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Chapter 2: "When Empty, Return to Camden, New Jersey"© The Headless Gasoline Truck Driver of Sleepy Hollow "Nowhere Virginia" might not be a particularly fair term to
describe such a beautiful, pastoral American state. At the dark tree lined
bottom of a royal crown of Appalachian Mountains, I, hobo boy and boxcar
stowaway, hopped out of my slowing train. I looked around for any signs that I
may have caused a curiosity by appearing out of nowhere like this. I saw nothing
but shades of green, a farmhouse quiet, and a lazy cow, chewing on some straw.
She gave me a look over her shoulder, decided I wasn't worth a second thought,
and turned back to her chewing. I breathed in the pine scented air in an
appreciation that was previously reserved for holy Christmas Day, when I would
stick my nose close to the tree of needles leaning against our living room wall,
and inhale that magic aroma of good things to come. The rustle of tree branches caught my attention. A slow, low flying owl glided overhead into the red circle of the setting sun, an unlucky mouse trapped in steely talons, it's tail whipping hopelessly. I peered down the long road that pinpointed into the horizon, awaiting my chariot into the unknown and mysterious future. I squinted and yawned, squinted and yawned. The two hundred or so miles I had traveled this day seemed to put hundreds of light years and a sense of unreality between my past and me. Was it really just this morning that I had slipped naked out of the belly of a long dead whale, threaded through the woods from Bare Ass Beach to the railroad yard, hopped a train and left a place called Cramer Hill, St. Patrick's, my friends and enemies? My life? It all seemed too far away to ever find my way back to. Now the fields were a thick, darkening carpet, the yellow buttercups swarming with bees being replaced with the flashing green phosphorous glow of Fireflies. I wondered whether now was the time, while there was still light, to find a comfortable natural mat to lay down upon and sleep, or give it a little more time and hope for a ride. A vague cloud swelling on the horizon gave birth to an object hurtling down the road at ungodly speed. Like a missile, it shot toward me, a 2,000 gallon gasoline tanker truck ignoring all bounds. It jackknifed, swerved and straightened out as it came to a screeching halt. The passenger door flung open. I looked up and saw the wild, bloodshot eyes of the driver looking down on me. "You get high?' he asked in a loud shrill tone I thought Tasmanian Devils must sound like. I knew what he was talking about. Marijuana. Older guys in my neighborhood talked about it plenty in code, nowhere near as cryptic as they thought. I stammered uncommitted, figuring correctly that my answer would determine whether I was offered a ride or not. "Goddamn boy, you get high or don't you? 'Cause if you don't you're walkin'". Well that made it an easy decision. "Hell yeah I get high, whaddya' think?" He lit a joint as I hopped in and we passed it back and forth. I took four drags in all, inhaling everyone of them, trying to look as experienced as possible, and got more confused and elated with each puff. He didn't look at me while we smoked or talked. He was a good driver, never taking his eyes off the road. He hunched over the steering wheel concentrating, two hands on it all the time when not smoking pot. His eyes digested and analyzed every shape and shadow in the road, anticipated every curve and angle, like Samuel Clemens marking twain. He never slowed down 'cause he never had to. He slid into everything. "I smell Smokies up ahead", he declared. "Virginia State Police. Real pricks. Don't worry, I always have a back-up road". He turned sharply off the asphalt country lane onto a dirt strip and drove deeply into the Nottingham Wood of my mind. I imagined Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, gnomes and leprechauns in there. Daylight became night in an instant as the tall woods blocked all skylight, except for the ten carat stars that shimmered like jewels in heaven, beyond reach in the small opening above the road. The dirt road was a continual serpentine. Curve left, pull right, slide, and pull right, harder right! Slide left! left! left! brake! power! Slide, straighten out, and barrel forward! Watch-out! In the side view-mirror I watched the 2,000 gallons of gasoline miss solid tree trunks and branches by inches. And I didn't care. The exhilaration of not knowing and knowing caused goose bumps to ripple across my scalp. I was horrified to see the speedometer top eighty and wished it would hit ninety. "Gotta drive these back roads so I don't get weighed. Those fees will kill ya'." He lit another joint and we smoked it down. "I love these back roads man. I own these tracks. Give me some weed, whites and wine and I'll drive all night and all day. Man, I never stop!" He popped some pills and washed them down with Boones Farm. "We'll be in Chattanooga by midnight. You gonna keep moving or crash there?" "What do you mean 'crash there'?" I asked. "You gonna sleep there or keep moving?" "I don't know. I guess I'll see how I feel when I get there." He reached into his shirt pocket and handed me some pills. "Here's some whites if you're gonna keep moving. Chattanooga has a great freight yard. You can catch a train going anywhere anytime. How old are you anyway?" "Twelve" I said cautiously, afraid I would be tossed out immediately. "I got you beat by a year. I hit the road when I was eleven. You're parents are a couple of screwed-up, self-centered assholes I'll bet?" "You could say that." "Of course. Otherwise you would be sleeping in a nice warm bed at home, right?" "Right." "Aw, screw them anyhow. If you got the balls to be out here all alone, then you got all you'll ever need to get through life. The sooner a man shakes off his parents the better!" I was happy to hear that sage advice, since I'd had mixed emotions about the whole situation. I hoped he was right. It got quiet for a long time as the cactus faced, devil-eyed angel of a gas tanker driver seemed to reflect on his own situation and past. His personal ghosts seemed to come and go through the cab as we barreled headlong through the dark Virginia wood. I myself was beginning to feel bad for my younger brother and two little sisters, who I knew must be devastated by the news of my drowning, as I would be if it were one of them. His facial gestures changed rapidly and seasonally, as if he were having a conversation in his head, scoring some points and losing others. After awhile he snapped out of it, and looked at me, as if to say, "Who the Hell are