“
And off we go, out onto the highway looking for a little fun. Perhaps a flatbed truck loaded with human cadavers will explode in front of a Star Trek reunion. One can only dream and hope.
”
”
George Carlin (When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?)
“
never fall asleep in a Dumpster, never underestimate a bee, never drive a convertible behind a flatbed truck, never get old, never get drunk near a train, and never, under any circumstances, cut off your air supply while masturbating.
”
”
David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames)
“
So say you are charged with, you and some of your colleagues, lifting a heavy dead whale carcass onto a flatbed.
”
”
George Saunders (Tenth of December)
“
Driving across the bumpy steppe, we are thrown up to the canvas roof over the truck and hold on to the framework of the flatbed for all we are worth. We
”
”
Gunther K. Koschorrek (Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front)
“
wants to help,” Clara says in her childish Jeju dialect. Young-sook watches the strangers try to assist her grandson as he loads the bags of algae onto the flatbed. Once everything is secured, she climbs behind her grandson and wraps her arms around his waist. She nudges
”
”
Lisa See (The Island of Sea Women)
“
- I been here before, haven't I?
He just sat there staring out at the plain.
Son of a bitch, I thought. He's ignoring me.
- Hey, I said, I'm not the dead, not a shade in passing. I'm flesh and blood here.
He pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started writing.
- You got to at least look at me, I said. After all, it is my dream.
I drew closer. Close enough to see what he was writing. He had his notebook open to a blank page and three words suddenly materialized.
Nope, it's mine.
- Well, I'll be damned, I murmured. I shaded my eyes and stood there looking out toward what he was seeing - dust clouds flatbed tumbleweed white sky - a whole lot of nothing.
- The writer is a conductor, he drawled.
”
”
Patti Smith (M Train)
“
Trying to get to 124 for the second time now, he regretted that conversation: the high tone he took; his refusal to see the effect of marrow weariness in a woman he believed was a mountain. Now, too late, he understood her. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn't count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn Sethe's rough choice. One or the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last.
And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was a whole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths of witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents and petitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his
flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat
down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, "What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?"
When he got to his house he was too tired to eat the food his sister and nephews had prepared. He sat on the porch in the cold till way past dark and went to his bed only because his sister's voice calling him was getting nervous. He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red.
Mistaking her, upbraiding her, owing her, now he needed to let her know he knew, and to get right with her and her kin. So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on through the voices and tried once more to knock at the door of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher but one word, he believed he knew who spoke them. The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons.
What a roaring.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1))
“
Is that a plane?" Marilee awoke with a start,surprised to find the sun already high.
Wyatt shaded the sun from his eyes to scan the sky.
As the sound grew louder they both sat up at the same moment.
"A truck." Wyatt pointed. "Coming from that direction.Probably Jesse and Zane with that flatbed they promised."
"Oh,no.Look at me.What was I thinking?" With a cry Marilee grabbed up her discarded clothes and started dressing.
When she finished she tossed Wyatt's clothing at him. "Aren't you going to put these on?"
"Yeah.No rush."
"No rush?" She was already climbing into the cockpit of the plane to retrieve her gear.
Men, she thought. If they were standing naked in Grand Central Station, they would probably take their sweet time finding something with which to cover themselves.
”
”
R.C. Ryan (Montana Destiny)
“
The banks on either side had grown steadily steeper, and now, at their tops, they could see slim, pointed shapes looming against the sky. Roland thought of arrowheads--huge ones, weapons made by a tribe of giants. To his companions, they looked like rockets or guided missiles. Susannah thought of Redstones fired from Cape Canaveral; Eddie thought about SAMs, some built to be fired from the backs of flatbed trucks, stored all over Europe; Jake thought of ICBMs hiding in reinforced concrete silos under the plains of Kansas and the unpopulated mountains of Nevada, programmed to hit back at China or the USSR in the event of nuclear armageddon. All of them felt as if they had passed into a dark and woeful zone of shadow, or into a countryside laboring under some old but still powerful curse.
