If anything good came out of my being randomly attacked, it’s that I finally had some sense of mortality tossed into my path of self-destruction and insanity. I recognized for the first time that following the cocaine wasn’t always the smartest path, and that going anywhere with strangers – or even friends – wasn’t a great idea.
So instead of starting fights and storming out to bars by myself, I reverted to life with Larry as Larry would have it. I still had my job, and I still worked three very long nights a week, smoking pot on lunch breaks. On non-work days I still slept until well past noon then immediately started drinking beer.
I sought intoxication constantly.
Weekends were full: band gigs, football at the VFW, burgers and beers, boom box blasting after the bars closed.
I could hardly complain, although I constantly did. Life with Larry was dull. It wasn’t like college. It wasn’t like Bike Week. It was just one long, drawn out day at a very dark bar with nothing to do and no end in sight. At home, I’d wail along to Luka: “Just don’t ask me how I am….”
I thought about what life with Larry might look like in the future and I realized that nothing was going to change. I would be sitting on barstools sucking on long cigarettes and listening to jukeboxes forever. I would be riding on the back of a motorcycle in sunshine and thunderstorms, and I’d have racing stripes on my rusted-out car. I would never get a dog because cats were easier. I would never have children. I would go to bars every weekend, watching Larry play guitar and sing, for the rest of time.
In short, I would become the woman I saw at The Hood during college, who sat in the corner and sang off-key with the jukebox until she walked home alone. I would become ancient and friendless and stuck in a relationship with a guy who was dumb as a rock.
He would hit me if I woke him up. He would blame his mother for his smoking, and me for any cheating, and chase my pets down the street with his clonky boots and spend every spare moment fixing that stupid motorcycle in our tiny garage because we would never have any money and sex would be the only way we would ever communicate.
Worse yet, Larry would never be reassuring or emotionally supportive. After I was attacked, Larry was completely ignorant of the fear in my eyes. He didn’t see any difference in me – the difference that Bonnie saw immediately. With Bonnie gone, there was no one to know how I felt.
If anything, Larry saw the attack as a positive thing because, as he said, “It knocked some fuckin’ sense into ya!”
In short, having a surrogate father as a boyfriend was starting to wear on me.
I tried to be fun. I tried to be wild. I tried to remain the rebel I thought I had become. But my soul was losing ground to my addiction without my even knowing it. I’d numbed my pain for so long, I could no longer feel joy. In fact, I felt completely dead inside.
Nobody noticed when the life disappeared from my eyes.
The next night, the police went to Carney Howard’s house and pulled him out of bed where he’d been sleeping, with his wife, when they knocked on his door.
When they handcuffed him and announced the charge he said, “I can’t rape nobody; I can’t even get it up!”
That’s how they knew for sure that they’d arrested the right man.
They took him off to jail and called me to let me know that he was behind bars.
“Carney Howard painted the apartment where he took you,” they told me. “That’s why he had a key.”
That explained why he had trouble opening the door. “But he told me his name was Kevin.”
The officer said, “Kevin is his son’s name.”
His what?
He had a son. A wife. A house.
My rapist was a family man.
And I had promised I wouldn’t tell anybody.
My guilt was immediately overwhelming.
I began having a recurring nightmare.
In the dream, I was walking through a school, or a grocery store, or standing at a bus stop. A little boy appeared – maybe five years old – standing in front of me, staring up at me with huge, sad eyes.
“I’m Kevin,” he would say. “Can you help me get my dad back?”
I’d wake up sweating, terrified, wanting to scream and cry and howl. The guilt scratched at me behind my eyes, sent me into a spiral of not wanting to wake, not wanting to sleep, and not knowing how to fix a wrong I could never right.
I wanted to visit that little boy, buy him toys and food and shoes. I wanted to give him all the things his father wouldn’t be able to give him because his father was in jail.
It was my fault. I’d taken his dad away.
I dreamed this same dream for months, over and over, always waking with the same remorse.
