A Positive Note For 2005

My 2005 started off well enough. I had my own big truck, or rather I paid the note on it. I did business as a private contractor. I was doing well. I had made $50,000 the previous year and had every reason to expect better this year. I was just starting my third year as an owner/operator, and so my wife and I weren’t really used to having that kind of money. We spent foolishly in the first year, and played catch up in the second. This would be a good year for us I thought. 1

In January of 2005, my wife and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary. We had four wonderful children. Our only boy was twelve at that time. Our three girls were ten, six, and three. My family was my life but I loved my career also. I dare say they are the two dearest things to me at that point in my life. Oh yes, I was a man who had all that mattered in this world.2

The winter from January to mid March was a treacherous for me on the road. I owned a 1998 Freightliner Century Class. It had two bunks. I could stand up out of the drivers seat and not hit my head. I am six feet tall. It was royal blue and I spent a lot of time polishing her polished aluminum wheels. I loved that truck. One time in the early evening I was traveling west on Interstate 40 just west of Flagstaff Arizona. The roads were covered in hard packed snow. This area is in the mountains, of course, so there were many valleys that the highway bridged. It was difficult to know where the lanes were but I am a professional and have moved to the left lane. I was passing a for-wheeler when we came upon another big truck. This is usually not a problem but this truck is in the very center of the road and we’re approaching a bridge. Now think about this. I am traveling at forty-five miles per hour, the road is slick, and my gross weight is about 72,000 pounds. That’s about thirty-five tons. And let us not forget the car next to me on my right. I see the guardrail coming and still this guy hasn’t moved over. I dare not touch the brake lest I get the trailer to sliding and hit the car. I really don’t think there is enough room for me to get between the other truck and the guardrail. My choice is clear, I must try to get through but be prepared to hit the rail. I’m going to die and probably kill those people in the car, God help me. I pass the other truck as we cross the bridge. It seemed to take forever. One wrong twitch and… I finally get passed him and look in my right mirror to see if I’m clear. To my surprise, the mirror had been pushed in and I saw only my own reflection. That happened in January.3

In early February, I took my truck to the shop to have a head gasket replaced. This type of job normally costs about $2000. I really wasn’t ready to spend that much but it was very important. After the mechanics got the head off they tell me it needs an in-frame. This is a rebuild done without removing the block from the truck. My bill with them came to seven hundred dollars. I had to take the truck to the dealership for the overhaul. That would cost only $15,000. To make things worse, they had my truck an entire month. I lost $12,000 in revenue that month. It was in this month my wife and I began to alienate each other.4

By March I was extremely far behind and quite depressed. I leased on with a different company. They were based in Ohio so I did a lot of east coast runs at first. I don’t care to drive a truck out east. The roads are just too small and the speed limits are so low. I got used to running seventy-five out west. My truck was not the fastest but it was close. After a couple weeks went by and I finally got back to running on the west coast again I started to feel better about everything except my marriage. I had spent thirteen years trying to get close to her and I was growing weary of it. I began to need more than she could give. She too wanted things from me I could not give.5

Along about mid May, she started saying she was tired of being a single parent. Soon after that the repairs began to come one after the other. A driver can get an advance on his pay each week for living expenses. It works the same way with contractors like myself only the numbers are higher. I began to take advances for repairs and got into debt with the company more than a thousand dollars. All my bills at home were falling behind, including the house payment. The tension between my wife and I grew. It became suffocating when I was home.6

As time passed I began to distance myself from her. For the tenth time in fourteen years, I saw the signs. She was going to put me out soon. 7

One weekend I was home my wife went shopping. She took our youngest and the other three were at their friend’s house. I decided to take advantage of the situation and the beautiful weather. I got my polish and the cordless phone and went out to the truck. I turned on the stereo and began my labor of love. I had just finished the left front wheel and was admiring the mirror finish when the phone rang. It was my wife and she had just been rear-ended. She needed me there now! I dropped my polish and jumped in the truck. Class eight vehicles have air brakes. If there is no air in the tank, as was the case with mine at this moment, you cannot release the brakes. Never had sixty seconds seemed so long. As soon as the buzzer went off, I pushed the yellow tractor brake release button and put the truck in second gear. People tend to get out of the way of a big truck so I made good time. As I came upon the scene, I noticed glass in a perfect line perpendicular to the lane. There was a small brown car with the front end smashed and my wife’s car both in a parking lot on a corner of the intersection. I pulled into the empty lot and set the brakes. As it turned out everyone was fine. But her car was totaled. 8

She got an old Suburban after that. School soon began for the kids with the exception of the baby. We had enrolled my son in a charter school across town. I live in a large city so this was about fifteen miles one-way. He began to struggle and not because the work was too difficult. In late September I came of the road. I was hopeful that I could help my son and save my marriage. I started working in my cousin’s woodshop. I made next to no money due to struggles he is having, but that’s another story. I stay with him and the shop in hopes to help him, it, and myself succeed.9

I had to work one hour past dusk on Halloween. November first she asked me to move out and said she wanted a divorce. I moved into the shop with nothing but my clothing and two boxes worth of my personal things.10

I found myself in a very dark place. Then, after Thanksgiving, we had absolutely no new business at the shop. We spent the last part of 2005 broke and only a breadth away from homelessness. In the week after Christmas I began to write poems as a release of my pain and depression. I found it to be very effective therapy. I met a friend on the net and she introduced me to a web site called Allpoetry.  I just barely did end the year on a positive note.  11