”
”
Stephen King (The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3))
“
Tying his flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, “What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?” When
”
”
Toni Morrison (Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1))
“
In Diyala, east of Baghdad, in the early days of the war, I came upon a group of American marines standing next to a shot-up bus and a line of six Iraqi corpses. Omar, a fifteen-year-old boy, sat on the roadside weeping, drenched in the blood of his father, who had been shot dead by American marines when he ran a roadblock. “What could we have done?” one of the marines muttered. It had been dark, there were suicide bombers about and that same night the marines had found a cache of weapons stowed on a truck. They were under orders to stop every car. The minibus, they said, kept coming anyway. They fired four warning shots, tracer rounds, just to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Omar’s family, ten in all, were driving together to get out of the fighting in Baghdad. They claimed they had stopped in time, just as the marines had asked them to. In the confusion, the truth was elusive, but it seemed possible that Omar’s family had not understood. “We yelled at them to stop,” Corporal Eric Jewell told me. “Everybody knows the word ‘stop.’ It’s universal.” In all, six members of Omar’s family were dead, covered by blankets on the roadside. Among them were Omar’s father, mother, brother and sister. A two-year-old boy, Ali, had been shot in the face. “My whole family is dead,” muttered Aleya, one of the survivors, careening between hysteria and grief. “How can I grieve for so many people?” The marines had been keeping up a strong front when I arrived, trying to stay business-like about the incident. “Better them than us,” one of them said. The marines volunteered to help lift the bodies onto a flatbed truck. One of the dead had already been partially buried, so the young marines helped dig up the corpse and lift it onto the vehicle. Then one of the marines began to cry. I
”
”
Dexter Filkins (The Forever War)
“
With all cameras on me, Chip released the blindfold and said, “Ta-da!”
I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. A shipwreck, maybe? On the back of a semi?
“What is that?” I said.
“I got this for you, Jo!” Chip replied.
“That better not be for me,” I said. It was the ugliest, rundown-looking, two-story shack of a boat I’d ever seen. “What the heck are we going to do with a houseboat?”
“That’s our new home!” Chip said, beaming with pride at his purchase.
“What? You are crazy. We are not living on a houseboat.”
It quickly dawned on me that this wasn’t a joke and Chip wasn’t even close to kidding. I wasn’t mishearing him. He was dead serious about making that boat our home for the next six months.
I just about lost it. “How can we live on the water, Chip? Three of our kids don’t even know how to swim! Did you think this through?!”
Then he fessed up and told me how much money he’d spent on it. As it all sank in, I realized I’d never been so mad at him--ever--and that’s saying something.
“Come on. At least come look at it. I know this can work,” he pleaded.
As soon as we walked a little closer, we could see the holes. Holes. In the boat.
We pulled ourselves up onto the flatbed and went inside to find the interior covered in mold. Someone had taken the AC unit out on top and left a gaping hole in the roof, so for years it had rained straight into the boat. We tried turning the engine over, and of course it didn’t start. That’s when Chip got angry. “I think I got scammed,” he said.
“Chip, did you even look at this thing before you bought it?”
“Well, no,” he said. “It was a great deal, and there were all kinds of pictures. It looked like it was in great shape. Oh, wait a minute. I bet the guy just put up pictures of this thing from when he bought it, like in 1980 or something. That sorry sucker.”
“Sorry sucker? Chip…”
By this point I’m trying to decide if we could scrap it for parts.
”
”
Joanna Gaines (The Magnolia Story)
“
The rest of Mayakovsky’s body was placed in a coffin on a red cube. Later it was taken to a cemetery on a flatbed truck. Beside it stood a wreath made of sledgehammers, screws, and gears. Everything was calculated and precise, as it should be when the future arrives.
”
”
M.T. Anderson (Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad)
“
By this point in my stay, my list of don’ts covered three pages and included such reminders as: never fall asleep in a Dumpster, never underestimate a bee, never drive a convertible behind a flatbed truck, never get old, never get drunk near a train, and never, under any circumstances, cut off your air supply while masturbating. This last one is a nationwide epidemic, and it’s surprising the number of men who do it while dressed in their wife’s clothing, most often while she is out of town. To
”
”
David Sedaris (Holidays on Ice)
“
PEOPLE WHO ARE unknowledgeable about agriculture often refer to farm labor as unskilled. Take bucking bales. Try inserting your fingers inside the twine on ninety pounds of compacted grass after it has been rained on, then flinging it up on the flatbed of a truck and repeating the process every four minutes for eight hours. If you want to up the ante, do it in an electric storm.
