Crowe

Crowe was a real piece of work and I never even new his first name.
He started coming around a few years after I started working there. You see, Crowe was an entrepreneur. He ran a business called "Sparkle Shine" cleaning. He was the guy who cleaned floors in the supermarkets at night. His power floor scrubbers were fueled by propane, which we sold.

He would show up about once a week always after the same phone call. "Dis is Crowe. You got some propane?" "Yes," I would sarcastically say into the phone. Then he hung up without even saying goodbye. You couldn't miss him when he arrived. I would spy the dilapidated maroon cargo van, the child molester model, pulling into the drive. Out of the cab would step a giant of a man. As I remember, his heighth paralleled Andre the Giant. He was easily a 7 footer. Time had not been so kind to him. He was tall and saggy, sported a Larry from the three stooges haircut, and had a salt and pepper moustache. Have you ever met somebody, and just by looking at them, knew that they would never be considered the brightest bulb in the bunch? That was Crowe. He was a bit dim, but goddamn, when he talked it was poetic.

Both my brother and I to this day recite "Croweisms". He would bestow this wisdom upon us over the course of 3 summers, 7.5 minutes at a time (the amount of time it took fill his propane bottles). I should also mention he had a bit of a speech impediment.

Our first conversations were brief and one sided. Crowe would see one us and holler, "Hey 'tupid. Ged over derr and fill up my pwopane!" "Don't jip me. I know you didn't fill it up all da way last time!" I think Crowe was a tad on the paranoid side. He always thought we were out to jip him.

Having a shitty summer job forces you to be creative. The creative outlet I shared with my brother was harrassing the customers any way we could. To do that, you needed an in. We found ours with Crowe. I don't even remember how the conversation came up, but one fine summer day we discovered Crowe's secret love......boxing. From there, it was go time.

On this day we were both hauling his propane tanks to dispenser. Empty, they are not bad, but when full they were about 60 pounds. If I remember correctly, that was 1/2 my body weight at the time. "Crowe, did you know me and my brother are boxers?" "What? You are? Youse any good?" "Shit dude, 14 knockouts between us."
"You boys is fullz ah shit!" "I tell ya what. You two punks come down to da gym. I gotta twelve year old down der, he will wear yo azzes out. He will dot yo i's and cwoss yo t's."

"He will dot your i's and cross your t's." I had never heard such a beautiful phrase come from a grown man's mouth.

"Now put those tanks back in da van. I gotta bad back!"

And off he would go.

To this day, I wait for the moment when I can use that surreal phrase in a normal conversation. The moment will be magical.