you?" Remembering, he came out of his trance and addressed me: "Where are you going man?" he asked. "What is it you are looking for? I mean man, what is IT? I shrugged." South or West. It don't matter to me." He laughed. Man, you can travel south or west only so long until you run out of south or west. I mean man, where are you really going?" I just looked at him blankly. It was just about twenty-four hours since I jumped out my bedroom window, father a finger length away, and tore off to Bare Ass Beach. I hadn't gotten around to thinking about "ultimate destinations" yet. "Hey man, I can tell you exactly where you are going, but if you want, I'll let you figure it out on your own". I lowered the window some to let out the cloud of marijuana smoke that filled the cab. I noticed the speedometer needle was teasing "90" and the driver had relaxed, leaning against his door and barely watching the road. I didn't care. He seemed to know what he was doing. Tree branches whacked the truck. I had no idea where I was going, but if he thought he did, I would be happy to consider it. "Okay, I asked, tell me, where am I going?" "You're already there man. You're already there. Soon, or maybe too late, you'll realize that the journey is the destination man. And when you get to the end of the road, you'll realize that you had found IT, but you left IT all behind!" At the time I figured it was the marijuana. The sensual thrill of his high-speed driving seemed to clear my head of all worries, but now he was making me think, and I felt like an idiot, because I could not understand what he was saying or even pretend to sound intelligent. I got a headache and wished he would push the truck to one hundred miles per hour. He laughed, understanding my mental predicament. "You're young, but you're on the right road," he said. "And what road is that?" I asked. "Your own road boy, your own road. And that's the only road that counts." He seemed to look off into his own past again momentarily, yawned and said he was going to sleep. He flicked a switch under the dashboard and slumped into the corner of his seat. "I got cruise control and an auto-pilot rut road. We're more like a train on a track than a truck on a road right now. I've made these ruts so deep and strong over the years I couldn't steer out of them if I wanted to. So now I just relax and put myself in god's hands. I don't care how many whites you take, you've got to sleep sometime." He took a long swig of his Boone's Farm wine, re-capped the bottle, slid it under his seat, swung his feet up onto the edge of my seat, nestled back and fell calmly and instantly asleep. I woke him up. "You can't sleep and drive. That's crazy!" I was horrified. "Sure I can. I do it all the time. If you make yourself a rut deep and long enough, you can sleep your whole life away at ninety miles an hour. I got my alarm set. You get some sleep too." He nodded off. There was no way in the world I was going to sleep. I kept my self arched over the wheel, wound tense, ready to take over at the slightest sign of catastrophe. My muscles ached and pulled as I contorted myself into an action ready posture. I looked at his face for signs that this was some kind of practical joke. The stiff whiskers of his face vibrated with every breath, in a rhythm that said "sleep" for sure. "Was this really not a bad situation or was it just the marijuana?" "No" I assured myself, this really was a bad situation. I looked at the gearshifts. I didn't know which did what. I would never be able to reach my leg through to the brake effectively. And if I startled him, who knows what could happen. The speedometer kept a steady ninety. I slumped back into my seat.
Bailing out was not an option. To any Robin Hood or Leprechaun watching us fly by it must have seemed like the Headless Horseman of their Sleepy Hollow nightmares on eighteen wheels. I swore to myself that I would never smoke marijuana again. Somehow I felt there must be a connection. Still and all, the truck stayed the course he promised it would. There was nothing I could do but fearfully await the end, what ever that may be. Over a half-hour had passed and now the road straightened out, and I could see the lights of cars whizzing by both directions on a highway up ahead. "Hey man, wake up!" I screamed. "Wake up!" I hovered over the wheel and tried to slip my foot to the brake when the alarm clock rang my raw nerves. I retracted into my seat and gave the headless horseman his space. He started slamming down gears and applying brakes before he was even awake and fully upright. It was the driver's version of walking and talking in your sleep. His eyes blinked wildly. I knew we would never be able to stop before entering that busy highway, but we did. A great shudder and grind dug his beloved rut a little deeper. A great cloud of dust and grit flew past us onto the state road. I was jumping out of that cab before it came to a complete stop. "Aaahhhhh!" I screamed. "Aaahhhh!" He laughed. "I told you everything was going to be fine didn't I? Get back in." "No thanks. My nerves are shot. I'm going to call it a day." "But I can take you all the way to Chattanooga!" "No, thanks." He was a kind fellow. He looked worried for me. He reached into a compartment behind him and tossed out a sleeping bag. "You can't sleep on the bare ground. The dampness will give you a miserable chill. And listen. Always hitch from a hill, your head above the crest but your arm and thumb down below. You want to be able to see a cop coming from behind, but you don't want him to see you hitchin'. And from a hill, you can see a cop coming at you a long ways off before he can see you. If you're ever out in the flat wide open, just keep walking and don't stick out your thumb, 'cause the cops will always stop and question a hitchhiker down here. And if you absolutely have to hitch out in the open, do it next to a swamp or a creek. A cop will always hesitate about getting wet or not long enough for you to get some distance 'tween him and you. Hey, what's your name anyway?" "Colm O'Malley". "You're Irish! Me too! Hey, you know what the difference is between the Irish and other people?" "What?" "Other people look at the world and believe it's serious, but not hopeless. The Irish look at the world and say it's hopeless, but not serious!" "Okay, I'll remember that. Thanks for the lift and the sleeping bag." He drove off and I staggered into the woods. It was dark in there, nothing showed any shape. I stumbled around until I found a place to lay. It was creepy; I imagined bears and monsters everywhere. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at all, and slept as soon as my head touched down. |