Flatbed Ford (2 page)

He reached for the door handle and
climbed up onto the shiny, light grey vinyl seat and into an
interior rife with an aroma that enveloped him with its
pungency.

The fingers of her left hand hit the
blinker switch, she dropped her into low, and revving it up a
little, she let out the clutch and turned right.

Leaning into it slightly, she
disengaged the clutch, slid the lever way up into second, exposing
the side of a lovly breast when she did so, almost a nipple too,
and then they were really off.

He wondered if she had sort of caught
that.

Franklyn just sat there, trying to
catch his breath for some reason. He didn’t think he’d been working
that hard.

The road led up a slight rise, with
tall conifers lining the road on both sides just over the crest.
The speed built. She wasn’t going crazy with it, just driving. With
total confidence, she dropped the three-quarter ton stake-truck
into third, and again he had to sort of ignore her breast at the
side of his vision, and then she relaxed the left leg, stretching
it all the way out to the floorboards.

Jackson Browne was playing on the
radio, and she looked over at Franklyn. She gave him another funny
little grin, and then she reached and turned up the
volume.

“…
running low, running on
empty…running low…runnin’ dry,,,da da da
da
…da-da da-da…”

He couldn’t really argue with that,
all too aware of Alice’s silky smooth legs, the bare naked toes,
nails neatly trimmed and painted a deep pink colour to match her
fingernails and lipstick.

Franklyn wondered just where to begin
with his story, or whether he should even tell it.

***

He hadn’t realized how intimidating it
could be, to be with someone like that.

Franklyn was sort of afraid to ask
exactly where she had originally been headed. It must have been
somewhere local, in a vehicle of this sort. She was so beautiful
and it was impossible to imagine her as unattached. She must
inevitably have a husband, a fiance…a boyfriend, a
lover.

A girl like Alice could have all the
sugar daddies she wanted, certainly around here with all those rich
and lonely old farmers.

“
So, I figure I’ll just
grab the first job. I’ll work in a Seven-Eleven, I don’t care. All
I need is a room, just to start off with.”

She looked over.

“
I suppose after sleeping
in barns and sheds for a while…”

“
Exactly. But right off, I
think, I mean…I will be going out to auditions, and stuff like
that.”

She was silent for a long
moment.

Franklyn hadn’t actually gotten around
to telling her why he had ever left in the first place.

It was either a sore spot or
irrelevant.

He looked over, turned slightly her
way. With the weight of walking gone, he had settled in for
something rare these days, true physical relaxation. It was only
now that he realized what a toll it had been taking.

To walk, and walk, day after day…how
effortlessly the truck covered the miles.

To relax, and not to have to
constantly work. To have a conversation. To listen to her voice, no
matter how little she said.

To see her, and to just smell her
sitting there.

She drove with her left hand, sitting
up straight and comfortable, and she kept a good eye on the
road.

Her right hand came across and the
girl patted him on the leg.

“
Go on.”

“
Other than that, I guess
there’s not much to tell.”

Her eyes met his and she made another
long and assessing peripheral study. Franklyn had long, waving dark
hair, the strong jaw and brow. There were good, honest brown eyes
and the remarkable physique on the fellow.

Franklyn had some kind of crazy
dream.

She wondered what that was
like.

He said he’d been doing drywall and
interior commercial renovations. He just threw up his hands one
day.

‘
Fuck it. I’m
going.’

Just that. Fuck it. I’m
going.

It really wasn’t about the money or
anything, Alice thought.

“
So…I mean seriously. Why
did you leave? I mean, was this a sudden decision?”

“
No…” The truth was, that
he had been thinking or dreaming of such a thing for far too many
years.

How many years had he
wasted?

“
No, it wasn’t a sudden
decision…not really.” It just took a long time to make
it.

It just seemed like an impulse at the
time.

It was just something he
had to do before he died. Anyhow, once he realized he could not
possibly become a star actor…(as he went on with the story) then
the possibility of being a working
character
actor had sort of
become
more,
not
less possible.

