How much I now know
I suppose that I have always known myself to be a weak man.
I suppose that my weakness, like most things also has it’s own virtues.
I suppose that although I never had the strength to stand up against the wrongs I perceived, I did, never-the-less, have the sensitivity to perceive them in the first place and the nerve threshold low enough to know when not to let myself get involved.
I suppose that you could say, that while my arms were weak, my legs were fast.


I suppose that it’s that kind of thinking that first attracted me to being a truck driver.
I suppose that it was maybe the elevated security offered by the 8m cubed cabin, floating over wide open asphalt, your whole world within, looking-down-over as the little people below bend and weave their ways in and out of frustrations whilst for you, the only way ahead is forward, ‘into the sun’ – if you like.
I suppose that I was never a ‘short-distance man’, too much pressure for me, too much nine to five.
I suppose that for me the escapism of the five day journey or sometimes longer, the freedoms of the open road, the liberty to partially set your own time schedule, the many short yet intensive acquaintances, different towns, different languages, different problems, (only there for the people who wish to make such things) the arrival ‘on time’ in ‘Factory Dot’, ‘Nowhere City’, to the rapturous applause of an awaiting entourage as you gracefully stride down from the cabin like Mick Jagger throwing himself from the stage into a field of arms, raised like blades of grass, like Rock Hudson riding in at the last minute to save the town from ....... well.... yes.....
I suppose that..... I digress but ...... you get the picture.


I suppose that from an early age ‘strong’ and ‘silent’ were always somehow offered to me together, as a package.
I suppose that I have already made it clear that the first of these doesn’t apply.
I suppose that ..... well, if I were to be ..... well, really honest .... well, neither does the second, but ...... what’s wrong with talking anyway ?!!
I suppose that many hours alone in the cabin only subliminally concentrating on the job, mixed with many hours of chatting to other drivers and enhanced with a natural desire to be ‘liked’ by people or ‘interesting’ to the people that you don’t see maybe quite as often as you would otherwise like to, is bound to have it’s affect on anyone.
I suppose that 90% of long-distance drivers are full of bullshit.
I suppose that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that providing that you’re not totally surprised when people perhaps don’t fully believe you and maybe eye you with a little suspicion as you spin out the yarns of your latest heroic ventures.
I suppose that in every story there is always at least a basis of truth.
I suppose that in most drivers’ cases there’s just a few borrowed bits added in for effect.
I suppose that if your stories make people laugh then that could never be a bad thing.


I suppose that you could say it was the type of day that particularly lent itself to a bullshit story that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001.
I suppose that you could say that I was on my way to anywhere; it was a long, straight road.
I suppose that I was actually on my way to meet with a friend, we were to complete a project we’d been working on together and it was certain that, if all went as planned, we would be at least half drunk by 9 pm that evening.
I suppose that I was only driving a small truck that afternoon though it was still big enough for an effect.
I suppose that the road was only about 20 km long but that would have been long enough to complete any catch-lines to stories that I may have wanted to pour out later in some drunken stupor.
I suppose that I was thinking of how much my life had changed in the past 2 & a half years.
I suppose that I was thinking of how my ‘woman-in-every-town’ had suddenly become reduced to one Austrian girl though, it was still only 2 & a half years into our relationship and I was still able to round-up any stories with justifications of how it was yet only temporary and the chances of us staying together were still slim.


I suppose that with every breath I drew that afternoon, as with every breath that I had drawn for the previous sixteen months, there was a thought for Jack.
I suppose that every glance that I made that afternoon across at my passenger mirror took in at least a small part of Jack’s seat and a sense of excitement at the thought that as soon as he was out of nappies the cabin would be complete, just me, him, the sunshine, living from fruit trees, though his mother could always join us by conference call if she could find a signal of course.
I suppose that every glance down at my dashboard that afternoon would have taken in the image of his blond hair and blue eyes with that beautiful smile and the cries of “Papa, Papa, Papa” as I’d clicked the camera shutter closed some days before.
I suppose that I would have wondered why we decided to stay in Austria and not have our child born in my native England and I would have probably yet again, drawn a different conclusion than the last 10 million times I’d asked myself the same thing.


I suppose that I would have concluded all my many thoughts that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001 in two ways, overlapping in parts.
I suppose that for my friend, who was by now only 10 km away, I would have had at least 2 or 3 good stories prepared and for myself I would have concluded that things were looking good.
I suppose that, all in all, things were very good, these were good times.