Six months later, I went to court. Bonnie was back in Ohio; Larry was back in Florida. I had to tell my story with the support of someone I didn’t trust, so I was basically alone.
But I showed up.
I was instructed to sit on a bench in an empty hallway: “Your case has been delayed,” they said.
So I sat. I was sober, silent. I thought my shaking hands were nerves, not alcohol withdrawal.
I waited in the hallway for my case to be called. I waited and waited and waited. I relived all the horror as I waited. I was terrified to retell the story; I was terrified to see the man who did this to me, the man whose boy was fatherless.
After two hours, an officer of the court came out and said, “Miss Moore?”
“Yes.” I stood up and he shook my hand.
“I just wanted to tell you that you won’t be needed today; your case has been settled.”
“Settled? What does that mean?”
“Mr. Howard took a plea deal,” he said. “He’ll spend two years in prison for what he did to you.”
“Two years?”
“Yes,” he said. “You don’t even need to testify.”
I breathed.
I hadn’t realized I’d not been breathing.
“Thank you,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“How’s his son doing?”
“His son?”
“Kevin? I just feel so bad for his son,” I said.
The man softened. “As far as I know, his son is just fine.”
I didn’t feel reassured.
My rapist was in prison, and Kevin would spend two years without a father.
I went home and drank to celebrate, and to forget.
The police station in Homestead was hopping after the bars closed. Drunks and drug-addled criminals were led between rooms by exhausted, life-addled police officers.
Larry and Bonnie sat on a bench with me until I was told to sit next to a desk. They weren’t allowed to join me there.
A man with beagle eyes and very short hair sat and listened to every detail I could remember, and then asked me about details I couldn’t remember – the address of the place where the attack happened, for example, or the name of the bar. I barely knew the name of the town.
But I told the officer the guy’s name was Kevin – he hadn’t given me a last name – and answered that he was wearing a gray hoodie but I didn’t know where he lived, and I’d never met him before that night.
“Did you go to the hospital?” asked the officer.
“No,” I stammered. “Do I need to go to the hospital?”
“Do you want to go to a hospital?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Then we don’t have a kit,” he said. “But from what you’ve told me, we wouldn’t be able to get any semen.”
I was still stuck on semantics. “Then was it really rape?”
“Did you want him to do what he did?”
“No.”
“Then it’s rape. Go on home, and we’ll send an officer to follow up.”
I walked back to Bonnie who hugged me again.
I looked at Larry. “Do you fucking believe me now?”
“Yeah I believe you now,” he said. Larry looked almost remorseful as he slung his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Let’s get you home.”
Emotionally exhausted, we all passed out immediately upon arrival at the house.
Only a few hours later, a booming sound jolted me awake. There were two policemen banging on our door.
When they said they’d send an officer to follow up, they meant it.
“We’d like you to take a look at some pictures,” said one officer. “Let us know if you see the guy who attacked you.”
He held out two of the largest photo albums I’d ever seen – full of dozens, maybe hundreds of mug shots.
“Do you have somewhere we could sit?”
Larry led us into the kitchen, where we sat at the table.
I slowly plowed through every page of both books. I stared and pondered, hesitating, scared. I looked at face after face, man after man, all of whom were black, almost none of whom looked familiar.
Finally I went back to the first book, a few pages in, and pointed to a photo.
“This could be him,” I said. “It looks like him but his hair is different.”
“Are you identifying this person as your attacker?”
“Well, I think so, but his hair is different.” I really didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.
“Is there anyone else who might be your attacker?”
“No,” I said. “If it’s anyone in these books, it’s this guy.”
The officer scribbled something and closed the books.
Then he asked me where Bonnie lived.
“She lives in Akron, Ohio,” I said.
Larry chimed in from the doorway: “But she’s asleep in our attic right now.”
The officer perked up. “Can you wake her up?”
“Sure!” I dashed upstairs.
