A/N: Getting back in gear after hitting some writer's block! Truly appreciate you reading this piece.
There is a description of the September 11th attacks, which may be triggering for some people.
I am three and sitting in my dad's pickup truck. My father is sitting in the driver's seat; I am sitting on top of the fire truck red instrument panel, facing him. My bare feet rests on the steering wheel, my toes curled around the bottom of the wheel.
His hands are almost as wide as my entire body, and they hold me in place.
Sitting up here on the panel I can see over the top of my dad's head. I can smell the clean scent of Brylcreem on his hair, his hair is heavily greased and I run my own stubby fingers along his hair, following the patterns of the swirls.
I notice the spots where his hair, no matter how much Brylcreem he slathers on, sticks straight on up.
Dad grabs a cigarette out of his side pocket and with one hand still holding me in place, he rolls down the window, and the light November breeze hits my cheek, strands of my hair move across my face.
I squint and brush the hair out of my face.
"Windy, huh babes?" His voice is soft and deep. Normally my father's voice is a rapid quick fire; or at least as 'rapid' as an Eastern Oklahoma country accent can sound, but that night, his voice is so slow and tender that it almost shuts my eyes for me, long before I'm ready to go to bed.
He takes his own hand, brown and thick and calloused, places it along the side of my head, like a sun visor.
My father's sleeves are rolled up and I look at the three tiny stars on his biceps, one for each of us boys. Darry's tattoo is already fading into our father's skin.
Above the stars he has another tattoo it says "Jo" for our mom and next to her tattoo, a small blue-purple heart. Years later I learned that the heart tattoo was not for our mom, but for a stillborn baby girl. His life replicated on a five inch piece of muscled skin.
With his other hand, he grabs his silver-colored cigarette lighter and lights up, blowing smoke rings out the window.
My animated and occasionally hot tempered father is without any expression on his face. It looks like he's sleeping, but with his eyes wide open.
I try to reach out and grab the rings, but they disappear into the early evening sky.
The orange of the flame, the white-grey of the smoke, the silver of the lighter, the brown of my dad's hand, the blue of his tattoos, and of course the red of the truck still flash in my head to this day.
I am four and a bit too big to sit on top of the instrument panel comfortably. But that's alright, now I rest against my daddy.
He looks at me with a spark in his eye, "this truck is magic, Pony."
I look around confused; I don't see no rabbits in top-hats, or curtains or pretty girls being sawed in half or all of those other things I saw at the magic show at the County Fair.
The girls being sawed in half scared me until mom explained to me that it was only pretend.
"It's a real scary pretend," I whimpered as cries bounced up and down in my chest like a rubber ball.
He tells me to close my eyes "real tight, no peaking," and to hold open my hands.
When I open them I see a toy version of our truck, lying right there in my hands.
I had one question for him, "Do I gotta share with Soda?"
I am four my dad and me pass a huge used car lot. I noticed there were a bunch of trucks that looked like our truck sitting in the yard. I ask him if this is where he got the truck. He scoffs at me, "nope, the stork that brought you also brought us this truck. Or, I should say, you came with the truck. You was sorta an extra bonus."
I don't get it.
"Well, there I was Pone, driving this very fine red truck, my hands grippin' the steering wheel just so, and you know what I saw in the corner of my eye?"
His voice is a whisper and leans towards me, his forehead touching mine. He is so big that he blocks the outside world from view.
I can't see anything beyond his shadow.
I shake my head, anxious to hear the answer.
"Well right next to me lying on the floor, I see the most beautiful baby boy I've ever set my eyes on. Had red hair the color of a sunset, and his eyes! I ain't never seen eyes that shade before, looked like spring and fog all mixed up."
My father grins at me, his moon-white teeth colored with yellow-brown nicotine stains.
But I shake my head, cross my arms and pout, "I ain't beautiful! Only girls is beautiful."
He slaps his hand on his thick thigh, "you're right Pony. You were the most handsomest baby boy I'd ever seen. How's that?"
