VAN DOWN
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It was quitting time and we were trying to get past the city to find a place for the night. The city was a stench, an open sewer where children played in the gutters and buildings burned within site of the fire dept. We stayed on the freeway with the other commuters while air force jets screamed overhead.
I pointed up. "Look at that. As a kid I thought they were all skywriting but it's only condensation."
Rallio didn't even bother to look up, "You still ain't got it. It's money pouring out of the tail. Everytime one takes off it's thousand of dollars so some jackass can get his jollies. Screw the flyboys."
"Is that what all the ground troops thought of the guys in the air?"
Rallio was silently brooding. I asked again, "What did you think of the guys in support, the REMF?" I knew the answer I just wanted to see if he was playing.
"Fuck those worthless pieces of shit."
"How about the northern regulars they better than the VC?"
"Fuck 'em both. Let them all rot in that foul country."
"How about the peaceniks, the people protesting the war?"
"Fuck them too."
I was searching for another group to identify. "How about the President and his men?"
"Fuck 'em all!" Rallio's voice was about to shatter the windshield. "Fuck 'em all, I told you. Fuck them all," then his words slipped out like soft white whiffs of memory, "Everyone. Everyone, except the guys I was with."
We slept within earshot of the sounds of the freeway. We both slept in the van. When we were in the middle of nowhere far from a populated area we routinely slept on the ground or in the van with the doors wide but when we were near a town or close to a pathway we stayed behind the locked doors. We both awakened early when a mist still held a chill to the air. I climbed from the back to the front, started the engine, and pulled away. We ran down a ramp to the freeway. After about 30 yards there was a very slight incline that required a goose to the accelerator. I pressured the pedal and there was a stutter before the gas took hold. I pressured again and there was a profound and deep clunk of metal on metal. I knew enough to throw it into neutral and coast to the shoulder of the road. The engine had seized. And that was that for the van. Not a whimper, not a bang, just a dull thud which is how endings happen.
I stared straight ahead. Rallio stared straight ahead. Neither of us said a word. We sat.
"You want me to call for a tow." The voice came from the passenger side and I looked out of Rallio's window to see a little round man peering back at me through a wide round face that was not inimical.
I paused a minute trying to consider our options. "I'm not sure. How much do you think it'll cost?"
"Don't worry," He had raised his palm, "I'll take care of it. I can at least get you out of here where someone can take a look at the damage."
I nodded, "That'd be good, I guess."
He walked back to his large luxury vehicle and called on his short-wave for help. I waited and followed him with unsure steps. I felt like I was in a daze. I hadn't a clue as to what we were going to do or where we were going to do it or how we were going to pay for it after it was done.
"One of my trucks should be along shortly."
I nodded before his words registered. "You own a towing service?"
"You might say that I own 'the' towing service in the state," he smiled. His voice wasn't bragging or exaggerating. He spoke as if to reassure me that he knew how to handle the situation. "If you get towed anywhere from here to the Canadian border, it's a good bet it's one of my trucks."
Rallio stumbled out of the car and leaned against the side of the bus.
"Your friend sick?"
I looked over at Rallio. "Yeh, something like that."
He read our plates. "California, eh? You been up here before?"
"Nope, first time."
"They're different up here."
Different from what I wondered. And how did he know enough about me to make a comparison?
"You can't do business with them. I've made some mighty fair offers and been flat out refused. That's no way to do business. I was willing to pay big bucks but they didn't want any part of it. Had thoughts in their mind other than money. I can't deal with that. No one can. Money's the currency, you know. If they won't play, then I'll find someone who will."
I wasn't following everything he said but I wasn't that interested.
"I took over a guy's truck last year. Now he works for me and makes more money than he ever did. His kid goes to college and when he finishes his professional courses he can work in our home office. I ran him out of business but it was for his own good."
The grille of a tow truck loomed into sight.
"Where we takin' this?" the driver queried.
