Part I: From the driver’s seat
The wind is tugging at the trailer circus wagon and my fingers are gripped realizing that they control the fates of a gypsy hiking family and their heehawing burros. I’m tracing our country’s spine of the Continental Divide with a gas pedal, and while driving the country’s concrete threads, I explore my familial roots with another family. Generations sometimes see each other in rearview mirrors: my father with a children filled Volkswagon van a quarter of a century ago, and me, with the Lewis’ truck and trailer.
Imagine me, behind the wheel of a Chevy truck, two burros’ butts in the rearview window, smearing their slimy green autograph across the back window, Bobby and Jess arguing over an old forgotten bet; Cody squeaking over some boy, cow, or the Oscar Meyer wiener song, and Natalie arming herself from a violent attack while guarding her half gallon of whole milk. I keep quiet, maintaining a 65 m.p.h speed and notice cars passing at 85 m.p.h. Moms in the passenger seats have one eye full of disbelief and their second eye hides behind their cameras while flashing an instant western satire cartoon. The young children in the passing cars are still trying to negotiate their new world with fantasy and what their parents tell them is real, but the children’s eyes and their slobbering faces of runny noses and drool pressed against the window tell me that if what they are seeing is real, then maybe the truck with the burros was a UFO, and if it was, then perhaps frogs can behold lovers, or fantasies and dreams can come true in this world made of right angles and bed times.
And this is what the Lewis’ have created: a dream. Their vision that was once made of books and tireless preparation has become sweat, bruises, and smiles. What are you doing to manifest your dreams?
Part II: The crippled trailer behind the scenes of a crime novel
If you ask a Lewis’ about the truck and trailer, they will tell you that I destroyed them as well as ruined their retirement fund and daughters’ college savings. But all incidents were simply a result of the trailer’s design flaws. If anything, the trailer deserves the reverence of a war veteran, crippled by its valiant journey through endless horizon lines. This is the trailer you may see hobbling back to Colorado.
Firstly, the stubborn awning just needed a lesson. Secondly, the right trailer leg couldn’t handle the pressure of the weight that I was putting on it. The left trailer leg was just kicked in the shin by the forest road. The electrical cord jumped ship somewhere around Ghost Ranch, New Mexico; it was probably trying to plug itself into the stars. The flat tire was punctured while I was experimenting with the tire rubber on a seemingly harmless New Mexican cactus. The electrical control box that crashed onto the floor was easily fixed by a little duct tape. The trailer cabinetry and doors have hinges made of post-it notes. I won’t mention the antennae, the Lewis’ don’t know about that yet (it was a vendetta for the result of a certain card game). The spice in my world famous hot chile sauce somehow burned through the plastic sink as I was draining it. The cracked window shield is having an identity crisis thinking it is a hatching egg.
But when it comes to the destruction of the trailer sometimes big faults have little implications. The biggest, and only mistake I made (which really wasn’t my fault, as you will see) was helping a couple of criminals escape the cops. Join me in the third person omniscient perspective and put yourself in the cab of a safe Christian Science truck in a generic small town hotel with a free continental breakfast.
It is late at night in the back of the parking lot, the moon is waning, never mind, there is no moon; the lamp is flickering and the moths are being scathed by the fluorescent bait. The truck parked next to you smells of agave dust and the air is as dry as a browned cottonwood leaf hanging onto summer. Immediately after the white cadellic pulls up next to you with its lights off, two people get out and hide behind the trailer. Then two women get out and one of the two couples discreetly sneek off into the dark corner of the parking lot. A cop car saunters in as smooth as a tourism brochure and scans the parking lot, U turns, and leaves. Two shady characters are still hunched behind the truck and trailer. At this point you leave the omniscient perspective and become a character: you start the engine of the truck and begin to pull away as if you hadn’t noticed the unfolding real life drama. Then, you realize that your perfect parking job wasn’t as good as you thought as you hear a screeching metal noise coming from the trailer. Your protagonist escape has been foiled, you back up, try again, but there is not hope for you escaping the parking lot.
Meanwhile, the antagonists are wondering what is happening to their camoflauge. With the same humility, ignorance, and fear of a child who walks in on their parents wrestling in the middle of the night, you jump out of the drivers seat and begin to unhitch the trailer in effort to pull it away from the vehicle you are parked next to you. The antagonist approaches with a trench coat, and he pulls out a… he reveals a sleek, smooth and dark… hand to offer help. Instead of jumping back into the drivers seat to escape the criminal after he has helped you move the trailer, you perpetuate the conflict, extend the drama of narrative and plot structure, and immediately create the brilliant climax by asking the criminal, “thanks for your help, can I give you a ride anywhere?” Yes, once again you become the observer, and you hate yourself for asking that terrible question. They have accepted your generous offer, and instead of being the adorable protagonist, you have become the detested antagonist giving two criminals a ride in an A/U ranch vehicle. The trench coat comes off the man and the woman with a warrant for her arrest hop in the cab, as you move your wallet and cell phone out of view. You exchange cordial dialogue as if you met in a breezy park on a Sunday afternoon, and you drop them off at their evil lair where they will surely change their ways and become modern day saints. Then you drive away making your sober escape and wonder if the road is bumpy or if your hands are still shaking from fear.
Part III: Becoming the trailer
There is no argument that I cost the Lewis’ a lot of money: they paid me, fed me, trusted me, and I ruined their truck and trailer. But, I trust that the dents I left weren’t simply financial, but perhaps the deeper, more meaningful, dent of friendship.
I have become the trailer incarnate. I have been following this family for four months as if they have hitched me to their moving truck. But what pulls me behind them is a force stronger than the truck: I’m being pulled by friendship, respect, spirituality, humor, love, and a near familial trust. I certainly carry a light load as the driver, while the Lewis’ carry their heavy packs, but what I have learned of family and love has an immovable weight that I can’t break like the trailer, lose in a card game, or drive like a truck.
