Flatbed
by david john baer mcnicholas
Flatbed trailers are built with an arch to them. They aren’t flat at all until carrying a load of several thousand pounds. Then the arch becomes invisible, but its intention is still there, pushing against the weight.
At casinos, you can eat large meals for next to nothing if you don’t pick up gambling.
High dollar campgrounds are over-rated and usually packed with people looking for a camping experience. They are always looking, and they can’t find it because they are looking for someone to show it to them.
When we drove across the country my father told me every valuable thing he thought he had learned.
Ten minutes off the road is equal to losing an hour on the road. It don’t make sense, but it’s true.
Averaged over a lifetime of sustainable speeds, it takes two hours to drive one hundred miles, no matter how fast you think you can go.
The blue address book he brought. The Rand McNally road atlas. The 35mm Nikon that disappeared out of the car that night.
Smashed safety glass, diamonds on blue velour
a gear shift knocked loose.
House after house full of family photographs of strangers. Cauterized ancestry.
In Ohio, in a downpour, he backed into me in the break-down lane because we both missed the exit. We were delivering an Aerostar to my sister. The grill was left in pieces on the side of the interstate. I think his eyesight was failing.
A ketchup packet, stomped into modern art on a white convertible in Sacremento.
Sitting on the back of a Kawasaki-1000, hands clasped on the belly of a stranger as the bike roars up a silent empty road. Torque, eliding time.
Drafting a tractor trailer is a good way to get killed. You save some gas, but it ain’t worth it if she up and throws a retread through your windshield. It’ll take your head off.
Liquid nitrogen is so cold it burns. In the Air Force, he saw a man who had been covered in liquid nitrogen. It was an accident. The victim had no skin left. There was nothing anyone could do.
Dirt floors. Dirt poor. Wheat fields for oceans. Houses collapsing under the weight of loneliness.
When he was a baby, the train was a big part of the town. He was very little when he saw a man crushed to death between two cars. The victim was standing on the track, with his back to one car, working on another. The other one just rolled into him and he got clasped by the hitch knuckles. He didn’t die right away. They brought his family out to say goodbye, then they unhitched the cars and he dropped in-two and bled out.
Old man mesmerized by the drone of pavement. Rumble strips.
Fast food. Burgers and fries. Gasoline, .99 cents a gallon.
Did I ever tell you about your mother?
A woman can say anything she wants about a man.
Flatbed trailers are built with an arch to them. They aren’t flat at all until carrying a load of several thousand pounds. Then the arch becomes invisible, but its intention is still there, pushing against the weight.
A campsite. A plastic tarp tied to trees. Morning dark. Pit-pat. Rivers form under our sleeping bags and we awake.