The Story of Barry takes place over ten years ago, and to fully appreciate the nuance, I remind you that things were very different for me then. I had been living with Sue Ellen for several months, recently divorced, and experiencing what I would later recognize as my darkest months.
Living in the bestie’s house, in the cupboard under the stairs, is often a sign that things aren’t going well. But this was intended to be a stepping stone to greater things. It was, unfortunately, a mis-step instead -- a diversion from my intended path and down one of those side paths that ends abruptly at the precipice, and you realize you have to turn back and retrace your steps to get back on the main hiking trail. Those side paths entice you with the promise of adventure and, literally, a path less traveled. But a few yards in, you realize the path’s lack of traffic is due to its crappiness, not a romanticized belief about adventure. But I digress…
So I was living in the cupboard under the stairs and traveling back to North Carolina pretty much every weekend. My friends were an incredible support system during this time, and while I was barely hanging on, I was greatly bolstered by the most amazing village. Frequent trips home kept me sane, and pretty quickly I was able to move back.
But during this time, I was putting a lot of mileage on my car, and on one particularly lovely afternoon, I drove the reliable station wagon to the Ashburn Service Station, about four blocks from the bestie’s house.
Now keep in mind, this was 11 years and about 80 pounds ago. I was slim and boobacious, and in preparation for dealing with car guys, I had put on a black tank top and well-fitting bell-bottoms. I walked into the Ashburn Service Station and, in one of those miraculous moments, had instant rapport with the guy behind the counter. His colleague was inexplicably on his hands and knees under a desk, so I kind of ignored that guy. But Barry and I shared an immediate chemistry. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but we traded light-hearted jokes very quickly and were both laughing within seconds. The exchange continued as I explained what I needed, and he explained that there were a few people ahead of me, and within a few minutes, I was walking the short distance back to the bestie’s house.
I was on the bestie’s front porch when the phone rang to tell me the car was ready, and so back I turned. Clearly, Barry had bumped me up to the front of the line. He was a reasonably good looking guy with kind blue eyes. He wore a gray jumpsuit of the service station variety, with his name embroidered on the label over his left pec.
When I walked back in the service station door, the colleague was now seated at the desk and joined in the jocularity. “Barry! Who will you be taking to the Christmas party?” he asked. “Why, I think this beautiful young lady right here,” Barry answered, gesturing to me. “I have the perfect beaded red dress,” I answered. And from there we launched into witty stories of Christmas parties past and don’t-get-drunk-at-work lessons learned. I paid my bill and collected my car. I was just pulling in the driveway at the bestie’s house when the phone rang, and again it was Barry. A version of “I never do this and we never date clients, but really… I feel like we have great chemistry and I would hate to let the opportunity pass…” and he asked me out. I said yes but warned him I might go to NC that weekend and would let him know.
Regret set in shortly after, and by the time the bestie came home from work and was listening to my story while she prepared dinner, I was sure I could not follow through. I was just too raw from all that happened and I couldn’t see myself dating someone now. Also, witty rapport notwithstanding, Barry and I were from different worlds. How could this possibly work?
The bestie was pulling for me to have a good time -- cut loose a little bit -- let someone take me out and we can just have a good time. But she also knows I don’t really do casual, so it didn’t take long for her to get on board with the “I just can’t do it.”
“Look,” she said, “just call him. Explain you JUST got out of a relationship and you’re not ready. He will totally understand.”
She was right, of course, and I TOTALLY planned to do just that.
Except I didn’t.
It was Thursday morning, as I got ready for work and packed to leave from there to go to NC for a three-day weekend, when I remembered I had never followed-up with Barry. I felt awful.
I called the bestie at her job. But here’s one more thing you need to know before I proceed: the bestie and I sound EXACTLY ALIKE on the phone. We have known this ever since we met, in an office where I was temping and she was a permanent employee. Literally every single person who spoke to me on the phone said, “Hi Sue Ellen!” and I spent half my day saying, “This is Jenny.”
One time I came into a boyfriend’s house while he was listening to his messages on an answering machine (this was a long time ago). I could hear Sue Ellen telling him something, but the weird thing was she ended the call with “OK, baby. I’ll see you later. I love you!” I trust my bestie, and I trusted my bf, so I was like, “Why is Sue Ellen saying she loves you?” The bf laughed uproariously. “Baby, that was you.” It was an old message he had saved, and it played before the new one he needed. That’s how much we sound alike.
So while I felt horrible about not calling Barry sooner, you must also know, I’m an absolute pussy about these things. I just am. Maybe Jennytoday would pull up her big-girl pants and make the call, but Jennyoftenyearsago absolutely would not. What am I afraid of? What could possibly have gone wrong? I literally have no idea. But I absolutely could not have made that call.
So instead I called the bestie and -- because she is the WORLD’S GREATEST FRIEND -- she agreed to call Barry for me.
But you know, because I am the one telling this story -- you know there is more. Here’s what transpired.
