The Extraordinary Power of Soap

Nonfiction by Aurora Biggers

I stepped under the green O’Reilly Auto Parts sign — a physical manifestation of my apprehension to enter the building. “Step in, take a right, go down the first aisle, should be on my right,” I repeated to myself. I peered in and waited until there weren’t any employees hovering near the door. Straight in and to the right, I followed my directions, allowing my brain to be preoccupied with my directional prayer. Hopefully, he wasn’t working today, or maybe I would get lucky and he’d be on a cigarette break.

With a jug of Peak 100% full strength coolant in my hands, I made my way up to the counter. Right, left, right, left — every step with confidence. I saw a woman in a green polo behind the counter. Thank God. As I turned the last aisle, she turned back into the rows of metal shelves with various parts and catalogs. Damn it.

I placed myself firmly in front of her station, determined to wait for her to come back. He was too eager — a slight and rotund man in a green O’Reilly Auto Parts polo with a balding dome, thin-framed glasses, and a mole askew on his chin. Grease stains ran up his arms and on his face like he’d had a skin transplant with shoe leather.

I put the jug onto the counter, already wrestling with my wallet. “Did you need help finding something today?” he asked. I wanted to punch his grinning teeth in right then and there.

“Nope. I have what I need, thank you,” I said.

“Well, what were you looking for?” He was insistent.

I stared at him blankly. “Coolant.” I pushed in his direction the two very large and very obvious jugs. “I have it right here. It’s $15.99.” I pointed at the fat yellow sign spying on us from the top of the last aisle. “Here’s my card.”

“What kind of car do you have? You want to make sure you have the correct coolant.” He was breathing heavily, every word seemed to increase his energy.

“I have the correct coolant, thank you though,” I responded.

Why is this taking so long? Just take my damn card. I placed it on the counter expectantly.

“Is that your Volvo out there?” he asked pointing towards my car.

“Yep. Am I set to pay?”

“Oh, well let’s double-check with the catalog and make sure you have the right stuff.”

“No, really, I know what kind of coolant my car uses. That’s not necessary.” I responded.

“Sweetheart, you don’t seem like someone who knows much about cars. It would be a real shame if you used the wrong coolant and messed up your engine. Your car needs 50/50, not 100.”

This guy wasn’t worth taking the time to explain my plan.

“I know what I’m doing. I think I would know what kind of coolant my car takes, so please ring me up, or get that other employee.” Where was the damn lady employee? I’d reached the end of my charity.

“Fine, fine. Don’t get upset if I told you so and your car has issues, though.”

My cheeks stung, but I bit my tongue. I envisioned myself lunging across the counter — going “postal.” I thought of the female lion who wouldn’t hesitate to kill the male lion if he threatened her. One step out of line, and she’d rip his throat out. Bam. No more male lion.

Except in my vision, it was Bam. No more male human.

And then there was Dondo.

When I was a senior in high school I took an AP Psychology course. Our final project was conducting our own psychological social experiments and presenting them at a class project fair. My teacher was very strict about not influencing the results. Her Ms. Frizzle hair and bright purple ascot float in my head sometimes, reminding me to “be gritty” and telling me “that’s not very AP behavior.” I don’t remember my group’s experiment, but I remember participating in my classmates’ projects.

Two girls in my class did an experiment where they fed you food while you were blindfolded and had your nose plugged. You had to guess what food it was. It was an awkward experiment, having other people feed you while you’re blindfolded. Our teacher said it was mandatory for us all to participate in each others’ projects, and the girls promised they had normal foods and nothing gross or weird. I sat down in the chair and was blindfolded.

The first food was crunchy, but kind of sweet — definitely apple. The next food had a similar texture, but I couldn’t discern any specific flavor, styrofoam? No; that’s not a food. I guessed potato. Then there was cheese. I could tell because of the creamy texture; it was definitely cheddar, a sharp yellow. My family was always big on cheese; cheese and potatoes — those were sacred foods in my home. We raised our noses at American cheese and perused the charcuterie aisle, neglecting the average deli section. I knew my cheese.

One after the other, my peers tested my ability to guess the food. They took careful notes on my answers and descriptions. I wasn’t exactly sure what the test was proving; it certainly wasn’t anything revelatory, but we were high school students in a sub-basic psych course. It’s not like we could run our own Milgram experiment.

