Prisoner of the Truck
Chapter 1 : My Boyhood Prison (Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Order)
It took fifteen minutes to drive to the public market opening at 5 AM. Ford had invented the Ford truck as well as the Model T automobile. My father had sold his horse and wagon and bought a used Ford truck. There was an enclosed cab section that held two adults and a small open back section not much larger than a wagon pulled by a horse. In the cold season, this back section was enclosed. It was about five feet high. My father had to stoop when he entered it. A kerosene lamp was used to prevent the fruits and vegetables from freezing. The cab section had no heater. There were cracks in the wooden floorboards. From the light of the street lamps, I could see the ice and snow on the plowed and bumpy roads through the cracks in the boards. Shivers went through my cold skinny body. I wiggled my toes to keep them from freezing. I glanced at my father, big and strong, oblivious to the cold that enveloped me. He broke the cold silence with, “Did you wear your long underwear?” I wanted to say that I forgot, hoping that he would turn back, feeling some sorrow for my thin and tiny body and let me return to the warmth and security of my bed and home. I said, “Yes, ma made sure.”
When we arrived at the public market, I went to the enclosed back of the truck. I huddled next to the kerosene lantern to get warm. I took off my shoes and pressed my socks to the warm glass of the lantern. My fingers and toes were numb, frostbitten from the frigid drive to the market. As I sat in the cold isolation of the truck waiting for my father to complete his task, I thought about earlier times, when being with my father was an adventure.
(On a few occasions when I was five years old, he would take me on his horse and wagon for one or two days a summer. We would start at 5 AM and would return around 5 PM. My father appeared proud when the farmers and his customers would say, “Mike, what a handsome young man.” My dad must have thought that in America, “Mike” was a better name than his real name, “Wady”. These infrequent summer outings, as a very young boy, were an adventure to me. I could feed and brush the horse as they did in the silent cowboy movies. Children along the way would look at me with envy as I sat beside my father on the wagon. We were moving from place to place. I was traveling. I was meeting people. I was riding high on a horse and wagon just like the cowboy movies of the times.) NEXT PAGE
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