Jacob's Ladder Read Online Free PDF

have called a taxi,” I argued as JT helped me up into the cab of his truck. The thing was an early sixties Ford, a lacquer red F-100 Flareside, solid and beautiful, fully restored. It was a treasure. Not one of the early curvy trucks but big, square, and wide, its grille a toothy horizontal smile of chrome. A moment of intense covetousness caught me squarely in the chest.
    “You"d have to wait hours for it to get here from Santa Barbara. St. Nacho"s isn"t a cab kind of town. On the other hand, if you stuck your thumb out, you could get a lift, probably even from someone who wouldn"t kill you for your wallet. So it all evens out.” JT had an engaging grin, and he was displaying it a lot.
    The ignition was to the left of the steering column. The shift was “on the tree.” I sighed and ran my hands over the dash.
    “This is a very fine truck.”
    “I call it Mithril.”
    I laughed. “I can see that. Tolkien. Gandalf said, „Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper and polished like glass."” JT gave an inelegant snort. “And everyone knows that the „beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim." Could I be a bigger geek?”
    “Probably not.”
    JT glanced at me. “Some things feel true and uncomplicated.” I guess I knew what he meant. There weren"t any bells and whistles, just a big wide bench seat, a glove box, and a tiny radio in the no-frills cockpit. But it was like looking through a window in time, and it still carried an earthy farm smell and the reminder of a bigger, more optimistic America.
    When I looked up, I was caught in his gaze, and I had the absurd thought that he was both surprised and delighted by my reaction. As if we were kindred spirits and the truck was like a bond between us: a secret handshake or a code word that broke the silence and bridged the distance between us.
    The individual springs under the car"s upholstery were stiff and sproingy, and they creaked as I looked around for a seat belt.
    “There"s only lap belts.” JT seemed to read my mind. “This truck didn"t originally even have those. They added them later.” 20
    Z. A. Maxfield
    “Cool.” I dug between the seat cushion and back by the door and found the one side, then groped around on my other side to find its mate. “So has it always belonged to your family?"
    “Yeah. Dad"s family used to have a farm up in Castroville.”
    “Castroville?”
    “The artichoke capital of the world.” JT keyed the ignition and adjusted the choke when the truck sputtered to life, smoothing it out. “In the sixties, when Julia Child started doing her The French Chef show, people started to get into gourmet cooking and fine dining. My grandmother thought it would be a good time to start going into high-end produce—white asparagus, Belgian endive, artichokes, different kinds of lettuce, and baby vegetables.”
    “You"re kidding.”
    “Nope. And she sent first my grandfather and then my dad around in this truck to the restaurants and farmers" markets in the San Francisco area. Dad was on a trip down to Los Angeles to see if he could open a market there and got stuck here in St. Nacho"s by a cracked radiator. While he waited for it to be fixed, he fell in love with the daughter of the man who owned the SeaView Motel.”
    “That"s a great story. He mentioned that this town wrapped around him and wouldn"t let go.”
    “Yeah, well. That was probably my mom who did that. Anyway, his brother took over the farm, but when it came time to get a new truck, my dad couldn"t bear to let them sell it. We"ve had it ever since. It"s mine now.” We hit a bump, and it jostled me enough to make me wince. I grabbed the seat next to my leg.
    “I"m sorry. It doesn"t have the smoothest ride.”
    “That"s all right. She can knock me around a little. I"m not that delicate.” It definitely rode like a farm truck. Nothing wrong with that unless you were beaten all to hell.
    JT"s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I wanted to talk