Our benefactor gave him a location and slapped us on our way. Rallio and I rode in the truck with the van lifted up on two wheels behind us. A call came over the radio. The driver responded and then said to us, "I've got barely enough time to take a piss. They've got me covering too much territory, main byways and backroads and we're a driver short." He paused. "I can't complain. I'm making good money." The driver pulled the truck into the drive of a garage filled with activity. He lowered our van onto the lot.
A man with a clipboard headed out to greet us. He had me sign a form authorizing him to give me an estimate and then I explained what happened. He called into the garage and one of his mechanics strolled over to take a look at the bus.
"What's the damage?" I asked.
No one was singing.
I waited and tried again. "It's pretty bad, uh?"
They both conferred, then the mechanic said, "Let Elmo look at it. He'll know."
"Yeh," said the clipboard, "We'll have Elmo look at it." He yelled out, "Hey Elmo. Elmo, can you come here for a minute?"
"Who's Elmo?" I asked and under my breath I answered, the one with the Ph.D. in fucking garage mechanics.
Elmo came out of the bays with his head tilted and squinting in the sun. He was older than both of the other employees. For all I knew he may have been older than all of us put together. He walked around the front of the car then to the rear of the vehicle. I hoped he wasn't searching for the motor. "Could you start it up?"
I threw up my hands. If I could start the damn thing, I wouldn't be here now, would I, you big moron?
"No, it won't start."
Elmo jumped in and cranked it. The starter motor engaged and then choked. He put it in gear, went back to the engine and rocked the van. "I'd say thrown rod."
"From the sound?"
"That and the rod sticking out of the crankcase." We all took turns looking at the metal arm sticking out like a piece of bone in a compound fracture.
"How much is it going to cost to fix?"
"You'll have to wait till the manager returns. He should be back in about an hour."
A black and white pulled into the drive and out ambled the local Deputy Dawg. He said something to one of the mechanics as he kept his eyes trained on us. I felt like John Dillinger purchasing a ticket for the afternoon feature? The Deputy never got any closer. He backed into his car and drove off.
Paranoia buttonholed me. We were being set up. Towed by the CIA into FBI headquarters. We had to run for it. Unfortunately, we'd have to run on foot. I looked at Rallio. He wasn't going anywhere if it meant using speed. I motioned him with my head and he followed in my direction. "We might as well get something to eat. It's going to be a while."
We slumped off to a Dairy Queen and ordered what had become a brunch for us. The food had no taste apart from the taste of worry. We went back to the gas station. I found the manager and I hoped that everything I was seeing in his appearance was nothing like my experience told me it was. "Did you get a chance to calculate the repair costs on that van?" I was talking to a man with slicked back hair in pressed black pants with a white dress shirt opened at the neck where a chain dangled. If his hands had ever had grease on them, it was a time ago, and he wasn't going to get them dirty again and he knew it was that clipboard that was protecting him.
"I figure it'll cost you about $800, parts and labor."
I paused a good long moment. "Is that a new engine?" The manager affirmed it. "How much to rebuild?"
"We can't rebuild it. For one, your crankcase is damaged so it has to be replaced."
"So we'll go to a junk yard and pick up a crankcase. You do have a junk yard somewhere around here, don't you?"
"For two, we don't rebuild engines." He continued over my intense frown. "Question of return on investment, you know?"
"I'll have to find someone who will."
"Suit yourself but you owe us $250. Two hundred for diagnostic work and $50 for towing. I'll write up the invoice."
I turned 180 degrees in anger just to collect my thoughts. The owner of the towing business was getting out of his car. I walked towards him. "Your business partner here is killing us. He wants $800 for a new engine or $200 for looking at it and $50 for towing it."
"That's probably about right for a new engine."
"I don't want a new engine. I just want something to keep me going. I don't have $800 to fix this thing. I'd gladly pay the $250 if he could fix it."
"I can get him to drop the hookup fee but that's the extent of my influence."
