My Thoughts on Roadside Assistance
Posted by reallyrelyay | | Posted On Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 10:01 AM
I am a firm believer that every touring band should have Triple A.
Say for instance the band’s Chevy Vandura is stranded ten miles outside of Oklahoma on the humid afternoon of June 24th. That morning we all ate together at Waffle House, at the encouragement of frontman Gavin, who was eager to be able to eat and smoke at the same time.
Something felt awry, a sneaking suspicion that was not aided by our waitress at the restaurant. Her nametag and its two letters: TC.
“What does the TC stand for?” Gavin asked. I noticed the letters were also tattooed on the aged and veined skin of her right hand, as she wrote down everyone’s breakfast orders in a code not even the Rosetta Stone could decipher. She smiled at us. She was missing many teeth.
“Trouble Comin’.”
Her face came to mind later, when Ian’s bass head flew at me from the rear of the bus. I (along with my cherished copy of The Fountainhead and blankets) slid forward over the bus bench straight into Justin, who then catapulted into the back of Jordan’s chair. The rest of the band jerked around in confusion, gripping the edge of their seats, hard. Jordan was the one-man brass section of our band, but he was also our bus driver. He calmly took control of the wheel and pulled the short bus to the side of the highway while the rest of us looked at one another in complete desperation.
Had she cursed us? Did Gavin doom us when he exhaled smoke a little to closely to her face? Or did she hear us hypothesizing about her past and become insulted?
Our first idea was that she was the rejected lover of a Hell’s Angel who had been abandoned on the side of a Western-Missouri highway.
“No, wait. Those are obviously prison tattoos.” That was Justin’s theory. He was eating so quickly that remnants of his neon-yellow eggs and soggy buttered-toast got caught in his beard. She did look like the kind of person who could hold her own behind bars.
“Yeah! I bet she did time!” Joey, as always, spoke a little too loud.
“Joey!” I hit him in the diaphragm.
“What? Look at her!” He pointed at her with his fully-loaded fork.
“She could hear you…”
“Who cares?” He stuffed his eggs in his mouth and smiled. Trouble Comin’ looked up at us, eyeing our half-empty cups of coffee. She put on another pot to brew.
The woman sitting behind us suppressed a laugh and looked out the window. Her brilliantly airbrushed red nails clinked on her ceramic coffee cup.
Waffle House isn’t anyone’s idea of paradise. Except maybe Gavin, who was on to his third Pal Mal and only halfway through his meal. I asked the guys why they thought that TC would ever choose to be in this place.
“I bet she’s a member of the witness protection program.”
Dejected and feisty as ever, Trouble Comin’ had turned in her Hells Angel to the FED’s. Somewhere the rest of the gang was after her, eager engines revving. She had to lay low, and this Waffle House was her best option.
It was then that Trouble Comin’ came to refill our coffee cups. Her face was a series of canyons as old and parched as the terrain she lived in. Her skin hung as loosely as her uniform did, her apron paled with flour and bleach. She had filled our coffee cups assiduously, asking if we needed cream and sugar. Joey, the drummer, said yes.
“Oh! You like your coffee like I like my men.” Joey jerked his seventeen year-old head back in surprise, a nervous smile tensed on his face. “White, hot, sweet, and ready!” She had dropped that line before, on other customers. That didn’t mean it took us any less by surprise.
The looks we exchanged in reaction were comparable to those we made as the bus jerked on the shoulder of highway 44. Joey’s forearms braced on the edge of his bench, his veins and muscles clinging to support him. I realized that we had passed the last exit at least ten minutes ago. My teeth were clenched.
Justin, who had peeled himself off of the back of Jordan’s seat, is the kind of guy who carries a full tool set in his trunk, accompanied with blankets, and a flashlight. In that instant he was unprepared. He stared at his frayed corduroy slippers.
Jordan looked to the edge of the highway and got out of the bus to investigate the damage. He brought with him the set of warning reflectors, which he placed one-hundred, then two-hundred feet away. The rest of us remained silent on the bus, heads in hands, eyes large, mouths tensed. Jordan paused at the back of the bus when he returned. The dingy tint of Western Missouri dust gave him an aura of rust.
It dawned on us then that there was a solution to our problem.
“Gavin.”
He looked up, a Pal Mal hung between his lips. His right hand gripped his black Bic lighter, his left braced its oncoming flame from the humid summer wind.
“Don’t you have Triple A?”
He stuffed his lighter into his pocket and his cigarette behind his ear. The tension between his brows eased.
Jordan climbed on the bus, slamming the door behind him.
“The inner left tire in the back is completely shredded. I have no idea what the hell happened, but it looks terrible.”
“It’s okay man.” Gavin says, “I got Triple A.”
An hour later we were sitting in the burnt-orange booth of an Ice Cream store drinking a strawberry-chocolate shakes. The chain of events that evolved in the hour between the phone call and the shake solidified our faith in man and common decency.