The officer asked if Bonnie could identify the man she’d seen at the bar. She walked into the kitchen without sitting down and flipped through a couple of pages.
She poked the page, hard. “That’s him right there that mother fucker!”
Bonnie was pointing to the exact same picture I’d chosen, with no qualms.
The heavy, stinking man walked me back to the bar. Outside he muttered, “Just don’t say nothin’.”
“I won’t,” I promised. I meant it.
We went straight to the bar together. It wasn’t a large establishment; the bartender was standing right there, staring into my eyes as I tried to order drinks.
All that came out was a choked sob. No words. No tears. I held up two fingers. It was the best I could do.
Larry was still in the corner with the band, singing. The bartender started pouring drafts, still staring at me. I presented a tight-lipped, meek smile.
Bonnie grabbed me from behind and spun me around. “There you are!” she said. “Where the fuck did you go?”
I grabbed her and hugged her tight, said nothing.
When I finally let go, the man was gone. He was not standing next to me, not drinking the beer I’d ordered, nowhere to be found.
Bonnie saw my face and hugged me again. I was a big believer in keeping a promise even to that horrible man, but I’d forgotten about Bonnie. We sat at our table. As I triple-checked repeatedly that he was really gone, I told her what had happened.
“That mother fucker!” she screamed. “I’ll kill him!”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I told him I wasn’t going to tell anybody.”
“I’ll kill him!” she screamed again – just as the band stopped playing. Larry strolled toward us, uncharacteristically without his signature smile.
“I saw you leave with that fuckin’ guy,” Larry growled at me. “Where did you go?”
“I thought we were doing some coke …” I started.
“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Larry said. “You’re fuckin’ lyin’!”
Bonnie lifted her jaw from the floor and said, “He fuckin’ raped her!”
I considered the word “rape.” I wondered, is it rape if he doesn’t actually get an erection?
I considered the many times I’d had sex simply to avoid conflict.
It was easier to have sex than to try to get away from whichever man was “asking.” I didn’t actually want to have sex with strangers. For the first time I thought, If I had said no instead of just having sex with guys, would I have been raped?
I’ll never know the answer.
I looked at Larry. “Well, I don’t know if …” I started again.
Bonnie’s eyes widened. She yelped: “He fuckin’ raped you, that mother fucker, I’ll kill him!”
Larry guffawed. “He didn’t fuckin’ rapeyou,” Larry said. “You fucked him and you’re trying to get away with it!”
I considered the word again. Was it rape?
And then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what had happened. I’d promised. He said he’d let me go if I didn’t say anything. I’d be safe. I’d be free.
I wanted to be safe and free, but I felt very, very far from safety and freedom.
“He did rape me,” I said quietly. “I can’t believe you don’t believe me.”
I’d cheated on Larry a thousand times, and he’d never seemed to notice. The one time I chose not to cheat, the one time I’d been senselessly and violently attacked, Larry didn’t believe it had happened.
“Prove it,” Larry said. “If you were fuckin’ raped, let’s go to the cops.”
“I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone,” I said. I was desperately trying to do the right thing, but the line between right and wrong felt very blurry.
“Kevin” kept walking after we got outside, beckoning me to follow him.
“C’mon,” he said. “It’s right around the corner.”
I glanced at the bar, considered going back inside. But I wanted that cocaine.
“Okay,” I murmured, and followed him around the corner. He struggled with the key then swung open the door. A staircase loomed in front of me, clean and carpeted.
As we walked upstairs, his breathing was heavy behind me, like his footsteps. I got to the top of the stairs, noticed that the room was completely empty, and turned around to face him.
“Where’s the co- ?” I started, but didn’t finish.
He pounded me once in the face, knocking me onto the floor. I was stunned and confused. He landed on top of me, his weight enormous, his knee on my neck. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t move; I couldn’t scream.
He started to growl at me: “Shut up you cunt,” he said.
His knee lifted slightly, just enough for air to get through, as he unbuttoned his jeans over my face. “Shut up and suck it,” he said.
