THE GOOD OL' BUDDHA STRIKES A DEAL

SOCIALLY Conscious

pick-up, 1965 Chevy

hardworking, reliable,

starts up everytime in

spite of depression

about U.S. bombing of

El Salvdor. Body in

rough shape,looks like

it's been strafed by a

AC - 47 gunship, but

refuses to die. Only

$350 and this symbol

of heroic resistance

is yours. Ten percent

discount to any dirt

farmer, tax-resistor,

or anyone who has

engaged in civil dis-

obedience during the

past 6 months.523-2413.

It's not a question of pissin' in the wind. Or shoutin' into it. Eventually it all comes back at you. End of sermon.

Each turn of the speedometer marks the route --we pronouce that "root" here in southern Ohio, not "out", like where you going anyhow? can't get away from yrself. The route of the journey spinning the prayer wheel through mud and shit and listen to the hum of the highway. Low way, no way, hey, go 'way, it's all one way. Damn if that hum aint a hymn, aint him and her, hear? him an' her in the comic cosmic love song, it's all comin' from the tires, the rim an' tires, him 'n her. Hmmm. Higher 'n higher. The rime don't seem to be connecting with the road, or the rim with the load. What's the point? The point where the road meets the tire. I thought once it was an angle. Then an angel. But, now? What's the point, except what the tire knows. Yeh. Yeh. And I'm tired.

T for Tired, and T for Tennessee. At least I aint Hired. H for Hell no, I aint for hire. Aint for her. Just so tired. Loads of mulch, log for pulp, split log for firewood, bales and barn boards, feed for the animals and animals for the slaughter. Laughter. That's a sight gag, visible visual pun. Slaughter don't sound nothin' like laughter, sounds more like oughter, and I don't ought to do nothin'. Nothin' is what I do best. But yes, slaughter and laughter. There isn't any choosin'. A body's got to have at least one truck load of laughter. Why so many, too damn many loads of the miseries? 170,000 miles. Minimum. Minimum. Minimal miles. That word. I can see it. As a kid, my dad did this all the time. Made miles into smile. Damn, it was corny, and did make us all smile. And. I miss how corny it was, how easy it was to make everyone smile. One hundred seventy thousandsmiles. There should be another 170 in her. There should be. Be. Not should, my master said, be. But not for me.

She never gave me a bit of trouble. New valve cover gasket. I remember how shiny I kept it. The only piece of chrome not rusted on the whole truck. Everytime I checked the oil I'd give it a shine. It'd get dirty, I'd shine it. Dirty. Shine. Dirty. And brakes and lining. Mufflers, of course, got to muffle that engine sound! Points and plugs and that's about it for 8 years. No complaints. Not one. None. Nuthin'. Hell, a woman should be so good. Started up no matter how cold. Hell, I should be so good. A simple six. I keep seeing, saying sex. In my mind's eye, that is. Eye of mind. Kind of rimes with slight of hand, I think. Therefore. Naw. That's a school kid's game. And any kid who knows a torque wrench from a feeler gauge can work on her. No strange hoses, air pumps, pollution controller pressure equalizers, no fuel injection. Nothin' but the basics. Keep it simple, but simply: don't keep it. And worth every bit of $350.

Of course the bed is holey. Aint everything? Rust partakes of the universal predicament. End of sermon.

No. Without rust the world economy stops. With rust the end but slowly approaches. Not even a whimper. It is only a matter of time. Some matter. Some time. Mix 'em together with a bit of stiffness and this truck lasts a few more years --until these holes, the holes in the bed, yeh, aint it the truth, the holes in fenders, floor boards, the holes along the frame, the loose metal that flaps every time the door closes, these holes joined together by even thinner and thinner strands of metal, the rust eats on. A critical mass, all the holes joined and then pooph! Imagine it.

Driving down life's highway, yeh, the Interstate 80 of de Soul, engine poppin' along, not like new but with plenty of life still coursin' through it, almost, almost purrin' like a baby, or is that a kitten? but purring, the highway hummin' --when pooph! -- the holes join up, the whole damn body goes, dis-integrates, disappears, engine skids to a halt at some crowded intersection, someone calls a wrecker. Here. Now imagine it.

This wrecker it's called the Cosmic Wrecker & Company. It was dispatched from The Rent-A-Center. I swear I saw that sign on Michigan Avenue outside of Dearborn. And you. And you sit there wondering, "I can imagine the Cosmic Wrecker, but who is the Company?" A crowd gathers but only momentarily. Your dire plight is only a minor annoyance for the commuters. The flow goes on, moved by a different engine. Your engine is taken to the yard. You walk home thinking that there's got to be a better way. A way to get from here to there. And then, and then, the Cosmic Wrecker whips on by where you are walking and snatches the "t" from there and you are HERE! But of course you aren't, are you? And of course, all of this is only a future, isn't it?

