DIARY
I’d driven within Chicago, but Jess and I stopped in Indiana for food and gas, and she took over for me. Our original plan had called for arrival in Flushing in the mid-afternoon, but now it looked more like late evening or worse. A tank of gas cost between one and two hundred dollars, and our beast was not able to churn at more than sixty-five miles an hour. The sun sank into twilight as we crossed the Michigan border, and I closed my eyes awhile, sleeping for a few minutes between Benton Harbor and Paw Paw.
I woke up. The was no radio in the truck. Jess and I started playing a game then that lasted well into Shiawassee County. One of us would name a band, and the other would sing a song by that band. We predictably spun through R.E.M., Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Finally, we got off I-69, exit 123, Sheridan road to Saginaw. We rolled north to Corunna, east to Seymour, through downtown Flushing, and up to my parents. When we arrived it was just a few minutes to midnight, so they ordered a pizza, and I went to pick it up. When we got home, I hooked my camera up to the computer, and showed them pictures of our vacation in Belize.
The next day, Jess and I slept in awhile. When we woke up, we visited with Aunt Georgia and Grandma Coyne, and I showed them the pictures as well. My dad took Jess and I down for lunch at Skips. I ate a monstrous Mushroom burger, and we saw Tim the mailman. Back home, we loaded up our shower goods into the U-Haul. Mom came home to say goodbye. And we left.
We drove through the evening, with the sun setting in a slight rain somewhere between Findlay and Marion. We got into Zanesville around midnight. Brighton was quiet, the fair having all packed up. We visited with Jeff and Julie, and the next evening, we drove over to Becky and Bill’s, where they had one last gift for us: a beautiful Tiffany lamp. Again, we stayed up late, talking, well past midnight, and Jess and I went to sleep on the pull-out bed.
We were up the next morning early, and out a little after six. The fog was thick, and didn’t begin to lighten until we reached the West Virginia Border. We crossed through Martins Ferry and along the bridges across the Ohio River, then, skimmed through Wheeling, and promptly dove through the belly of a mountain. On the other side, we stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds. The sun was rising, and the mountainsides were green all over.
We got back on the road, and in fifteen minutes we were in Pennsylvania.
For the next three hours, I drove and Jess slept. Our route took us through many valleys and rolling hills, between mountains, and three tunnels miles long. Jess finally woke outside of Harrisburg. We filled up the tank with gas, and drove on. We were now less than three hours from New York. It looked like we might even be able to load in soon enough to go out and buy a nice dinner. But that was when our worst disaster struck.
* * * * *
As we rolled down the expressway, I noticed a heavy gassy smell in the cab. I waited a moment to see if it’d dissipate, then asked Jess if she’d noticed. She had just answered ‘yes,’ when puffs of white smoke started seeping into the cab through the vents and holes back of the doors, and spilling out from under the hood. We were both starting to feel dizzy, and I pulled off the expressway at the next exit and over at a Shell station. I popped the hood. The fumes cleared. And what remained of our ninety dollars of Diesel was spilling out of the U-Haul and down the slope.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone, waiting for the phone, and frustrated. Jess described the problem four times to four different people at first. We were referred and rereferred. We were given a case number that was irrelevant in informing most anyone about the details of our case. After over an hour (we’d passed the time doing Mad Libs), a wrecker came out, inspected the truck, informed us that we had a broken fuel line and that the truck was a fire hazard. He called U-Haul and gave his diagnosis. He waited for an hour for them to given him an order to tow the truck, since there wasn’t anything else that could be done with it. Then, needed to get to other customers, he left. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone. At one point, I spoke to a Manager, in frustration but politely, and he hung up on me. We kept seeing U-Hauls moving up and down the road; there was a post two miles away, and we could’ve exchanged our broken vehicle for another if they’d followed up with us. But they didn’t. Finally, at the end of our ropes, we called Becky, Jess’ mom, to see what she could accomplish. She wrestled with them over the phone for several hours, dealing with the same failed promises and referrals that we had. Finally received a call at 4:30… five hours since we had broken down. They said they’d put us up overnight and get us a new truck in the morning. I explained all my frustrations and anger, that I’d worked in customer service and that there was no excuse for the treatment we’d received. I said I thought the situation with our truck was dangerous, and I was tempted to consult an attorney. He said he’d see what he could do, and call me back. He did, in twenty minutes. They couldn’t reach anyone. They’d hack the wrecking company give us a tow… to Brooklyn. We did the math and figured this was a distance of one-hundred-and-fifty miles. We were costing U-Haul over a thousand dollars.
We waited another half-hour, and the wrecking company returned, hitched our truck up, and wheeled us down into town, where we waited another hour-and-fifteen minutes for Jeremy, who’d tow us, to return. The sun had set, and it was past seven, when we finally got on the road again. We’d been off the road now for longer than we’d been on. Or, if none of this had happened, we would’ve been in our apartment for three hours.
At any rate, the trip continued uneventfully for awhile. We rolled through the darkness of eastern Pennsylvania, smoother, flatter, less rolling than the west. We stopped for a pit stop outside Allentown, and I called my father to check in. He’d had a bad day too. We crossed through Bethlehem and into New Jersey, and east to Newark, where our adventures began again. First, five or six interstates intersect here, and the confluence is not user friendly. After stopping for a six pack, we managed to navigate ourselves north via the New Jersey tollway to the Holland Tunnel, only to be told at the gate that the Holland Tunnel didn’t accept wreckers. From there, in an attempt to steer north, Jeremy missed a turn, and we were suddenly headed west again, rerouted several miles through industry and swamp towards the Hackensack river. We finally realigned ourselves again, aimed for the Lincoln Tunnel, and drove under the Hudson and into New York at great expense. On the other side, emerging near Times Square, the sidewalk was thronged with crowds and neon and bright lights gave enough glow to read by. I made a comment about being worried that something in the back might have broken, and Jeremy’s response was not reassuring. Jess and I were so disconcerted that, when the police stopped us at the Queens-Midtown tunnel for a quick search, we insisted on checking the Tiffany lamp to make sure it was intact. Reassured, we went through the second tunnel and on into Queens. Wanting to take the easy instead of the fast but circuitous route, we crossed the Pulaski bridge into Greenpoint then Williamsburg, rode out Bushwick to Park, followed Park through Bed-Stuy, and finally arrived at our apartment in Fort Greene just as Jess’ cousin, Maria, arrived to help us unpack. It was almost midnight.
The four of us unloaded the truck into the vestibule, then Jeremy and I left to park the truck. Ultimately, we found a spot a block away at the Walt Whitman Homes. Between the size of the wrecker, the size of the U-Haul, and the width of the street, it was difficult to wedge the truck into a space, and when we finally pushed it back against the curb, the bumper jumped up and hit a parking sign, snapping the metal pole clear off the base. Several locals approached Jeremy and questioned him about this problem, and what compensation they might expect. I sat in the truck, and hoped he wasn’t killed. Jeremy was nineteen and all Harrisburg. He helped carry several loads up before heading out at around one o’clock. Jess and Maria and I continued to carry up box after box for the next several hours. We didn’t finish until well after three, and collapsed, sweaty and exhausted on the floor. We took turns in the shower. They drank water. I drank a beer. Then, we lay down among the boxes for several hours of sleep. We were “home.”
END OF POST.