Friday, June 11, 2010

interlude - Aaron

Popping the Jake brake on his 1999 Peterbuilt, Aaron pulled his big rig, minus the trailer, into the special parking space he had graded out beside his house. He knew the neighbors bitched about the noise, but there was nothing they could do about it, so he did it just to annoy them.
He knew the house would be empty, but that was okay with him. He didn’t need anyone there when he got home. All he needed was a hot shower, several cold beers and some take-out from the local Appleby’s he’d picked up coming through town.
He’d been on the road for two weeks straight and would be home for four full days before heading back out. His beagle dog Jesse climbed out of the cab, jumping down with a youth only a seven-year-old beagle could muster after 10 hours on the road that day.
Aaron collected up his log book, some receipts he had thrown on the dashboard, the wallet which he kept in the center console and the keys to his house which he kept on the emergency brake knob.
He’d grab his dirty clothes and toiletries later, before he went to bed and clean the cab in the morning, like he’d done for the past four years since he started the regular two-week run from Michigan to points west.
It was a good life for “Baron Aaron” as he was known on the CB radio. He had nothing to tie him down. He lived his life free of the encumbrances of a family life which tied so many men down. He’d tried it a couple of times, but no woman had managed to get him to say those magic words “I do.” A few had gotten him to utter the three words which began man’s slide down that slippery slope to wedded hell, but none had gotten him to the alter.
Jessie, a woman in West Wendover, Nevada had come closest to tying him down to a home and a family seven years earlier. Aaron had busted his rig just off the salt flats and limped into the dust bowl of a town. There were three operating casinos and Jessie worked at two of them as a waitress. She was as pretty as Aaron was ruggedly handsome and in the five days he was there, she slept in his cab four nights.
She had been fun and athletic and he promised to keep in touch as he pulled out of town. She contacted him a month later with news of his impending fatherhood. Aaron was pissed at her for not being more careful. He was so pissed he bought the beagle pup in Columbus Ohio and was going to name it Jessie after her, but it turned out the dog was a boy so he got the name Jesse.
Nine months later he picked up his mail at his post office box and found he had a daughter named Christina Anne Robinson, on whom he would be paying several hundred dollars a month for the next 18 or so years.
He gave serious thought to moving out west to be with Jessie. She was pretty fun, attractive enough, good in the sack and had a job, but he didn’t want give up the job he had, or the house he had, or the cool boat in the back shed, or the two quads in the garage or the 1972 GTO which he drove around locally. Aaron drank quite a few beers that night and Diamond Lil’s Suds and Sandwiches with his friends and bitched about how she tried to trap him. He bragged about how smart he was to avoid the trap of marriage and would pay the child support grudgingly.
Every summer he’d spend two weeks hauling the kid around in his truck once she got old enough, but until then, he sent the money, an occasional card and pretty much forgot about her. One day, he told himself, he’d go out and introduce himself, but he thought it best he wait until she was old enough to be able to do more than play with dolls, watch that mind numbing children’s crap on TV and cry for mommy.
He took home one of his regular girls that night and forgot about Christina.
Unlocking the house, Jesse did his business in the yard and sniffed around the garden that was getting a little over grown. He’d have to have that neighbor kid who mows his lawn do a better job or find someone else. He paid the kids $25 a week to keep things clean and trimmed while he was away, but if he was going to do a half-assed job, Aaron would find someone else.
Turning off the alarm system first, Aaron dropped the rest of what he was carrying on the plush blown-leather sectional that took up two sides of the large living room. The 54-inch TV and entertainment center took up the third wall of the room and the remotes were where he left them, the three-foot square foot stool that came with the sectional.
With the alarm off, Aaron turned on the lights.
Breathing deep, he hollered at Jesse to get his ass into the house. Once the dog was in, Aaron went back out to his rig to grab his cell phone, the leather bag which he kept his personal information, the bed sheets from his bunk and everything else he needed to put in the washing machine the next morning and the take out bag of supper.
Climbing down, he locked up the cab and said good night to “Freedom,” the name he’d given his big rig.
Back in the house, he dropped the laundry on the floor, threw the leather bag on the sectional and put the cell phone on the charger and headed for the kitchen with his supper. He knew the refrigerator would be empty of food, but one shelf would be filled with Budweiser.
Opening it up, there they were. Fifteen bottles of Milwaukee’s best, just waiting for him. The first was opened and half finished before he even got out of the kitchen. He opened up the take-out Styrofoam containers, added a little salt, finished off the first beer and grabbed two more out of the fridge.
He took it all to his favorite seat in the living room, he set it down carefully on the stand then lowered himself into the reclining end of the sectional, put the foot stool up and settled in for the evening.
“This is the good life,” he said to Jesse, who was sniffing at the food. “What could get better than this, puppy dog?”
Halfway through his meal, his cell phone rang, but Aaron was too comfortable to get up and look at it. If it was important, which nothing ever was that important to Aaron, he’d see who it was in the morning.
Meal completed, a full belly, a leftover bone that Jesse was knowing on in the corner, TV had the second half of a twi-night double header between the Tigers and Twins going on and Aaron could not think of any place he’d rather be right now. He gathered up the leftover trash from his meal and tossed it in the compactor in the kitchen. The silverware he put in the dishwasher and the three empty beer bottles went under the sink.
Grabbing beers four and five, which should be enough to get through the game unless there were extra innings, Aaron headed back to his chair. He accidentally looked at his cell phone and saw it was Carl Craven, his boss at trucking company, who had called him. There was a voice mail which he was about to listen to when the phone started ringing again. It was Carl again. “Damn, the man must really want me,” he said to himself.
Unplugging the cell and flopping it open, he said “Ahoy, hoy, Carl! Why are you bothering me on Friday night when you should be home banging your wife?”
“Shut up, stupid ass,” Carl said in a no nonsense, angry voice. “What’s this I hear about you getting another ticket?
“It wasn’t my fault,” Aaron said, sobering up quickly. “That son of a bitch bear caught me coming down the Lukachukai Pass and I was only doing, 70. The cop said I was doing 80, but I swear he had the car next to me in his sights, not me.”
“I don’t give a shit Carl. That’s six points in one year. You get a week off without pay and I want your rig in here tomorrow morning by 7 a.m. for annual maintenance,” Carl ordered.
Aaron tried to talk his way out of it, but Carl wasn’t the boss for nothing and didn’t give an inch. “7 a.m., Aaron. I’m not screwing around,” he said then hung up.”
“Dammit all to hell,” Aaron said as he slammed the phone down, breaking it on the table. “Dammit Carl, now look what you made me do.”

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