(a mixed-up true story with made-up names)
By Mark Kneeskern
“Let’s say we take my world in a rented rig.”
The Costco parking lot in Colorado Springs at 11pm: a peculiar place to discuss the strategies of a mobile smoothie enterprise which will follow 25,000 bicyclists across the state of Iowa.
Earlier that evening: I’m driving the Aerostar, cruising behind an Econoline van driven by Graham Booth, leader of this contingency. Riding shotgun with Booth is Lola, who misses her dogs. Booth pulls a trailer which, unfortunately, has no functioning lights. Somewhere behind us is Saul, driving his PowerStroke, pulling the second trailer. With Saul are Star and Tiana, inseparable and incorrigible. In Cañon City, Booth applied red reflective stickers above the tail-lights of the trailer. Now I drive behind him, with my headlights making the reflectors shine like actual running-lights. Speeding through the dark, nearing the edge of Colorado Springs, Booth slows down for the scene of an accident. We coast by a Mercedes sedan. Policemen help a family out of the car, their faces covered in blood. It’s a shocking scene and I almost don’t see that Booth has pulled onto the shoulder. Why the hell is he stopping by all the cops? An officer strolls over to see what the hell we’re doing. Officer: “You know, your trailer lights aren’t working.” Booth: “Yeah, and the fucking van just died.” Officer: “And your registration is expired.”
Now we’re waiting for Saul to show up. They were supposed to be right behind us. It’s been an hour. Booth is pacing. Saul finally shows up, parks in front of the dead van, emerges with a harrowed look on his face and is almost crushed by a careening Navigator. The driver, freaked out by the cop lights, swerved into the opposite lane, nearly splattering Sam all over the highway. We must get out of here. This place has bad juju. Why had Sam been so far behind us? “Blew a tire in the canyon.” So, we’ve had a shaky start to our journey, but at least we’ve made it to the Costco parking lot without anyone dying. “But wait,” you say. “The van was beside the road, dead, with an illegal trailer and a bunch of cops all around,” right? Well …cops don’t stay forever waiting for a tow-truck to arrive and vans don’t always stay dead.
We have two worlds. Booth’s world, to be transferred in the morning to the aforementioned “rented rig” and Saul’s world in the trailer behind the PowerStroke. Chalice, the last member of our team, has been sitting on a pallet of Costco pineapple juice all day, waiting for us to arrive. She came ahead of us to purchase the juice and guard it. Chalice is from Iowa, as am I, and laughs at the most unexpected moments. Her folks still live there and she’s driving her own car so she can stay longer. Pineapple juice is the base liquid for our smoothies. It’s the elixir of life, really. We load it into the bed of Saul’s truck.
After driving a couple more hours, Saul’s headlights begin having a wiring issue, blinking off unexpectedly while we’re speeding down the interstate. We pull off and find a place down a gravel road to sleep. It’s 4am. The sound of a train in the distance is comforting. However, we had inadvertently parked ten feet from the tracks. Three times, the train came much closer and became much less soothing. We “slept.” Now it’s 7am. OK, time for breakfast. Coffee please. We eat at the J&L Cafe in Sterling, surrounded by farmers, eggs, bacon, and Mulligan Stew.
Now we are heading towards Nebraska. We’re all a bit bleary-eyed, but there’s still a good mood about this crew. We’ve made it through the rough bit and now all we have to do is get to “BOOM!” “shit!” A tire just exploded. Saul’s knuckles are white, cords of muscle popping from his neck. He’s red in the face, eyes bulging. He looks like a cartoon, but he’s saving our asses, so I don’t laugh. Blowout number two! I hate to say it, but inside my little head, I’m actually thrilled. All this tragedy makes for good writing.
The third blowout, however, produces the opposite reaction in me. It’s just too much. We aren’t even in bloody Nebraska yet. There are no more spare tires. It’s a hundred and three in the shade. We will not make it to Iowa. We will not sell smoothies and make our fortunes. That’s the general feeling. Fortunately, these feelings are temporary. Tires can be fixed. People can operate in extreme conditions with little sleep. The third blowout was our last catastrophe, and we did go on to make our fortunes and have loads of laughs. The best part was realizing that almost any other crew would have been fighting like rabid raccoons. As my Grandma Cora always said, “Things could be worse.”
Mark Kneeskern has toured with smoothie crews, jug bands, and on hitch hiking adventures. He always, ALWAYS has his notepad.