“No, I just – ” I started – and WHAM! he slapped me across the face, hard.
“Suck it cunt!” he bellowed. “Now!”
He smelled like rotting garbage, but I did as I was told.
He did not get hard. I stopped. “I don’t want to do this.” SMACK!
I kept going. Still, he didn’t get hard.
“No,” I said.
BAM!
He hit me and screamed obscenities and I tried to do what he wanted but I just wanted to go home.
“Stop you fuckin’ bitch!” he yelled suddenly. I stopped.
Still flaccid, he decided to try vaginal sex. He held me down with his elbow as he manipulated himself, his hair greasy, fruity-smelling in my face, as he tried to find a way to penetrate me.
“If you could just – ”
“Shut up!” SLAP!
I pleaded for him to let me go. I asked to go back to the bar. I asked to use the bathroom. Again and again and again, I spoke and he smacked me.
I was like a broken appliance.
“I just want to go home,” I cried. WHACK!
I stopped speaking.
I thought about home. I realized that home wasn’t with Larry. I missed my parents and my sisters and my dog and my real life, my real home. I wanted to go home.
Meanwhile this guy shoved his fist into my crotch, repeatedly punched me between the legs.
I felt nothing.
I thought: I could die. They’ll find my body in this empty apartment, the rotting carcass of some drunk girl.
Then I had the most awful thought – not about my death but about afterward, about the person who loved me most in the world.
I pleaded: “Do you know what my mother would say if she saw me now?”
SMACK!
I shut up.
He shoved himself into my mouth again, tried to get inside me again. He punched me in the crotch, in the gut, in the face. He couldn’t do what he wanted to do.
After an eternity, he stood up and zipped his pants.
In the quietest voice I could muster I whispered, “I won’t say anything to anyone. Please, please, just take me back to the bar. I’ll buy you a drink. It’ll be like it never happened.”
He towered over me, his rancid sweat dripping onto my half-naked body.
“Get dressed,” he slurred.
I didn’t know if he would kill me or not.
I only had one thought as I stood up: I didn’t even get any cocaine.
It was during one of Bonnie’s visits – this time in November – that it happened. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t have survived without her support. By November, Larry felt like an extra appendage: sometimes useful, mostly just unnecessary and out of place.
Having Bonnie in town meant everything was fun. Her presence made me young again, free again, able to laugh and talk and be beautiful again. I believed that Bonnie and I were soulmates. We rebelled against the world together with all the gusto we had, even as we did absolutely nothing to change it.
Best of all, Bonnie and I drank exactly the same way. There were no fights about someone wanting to go home or go to sleep, because neither of us ever wanted to stop drinking. Nothing else mattered, except cocaine, and both of us would have done coke until our hearts exploded if enough had been offered.
As long as Bonnie and I were together, we believed in ourselves, did whatever we wanted to do, and felt emboldened by the presence of someone who was also willing to sell her soul for another taste of whatever was in front of us.
Larry was playing with his band at a new place, a dive bar somewhere in Homestead. Bonnie and I were having an absolute blast, ignoring the band playing in a tiny corner of the tiny bar. We babbled incessantly, laughing hysterically at each other, reconnecting as the best of friends.
We drank and drank and drank. With Larry’s singing a mere echo behind me, I felt young, wild and immensely free.
I had no idea how short-lived that feeling would be.
At the bar, guys bought us drinks. Some of them sat briefly at our small table. When we got bored with the guys we’d point at Larry, gushing at our Great Protector, and the guys would skedaddle. I felt in control and invincible. Having Bonnie around always made me feel invincible.
So when a short, burly, coal-skinned guy sat down and took up too much of Bonnie’s space, we expected a short-lived visit. He introduced himself to us (“I’m Kevin”) and we chatted with him for awhile to be polite. He neglected to buy us drinks, which particularly irritated Bonnie. She rolled her eyes as he spoke slowly, dully; I giggled a bit maniacally under my breath.