”
”
James Lee Burke (Another Kind of Eden (Holland Family Saga, #3))
“
Thirty minutes later, panting, he threw the axe; it skidded across the blood-soaked floor. He gathered the chunks of flesh and threw them into several bags. He carted the bags up the stairs and tossed them into the back of his truck. They hit the flatbed with a mushy wet sound.
”
”
Victoria M. Patton (Innocence Taken (Damien Kaine, #1))
“
In Austin, outside the governor’s mansion: a giant concrete cube with a crack running down the center, a crowbar by its side. Etched into the cube, four chiseled letters: P A C T. Etched into the crowbar: our missing hearts. One by one, passersby picked up the bar and hefted it, but no one dared swing, and when the police arrived they’d confiscated it as a dangerous weapon. The cube they loaded onto a flatbed and hauled away.
”
”
Celeste Ng (Our Missing Hearts)
“
In the flatbed, with your hard hat on. And your boots. As a matter of fact… nothing but the hardhat and boots. And of course, your… hammer.
”
”
Christina C. Jones (The Way Love Goes (Serendipitous Love, #4))
“
two flatbed tow trucks lumbered down the driveway. Each with a covered vehicle on the back. They pulled up in front of the house and positioned themselves to unload the vehicles.
The man in the first truck got out and said, “This Stargazer Ranch?”
Jack replied, “Yeah.”
“You the owner, Jack Turner?”
“Yeah.”
“Delivery’s for you, man.”
Jack and Caleb came off the porch, staring at the trucks and the man.
“Whose cars are these?”
“Yours. Sign here, please.”
Jack signed and the man got out two pink slips. “Who gets the Camaro?”
Caleb and Jack looked at each other blankly.
“She didn’t,” Caleb blurted.
“If the she you’re referring to goes by Jenna Caldwell, then yes, she did,” the delivery man said.
“Uh, the Camaro is mine, I guess.” Jack couldn’t believe it. She bought him a car.
“Okay, sign here.”
Jack did and took the pink slip.
“Is the Mustang for you?” the delivery man asked Caleb.
Caleb opened his mouth, closed it, then said still unsure, “Uh, yeah, I guess it is.”
“Sign here and we’ll get them unloaded.”
“Jack, she bought me a car. Why did she buy me a car?”
Stunned, they could only stare.
“This can’t be real. People don’t buy other people cars. Not like this.”
“I don’t know. She bought me one, too,” Jack said, dumbfounded.
-Deliveryman, Jack, & Caleb
”
”
Jennifer Ryan (Saved by the Rancher (The Hunted, #1))
“
Traffic lurched forward. I crawled slowly past a flatbed truck that was pulled off onto the grass beside the road. The hood of the truck was up. Seven or eight men in dingy clothes sat on the bed of the truck. They were waiting, too, but they seemed a little happier about it than I was. Maybe they weren’t being pursued by an insane homicidal artist.
”
”
Jeff Lindsay (Dexter by Design (Dexter, #4))
“
To one side, a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, polished to a gem-like brilliance, sat on a flatbed trailer, ready to be taken to its new owner. Constance looked from Pendergast to the Rolls and back again. “I really don’t need two, you know,” he said.
