OIL FOR THE GUTTERS
Nellie Coombs
Buas
BITE MORE WHEN YOU'RE
not doing anything. Joe and
I sat in that small car of his for three hours, trying to keep
awake. The lane we were backed into wasn't very long, and
there was a cop who kept shooting up and down the highway
right in front of our noses. Three hours waiting for the truck
to come along, and we might just as well have been in bed. But
the boys said no, it might leak out what we were going to do,
so we came early. We weren't taking any chances on the truck
sneaking by earlier than it was scheduled.
"Hey, Joe, what time is it?" Joe grunted, beginning to
snore like a bastard file drawn across a piece of tool steel. He
must have been a boy scout when he was a kid. I never was,
so I didn't learn how to sleep with a couple of hundred mosquitos
sticking their noses into me. But then, Joe isn't as young as he
used to be, and pulling and hauling on the wheel of a heavy truck
for fifteen or twenty years kind of takes the starch out of you.
I started on my second pack of cigarettes. Somebody told
me once the.smoke would keep the bugs away. It didn't, but it
was something to do. I got out of the car easy-like so as not
to wake Joe, went down the lane to the road. Just in time to
damn near run into the cop. He'd cut his motor and was coast–
ing along. I ducked back into some underbrush, covered the end
of my cig with my hand. Burned it.
He kept on going, so I got out of the bushes, went back to
sit on the running-board. I thought of the boys back home, won–
dered what they were doing. Probably hanging around some–
where, thinking about what we were doing. I thought of the
boss, but I didn't have to wonder what he was doing.
The boys wouldn't have minded the overtime if they had
been paid for it. Sixteen hours at the wheel with no time off
is a long, hard stretch, but we would have done it. Everyone
of us could have used the extra money. Then we were told there
wasn't to be any overtime money. The contract this job is to
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