-
Low-Rider - 1973
- West Virginia University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
184 1973 Low-Rider The air drafting through the open windows of the cab of the pickup truck is soft enough to sleep on. The air is loaded with the fragrance of neardesert countryside and lies in the bottom of the small canyons and covers the twisty little road like the worn blanket you had when you were a kid. The sun is almost down behind the western ridges and the slanting light seems to make the air dance on the narrow, two-lane blacktop in front of me. I am driving with my elbow sticking out the window, the radio tuned to some country music station that keeps fading in and out. I do not really care about the music; it just seems that I should have the radio on. I have not seen a car, a house or a barn for miles. It is the best I have felt in months. I am less than fifty miles from the state line, driving below the speed limit, poking along. When I get there, I think I will stop the truck, get out, stand right on the line, take a sip of bourbon, and just breathe the air. Then I will climb back into the truck and sleep until dawn. And then I will find the mountains. The real mountains. The Pale Light of Sunset 185 The big sedan eases up behind me. I have been watching it come for a couple of miles. The driver, like me, seems in no hurry, drifting along, the big car low on the curvy road. Really low. A low-rider, maybe. I try to figure out the make of the car, but so much body work has been done to it, it does not seem to be anything specific. The driver hangs back about fifty yards. I keep an eye on him in the mirror for a while, and then I forget about him. More or less. We come out of a long, looping curve and into a straight stretch and I realize that the car is in the lane next to me, his front bumper coming even with mine, his speed matching mine. Four doors. I try to see inside the car but the windows are darkly tinted. I can see only the outlines of heads against the pale western light. Maybe four. We drive that way for half a mile. Then I ease the pickup forward a few feet, just to see what he will do. He matches me. I am reluctant to punch the accelerator; the truck has an engine that will tear up most cars, and I don’t want the low-rider to know that I have some real punch under the hood. Not just yet. But I punch it, just a little. I have caught the low-rider off guard and before he can recover the truck jumps a full length ahead of the car. I watch him in the big side mirror. He comes on hard, roaring past me, cutting in front of me a little too close, close enough that I have to back off to keep from tagging his bumper. He keeps going, pulling away and storming into the next curve, out of sight. I stay backed off, but I am wary now, feeling the old reflexes pull my nerves into tune. I roll into the curve, watching the sides of the road, looking for anything that does not belong there. But I see nothing. Through the curve and then a few more and then a straight stretch and there he is, idling along, all the time in the world. I close on him [3.141.8.247] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 22:36 GMT) Lee Maynard 186 slowly, waiting to see what he will do. When I am a few yards behind him, and he has kept his slow speed, I drift the truck out into the left lane— and he immediately drifts out in front of me. Twenty miles an hour, tandem, in the left lane, not more than four or five feet separating our bumpers. We ride that way for a while, and then I drift slowly back into the right lane. And so does he. He’s beginning to piss me off. I sit up straight, cinch up my shoulder harness, turn off the fucking radio , put both hands on the wheel, and twitch the wheel slightly to the left. As he sees my truck start to the left...