”
”
Douglas Preston (Blue Labyrinth (Pendergast, #14))
“
I came to do business, and you’re starting this shit?” Park touched his arm. “Come. We speak elsewhere.” “Fuck that. I’m not going anywhere.” He shook off Park’s hand, but Park gripped him again. “You are not here to die. I am not here to threaten. Walk here. Away from our men, so no one hear.” Park steered him across the lot to a sleeping flatbed. I followed along with them. Park’s men floated into new positions without being told, securing the area and isolating Ramos’s thugs to give us privacy. Telepathy. Or maybe they were good at their jobs. We were in the sun, and hot, but alone between the big trucks with their men out of earshot. Ramos shook off Park’s hand again, and squirmed like he thought someone might stab him. “What the fuck are you doing, bringing your guns? You think you can scare me into returning your money?” I said, “I can give you the Syrian.” Just like that. In his face. It caught him off guard, and took him a moment to catch up. He glanced at Park, then looked over both shoulders as if he expected federal agents to climb out of the trucks. “What
”
”
Robert Crais (Taken (Elvis Cole, #15; Joe Pike, #4))
“
Through summer, we waited. We waited through June, through July, when the sun ripped a white fissure from tree line to sky, a sky that burned all day and all night, turning away from us for only moments, four hours, five, settled into its own sleep. The days were long then, stretched wide and full of light, but for us, full of only bruises. Full of slaps across sunburned cheeks when flowers weren’t watered, when dishes sat and scummed. Full of cuts from broken bottles held against our throats until we gasped yes, take my money, just take it and go. Full of scratches from the exposed metal of pick-up flatbeds, latticing the backs of thighs, hands held across our mouths to catch and crush the word no. They were long days full of spilling light, so much light it shadowed every hurt.
”
”
Anne Valente (By Light We Knew Our Names)
“
In 1976, Iskcon's publishing house had ordered what was then the largest single print-run of any book in history: one million copies of Bhagavad Gita as it is, his edition of India's essential wisdom text. Ninety-five flatbed railcars were needed to deliver the paper to the printer's warehouses at Kentucky
”
”
Joshua M. Greene (Swami in a Strange Land: How Krishna Came to the West)
“
Fellow Towing is your local El Paso towing expert, providing fast and reliable 24/7 emergency towing throughout the region. Whether you need a light-duty tow, flatbed service, a heavy-duty solution, or roadside assistance like jump starts and tire changes, we're here for you. Our professional team offers transparent pricing and clear communication for a stress-free experience. Trust Fellow Towing as your El Paso towing partner and get the peace of mind you deserve.
”
”
Fellow Towing El Paso TX
“
Like the sifting ground, the scattered baleen, and this your body ancient turned upside down. Heart Swathing in Late Summer In the penumbra of an oak under sculpted Moonlight, we pile the last waking hours On our faces, breathe the wilderness of dry Heat waiting for fall ventilations. It feels Later than it is and the air is already mouthing The date for tomorrow. At least now, our eyes Can fall into the craters of a waterproof Reflection, and we stop for a moment to fill Ourselves with the kind of light that can only Be found in the dark. What is night if not for It being a repetition of unlit squares glued Jointly, plastered against the thought of midday. What is not seeing but to echolocate a name. It’s how I find your chin when I can’t sense The meaning of your hands. Weeks ago, it was Astral rebounds, shiny hinges. We harvested The fertile Perseids posed recumbent In the back of a flatbed, tallying the mineral Opulence reserved for those who wait. Not Ever so many in return. Now this moon in its Entirety has never looked so much like A distant circular kite set ablaze, doused by The kind of burning a man feels when he hears The humming of rain against a woman’s bare neck.
”
”
Mai Der Vang (Afterland)
“
In 2020 the EU announced partnerships worth US$91 million with Airbus, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Elbit to use their services to maintain an ongoing drone presence over the Mediterranean. Elbit’s Hermes drone and IAI’s Heron drone were used during Israel’s wars against Gaza since 2008.5 There’s growing competition in drone sales—Turkey’s TB2 can carry laser-guided bombs, be placed in a flatbed truck, and costs far less than Israeli or American drones, but Israeli models remain hugely popular.6 In 2017, Israeli drone manufacturers accounted for 60 percent of the global drone market in the previous three decades.
”
”
Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
“
We could make an epic catalog of male achievements, from paved roads, indoor plumbing, and washing machines to eyeglasses, antibiotics, and disposable diapers. We enjoy fresh, safe milk and meat, and vegetables and tropical fruits heaped in snowbound cities. When I cross the George Washington Bridge or any of America’s great bridges, I think: men have done this. Construction is a sublime male poetry. When I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck, I pause in awe and reverence, as one would for a church procession. What power of conception, what grandiosity: these cranes tie us to ancient Egypt, where monumental architecture was first imagined and achieved. If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts. A contemporary woman clapping on a hard hat merely enters a conceptual system invented by men. Capitalism is an art form, an Apollonian fabrication to rival nature. It is hypocritical for feminists and intellectuals to enjoy the pleasures and conveniences of capitalism while sneering at it. Even Thoreau’s Walden was just a two-year experiment. Everyone born into capitalism has incurred a debt to it. Give Caesar his due.
