Being a long-haul truck driver has its positive moments, but sitting in a greasy-spoon truck stop with nowhere to go and nothing to do isn't one of them. If it wasn't for worrying, my brain would probably rot from lack of exercise. My wife has told me more than once that worrying seems to come natural to me. So here I sit, doing what comes natural, worrying about the paid miles I'm not getting, the money I'm not earning, the bills, retirement chasing me like a rabid hound. I think about home and those I love and how distant they are from me at this moment. I am lonely. I am bitter. I am nauseous. I am tired. After setting the air conditioner, I lock the doors and swing into the bunk. "Things are always bad when you're tired," I tell myself, "and you, my friend, are over tired. Go to bed. Get a good night's sleep. Things will look better in the morning...I hope."
Somehow the week proceeds, the miles roll by and my favorite trucking moment finally occurs: I back the tractor into my own driveway, set the bakes and shut the old diesel down. I sit quiet and still adjusting to the gentle country sounds as the vibrations of thousands of miles slowly drain from my nervous system. As my foot falls on the front porch the dogs note my arrival and begin their frantic, loud greeting. I open the front door, drop my suitcase and laundry bag and vigorously pet the three bobbing whining heads carrying on a man to dog conversation as I do so. They lick my hands and face, squealing with delight. I look up at the kitchen clock: forty five minutes till my wife gets home from work. Just enough time for a cold beer, a hot bath, and clean clothes.
Lying in the claw-foot tub, my legs stuck out on the rim over the faucets and the steaming water gently prodding the soreness from fifty year old muscles, I see the first snowflakes of a promised storm drift by the bathroom window. I hate the cold, but from where I now sit all is beautiful and warm. My mind begins to drift with the snowflakes...
I was perhaps eight or nine years old. Summer was getting old and dusty, its' daytime heat lacking the strength to hammer the asphalt as it did in its youth. When it did muster reserved strength, the heat caused updrafts and the clouds would gather and grow in height and breadth.
Ma had just called my two younger sisters and me in for supper. The bright sunlight was softening, diffusing through the gathering blankets of moisture. I looked up at the immense, gathering thunderheads as I climbed the porch stairs, feeling the breeze quicken and cool.
I was in the cellar lighting the old copper hot water heater for baths when the storm struck. The first crack of thunder was a great rifle shot, a quick snap-crack-bang followed by a deep reverberating base note which shook the very foundation of the house around me. I ran up the cellar stairs, threw open the door to the kitchen and burst through like a thoroughbred from the starting gate. Ma was scurrying around slamming windows shut.
"Run upstairs and close the bedroom windows!" came the quick order of a captain whose ship is about to encounter a typhoon.
I scurried upstairs and out onto the yardarms.
Ma's room had only one open window. The sheer curtains were blowing inward and twisting like torn sails. I slammed the wooden framed window screen closed, set it on the floor and pulled down on the window. It wouldn't budge. Years of old paint enforced by humidity swollen wood, held it tight in its track. I heard the first sheet of rain hit the pavement with a sound resembling marbles being poured out onto a hardwood floor. I jumped up, grabbed hold of the top of the obstinate window and let my whole weight fall. With a snap it released and swished closed.
The bathroom held a new window which slid obediently and smoothly closed with little effort. By the time I got to my room, the rain, wind and flashes of lightning were putting on a spectacular show. I bounced across my bed and slid off the other side. The floor was wet with small puddles, the window sill was soaked. The wind blowing into my face smelled of wet leaves and recently oiled pavement. I shut and locked the window, wiped the sill with my hand producing a rubbery squeak and ran downstairs.
The front door was open. I walked through it an onto our large covered front porch, or "verandah" as Ma liked to call it. Ma was sitting, as usual, in the wicker love seat leaning forward with her elbows on her thighs. I stepped onto the porch just as the sky lit up with a bluish flash instantly silhouetting trees and houses in the neighborhood. I ran to the love seat and sat close to Ma and my sisters, managing to arrive just before the low distant rumble of disappointing thunder reached our ears.
"Did you see the dragon?" Ma asked.
We looked at her quizzically. She pointed to a large tree across the street.
"Keep your eyes on that tree," she whispered.
The three of us watched that tree obediently, not knowing what to expect. Then it happened. A quick three-flash strobe was fired from the heavens. Rose screamed. Priscilla buried her head in Ma's shoulder. I stared, dumbstruck. The tree for an instant wasn't a tree. It was a huge and menacing monster with two large flaring nostrils, a high eye socket and jagged scales as big as spear heads. He was looking away from us, over his shoulder, up the street.
"Wow!" was all I could say. Rose laughed, then squealed with delight and relief. Priscilla kept her head in Ma's armpit.
For the next thirty minutes we watched as a menagerie of animals, monsters and cartoon characters came to life in the neighboring trees. Priscilla slid into Ma's lap and drifted off to sleep. As the storm left us Ma began singing, singing about a man who had a goat. I asked her about the red shirts which that old goat coughed up and flagged the train with. Patiently, Ma explained that all trains had to stop for a red flag.
