Wrecker
Jan 11 2010


It’s all heavy chains
and grappling hooks,
hydraulic force,
diesels smoking torque.
The world-weary tow-truck guy
beetling-in under the car
scraping hard-packed snow,
his thick competent fingers, grease too deep to clean
impervious to cold.

The clunk and clang
of metal on metal
is solid, final
comforting,
after mashing through gears, forward and back,
flailing against
an immoveable mass,
slipping into knee-deep drifts.

Nose buried, axle tipped
careened into the ditch
it becomes 2000 lbs of scrap,
spinning its wheels
burning gas.
Every northern kid knows this
— something for the treads to grip
and get it rocking,
back and forth
a few inches more, each time
until the triumphant weightless moment
when it rises up out of its hole
and sails effortlessly forward.

The volunteer pushers
flushed, spattered,
the grim driver
feathering the gas,
the laws of physics
forward, and back
in a perfect choreography of motion
determination
good deeds.

But today was too deep
the road too remote
and I called for a tow.
The winch plucked the car from the ditch
with steady inevitability,
no triumph, or suspense
no community of effort.
Which I realize I missed
— the rhythmic rocking,
the delicate touch on the throttle,
the heave-ho machismo of men,
hard cursing
frozen breath.

He preferred cash,
reluctantly accepting a cheque,
as he swung himself up
into the diesel wrecker.
Tow-truck driver
as good Samaritan.