All you need is Love's

Yesterday I got on a plane at BWI, flew first to New York, then took a flight to Columbus, where the new, larger truck awaited me. My Baltimore-to-New York flight was delayed, leaving the plane with its passengers sitting on the runway for about an hour. This gave me about fifteen minutes to catch my flight in New York. That flight went smoothly, and—because I’d taken two flights in one day on US Air and its affiliates, I scored not one—but TWO—little snack bags of pretzels. I was surprised that anything in the way of food was offered at all; I imagine it’s a good way to calm down otherwise irate passengers. “Here—give them a little bag of pretzels and a soda. That’ll quiet ‘em down for a while.” We all sat and happily munched our pretzels.

The truck was horrible, not at all what the seller had described—both in our conversations and online. All maintenance had been neglected during the time that he owned it, the front tires were choppy, worn out, on the verge of failure. I pointed out the obvious things to him, told him that they contradicted what he’d told me, added that the truck was going to need a lot of work to get it through the state safety inspection back home. He agreed to reduce the price by another five-hundred dollars, which is something of a help. Still not enough, but something. He’d made no preparations for my coming to pick it up, was cleaning the cab out as I arrived in my taxi from the airport—some ten miles away. There was enough trash in there to fill a good-sized trash bag. I got together a little pile and added it to the mix. In the back was an old carpet, some other things. He kindly offered me the rug, something that he didn’t want to throw out because it was so big and cumbersome.
“No thanks,” I said.

He wheeled the spare tire out of his garage and put it in the back of the truck. He was proud that he’d gone to the trouble of procuring an emergency spare in case of a flat.
“Look at that,” he said, pointing to the worn-out specimen lying in the truck’s cargo area—the tired and bald rubber barely holding air.
“Any tire-changing equipment? Tire iron, lug-nut wrench—jack? Anything?”
“Nope—nothing,” he said.
I didn’t bother to ask why he’d gone to the trouble of getting a spare, but no tools to put the thing on the truck in case he actually needed it.

His was a house in a Midwestern subdivisions, just outside of Columbus, the neighborhood being about five years old, he told me. The trees were all very small, when there were trees at all. The cheap and quickly-built houses suggested that the residents there had arrived—with garish and clashing windows, little thought to how the different elements of the houses would work together. They were basic abodes, gussied-up a bit to give just a little hint of style—albeit style that appeared unexpectedly, and not cooperating at all with other components that might have helped with the overall effect. Out front, some of the houses had the Cadillac Escalade, the bright bauble that is not entirely out-of-reach of the working class, that bespeaks a financial status that the owner may or may not actually have. It is probable that such a car costs about half the price of one of these houses.

“They sent out a letter telling us to cut down all the trees,” he said, referring to the people from the county, whose job it was to oversee things such as trees in new housing developments. They’d supposedly approved them in the first place, the small and unhealthy specimens struggling and hanging on for dear life. God bless them—they’ll make it, if the county doesn’t have all the residents chop them down first.
“Then they sent out another letter telling us to hold off on cutting them down,” he said.
Apparently no one had rushed right out to cut down their trees after the first letter.

At least the truck runs ok. I got on the highway, finding my way back to Interstate 70 with no trouble. That part of Ohio is easily accessed by I-70 and its offshoots. I exited at the old highway, Route 40, to see if any tire place or garage would be interested in putting two new tires on the truck. It was close to five o’clock, and too late for anyone to take on this simple job. I drove on, the cupped and noisy front tires reminding me that they were rolling along on borrowed time.

At a Love’s truck stop, I checked the truck over for proper operation of all lights—especially ones that the police might stop me for. The tag light was dark. It being after sundown, this was an issue for me, and an obvious reason for a curious state trooper to pull me over to check things out. I didn’t really want that. Of course, it was not merely an issue of replacing a bulb and being on my way; I quickly realized that the assembly for the tag light was half-missing, had been gone for some time, wasn’t really a concern for the previous owner. I looked over the selection of items in the Love’s store, picked out a few things—some electrical wire, some connectors, duct tape, a little tag light assembly that cost around five bucks—and went outside.

