Chapter 12

No doubt about it, I was born too late and Meka was born too early. Even though I couldn't speak a word of the language, I loved my trips via the Way Back machine, or whatever did them. For her part, Meka loved riding in a big truck. When we got back to George and Ethel's house she seemed a little let down.

Ethel cured most of that by dragging out a meal for the two of us. It was about six PM and we'd missed supper, but Ethel and Wanda made it right. Since Meka knew it was nearly night out, she packed it in and then slipped into hibernation mode for the night.

"You two better stay up here tonight," Ethel said. "We've got most everything scattered around at least close to where it belongs, but we haven't even made up the beds yet. In fact, somebody has to go after some furniture. I didn't have anything that I wanted to put down there for Meka, so I called around and scared it up."

"That's fine with me. I don't think Meka is tired of ridin' yet. She loves ridin'," I said.

"Good, the furniture is out near Canton. A lot of antique shops have sprung up to stay out there since First Monday has got so big," she said.

"But isn't First Monday going on this weekend?" I asked.

"Yeh, but the places I bought the furniture and things from aren't on the site. You won't have to deal with too much traffic," Ethel said, but I could almost feel the sneaky tone in her voice.

"Don't matter, we won't have much trouble in the pickup."

"You shore won't, because you ain't going in the pickup. You'll need that new big truck and the new trailer George bought. There ain't near enough room in a pickup, or even in any trailer we got that can be towed by a pickup," she said.

"I've never thought of hauling furniture in a bull-rack, but I guess it will work fine. At least this one's never hauled any cattle and it don't smell like shit yet," I said.

"You men. I'll swear you think just alike and it's always the wrong thoughts. That damned George, and Bob too, said the same thing, as if we can't afford a real trailer for hauling furniture," she said.

"Oh, he bought another trailer?" I asked.

"Sure did, I didn't even have to asks but once. He got it from the same place you picked up the bull-rack. They said they'd have the Carrier unit on it and have it ready to go by tomorrow morning."

"A reefer, we don't need a reefer to haul furniture," I said, surprised.

"I know that, but the unit won't hurt anything and we damned sure don't need a furniture trailer, not 'less you want to lease onto United or Mayflower," she said.

"No, no, a thousands times no. I'll go get the reefer and then pick up the furniture, and be happy about it. Please don't buy a possum belly moving van. I promise to do better if you won't," I said.

"Now you're talking like you have good sense. You don't have time to be driving around the country moving people's household goods anyway. I could have got a box van but they just look so plain. You and Meka go on to bed. You've got a lot of drivin' to do tomorrow and Meka has a lot of ridin' to catch up on," Ethel said.

That was fine with me and when I got to the bedroom I saw that Wanda already had Meka in bed and she was sound asleep.

The next morning I made it to the pisser before Meka. I know she was awake before me, but maybe she was rewarding me for the trip to Six Flags. Whatever it was, all was still right with the world because when I came out to get dressed, she went right in and commenced flushing.

Ethel was happier than a pig in shit too this morning, and she used large quantities of food to make up for the talking to she gave me last night. I had a thick ham steak, along with bacon, sausage patties, and sausage links. Of course there were a few fried eggs and a bowl of homemade chili and Ethel just had to remind me that my biscuit skills were only rudimentary compared to hers. The ones she made put mine to shame.

Meka's meal was planned for her by Ethel. She didn't have all the ham, bacon, and sausage. She had two plates worth though. One held her waffles and the other had three scrambled eggs with a big bowl of chili poured over them. She amazed Ethel, Wanda, and me by asking for another helping of everything and then making it disappear.

Meka perked right back up when she saw Ethel packing our ice chest with Cokes and cold cuts again. She didn't even ask any questions, though her English was better now and I'm sure she could have made us understand. Hell, she knew good and well already that we were in for more trucking and it made her smile wide. She came over and crawled up into my lap.

"Daddy, we go in truck?" she asked.

"Yes baby, we go in truck. Do you like the truck?"

She didn't answer, just hugged my neck and kissed me on the cheek. She settled down in my lap to wait then, and I could almost feel happiness radiating off her.

We drank another mug of coffee at the table and then left with full cups. We had a big thermos too, and there were plenty of Cokes in the ice chest.

Ethel had bought a camper style potty for the sleeper. It had some type of chemical in it that was supposed to keep the smell down. Meka tried to act like it was wonderful, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it. She made sure she had a few flushes in her bathroom just before we left and she was good to go.

After we were about a mile down the road I had to see if I could find out what the problem with the porta-potty was. I should have known better myself.

"You don't like the potty Ethel got for you?" I asked, pointing to it and doubting she would understand anyway.

I don't know if she understood what I was asking or not. She looked at the potty too.

"No flush," she said, as if that explained everything.

In a way I guess it did. No doubt Meka was perfectly comfortable with taking care of business anywhere she thought no one would step in the results. If a crapper wouldn't flush, well where was the fun in that?

As soon as we hit I-30, heading back to Dallas, Meka made a startling discovery. I don't know why it hadn't come up before, but it hadn't. I pulled out into the left lane to pass a car and Meka happened to be looking out her window; for the first time she noticed that the cars had people in them too.

Not only that, but she could see into the cars from her perch. Apparently we had passed a car with other children in it and they must have been looking up and noticed Meka.

