Thus Spake Zarathustra

One Saturday morning, we were all sitting around the table eating breakfast. It was a peaceful scene: The clatter of silverware, the sound of butter being scraped on toast, friendly conversation. Pop picked up his coffee cup and smiled at Mom, while Doug and I exchanged a covert glance across the table.

Poor Pop. He was totally unprepared for what was about to happen.

Those of us blessed with an older sibling can often learn much by observing. They’re an icebreaker, a ship clearing the path and showing us the way.

I came out one afternoon to find my big brother Doug tinkering with his minibike on the side of the house. It was the kind with a lawn-mower engine, tiny 14” wheels, simple steel frame. He was checking the chain tension and fiddling around with the air cleaner. He looked up at me, squinting in the sun.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He turned back to the air filter. “Mom caught me yesterday riding along Glades Road. Now I’m grounded for a week.”

I felt for him. He had reached the age where meeting girls and surfing were more interesting than building treehouses or exploring the beanfields. His only way to make the eight-mile trip into town was along the weedy right shoulder of Glades Road on his minibike. It was a practice strictly forbidden by Mom and Pop.

I tried it once and it was not for the faint hearted. Huge trucks carrying vegetables from the fields blatted at me as they passed by barely three feet away, buffeting me with their wind. At 25 mph, on the rough ground, it was a teeth-jarring ride. I wore shorts and the weeds stung my bare legs. One slip, one big rock, and I would have been squashed like a bug on the grill of a truck.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a long second, then seemed to come to a decision.

“Come inside,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

We went into his room and he locked the door. He had grown tired of Mom picking the builder’s lock with a letter opener and had purchased an actual lock set with keys and installed it himself.  It had caused a minor uproar. He was supposed to keep the keys in the adjacent linen closet, but conveniently kept forgetting. It was an admirable victory.

I sat on his bed while he rummaged in his desk, looking for something, The iconic Easy Rider poster dominated one wall. The rest of his room was filled with Peter Max posters, aquaria, and a lava lamp.

He took out a folded newspaper from his desk and handed it to me.

“Look,” he said with excitement. “I’m gonna get one.”

It was an advertisement of an auction of surplus post office vehicles at the Fort Lauderdale facility. I looked at him blankly.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “Mail carts…those three-wheel little vans. They’re under the horsepower limit, so 15-year olds can drive them on the streets. They’re really cool….some kids at school have them.”

“What do they cost?” I asked.

“Depends. It’s an auction. I heard 200 to 300 bucks.”

“Where are you going to get that kind of money?” I asked. “Besides, they’ll never go for it. No way.”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet. But I will.” He had a faraway look in his eyes; in his mind, he was already cruising down A1A in his tiny van, surfboard lashed to the top and some classmates in the back. Mom called us to set the table and Doug held up a warning finger.

“Remember,” he said earnestly. “Not a word until I figure it out.”

A few nights later at dinner, Doug cautiously cleared his throat. He was exceedingly casual; any tone or words that would raise the parental antenna would mean an instant and final no.

“Hey, Pop,” he said as he reached for a roll. “Craig gave me a ride today during lunch in his mailcart.”

Pop grunted. He’d had a hard day at work and was more interested in his meat loaf.

Doug remained silent; any additional commentary before someone else spoke would make him look too eager. He concentrated on his mashed potatoes and tapped my foot under the table.

“What’s a mailcart?” I asked.

“They’re these little vans that they use to deliver mail. They sell old ones. They’re really sturdy and safe and the post office maintains them. They’re all in great shape.” He stopped, realizing he might have gone too far.

Mom looked at him and then at Pop. “You mean kids drive those things around? How fast do they go? I don’t like that.”

“Well, they’re under 17-brake horsepower, which is why it’s legal for fifteen-year olds to drive them. And their top speed is only about 40.”

Mom cut to the chase. “Why are we talking about this? You’re not thinking of getting one, are you?”

She stopped eating and looked at Doug. He was walking a razor’s edge; one slip could be disastrous. She looked at Pop. “What do you think of this?”

Pop thought for a second, then looked at Doug. “What do these things cost? Where do you buy them?”

Pop, a former WWII pilot and engineer, liked facts and quantifiable data. He liked things explained with lots of “mil specs” or military specifications: Details; the more, the better. Doug went on a mil spec bender, outlining the auction process, the vehicles, technical info, in mind-numbing detail. But Pop ate it up. He was impressed; Doug had done his homework.

Mom sensed the change and it alarmed her. “Douglas….where are you going to get that kind of money? You only get three dollars a week for mowing the lawn.”

He looked at her. “Well, you’re right…I’ll probably never save that much. But it sure would be cool. If I somehow saved up, could I get one?”