I grinned right back at him; my teeth stained truck-red from the cherry lollipop Mrs. Mathews gave me.
He went on, "well, them storks, they're mighty ornery fellas, and this stork he was 'bout to zap you right back, on the account that he was a truck stork and not no baby stork. But, I told him, 'listen, where I'm from ya don't just gift someone a fine lookin', HANDSOME baby boy like this a take him right back, ain't good manners. So as far as I can see, this boy, he's mine, and if you want him back, you're gonna have to fight me for him."
His shoulders hunch up and his hands tighten into fists as he punches into the air like a prized heavy-weight champion. He gets a gleam in his eye, and for a second I can actually see the stork and my father battle each other.
"Pow, Pow, Pow!"
I tighten my own hands into tiny fists, copying my father's movements swing for swing, punch for punch.
"What happen?" Even though I already knew the ending, I still wanted to hear it.
"I won! Knocked him out good. I beat the stork so soundly; poor fella had to limp all the way back."
I smiled, but then I imagined the stork with a black eye and crutch hobbling back home, I bit my lip.
"You ain't hurt him too much?" I would feel real guilty if someone, even an ornery ol' stork, was crippled on my account.
On T.V. they had a special about a cripple boy they played at Christmas that year, it was called "A Christmas Carol," I only watched the first half-hour before my mom made me go bed.
"Oh Pone," he rubs the top of my head.
I am five and learn that not only is there no such thing as the stork but I was born in the truck.
"You didn't give us no warning, you just sorta 'popped' out, easy-peasy," Dad told me.
Mom smirks and mutters to herself, "hmmm, 'popped' out."
I am seven and my brother Darry is thirteen. He has a huge crush on some girl named Linda and it makes him do all sorts of foolish things, like take showers without being told and borrow Dad's cologne without permission.
"Son, next time you figure on 'borrowing' my cologne I'm gonna spray you with your mom's perfume. You'll be the sweetest smelling flower in the whole state."
Soda and I are watching 'Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show,' when Darry saunters into the living room with a nervous pride. He has on a pair of grey slacks with the crease as sharp as the edge of knife and maroon colored cardigan.
"Ooooh, you got a date with Linda?" Soda juts his chin up in the air; and hugs himself and rocks back and forth making kissy noises.
I look at my brother with disbelief, my nose crinkled. "You get all dressed up for a stupid girl?" I don't get it, Darry is supposed to be smart!
Well, apparently Mr. Straight A ain't never heard of a little disease called "cooties." Soda told me all about them nasty cooties.
Then to no one in particular, I said, "I ain't never datin' no girls. Not if I have to take baths and dress up. No thank you!"
Darry adjusts the cuffs on his sweater and looks at me with a dangerous grin, "why that's good Pony, cause you know you're gonna have to live with your wife in the truck, right?"
I shake my head.
Darry nods, "yup, that's the rule. That truck is gonna become your home. Gonna have'ta raise your children in the truck, and grandkids too."
"I can't do that!"
My eyes narrow, Darry was no stranger to spreading the bull, but I could never tell when he was telling me the truth and when he was yankin' my chain, he acted the same no matter what.
Not Soda, when he teased me he could barely make it through one sentence without cracking on the floor with laughter; so much so that even if I was pissed off at him for teasing me, I usually ended up laughing right along with him. Usually.
Darry just shrugs at me, finally deciding that his cuffs looked good enough for Linda.
"You don't have much of a choice Pony, you better get used to pissin' in a bucket. Then you gotta deal with all of 'em coyotes."
Darry winks at me and tussles my hair, just like Dad, and I know he's just joshing me, but my wild imagination is already conjuring up images of ferocious coyotes, mountain lions, bears and rattle snakes climbing on top of the truck like a lost safari jeep in the African savannah.
"Well, I ain't never gettin' married. Me and Soda are gonna move in together, right Soda? Ain't no wolves or coyotes ever gonna bother us."