The bestie called the Ashburn Service Station and Barry answered. She said pretty much exactly what she had coached me to say. “Barry! This is Jenny! I’m so sorry you haven’t heard from me sooner. I am heading to North Carolina after work today and I won’t be available to go out. I have to be honest, though, I think I said yes too quickly.” She went on to tell him how much I appreciated the offer; how he was definitely right about the chemistry and it wasn’t his imagination; but that I just wasn’t ready, having had a recent divorce and terrible break-up. She added for good measure, that my sights were set on moving back home, and I was spending all my free time in NC.
Barry was extremely gracious. He expressed his gratitude that I had called at all, and said over and over how nice it was that I hadn’t just blown him off. Of course, she said, it was the least I could do. After all, he had been so nice to me, and we had indeed had great chemistry.
They ended the call on good terms, and the bestie saved the day for me. (Again! She really is the best.)
But then something incredible happened. The bestie was calling from work, and no sooner had she hung up the phone, than her phone rang. The LCD screen on her phone lit up with “Ashburn Service Station.” She stared in disbelief. What in the world?
She answered, but instinct told her it had to be Barry. After all, they had JUST hung up. He must have dialed back immediately. To be safe, she disguised her voice as she provided the corporate greeting, “Thank you for calling TCA, this is Sue Ellen.”
Sure enough, a familiar voice replied, “Hi, this is Barry at the Ashburn Service Station. I’m calling for Diane.” The bestie transferred the call and from where she sat, she could hear Diane’s conversation, two cubes over. Diane had taken the first of several company cars over to the service station for regularly scheduled maintenance. She would be trading out several different ones throughout the day, and Barry would be doing inspections, oil changes, and tire rotations on each. He was calling to tell her that the first was ready and she could bring up the next.
The bestie would take half a dozen calls from Barry that day as one car needed something extra, another didn’t have the right VIN number written down, etc. Each time, she told me later, she had to disguise her voice when “Ashburn Service Station” showed on her caller ID.
She acted out the situation to me. She described how when the phone rang, she put on this strange new voice he wouldn’t recognize. I had assumed she used a southern accent, or maybe went full New Jersey. But no. She went SEXY. Like a 900 operator. “Thank you for calling TCA…” Imagine a breathy bedroom voice, slowly drawing out every syllable. Straight-up sex worker, now. And she told me how she had taken one of Barry’s calls, used the sexy voice, transferred him to Diane again. As she hung up the transferred line and turned in her chair, she saw her boss standing there, staring. “What are you doing???” he asked. “Why are you talking like that???”
She explained the whole thing--the hastily accepted invitation, my hesitation, my unwillingness to call, her BESTIEness, Barry’s gratitude. Her boss stood staring while she went into every detail, ending in “and today, of all days, Diane took the cars in for service.”
He stared another second and then shook his head. “Women!” he shouted, exasperated, and walked away.
But this is a Jenny story. And if you know anything about Jenny stories, you know it doesn’t end there…
It would be a few more months before I would move back to North Carolina, and in that time, I continued to make the round trip most weekends. More than once, I took my car back to Barry for service. He was always very gracious; we still had great chemistry. He is an incredibly nice guy.
One day, the weather cooler now, we stood by my car in the sunshine. He checked my fluids, tucked a few rags under the hood to make the task easier on the fly; spotted me a container of antifreeze to keep in the back. We chatted pleasantly while he worked. All of this extra service free for me as he said, “I understand things have been rough for you, Jen, but I just want you to know, we would have made a great couple.” He went on to talk about his life, how he felt like we could have been good together. Not pushy at all, not rude. Just genuine and nice.
“You know,” he said, “I just got out of prison after serving almost 14 years…”
Wait. WHAT?
Remember, this was more than ten years ago. Before I met Bill, before I had ever set foot in a prison, and long before I had hosted incarcerated people in my home.
Barry went on to tell me that he had been a primary source of marijuana in the US and that he had imported most of it from Central America. He described driving 18-wheelers filled with weed across the border. The month he was arrested he had made $14 million. He said if you smoked weed (that you hadn’t grown yourself) on the east coast 15 to 20 years before, you were smoking his. He also felt some nostalgia for the time, saying, “If I felt like Cajun food for lunch, I flew to New Orleans. I didn’t bother with a Cajun restaurant -- I went right to the source. And then flew home.”
Now, though, he was just trying to find some space in his son’s life and help raise him into a good man. He wanted a simple life -- a chance to work, go home, and relax. He wasn’t looking for anything flashy or to fly somewhere for lunch. He just wanted an easy, simple existence, drama free.
As circumstances would have it, that was the last time I saw Barry. The bestie introduced herself shortly after (without giving away our secret), and has seen him many times since. He met a nice woman, and they settled into the life he had hoped for. His son did indeed make it to manhood and is a good person. And I, of course, went on to the crazy life I call mine. I have to thank Barry for opening the door to thinking about people who have been to prison in a different way. And I’m glad he got exactly what he was looking for.
