Free Probation by Tom Mendicino Page B

percent colored to stand around with a bunch of drug addicts to watch a bunch of drug addicts. It’s cool, Randy T said, we would leave Friday night after work, crash in Silver Spring with his brother who did something with drinking water for the government, get fucked up, pass out, wake up, get fucked up, catch the band, drive straight home, stayed fucked up all day Sunday, and roll into work Monday morning as if we hadn’t done anything all weekend except take the truck out to fill the tank.
    But on the big Friday afternoon, Randy T took sick. So sick that the lady at the last job of the day got worried and called the dispatcher. The old man drove out to the customer’s house, panicking when he arrived to find Randy T mumbling incoherently, his forehead scorched and his glazed eyes dead. We raced to the emergency room and the staff took custody of Randy T, throwing him on a gurney and whisking him behind the curtains. The old man was rattled. He wanted me home, safe, but I stood my ground and insisted he drop me off at Randy T’s apartment. I was stranded, no wheels of my own, completely baffled by the four-on-the-floor of Randy T’s pickup. A few hits on the bong gave me courage. It was Kerouac time. Time for my own Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I stuffed the tickets, a pair of clean BVDs, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a bar of Palmolive into a backpack and slipped a few joints into my socks. I cadged a ride in the parking lot from a lady I knew from the pool who was heading to the Publix out near the interstate. By three in the morning, I was north of Raleigh, shivering and cotton-mouthed.
    The yellow eyes of a northbound tractor trailer emerged from the thick summer mist. The driver downshifted and the air brakes brought the big cat to rest. The engine purred, idling as the door to the cab swung open, welcoming me. A voice told me to toss up the backpack; a hand reached down to steady me as I mounted the cab.
    He looked like Jimmy Dean, the country singer, not the actor, with big friendly blue eyes and a long, clean-shaven jaw. Cold for August, huh? he said. Where you heading? D.C., I told him, and he laughed and asked if I had an appointment at the White House. He offered me a bag of trail mix and a warm can of Pepsi-Cola. Stones concert, I said, trying to sound worldly and jaded, as if it were something I did every week. Cool, he said, the Stones are cool enough, but he preferred the real thing. He flipped the top of a cassette case filled with white boy blues—Michael Bloomfield, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
    By the Virginia border, I knew he was a native of St. Louis which, according to him, was where the blues were born. He’d done seven semesters at Washington University, but dropped out because it was all bullshit, not real, not like this, barreling through the guts of America saddled to forty tons of steel and rubbing shoulders with the “real people,” the tractor-trailer jockeys and mechanics and hash-house waitresses who held the answers to the mysteries of life. Once he had a little nest egg, he was going to Nashville to give Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings a run for their money.
    I tried to embellish myself, trying on attitudes and experiences to make me seem worldly, experienced, someone who might interest him. I was surprised when he clucked with disapproval when I told him about Randy T and his stash of bongs and pipes. That shit will fry your brain, he said. Then he smiled and asked if it made me horny. Yeah, I said, sometimes it feels like I’m carrying a lead pipe down there. You oughta get Randy T to help you out, he laughed. Yeah, I said, distracted and exhausted by the chills riffing through my body.
    He cranked up the heat to stop my teeth from chattering. He reached over and felt my shirt. You’re drenched, he said. Then he put the back of his hand to my forehead and pointed to the bunk behind us. You’re burning up. Hustle back there and get