Stay where you are.

Sell the truck.

Keep your car.

While there is still time.

Still time.

And make no references to the turning world.

Or word.

I can't afford two vehicles. Can anyone?

A man with two cars is a split personality. Every boy growin' up in America, even with sex, booze, and drugs complicating the formative years unnecessarily, every boy knows this: one man, one car. Even if the car's not a car but a truck.

So along comes this guy and he takes me at my word. He reads my sign and my sign it say "For Sale". With a big FOUR, the biggest. The four for the four directions. The four winds. The four humours. "Four for the four who stood at the door." And the four psychological principles, and don't say psychologists don't have any, four fives will get you a ten that they do. The four compass points. Four elements. The four seasons. The four suits in a deck. The four stooges in the wreck. Yeh, he confronts me.

How much are you selling this thing for?

How much I wonder. Imagine him here. This much is your job. Hand on truck. I wonder, then I take a couple steps away. This is a little aside to myself. I don't want to tip my hand, not to this guy. How often is a sign a sign? Every girl knows with her mind a sign is too often a design. On her body. "I love you" means "I'm lonely." So I tell him. I wander back to him, I tell him that it is not for sale.

Some kid must have put this sign on my truck as a joke while I was shopping.

He pulls out the newspaper with my ad in it. He's seen me driving around town with the sign in the rear window. He knows I'm lying when I say it is not for sale. Why? How can he know so much when he look so dumb?

I know he knows how much I'm asking for the truck. Why don't I want to sell it, to this guy? He's the only one who has asked about it. And he aint no dirt farmer so I don't have to give him the discount. I don't really need the truck. Got a good car, used '73 Chevy Monte Carlo. Paid $600 and only 120,000 miles on that one. Buy American.

He asked me, I knew he would, again.

How much do you want for it?

Why don't I like the way he refers to my truck as an it? There aint no its. Everything is moving, even if moving toward oblivion. William "Rusty" Blake: "All Life Is Holey." Can I avoid the truth with another deception? No. One unanswered question is enough for one life. Besides, Two wrongs, etc. The truth is $350. Any truck that runs is worth $300 says every farmer who lives in every time.

This guy, he says, "Would you take $300?"

Back tires are brand new, cost me $100.

New muffler and battery.

Clutch is slipping, probably from the oil leak coming out of the rear transmission seal. But so what? We are all slipping a little.

Transmission.

Transmission. That's it. It's all transmission.

What's mine? Yours?

Hey, you alright?

I'm trying to be honest with you.

I noticed the oil leak.

I never tried to hide it.

The truck is getting loose and sloppy. 350, 300. What is the big difference? How many offers have you had? I believe you, it runs good, runs fine, always has. Dependable. Great. Take off those stickers and I'll take it off your hands.

Stickers? And then you'll take off in my truck?

What do you mean? Of course I'll take off, but it will be my truck. Here's the 300. Sign the title, I'll take care of it, and I guess it's ok to say I paid 50 bucks for it, no use paying any more taxes than we have to, right?

Wrong.

What do you mean? You want the 350?

Wrong.

What?

I'm not going to sell it. Not without those stickers.

For $350 you get the truck.

The truck comes with the stickers.

For $350 you get the truck plus U.S. OUT OF CENTRAL AMERICA. For $350 you get the truck plus EL SALVADOR THE NEXT VIETNAM.

All of that for 350.

If you want only the truck, then you got to pay more.

What?!

If you only want the truck then you have to pay more for only the truck. How simply can I say it? I will take off the damn stickers for you. I will take off U.S. OUT OF CENTRAL AMERICA. That will cost you. Yeh, that will cost you. No more cheap bananas. And, and no more cheap beef for your drive-in hamburgers misterman. You want cheap coffee paid with the blood, sweat, and tears of people with no choices but to work for some cheating bastard? Well, cheap coffee and cotton, both are going to cost you. I'll take off that sticker and the price for the truck goes up to $400.

Come on. Stop raving. I was just kidding. I can take off the stickers myself. I'll give you the 350.

