The Old Truck

By Carl V. Nord

A hard-hitting BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, came from the metal main entry door to Raymond’s trailer. This was followed by a momentary silence.

“What now,” Raymond mumbled. “Goddamnit… maybe they’ll go away…”

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, came again with a determined fist.

Ray stayed quiet. He put his glasses on, set the Saturday edition of the newspaper down and looked at the clock. It was six forty-five A.M., and some inconsiderate twit was banging on his trailer. Once again came BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! Even more frantic than before.

“I work nights asshole…buzz off!”

“Raymond! Yer truck’s on fire,” came in a muffled voice from outside sounding vaguely like his neighbor Loretta.

Ray bounded off of the couch. He sorted through the pile of last week’s clothes on the floor to find his bath robe, and ran to the kitchenette window. In doing so, he stubbed his pinky toe on the kitchen counter baseboard. It was a good solid hit, and he could hear cracking bone and could feel the bursting blood vessels. Ray had done it many times over the years, but this one was gonna be terrible when the feeling returned. He couldn’t worry about that now, the cloud of acrid smoke he saw through the window was from his beloved pickup.

Ray whipped the front door open, and cast his eyes upon the unspeakable horror. Flames licked out from under the front fenders, and inside the cab was an impenetrable grey fog. Ray grabbed the stiff green garden hose, but it wasn’t connected. He had winterized the outside water spigot and it was covered in one of those square styrofoam cups to prevent freezing. He frantically tore it off into bits and hooked up the hose. Sirens were wailing in the distance and Ray’s pickup was now fully engulfed. He had the hose issue straightened out, but it was no use. Raymond knew it, the dozen neighbors watching from their windows knew it, and the firemen putting down the flames with the massive streams of water knew it.

They had seen this sort of thing many times in their careers. Ray sat on the green indoor-outdoor carpeting covering the steps to his aluminum tube dwelling. He watched in disbelief as steam and smoke were exhaled during the truck’s death rattle.

“More than likely an electrical short in that old wiring caused it. Have you had any electrical problems lately?” the fireman asked.

“I don’t know…yeah, maybe, the truck’s always had some electrical gremlins. Flickering lights, spliced wires, stuff like that.”

“Yep, that’s probably what did it!”

Ray remembered stubbing his toe and he looked down at his bare feet. His left pinky toe resembled a large ripe purple grape. The feeling was beginning to come back, and the grain of sand sized toenail had gone AWOL. He went inside to put it on ice.

There were only a few things in life Raymond truly cared about. His janitor job at the high school, his postage stamp-sized property and trailer, beers on Friday night, and his forty-five year old beloved pickup truck. It wasn’t cherry, but he babied it along for decades, pampering it, and always, always keeping up on the tune-ups and oil changes. Now it was all a memory. On top of that, he was mildly hung over from the night before, and his toe was killing him.

In the coming days, Raymond had the burned out hulk hauled away to a place that recycles metal. He was now on foot and taking the bus to work. He caught the twelve-fifteen into the city to be at work by the start of his shift at two thirty. Monday, his first day, was a nine mile ordeal along Highway 99, with the bat-shit crazy and the unwashed on and off the bus at every one of the fifty stops on the route. On and off and on and off they went. You lose one at a stop and two jump on to replace him until the carriage was fully packed. A bus riding neophyte, Ray had failed to sit next to someone reasonably clean and respectable and now had an empty seat to his left. That’s when a filthy man stinking of booze and who had possibly urinated in his pants sat down and attempted to make charming and interesting chit chat with Raymond.

“Boy, how ‘bout them Seahawks? Did ya see the game? Whadaya think about these new buses?”

Raymond stayed silent and glared at him. Ray’s stop was just ahead and he stood up. He had set his brown paper lunch sack between his feet on the floor without thinking. Now, he noticed it was sitting in some sort of unknown fluid closely resembling piss. Ray left it and made his way down the crowded isle. He was finally out the door, and off the hellish ride. Looking back at the bus from the sidewalk, Ray could see urine man through the window eating his cheese sandwich.

Raymond negotiated the one and a half mile walk from the bus stop on Highway 99, through the upscale residential neighborhood and to the high school where he worked. He was already exhausted, and now faced his regular janitor shift.