“I’ve gotta go,” Bonnie said, laughing suddenly and loudly, yanking herself away from the table. She walked to the bathroom, waving a hand behind her head without looking back.
As soon as she was out of sight, the burly man leaned over the table and whispered: “Want some coke?”
Ah there’s my kryptonite, I thought.
“Fuck yeah!” I said a little too enthusiastically. I frequently snorted cocaine in restrooms so I suggested, “We can go in when Bonnie comes out.”
“Nah, not in there,” said Kevin. “Let’s go outside; I know a place.”
Outside? I considered this. “Okay, when Bonnie comes back we can ….”
“Nah,” said Kevin. “Just you ‘n me. We’ll be right back. C’mon.”
My mind rattled with an attempt to prioritize my visiting friend over cocaine; the coke was winning.
“Can you give her some when we get back?”
“Sure,” he said.
I looked toward the bathroom door. Cocaine kept calling.
“Okay,” I said. “As long as we come right back.”
“We will,” he said.
So we walked out the front door, Larry still singing in the background, Bonnie still in the bathroom, and me on my way to experience something brand new.
Bonnie had left Mount Union – and me – behind. She had a new group of friends, plenty of reasons and places to party, and she’d spent the school year at University of Akron.
During summer, I compelled her to come and visit me. I promised unlimited alcohol if she’d visit for a weekend. So she did.
I was thrilled to see her, instantly reconnecting at a deep level that was impossible for me to have with anyone else. No one else felt like I did, saw the world like I did, was willing to do what I did.
No one else drank like I did. Bonnie and I were soulmates.
We went to see Larry’s band play on Friday, like I always did. She met Ronnie, who was intrigued to find another woman who was open and loud about her opinions and ideas. Ronnie provided some cocaine, which kept the conversation flowing, and we all kept drinking.
Bonnie slept on the bare mattress in the attic room. Midway through sleeping – probably around noon – I left Larry’s bed and curled up next to her. We had no blankets or sheets.
Larry had gone out, which was his custom during daylight hours, and was nowhere to be found when I headed upstairs. When he came home, he found us and woke us up with a pizza and a 12-pack of Miller Lite, properly chilled.
I grabbed the boombox and blasted music so we had to yell to hear one another in the tiny room. It was like being in college again: Bonnie and me, plenty of beer, feeling freer than ever.
It was just like old times.
Unfortunately for both of us, Larry inserted himself into the mix. He kept showing up, a lead weight pulling down two balloons.
I knew I owed him my life – he’d bought the beer after all – and Bonnie acquiesced. So when Larry suggested we all have a threesome, and we were plenty enough drunk to agree, Bonnie and I nonchalantly gave it a try.
Larry kissed me, then he kissed her. He fondled me, then he fondled her. I thought: This is going to be fine, right? But as this “threesome” continued, I felt repulsed. I realized quite suddenly that this was not okay with me; I did not want the two of them to be together. My insecurities did not allow me to just sit back and watch – even for one moment – as the two of them started moving together.
I stood up and screamed: “NO NO NO NO! FUCKING STOP! I’M NOT FUCKING DOING THIS!”
Larry startled. Bonnie laughed. They stopped.
We all stopped.
Bonnie reached out, naked, and pulled me down next to her on the bed. “It’s okay,” she said. “I fucking love you! We don’t have to do this!”
Realizing it was his only play Larry tried to hug us both, although he truly didn’t fit into the equation no matter what we’d just been doing.
“Right,” he said. Larry kissed my forehead, which both comforted and nauseated me.
“I just wanted to drink beer and listen to music.”
This was true for … everything. Always. I just wanted to drink beer and listen to music. Everything else I did was rubbish.
I looked at Larry. “Can you just get us some more beers?”
“Sure, Baby!” Larry gallumphed down the stairs.
I lit a cigarette. Bonnie took it.
I lit another one.
For the rest of the night, Bonnie and I drank beer and listened to music. Larry stayed at a distance, allowing us to be happy again.
