By
Gerald Hausman
Santa
Fe, NM, USA
Sometime ago our 1993 Ford F150
truck was stolen.
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| Gerald Hausman |
One morning, when we looked out our
front window, it was gone.
That same day, a detective with the
Santa Fe Police Department saw the truck, captured the thief, and handcuffied
him to the steering wheel.
The following day our insurance
company declared the stolen truck a complete loss. When we asked why, we were
informed that the vehicle had been stripped of parts. In addition, it had been dented
with a hammer and spray-painted black. Adding insult to injury, the thief had
also posted Valentine graffiti all over the headliner before he ripped the
dashboard apart and removed the computer.
We considered the situation on a
heartfelt rather than a material level. The truck was gone. Our old best friend
had been killed, so to say. And in a lonely scrap yard in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, that old friend was soon to be sold for scrap metal. The engine was all
that was left in salvageable condition and the insurance agency was going to
sell it.
Then a writer friend called to say
he’d written the truck into a dystopian novel. The truck in the novel had gone
through hellfire to save the world and it was without question the hero of the
book.
That was some consolation. And
fitting too.
We recalled how the truck had
gotten us through Hurricane Charley. This was a natural disaster that packed horrific
wind power. Some gusts reached 170 miles per hour. Before the storm our
son-in-law told us to park the F150 with the front bumper wedged against the
outside garage door.
On the inside of the garage, he
suggested we park, bumper-to-door, our John Deere tractor, which we did. Charley
came and tore down every telephone pole in our town. He decimated homes and
upended vehicles.
But the F150 stayed exactly where
we’d parked it, and our life savings – in stored books and collectibles –
stayed protected on the garage shelves we’d built. The floor of the garage
remained dry. Across the street our neighbor’s Cadillac and his travel van were
crushed flat.
The F150 had kept all that we owned,
safe and sound. And as for the truck itself, there was not a scratch on it.
That was then, and this is now …
I guess we are at peace with the
missing, the stolen, the disappeared. Sometimes you have to let go, and so we
did.
But some things, material and
spiritual, are not meant to disappear. Our truck seemed to be one of these.
Although the F150 was materially gone, we wondered if it might yet return, as it
had in the novel.
Some months after our claim to the
insurance company was validated, stamped approved and full value disbursed to
us, we received a mysterious phone call.
It seems the magical F150 had
reappeared, and then been “totaled” once again. Our insurance company notified
us that our truck had just been in an accident in Albuquerque.
“Let’s settle this claim by phone,
right now,” our agent said.
“The claim’s already been settled.
You paid us quite some time ago. The truck was declared, by your adjuster, a
complete loss, so we accepted your offer of full Kelly Book value.”
“When was that?” the agent asked.
“Months ago.”
“Hmm. Something’s funny here.”
“Funny, you say?”
We waited for her return call, and
when it came, the facts were clear as mud, but nonetheless, facts. What we came
to understand is that our truck had many lives, and this last was the most
mysterious of all.
Whoever was driving what was left
of the vehicle used our insurance company to reapply for replacement. Very
tricky but it happens.
It might’ve worked, too. But the
agent tracked the claimant and in the end, we accepted that there’s no road so
straight there isn’t a crook up ahead somewhere. Either that or life is but a
dream and we don’t go merrily, merrily down the stream. Either that or don’t
look now, here comes your F150 once again. I’ll go with that one. She’s coming
back soon. We’ll keep you posted.
Links:
Gerald Hausman
Gerald Hausman at Stay Thirsty Publishing
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Gerald Hausman is the author of Not Since Mark Twain - Stories and a regular contributor to Stay Thirsty Magazine.
