There was something not exactly right but what would you expect? It’s ’94 Chevy S-10 with 217,000 miles on it for God’s sake. Little annoying sounds are a part of both the frustration and the attraction of this old black beast of mine. When you’re not one of those folks who replaces their transportation more often than they change their homes’ air conditioning filter you learn a little about what’s haulin’ your butt around from place to place. And I know most of the sounds this old 4 wheel drive truck makes from start up to runnin’ down the highway at speed. I know the sounds of the engine and the sounds of the wind as it whistles through the dried out seals around the windows. Thing was this wasn’t so much a sound as a feel and it seemed to me to be coming from the right front wheel area. No matter, I was late enough for work so stopping to check things out never crossed my mind. I’d been through worse with this “friend” of mine and this didn’t seem so bad.
It took a couple hours before the thought of the “feel” from my truck crossed my mind again. At the moment work was slow enough and so I went out to check the front right wheel and see if there was anything serious actually going on. I’d thought what I was feeling was coming from that side and so that’s where I looked and somewhat to my surprise I found nothing. I knew one thing for certain and that was that I had felt “something” and so I walked around to the driver’s side to check things out.
A couple weeks earlier I’d changed the rotors and the discs on the front. I’d done the job more than a few times over the years and it was no big deal. Heck, I could almost do it with my eyes closed. What I’d failed to do was something I had always done in the past, drive a few miles and then double check everything. Make sure everything is still snug, in place and if need be repeat a step or two just to keep everything as it should be.
Standard issue on a Chevy S-10 pickup of the 1994 variety are five lugs and lug nuts on each wheel; the purpose of which is rather obvious – to keep the wheel on the vehicle. I was looking at a driver’s side front wheel with two lugs and lug nuts still attached though precariously so.
There were a couple thoughts that ran through my mind as I looked at the sight before me. The drive to work had not been a solitary journey; there had been a lot of other drivers out there on Bell Road that morning in front of me, beside me and behind me. And the truth is that the speed limit sign was only there as a suggestion so on that city street that morning five to ten miles over the posted was pretty much the norm for all participating in the morning commute. So it was possible that I’d been going fifty five down Bell Road, folks to the left and right and everywhere else, with two lug nuts holding that left front wheel somewhat in place.
The trail my thoughts followed was that there were people in those vehicles, folks who maybe had loved ones and families, innocent folks all, all around me and had those last two studs given way there was a very good chance that someone besides myself was going to get hurt, hurt bad or even worse.
I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach knowing that what hadn’t happened had nothing to do with me or anything I’d done or not done that morning. But what might have come to pass out there on east bound Bell Road had everything to do with me and would have been laid rightfully so squarely at my feet. I was responsible for not checking up on myself and what I’d done. I was responsible for not having followed through on something I’d started. And so as I stood there looking at that wheel I gave thanks to the powers that may be or to fate or luck or whatever else there might be that things had turned out the way they had and not how they might have been…
There were lights at each end of that dam, the kind that gave no concern to telescopes looking for the faintest light of the most distant stars in the vastness of space, which lit the boy standing above the middle spillway mere feet away from the Lemonweir River rushing over and away, always away. Some nights he would be there with his black and white Beagle mix friend but most often very much alone. It was always such a solitary place for him, a place where he was as alone as he could make himself even though the town stood mostly silently off to his right no more than a small gravel parking lot away.
Though he had no concept of the word in those days the journey to the dam, to stand there in the dark in the minutes before he would have to race home and through the front door before the ten o’clock siren had finished blowing, became his pilgrimage to a sort of holy place within his mind. The one place within the boundaries of his world where he could look and know that there was something more if only because he watched the water of that river flowing away, always away from where he stood above it.
The ritual had begun in the time when she’d decided he wasn’t worth the trouble any more. She’d had to deal with a stupid boy trying to impress her with his bike and then trying to sit beside him at a time when he’d been so sick no one knew what was going to happen and his mother was making it painfully obvious that she was not welcome. She’d had enough and she’d moved on. Trouble was he wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t. So if you happened to see a teenage boy standing in the middle of the dam on most any night there in that little town it was almost certainly him. Be quiet, walk softly and get a bit closer, close enough to him that the water falling over the spillways isn’t the only sound you’ll hear and there’s more to learn about this solitary soul. You’ll hear him singing a song that seemed to tell the story of his life thus far and perhaps a precursor to the rest of it…
The headlights flashed behind him there on the street just a couple houses past Dawn’s place. He had no idea who’d be flashing lights at him especially here and now and so all he could think was that it was maybe Mauston’s finest wanting to talk with him about God only knew what. As he sat there trying to figure out what he’d done wrong the door on the car behind him swung open and he realized beyond the glare of the headlights that it wasn’t the police at all.
The small talk ended with him being invited back to her place for a cup of coffee. He followed her to a farmhouse where for the first time in his life he would be served a cup of Cowboy Coffee. Years later there would be more from others and a time or two he’d even make his own but none would ever match that cup that evening.
In the end the letters came less often until he knew that things had changed and changed significantly. There was nothing he could do as his days past on that warship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Nothing to hold on to and nothing but the hope of a mail call and a letter from her, a letter that said she still loved him. Half a world away from her he knew without being told that his world had changed and the anger that raged inside him was because he had no way of fighting what was happening in a world far removed from the one he now had to endure.
As he drove away from that farmhouse the sound of the gravel underneath the tires told him he would never pass this way again. He’d come to this place hoping and praying that all would be well. And now he was leaving with the words of their final conversation ringing in his ears and cursing his reality for ever.
“I’m getting married,” she said to him.
A combination of blind stupidity and faith that would make a saint weep brought the words to his lips and out of his mouth, “I know you are, to me.”
She looked at him with those eyes of blue that he would have done anything and everything for and said, “No, you don’t understand. I’m getting married to someone else.”
I looked at that wheel with only the two studs still intact and considered my options. The remaining studs were across from each other and so that was likely the best scenario for what I had in mind. It was some seven miles back to the west from where I was right now. Seven miles just might be doable if I took it slow and easy, stayed in the far right lane and found the nearest place to bail off the road if I felt anything. I wasn’t happy with my options but then again when had I ever been? And so I rationalized that sometimes you have to believe that what you’re choosing to do is worth the risk. This time I’d know the threat and at the first sign I’d make sure I did whatever I needed to do to make certain everything and everyone would be alright, including me.
As I drove back to the west on Bell Road the smell of cowboy coffee seemed to fill the inside of that old truck cab and I could swear I heard a kid singing “Fools Rush In”.
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