Starting that day, he doubled my wages and told the dispatcher that, from here on in, I was assigned to Randy T. Olsson, no ifs, ands, or buts. The dispatcher called over to Randy T and, reaching out to shake his hand, I was conscious of every crack in my voice, aware of my gangly arms, absolutely certain I was going to humiliate myself before the Great One. Someone more clever with words than I might have called my reaction a swoon. And, just like when he was a senior and I was a lowly sophomore, Randy T’s eyes skimmed right over me, looking over the day’s orders, barely registering my existence.
Randy T was one of the old man’s trophies. Still famous throughout Gastonia, the Big Man on Campus, in fact, had never been that big. He was graceful and agile as they come, had an arm like a rocket, and was an inspiration for an avalanche of four-syllable adjectives and inspirational inanities from sentimental sportswriters as far away as Wilmington. His perfectly proportioned frame was a canvas of solid muscle. He had a face that, decades after graduation, would still bring a sigh when middle-aged women stumbled upon a high school yearbook packed in a box in the attic. He was a god descended from Olympus -all five feet seven inches of him.
Randy T had never made it beyond the first semester at the state teacher’s college in the northwest corner of the state, the only place that had recruited him. The old man plucked him up and dropped him into an apprenticeship. The fact Randy T had real aptitude for the work was a bonus. The other technicians had to wear navy cotton duck Nocera Heat and Air work uniforms. Randy T had the old man’s blessing to hit the trucks in a white wifebeater and jeans.
Randy T was into being mellow that summer. Maybe it was a reaction to the profound humiliation he’d suffered when he came home early one afternoon to find his bride of seven weeks buck naked in bed with his best man. More likely it was the prodigious amounts of marijuana he smoked. When the old man told Randy T to look after me, he shrugged his shoulders and said cool. He offered me one of his unfiltered Old Golds and said let’s hit the road, coffee and bear claws five miles ahead.
Much to my surprise, on our third day together, Randy T asked if I wanted to hang out after work. He wanted me to hear the killer new Cheap Trick album; we could order in a pizza or maybe Mexican. I thought Randy T must have the life. Buddies to laugh at his stories, to roll his joints, to toss him another beer, to worship him. But long after midnight, when we were ripped on his homegrown pot and staring at some stupid shit on the television, I realized his phone hadn’t rung all night. Randy T must have been lonely, nothing but his two toaster ovens, a coffee percolator, and a huge Mediterranean television/hi-fi console-his share of the wedding booty-to keep him company. Randy T was off chicks for the time being; he didn’t even want to talk about them. He still loved his wife and wouldn’t file for divorce. He was saving to buy a leather sofa to lure her back home.
Randy T and I stayed stoned the entire summer, watching television with the sound off and the stereo cranked, sharing his bong, falling asleep on his floor. I’d show up at home every few days to drop off my laundry and raid the kitchen for leftover lasagna and chocolate cake to take back to Randy T’s. My mother fretted a bit about my random comings and goings, but the old man was thrilled I’d been taken under the wing of his young protégé and encouraged my newfound independence. He didn’t care if I was out all night as long as Randy T delivered my sorry ass to work by eight o’clock every morning.
Randy T lived for rock and roll and hit the big arena shows when he could, but the closest big city was Charlotte and, back then, it was still just a puckered asshole on the South Carolina border. So every few months Randy T would head north to the university towns in the Triangle or to Richmond or, for the right band, all the way to D.C. itself. Which is where RFK Stadium was and where the Stones were playing the second week of August. But I was only eighteen, and as much as my father loved Randy T, hanging with him in Gastonia was one thing, the District of Columbia another. Randy T and I dug that the old man might not trust him to chaperon me in a city that was ninety percent colored to stand around with a bunch of drug addicts to watch a bunch of drug addicts. It’s cool, Randy T said, we would leave Friday night after work, crash in Silver Spring with his brother who did something with drinking water for the government, get fucked up, pass out, wake up, get fucked up, catch the band, drive straight home, stayed fucked up all day Sunday, and roll into work Monday morning as if we hadn’t done anything all weekend except take the truck out to fill the tank.
But on the big Friday afternoon, Randy T took sick. So sick that the lady at the last job of the day got worried and called the dispatcher. The old man drove out to the customer’s house, panicking when he arrived to find Randy T mumbling incoherently, his forehead scorched and his glazed eyes dead. We raced to the emergency room and the staff took custody of Randy T, throwing him on a gurney and whisking him behind the curtains. The old man was rattled. He wanted me home, safe, but I stood my ground and insisted he drop me off at Randy T’s apartment. I was stranded, no wheels of my own, completely baffled by the four-on-the-floor of Randy T’s pickup. A few hits on the bong gave me courage. It was Kerouac time. Time for my own Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I stuffed the tickets, a pair of clean BVDs, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a bar of Palmolive into a backpack and slipped a few joints into my socks. I cadged a ride in the parking lot from a lady I knew from the pool who was heading to the Publix out near the interstate. By three in the morning, I was north of Raleigh, shivering and cotton-mouthed.
The yellow eyes of a northbound tractor trailer emerged from the thick summer mist. The driver downshifted and the air brakes brought the big cat to rest. The engine purred, idling as the door to the cab swung open, welcoming me. A voice told me to toss up the backpack; a hand reached down to steady me as I mounted the cab.
He looked like Jimmy Dean, the country singer, not the actor, with big friendly blue eyes and a long, clean-shaven jaw. Cold for August, huh? he said. Where you heading? D.C., I told him, and he laughed and asked if I had an appointment at the White House. He offered me a bag of trail mix and a warm can of Pepsi-Cola. Stones concert, I said, trying to sound worldly and jaded, as if it were something I did every week. Cool, he said, the Stones are cool enough, but he preferred the real thing. He flipped the top of a cassette case filled with white boy blues-Michael Bloomfield, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
By the Virginia border, I knew he was a native of St. Louis which, according to him, was where the blues were born. He’d done seven semesters at Washington University, but dropped out because it was all bullshit, not real, not like this, barreling through the guts of America saddled to forty tons of steel and rubbing shoulders with the “real people,” the tractor-trailer jockeys and mechanics and hash-house waitresses who held the answers to the mysteries of life. Once he had a little nest egg, he was going to Nashville to give Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings a run for their money.
I tried to embellish myself, trying on attitudes and experiences to make me seem worldly, experienced, someone who might interest him. I was surprised when he clucked with disapproval when I told him about Randy T and his stash of bongs and pipes. That shit will fry your brain, he said. Then he smiled and asked if it made me horny. Yeah, I said, sometimes it feels like I’m carrying a lead pipe down there. You oughta get Randy T to help you out, he laughed. Yeah, I said, distracted and exhausted by the chills riffing through my body.