“Where the hell’s yer truck?” Big Tom, the day custodian blurted out upon Raymond’s arrival.

“Well, it’s probably in the crusher right about now,” Raymond said looking down at his wristwatch.

“What’s it doin’ there?”

“Gettin’ crushed!” Raymond replied. “ I woke up to a big car fire on Saturday morning…it was a neighborhood spectacle. The truck’s gone. The firemen said it was probably an electrical short. Now I’m taking the bus for a few days, ‘till I get something new.” Big Tom stayed quiet and stared at Raymond while holding his mop.

“I just bought an old truck kind of like yours at the state auction, in fact it’s better than yours. It was a forest service truck in a past life…I wanna get rid of it too, not my style,” Big Tom said while casually expelling a long stream of cut plug into one of the cafeteria garbage cans.

Ray could almost see the gears turning in the day janitor’s head. Big Tom knew people in the underworld of old heaps, and was perpetually angling to make a car deal. Ray knew he spent his days at the state auctions looking for good deals and quick turnarounds. He’d buy them for seven or eight hundred bucks, and turn a sale to some poor sucker a week later for two grand. It was one of Big Tom’s hobbies, besides chewing tobacco.

“I dunno Tom, I’m thinkin’ of getting something newer now, maybe one that’s a year or two old.”

“No, don’t do that Raymond, don’t be a fool! Ya got thirty-five thousand laying around? Because that’s what they cost!”

“Well I don’t know, how much you askin’ for your forest service truck?”

“For you, Raymond, two grand.”

“Two grand, huh, I’ll have to think about it, Tom.”

“Yeah, well don’t think too long, I got another guy coming to look at it this weekend, and he’s offering me twenty-five hundred,” Big Tom said.

He had the rap down to a mathematical equation, and could move any old junker almost at will. He even had the ever-skeptical Raymond pondering his wares and questioning his own better judgment.

“Tell ya what I’ll do, I’ll bring it in tomorrow, and we’ll both have a look at ‘er. What do ya say to that Raymond? You’re gonna need a good running truck pretty quick, right?”

Ray thought about urine man during his bus ride and reluctantly agreed to take just a quick look at Big Tom’s latest piece of shit. But that would be tomorrow. Right now, Raymond had his shift to do. Then he needed to catch the eleven-forty bus for the nine mile ride home.

After his shift, Ray boarded the eleven forty south-bound out of Seattle. There were only a few riders this late in the evening. One appeared to be a lump of hair and clothing laying in the fetal position taking up several seats. Several others were sitting here and there. Then, Ray noticed one in the back with blue prison tattoos completely covering his face, scalp and neck. He was staring at Raymond and gritting his teeth, which were sharpened to points. Wearing a tank top on a forty-eight degree evening, he was also in great physical shape. Very muscular and compact, like a gymnast.

“Why is this often the case? ” Raymond wondered. “Must have been lifting weights out in the prison yard.”

Ray found a seat at the front, and visually checked it carefully for any fluids or even worse, needles. The bus rolled along, lurching, speeding up, slowing down and making its stops. Raymond’s ride home was quicker than the afternoon commute, and he was stepping into his trailer just before one in the morning. He was exhausted and tomorrow he had to do it all over again.

* * *

Soft beams of morning sunlight filtered in and began their slow and steady trek through Raymond’s bedroom window around nine. He opened his eyes and could hear his neighbor Loretta banging around, tending to the complicated and tedious flower beds surrounding her place. After all, she had been retired for a couple of years and this was her life, even in the off season. Ray dressed himself in his usual grey outfit and prepared for the workday. The horrors of yesterday’s bus rides began to wash over him, flowing through his mind like a sickening wave. He sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast, but he couldn’t finish. He set the half-eaten bowl of milk and cereal in the sink. The air inside the trailer was becoming stuffy and stagnant. He needed to step outside for a while.

“Hi Raymond, haven’t seen you around,” Loretta said smiling at him.

“Yeah, I have to catch the metro bus into town these days,” Raymond replied.

“Are ya gonna get a new set of wheels, or have ya given up on that?”

“Heavens no, I haven’t given up…my supervisor at work bought an old truck at a state auction. It’s a former forest service truck he says. He wants to sell it to me.”

