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climbing into the cab of the truck with lefty and william was one of the most freeing feelings in recent memory. william was from sonny’s auto body out of durant and was a 53 year old with a wife and six dogs who has lived in durant his whole life. durant is pronounced like do-rag and not like kevin durant, the small forward for the oklahoma city thunder. once we hit the road, i suddenly wasn’t just driving north to hooch’s anymore. i was traveling again. i turned my life over to a series of unfolding moments that i could no longer predict. there was no howard stern, no thinking about the next time i would pull over for gas or to let the dog pee or to eat something cheap and deep fried. there was just a late afternoon drive with an unknown tow truck driver from mississippi going to an unknown location in memphis with an unknown agenda before us once we got there.

william was a damn good guy. he had a joint tattoo running down his left forearm that said ‘brother,’ which was presumably from when he went to jail a few times as a kid for ‘DUIs and what not,’ but he hadn’t had a drink in twelve years, and when i asked him whether or not he missed it he said emphatically, ‘not one bit.’ he didn’t cuss at all, although he did refer to the cash for clunkers program as ‘for the niggers’ once, but we never returned to those topics (government or race relations) and continued to get along fine.

from the sounds of it, he had a lot of used cars that he liked to fix up and try to sell. one of them was an old impala that he loved, but the economy has been so bad that he hasn’t had the money to get the cars running. william claimed he could put a new engine in a car in two or three days and was proud of that fact. ‘that’s how good i am,’ he said. his wife fell at her job at the gas station three years ago and hasn’t worked since, and william just recently got rehired at the service station after being laid off for a year cause there wasn’t any work. he drives a tow truck for ‘the boss man’ in the evening to make extra money. that’s been slow lately, too, but luckily for him, lefty and i came along. a drive to memphis was a pretty long haul.

we drove and talked about all kinds of shit, but cars and dogs, mostly. after about two hours of driving, william asked ‘are you hungry? you want to eat? i like mcdonald’s.’ i said, ‘i do too,’ which is a half truth in that i do enjoy the taste of mcdonald’s now and again but never eat it for an actual meal as it leaves me feeling weird, empty, and kinda sick. mcdonald’s is more of an occasional protein snack for me. like warm beef jerky. but i was along for the ride in all ways and threw my support behind mcdonald’s. when we ordered, i offered to pay (big spender) and william tried to resist, but i said it was the least i could do for him rescuing us off the side of the road. we each got the two cheeseburger value meals with dr. pepper and took them outside to eat by the truck because william thought there were ‘too many flies’ in the restaurant. i thought that might have been another reference to the blacks that i wasn’t familiar with – i didn’t see any flies in the restaurant – but then again i wasn’t really looking either.

we went out and sat on the bed of the truck and ate our dinner out of a white paper bag. william gave lefty a french fry and then asked, ‘do you feed him food like this?’ to which i responded ‘sometimes,’ which was a blatant lie. the sun was going down and it was turning into a beautiful night. ‘probably cooling off at home by now,’ william said. the a/c at his place went out months ago and he doesn’t have the $1200 to fix it, so evenings are extra special in the summer months. after we ate, william lit a couple marlboro reds off the cigarette lighter in my dead car before we continued on.

when we got to memphis, we still didn’t really know where we were going. we had an address, and william had called a friend of his who gave us a general idea of where we were going, but we still had no concrete directions. i had noticed a gps on the seat when we climbed in and asked william if it worked. ‘i don’t know how to operate that thing. are you smart? see if you can get it to work.’ i said i’m not sure how smart i am, but i’d see if it worked and of course it did. took us right to the shell station in german town on the corner of perkins and poplar.

william dropped the car in an empty spot in the parking lot and told me he, ‘sincerely wished the best for me.’ i told him the same and we shook hands. he invited me out to his place in mississippi and gave me some directions from 55 that i don’t remember. i showed him how to get back to the freeway and wished him a safe trip before heading into the gas station with lefty to see where the rest of the night would lead.

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