The last food was lemon, as I would later find out. I never had a chance to test my perceptive abilities because right as the citrus produce approached my mouth, the lemon wedge was intercepted by the two sausage fingers of Hunter Arredondo, “Dondo,” as affectionately called by his friends. I had never spoken to him, other than sarcastic quips in response to his sexist comments, but I was familiar with the roll of “Dondo” on my tongue. I thought it was a dumb name. I used it caustically behind his back.

Dondo was a 6’4” bulky guy, always distinguished by his slicked-back mullet covered by a baseball cap, Carhartt pants wadded around fat romeo boots, and his grease and chew stained hands. When everyone returned to school in the fall, the halls were filled with the rumor he raped his unconscious girlfriend at a house party over the summer.

I believed it.

On the concrete patio under my house’s carport, I poured half my 100% coolant into an empty coolant jug. I mixed the other half with water, so each jug was 50/50 coolant. Now I had two coolant jugs for my car, for about half the price of buying two actual 50/50 jugs. The green polo-ed idiot probably couldn’t fathom the level of ingenuity I had just pulled off. I always knew my car took 50/50 coolant, but this was a trick I had been using for a while. The stores always priced the jugs so the 100% was technically more expensive, but buying two 50/50 was still grossly more expensive than buying one 100%. I figured, why not make my own 50/50 at half the price. I considered writing the O’Reilly corporation a letter complaining about the shoe leather man, but I was tired.

I bent under the driver’s seat and popped the hood. Lifting the jug over the coolant meter, I filled my car up with the toxic green Gatorade and lugged the jugs back into the garage. I begged my father to go pick up the coolant that day instead, but he told me I was fully capable of maintaining my own car. My father was a rare male feminist, but this didn’t always bend in my favor. He didn’t know about what happened last time I went to O’Reilly’s.

That was when I first met the cashier.

My friend Chloe and I stopped at O’Reilly’s on a Friday night, so I could pick up a tail light or something. We were going to bake cookies and watch Psych, our favorite comedy crime show. I understand why he assumed we were going partying; pretty much everyone else our age was. I just didn’t like the way he assumed we were partying.

We collected the taillights and made our way up to the counter to pay.

“So you girls going out partying tonight?” he asked.

“Oh, no. We’re not.” Chloe responded, always so friendly and prompt to assume the best in people.

“Really? It’s Friday night. C’mon, you girls must know where the best parties are at. You don’t have to pretend.”

I stared fixedly at the askew mole on his chin and the “O’Reilly Auto Parts” stitched on his polo. Moles, in my opinion, are great features. Funny how in the right context a facial mole could be a beauty mark, but you have to have the personality for it. He just didn’t win the lottery on that one.

“No, really. We’re not partying, just a quiet night in.” I said.

“Girls like you? I can’t believe that.”

I didn’t like the way he eyed Chloe’s breasts through her t-shirt. “Can I pay, please?” I asked.

“I know you girls know all the good spots. Old guys like me gotta have young things like you to keep us up on all the hip spots.”

Why on earth would he be going to a high school party? Pervert. Chloe kept diverting the questions, while I impatiently shoved my chip into the reader. Why could he hold me hostage in this conversation while I had to wait for him to press the right button so the reader would consent to taking my card’s chip?

Now, standing in my driveway, I washed the dripped coolant off my hands with the hose. My hands would still hold the acrid scent for a while afterward. My right hand shook a little. It does that sometimes.

Especially after a trip to O’Reilly’s.

I spat Dondo’s fingers out of my mouth and ripped the blindfold off. The girls were shrieking. He was laughing his ass off. Before I got the blindfold off, I heard him say, “She opened right up, wasn’t even shy about it. She didn’t even choke!” The girls were furious but not as furious as I was. If I had thought quickly enough, I would have chomped down as hard I could.

It takes the same amount of pressure to bite through fingers as it does carrots.

I could have left him with two stumps. I’m sure he would come up with some fantastic story that made him look manly, but he would know what really happened. I would know.

But I didn’t think quickly. Instead, I shouted, “What the hell, Dondo?” He grinned. I don’t remember what happened next; the whole class was in pandemonium. I know he never got in trouble, and I know I will never forget what his greased fingers taste like in the back of my throat.

