Read Online Edward Adrift by Craig Lancaster - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Craig Lancaster
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breakfast—where I consumed all of my medicine—I thought a lot about the dream I had early this morning and my fear about where my life is headed. There is nothing I can do to magically make the fear go away. There is no such thing as magic. Maybe the fear means something. Maybe it is guidingme toward something. This is all more touchy-feely than I prefer to be, but perhaps I will stress out about it less if I believe I’m headed toward something new and important. I have nothing against belief, although I will concede that it is not nearly as good as fact.
I’ve also thought a lot about being punched by the intemperate young man in Bozeman. I’m going to try not to stress out about that, either.
I have a long purplish-blue streak that runs vertically along the right side of my nose, and the fleshy area under my right eye is turning black. What a whipdick that intemperate young man is.
Before I leave, I do something smart—I wait for an hour after I’ve taken my medicine before loading up the car and leaving Butte. In that time, I pee twice, which should mitigate (I love the word “mitigate”) my having to pee while in transit. I still manage to gas up and be on the road by 10:02 a.m. My fill-up requires 10.023 gallons of unleaded gasoline at $3.1499 a gallon, for a total of $31.57. By my figures, I got 22.3 miles per gallon yesterday. My projections were way off, and that disappoints me. There is just no way to fully anticipate your costs when you’re at the mercy of oil companies.
It’s a cold, clear morning. The external thermostat on my Cadillac DTS, which displays on the control panel inside, says it’s twelve degrees outside. The external thermostat on this car is not as reliable as the official temperature-gauging machinery used by the National Weather Service, but it is sufficient for my driving needs.
As I pass a weigh station, where the transportation department checks the paperwork and cargo size of large trucks and other commercial vehicles, I remember sometimes being with my father when he would take long drives like the one I am on. He hated weigh stations. His hostility didn’t come from direct personal experience. Only once did I ever see my father driving a large truck, and that was in November 1974, when he bought an International Paystar 500 in Denver and drove it to Midland, Texas, so it could be outfitted with a drilling rig. My mother sent me along with him on that trip. I was five years old. Their marriage was in trouble, although I didn’t know that at the time. I don’t recall that we had any difficulty with weigh stations on that trip. I’d remember it if it had happened.
Anyway, my father hated weigh stations. Every time we would pass one, he would say something like “money-grubbing assholes” or “two-bit quasi-cops.” I asked him one time why he hated weigh stations so much, and he said the people in them liked to give a hard time to the drilling crews he supervised. He told me about this one time when a driller named Jim Quillen got stopped at a weigh station near Grand Junction, Colorado. The weigh station personnel came out and checked the paperwork on his big drilling rig and a smaller truck with a water tank on the back. They climbed onto the cab of the drilling rig, measured the overhang on the mast, and told Jim Quillen that it went too far over the snout of the truck.
“Quillen was a hothead, but he was smart, too,” my father said. “He knew that if he kicked up a fight, they’d just shut him down permanent. So you know what he did, Teddy?”
I did not know what he did, and I told my father so.
“He brought that water truck around front of the rig and backed it right up till they were almost touching. Then he lashedthe trucks together, and he hauled out of there. No more overhang. Quillen said that when they went by the shack, those guys’ mouths were open to the floor. Serves ’em right, the fuckers.”
My father told me this story and he laughed
I’ve also thought a lot about being punched by the intemperate young man in Bozeman. I’m going to try not to stress out about that, either.
I have a long purplish-blue streak that runs vertically along the right side of my nose, and the fleshy area under my right eye is turning black. What a whipdick that intemperate young man is.
Before I leave, I do something smart—I wait for an hour after I’ve taken my medicine before loading up the car and leaving Butte. In that time, I pee twice, which should mitigate (I love the word “mitigate”) my having to pee while in transit. I still manage to gas up and be on the road by 10:02 a.m. My fill-up requires 10.023 gallons of unleaded gasoline at $3.1499 a gallon, for a total of $31.57. By my figures, I got 22.3 miles per gallon yesterday. My projections were way off, and that disappoints me. There is just no way to fully anticipate your costs when you’re at the mercy of oil companies.
It’s a cold, clear morning. The external thermostat on my Cadillac DTS, which displays on the control panel inside, says it’s twelve degrees outside. The external thermostat on this car is not as reliable as the official temperature-gauging machinery used by the National Weather Service, but it is sufficient for my driving needs.
As I pass a weigh station, where the transportation department checks the paperwork and cargo size of large trucks and other commercial vehicles, I remember sometimes being with my father when he would take long drives like the one I am on. He hated weigh stations. His hostility didn’t come from direct personal experience. Only once did I ever see my father driving a large truck, and that was in November 1974, when he bought an International Paystar 500 in Denver and drove it to Midland, Texas, so it could be outfitted with a drilling rig. My mother sent me along with him on that trip. I was five years old. Their marriage was in trouble, although I didn’t know that at the time. I don’t recall that we had any difficulty with weigh stations on that trip. I’d remember it if it had happened.
Anyway, my father hated weigh stations. Every time we would pass one, he would say something like “money-grubbing assholes” or “two-bit quasi-cops.” I asked him one time why he hated weigh stations so much, and he said the people in them liked to give a hard time to the drilling crews he supervised. He told me about this one time when a driller named Jim Quillen got stopped at a weigh station near Grand Junction, Colorado. The weigh station personnel came out and checked the paperwork on his big drilling rig and a smaller truck with a water tank on the back. They climbed onto the cab of the drilling rig, measured the overhang on the mast, and told Jim Quillen that it went too far over the snout of the truck.
“Quillen was a hothead, but he was smart, too,” my father said. “He knew that if he kicked up a fight, they’d just shut him down permanent. So you know what he did, Teddy?”
I did not know what he did, and I told my father so.
“He brought that water truck around front of the rig and backed it right up till they were almost touching. Then he lashedthe trucks together, and he hauled out of there. No more overhang. Quillen said that when they went by the shack, those guys’ mouths were open to the floor. Serves ’em right, the fuckers.”
My father told me this story and he laughed
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