The Tale of Sparky

Goodwill: The final frontier, mountains of old furniture, held together by thousands of unwanted sweater vests, and ugly duvet covers. How I found myself there isn’t much of a story, but what came afterward is quite ridiculous. The year was 2013, it was a mildly warm day, clouds whisped their way through the blue sky without a care, and I was spending it in Goodwill, searching for a desk to furnish my newly empty apartment.

As I walked through the aisles, heterosexual life-mate Braden in tow, I noticed a man sitting by himself, asleep on one of the couches. Immediately I attempted to alter course to avoid him, but it was too late, he had spotted his prey.

“You guys looking for furniture?” An odd question to ask someone in the furniture department of Goodwill…

“Yeah, we’re trying to find a desk.” I replied hesitantly, noticing the large Jesus fish embroidered on his jean jacket. He nodded as though this had been exactly what he had expected.

“You must be college students then? I got a big truck if you want to haul anything back to your place!” At this point I felt that this dirty long-hair was getting a little too close to getting me into his van, and I politely dismissed him moving on through the furniture.

“Haha, thanks, I will let you know…” There was no intention of ever letting him know.

After a brief search it was clear that weren’t going to find anything falling within both our price range and “standards” for furniture, and we walked towards the exit. As we were leaving the store, like a bolt of beautiful mahogany lightning, something caught my eye. Right in the exit area was a closeout of old office furniture!

Like kids at a piñata factory, Braden and I skipped happily towards the desks, drawing odd looks as we went, but remaining blissfully ignorant of those around us. It wasn’t long before we were completely infatuated with a desk, and lined up to pay for it. Halfway through the line the issue of how it was to be moved home popped into my head…

At this point I noticed a rather dapper looking upstanding citizen in a jean jacket with a Jesus fish on it behind me. Not thinking about the consequences of my actions I spoke. “Hey, how much would it cost for you help us move a desk back to our apartment?”

He looked at me bewildered that someone had taken him up on his offer. His dirty long hair fell in tangles now, clearly skewed from his nap, but giving him the air of a confused gorilla. “Well what do you have?”

I thought back to my days in Mexico, bargaining for sombreros with tequila shots(A story for another time). “I’ll give you fifteen bucks.”

“Deal.” He said, grinning a grin that contained much less teeth than the average.

Before long we were outside of Goodwill, waiting with the desk for the man to pull his truck around. When he did finally pull up it was clear that the truck was much smaller than Braden or I had anticipated, but this didn’t seem to faze the man at all. He stepped out jovially from the side of the truck. “I never got either of your names!” He said, grinning that same toothy grin…

Braden and I introduced ourselves as politely as possible, not wanting to end up as his next victims. “Name’s Sparky, nice to meet you.” Suddenly I felt my eyes drawn to another embroidered patch on the man’s vest, this one bearing his name… ‘Sparky’.

Using our years of social science college studies as a guide, Braden and I loaded the desk, in a way we both felt was ‘safe enough’. “Alright, one of you will need to ride with me to direct me to your apartment.”

“Don’t worry Ash”

Thank God, Braden is going to save me from the horrible fate of riding with a crazy person. I thought, wrongly…

“I’ll drive your car back.”

Son of  a bitch! The whole situation is made that much funnier by the fact that Braden is about six-foot-six, and cuts a more intimidating figure than me by a long shot…

In any case I found myself riding shotgun, next to sparky, in the cab of a truck that felt more like a garage sale. There were odds and ends strewn everywhere and no less than three bibles in the car. We pulled out of Goodwill desk in tow, and I watched the bed of the truck, keeping an eye on our desk. The first curve was a small one, and we took it at about five miles an hour….

It was enough to do the trick. In a cacophony of noise, and reminders of my own stupidity, I watched the desk roll out of the truck and shatter on the hard asphalt of the parking lot.

In another long story short, we loaded all of the pieces into Sparky’s truck and were on the road again. Lucky for us, pieces of desks don’t fall out of trucks as easily.

Halfway Home:

“Hey Ashton, why don’t you drive for a minute?” This was clearly not a request, because as he said it, his hands came off the wheel. When Sparky asked for something you did it. Anxiety spiking, I grabbed the wheel and tried to keep us steady on the freeway while Sparky began to light a cigar.

“Man I tell  you, that was some crazy stuff with the desk, I can’t even believe it, I’ve seen some real crazy shit.” I made the mistake of running with this…

“Like what?”

“Well back when I was working up in Alaska…” Doing God knows what. “I fell off a forklift and went into a coma for a few weeks. When I final came out I said Lyndon B Johnson is president!” Not quite understanding the abrupt change I nodded, emphasizing that I understood. “And that’s why I don’t really have short term memory! I can’t even remember your friends name!”

“Wow.”

“You’re telling me! And then there was another time I took a corner at ninety on my motorcycle and broke both my legs!”

This continued for several minutes until we were nearing the apartment. “Man this area really brings back memories…”

“Did you used to live here?” I asked, genuinely interested in finding a ‘normal’ conversation topic.

“Nah. I used to know this girl around here, but her boyfriend was a real asshole, so I had to fight him in that parking lot right there. The cops came, it was a whole deal, never again man…”

We pulled up to the apartment and I found myself thanking myself for my life, and that Sparky hadn’t decided halfway there to murder me. We unloaded the desk, and carried the pieces to our apartment. I gave Sparky his fifteen bucks and then sent him on his way. To this day I wonder if he remembers me, or if I will ever see him again, surfing the couches of Goodwill...

One thing is for sure, that night I learned that wood glue and screws can’t fix…