Truckin'

The calendar says it's October 4th, 10-4, which means only one thing here at spitoutyourgum: our (kinda) annual salute to the world's truck drivers. They supply us with what we need and like, haul away what we're through with, amaze us with their maneuverability skills, and daze us with fantasies of life on the road. Or whatever. But getting to know a few drivers over the years, I've come to respect them and appreciate the fact that they're great characters. So, in celebration of these men and women, I humbly offer a poem I wrote nearly twenty years ago (don't think the red light factoid is still fact), before I really knew any drivers. A bit of splenetic piece of poesy this, an imaginary kiss-off, an all-purpose empathetic paean to the you-broke-my-heart blues--a message so hefty I felt only a qualified, and quality, truck driver could be trusted to deliver it. Thank you, drivers.


Driving You Away



I need a big
18-wheeled truck
To haul away
The memory of you.

The truck driver
(I see him as a cussing type,
Impressively fat with a mustache
That'll cut your nose
When you kiss him),
I'd give this guy,
Who I'm gonna call Hector,
I'd give Hector enough quarters
To get through all the tolls
To get to where I'm sending him.
You see, I'm willing to pay the price.

I'll start him heading south on 71
Out of this panic-quick Cleveland town
'Til the sign for 70 west Indianapolis
--which humdrum he's gonna bypass--
But he's going right through East St. Louis
West to St. Louis where he's gonna drive around some.
I like a big rig on city streets,
Makes you jittery
Making wide right turns,
Cutting commuters off
With that Arch in sight always
--whatever goes up, baby
comes metallic down the other side--
Then a run red light
And it's dirty river south
Down 55 through Memphis and Jackson and deeper.
And he will be instructed
Not to acknowledge any scenery
--not that Hector is wont to do such a thing--
But he will not stray from his mission:
He's driving you away,
And after this ride,
You will not come back.

Down into Louisiana he's gonna
Catch that desperately long Pontchartrain bridge
And when he gets to that halfway point
Where he can't see land ahead of him
Or behind him,
He's gonna stop that rig, shut it down,
Irregardless of traffic
And courtesy
And he's gonna shout from his cab perch,
“Not yet, baby! You ain't being abandoned
In this nowhere, yet. We got traveling to do.”
Then he starts up again.

And when he hits land he heads fast right
West on 10 way west
Past the sun through wide Texas
Where he can smell wasted Juarez, west.
And he will not jacknife.
And when some newly jerked kid
Pulls his arm down
From a mother-driven Aerostar
Just outside of Phoenix
Hector's gonna oblige and blow his horn loud
And that mother's gonna jump in her seatbelt
And slap that kid well to remind him
And Hector's gonna roll on west
1,947 miles times 18 wheels from New Orleans to L.A.
But he's not gonna push you off
The continent, baby, no.
He's heading 5 north now,
Largely for symbolic reasons:
It gets cold up north.
But in the desert of Sacramento
He's gonna start to circle 'round
--heading east on 80.

No,
Don't even think about it.
We're just toying with you, Hector and me.
'Cause somewhere out on 80,
Out in the dead west,
There's one red light
--the only red light left on 80, baby.
And that's
where the memory
of you
gets out.

Appropriately.