Red- from my art book 'Inhale the Fairytale' (2011)

RED
She's a two toned fire-cracker red. So that's what I call her, "Red". My bodacious, tenacious bulldog with a dirty blonde cab. She's my work partner, my friend, my lover and family... she's all I got. She ain't never left me in the mud and snow, never. She's gotten me from here to there and there more times than I can count. Anyways, I look after her and she does the same. W e get along that way . Once in a while I'll even trick her up with a few shiny doodads. Doodads make the long ride more pleasurable. See them die on a string, them rabbit foot, all them beads and that wooden cross I got in Nashville? Those were add-ons. Didn't go for the curtain rods. Went for the zebra covers instead. Having company over never seemed to offend no parking lot, peek-a-boos anyhow. Even had a mickey compass once, until I lost it. When you're on the road as much as I am, friends and things are easy to lose and harder to find. 

Well, I must say, Red and I look damn good when we're pullin' into a pit stop. The ladies notice. Even puts a smile on some of them smokey beavers. Y ou just never know what might happen on the long haul. Ha ha, that said, it's more likely you'll run into a hang around nellie lookin' for you to buy her a super-sized happy meal in exchange for a happy handshake, if you know what I mean. But that's all right too, sometimes. W e all got to eat. My papa used to be a trucker. Four or five times a month, he'd drive a dead head back and forth from Hot Lanta to Shakey Town LA. Most of the time I'd ride shotgun and keep him company. He called it home schoolin'. I called it good times. Sure, I learned a lot, about the trees, the mountains, the desert and the Pacific Ocean. Learned about droughts, tornados, vanilla cream mud balls and pickle parks too. But the thing I learned about most came from when he'd pull over to the side so that we could watch God making magic in the sky. He wouldn't say a word. Neither would I. The wind, that's all there was. "There are times when silence is all we need", he would later say to me. "It gives us everything we're looking for. " So we would just stand and stare, sometimes for a whole hour. But truckin' is time and time is money. So eventually, we'd take a leak together, bow our heads in prayer together and get back to rolling. One time, when I was sixteen, we passed through Arizona and pulled over to witness a sky like no other. It moved slower than a pregnant snail which made it even more spectacular. But then, the awesome clouds unlocked a giant hole the size of imagination. The light behind it was unlike anything I had ever seen. For the first time, out of fear for life, I said something. In an uneasy whisper I asked, "Papa, should we get going?" He said "Son, why run from God?". I was so frightened that I went behind the truck and watered the tires prematurely. Just as I finished, I heard a loud thud from up front. My stomach dropped. It was as if ten thunderbolts struck my heart at once. I raced back like a hunted greyhound, but when I got there, the hole in the sky had already closed.

That spot hasn't changed. I have the same route my papa had. Each time I come up on it, I stop across from that same lamp post that's never lighted. I search the sky and listen to silence. After an hour or so, I take a leak, I pray and keep on rolling.  

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