Soda, already bored with our conversation, is strumming his imaginary base guitar Chuck Berry style as Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" blares behind us.
With Darry gone, I poke Soda, "I ain't really gonna have to live in that truck when I'm all grown, am I Soda?"
I trust Soda to give me the truth, even if it goes down bitter like cod liver oil.
Soda shakes his head, "nah, he was just joshin' you Pony. 'Sides, wouldn't be so bad livin' in a truck. You get bored with a place and you could zoom away. Leave all your troubles behind. Ain't no one to bother you or make you take baths or yell at you or nothin'" He looks at Dad's truck sitting in our driveway, his eyes soften, he holds in a breath and sighs.
I am almost eight years old and my father and his truck disappear for long periods of time. He's an oil man, "so far down the totem pole my head don't even touch dirt!" Every Saturday he works the night shift and doesn't come home to ten o'clock.
I sit on our porch, swatting away mosquitoes and watching the fireflies glow and spark in the warm June night. I am waiting for Dad to come home, waiting for those familiar headlights and the front grill that looks like a set of metal teeth to roll up into our driveway.
It's our ritual.
Dad will pull up into our driveway and lightly beep the horn two times. I will stand up and wave to him.
When I was younger (a mere few month ago), I would run out to him, jumping into his calloused, meaty paws, feeling his breath and the smell of his sweat mixed with oil, tobacco and the traces of Old Spice.
But I'm almost eight and too old to be jumping on my father like a bullfrog. So, I just sit on the porch and wait for him to come to me.
Except this night, he doesn't come home.
Soda and even Darry are in bed. But I'm still up. I'm in my pajamas, white with blue thin stripes. Even though the June air is humid, the concrete stoop is cool and my toes curl around the front porch stoop, just like they curled around the steering wheel five years ago.
I think about going back into the house and grabbing a pair of slippers, but I don't want to miss my father.
One by one the front porch lights on our street go out.
Our canary yellow colored light is alone with nothing but the crescent moon, stars ad fireflies to keep it company.
My mom leans in the doorway, "Ponyboy, it's time for you to go to bed."
I shake my head, "nope, not until Dad gets home. We got a deal."
I expect my mom to drag me back in the house, telling me that I'm going to catch a cold or something.
But instead she goes back into the house and returns with sleeping bags, pillows, a long sleeve sweater, a large blanket and two mugs filled with Pepsi.
"Mind if I join your sleepover?" Her smile is as bright and as warm as I've ever seen from my dad.
She starts putting her sleeping bag on the stoop, I smile at her. Wait till Soda hears this, a campout on the front porch!
But then I get worried, what if someone saw me having a sleepover with my mom?!
Lordy, I would barely survive the summer!
I love my mom and even though my brothers tease me I still like cuddling with her and falling asleep in her lap.
But I remember how she calls me her 'baby.' She tells my father when he roughhouses with me, 'you be careful with him, that's my last baby.' Dad will nod, but once Mom is out of sight will continue to teach me his boxing moves.
I decide right then on that porch that I don't want to be my mom's baby anymore.
"It's kinda a guy thing," I can't look at her in the eyes. Because I would have no hesitation having a campout on the front porch with my brothers or my dad.
When I look up at her, she blinks once and her eyes switch between coldness to grief to the fake sort of happiness you give when you receive socks and underwear for Christmas instead of anything good.
Her mouth is pressed into a thin smile.
"Um, okay. Well, can I at least look at the stars with you before you fall asleep, Mr. Man?"
There is an cutting edge to her voice and my heart drops into stomach, maybe I'm really no longer her baby?
But within a minute, all is forgiven. She wraps me in her arms; arms belonging to a woman who is strong in a way that I never fully appreciated.
She presses her chin against my head, "it's a perfect night for looking at the stars, isn't it Ponyboy?"
We stare up at the velvety blue-black of the heavens, she points out the constellations to me.
"You see that Ponyboy, that's the Big Dipper." I squint, I don't see anything, but I don't want to disappoint my mom even more, so I squeal, "wow! Look at that! That's amazin'."