A young maintenance man at the truck stop, who’d worked there for five years, became interested in my project. I explained to him that I’d just bought the truck, was driving back to Maryland, and didn’t want to be bothered by the police. He seemed to understand. He told me of his life in the area, this being mostly farmland. He hunted white-tailed deer, turkeys, opossums. I asked about the opossums. Yes, he ate them, as long as they were young; the old ones were like biting into rubber, he said. He volunteered the loan of some tools, which helped me greatly; he expressed regret that I’d bought the items to do the repair, owing to the fact that he had most of those things at his disposal. I felt that—owing to his and the truck stop’s hospitality—I could at least spend some money there.

He watched with interest as I wired the new part into place, tapping into an old wire that was dangling underneath the truck and that I guessed had once been for the purpose of powering up the tag light. Using the duct tape as a temporary fastener, it held on just above the license plate I brought with me from back home. Now was the moment of truth: I turned on the headlights, and heard his excited yells as he saw the new tag light glow white, illuminating the once-dark area back there. I was grateful, more than he knew, for his help, for his tools, for his talk of opossums, white-tailed deer, for being there to help and encourage me on as I worked in the bright glare on this mild autumn evening outside the Love’s Truck Stop.

With all the lights working properly, I pushed on, only about a hundred miles into the trip. To get to my front door, the truck’s mile-counter would have to read about 425 miles. I was not making great progress. I stopped at a Cracker Barrel, thinking maybe I’d have some of their beef stew or pot roast. They had them both, the roast beef being a special that day. I opted for the stew, knowing that I would not finish the bulky meal entailed with the roast and its two generous sides. I could barely finish the stew, the mashed potatoes, and a corn muffin as it turned out. I’d mainly stopped because I knew that later on these places would be closed. Cracker Barrels don’t keep late hours. On these horrible, grinding trips, I usually keep on driving until everything is closed—the only offerings being the snack foods hanging in bags from a brightly-lit travel plaza or convenience store. I hate that. So I ate my Cracker Barrel food, washed it down with a good Coke, and left.

Central Ohio has a progressive radio station that plays exceptionally good late-night offerings. There are no commercials either. One obscure artist after another came on, played a selection I’d never heard before, then there would be more good music after that. I seem to recall that a specialty of this station—or one of its features—is to interview, in depth, an artist and then play their music. This happened on the trip, while I listened to a man who styled his music as “country ghetto.” I don’t recall his name, but he seemed to have some good things to say to the interviewer, despised living in a country where all people strive to be the same, to want the same things, to look the same. His songs were mostly good.

Then it was lively jazz and some classical music as I ground out the miles, the truck running well, with no problems other than the obvious safety ones relating to the worn tires and a long trip with no tools. As is typical, the rain started with about a hundred and fifty miles remaining. On these trips it rains in the most treacherous section—the mountains going through western Maryland. I kept my speed at around sixty, let the big trucks roll by, their fog-storm of spray and mist washing over the windshield as I struggled to see on the dark highways. I stopped once, pulling into a deserted post office just off the main highway in Flintstone. At around two-thirty in the morning, it was wet and deserted, the leaves of the surrounding woods coming down, sticking, post-it-note-style—onto the shiny black parking lot. A lone American flag stood sentry, the cold front’s wind enlivening it and whipping it about. I looked at my tag light. Still bright, the license plate readable in the small glow of the little bulb. A few state troopers had passed me. I was happy.

At four o’clock in the morning I was home. I’d turned down two jobs for this trip. It has been maybe a month since I’ve been called for a video job; I planned my trip to Ohio, held my breath, waiting for the inevitable. Right on cue, one of my clients called to ask if I could work on the day of my trip and the following day as well. I never quite know how to figure this one out, mathematically; I could say, well—there goes about a fourth of the truck’s price in income I’ll never see. Or I can say I just added twenty-five percent to the cost of the truck. I think, sadly this latter assessment is the true gauge. I hope someone, whoever is in charge of scheduling things in the universe, of seeing that video jobs are covered and that poor schlubs humping across Central Ohio in an abused truck regret every single mile, is laughing. I fail to see the humor in it.