DEJA LA TROCA PRENDIDA WHILE I PAY FOR THE GAS, BRO

(The recent spectacular truck fire at the Stripes at the corner of Paredes and E. Price Thursday morning brought back memories of a similar event years ago when a truck also caught fire next to some gasoline pumps. Fortunately, the fire was contained on both occasions, but it brought back memories of the event.)  

By Juan Montoya
It was about half-past 2 on a hot summer afternoon when the two friends drove up to the gas pumps at the old 7-11 at the corner of 13th and Roosevelt to fill up.

Andres was driving his father's Ford F-150 pickup and they had just dropped off two other workers who lived in the small rooms behind Javier Ruiz's 1,2,3 Lounge. The two other men had been helping Andres and Ramon, his passenger, to clear some land of cedar which covered the better part of a 20-acre field.

The land belonged to a local rancher from an old family who had been receiving payments under the set-aside program of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture for a few years. 

Now the federal government was threatening to stop the subsidies because the cedar trees – actually large bushes with thick trunks – were overrunning the field and it was impossible to the rancher to claim he was setting aside the land from crops and receive the payments.

So he had contacted Ramon – who also belonged to an old Brownsville family – to see if he could find a crew to remove the cedar. He had contacted Andres and they set about to hire two others to help them with what they thought would be an easy job.

It wasn't.

The cedar had a double tap root and had been allowed to grow into small trees. At first they thought they could simply pull them out, but only a few came out and the rest didn't budge. So they had to invest in two gasoline chainsaws to cut them at ground level. That didn't work so well because the sandy dirt would get into the chainsaw mechanism and clog it. Then the sand, acting as an abrasive, dulled the chain on the saw and they found that having them sharpened did not work very well. The fact that the heat climbed to near 100 degrees didn't help either.

It was after a long morning of dealing with all these problems that the two friends pulled up to the 7-11 to fuel up and Andres told Ramon to keep the truck running because he had just changed the original motor for a 351 Windsor off a 1980 Lincoln Versailles he owned. He had gotten rid of that car because some of his friends had hauled two onion-bags filled with iced shrimp in the trunk that had melted and the ensuing stink and flies drawn by it had been impossible to eradicate. The toxic smell literally gave Andres a headache.

The change in motor had a few glitches and sometimes after he turned it off, it was difficult to start. Sometimes it wouldn't turn off and remained running after he had turned off the ignition. That and the fact that some of the gauges didn't work made Andres gas it up periodically because he couldn't tell how much gas was in the tank and he didn't want to get stranded somewhere out in the rural areas.

"Dejala prendida, bro, no la vayas a apagar, (Keep it running. Don't turn it off.)," Andre said as he alighted.
"Ta gueno," Ramon nodded.

Andres got off and went into the store. There was a line in front of the single cash register and Andres waited while the cashier charged the people in front. There was a woman with several slips for Pick-3 lottery drawings that the machine had trouble registering.

Then, as he waited impatiently for his turn, Ramon came running into the store and told him: "Ta prendida la troca, bro."
"I know, I told you to keep it running, que no la fueras a apagar" Andres replied.
"No, no, esta prendida, bro!"
"I know...," Andres was saying  when Ramon blurted out: "It's on fire, man. The truck's on fire."

Both friends ran out and saw smoke coming out from the hood of the truck.
Andres pulled up on the hood and saw a small flame near the carburetor. He had no water to throw on it, but a passing motorist stopped when he saw the fire and, by good fortune, had a small fire extinguisher with which he doused the fire.

"Te dije que estaba prendida," Ramon told Andres.