable sweet spot only when I need it the most.

After a frustrating minute or two I gave up my search and turned to the counter for help. The man behind the counter had a completely shaved bald head. He sat slumped on the stool in front of the soft glow of the computer screen. He had the body of a die-hard Texas BBQ consumer, smudged up, thin framed glasses, and peaked at five foot one standing up or at a full speed, portly slumped waddle.

I made eye contact and said sheepishly for some reason,”I’m not sure what I’m looking at”. I suppose I expected the employee who had been watching my entire battery quest, and was coldly staring back at me as I spoke directly to him, to offer a helpful response, but he did not. He just looked at me with the blank stare of a bored house cat. I thought, maybe the Covid-19 plexiglass barrier between us was causing some interference, so I pointed at the battery wall and grunted like a caveman and I got a response. “What is it that you want? He said in a monotone cadence with a dead stare and no movement, like if a pile of mashed potatoes were suddenly speaking to me. I said I need a battery, then thought to myself, why else would I be searching dusty tags on the great wall of batteries if I didn’t need a battery. I thought it was obvious. His response was a sarcastic, “Well now we’re gettin’ somewhere” as he shifted his weight and scooted up to the wanting computer screen. I realized, at that moment, that I’ve been here before.

I was being judged and treated accordingly. It happens sometimes in certain areas with certain people. For some, it’s the color of their skin, or their accent, or what they’re wearing. For me, it’s my long hair. What makes it different for me is that I usually have it tied back in a ponytail and suffer less consequence. But today I was letting my freak flag fly inside the auto parts store and was immediately paying the price.

In this situation, I’ve learned that I have to be commanding, stern, and aggressive to hold my ground. I have to prey on the little round man’s insecurities and control the environment. The last time I was in this situation, it almost turned into a beating in the parking lot, and I was the little guy, so I know I have to clear my head and engage a strategy to avoid another confrontation.

I made sure to stand up straight, almost towering above to project dominance, and read the computer screen myself. I made sure he was applying the battery core charge and even corrected him on the part number when he brought out the wrong size battery.

I’ve learned the hard way that when someone is small minded, petty, judgemental, and instantly dislikes something about you, they have no problem ruining your day or wasting your time. This guy was selling me the wrong part. Double check everything! They do not care about you or their own service. In many cases, their boss will have the same attitude. I know this because I have held many jobs in many industries that are run by these personalities. It’s almost a sport to make fun of people after they leave. It’s less true nowadays with all the political correctness they despise, but it’s still there. I wish I could say I make it a sport to play along, to act insecure, foggy, and oblivious to car knowledge, (or whatever knowledge), just to see how far they’ll take their abuse. But sometimes, my brain actually is foggy and I really don’t know what I’m doing.

That’s when I need to be sure to tie back my hair.

I realize, it’s not the same, but it gives me a glimpse into racial profiling. I’ve had a cop smugly and sarcastically ask me, “OK, where’s your weed?” I answered truthfully and said I don’t smoke weed. He said, “Yeah, right”, then made me drop my pants and spread my butt cheeks so he could look up there for drugs. That’s actually happened a few times now, and I thoroughly enjoy showing a cop my asshole every time.

I have to be aware of my long hair when I get pulled over or deal with any authority. I usually wear it out if I’m in Traffic Court as a statement of non-conformity, but it really doesn’t make things better. It’s actually pretty stupid of me to do that. The Bailiff always, always singles me out to say something benign just to show power. I’ve been asked multiple times by authority figures, as if they already know the answer, “You working anywhere?” In every case they act overwhelmed and completely surprised that I’m the head of a department, or own a company, or whatever.

I realize that not every cop or auto parts employee is a judgemental prick, but since we’re all profiling here. Well….

Carlton was my brother’s friend from down the road. I was used to any and all of my brother’s friends picking on me, as I was only there for their entertainment it seemed.

But this friend was different. I only have a few memories of Carlton but they’re all good, which sadly, is rare for most of my childhood. Just about every good memory comes with an attached bad one from those days. But those are other stories.

I remember that Carlton’s house was close to the bar on the Mckinley County line that separated the Navajo and Zuni Reservations. I assume we were picking up Carlton or dropping him off. It’s even possible that we rode the school bus to his house that afternoon. We could just do that back then without notarized documentation. Hell, we had a school bus driver that drank whiskey out of a flask while he was driving, but that’s another story.

Once, Carlton showed me a comic book. A special comic book. A dirty comic book. It was so graphic that I can only do you the favor of not sharing the imagery or storyline. It’s possible it would stay in your mind forever, like it has mine. I never needed to see that, especially since I was only around eight years old. I guess Carlton thought he was sharing something cool just for me. Maybe it was. I’d already seen plenty of Playboy magazines. We even had a secret swiped magazine stash, just for us boys, in a hollowed out tree. The pages were wrinkled from the rain and weather, but all the photographs were still quite viewable. But his comic book was beyond anything I’ve seen to this day.

Another memory of Carlton was him singing a popular country song that was current for the time. Wolverton Mountain by Claude King. Carlton made fun of the accent and had a knee bending dance to go with it. It made my brother laugh to tears every time which only added to the hilarity. Nothing is funnier than watching my brother laugh until he can’t breathe.

Across from our house, past the half acre wide valley, there were cliffs. It could be more accurately described as a two hundred foot tall ridge filled with sandstone boulders. We had explored every inch throughout the years and imagined forts and rooms among the existing ancient Indian ruins. One room was named the U.S.S Enterprise after Star Trek. We had only seen Star Trek when we visited our Texas cousins at Christmas. Since we didn’t get TV reception, they were our only real source to experience the outside world. For some reason, we were living in a time bubble in a place we didn’t belong. But again, that’s another story. The sandstone walls of the U.S.S Enterprise surely still bare our names, deeply carved and updated with every visit, with only our pocket knives and our intently focused concentration.

Carlton had come over to our house and explored the cliffs with us one afternoon into the evening. At some point, we were seperated. Probably playing a hide and seek game. After Carlton spotted my brother, he crouched next to me and said, ” you wanna scare Sam? Watch this” as he cupped his hands and started to make a growling noise, impressively imitating a bobcat or mountain lion. He slowly got louder then made the striking cougar call.

As we giggled and peeked over the rocks to confess the prank. Sam had disappeared. Carlton and I looked at each other curiously, then noticed a person running full speed across the valley below. Carlton yelled out, “Saaaaaam! We’re fuckin’ with you!” But Sam did not acknowledge. He did not even look back. He just kept on running for what seemed like forever. He’d made it to the other side and vanished again as he made his way up towards our house through the trees. Carlton and I slowly made our way down the rocks and eventually back to the house at dusk. We were genuinely concerned about my brother.

We found Sam, piddling and puttering in his room like nothing had happened. We told him it was us, but he didn’t want it to be true. He almost had us convinced there was another actual bobcat. He was so persuasive I question it to this day. That’s the curse of the big brother.

We will never know if the non climactic end to the joke was intentional or just smothered and washed out with stubbornness and pride. To me, it doesn’t matter. The joke worked and it served it’s noble purpose.

It was a rare thing for me to get anything over on my brother. His four and a half year age jump ahead of me made him impossible to outsmart and I was never particularly conniving, menacing, or evil anyway. Having Carlton unknowingly exact my revenge for so many mean older brother tricks was absolute sweetness for me. I’ll be forever in his debt. It was one, much needed, moment in time that I would never get to experience again.

And it wasn’t until I shared this story with my son, and started writing it, that I realized, my brother completely left me and Carlton to get eaten by a mountain lion all those years ago.