The Prompt:
Choose a song that mattered to you at sixteen (or invent one, if you prefer). Write a braided piece (900–1,100 words) that alternates between:
- the present moment (you, now, encountering the song again), and
- the first time you heard it.
You may quote no more than one lyric, and it must be six words or fewer. Include one sentence that appears exactly three times in the piece, unchanged each time. (Place it wherever you like.) Let the song alter something tangible in the present—an object shifts, a decision wobbles, a memory misbehaves.End not with a conclusion, but with an image.
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Happily sitting alone as I often did at the Plaza Twin theaters, waiting for a film to start, the coming attractions reel played which was one of my favorite part of going to movies. A taste of what’s to come and what I should see next. A trailer came on for the movie Carwash. It had both George Carlin and Richard Pryor in the film, two of my favorite comedians. I listened to my brother’s George Carlin records many times and saw both him and Richard Pryor on Saturday Night Live. Plus, the music for the movie was really good. Not quite disco but really fun.
Drain cleaner, drain cleaner. Where do they keep it? Plumbing or cleaners? I caught the eye of a surprisingly cute young woman in an orange vest and asked about the drain product. “Sink, toilet, or sewer line?” she asked dispassionately. “Bathtub,” I replied. “You want to the stuff in the black bottle. Really strong, but be careful, splashes of it burn people all the time. It comes in a special bag. Aisle eleven, bottom row near the end.” She turned and unhooked the walkie talkie from her belt, responding to some invisible alert. Did she even register me as human male? Has my testosterone dropped so low I now have the sexual charisma of Bea Arthur? Oh well, need to find that drain cleaner. The overhead music changed from forgettable pop country to a great song from the 70s, “Carwash.” The opening handclaps were unmistakable and I hadn’t heard it decades. I thought about how difficult it must have been to be the song writer who got that assignment. “Write a song about a carwash for this movie we’re going to make. And the get the title in there, it’s ‘Carwash.’ And make it a hit.” From the days when cocaine flowed in the streets of Los Angeles, I guess. But somehow, the guy actually created a hit based on a carwash.
In the trailer, Richard Pryor stepped out of limousine wearing a cape and jewel incrusted cane. Maybe playing a minister. He seemed funny right away. George Carlin used a goofy voice I’d heard on his records and was asking about a blonde, black lady. He didn’t seem that funny, but they never show everything in the trailer. There were a bunch of black people working and dancing at the carwash, and the song made it all seem really fun. I’d never been in a carwash but always wanted to. I’d seen them many times on TV, usually when someone was on the run from someone else. I guess hiding in a carwash is a good way to escape.
This drain cleaner looks like a biological weapon. Maybe it’s Alien blood like in the movie. Burns through anything. Great movie. But Carwash was of a different time and place. I mean, they didn’t have much to work with. How dramatic or funny can a bunch of people washing cars be? That’s also when I learned what a cameo was. George Carlin was lightly sprinkled throughout the movie but the voice he used was annoying. Richard Pryor was funny but only onscreen for maybe five minutes. I remember it felt like a ripoff. The rest were a bunch of actors I’d never seen before. I don’t remember if I liked it or not, but I was sure excited to see it
At home in my room after I left the Plaza Twin I kept thinking about how It looked fun to go through a car wash. Listening to my AM radio they played the song over and over. Can you sit inside while the carwash is going? And how do they fit all the different shapes of cars? I’ve never seen one anywhere but maybe Dad knows. And I really like that song. Is it disco? I turn it up every time I hear that hand clapping at the start. It’s like an alert the song is coming.
Did Richard Pryor keep doing standup, or just movies? I remember the time he lit himself on fire freebasing cocaine then did the interview with Barbara Walter and lied about it. He said some kind of expensive liquor ignited but it was so easy to tell he was lying. Not sure why he didn’t just tell the truth. I think he had a bunch of heart attacks. George Carlin also had a bunch of heart attacks. He got so pissed off in the last decade of his stand up, calling out the hypocrisy he saw, but he was mostly right about everything and still very funny.
Plaza Twin made great caramel corn, with a caramel corn ball on top. I was all set with some in my lap when I settled into a seat in the back to see Carwash. It started like most movies. The music played over the names of the people who made it, then a faraway shot that eventually came in closer to the carwash. Then the workers showed up for the day, changed their clothes in a locker room and started washing cars. They joked with each other and made fun of the customers, and the owner was a fat white guy, but it wasn’t funny exactly. It just sort of happened. George Carlin kept looking for this woman, either on the phone in a phone booth, or trying to use the carwash office phone, and asking people but he didn’t really do much. And he was barely in the movie, just little bits scattered around. Richard Pryor finally shows up to get his big white limousine washed. He plays a rich preacher, is funny and is in the movie for longer than George Carlin. The song didn’t play again until the end of the movie. It was okay, and pretty funny although I didn’t laugh much unless other people in the theater did.
My toxic poison of drain cleaner in hand, I started to leave but the song made me remember dancing in my room as a kid, listening to my cheap AM radio. I listened to that thing all the time. Getting into the song a bit, I swayed my arms and did a little dance in the aisle when the drain cleaner sloshed. I immediately stopped and checked for leaks. All good. Maybe the bag is just marketing. How dangerous could it be if they sold it to the public? I remembered how good the second Alien movie “Aliens” was and it still totally holds up. The alien’s blood burning a hole through the ship floor by floor. And Sigourney Weaver fighting the Mother Alien in her robot suit. Excellent movie.