It took three phone calls on three uncharged phones to get the tow truck ten miles north of mile-marker 135 on the interstate. There was little hope in the tow truck, which would only sit two. The remainder of us would have to wait on the edge of the highway. Many cigarettes were smoked. The sun glared and I winced for so long I could feel crows’ feet forming. I wondered how many times TC got stuck in this kind of situation.
It was then that a camper pulled over on the highway in front of us. We recognized it from the way the shiny white paint had contrasted the corroded exterior of the waffle house earlier that morning. The six of us exchanged tentative glances as the door to the camper opened. Secretly, I expected more of the worst, many a horror film began with a flat tire on an obscure highway.
Out stepped a middle-aged African American woman with a bleach-blonde side ponytail and a faded grey polo shirt. She lit a Virginia Slim menthol as she approached the Vandura. I recognized her as her scarlet fake nails stuffed her lighter into her jeans pocket. She had been sitting in the booth behind us at Waffle House.
“ I knew I recognized that bus.” She said. Her name was Lynn. She spent her time driving around the United States getting rich people their campers. It was a good way of life. She stopped to offer her assistance, and was willing to give the rest of the band a ride when the tow truck arrived.
“I figure this kind of thing will come back in my favor someday,” she exhaled menthol smoke, “lord knows someday a camper will break down and I’ll need some help too.” She gazed down the highway and we all waited for the tow truck to arrive.
The tow truck’s driver’s name was Roy, and he arrived ten minutes after Lynn pulled over. Gavin rode with him back to Joplin, a twenty-mile tow that was covered by his gold and black card. Roy lent Gavin a cigarette as he explained it would be hard to locate a tire for our bus. Not many people kept short bus tires in stock, but he knew of a good tire place in town that might be able to help.
The rest of us rode with Lynn on her air-conditioned camper, which she was delivering to Oklahoma later that day. Heading back to Joplin was out of her way, but her gas was paid for by the company, and she was running ahead of schedule. We passed the Waffle House on the way back into town. Trouble Comin’ was inside somewhere, giving people their breakfasts. I wondered if somehow she had known what would happen that morning. But Lynn kept driving, and the thought blurred as we passed.
The story ends at the ice-cream shop next door to the tire center, where Lynn dropped us off. Roy’s friend came in handy, and just happened to have the tire that we needed, as rare as they are. Dizzied by ice-cream headaches and the day’s events, the band sat silent in our booth. I’m not sure if we all felt dumbfounded, or blessed, but the feeling left us speechless. Trying to articulate the day’s events to friends and family later was nearly impossible. Trouble Comin’ was already becoming an urban legend, we promised to write a song in her honor. We made it to your show in Tahlequah on time that night, and the rest of this leg of tour ran smoothly. Of course none of this would have happened without Triple A.
Say for instance the band’s Chevy Vandura is stranded ten miles outside of Oklahoma on the humid afternoon of June 24th. That morning we all ate together at Waffle House, at the encouragement of frontman Gavin, who was eager to be able to eat and smoke at the same time.
Something felt awry, a sneaking suspicion that was not aided by our waitress at the restaurant. Her nametag and its two letters: TC.
“What does the TC stand for?” Gavin asked. I noticed the letters were also tattooed on the aged and veined skin of her right hand, as she wrote down everyone’s breakfast orders in a code not even the Rosetta Stone could decipher. She smiled at us. She was missing many teeth.
“Trouble Comin’.”
Her face came to mind later, when Ian’s bass head flew at me from the rear of the bus. I (along with my cherished copy of The Fountainhead and blankets) slid forward over the bus bench straight into Justin, who then catapulted into the back of Jordan’s chair. The rest of the band jerked around in confusion, gripping the edge of their seats, hard. Jordan was the one-man brass section of our band, but he was also our bus driver. He calmly took control of the wheel and pulled the short bus to the side of the highway while the rest of us looked at one another in complete desperation.
Had she cursed us? Did Gavin doom us when he exhaled smoke a little to closely to her face? Or did she hear us hypothesizing about her past and become insulted?
Our first idea was that she was the rejected lover of a Hell’s Angel who had been abandoned on the side of a Western-Missouri highway.
“No, wait. Those are obviously prison tattoos.” That was Justin’s theory. He was eating so quickly that remnants of his neon-yellow eggs and soggy buttered-toast got caught in his beard. She did look like the kind of person who could hold her own behind bars.
“Yeah! I bet she did time!” Joey, as always, spoke a little too loud.
“Joey!” I hit him in the diaphragm.
“What? Look at her!” He pointed at her with his fully-loaded fork.
“She could hear you…”
“Who cares?” He stuffed his eggs in his mouth and smiled. Trouble Comin’ looked up at us, eyeing our half-empty cups of coffee. She put on another pot to brew.
The woman sitting behind us suppressed a laugh and looked out the window. Her brilliantly airbrushed red nails clinked on her ceramic coffee cup.
Waffle House isn’t anyone’s idea of paradise. Except maybe Gavin, who was on to his third Pal Mal and only halfway through his meal. I asked the guys why they thought that TC would ever choose to be in this place.
“I bet she’s a member of the witness protection program.”