”
”
Camille Paglia (Sexual Personae)
“
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”
”
Blue Diamond Towing Parker
“
Our 24 hour emergency Austin towing company in Texas provides cheap tow truck services, motorcycle towing, interstate towing, heavy duty towing, car towing and flatbed towing. Also, our licensed staff in Austin, TX has 10 years experience in providing roadside assistance services like flat tire repair, jump start, fuel delivery, car battery replacement, and car lockout solutions. We can bring your car to the repair shop of your choice or offer some suggestions.
”
”
24X7 Towing & Repairs Texas
“
The Magistrate says something to him and stands at the edge of the flatbed, a preacher addressing his flock. Charlie Manson laying out the plans for Helter Skelter.
”
”
Richard Kadrey (The Kill Society (Sandman Slim, #9))
“
South Centennial Auto Recovery and Transport is the towing service that cares. You are ALWAYS our number one priority. We understand how frustrating it is to be stuck on the side of the road. That's why our goal is to make the process as easy as possible for you but arriving as quickly as possible and providing professional service.We do it all: flatbed towing, heavy-duty towing and roadside assistance. Whatever you need, help is only one call away.
”
”
South Centennial Towing and Recovery
“
Name’s Clay Tahoma, originally from Flagstaff and the Navajo Nation. Lately from L.A. I’m up here to work with an old friend, Nathaniel Jensen.” Jack’s face took light at that. “Nate’s a friend of mine, too! Pleasure to meet you.” Jack introduced Clay to some other men who were standing around—a guy named John, who they called Preacher; Paul, who owned the flatbed and forklift; Dan Brady, who was Paul’s foreman; and Noah, the minister whose truck slipped off the road. Noah smiled sheepishly as he shook Clay’s hand. No one seemed to react to the sight of a Native American with a ponytail that reached past his waist and an eagle feather in his hat. And right at that moment
”
”
Robyn Carr (Virgin River Collection Volume 4: Promise Canyon\Wild Man Creek\Harvest Moon\Bring Me Home for Christmas (A Virgin River Novel))
“
If there’s a single idea I emphasize when people ask about writing, it’s that there’s no right way to produce a book. But I do think that whatever you do, you should do regularly, whether it’s waking up at midnight and drinking vodka or waking up at dawn and drinking tea, whether it’s sitting in a monkish study or writing on the back of a flatbed truck. The analogy I like is children’s literature: in a lot of children’s books, there’s a huge institutional structure (Hogwarts, for example) whose presiding safety allows the children’s imagination to run free. The more consistent your habits are – and this ties into having your tools nailed down – the more secure your brain will be to run free and create.
”
”
Charles Finch
“
A TWIST OF LIGHT-prologue
Reissue date; 6-16-14
The new mother mover the sacking away from the tiny red face, marveling at the perfect mouth and the arc of dark eyebrows of the child she cradled. "Did you ever see anything so pretty?" She spoke to no one in particular, but addressed her question to the group of women huddled inside the hut. Fashioned from cardboard and corrugated iron, the hut wasn't much bigger than the flatbed of the truck that had brought her here.
"Nothing's quite as pretty as a healthy baby." the flat vowels marked the midwife's origins in Oklahoma as surely as her faded sunbonnet and her residence in the labor camp. Set up less than two months ago, it already bulged with over five hundred people who'd been blown out of their homes along with the rich topsoil.(less)
”
”
Joyce Mandeville
“
The fire was stopped at State Street by a brigade of firefighters with pumps, saving the Old State House for posterity. Also saved by extraordinary effort was the Old South Meetinghouse at Milk and Washington. Credit is given to a crew from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who arrived by train with their steam engine, Kearsage No. 3, that had been loaded on a flatbed railroad car and hauled by train to Boston.
”
”
Ted Clarke (Brookline, Allston-Brighton and the Renewal of Boston)