by Ian Cooper
Flatbed Ford
Ian Cooper
This Smashwords edition published by Ian Cooper
Copyright 2014 Ian Cooper
Design by J. Thornton
ISBN 978-1-927957-10-3
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The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been asserted.
Table of Contents
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Nice Ride
One Hell of a Revelation
Who is Ian Cooper?
Flatbed Ford
Ian Cooper
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Going while the going was good.
That’s all he could really say.
Franklyn Warner stood at the side of the road, a stick-man in blue denim and white high-top runners. He took a drink of water, hitched his pack up higher and then moved on again.
He was in for a long day at this rate.
It was the middle of summer and the middle of Kansas. Hot and hazy, the sky arched blue overhead, with a lavish dollop here and there of puffy white cotton-ball clouds. Drops of sweat occasionally worked their way down inside his shirt. His mouth still felt dry.
It was very quiet. Nothing moved. It was merely a landscape and he was just a figure moving across it… although he had passed a house as he trudged, not far back. A real, live, living and breathing house.
There was a dog laying under a tree, in front of the porch and in the shade. It looked up and let out a dull, gruff greeting as he went. That was the single noteworthy thing that had happened to Franklyn when passing that house.
There were voices, or so he thought, inside that house. It sat quite close to the road. There really ought to be some voices in there.
Even if he hadn’t actually heard anything.
That was simple justice.
Those people didn’t even know he existed. They probably didn’t even know he had passed their house or had ever walked along this road. They may very well not have been near a window when he went by.
He didn’t really exist for them. He saw that more clearly now. He was a cat in a box to them—neither was he living, and neither was he dead.
There were vehicles in the driveway, and for whatever reason, he tried to recall what they were.
That way he could prove, at least to himself, that he had actually been there, and that the experience was not entirely meaningless.
To Franklyn, there was no act that did not hold some meaning, and it was meaning that Franklyn sought. Oh, so effortlessly, as it turns out.
A couple of days ago, he’d seen an Opel GT rotting away behind somebody’s barn. The act of rotting away held meaning. The act of abandonment held meaning, and then the act of observation also held meaning—according to some theory somewhere, it also affected the outcome.
Franklyn wondered how all of this would turn out, as he trudged along the road. Take that last house, for instance, there were two cars in the driveway.
He was pretty sure it was a silver sedan, gently rounded on all four corners and sides. Four-door, probably GM. That was the first one. And then there was a big, two-tone, white and burgundy, three-quarter ton behemoth of a pickup truck. It was typical for farm and country. That one had the dual rear wheels, with big fenders sticking out the side. It was probably a Ford. He was almost certain of that, and yet they blended in so well after a while.
He hated assumptions and yet one must draw a conclusion once in a while.
Did it matter if he was right or wrong? Did it change the meaning? How would that change the eventual outcome?
A man could only ask, and perhaps all would be revealed in due time.
They were all the same. They were all different. A house, one that seemed so promising, so unique on first onset, and then trudging by, noting the details as you went, might be pretty ordinary after all. It might be empty and forlorn, with no signs of the life that surely went on there at some hour or other. A house might suit its owner, and the owner might suit the house…and so on and so forth.
People lived there. He could see that much, and that was about all. It was sheer speculation.
Someone had to live there. And after a while, each one had blended into the next and each one had so easily and quickly been forgotten.
They were eminently forgettable, a special gift of the human mind.
It was a wonder what your mind retained at all sometimes.
Up ahead, perhaps three hundred yards, lay an intersection. He walked towards the stop sign, as the sun moved ever westwards and his belly rumbled.
In spite of the birds, the bees buzzing in the tall weeds and familiar blue heads of the chicory, which he at least recognized, strung along and across the fields, there by the side of the road, Franklyn felt lost and alone.
If anyone asked, not that anyone ever would—he could see that quite clearly now, he would have no answer.
What in the hell am I doing here?
There were no easy answers sometimes. And, there were times when you wanted to get out of one place without having any other particular place to go before you left…sometimes rather hurriedly.
On a whim, almost.
Almost as if there were no longer any time to waste.
The gravel crunched as he walked. The scent of something sweet came on the wind.
