San Francisco was beginning to irritate me beyond belief. I love the town but I needed a break from running my own business and hustling my ass off to pay the astronomical bills. Nixon, my cousin, was under the impression for the last few weeks that he was going to get an expensive car for nothing from a older guy who has been hot on his ass. Strange, I know. Well, I bought in to the whole thing and was ready for a grand road trip up the north coast to Seattle for a long weekend in the new car. Well, the day came to leave and then another day and no call. Finally, a call came and the car was coming that day so I got packed and waited and also went and picked up my friend Casey in Oakland so that he could come with us to Fort Bragg because he needed a ride.
Soon after getting back from Oakland the call came that the car had some sort of problem and we were not getting it till Monday. Another convenient delay and I started to get a bit angry so I made some calls. The sales person at the dealership in Marin was very nice. “Nope, the cars here and ready to go, no problems, we’re just waiting for the payment.” Of course you are, and the round guy playing daddy war bucks is pulling me around now and yanking my chain. “Fuck that,” I muttered.
Casey watched as I packed my bags and got ready to go after I laid down for a bit and had a shower to calm the senses because I was steaming. We jumped in the truck and headed up highway 1.
The sun started to set and the drive was beautiful. The road started to wind and we stopped for gas and drove in the dark until we reached Fort Bragg. It was 12 am or so when we arrived and we checked in to our hotel and then fell asleep.
The next morning it was brisk but the sun was out and we jumped in the truck to go explore the mountains and the roads around the town. I pulled out the map and searched for the closest way into the forest. Oh, there we go. And we drove down oak and out off the pavement and into the forest.
We talked and drove along the dirt road and watched the ground get more saturated with mud and the road get narrower. We passed a few formidable obstacles but nothing to bad. Fairly deep mud holes where on the road but one could drive around them so I was not bothered. We laughed and talked and looked around. The road got a bit harder and we continued on until we came up to a mud puddle that we could not drive around. There was a hole in the brush next to us and I thought for a minute that we should go that way but at the last minute I decided to gun it and bash through the mud and get to the other side like we had done behind us.
We accelerated and water splashed on the sides of us. The truck struggled and we shook back and forth for a minute without going forward. The engine was spinning the tires but we were not moving. I also noticed that we were at ground level. I looked out the open window and down at the ground to find that the truck had sunk up to the doors and the mud was coming in to the cab. Oh shit! Casey had a look of fear on his face. Oh, I forgot to mention that we needed to be back at 1:30 for a press conference for a mural that Casey put on the famous Skunk Train that runs through the redwoods. Later we found out that they had a symphony there and everything.
It was clear by the feeling in my stomach that we had ourselves in a bad situation. Let me think, 9 miles from nowhere, no shovel, no winch, no high jack, yah we’re total fucked. But we smiled and stayed in the moment as well as we could. Casey climbed out in to the mud lake and I switched shoes with some I had in the back trying not to get them in the mud that was already in the cab. I climbed out through the window and on to the shore to asses the situation. Yah, we’re totally fucked.
Casey, just then, took off his shirt and jumped in to the mud lake. “Let get to it…. Hahahahah!” I laughed at his enthusiasm and stripped my valuables off and stepped in to the depths of this brown soup to see what my truck was buried in. What we found was not good. The mud was thick and bottomless. We began to dig a diversion canal for the water to run off and that worked to get about 7 inches of water out of the hole, and frankly that didn’t do shit. We tried the truck again after putting logs under the tires and trying to prop it up. It laughed at us with a gulp as the truck sunk deep and our glances at each other got more pronounced and ended each time with a laugh or a FUCK.
Finally, we decided that Casey should walk for help and that I would watch the truck and maybe keep digging in hopes of getting out…. Yah right. We Casey walked down the road and I tried to find some more would and think of some magic trick to get the truck out. Nothing came of my intense thinking. I sat in the sun and day dreamed of Casey returning rapidly with a giant truck with food and a winch. I thought I could hear them coming about 100 times until I gave up on my mind and just started to make a sun dial to keep track of time as I dozed off and listened to the buzzing.
Then I heard something getting closer. It sounded like a motorbike so I was not very excited at first but then I could see another Toyota coming down the road with a bike behind it. The pulled up quickly and Casey popped out of the truck smiling with Lynda and Jay, hands on their hips smoking and serious looking at the truck. “That’s really buried.” Said Jay, and immediately Lynda turned around and started to unload chains.
Now, I’m no movie buff but I think that she was in Terminator II. She was the mother of John Connor. She was wearing combat boots and black fatigues and she was serious as a heart attack. At one point in the ordeal she turned to me and said, “Out here, everything is balls to the wall, or your fucked.” And she meant it.
We hooked up a few ropes to the bumper and they all broke. I was a bit discouraged and then we hooked up some chains after much groveling in the mud to find the hole in the frame. Then with a force that in rarely scene in nature and mechanics’ two truck, gassed and exploding off the ground pulled the truck out. It must have looked like a black truck being born from that deep mud pit. I almost lost my truck to that hole. Finally, in a furry we had the truck out.
I wish the story would have ended there but we were not to get off that easy. We jumped in the truck and started to drive. Winding through the forest on the road. Lynda was far ahead of us and we caught up to her and could see her truck struggling through the mud pits and ruts with a rampage like ferocity, unmatched by any person in recent memory. This started to get crazy.
Lynda was driving like a bat out of hell and smoking a cigarette while driving with both hands. Her dog in the back riding the truck like a rodeo king and the other dog waiting patiently while the truck made awful sounds trying to make it up the steeps. Then the white smoke started to creep from her truck and suddenly after several attempts to make it up the hill her truck could not move any longer and she jumped out proclaiming that her clutch was out as she lit up another cigarette.
My truck was running like shit as well since it had just been in 4 feet of mud. So I barely got it up the hill and we tried to pull her up but it was no use. We dove back to her house to pick up some more chains but decided that it was a waste of time and sent Jay back with the bike to get her while we watched her kid, also named James. It was a bit strange to be standing in between 3 trailer homes with a truck covered in mud and a kid with down syndrome, trash every where, completely covered in mud. It reminded both Casey and I of a little movie called Deliverance. The theme song played in my head as the kid started to hit Casey with a stick and I took pictures to remember not only the way we looked but also where we had ended up on this strange day.
We ended up saying good-by and heading down the road with the truck barely running and getting back to our hotel just as the sun was going down. Took off our cloths, ordered pizza, showered and said our prayers that we didn’t have to spend the night out there in the mud.
The truck still does not run right but I got it running better than it was so tomorrow I’ll go get the cats cleaned out and get my ass back to SF for some more work so that the adventures can continue.
James
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