The stories I remember best are those that changed me in some way: took away my innocence, made me feel brave, hurt me beyond repair, frightened me into submission, caused me to rebel, caused irreparable damage, broke my heart, made me lash out, gave me hope, tried to kill me, reminded me I had reasons to live.
But the feelings are what I remember most – the emptiness, the angst, the bottomless pit of sorrow and loss. When trying to accurately describe the depths of my constantly depressed state, I googled the word that came to mind over and over.
The word was “despair.”
de·spair
/dəˈsper/
noun
the complete loss or absence of hope.
Yes, I thought. The complete loss of hope. That’s it.
Coincidentally, Google – not me! – used the word “despair” in a sentence, to show just how desperate a despairing person might be.
Google’s sentence?
“in despair, I hit the bottle”
For the terribly literate, Google was not suggesting that I slap my hand on a bottle of lemonade if I am in despair. Google was suggesting that if one is despairing, one might do something so desperate as to drink alcohol.
And of course, I was drinking alcohol as often as was humanly possible, not relating it to my despair at all. I was drinking alcohol because I was a complete and total drunk. I had crossed over that invisible line without realizing it, and had taken to drinking and doing drugs with all the gusto of a starving man who had just been presented with a buffet.
I did this every single day, without fail, not because I was in despair – but because I was an alcoholic. And being an alcoholic caused me to be in despair every single day. I was 100% stuck in a life that I did not want, and had absolutely no way to get out of it.
I had jumped out a window, landed on my head, and lived. I had survived my one serious suicide attempt and made an instantaneous deal with God that I would go on.
But I didn’t want to go on. I lived with zero gratitude.
I hated my life. I hated waking up with an unbearably dry mouth, squinting to filter any light in the room, wanting to vomit but empty inside. I hated not knowing where I’d been the night before, what I’d done, with whom I’d done it, or where I was now. I hated feeling ostracized by the world for being a drunk, ostracized by my family for being a biker chick, and ostracized by the bikers because I was nothing like them. I hated my life. I hated everything I did. I hated everything I’d become.
And yet I could not fathom for even one moment that there was anything I could do to make the pain stop.
And so I was in a constant state of despair. I had no hope, not for a single moment of any day. I didn’t feel like something good was just around the corner. I didn’t feel like anything would ever change. I couldn’t see a way out of the predicament I’d gotten myself into – but I thought the predicament was Larry, and Pitcairn. I didn’t know yet that the predicament was Alcohol and Me.
So I woke up without hope. I drank and had sex and did drugs. I blacked out then passed out. And then I awoke, again, without hope.
I was in constant, agonizing despair.
And I tried to numb the despair with alcohol, a sadly temporary solution to a permanent problem.
I am still an addict, even though I am sober. I don’t think about drinking all the time; life isn’t like that anymore. In fact, the obsession with drinking is completely gone, which is one of the great rewards of being sober.
But addiction is a huge part of who I am. I have an “addictive personality,” which never really changes.
I am obsessive to the point of insanity. I am drawn to the emotional, rather than the logical. I worry incessantly. I isolate. I am especially sensitive and not especially resilient. I focus on prior, traumatic events instead of taking steps toward a happy future. I vacillate between anxiety and depression, never going far from either. And I have a very negative outlook, no matter how good a situation may be.
Some of this is just me; some of it is addict behavior. I have no idea how to discern which is which, since I have always been like this, and a whole lot of addicts are like this, too.
When I drank, every day looked like this:
Wake up: Oh no. What time is it what did I do where am I where do I need to be?
Lunchtime: How much longer do I have to do this stupid stuff before I can drink?
Evening: Finally. I can drink without anyone bothering me.
Night: Why am I here? I don’t want to be here. This is not where I want to be. I just wanted to drink!
I would survive whatever situation I’d gotten myself into, and then start over the next day. I would hope that the next day would be different, that I would be able to drink the way I wanted to drink without ending up in the wrong place.