It didn't matter to Meka that they couldn't hear her, or that they wouldn't have been able to understand anything she said if they could have. She began talking in her language, and by now even I could recognize she was greeting them. They must have been greeting her too, because all at once she started waving to the car.

When we were past them, she looked at me with her eyes bright and shinny and a smile that must have been nearly painful. She'd been paying more attention to what I did than what was going on in other cars and trucks up until now, but she spied another slow car in front of us and waved her hand at me for more speed.

Hell, it was fine with me and I gassed on it. Well, I guess I dieseled on it, but you know what I meant. We were pulling around the next car a minute later and it had kids in it too. Meka could see them because she talked to them again, but they must not have been looking out their windows.

"No see Meka," she said, with a disappointed tone in her voice.

"Daddy fix," I said, letting the train horns do our introductions.

I'm sure the car's driver got a shock, but it worked, because all at once they were getting a Caddo Indian greeting again and the waving was back on. The driver must have recovered too, because the woman flashed me over when I was past. Of course a truck driver doesn't really need to be flashed if he isn't pulling a trailer, and Meka and I were bobtailing to get the reefer. I thanked the driver with my taillights anyway; it's the thought that counts.

When we passed a big truck later, he made Meka's day and then she made his. Truck drivers have a lot of time on their hands when they're driving, and they usually look at anything that passes them. When I got even with the Schneider driver's window, I slowed and let Meka have a good wave. She had a surprise for me after a second or two.

"Daddy," she said, pointing to the driver.

I glanced that way and saw the pumpkin roller waving his CB microphone at me. It's a common gesture between drivers that happen to be close enough to see each other. It means why don't you turn your damned radio on so we can talk? I turned up the volume on the Ranger and one of probably twelve thousand or more "Slowpokes" said howdy.

I had to flick the linear off, because as close as we were it would garble everything I tried to say, but I did it and howdied him back.

"That's a pretty passenger ya got there driver," he said.

"Ain't she just? I'll try to get her to talk to ya, but I doubt you'll understand her. Meka is a Caddo Indian and she doesn't know much English," I said.

I gave her the mike then and showed her how to push to talk. Meka gave the driver a greeting and I'm sure he didn't understand a bit of it, but at the last she said, "My name is Meka."

I was surprised and he was thrilled. He even woke up his partner in the sleeper and in about a minute the guy climbed out and took the mike, saying hello himself. Meka gave this one her greeting too and also told him her name was Meka. She was having a ball.

This isn't as unusual as it might seem. A large majority of truck drivers are suckers for a sob story. Meka's wasn't really a sob story, but the two pumpkin rollers couldn't know that. I'm sure they thought she'd been slighted by some government organization on her English lessons. After all, it had only been a few years ago that the government gave all truck drivers a brutal fucking up the ass. Considering the treatment all Native Americans had received at the hands or our benevolent government, I could understand his assumption.

I glanced in the mirror and saw that we had collected a tail, so I pulled ahead and got back over in the right lane.

"Bye bye," Meka said into the mike, unknowingly repeating the words every Schneider driver heard dozens of times each day.

It surprised me at first, but someone else hollered at Meka then. His handle was Calico, and my guess was that there weren't more than a couple of thousand Calicos, in Texas anyway. Meka was proud to talk to this Calico though, and she had a little more English for him.

"My name is Meka. I am six," she said.

Truckers can be the biggest assholes on earth, but sometimes they can be nice. The nice part usually only comes around during the daylight; probably because the drivers are tired at night, and a lot of them have been driving all day and will be driving all night too.

They seemed to be in good spirits this morning though, and I'll bet Meka introduced herself to and greeted probably seventy-five drivers before we got to Dallas. She was thrilled for the most part, but I could tell it was getting old by the time we pulled into the trailer place.

We were barely on the ground when I got a hint of what her discomfort was.

"Bathroom," she said, looking at me with a question on her expression.

We went inside and found one with no trouble and, the flushing started before she could have possibly gotten her pants down. She was probably just making sure that the crapper wasn't going to try cheating her like Ethel's porta-potty did.

We went to the desk after the flushing was over, and when I told the bosomy receptionist who we were, she called someone and then started to talk to Meka, hoping to keep her from fidgeting, no doubt.

She had to go through "My name is Meka" twice before I told her that Meka didn't speak or understand much English. Undaunted, the receptionist switched to what I thought was probably excellent Spanish.

"Excuse my poor manners, please Ma'am. I should have been more informative. Meka is a Caddo Indian, and that's the only language she's really fluent in. She can give and receive smiles in any lingo though," I said.

She showed me she was better than the average receptionist then, by giving Meka a big smile.

"Meka, my name is Janice," she said, proving she knew the limits now.

Meka returned her smile and waltzed around behind the desk. Soon she was in Janice's lap and somehow a cartoon was playing on the computer. Man, those damned things were getting too smart. I knew I was going to have to get Bob to show me how to do that excellent trick.

A suede shoe operator came out from the office door then and introduced himself. He was into full glad-handing mode and he didn't even let up when I told him I was just the driver here to pick up the trailer George had bought.

"You can't pull that on me. I spoke with Mrs Ethel, and she warned me not to get on your bad side if we expected to sell them any more trailers. Why don't we go look at what they selected and if it suits you, you can go on about your business. Mrs Ethel told me not to delay you since you had some antiques to pick up," James said.