Rose asked her to sing it again. She did. Rose slid close to Ma on one side and I the other. I rested my head on her side and could hear the words of the song reverberating within. The thunder was far away now. We sat a long time just listening to the rain and feeling good.
The cooling bath water draws me back. I run hot water until the tendrils of heat reach my back. My razor is on the wooden chair beside the tub. As I reach for it I notice that my shaving mug and brush are still sitting across the room next to the sink. Not being inclined to leave the warmth of the bath, I grab the bar soap from its wire dish, work up a lather between my hands and rub this through my stubble. I adjust the small shaving mirror which extends out over the tub on a scissor arrangement and begin shaving.
The smell of the Ivory, the rising steam, my image in the steamed up mirror; thirty-nine years peal away.
My father stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his green work pants unbelted and his T-shirt hanging loosely on his torso. As a skinny, eleven year old me watches from the doorway, he washes his face in the sink, then removes his shaving brush from the medicine cabinet, wets it in the sink and begins working up a lather in the soap dish.
"How come you use that?" I ask, nodding toward the soap dish.
"Use what? Oh, you mean this?" He lifts the soap from the dish.
"Yeah. How come you don't use regular shaving cream?"
He drops the small bar of soap back into the dish. "Oh, hell, shave cream ain't nothin' but greasy soap," he says as he works the lather over his face giving particular attention to the area under his nose. Then turning to me he winks and says, "I got plenty of soap and don't need no grease."
I nod. It makes perfect sense to me.
It was the best day of the week for any eleven year old; Saturday. But today there would be no idleness for me, no sleeping until 10, no afternoon cartoon show. I was going to work. My father had agreed to clean out an old, long unused, second-hand store for a friend. His pay would consist of what he could salvage and what he could sell down at Cohen's junk yard. My pay had been worked out between us the night before: fifty-cents per hour.
The entire idea of "going to work" thrilled me and sobered me at the same time. Work was what adults did and I was determined to do my best to fill the part. As my father pulled the safety razor over his face, I watched intently.
The day, begun with vigor, threatened to last forever. By noon I was hot and sweaty. The dirt and grime of three decades had leaped from its disturbed resting place and claimed me for its own. After a quick lunch on the front stairs, we were back at it. I began to believe in hell. I sorted, stacked, loaded, unloaded as one in a stupor. I lost track of time so when my father asked, ten hours after we started, if I was ready to call it a day, I simply stared at him finding his words difficult to comprehend.
After depositing one last load at the junk yard we turned and headed in the direction of home. I sat quietly leaning against the front passenger door, lost in a mist of exhaustion. The old Dodge rolled and bumped over broken cobblestones and long unused trolley tacks. I looked over at my father and was amazed to see him smiling broadly, the whites of his eyes and teeth in sharp contrast to the sweat streaked dirt on his face. He pulled sharply to the curb in front of a small market.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Gotta quench a powerful thirst" he replied smacking his lips.
I started to open my door.
"Hold on there tiger, let's settle up first."
I turned toward him momentarily puzzled but the sight of the five one dollar bills he thrust in my direction caused a quick smile of awareness.
"Ten hours at fifty cents per...that's five bucks, right?"
"That's right ," I said, almost giggling.
We entered the dry coolness of the store. My father went directly over to the squat pop cooler and withdrew a cold wet bottle of Pepsi, snapped off the cap and gulped half its contents before walking over and paying for it. I stood and watched.
"Ain't you gonna get something?"
"Yeah...sure," I stammered and quickly retrieved a Pepsi from the ice water, opened it, and walked over to the cashier. As I approached, my father turned and walked away leaving me alone with the cashier. I was somewhat perplexed. The old woman held out her hand. I shot another glance at my father.
"Go ahead...pay the lady."
I withdrew one of the crumpled bills from my shirt pocket and handed it to the cashier. She handed me my change. I hoisted the pop and tried to gulp it down as I had seen my father do but succeeded only in having the highly carbonated beverage flow out my nose. I glanced around nervously and seeing that no one had witnessed my embarrassment, took another, smaller sip of the cold pop.
As we walked toward the door together, my father tousled my curly hair. When I looked up at him he stopped, looked down at me with a serious expression and said simply, "Feels good, don't it."
Somehow I knew that he was not referring to the cold Pepsi. I rammed my change deep into my jeans pocket and replied, "Yeah, it does."
Clean and dressed, I splash aftershave into my palm and smooth it over my face grimacing slightly at the astringent sting. In the kitchen the hairy three musketeers are becoming frantic again their increased whining and carrying on informing me that my wife has arrived home. As I pass a comb quickly through my hair the low, soft, loving sound of her voice reaches me.
It has been one hell of a week, but in spite of it, or maybe because of it, I now find myself breaking into a smile which threatens to engulf my face. I begin to softly sing an old song...about a man...who had a goat.