January 20, 1994
Dear Tim,
Thank you, first of all. I need your help. I need some serious pro bono publico. I need a guy on my side. I need somebody the insurance companies will take seriously. Those huge buildings are apparently full of people trying NOT to help anybody, full of people trying to AVOID paying out any money. Here’s my story, sad but true.
- Photos of the wreck do not do the damage justice. Even the knobs on the dashboard are bent. I don’t have a clue how the glass didn’t break, because all the metal is buckled.
- Carol H. (800-zzz-xxxx) is the claims representative for my insurance carrier. She has my tape-recorded testimony. She’s probably heard from the other vehicles.
- Jeanne M. (503 -zzz-xxxx), a very nice lady, is my agent. I did not have collision insurance.
- Accident report was sent to me by investigator Stuart H. (503-zzz-xxxx) who is representing one of the trucks which hit me. He has my tape-recorded testimony also.
- “Police Record” as appeared in the local paper the day after accident.
- Roland S. was a witness who spoke in my behalf. Spencer was, I recall, driving a furniture truck from the Warm Springs reservation.
That’s my “hard” testimony. Anecdotal follows.
None of the trucks, to my knowledge, were wearing traction devices. Truckers are notorious for excessive speeds on that stretch of highway. I was not in a hurry, I was not driving like a maniac, everything I hold dear was in that little truck. I really don’t speed. Honest. I had been following another 18-wheeler – perhaps passing some of the trucks which later hit me – but he was traveling too fast for me. My truck was fully packed, but I had a tunnel of rear mirror vision through the middle of my belongings, at least until the collisions rearranged everything.
I did not get any identification or insurance information from the other drivers, believing the police would do so.
I told Stuart Hansen my truck was worth $5000. That was a ballpark figure off the top of my head. I believe I could produce receipts – including labor costs – which might raise that to almost $6000.
I paid $137 for tow to motel. I spent $150 on motel. $30 to get truck to storage. $56.50 to store truck until February 1. $314 for a train ticket. Nearly $100 to ship contents of truck by UPS. A corrosive liquid sprayed from the engine compartment onto my new pants ($50). A few hundred dollars worth of damage to the contents of the truck, e.g., Christmas gifts, framed-in-glass pictures, etc.
Etc. Etc.
All my injuries have healed, save one. That is, my right thumb, that opposable digit which separates homo sapiens from other primates, was badly crunched. I have not been to a doctor, but I surmise ligament/tendon/soft tissue damage. I still suffer pain, almost constantly, and I am unable to perform some simple tasks like opening a Tupperware container with my right hand. My insurance DOES cover medical costs, but you and I both know an M.D.’s opinion will not differ from my own diagnosis. Only time will heal this wound.
And talk about the mental anguish. Truly, I cried and I cried and I cried when I had to send the dog away. I am bereft with despair and loneliness. I became my own hero. That hero drove away from Portland in a painstakingly restored classic Bronco, his best friend was his dog and they were adventuring around the United States to write a novel. To get the work done.
One slip up and his life becomes an abyss.
The bottom lines are these… I didn’t hit them, they hit me. They were not following at a safe distance, obviously. A man should be able to hit a patch of ice without every truck in the vicinity crashing into him. I want the Bronco replaced.
Tim, please. Pretend I am a very important client. Pretend this is a very important road race. Give it your very best shot. Thank you.
Needily yours,
Barker Ajax
Barker wasn’t even particularly looking for a Bronco, but anybody can drive a Jeep, and a Landcruiser is just another Japanese car. A Scout was built by tractor makers. A cowboy rides a horse, of course.
Stuck in LaGrande, paring my belongings down, it’s time to plug some words into the computer.
And sometimes there’s a sense we are each other’s research.
Do a goddamn solo. Understand sometimes you may hit a sour note.
I am penniless, homeless, jobless and about to lose my driver’s license, he told his attorney. Plus I have a big dog. There’s nowhere to go, and I probably couldn’t get there anyway.
That’s a sad story, the barrister replied sincerely. I want to leave, he answered.
Then things took a turn for the worse. Suddenly, he was truckless and dogless. Enough to make a grown man weep.