Mom and Pop looked at each other over the table. They picked their battles and the outcome of this one was a no-brainer. Doug spent all his money on aquariums and animals. There were no businesses around for miles. Three hundred bucks? They could afford to be magnanimous on this one.

Pop looked at Mom; a lot was said swiftly and silently. “OK,” he said. ”Sure. If you save up the money, you can get one.”

Doug shot me a quick glance. Boom.

Summer vacation started the next week and on that first Monday, Doug left early on his minibike. He finally came cruising up the driveway around 3:00 pm. He took off his helmet, killed the engine, and looked at me in jubilation. “I got a job.”

“What? Where?”

“Working at Wayside Gardens.”

This was a surprise. Wayside Gardens Nursery was about a mile away and sold mostly wholesale plants. I had no idea that there was anything there for a kid to do.

“How much do you get paid…and what do you do?”

“Two bucks per hour to repot plants, shovel mulch and dirt, water plants….that kind of stuff. It’ll be great. I start tomorrow.”

Over the next ten weeks of summer, Doug got up early, packed his own lunch and pushed his minibike well down the street before starting it so as not to awaken Mom. When she asked me where he was, I responded vaguely that he was out somewhere on his minibike, probably exploring.

He toiled from 8 to 4 in the scorching Florida summer sun: driving tractors, kneeling for hours in the dirt repotting palm trees, lugging heavy hoses around. Once he had to sneak home, grab his facemask and dive into a scummy canal filled with snakes and alligators to clean debris away from a clogged water intake screen. And every dollar he made went to his mailcart fund.

About two weeks before school started, we were sitting at the breakfast table. Doug, sitting across from me, was trying not to look smug under his deep tan.

“So, honey,” Mom said. ”I’ll have to check to see what bus you’ll be riding this year. Also, I’d like to take you to K-Mart for some new clothes. What about Friday morning?”

Doug dropped his bombshell. “Sure, we can go to K-Mart. But I’m not going to be riding the bus. I’m gonna buy a mailcart.”

Mom and Pop stopped in mid-chew and looked at him, startled. “What?” Pop said finally. “What are you talking about? We didn’t say anything about you getting a mailcart.” He looked at Mom in alarm. Did we?

“Sure you did,” Doug said calmly. “You said if I saved up enough, I could get one. I’ve got almost six hundred dollars.” He paused. “They’re having an auction this Saturday morning at the Fort Lauderdale post office. Can we go?”

There was a stunned silence as Mom and Pop stared at each other and realized the depth of their folly. Damn.

On Saturday, Doug, Pop and I walked around the sprawling Fort Lauderdale post office parking lot, surrounded by surplus mailcarts, eager teenagers, and dismayed parents. Mom refused to have anything to do with it and stayed home, fuming. Pop and Doug lifted the seats on several to inspect the engine below.

They poked and prodded at belts, hoses, covers. Pop managed to find a fatal flaw in the first five or six candidates. There was a nervous tension as people behind us waited to look; there were many more prospective buyers than available mailcarts.

Finally, they found one that passed inspection. The crowd gathered in front of a makeshift stage as the auction began.

I had never been to an auction and sensed the anxiety and desperation as vehicle numbers were called and people shouted offers. Some of the junkers went for $150 while the ones in good shape went for $500 or $600…around $3,000 in today’s dollars.

Vehicle #32—Doug’s pick—came up. Pop started with a bid of $100, and was immediately outbid by faceless voices shouting from the crowd. There was a pause; the bid stood at $330. Pop, slightly pop-eyed and sweating, looked at Doug. “Higher?” he asked. Doug nodded. I was flabbergasted by this sudden role reversal.

There was an unexpected silence and Pop chose this moment to shout his new bid. “Three fifty,” he thundered and immediately looked sheepish. There was a murmur in the crowd, but no more offers.

“I have a bid of three hundred and fifty dollars for vehicle number thirty-two,” the auctioneer shouted. “Going once…going twice…sold!”

Pop looked stricken; Doug’s expression was impossible to describe.

Pop initially wanted me to ride home with him, but I wanted to ride in the back of the mailcart. Pop was so uncharacteristically drained by the whole thing that he simply waved a hand in resignation and drove away. I imagined the Jack Daniels was going to go down an inch or two and the K-Mart floating pool chair would be put to use.

As we drove home in triumph that afternoon—taking the long route along the beach road—I looked out the back window and considered the past four months: Doug, the icebreaker; his strategy, his tactics, sweating in the sun…how he had deftly maneuvered around Mom and Pop. An unlikely campaign ending in a stunning victory. A lesson not to be forgotten.

“Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart,” wrote Emerson.

Friends piled into the back of a tiny van…away from authority…and free to hit the open road?

I’d say my brother’s heart qualified. 😎

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