But that night the only light I long to see is the one from my father's truck.
I wake up at dawn; I'm startled because I don't know where I am, until I peek through our front screen door and see my mom asleep on the couch. I look at our driveway, he never came home.
Soda is no stranger to trouble, but that summer he was like a jumpy colt, always getting himself into all sorts of messes. He jumped up on furniture, doing flips and somersaults off our beds; he crashed into bookshelves, his arms turned all interesting shades of blue and purple.
Mom washes his mouth out with soap so often that I feel as if I just took a bath every time he opens his mouth.
Years later I realize that Soda's orneriness was all him trying to protect Mom and Dad from each other. He didn't know why, but he could tell that Mom and Dad were on edge with each other. He thought that if he caused enough of a ruckus they would be too busy being pissed off at him and leave each other alone.
One night my mom yells at my father with such ferocity that I want to burst open the door and save him. No one should ever talk to my father like that.
I remember her words: 'bum' 'pathetic' 'grow up,' she also adds a few more words that I've never heard her say before, words that she cleaned Soda's mouth out with Dial.
I can hear my dad's temper bubble up as he yells right back at her.
Not even Soda can protect me from their hateful words. I pretend to be asleep, but I hear everything. How can I not?
Years later, I joke about hearing my own private version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" through our papier-mâché thin walls; but at age eight it was horrifying hearing my parents slice into each other with X-acto knives of anger and hurt.
Soda sits straight up on his bed, his hands cupped over his ears, his body rocking back and forth. I want to lift off my covers and comfort him, but my legs and body are stuck.
And when I wake up, I can still hear them shout in my mind. It's funny, their echoed voices is so much louder and clearer than their real voice.
From the kitchen window I can see the yellow-orange sun start to crack through the sky. I see my father his body hunched and stooped pacing alongside the truck. He takes a baseball bat, the remnant of Darry's brief infatuation with the sport, and drives away.
When he comes home, his wide eyed grin is returned. My mother glares at him, her buckteeth slightly bared. The image is almost comical, until my father backs away and looks crestfallen. His grin falling out like a loose tooth.
I don't get how my mom can be so mean to my dad, I don't understand why he takes it.
"Got into kinda a scrape with the truck," he says nonchalantly, and in that moment I'm almost comforted by how concerned my mom looks.
"The grill got busted, Jo, hit a nasty pothole and well…" he turns to my mother and shrugs, equal parts apologetic and nonchalant.
He goes on to tell us a story that is as equally entertaining as it is unbelievable. He is a natural storyteller.
I almost believe him, and would have believed him; except what do I see hiding underneath a brown wool blanket on the passenger's side floor? Darry's baseball bat, covered in specks of red paint.
Dad is in Texas, working the oil fields. We surprise him with a visit. He hugs all of us, even Darry, who has told of plenty of times that he's too old for hugs.
And mom.
When he sees mom he grabs onto her like a drowning man holding on to a raft. He doesn't swing her around or twirl her like he usually does. He doesn't let out a big, fully belly laugh like he did before with us boys.
Instead, he places his hands on her forearms and stares deep into her, as if he can't believe she's right here in front of him.
He looks right into her eyes.
"I missed you," he whispers.
Mom doesn't say anything, she doesn't need to, her eyes speak for her.
She leans into him and he kisses the top on her head and in that moment they are alone in their world.
Dad showed us all around the oil field. As always he has plenty of stories to tell us and keeps us in stitches. He introduces us to all of the guys he works with by the nicknames he gives them. My dad always gave nicknames to people he liked.
I have such a good time that I decide that I'm going to work in the oil fields too when I grow up.
It is to my good fortune that mom and both my brothers are sick with the flu, so I have dad all to myself. While they're back at the motel, taking rotating shifts guarding the porcelain throne, I ride in the truck with Dad.
"I wanna be an oil man when I'm grown," I give my dad a grin, and wait for him to slap my back like he does with Darry, and tell me "atta boy, followin' in your ol' man's footsteps."
