Mother Trucker

[I couldn’t find a photo of Jason with his Chevy truck but I did find this photo taken the day he advised me to find an old Chevy for Henry.]

In the spring of 1989 I was standing at the head of my paternal grandmother’s open coffin when my father looked at me and gruffly asked, “How’s the truck running?”

He was referring to my 1967 Chevy pickup, a three-on-the-tree beast with a camper top and a couch in the bed and, under the hood, a 283 V-8 engine powerful enough to tow the Empire State Building across Manhattan. The hood itself featured a Mack Truck Bulldog soldered front and center. The previous fall I’d given him $1800 and asked him to find me a VW camper. He returned instead with the truck, which he either thought was “close enough” or, more likely, determined was a better choice.

I told him the truck was running fine and then, I guess because I felt sorry for him, what with his freshly dead beloved mother right there bearing witness, I told him he could have the truck. I knew how much he loved it. It had a mere 26,000 miles on it and a tailgate still so straight and pristine that strangers were prone to offer me cash on the spot for it. He traded me for a ‘77 Plymouth station wagon to which he’d affixed a Dodge Ram hood ornament. Definitely an uneven trade in his favor but then, a couple of years later, he gave it back to me and I hung onto it for a couple of years before gifting it to a friend who was starting a carpentry business. (I tried to buy it back twenty years later when I got the ranch but received a hard no.)

Eventually—twenty-seven years after that first vintage Chevy truck— I found and purchased a bright red ‘66 Chevy pickup to replace it, a vehicle I hardly ever drove but enjoyed admiring in the ranch driveway until I traded it a couple of years ago for a bright orange ‘79 fastback Mustang that I didn’t keep long because it turns out I’m not a Mustang Girl.

Until this past weekend it had been some time since I reflected back on all the many vehicles I’ve owned. It’s a weird fun fact about me, how I used to be pretty obsessed with automobiles, could at one time identify many makes and models in the dark simply by looking at the oncoming headlights. The list of gas powered chariots I’ve held title to includes: a ‘64 slant-six Plymouth Valiant with floorboard holes; a chrome heavy ‘63 Galaxy 500 sedan, a ‘67 Dodge Dart Swinger with a rag where the gas cap should have been (my own rolling Molotov cocktail); an ‘88 Toyota Cressida that had once been stolen and driven into a pond; an ‘89 Toyota wagon spray painted gold on the outside and red on the inside like an Italian restaurant; and an ‘88 Subaru wagon with a bumper sticker that made LA Times headlines. The list also includes more than a few trucks. In addition to the aforementioned Chevy’s, I’ve owned a piece of shit Dodge truck that threw a rod or some shit in San Antonio and had to be towed back to the ranch with me riding shotgun beside Large Marge’s cousin Vinny whose driving “style” had me foxhole prayin’ like a mofo; a nightmare Ram with a V8 Hemi 2.5 engine; and, more recently, the sky blue 2019 Tacoma I bought new and still drive.

What got me thinking about this list, particularly the trucks, was the calm call I received from my son on Saturday letting me know that his truck, a 2000 Isuzu Hombre, had been totaled on Boxing Day by a hit and run driver. The great news is that he was not in the truck when it was hit. It was parked on the street in Brooklyn. A kind neighbor handed over security camera footage that revealed an interesting broad daylight scene. Apparently a young male driver—maybe a teenager? Maybe unlicensed?—gets out of a newish silver car after the impact and is then yelled at by a woman—perhaps his mother?—to get back in the car. The entire time he is looking at his phone. He casually gets in the back seat. Then the woman hops behind the wheel and takes off. The truck, hit hard enough to be pushed onto the sidewalk, had the driver’s door and gas tank smashed in and the back passenger side back tire ripped off of the wheel. I do not need to be an appraiser to know it is a goner, completely totaled, the frame destroyed.

[Large Marge]

I probably said no fewer than 600 times during the call with my son how grateful I was that he hadn’t been in the truck. He concurred every time. I really appreciated how chill we remained, how focused on gratitude, as we discussed next steps.

Though he bought the truck with his own money, I happen to hold the title for boring reasons not pertinent to this tale other than to say it fell to me to call the insurance company. To my delight and great surprise, I discovered upon scrutinizing my policy that I had secured uninsured motorist coverage for the Hombre. Of course the high end blue book estimate for a 25 year-old truck is less than $2000 but still, knowing some compensation awaited was better than learning none was.