He was free, and that had to count for something.
Free at last.
Something buzzed, shrill, high and penetrating. It was a cicada.
When he was a boy, he’d heard that sound through the open rear window of the family car. His dad’s old ’66 Rambler, painted battleship grey, in the garage, with a couple of quarts of tire-store paint. His old man loved that thing. They must have been coming or going, on their way someplace else, on the proverbial family camping-type vacation. His old man had a boat on a trailer and all of their things were in it. Coolers and tents and sleeping bags.
At the time, he’d thought it was the telephone poles that were singing.
He was just a child of course, seven, maybe eight years old.
Nice Ride
There was really only one place to go, of course, and that was straight ahead.
“Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night, shall keep me from my appointed rounds….”
United States Postal Service. An inspiring thought.
The stop sign stood on his right as he walked past, and a mental picture of a cop whooshing up out of nowhere and ticketing him for jay-walking flashed through his mind. There was nothing off to the right or left but slight elevation changes, ditches lining the road, a few distant treetops and the verdant green of the fields of corn, coming up nicely now at about two to three feet tall.
The road rose in front of him.
It was going to be a long hot summer, and yet, with plenty of rain. He’d seen some of that already. He didn’t really mind, as it cooled things down and forced him to rest every few days….out of the rain.
A familiar sound droned its way into his consciousness. It was a truck, a white, flatbed Ford pickup from a bygone era. One replete with lacquered stak
e-work sides and white-letter tires all around, fifty series up front and sixties on the back. It rolled, braking, engine at idle, up to the stop-sign and then it came to a halt.
The motor rumbled and purred and he couldn’t help himself. He stopped. He turned and stared.
That was one wild ride.
With a grin, he raised a hand in greeting.
“Nice.”
The vehicle sat there, as the revs went up a bit then came down again. It sat there.
The passenger window came down and he could see a long-haired girl in there leaning over to reach the hand crank. She was long, lean, tanned and young.
““Hi.” Franklyn walked the short distance back to the intersection.
If she was looking for directions, she was shit out of luck.
Holy, crap.
“Hi.” This was the most exciting thing that had happened in quite some time.
Not since Cincinnati at least. Punks in a laundromat. Bloody nose for one of them, broken arm for the other.
At least that was his assessment.
Her right arm was up and across along the back of the seat and her other hand was relaxed across her lap.
She smiled.
“What’s up?” Franklyn found her expression enigmatic at best.
“Need a lift?”
“Ah---sure, but, uh…” He stood there, not reaching for the door handle just yet.
She had been traveling east, and he was headed south, so as to pick up the Interstate. He was going to talk to truckers at a major choke-and-puke. Her turn signal wasn’t on for a right turn or anything.
“Where are you headed?” Her right foot was on the brake, her left heel was down and the toes on the clutch pedal.
It was three in the tree, probably just a big six-banger up front under the hood. He could tell by the sound it didn’t have dual exhaust.
Franklyn sighed.
“It’s complicated. But, pretty much anywhere, really.”
Her eyes were deadly, crystal clear and amazing.
His guts were all ice for some reason. He didn’t care to linger on the thought.
“I’m Alice. Sounds like California to me. Am I right?”
He cracked a grin. Franklyn laughed when he heard that one.
“Yeah—”
She patted the passenger seat as he leaned in a bit.
“Hop in and you can tell me all about it.” She reached for the gear lever, which was at the neutral position.
Franklyn noted the accessory gauge set, available way back when for about thirty bucks at the tire store at the far end of Breckoridge Mall.
Alice was wearing tan sandals with the laces going all up the calves, white leather hot-pants, and a white cotton halter that left nothing to the imagination. She had her face on, with earrings, something silver pierced through the belly button and a twirling rosary tattooed around her neck or at least he thought it was something like that.
That cicada was going again and he strained to think.
“Franklyn. Pleased to meet you.” And how.
He un-slung his pack from his shoulders, mind made up. Franklyn unsnapped a major strap from the pack frame and then put his pack on the back of the vehicle, securing it with the strap and its fastener. That wasn’t going anywhere. She looked out the flat rear window and gave him a nod.
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.”
