800 MILES: Part 6
mechanics' helpers | huntington w.va. | douglas imbrogno
“800 MILES: Rounding Third”
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | PART 6
NOTE: Getting here late? Read the whole piece in a single blogpost here.
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There comes a point driving 800 miles in one day hauling a dead Honda homeward when your consciousness begins to resemble that of a certain person. A person who has gone without sleep for several days on cocaine while the Columbian drug lords who’ve taken you hostage march you mercilessly through the jungle, lashed by whips to keep you stumbling down the narrow mountain path despite your feeble-minded exhaustion. And if you stumble, you tumble into the 800-foot gorge below and are never heard from again.
I hit this point about mile 697, somewhere in the late-night darkness of Interstate 64 after the turn-off from I-75 at Lexington, Ky. Problem was if I stumbled or fell asleep or strayed into the next lane, I would not disappear. I’d end up in in the local news: “U-Haul truck hauling Honda crashes into Dominican Mission bus, all perish. Film at 11!” So it was only through an act of will, intense concentration and yogic eyeball exercises that made me look like Rodney Dangerfield behind the wheel of a Ford truck that kept me focused on the white center lines dashing by through the night.
Also, there comes a point in the consumption of massive injections of caffeine when the caffeine seems to shift into reverse. It starts to make you tired as your body says, ‘Whoa, Charlie, that’s a wee bit too much, now. We are hereby refusing further stimulation. All systems on overload. Shutting down. Yo, Self, your endocrine system is taking a siesta …”
More stressful yet, I was in a race against time. My mechanic had promised to stay up until I got back to his small Cabell County shop, to help me offload the car from the dolly. I was not at all sure I could do it alone as the engine was dead and I had to do a gravity roll off the dolly into his lot, located up an alley on the edge of town. But it was now 12:05 a.m. and he said he could wait only “a little longer” as we communicated via phone. Then, in the wilds of eastern Kentucky, somewhere between the towns of Mt. Sterling and East Jesus (just across from West Jesus, Ky.), the signal dropped out on my iPhone back to town. I was alone with my addled thoughts while still more than an hour from the end of this infernal haul. Right then, I glanced up at my rear view mirror. Who was tailgating me! There was a car RIGHT on my bumper, out here in the middle of nowhere. Damn it, WTF?!! (more…)