In Yamhill County, DUI Orientation happens each Monday at 3 p.m. Lewis Chandler, head of county community corrections led this edition. A healthy, burly, short, bespectacled man in his late fifties maybe, silver hair fringing a mostly bald head, blue shirt open at the collar, white t-shirt showing, Chandler looks like a favorite uncle.
“Everybody’s in the records system now,” he warns. “If you’re stopped, even as a passenger, we’ll find out. And if diversion is broken off, you’re looking at a year’s suspension.”
Ouch. I don’t think so.
***
New Hampshire: What better place to seek treatment for driving under the influence than a state which operates liquor stores at highway rest stops.
Perfect the way it is. Don’t try to change something into something it’s not.
I told the motel manager I’d have Shane out of his front parking lot the next day. “No problem,” he told me in heavily accented English. “Everybody who comes here tonight, we say, “Look at that. You don’t want the same thing to happen to you. So, be careful, yes?'” Yes.
Barker plays the lottery but he knows it’s a sucker’s bet. Your odds of being killed by a bee sting are 5.5 million to 1. By lightning: 1 in 2 million. Your chances of getting killed by falling airplane parts is 10 million to 1. I’ll betcha.
Undogged…. and seated.
Talent on loan from dog.
Broke and alone/ I’m not broken nor lonely./ I’m tired/ but I’m not slowin’ down.
Don’t know what I’m searchin’ for/ hope to recognize it when I’m found.
***
Headed into another tomorrow
Get away. Get over it. Get going. Get real.
Liars in my head/ strangers in my bed.
The only limits are, as always, those of vision. – James Broughton
If you’re not dog enough to jump into the truck, you’re not dog enough to go.
***
On composing a short poem. Write the first line/write the middle/write the genius closer/call it a start.
“Call me Raven,” the woman said. She was a blonde and she noticed the puzzled look on Barker’s face. “I like black men,” she added as explanation.
“True, most Americans know better than to actually sleep in their cars at an interstate rest stop.” – Newsweek, 9/27/93.
“Negative” advice empowers you to move. E.g, Lower your standards. Set your sights low. Read less. Take the easy way out. Go backwards, if you have to. At least it’s a direction.
Underneath, he was a manic-depressive self-doubting zen egoist with a volatile temper, which is to say he can be moody; a man who liked to skirt the edge, peeking over to see into the abyss. The key is not to lose your grip.
How slow does Crackers get? I have what I call the Donometer. If Don falls asleep by 5:30, you know it’s going to be a slow night. [Barker Ajax bartended at a workingman’s tavern on Northwest Thurman. Got fired, the clientele wanted somebody with bigger boobs. – ed.]
Every tomorrow I feel bigger than yesterday.
Idea. The dog and I at Father & Son’s Day.
How does a poet earn a living?
***
People will be hunting Democrats with dogs by the end of the century.” – Sen. Phil Gramm (Rep.-Tex.) when asked what will happen if Bill Clinton’s political agenda becomes the law of the land.
Hiawatha is afraid of being victimized by men. She’s a leader and can’t not lead. Victimized by the men in her life in the past, she’s on the offensive with the men in her present.
“He could go bear hunting with a switch,” Red Auerbach once said about a particularly well-muscled athlete.
Believe what you want to believe, but don’t make believe you can make me believe what you believe. – Barker.
Stop barking up the wrong tree.
What you do is how you live. Barker again. Writing fiction will create my reality. Let writing be your drug. Let your imagination set you free.
if something’s important to you, pay attention.
***
Some dark cold winter nights,
dressed like a long-haired, black turtle-necked
Polish movie director,
I sit alone in this grand estate
and I think about the Tate-Labianco murders.
Later, I lock my bedroom door.
***
Trying to write a country western hit
My baby sold the farm
took the money, left town.
I crashed my pickup truck
sent my dog back home.
it’s too cold to bike,
too far to hike.
***
Left alone inside the truck the first night on the road, The Black Gang ate the passenger seat. And Barker remembered that first attempt to cage the great beast, when Gang had scratched all the wallpaper off the bathroom wall. So, when the big dog ate the motel room, Barker Ajax came to a conclusion… he was a wild dog who thought outside the box.
No bones about it, this animal didn’t like to be caged.