My agent asked me about the video footage. I reeled off some information—the license plate number and another long number, possibly the VIN, which was plastered on a piece of the Honda that fell off and that the dumbass perpetrators had left behind. It didn’t take the agent five minutes to come back on the line and offer me some information. The car was a 2022 Honda Pilot. It was, in fact, insured. He then gave me the name of the owner’s insurance company AND his policy number AND his home address. Honestly, this shocked me more than news of the wreck. Really? They just hand out private information like that? Is that even legal? What if I were a psycho determined to seek revenge?

Fortunately for the Honda owner, I am not a psycho seeking revenge. Maybe I’m in some mild protracted shock, maybe the anger will come later. Honestly though, I remain fully focused on gratitude that no one got injured, most especially my son.

I do confess a little bit of grief about the loss of the truck. Though I try not to be attached to physical objects, and while I know soon enough a replacement truck will be procured, Henry and I both harbor sentimental feelings about the Hombre. For me, the truck holds memories of Jason, who died in 2018. He was visiting the ranch in 2016 when I mentioned being on the lookout for a truck for Henry and he had suggested I look for a Chevy built before whatever year it was he mentioned, a truck like his with an S10 engine. I was searching Craigslist for S10s when I stumbled upon an interesting fact. Isuzu Hombres have Chevy S10 engines. There was one up in Round Rock, super low mileage, available for a song. Within two hours I held the title and the keys, and shortly after my son flew down to drive it home.

Jason’s advice proved sound. Henry drove that truck for seven years and it gave him very little trouble. My son is a frugal man and had no interest in upgrading. The old truck served him fine. He maintained it well. He had some great adventures on the road with it. And it was good for the city, too, its age making it less prone to theft. Now it will soon move to a junkyard and be flattened and, with this act, that’s one less tangible connection to Jason for me. For my son it’s goodbye to his beloved, memory-filled truck, which he surely would have kept going another seven years at least.

Still, I just keep looking at the bright side. I hate that the accident happened. I love how in tune we were dividing and conquering sundry tasks—him filing a police report, me spending a ridiculous amount of time first with my insurance company and then with the company of the Honda owner. I love how my mind began leaping and dancing among potential solutions. I remembered there’s a cool, very old Tacoma for sale right up the street so I called to inquire about it. I sent a message to one of my best friends whose hobby is finding, fixing and flipping vehicles. Leaving this message reminded me of the time he found teenage Henry an ancient Ford Explorer to replace the first car he ever owned, a 1993 white Cadillac that filled the driveway and sparkled with the gold glitter his then girlfriend glued all over its body. That Explorer was a nightmare, and though I was pretty skilled at driving all kinds of cars, even I hated trying to drive it. (Early on Henry affixed a handwritten sign to the back begging other drivers to cut him slack and keep their distance as he was new to manual transmissions.)

Before I got the call Saturday about the accident, I’d spent part of the morning laboring over what I had planned to be this week’s installment. I was trying to fashion a message about hope, about trying to stay steady in the face of 2025 and all the hell that is going to break loose when the Rapist in Chief ascends his mighty throne. I was, understandably, struggling with this task because finding and fostering hope right now feels like a unique challenge. But then the call came, and I got sidetracked, and through every twist and turn—watching the surveillance footage on repeat, calling the insurance companies, checking in with my son—I just kept hearing those words in my head: He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe.

Which led me to the message I’d been struggling to pinpoint earlier in the day. Maybe it’s trite. Maybe it’s not enough. But for the moment, it’s all I have and it’s what I’m focusing on: No matter how bad shit gets over the next four years, no matter how often we are sideswiped and hit-and-run by the clown car of incoming corrupt criminals, I hope we can all remember to pause now and again and give thanks for whatever good news we can find.

Keep on Truckin’ Y’all.

NOTES:

Very seriously—if any of you have an old small truck in good shape you want to sell, please let me know.

If you’re reading this for free and can swing a paid subscription—$5 per month—I sure would appreciate it. Really helps me. Another option—feel free to leave a one-time tip to show your appreciation. THIS WEEK ALL TIP JAR MONEY GOES TO THE NEW OLD TRUCK FUND for Henry. Venmo your contribution to me here: @spike-gillespie. If every non-paying subscriber kicks in a one-time $5 donation it will go a very long way toward resolving this issue. Thanks for your consideration.

If you want to buy my new, hilarious novel, Grok This, Bitch, you can Venmo me: @spike-gillespie. $10 gets you an e-copy, $30 gets you a print copy. Please be sure to include your email or snail mail. And know that 100% of the proceeds for the foreseeable future are going to go toward helping my son get a new used truck.

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