RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,370
(let sleeping dogs ride fast...)
A little more to the episodes of
the last (previous) chapter. That
truck-driving fellow who had
side-swiped me that morning
hung around as we both awaited
the attendant officer to fill out
the police report, speak separately
to both of us, etc., right there on
the side of the road near where we'd
had the vehicle contact. Her was
a bit dumb, I thought, the truck
driver, but no matter on that. He
drove for LU Transport, the trucks
of which are still around and can
be seen out along the Honesdale
area here and there, making a run.
Jersey into PA, all day long too.
Nights too. I remember, living in
Metuchen, about 1998, with Ed
O'Brian, as Mayor (maybe it was
O'Brien, but he wasn't worth either
name, so no matter. An over-ampled
fool, he was. There were endless,
and mindless, council debates over
whether or not what he termed the
'garbage train' (instead of these trucks)
which was then just starting as an idea,
should be granted rights to run through
town on the old, unused, freight tracks
that ran low through old parts of it.
The high-arched neighbors and citizens
pealed against it, no one was really
set on what to do, and it was, finally,
opposed. They tore the tracks out and
made 'Nature' walks instead, from
the old train line-trails, which for
some idiotic reason the tight-assed
Metuchenites took too, deciding instead
to dump all these trash trucks on the
local highways. Glorious. No one
ever called them anything but 'trash'
trucks, as if they were 1950's happy
town garbage trucks when, fact was,
it became yet another wild and
lucrative business, this 'hauling' of
jellied human shit along the highways,
clogging traffic, speeding, and, mostly
disregarding the rest of traffic - of which
the police had probably been told, as
part of the winning contract, to look
the other way at. Humans are weird -
they can interpret and reinterpret
things in ways the re-define reality
and becomes enough to make them
happy : shit-trucks have never yet
made it into any brag-books about
the quality of life on those parts. They
just snoot-up their noses, these 'proud'
locals, and pretend none of it exists.
Fact of the matter is, we're all stumped,
because no one faces the fact that there
are too many people, we're overcrowded
and out of space, fornicating like hell and
just making it worse, constantly, and that
crash of 'new' people and kids magnifies
all these problems, from schools to
services to taxes. No one ever speaks
the truth, and they just allow growth
to take over, and 'rule' the land, slurping
at sought-for profits. (I briefly ran for
Mayor, in 1998, chosen by the town's
miserable Republican tiny minority, and
I got booted off the ticket in three days
for saying things like that. The unspoken
political line was, 'Mention nothing.'
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The driver said all he does, from
5am each morning, until finished,
is make two runs, back and forth,
to the destination point somewhere
by Scranton, 5 days a week, with
these truckloads of jellied municipal
waste. Trying to beat the clock, at
all times, reckless driving was no
stranger to him. He apologized and
said he had not seen me because I
was in his blind spot. I was going to
object and say 'that's why they call
it a blind spot. You can't see me; so
you probably shouldn't have shifted
over to my lane right there, correct?
The logic of his 'lack' of thinking, I
guessed, never told him what 'blind
spot' meant?
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I couldn't tell if he was 'blaming' me
for being in his blind spot, but that
would make no sense, and he couldn't
have been that dumb. Right? I figured,
at 2 and a half hours each way, two
complete trips must be really rushing
it. It couldn't have been an eight-hour
day. Anyway, he sheepishly admitted
to there being a MacDonald's there, at
Sand Hill Road, which was his usual
morning stop, for pickup.
-
I had asked what he meant by 'municipal
waste' and he said the town sewage plants
have some process that 'makes' it from the
solid waste (human waste) into a jellied
mass that gets loaded in his trucks vast
rear open compartment and then covered
over for the trip. I didn't even ask if it
dripped or lost any along the way. The
other thing, and the real damage maker,
was that he had really large, pointed,
spiked, lug nuts on his tires - making it
looking something like a race chariot in
The Ten Commandments (some 1960
movie with Charlton Heston). The result
was - just as in the movie - that those
turning-wheel spikes, in contact with the
driver's side of my 'chariot' [car]got torn
up and gouged badly especially the driver's
rear, and quarter panel, and door. It was a
mess. But it wasn't deemed 'totaled' so I
went (at their expense), to the finest and'
most high-quality body-shop I knew of ,
('Ultimate Collision') - strange name for a
body shop - in Edison. Three weeks later
I was all done. And the car was too.
-
That whole scene? I didn't mind it; it wasn't
much of a car, though I kept it and another
3 years maybe, out of it, but the lack of
concern on the part of everyone else was
what unsettled me. The cop who attended
certainly was unconcerned; taking little
but the most basic interest in what had
occurred and turning it only into the
facts and distance of the police report's
needs. The goofy truck-driver's attitude
was of a form of early daylight, or Step'in
Fetchit parody, (an old, black, racist film
stereotype maybe the modern day people
are not familiar with). He made it all
seem true. For me, the most annoying
part of it all was that I had to drive the
ragged heap around for three days until
the rental was arranged for me and the
body-shop work-order process took me
in. I did have to change the rear tire
myself, at the side of the road in but a
half-daylight, and ride around, as well,
on that tiny, 'spare' tire the modern cars
give. The cop said he couldn't help (I
'fess up here, it was a lady cop).
-
Getting done, exchanging papers, and
being given back all our documentation
and license cards, etc., we broke off.
I was mournful and sorrowful over
what had transpired, but grateful there
were no other injuries or damages. My
rental car, surprise to me, had Sirius radio
in it, and it worked. For the next 3 weeks
I kept getting amazed at how all these
older rock n' roll guys each had their
own channels - a DJ'd mix of all their
music, with interviews, examinations
of the music, and bios. for each of the
of the periods the activities of the 'artist'
at the time of the song. (They were always
reverential, and in awe, and always used
the word 'artist' - as if this half-the-time
junk music really was 'art.' It ran from
Springsteen to Sting, Dylan to Van
Morrison, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead,
and the entire rest of the mess. I got pretty
used to it, and did miss it all when the
car was turned back in. Even with early
Sirius, I couldn't find anything of merit,
or of a classical-music bent. They seemed
more intent on Howard Stern crap and
rock/roll stories told by insiders.
Whoopy!
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