Chapter Twenty-Three

Almost all of the truck drivers shunned Ben, thinking he didn’t do real work. Only Johnny “Rattlesnake” Richler, the driver of the rose-truck, would speak to him. Johnny Richler was in his early thirties, but looked prematurely middle-aged. He had a potbelly and greasy, thinning black hair on his round head. Two beady dark eyes peered over his narrow nose. His only exercise was walking between his truck and the truck stop diners where he would sweat while he put away enormous helpings of greasy trucker food.
At one truck stop, Rattlesnake sat down with Ben. Rattlesnake took the lid off the salt shaker and poured out salt onto his buttery mashed potatoes. This simple act started him perspiring.
“So you’re a poet?” Rattlesnake said conversationally.
“Yeah.”
“I’m a poet too.” He looked thoughtfully into his mashed potatoes. “Used to be at least.”
“Used to be?”
“Naaa, you’re right. Once a poet, always a poet. I’m a poetryholic.”
Ben thought he recognized the glazed-over brainwashed look in Rattlesnake’s eyes. It was the handiwork of Pat Henderson.
“You know Pat Henderson?”
“Sure!”
“Were you in his hospital by the lake?”
Rattlesnake nodded.
“Did they give you electroshock?”
“No. They just helped me to see that poetry had taken over my life.”
“Well, I’m not addicted to poetry,” Ben pointed out.
“So you could stop at any time? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well, Elizabeth would probably fire me if I stopped. It is my job.”
“See, I thought I was writing the poetry,” Rattlesnake said. “Truth is: the poetry was writing me.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ben said enthusiastically. “Sometimes when I get really inspired, the poetry just writes itself. I feel like I’m just the vessel that the poetry is coming through.”
“Exactly,” Richler said. “It isn’t you writing the poetry. Sure, it’s your mind doing the writing, but it isn’t YOU. It isn’t the essential you.”
“Yeah it is,” Ben said.
Richler shook his head and stuffed his cheeks with mashed potatoes.
“I used to think like you Ben. Then I came to see the truth. I was a slave to poetry. I had to do what my real purpose was.”
“What? Driving a truck?”
***
Ben and Derrick found a steep path overhung with thick, thorny branches. They panted heavily as they climbed. Derrick mused on how his life would change, now that he was brain-damaged and had to go live at the residential home with Down Syndrome Bobby.
Ben pushed one of the thick overhanging branches out of his way and let it swing back and hit Derrick in the face.
“Owww!” Derrick rubbed his nose.
“Sorry.”
“I need a machete.”
“Is that a threat?”
“For the branches.”
They continued to climb. The only sound was Ben’s wet shoes squishing with every step. He had it better than Derrick, who had lost his shoes and one of his socks.
“I think I have post traumatic stress disorder,” Derrick said. “I can’t stop thinking about what happened.”
“That’s not post traumatic stress disorder. It’s only in a couple months if you can’t function ‘cause you’re thinking about what happened all the time. Not immediately afterwards.”
“What are you, a doctor now? You can’t even perform CPR properly.”
“What are you complaining for? I brought you back to life.”
“My chest hurts. I think you broke one of my ribs.”
“Does it hurt when I do this?” Ben asked. He broke off a branch and swatted Derrick upside the head.
“OWW!!! What’d you do that for?”
“Sorry. Thought it’d be funny.”
“They’re going to leave without us,” Derrick predicted dismally. “They’re going to leave us out in the middle of nowhere.”
***
Ben and Derrick stumbled through the bushes out onto the highway.
“They’re back!” Down Syndrome Bobby announced.
There was scattered applause. Everyone approached them and circled around.
Rattlesnake walked up to Derrick.
“Derrick, I’m sorry.”
He held his hand out for Derrick to shake.
Everyone gazed at Derrick to see how he would react. Derrick’s hand remained immobile at his side. He looked around and asked, “Why isn’t he hogtied?”