"Could you have us taken somewhere else, to another garage?"
"No can do. I've got a contract with his garage."
I was feeling like I was on the turnbuckle being pummeled into a stupor. "I'm beginning to understand the way it works. The only allies you have are those you can buy. No price, no ally. And they're willing to pay the price because they're going to beat it out of poor unlucky schmucks like me."
"Whoa. Wait a minute. We have common interests, that's true, but you'd be much worse off with one of the independents. You can't deal with them. I know, I've tried. In the business world you deal with those willing to deal with you. He may not be the best in the business or even the fairest, but that's all you've got. Independents are not willing to deal. They want to use their own trucks and their own drivers. They're hooked into the neighborhood parts store. Everything is local with them."
I'd been had.
"This garage stands behind their work and you can go to any one of their affiliates if you have any trouble after a repair."
"Yeh, if you can get there." Like he said, they had common interests and that was enough. Independence was the last thing he wanted to encourage. Much easier to deal with someone unscrupulous but at a price you can meet than someone who doesn't have a price. "Do me a favor, next time there's a van on the side of the road, leave it."
"I've got another offer." I turned towards the manager's voice. "I'll give you $175 and take the van off your hands."
I stared at him fighting to find a clear place in my head to weigh my options. "It seems worth more than $175." My voice was without conviction.
The man shrugged sympathetically, "Not in its present condition."
I found Rallio sitting in the van's cargo bay. I explained the situation as much to hear myself outline the choices as to hear his input. We came to the same conclusion about our choices. We had none. I passed by the man who had ruined us by saving us. "Don't you ever ask yourself what you're doing on his side?"
Stashing the bills in my pocket, I walked out of the garage to find Rallio sitting on his gear next to a pile of my belongings being given the once over by the same deputy who had bestowed upon us the evil eye earlier in the day. Parked beside him was a female in a pickup truck with a camper shell sporting Washington plates.
The cop pointed at Rallio and then got in his car after giving me a dirty look. Later, Rallio and the woman recounted the conversation. The cop's name was Officer Mayberry. So Rallio kept referring to him as officer Fife or Officer Opie, even Officer Goober. Had it not been for the intervention of the female, who knows what might have happened. She was an ex-Army nurse. Something about Rallio triggered her maternal instincts and she plead his case even though her client wasn't putting up much of a defense.
The cop didn't want to tangle with her.
She promised the deputy that she'd take us out of town. So that was how we got a ride across the Canadian border.
I threw my gear in the back of her camper and climbed in after it. Rallio hoisted his stuff behind me and grabbed the seat next to her in the passenger compartment. She didn't waste any time leaving and that was fine with me. Her name was Gayle and she looked to be a couple of years older than Rallio. Her connection with Rallio had a depth greater than what I could fathom. She was not particularly stunning but neither was she unattractive. She also was not one to be demure. I told her we wanted to go north and had planned to head up Highway 97. I was figuring I could run east or west to find an unmanned place to cross into Canada.
"I think I can set a suitable course. I've lived here most of my life."
I knew FBI agents were stalking the perimeters picking off strays so I was keen on a safe crossing. "If you're certain of a route into Canada, fine, but otherwise we can't be wasting a lot of time. If you get us near the border, I can take care of the rest of the way."
"Oh, yeh, like you took care of your car and your friend here." She was tapping on recent wounds when she spoke of the van. And I had to admit Rallio looked pretty beaten up like I'd dragged him all the way from California tied to the back bumper. I kept my mouth shut but I decided I didn't like her. Besides, I was up here for Rallio. He wasn't up here for me. I turned over on my back, wedged into the softer bags on the carpeted truckbed and sulked over the loss of my vehicle. I dozed off and awoke to a low mumble passing between her and Rallio. Over the rattle of the camper shell and the rush of the wind her voice was all that was distinguishable. I learned she was a nurse with a job in a pediatric ward. She explained how she came to leave the United States behind but I couldn't get all of it. Her head turned towards Rallio once and I could clearly hear the words, "I just can't get away from the likes of you."