This never, ever, ever happened. I never just sat around and drank by myself, which is what I really wanted to do. Every time I picked up a drink or a drug, I ended up somewhere I didn’t want to be. Sometimes I ended up in the wrong place for years.
When I was drinking, the only thing I knew is that I would do absolutely anything to stay drunk – and that I might have to sacrifice my morals to complete my mission.
The thing about being sober is: I now have control over where I end up. I have control over my attitude and my actions. It’s a glorious thing to be able to decide what I want to do, and then just do it. It’s like a gift from God, honestly.
Now that I no longer drink, given my addict mentality, my days go something like this:
Wake up: Oh no. What time is it? I don’t want to get up. I have to get up.
Lunchtime: What can I eat? I should have something healthy. I can have anything I want!
Evening: What did I eat today? I should allow myself to have junk. I should not eat any junk!
Night: I should not have eaten the one thing I ate today that I allowed myself to have.
I have mostly just switched “alcohol and drugs” to “chocolate and popcorn.” And yes, I have a weight problem. I have a me problem.
On especially wonderful nights, Larry and I would go out to eat after the bar closed.
I was never awake in the morning so I only got breakfast in the middle of the night. And the one place open late that offered breakfast at 4 a.m. was Denny’s.
Being the only place open after the bars closed meant that Denny’s was always crowded. We would stand in line and wait for “party of two” to be called – or “party of four” if we could get Leo, the bass player, and my best bud Ronnie to come along. Often Larry and I were the only two who were willing to wait in the line.
After an hour or two, we’d waddle home, still sluggish from drinking, full of nutrition-less food, and pass out.
But one night, while we were in line, we met a guy and started chatting with him. Larry enjoyed conversing with him, so we invited him to sit with us.
Gus was a truck driver – the kind who actually drives for a living, using an 18-wheeler as both an apartment and a job.
“I always wanted to be a truck driver!” I announced.
When I was in 8th grade, my friend’s father drove a truck, and her mother drove a Bookmobile. These sounded like thrilling occupations, always traveling, making deliveries.
Listening to Gus talk about his travels, I was fascinated. I wanted to know a million things about driving a truck. Where did he eat? How far did he drive? What did he listen to on the radio? Did he have a CB? Did he have a CB handle? Did he have a dog?
The three of us walked out together and Gus said, “Wanna go for a ride?”
“Now?” I looked at Larry. “Your truck is here?”
Gus laughed. “Where else would it be?” He pointed to a semi parked in the back of the very large lot.
“Yes! Yes I do!” I was jumping up and down with excitement, quite literally. “I wanna go!”
Then I remembered Larry.
“Can I go?”
“Sure, Baby,” he said, kissing me and waving me off. “See ya at home.”
Getting into the truck was the most exciting thing I’d done in eons. I had to climb – literally climb – hanging onto a metal bar and yanking myself into the passenger seat. It was like climbing a tree, but cooler.
I plopped myself down and waited for the ride of a lifetime.
Gus hopped in and started the engine. It was absurdly loud. He pushed a bunch of buttons, grabbed the giant steering wheel, and the truck started moving.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Just over that hill!” I said. “Just go straight and I’ll tell you when to turn!”
“10-4,” Gus said, then pulled out onto the very dark road.
It was so loud!
“This is great!” I squealed, unable to contain my excitement.
Gus turned the truck onto the rather steep hill. Technically, it was the side of a mountain.
We inched forward.
The truck groaned and spit.
Rrrrrrrrmmmmffffrrrrrrrrggggg….
Inch by inch, climbing that hill.
Inch.
By inch.
Still climbing.
We’d gone maybe a hundred yards before I was bored beyond belief.
“Is it always this slow?” I guessed.
“On the hills, yeah,” Gus laughed.
It took us a million years to get to my house, right over that hill.
Larry was still awake when I got home. “Still want to be a truck driver?” he asked.
