99 New: Truckin’

Once again I am ensnared in the plans of my friend, Karen.

This time I am to drive our truck through the city tomorrow, Election Day, along with a companion who will play music and shout out to folks who look like they haven’t voted yet. This is part of the Souls to the Polls effort and I am glad to help. Lord, I want every single person to vote because if they do, everything will turn out alright.

The genius-savant-car-sound-system guy is installing a loudspeaker in our truck at this moment. It takes a while and he isn’t to be disturbed so I sit back out of view. He tests the loudspeaker and the sound is deafening, even for me, which is saying something. Maybe we could evacuate Wisconsin with this thing, I don’t know.

He makes a special fuss about needing to install the siren component. But no! we say, don’t install the siren because we can’t run the siren, we might get arrested, and once again, the specter of trespassing and rule-breaking flares in my mind. Lord knows, I obey rules like a lobotomized five year-old.

While genius savant installs the loudspeaker system, I read a magazine, one of a dozen Smithsonian magazines he has on his little table next to a futon whose cushions have hosted untold overnight guests, waiting, I presume, for their cars to be finished. I sit on a stool by the counter that has tape on its cushion like every self-respecting stool has, showing its long utility to the world. I read about Scott Kelley’s reentry from space.

The bathroom is several plywood rooms away, clean but with no towels, and like I often do, I hit the back of my hand against the door jamb, realizing only later that I am bleeding so I grab Kleenex to stop the flow just as a woman comes in and plops down at the counter with bags full of Halloween candy. She pays her bill to the genius savant and he says she should be more grateful than she is that he did such a great job and should give him some of her candy, so she gives him a big bag full which he puts under the counter instead of offering me some.

And then he is finished with our truck and I drive away into the rain without finishing the next Smithsonian article about Antarctica which includes a reference to “The Worst Journey in the World,” a book which I resolve to get from the library after the election which has become the demarcation for so much. It’s only one day. And the day after that, the genius savant will take the loudspeaker out of my car and life will be as it was for better or worse.