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23 June
northbound on I-65


Over the past two weeks, I have spent way more time in Hoosier Land than anyone who wasn’t born here or voluntarily moved here
should ever have to spend.


My good friend Ben Werner, business reporter extrordinare for The State, Columbia, S.C.’s daily newspaper, has also been feeding
me some vital information on Jewish theology in his replies to my emails, something I value greatly because I have embarrassingly
little insight into the religious experience of both Jews and Muslims.  Thanks to my old ties from the University of Maryland, I’ve had
Jewish friends aplenty, but I’ve never actually known, first-hand, a person of the Islamic faith; closest I’ve come was a three-day
love affair with a Palestinian sympathizer from Texas (Jeff is chuckling as he reads this), but no one who can give me that all-
important, intimate rendering of the experience of living the faith –something research alone just can’t do.  If anyone can hook me up,
please, by all means.  

Now it’s 11:30 AM, and I just had a Wendy’s-tater-n-salad lunch after delivering a trailer of carpets to one of Chicago’s semi-gritty
southwestern suburbs.  I’ve actually gone almost 400 miles today, starting by running empty to a half-hour north of Louisville, Ky. at
2:30 AM and going back up I-65 through Indy to Chi-town.  Now would be a good chance for a nap, before I start heading
(hopefully) west.

*            *           *              *

There is something inherently lonely about needing to sleep through the day.

In the past, I’ve had three different home-based jobs where I worked overnight at least part-time –most recently at the AM-PM gas
station in Ashland—and would come home and need to sleep a few hours, usually not past noon.  Aubray hated it every time.  I’d
say, “What’s the big deal?  So I sleep until noon; we still have the afternoon to do things.”  She’d say that’s not the point; it was just
plain depressing to watch me sleep through the morning.  She was right, and the truth of it was, I didn’t like it either.  I didn’t mind
keeping myself up through the night –being awake for the sunrise is always a treasure—but that droolly, squinty-eyed, restless sleep
you inevitably get while the sun is up is no good, day-in and day-out.  It takes a toll.  I feel out-of-synch with the world, out-of-synch
with myself.

And lonely.  For some reason, on a day like today, I become preoccupied with, um, issues of the flesh.  I feel a compelling urge
to…have a cigarette.  And when I do have one, it doesn’t do the trick –I want another like an hour later.  Before I know it, I’m chain-
smoking.

And unfortunately, tomorrow looks like a similar day.  I have to pick up a Texas-bound load at about 10 or 11 PM, and run it as far
as E. St. Louis, won’t get there until 4 or 5 AM at best, and when my dispatcher comes in at 7:00 he’ll be waking me up with some
instructions as to how we’re going to “repower” the load –get it swapped to another truck.  They need a team to get it to the Dallas
area on time, and I need to make progress toward home.

So at present, I’m sitting in the parking lot of Ford City Mall, just outside Chicago limits.  I had notions of going to Leona’s inside for
dinner.  It’s an awesome Chicago-area chain with the greatest Chicago style deep-dish pizza I’ve ever had.  But that loneliness factor
creeps in, and the idea of sitting alone at a table in a busy restaurant offsets the Enjoyment Factor that I would need to justify
spending $12 for a small pie.  Plus, the mall seems like a bizarre place to be right now.  It wasn’t exactly a Thomas Merton moment
for me walking through it earlier; it was more like, “Who are these aliens, whose focal point of life seems to be shopping or attracting
shoppers?”  In truth, I was the alien, so I gave up on the whole idea and came out here to sleep.  It’s 6:30 now, and I think I’ve
decided to forego the food court, go drive down Cicero Avenue in my “bobtail” –a tractor without a trailer—and look for a good
place to watch the Cards-Cubbies game.  That’s a capital idea.  I feel better about my loneliness just by writing about it –thanks for
indulging me.  It brings God back into the picture.  Amen.  (And believe me folks, I know I’m the last man in the world who’s got
the right to whine about loneliness, seeing as how I voluntarily left a good woman at home to come out here for my writin’-n-drivin’
life.  As my personal scriptures saith: “The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, and the Hermit Crab hath Camerado, but
the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”)  HC—Windy City, USA

© 2004 by Hermit Crab
a Fish Out Of Water production





Next -- Chapter 14
That toddlin' town.....