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TRUCKS

The clouds rolled ominously in the distance as Wilson pulled

onto the turnpike.
I hope it doesn't rain, he thought as he lit a cigarette.
A sales executive in his late thirties, beset by the usual

problems - an ulcer, an addiction to cigarettes (two, three packs
a day), and high blood pressure - Wilson was delivering
supplies ordered by a firm in Cleveland the day before. There
was no pressing need for the supplies, but Wilson made a point,
given the chance, of visiting his old customers and had offered
to take them himself. Business is business, he thought; having
been a salesman for years, he'd made money a dominating

concern.
Money was a determining factor in Wilson's life. He set his

watch by it; it determined whether he had coffee in the
morning, two cups or none. He wouldn't have used the turnpike
had there been an alternate route as fast. But Wilson could not
avoid being concerned about money, or so he thought, as it had
been beaten into him by the pressures of his job, manager of
sales for a shipping supplies manufacturer.

He needn't be doing this, he mused. The account of the firm
to which he was delivering supplies was of little significance to
the company's business; besides, even if he somehow were to
lose his job he could easily maintain himself despite being
saddled with alimony and child support, for he owned
considerable stock in the company. But there's no use in turning
back now, he decided, already halfway to Cleveland.

He didn't mind driving. He rather enjoyed it. During the
days he traveled widely as a salesman, he had often boasted of
driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix in four hours (It was to
have taken eight, he scoffed), and he had spurned taking a
flight to Cleveland. In fact, he could not recall why he had

never liked being a traveling . . .
Suddenly a truck rolled by and Wilson remembered.
It's those damnable trucks, he muttered: cutting you off,

coughing smoke in the sunshine, spuming mud in the rain.
He honked his horn and passed a truck.
He lit another cigarette and recalled the days before

becoming a traveling salesman. Struggling in college with wife
and child at the time, he had grabbed the opportunity to escape
as it arose. As it turned out, he had hated the work but stayed

with it for the money.
Perhaps that is why he hated trucks. They reminded him of

what he had done and how he had lived to regret it. His
marriage had folded; his son had grown up only to run away.
Perhaps he could have saved his marriage had he tried. Perhaps
he could still save himself if he tried. Perhaps ...

Wilson smiled. "Musn't think too much," he said to himself.

"I'm driving."
The rain began to fall steadily.

Howard Parks

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