02/07/02

I have very few friends, but the ones I have are very close, and wonderful treasures to me.

One of my friends is "Al"

Al and I have known one another for 17 years or so. We have been close friends, it seems since we first met. It's been one of those friendships that has weathered a hundred ups and downs in our lives, but we've never been mad at each other. Few people can make that claim, but I can honestly say it about my three closest friends, we've never been mad at each other.

The stories of my friendship with Al are always about the different ways he's tried to kill me. Throughout our time together we've had adventures that usually risked my life in one way or another. I don't know why this happens, but for some reason I'm always the one barely surviving.

Tonight, for some reason I was taken back in memory to a summer night many years ago  when Al, (A heavy-duty mechanic by trade) acquired a derelict dump truck.

Al lives in a rural area of town, he's from good farmer stock just like me, we were both raised by fathers who wasted little, and only had a nodding acquaintance with rules or laws. Getting things done was the main focus in everything, not HOW it got done.

One summer evening I got a call from Al, telling me he needed a hand with a "little project" he had going. Calls like this weren't rare at all and still aren't. Every once in awhile Al needs another pair of hands in his shop, every once in awhile he needs "brute force and ignorance" so he calls me.

It was an evening in mid-summer. It had been a hot day and the sun was just beginning to go down. The light was golden and shadows were long. It was still warm, but not opressive. I drove to Al's place wondering just what the new project was. He hadn't told me much about what was going on, just that he needed a hand.

We met at his place and got into his truck, a big brown Chevy 4X4. and took of down the road. On the way he explained that he had acquired an old dump truck that had been abandoned on a local farm. The owner didn't want it around and Al thougth he could use some of the hydraulics and sundry pieces for mechanical projects he had on the go. No matter what, the offer was just too good to pass up.

When we got to the farm I saw that the truck had been sitting out in a field for at least fifteen years. Blackberry vines had grown all over it, it was rusty, it's lights had been smashed out and its paint was a faded caricature of the original robin's-egg blue. Al backed the 4X4 up to the dump truck's bumper and we hooked on a chain.

The truck, of course wasn't in running shape, and Al only lived five or so miles away. We assumed we could tow it there without any trouble (a VERY illegal thing). We were both game though, it wasn't the first time we had pulled off something like this. There was a job ahead of us, and it had to get done.

We didn't say much to each other, both of us knew what needed to be done. We both knew what each one's part would be. We just hooked up the chain and got ready for our parts in the grand play.

Things started off fairly straightforward. I climbed into the driver's seat, smelling the musty smell of an old vehicle. The earthy scent that deteriorating rubber gives off, the slightly sulfurous smell of old grease, and felt the grittiness of the steering wheel in my hands. I peered through the cracked windshield at the back of Al's pickup as he inched her forward and took up the slack in the chain. It was a thick chain that separated us by 20 or so feet.

It took two or three hard tugs to break the old truck loose, blackberry vines tore and uprooted, they dragged out behind us and we left a trail of dirt shaken loose, plants, and many field mice running for their lives. Finally we were rolling. We bumped along through the field, onto the gravel driveway and out to the paved road. We were away, and things were going quite smoothly.

Have you ever known something was wrong long before you had any real evidence? That's what happened with me that night. I felt more and more uneasy. I kept checking the grimy mirrors for signs of the police, but there was nothing but a completely empty road. Al was pulling along at a steady pace, about 30 MPH too fast for safety,(I hadn't even TRIED the brakes) but not excessive considering we were flaunting the law so openly. I had the feeling of impending disaster, but no matter how many times I looked around I couldn't see any evidence, so i tried to concentrate on not hammering this rolling deathtrap into Al's pickup.

Usually in adventures like this, things go suddenly and horribly wrong. This time, however, they very gradually started going horribly wrong.

We were getting fairly close to Al's place, only about a mile and a half away. I was getting more and more confident that things were going to go well.  The old truck was full of rattles and bangs, creaks moans and the occasional shriek, but nothing of any real consequence. I was worried that she was going to sieze a wheel bearing or some other tragedy, but the old tires kept spinning and the distance was being rapidly eaten up. I had managed to wind down my window and let some of the dust from the last decade out. I slapped at the occasional fly and mosquito as we trundled along. Then I noticed the wasp.