I suppose that I’d often a likened my truck cabin to a television, with me of course the main attraction and my many fans anyone from bus-loads of children, to blondes in small hatch backs or some lonesome old lady who I’d just allowed to cross the street because I was maybe having a good day at the time and feeling charitable.
I suppose that I’m not unlike a lot of people and that it doesn’t need you to be driving in a truck in order to feel that you’re maybe on show.
I suppose that the automobile generally, in it’s many varied shapes and sizes, holds with it a strange, distinctive form of identity and security for it’s even wider cross-section of occupier types, those that normally come in a human form at least.
I suppose that it’s not even to do with the pod, look at your average cabriolet driver.
I suppose that the other side of this wide-screen analogy is an infinitely more disturbing picture with the touch of the steering wheel somehow endowing it’s co-exister with a wig, gown and hammer, as well as a notion that he can now do no wrong, as I believe Shakespeare once said “the world is a stage”, but in this case it’s often ‘my world and my stage’.
I suppose that just exactly how you choose to make your judgments and in what manner at any particular moment, can depend to a large extent of course, on just exactly what happens to be pumping out of your speakers at the time, be it Vivaldi’s Four Seasons or the Sex Pistols, be it your new girl friend on the mobile convincing you that she quite honestly thought that you had three legs, or be it your bank manager telling you that he is about to close down your overdraft facility forthwith.
I suppose that automobiles can be dangerous things.
I suppose that it’s not always the driver that’s in control.
I suppose that the driver is not always the same person that climbed into the automobile.


I suppose that I’ve been subjected to moments of anger, whilst driving, many times and if it was initiated by a vehicle with NL on the rear, then the driver was quite obviously a Dutch WANKER!, a letter D, a German WANKER!, ESP a Spanish WANKER!, GB a fucking WANKER!, and if it were an abbreviation that I didn’t know, then the driver was simply a twatting, cunting, shitting, fucking, wank-off, fuckwit, arsehole, fucking, fucking, FUCKING WANKER!!
I suppose that driving makes me racist.
I suppose that many times I have been subjected to moments of anger directed at the driver of the car in front whereby the back of any anonymous head instantly becomes female and if its a truck in front, then the driver is quite obviously male.
I suppose that driving makes me sexist.
I suppose that I could go on for a long time debating these issues.
I suppose that if I had made it to the pub that night, following that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001, then my story would have probably been about a Slovakian wanker who should have been wearing a skirt.


I suppose that I didn’t know what to suppose when I found myself at rest on that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001 somehow hugging into Jack’s seat.
I suppose that when I saw the grass pressing up against Jack’s window and Jack’s window supporting my feet, which were in turn supporting my hunched body then, I might have presumed something was wrong.
I suppose that the pain that slowly started to infuse throughout my body as I attempted to straighten my position, as well as the outpouring of blood and the relentless downfall of red, matted-together clumps of hair would have helped to confirm to me that things weren’t quite as they should have been.
I suppose that my truck, now at rest between the road and some rail tracks, had forever lost its ‘strange form of identity and security’.
I suppose that this new path that I had created, made no provision for u-turns.
I suppose that the frame left where the screen had been, while beckoning an easy escape, did more in bridging together two contrasting worlds than I will ever be able to comprehend.
I suppose that it was as if the glass had inverted for me in some strange way, inside offered no comfort only pain and confusion, whilst the outside drew me towards a warm, sweet spring air and as I emerged from the cabin, I relished in the breeze, cooling my wounds, my worlds somehow mirrored, I was free, perhaps beyond freedom, suspended in a natural arrest.
I suppose that as I filled my lungs from that warm, sweet wind, my conscience began to echo the rhythms of a thumping pulse, b´dum / b´dum / “What have / you done? / What have / you done? / What have / you done?”
I suppose that I now needed to know just exactly what the FUCK had I, really done?


I suppose that pain’s only ever a comparative thing and to climb the embankment back onto the road went unrealized, my interest more focused in drawing together pieces from wherever I could find order.
I suppose that I found no order, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that I recognized my truck, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that I supposed that that was my truck, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that I supposed that that was my blood, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that I supposed that that was the side of my face, falling away in that sweet, sweet breeze while all around me offered only visions of chaos in still-frames/ screaming faces / body parts / engine parts / body parts / empty child seats / body parts / police / a long road / police / a blocked road / police / blue lights / blue, a cold colour giving temperance to unfriendly faces, in flashes, in still frames / fast-play / slow-play / child’s play / sweet wind / police / fast-play / slow-play / a child / sweet wind / a child / sweet, sweet ..... wind.


I suppose that that woman really was screaming at me, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that that police guy felt his shouting would in someway make him more comprehensible, b´dum / b´dum / b´dum / b´dum
I suppose that neither of them could feel their words bouncing back, b´dum.


I suppose that I was invincible, beyond sense, beyond pain, beyond life, beyond death, perverted, impervious, nothing to loose and nothing to answer to.
I suppose that then, it really was my time / TV idol / the glass fixed / playing real time / big time / big brother / big trucker / big man / Superman / big cabin / the world a cabin / the driver / being driven / all directions / only one direction.
I suppose that they were dead.
I suppose that all life was dead.
I suppose that that was never my truck.
I suppose that that was never my blood.
I suppose that whatever happened on that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001 never happened on that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001.
I suppose that life has no answers when you step out of the cabin.


I now know that that sweet, sweet wind on that warm, sunny, spring afternoon, May 2001 was the only link that I had left to the life I had known, it was the breath of my son, it was the sustenance that I now live from, the innocence that I now beg for, the only virtue that I now care to protect.

I love you Jack.