“Oh, well you should come over and we can look up how much he paid for it on the computer,” Loretta said.

“We can do that?”

“Sure we can, Raymond. If it was sold by the state, it’s public information how much it sold for, those are state funds.”

Loretta had worked for the state and knew all the ins and outs. They sat at the computer in Loretta’s house for forty-five minutes searching for information.

“Well…I can’t seem to find a Tom McPhail. The closest we got in the data base is a Lavern T McPhail,” Loretta said.

“That must be him,” Raymond said. “His middle name must be Tom, he must go by his middle name.”

“With a first name like Lavern, I can see why,” Loretta replied. “ It says here he paid eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars total for it, a green 1989 Dodge forest service truck. And how much is he asking? Two grand?”

Raymond looked at his watch. “Thanks for the info-n-coffee Loretta, I gotta get to the bus.”

“Any time, Raymond, stop by any time.”

Raymond marched the two miles out of his residential neighborhood to the bus-stop on Highway 99. He caught the twelve-fifteen into the city with the usual commuters and misfits. This time, he kept his lunch sack in his hand and looked straight ahead. The ride was easier and faster this go around for some unknown reason. Next, it was off the bus at his stop and up the hill to the high school where Big Tom McPhail waited on his arrival. Raymond made his way around to the back of the school. As he rounded the shop building, there it sat next to the boiler room door, the mint green 1989 Dodge short box with a six cylinder engine. Big Tom was in the driver’s seat, while it quietly and smoothly idled like a champ. Raymond liked it already, but he said nothing and remained poker faced.

“Well Raymond, whaddaya think?”

“It looks ok. It’s only a short box huh?”

“Drive it first before you judge it Ray, it’s a clean little rig. It ain’t got blue-tube or ass warmers, but ya don’t need any of that crapola anyways.”

It was true. Both Raymond and Big Tom were uncomplicated men with simple wants and needs. They were more alike than they cared to admit. Ray didn’t want the superfluous do-dads and creature comforts of today’s automobiles. Automatic door-locks, seat warmers, road-side assistance programs and the rest were for pussies and rubes. Just more junk that’s gonna break Ray always thought.

“Let’s take it for a spin,” Ray said. Both got in and went for a ride, Raymond at the wheel. It drove and shifted nicely with no apparent bad habits. They returned to the school and parked.

“Well, it pulls to the right a little, probably needs a front-end rebuild at this age,” Raymond proclaimed.

“What, what! It drove perfect when I drove it,” Tom said.

“Yeah, and front-end work ain’t cheap, I’d say eight hundred for repairs. I’ll give ya twelve fifty cash. and not a penny more.”

“Are you crazy? No way Raymond…it’s worth two grand, and I ain’t takin’ any less.”

“I know how much you paid for it…Lavern. Ya payed eight fifty-nine at auction. Me and my neighbor looked it up. It’s public information.”

Big Tom’s chunky face turned pale, and his beady little eyes stared into space with wonder and disbelief. A long silence followed, and Big Tom finally spoke up.

“Yeah, well I… I gave it a good tune up and an oil change. See how nicely it runs? Believe me, those parts aren’t cheap, and a shop would charge at least five hundred. And then there’s my finder’s fee. I did all the work myself Raymond. Fourteen hundred, and not a penny less.”

“Deal,” Raymond said putting his hand out to shake Big Tom’s.

“Deal,” Big Tom said suddenly reluctant, but still shaking Raymond’s.

Raymond had the cash in his pocket he brought in from his top secret hiding place at home. He had Big Tom sign the title over before he could change his mind. The old Dodge was now Raymond’s.

Ray worked his custodial shift, coming out of the building to look at it every half hour or so. It looked even more beautiful in the clear evening twilight. On Friday, he stopped at the corner grocery after work for his usual two cans of beer.

“Raymond, I almost didn’t recognize you. Is that a new old truck? Boy, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” Steve the store clerk said as Ray walked in.

In the coming weeks, Raymond made his own repairs and improvements on his new set of wheels. Tires, windshield wiper blades, and one headlight were first on the list. He followed this up with a good washing and waxing. But as with any thirty year old vehicle, there’s always going be more things that will need to be done in the future.