Rotisserie Moments

Keep on Truckin'

I don't know what it is about girls driving pickup trucks, must be something about the mixture of feminine and masculine. When I was offered a ride from the gay bar, to the straight bar in a 69 Chevy Custom last night, I gotta say, it was the highlight of my evening. Nothing like a little cold gin, on a hot summer night. I rolled down the window, hung my elbow on the side of the door, looked out over the broad hood, and thought of the past.

Winnipeg, the warmth of early spring had begun to melt the 3 feet of snow that had fallen the night before. My best friend at that time, so long ago now, Peter, had just picked me up in his Chevy half ton, and was laughing while he gunned it through 4 foot snow banks that had just been freshly rendered by the snow plow. I gripped the door handle every time the snow came flying up over the hood while the engine labored through the force of the impact. It used to be his fathers truck, but his father died of asbestos poisoning, so Peter got the truck. He was wild, good looking, and very cool. The first time we ever hung out, he was in my math class in high school, and invited me at lunch to visit some girls at the catholic private school across town. Peter was driving a 78 Honda Civic that crisp fall day, he was wearing 12 hole Doctor Martins, and long strands of bleach blonde hair hung in his eyes despite his shaved undercut that started at the base of his skull and stopped at the crown of his head. His hands always had a slight shake to them. I noticed this when he was opening his Black Sabbath Master's of Reality tape, and as I heard the opening riffs of Sweet Leaf for the first time, I knew it was the beginning of a great friendship.

After I cabbed it from the straight bar, to my front door, I lay in bed last night, staring at the fan across the room, its motor rotating the head of the fan, back and forth, endlessly, until it's either unplugged, or the motor burns itself out. I have not spoken with Peter in almost three years, no one knows where he is, lost to a world of hard drugs and gossip. It's been so hot here lately, its almost unbearable, but it can never take away the coldness of Winnipeg, and the sense of euphoria I get when I see the hood of a truck from the view of the passenger seat.