And Franklyn had some character now.
That’s what he told Alice. He wasn’t just some nineteen year-old
kid who didn’t want to work for a living. Not now. Not anymore. He
had some lines on his face. He had a good quizzical expression, and
a gift when it came to delivering lines. He told her that
too.

Why not?

She seemed like a nice
lady.

Not that he would ever try anything
like that with someone like Alice.

She was just too beautiful.

“
Maybe I had just had
enough.” Franklyn stared out the passenger window as the farms and
houses drifted past in an endless stream of happiness and
humanity.

It was hard to believe sometimes, but
not everyone had a perfect life.

He laughed at his expression in the
window, suddenly afraid to look at her.

His eyelids drifted down and as luck
would have it, he fell almost instantly asleep.

One Hell of a
Revelation

“…
don’t let the sound of
your own wheels drive you crazy…”

The Eagles.

They looked into each other’s eyes and
smiled, a conspiracy of lovers.

“
There are some things,
Mother, that you don’ t need to know.”

She laughed at that one.

He couldn’t really say how it all
happened.

It just seemed right.

They’d been holding hands for the last
forty miles.

All questions were dying before he
could ask them. It was the same for her, probably. She turned off
the road and into a parking lot washed in garish neon.

“
I’ve got a little
money.”

She shook her head.

“
I’ve got Bill’s credit
card.” She bit her lip and gave him a solemn smile. “I’ll cut it up
soon enough.”

He nodded gravely as Alice got out of
the truck and walked into the motel office. He supposed he’d better
un-sling his packsack.

He had much to learn about
women.

***

She lay on top of him, breathing
quietly.

Alice gazed down into Franklyn’s eyes,
his penis still inside of her.

He had the most serious look on his
face.

“
Why’d you do it?”
Franklyn had sort of clued in after a while.

All wrapped up in himself as he
was.

Waking up to discover they had
travelled two hundred and fifty miles while he slept…well, that was
one hell of a revelation.

Her eyes were all funny, clouded in
doubts and reservations and yet there was no going back upon
it.

“
Oh, I don’t know. I guess
I just had enough.” She poked him in the chest. “Like
you.”

She disengaged. She rolled off to one
side. She lay on her left, close to his shoulder and with her left
arm wrapped around his neck, keeping him close. She rubbed her
fingers in his chest hair and just looked upon him.

She was all right with it.

“
I reckon—” Franklyn had a
Tennessee accent, just some boy who grew up in a holler, and
luckier than some. “I reckon I got ten, maybe fifteen good years
ahead of me. After that, sickness and death.”

And in the end, we all got
it coming to us.

“
Yes?” Franklyn would
never hurt her.

“
I wonder…” His eyes were
far away.

She bit her lip. She wondered where it
might lead. But it would lead somewhere, somewhere better than
this, maybe.

Somehow she knew that about
him.

“
You can tell
me.”

There was a strange smirk on her
face.

“
I would love to share
them years with somebody nice.” Franklyn had soft, brown, puppy-dog
eyes.

She looked into his soul for a moment
and then held on real tight.

He closed his eyes as if to hold back
the waters. His body went into some kind of spasms and warm wetness
rained down upon her breasts.

She had already made her decision,
come what may.

“
Shush. It’s okay,
Franklyn.” She ruffled his hair and murmured softly in his ear.
“It’s going to be all right. As long as we have each other,
everything is going to be just fine.”

End

Who is Ian
Cooper?

Ian Cooper has written fiction,
non-fiction and worked for newspapers and magazines. He likes to
make people laugh as well as think. His writing has a strong sense
of the dramatic. Out of work and recovering from a life-threatening
illness, someone suggested writing his sexual memoirs, which he
initially rejected for the amount of research involved. He didn’t
want to have to make it all up from scratch. A single dad and
semi-retired from his most recent experience as an estimator in the
construction industry, Ian squeezes a little writing time in
between raising a daughter and building a home-based
business.