It was a big fat yellow and black one, it appeared in the cab and flew around banging into the windows in the way they usually do. I really don't like wasps, no one does, but they don't worry me all that much. I didn't think much about it, after all, it was summer, wasps are normal in summer. The second one didn't bother me much either, but the third... it kinda worried me. The fourth made me nervous....I didn't have to be a Sherlock Holmes of entomology to deduce what was going on.

Truck... in a field... unused for ten years...summer... ooooooh SHIT!

By the time I had figured this out there were eight or so buzzing around that truck cab, I tore my eyes away from Al's truck long enough to give the cab a quick scan. my blood froze when I saw them crawling out of a hole in the seat. There were ten or so on the seat and more emerging.

Right at that moment Al decided to slow down suddenly, he pulled his foot off the accelerator and downshifted as we went past a cyclist. Because he did it like that I didn't get a warning from his brake lights, just suddenly was approaching his rear bumper at what seemed like the speed of light. Reflexively I hammered my brake pedal, it was kind of like stepping on an over-ripe cantaloupe. There was initial resistance, but after the first quarter inch it just splattered down on the floor and stayed there. Al must have seen his mirror fill with grille and suspect what was happening because he floored his throttle at the exact same time I grabbed the wasp-covered gearshift and slammed it into third gear (the only one available).

 Al's truck shot forward like a dog attacking a mailman, and the dumptruck slowed suddenly through the compression of the half-siezed engine. With the dumptruck slowing on one end of the chain and the 4X4 accelerating on the other, once the slack in the chain was used up all that could happen was an almighty bang.

I saw the rear wheels of Al's truck jolt three feet in the air and his head slam forward when his big body hit the seat belt hard. As for me, a millisecond later my head hit the back window of the cab. The transmission popped back into neutral so we didn't grind to a stop, just kept rolling. Al is made of strong stuff, and didn't slow down, didn't pull over, just kept the chain taut and kept going. We were only a mile from his place by now, and as far as he was concerned everything was fine.

There were now a whole lot of REALLY pissed off wasps in the cab with me, I could hear the humming coming from the seat clearly over the buzzing of the wasps around me. Mercifully, many of them were being sucked out the open window, but there were still way too many of them in there for me. I looked at the pavement below me, seriously considering just diving out. but that would leave this driverless juggernaut chained to my buddy, I had no way to signal him so he could stop and I could bail out.

I was truly screwed. 

By now the hole in the seat had changed from releasing a trickle of wasps to a stream, and it was rapidly becoming a torrent, how many of those goddamn things could there be? They seemed to be flying around angrily but hadn't as yet begun to sting me. I don't know how that was, but I wasn't gonna wait for it to start. I could see the driveway to Al's place in the near distance, it was less than half a mile. I opened the door, climbed out onto the running board and kept my hands on the wheel. Now the goddamned things were all over, I had pulled the sleeves of my denim jacket over my hands in hopes of keeping myself somewhat protected. I saw dozens of them crawling on my arms. I looked up and saw Al peering into his rear-view mirror at my terrified face and he began to slow down to see why the hell I was standing on the running board.

I looked at him, looked at his driveway and knew we weren't going to have a second chance. If this thing stopped no one was going to get into this cab for a good few weeks. 

"DRIVE!!" I screamed at him, and dutifully he drove, didn't pause, didn't ask questions, didn't hardly slow down at all when he turned into his driveway. He kept his foot well down going up the dusty track and into his field.

My hand shot out like a bullet and slammed the gearshift into the first gear i could find. This resulted in locking the rear wheels hard. Unfortunatley I didn't have the luxury of being inside the cab so I slammed my head on the rear-view mirror as momentum tore me off the truck, flung me to the ground ten feet away and dragged me a few more. Al wasn't expecting to be hammered into his seat belt once more as his 4X4 tight-lined the chain again. He collected his wits just in time to see me somersault past his door.

I don't know if I stopped rolling before I got up and ran, or if I used the forces of inertia to help me along. All I know is that I was fifty yards away at a dead sprint tearing my coat off before I became aware of my surroundings. I stopped at seventy five yards away to get my breath and inventory my injuries. Cuts, scrapes, a few stings, but considering the circumstances, pretty light.

"What the hell are you DOING??" came from Al as he stepped out of his cab. This was shortly followed by "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as his work-booted and coveralled form flashed past me like a greasy olympic sprinter.

That was at least twelve years ago, maybe more. That truck still sits where we left it that night, to this day neither of us has gotten withing ten feet of it.
 

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