A Thing I Wrote for My Memoir Class

It was summer, 1994. I was a bird teetering on the edge of an over-crowded nest. Behind me lay high school graduation, childhood itself, and the comfort of knowing what came next. Before me loomed the great unknown—college. Life away. My flickering excitement at this vague promise of freedom fought against my natural hesitancy in the face of any kind of change. Life was about to become undeniably uncomfortable.

But first, there was summer.

I had a scholarship to pay my tuition, and I planned (and prayed) to find a part-time job on campus to take care of food and other occasional necessities. But if I wanted a roof over my head, I had a matter of weeks to earn my housing money. Fifteen hours a week at ShopKo would not be enough. So I did what any Utah County kid would do in desperate times: I got myself hired on as a cherry sorter at an orchard in Payson.

The job was simple. For as long as the harvest held out, I was to show up at this big white warehouse at the crack of dawn six days a week, put on a heavy plastic apron and a shower cap, and take up my perch at a conveyor belt as bright red cherries by the thousands began to slide past me. So for ten hours a day I sat there, shivering in the spray of the cherry water, deafened by the non-stop groan of the turning metal wheels. I plucked out the cherries that were yellow, the cherries that were rotten or damaged, and the occasional non-cherry item, such as a twig or a dead bird. And that was it.

I was exasperated to find that the cherries didn’t leave me alone at night. My one chance to escape the drudgery of my days, and what did I dream about? Cherries. And more cherries. Marching ever onward as I tossed and turned right up until the cursed buzzing of my alarm clock. And then I dragged myself back for more.

During these sticky cherry-filled weeks I held on to my ShopKo job, so every few evenings I’d leave the orchard, drive to Spanish Fork, cram down a Big Mac, and moonlight as a cashier for a few hours. One night I was scheduled to work until the store closed. I stood in the employee bathroom before my shift, trying to unflatten my hair and massage away the long, straight dent that the rubber shower cap had left across my forehead. I attempted to touch up my makeup but soon found that the eyeliner had melted as it sat in the back seat of my dilapidated 1986 Chevy Chevette in the orchard parking lot.

I tied on my red ShopKo apron and signed myself on to my register, where the next few hours plodded by in a flow of crabby customers, sweaty dollar bills, and the whir and slam of the register drawer. 

Then finally, finally, I was free. The store closed. I trudged my weary body out into the hot dark night and plopped onto the worn-out fabric of the Chevette’s driver’s seat, savoring the silence. That is, until that silence extended past the first futile turn of my key, and the second, and the third, and even past the pounding of my fist against the dashboard when I knew that I was stranded. Alone. The most alone that I had been all that solitary day.

I went back and banged on ShopKo’s doors so the few remaining employees would let me in to use the phone. My dad’s voice was tired. I knew he would not relish getting dressed again and driving a town away to face yet another vehicular failure. Twenty minutes later his big white work truck was parked next to me and he was bent over under the hood of my mutinous pile of nuts and bolts, muttering and looking for who even knew what.

I stood there in the parking lot, fading. The roar of the conveyor belt still echoed in my head as the sweltering night air pressed in around me. My dad was in the driver’s seat now, and his voice broke through the whirring in my ears, explicating the workings of the standard transmission and the proper way to pop a clutch and start her up, and listen, Amy, you’ll need to know this in the future so you can do it on your own. I didn’t care. The tears started and my vision fogged and I hugged myself as the Chevette sputtered back to pathetic life. I didn’t care.

The engine meekly chugged and I cried. And then my dad was there, and my face was on his chest. His strong arms pulled me in as his work-rough hands patted my back a little awkwardly. The cars raced by on the nearby freeway, and there we stood together.

“Tough day, Aim?” I could only nod as a fresh wave of tears soaked his shirt and I struggled to keep my shoulders steady. This felt new to me, standing in this spot. Achingly new, this space inside his arms, this spilling of feeling onto someone else. This sense of moments sliding past, unplucked and irretrievable.

Dad cleared his throat. “Your, uh, headlights aren’t working. I’ll have to mess with those tomorrow. But just drive slowly and I’ll be right behind you. My lights will be enough.”

That night the cherries would once again haunt my dreams. Before the darkness had all lifted, the belts would start up once more and legions of cherries would fill my daylight hours. And a few short weeks later, I would leave it all behind and enter the mystery of my future. But right then, as I carefully eased my ancient car down the backstreets of town, with melted makeup running down my cheeks and the warmth of my dad’s arms still sheltering me, I forgot about all of it. I just looked straight ahead and let his light carry me home.