Elizabeth stepped forward. “Everyone makes mistakes, Derrick,” she said. “The important thing is that nobody got hurt.”
“I got hurt.”
“Just your pride.”
“Not ‘just my pride!’ I have internal injuries!”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Your feelings.”
“No! Not my feelings! My spleen!”
“Relax, Derrick,” Ben said, placing a hand on Derrick’s shoulder.
“No I won’t relax!”
He shook Ben’s hand off his shoulder. Then he went ballistic.
“I have the worst job in the world! Mosquitoes and scorpions bite me! I stand in the middle of gazebos until my legs go numb! You won’t let me go to the bathroom! My bladder almost exploded! Now it’s permanently distended! I almost get run over by a crazy person! I fall off a mountain! I almost die! I did die! I had a near death experience! I got brain damage! I almost drowned! I almost went blind! A deranged sheriff almost killed me! You stole my handle and gave it to a Muslim hermit.”
“I’m not actually Muslim,” Toby said. “I’m Christian. Just found out.”
“Well, whatever you are, you’re a terrorist. You stole my name. That’s terrorism.”
Toby smiled pleasantly. “You looked good ridin’ that gazebo,” he said. “Would you join my bobsled team, please?”
“That’s very Christian of you,” Elizabeth commented.
“Thank you,” Toby said. “Well Derrick, how ‘bout it?”
“I’m not joining your bobsled team.”
“I’ll let you ride point.”
“You don’t even have a bobsled.”
“Yet.”
“I don’t want to be on a bobsled team!”
“Well, what do you want to do?” David Shweitzer asked testily. “You don’t seem to want to do anything except grump about all the time.”
“I want him hogtied!”
“Derrick,” Rattlesnake said. “I wanted to show you how sorry I was, and I knew you might not want to forgive me, so to show you how sorry I am, I wrote a poem.”
Elizabeth gasped. “Rattlesnake, no! You know what Pat Henderson said! You’ll relapse!”
Rattlesnake nodded. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take. I’m just that sorry about what I did.”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Derrick said.
“Just listen,” Rattlesnake said.
“No.”
“It’s an apology poem.”
“There’s no such genre.”
“Sure there is.”
Rattlesnake pulled out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and cleared his throat.
“I apologize,” he began. “On my thighs.”
Rattlesnake did the splits right there on the highway. The sound of tendons ripping and Rattlesnake’s screams filled the air. Tears sprang up in his eyes and he rolled around on the cement, his screaming and coughing battling each other as he grasped at his torn groin muscles.
Elizabeth shook her head. “You have to stretch first. And he’s in such bad shape.”
A gust of wind blew Rattlesnake’s poem. Ben picked it up before it could blow away. Impressive: Rattlesnake was without a doubt a first class poet. An apology poem. Rhyming verses of self-flagellation. Ben had never come up against anything like that. Ben read.
With an earnest moan I atone on my funny bone
“Hold his elbows!” Ben called. “He’s gonna try to smack his funny bone.”
A couple of the drivers grabbed Rattlesnake’s arms, restraining him. Rattlesnake kicked in agony with his legs.
“Let him smack his funny bone!” Derrick shouted. “He deserves it!”
Ben read on.
I beg your pardon like a repentant parson with pants of arson
“He’s gonna try to set his pants on fire!” Ben called.
Larry Shoemaker pulled off Rattlesnake’s boots and jeans while the other two drivers held his elbows. Rattlesnake kicked in pain and his tighty-whities shone in the sunlight.
“So let him burn his pants!” Derrick yelled. “He deserves burnt pants!”
Ben looked at the poem again. It went on in the same way. He felt abashed, so his kneecap he smashed. He was so ashamed, his fingers he maimed. His penitence was incontinence.
They finally hogtied him as Derrick had suggested in the first place.
“I take back my apology,” Rattlesnake mumbled.
***
י''ט בתשרי תשס''ח
ירושלים
October 1, 2007
Jerusalem