While showering later that night, I sprayed the water from the nozzle directly into my mouth. I squeezed my blue bottled floral shampoo straight down my throat. I gargled soap and water, coughing relentlessly until I was sure the grease was gone. The grease was never really gone.

When I was little, my mother made me wash my mouth out with soap when I lied. As I choked and gagged, snot and tears mixing, I felt like I was punishing myself. I wish I was lying. I wish it hadn’t really happened.

My dad is really big on self-defense. He bought me pepper spray, a baton, and threatened to make me wear a utility belt with those two items strapped on, in addition to a taser-flashlight combo and bear spray. He made me take a self-defense course with my uncle who has three black belts.

How can you prepare for the non-physical attack? How can you defend yourself when you’re blindfolded and your attacker wields only two grease-stained fingers and his status as the most popular idiot in school? I still carry my bright blue pepper spray in my purse, a cat-shaped key-chain with sharpened ears, and sometimes my baton. I always walk fast, check my reflection in passing windows, and look under my car before I get in, but I’ve been attacked more times by people authorized to do so — by people in green polos, by people with social immunity, by people who can’t actually attack me. I’ve been attacked by the people who all the self-defense tricks in the world won’t stop. How do you prepare for them?

A few weeks later, I saw Dondo’s girlfriend. At the beginning of the school year, they seemed distant. I figured it was because he raped her. It probably was. It probably didn’t help that everyone was talking about it. Now, they walked side-by-side, fingers interlaced, jostling back and forth with big, dumb grins. I wondered if she knew he stuck his fingers down my throat? Probably not. I wondered if he stuck his fingers down her throat? Probably. Maybe he was compensating. I read an article about that.

A lot of people were sexually assaulted in high school. I don’t have to define “a lot,” because honestly, any people getting assaulted is “a lot.” A guy in my class allegedly raped his girlfriend while she was drugged after her wisdom teeth removal. She was a virgin. I saw her crying in the hall and telling her friends about it. They told her to report him and end the relationship but she knew “he loved her so much and would never really hurt her.” He was best friends with all the police officers in the area and stood in a good position to be a future sheriff. This didn’t make it any easier for her to consider reporting the rape.

They’re married now.

I moved a few hours away from all those people, but the O’Reilly Auto Parts next to my new house always reminds me. Two years and two coolant jugs later, I found myself standing under the green O’Reilly’s Auto Parts sign — different city, same sign.

I employed my memorized directional prayer but quickly found this O’Reilly’s was organized differently. I was lost.

“What can I help you find?” a green polo-ed male employee asked.

Shit.

“Coolant,” I said.

“Right down that aisle!” He motioned to the right. “Do you know what kind you need?” Great; here we go.

“Yeah, I always get the Peak 100 strength,” I replied.

“Okay. Let me know if you need any more help!”

That was it? No, “what kind of car do you have? Are you sure that’s the kind of coolant you need?” He didn’t even stare at my breasts, ask me where I lived, or call me “sweetheart.”

I went back to town recently for a high school friend’s wedding. While standing in the food line, I made a joke about the time Dondo stuck his fingers down my throat. Admittedly, it was in poor taste. My friend was horrified. I guess she forgot about Dondo sticking his fingers down my throat. Maybe I should too.

Her outrage at his behavior reminded me of soap. Forgiveness is like soap washing off grease. The more life you’ve lived, the more layers of grease lacquer your soul. After years of ingrained grease, soap won’t remove the stains. You can toss all your bitterness into a soapy sudsy power wash and let it tumble dry at maximum heat, but the grease won’t come out. The soap of forgiveness can’t remove the grease, but it can remove the smell. Bitterness is an acrid smell we carry around, and the more grease we lacquer on, the heavier the odor.

Standing in the food line at my friend’s wedding, I discovered the extraordinary power of soap. I felt the soap of forgiveness remove a layer of greasy stench I had been carrying around for years.

Aurora Biggers is an English major and journalism student at George Fox University, where she writes within the vein of feminism and cultural commentary. She is a published freelance writer, and her work can be found most notably in Ms. Magazine, The Crescent, and The Wineskin. Aurora has a newfound obsession for medical CNF books and thinks she might be a hypochondriac now.