Oh no. You can order me around all you want. You can cheat on your little-bitty taxes, hell, I don't want any of anybody's money going to any more wars. You can do just what ever you want. But it will cost you. You wanted me to take off the stickers. O.K. Let 'er rip. Off goes NO MORE WAR ON NICARAGUA. Now the truck costs you $450. Now no more cheap coffee you parasite. You know how much the coffee pickers got under Somoza? You know how much the coffee growers control the army in El Salvador? You tired of tasting blood in your morning coffee? Or have you killed your taste buds too?

Hey, knock it off. Keep your fuckin' truck. I don't have to listen to this.

Oh yes you have to listen. If you want my truck you have to take my story, I don't split my life that way. Keep walkin' and enjoy your morning coffee!

Enjoy your coffee. Morning. In the mourning. Sure. Yeh. I'll keep her. AND DON'T COME BACK!. And here, you can take EL SALVADOR, THE NEXT VIETNAM --Free! But now the price of the truck is $500!

Now it's a 1000! 10,000. Now.

Now it's a million. A million, a million to one. And.

And we all know.

We know, it's all one.

One.

Maybe I should be a Coyote.

Quit this place and take my truck to the southwest. I could take off the stickers, rebuild the seat into a box to hold refugees, at least one refugee at a time, refugees needing to get across the

border. No border patrol would suspect this beatup old pickup. Never. "When you got nothin' you got nothin' to lose."

I got work to do here. That's what my friends in Nicaragua tell me. Necessary work to do here. The most necessary. Most?

But this truck won't serve that bastard. It won't serve any of them. He probably works for some damn general -- General Electric. Generators used to charge the electrodes attached to the genitals of supects by the death squads. General Motors, tanks and armored carriers. United Technologies. Gunships used in Vietnam now dropping bombs on peasants in El Salvador. Mobil Oil. Ah, fuck it ol' truck. You're a general, GMC. General Motors Company.

We're all generals.

Here's the scene. Picture it now. I rip off the side mirrors.

Picture it.

The reflection in the mirror.

It looks like a movie, an old movie jerking back and forth.

I watch the sky, the sun flashes. There's the glitter, blink. I see myself. Even see what is possible. Then nothing.

Nothing.

I smash the mirror against the fender.

Scattered fragments across the hood and onto the ground. Each piece of glass, each piece must reflect something. They all do. They must. All of them. Then nothing.

Picture it.

Each window smashed out.

How hard are you working? It's not as easy as it sounds, and it sounds hard, hard like the screams muffled into the leaves of jungles, the grasses absorbing them. The screams. And then nothing.

Blood and burns, how the body rips itself open for some increase in profits on some distant bank account.

No account. The words fail as they fall. Like the bombs. And the lack. Lack. Hole. What pulls us. And nothing.

And the silence, silence of the news media, the cover of lies made from nothing, nothing but fear. Of the truth.

I cut myself.

Little pieces are drawn to my eyes. My hair collects glass. Out go the lights.

The fenders resist more than I thought possible. They used to flap in the wind. I thought we'd fly, just like Dumbo the elephant, big ol' elephant truck ears a flappin' in the air. In the nothing, that's what I was going to say. Flappin' and flappin'.

Now the fenders they let go their hold with so much resistance.

Detachment I whisper, detachment.

Return to being only metal, all form is illusion. Metal. 'N mental. Elemental. Let go.

It isn't as hard to destroy as to build. But it is not easy. Out in the jungle some peasant transforms pieces of helicopter into a plow. I know it is being done, even as I tear into this truck. How do you think it is, how hard to rip open a tire? All into pieces. We have to work so hard at such destruction. Help me.

We work together at the death of this truck. I can't continue. I can't accept such resistance.

Fire is only rust accelerated.

Oh, visions of Saigon. Madame Nhu she said it was just a Buddhist barbecue.

God help my rimes. Where is she now? Ky, remember him? Got himself a used car dealership in America. Just like Somoza. Horatio Alger. Ben Franklin, Brotherly Love. Didn't he? Ky, he. Probably got one hell of a dope ring going by now. Wonder how much he'd give me for my truck? Maybe if it contained the bodies of Kennedy and Lyndon? Maybe the bodies of the 50,000, and the millions?

I'll sit behind the wheel, looking out through the opening.

Rounded pieces of glass still framing the hole. Fragments, it is how we see. Anything else is an illusion. This is.

The rupture of the gas tank opens into the cab. The body shudders before such heat, a massive chill of fire. Smoke is the after effect, the sign from a distance. Where there's smoke. There, the army's been.

Above the trees. And the observers know that the target is destroyed.

We end on a weak joke.

Hey, hey bud, ha! Buddy, my friend, you gotta light?

[Originally published in Nexus]

Return to Joe's biography page