She had visited her sister in Washington to pick up the rest of her belongings after partially moving into an apartment in Calgary. She had no trouble obtaining Canadian work papers because her nursing skills were in demand. She was concerned about how we were going to survive. If either of us had even half of her foresight, we too would have mustered concern.
To a passing carload of motorists, we were three merry vacationers out for a look-see at the Canadian countryside. Sure, one of us had turned her back on the graveyard and was trying to whistle up a tune. Another had walked through the tombstones and now refused to continue on home without a drink to the dead. And finally, the other wasn't going near the graveyard believing he could dodge the devil. But the devil was loose and the fence around the churchyard could hardly be expected to contain him. All the same, we were three merry bodies going down the road.
"Well boys, we're in Canada." I hadn't seen a sign although I didn't know what I was expecting - maybe a white line painted across every living and non-living thing in both directions.
"We're in Canada." Rallio's tone wasn't the same as Gayle's. His was an appeal for comprehension. He didn't look away until I gave him a nod indicating that I understood. We had crossed the line.
Sometimes a border is hardly a boundary at all like the one between the U.S. and Canada. Not much changes from one side of the line to the other. Sometimes a border is a legal demarcation such as the one between Cambodia and Vietnam. Nixon never understood why he caused such a furor when he crossed that legal limit. He was accustomed to crossing legal limits or at least pushing them as far as they would bend. What was one more? He couldn't perceive that sending troops after an enemy even one that used the border as cover, would be seen as a widening of the war, one more act of betrayal in a long succession of betrayals. Sometimes a boundary is a cultural line such as that between Mexico and the U.S. A cultural line needs a fortified boundary either to keep people in or keep people out depending on your point of reference. Crossing a cultural line can be like walking through the looking glass. Those things that you hold dear may not be worth all that much on the other side. Sometimes a border is only a psychological line. A crossing of a Rubicon where the line takes on significance greater than its physicality. Sometimes the line is a refuge, an asylum.
That's why crossing is a ceremony. Passports, visas, papers, officials in uniform, gates, dogs at the wire, signs in all languages, security, family reunions, smiling faces, people kissing the soil. It's all part of the ceremony. Or Rallio looking back and making sure I acknowledged that I'd stepped over the line.
So Rallio decided to celebrate. He struck a match and brought it to the tip of a wrapped paper tube. No sooner had he caught the joint aglow than she reached over and grabbed it out of his mouth and tossed it out the window. "Hey!" Rallio looked at her in shock but before he got too deep into his incredulity she reached down and grabbed the plastic bag of green leaves and tossed it after the first joint. That removed any remaining disbelief.
"Someone should have done that a long time ago," and her eyes flared at me in the rear view mirror. I tried to match her eye for eye but we were in her car on her territory. "You didn't get like you are from smoking normal shit. The weed was laced, wasn't it?" Rallio confirmed her suspicion by his silence. "You're headed for a rough trip."
She detected what I had not. She knew a hell of a lot more than I did about the effects of dope, I granted her that. Somewhere she had picked up the information, probably the same somewhere Rallio had picked up the habit. It explained a lot about Rallio's behavior. Rallio was using the marijuana as a delivery system for something more potent, most likely the favorite in South East Asian countries, opium. He was using a chaser the way a serious drinker orders a beer chaser. While I would be content to stand at the bar and nurse the beer as I ogled any girl within ogling distance, he was standing at the bar with his back to the room downing shot after shot. You call it what you want, character deficiency, genetic proclivity, self- destructive behavior, it never mattered to me the reason. A weekend taste is a toast to adult playfulness. An addiction is a sickness of the entire being. Rallio had been sweating, rubbing his eyes and wiping his nose, bending under the weight for the last several days and I was about to be keen enough to pronounce him ill.