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He drove a semi for the carnival, age sixteen, carrying transformers, his the bright yellow of the Zipper; he drove each Sunday to a new destination, driving all night, driving fast, driving on speed, driving on amphetamines, and then parking for the night, still wired, drinking to undo the speed, the solitude of the cab, the hormonal thoughts of a kid given responsibility for equipment that cost more than he would earn in a lifetime; he drove away from poverty, away from a strict father, from the death of that father, from the weight of expectations, away from his mother’s worries, his sisters’ hunger, his brother’s innocence; he drove away from LSD in the basement, away from blacklights and velvet neon and tripping in the psychedelic darkness, away from the nuclear family upstairs, away from the church who abhorred his long hippie hair, his purple shirt, the chip on his shoulder; when he drove home on a visit, he drove his mother’s car into a state park, he flipped the car three times down a hill and they all walked away—god protects fools, drunks, and children—and then he drove away again, leaving his mother to take a taxi to the grocery; he drove away from Kim whose name he tattooed on his arm; he drove across America with the help of speed and cheap beer; he drove Sunday into Monday—the carnival is dark on Monday—setup, party, Tuesday to Saturday with no time to explore Hays Kansas or Destin Florida, because they were gone on Sunday; he drove home and married a local—not Kim whose name was tattooed for eternity—and then he drove his wife to Nevada because it seemed like the place to be a young married couple with a baby on the way, but before the baby could walk, baby mama walked out the door, and it drove him into a hole of alcohol and god knows what all, and when he sobered, he drove to his best friend from those long-hair days, and they worked construction together, renovating houses and a twelve-pack at night, and when a hurricane hit the East Coast, when they were begging for construction workers and promising an abundance of riches, he drove to New York State and because he had charisma, he took a crew of friends, they shared one rental, living like a temporary carny in a cheap by-the-week motel, and when the IRS called him “the subcontractor” and wanted proof that the others’ taxes had been paid—he thought it was the big boss’s job—he became a wanted man, he drove to the country without those friends, without money, without the ability to earn a wage the IRS wouldn’t garnish, he drove into the woods and found a place to live and work off the grid; he drove another friend into construction—jacks of all trades—paid cash; he drove to the nearest town and came home with Cuff and Link—and he lived in a shack with the stench of stale beer, cats, and the sloppy perfume of a drunk; he drove drunk three times (at least three times he was caught), and learned to stop on the side of the road and throw his keys into the nearest field, because they couldn’t call it drunk driving if he was drunk sleeping and didn’t have the keys on him; and he drove to his mother’s sixtieth birthday, he drove to the family reunions in Missouri, South Carolina, and finally upstate New York, where a homeowner let his family stay for free while he worked on renovations; then he drove to the Oklahoma clan gathering, looking thin, his long hair stringy, his manners so used to a shack that he pitched a tent in the yard; and he told no one he was sick as he drove from hospital to hospital, denied care because he didn’t have a job or insurance or wealth; he drove home in a modified school bus, horrific yellow, stopping to vomit or when diarrhea hit, so the trip took days with him sleeping in the bus; until his sister drove him to doctors and insurance and resources; he drove the seven miles from her house in the country to the drive-thru liquor store, even after the doctor said he’d treat him for free if he’d quit; he rode to the hospital when they took a lung sample—mass unidentified—he rode when the pain bloomed deep into his gut, bent over, too sore to snap when they hit a pothole and the pain spiked; he rode in a wheelchair for all the tests—cirrhosis of the liver—he rode the memory of the Zipper, the yellow like his bus, he rode the first speed high, the joy of taking a semi through switchbacks in the mountains or through major US cities, and he curled up on the hospital bed when the morphine stopped working and he rode the final days in a fog, driving and riding free of the bed and the addiction; he drove his mother’s sorrow and rode his sister’s compassion until like the morphine, they stopped alleviating the pain, until they said he could go, until he’d said goodbye; he rode the final miles in a hearse with his little brother now grown and his best friends from the early days—the dark basement, LSD, and a blacklight—they carried him the final few feet. Still alone.

 

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CINDY SKAGGS is a hybrid writer with ten published books, multiple journal publications in creative nonfiction, and a Pushcart nomination. Her shorter works have appeared in december magazine, So to Speak Journal, The New Limestone Review, WOW! Women on Writing, Fredericksburg Literary Art Review, and Proud to Be (volume 14). She currently teaches in the Graduate Program for Creative Writing at Western Colorado University.

 

Featured image by Dan Meyers, courtesy of Unsplash.