Dejected and feisty as ever, Trouble Comin’ had turned in her Hells Angel to the FED’s. Somewhere the rest of the gang was after her, eager engines revving. She had to lay low, and this Waffle House was her best option.
It was then that Trouble Comin’ came to refill our coffee cups. Her face was a series of canyons as old and parched as the terrain she lived in. Her skin hung as loosely as her uniform did, her apron paled with flour and bleach. She had filled our coffee cups assiduously, asking if we needed cream and sugar. Joey, the drummer, said yes.
“Oh! You like your coffee like I like my men.” Joey jerked his seventeen year-old head back in surprise, a nervous smile tensed on his face. “White, hot, sweet, and ready!” She had dropped that line before, on other customers. That didn’t mean it took us any less by surprise.
The looks we exchanged in reaction were comparable to those we made as the bus jerked on the shoulder of highway 44. Joey’s forearms braced on the edge of his bench, his veins and muscles clinging to support him. I realized that we had passed the last exit at least ten minutes ago. My teeth were clenched.
Justin, who had peeled himself off of the back of Jordan’s seat, is the kind of guy who carries a full tool set in his trunk, accompanied with blankets, and a flashlight. In that instant he was unprepared. He stared at his frayed corduroy slippers.
Jordan looked to the edge of the highway and got out of the bus to investigate the damage. He brought with him the set of warning reflectors, which he placed one-hundred, then two-hundred feet away. The rest of us remained silent on the bus, heads in hands, eyes large, mouths tensed. Jordan paused at the back of the bus when he returned. The dingy tint of Western Missouri dust gave him an aura of rust.
It dawned on us then that there was a solution to our problem.
“Gavin.”
He looked up, a Pal Mal hung between his lips. His right hand gripped his black Bic lighter, his left braced its oncoming flame from the humid summer wind.
“Don’t you have Triple A?”
He stuffed his lighter into his pocket and his cigarette behind his ear. The tension between his brows eased.
Jordan climbed on the bus, slamming the door behind him.
“The inner left tire in the back is completely shredded. I have no idea what the hell happened, but it looks terrible.”
“It’s okay man.” Gavin says, “I got Triple A.”
An hour later we were sitting in the burnt-orange booth of an Ice Cream store drinking a strawberry-chocolate shakes. The chain of events that evolved in the hour between the phone call and the shake solidified our faith in man and common decency.
It took three phone calls on three uncharged phones to get the tow truck ten miles north of mile-marker 135 on the interstate. There was little hope in the tow truck, which would only sit two. The remainder of us would have to wait on the edge of the highway. Many cigarettes were smoked. The sun glared and I winced for so long I could feel crows’ feet forming. I wondered how many times TC got stuck in this kind of situation.
It was then that a camper pulled over on the highway in front of us. We recognized it from the way the shiny white paint had contrasted the corroded exterior of the waffle house earlier that morning. The six of us exchanged tentative glances as the door to the camper opened. Secretly, I expected more of the worst, many a horror film began with a flat tire on an obscure highway.
Out stepped a middle-aged African American woman with a bleach-blonde side ponytail and a faded grey polo shirt. She lit a Virginia Slim menthol as she approached the Vandura. I recognized her as her scarlet fake nails stuffed her lighter into her jeans pocket. She had been sitting in the booth behind us at Waffle House.
“ I knew I recognized that bus.” She said. Her name was Lynn. She spent her time driving around the United States getting rich people their campers. It was a good way of life. She stopped to offer her assistance, and was willing to give the rest of the band a ride when the tow truck arrived.
“I figure this kind of thing will come back in my favor someday,” she exhaled menthol smoke, “lord knows someday a camper will break down and I’ll need some help too.” She gazed down the highway and we all waited for the tow truck to arrive.
The tow truck’s driver’s name was Roy, and he arrived ten minutes after Lynn pulled over. Gavin rode with him back to Joplin, a twenty-mile tow that was covered by his gold and black card. Roy lent Gavin a cigarette as he explained it would be hard to locate a tire for our bus. Not many people kept short bus tires in stock, but he knew of a good tire place in town that might be able to help.
The rest of us rode with Lynn on her air-conditioned camper, which she was delivering to Oklahoma later that day. Heading back to Joplin was out of her way, but her gas was paid for by the company, and she was running ahead of schedule. We passed the Waffle House on the way back into town. Trouble Comin’ was inside somewhere, giving people their breakfasts. I wondered if somehow she had known what would happen that morning. But Lynn kept driving, and the thought blurred as we passed.
The story ends at the ice-cream shop next door to the tire center, where Lynn dropped us off. Roy’s friend came in handy, and just happened to have the tire that we needed, as rare as they are. Dizzied by ice-cream headaches and the day’s events, the band sat silent in our booth. I’m not sure if we all felt dumbfounded, or blessed, but the feeling left us speechless. Trying to articulate the day’s events to friends and family later was nearly impossible. Trouble Comin’ was already becoming an urban legend, we promised to write a song in her honor. We made it to your show in Tahlequah on time that night, and the rest of this leg of tour ran smoothly. Of course none of this would have happened without Triple A.