Instead, he grips the steering wheel so tight that his brownish-red skin turns ghost white.
"No you don't Pony." His voice is as tight and as cold as his hands.
"But, I had a lot of fun with you and…"
He pulls off the road, the truck putters to stop.
He grabs a chunk of my shirt collar and spins me towards him.
My eyes grow wide confusion and fear.
Sweat stains run down the side of his arms. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead.
He places his arms on my shoulders; I can see a slight glint of the field behind him.
"Look at me Pony. You don't want this. I ain't nothin' but a slave to the big oil man. You get that, boy? I work 16 hours a day and don't get to see my family and all I get for it is a bad back. The money I send home to your mama is the only thing that keeps me goin'. Rather work in them coal mines that this job. This job ain't nothing but the shit."
He turns away from me and spits out the window.
I'm getting angry at my dad, who was he to bust my dreams?
"Well when I'm grown, I'll do whatever I want and I want to be an oil man." I cross my arms defiantly.
My dad looks at me and I'm afraid he's going to belt me one, although he's never hit me in my life.
Instead, he opens up his palms to me, his mouth slightly open in a half smile, and his eyes pleading.
"No you ain't Ponyboy, none of my boys are workin' the oil fields. Pony, go to college, get a job working with your hands, I don't care. I love you no matter what. But you're so smart Pony, don't let no one or nothing hold you back, 'specially me. This is my life, Ponyboy; but you, you got the entire world out there, just ready for the takin.' Just don't be like me. Please, honey."
I lean my elbow on the armrest and look at the Texas horizon I see nothing but oil derricks as far as the eye can see.
Our red truck alone in a sea of black.
I am thirteen and we are a family of three cars; Darry's truck, our family car and Dad's truck. Ever since Dad busted the front with a baseball bat his truck has never ran right. Mom tells him he should buy a new truck.
"No way! This truck has sentimental value!"
Darry is hanging out with Gregg Fisher, one of his old buddies from high school.
Our family car is in the shop, Mom really did hit a pothole, lost control and slammed into a tree. She emerged embarrassed, shaky, but miraculously, unhurt.
Mom and Dad are out, they take Dad's truck.
They never return.
My grandson, James, watched a documentary about 9/11 in his class.
"It's strange, Papa, it was such a beautiful day that morning and this plane comes into view on the screen, and I think of the people on the plane, traveling on vacation or perhaps traveling and then that very plane is turned into a missile. It reminded me of an article I read online, this woman, I think she was in Sweden, she went into labor on a plane. There wasn't any place for the plane to land, so she ended up giving birth right there in middle of aisle. I bet people have had heart attacks and died on planes as well. Isn't that interesting, Papa? How the exact same place can be the site of life or death? But I bet people don't think about that, do they? They just go on with their lives."
James, pauses and looks at me, "is that how it was for you? After your parents died in the truck you were born in, was it hard to even look at pickup trucks again?"
"It was at first, but like you say James, people learn to get on with their lives. That's all we can do."
He chewed tobacco, Club and Red Man his snuffs of choice, always keeping a tin beside him for easy grabbing. So strong was the association of trucks and chewing tobacco with my father, that every time I climbed into one of my brothers' pickups, I felt the twin stings of nostalgia and regret when all I could smell was fuel and the stick-thin freshness of those damn little pine trees.
It's one of the reasons why I could never consider a truck for myself, I would miss us too much.
A/N: S.E. Hinton owns.
YES there was a real show on Saturday nights called 'Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show' Eddie Cochran was a guest on the show.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a play about a couple who have a rocky marriage.
This story ties into my other one shots The Oil Rig and The Back Porch and parts of Both Horse and Driver. Darrel Sr has a gambling addiction which is why he ends up working in Texas, partly to make money and to avoid temptation. His addiction caused a huge strain on his marriage. And in The Visit we find out that Soda is working as a roughneck, just like his dad did all those years ago.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!
Once again, thank you!