I left Roland’s Wednesday to pick up the big truck. I drove his pickup so he could use mine to haul water and parked his at the trucking office. I’d drawn a 63 Peterbilt tractor for this run. By now 13 years old it ran well with its new engine. And with a double overdrive setup is was good for about 80 miles an hour and I was paid by the mile.
By the time I got back to Seattle rush hour was starting. As I dropped the trailer at the scales the traffic was heavy. Driving a big, clumsy truck-tractor in the U-District’s rush traffic set my teeth on edge. I wasn’t confident I’d be able to find a parking space big enough for the tractor but as day-parkers left their spaces a couple in a row opened up and I pulled in, putting the outside tires up on the curb. Susan wasn’t home yet so I sat on the porch watching the pedestrians go by and waited. After about fifteen minutes her blue bug pulled up in front of the house. She got out saying, “I saw your truck parked around the block. It’s huge! How do you fit it in the streets?”
“Practice,” I said. “Practice. After you’ve been driving it for a week it’s just like driving a car, In fact it feels weird getting into a car again.”
“You want to go out for dinner? The Bite of India maybe? Then we could walk up to the Moon for a beer.”
“Sure. But just one beer. I have to be on the road really early, remember? Yakima at seven.”
We returned to the Hotel Universe about 8 and went up to her attic to bed. At 3:30 my travel alarm went off. How awfully rude. Susan slept right through it. I let her sleep, got up, dressed and crept down the creaky stairs and out the front door.
“Aren’t you even going to say goodbye?” came a voice from two stories up. Susan was leaning out the window from her bed, pillow scrunched up around her chest.
“I didn’t want to wake you. It was a short night.”
“Hurry every chance you get but don’t run over anybody with that truck.”
“OK. See you in a week or so.”
I walked around the block to find the tractor where I’d left it. At 3:30AM the University District is dead quiet. The sound of me slamming the cab door echoed down the block. I rolled down the window. A police cruiser oozed by, cops checking me out as I turned on the dome light. I turned the key on and several warning buzzers broke the silence, low oil pressure, low air pressure, over temperature. I put up with their annoyance as I pulled out the compression release handle on the dashboard and pressed the starter button. The moan of the starter gear broke the silence. I let it turn over a few revolutions, then pushed the handle back home against the dashboard. The big diesel rattled to life with a snort, puffing white smoke into the night air. The stop lights on the cop car came on. I turned on the headlights and the 5 marker lights across the cab top. I apparently meant business and the cops slithered down the street looking for better pickings. The diesel rattled loudly in night air as the compressor built up air pressure for the brakes. In five minutes, air up and log book started for the day, I pulled the main and auxiliary transmission levers into gear and cranked hard at the steering wheel to get me out of the now smaller parking space. Power steering had yet be common in 1963 when this old Peterbilt left the factory.
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In The Belly Of the Beast 