Truck Driver Wife Quotes

Fishermen lean on the railing. There are kiosks at regular intervals that grill meats for truck drivers and others who want a quick lunch. Bags of charcoal piled by the sides of the kiosks will supply the heat to grill blood sausages, steaks, hamburgers, and various other cuts of the legendary Argentine flesh that sizzles during the early part of the day in anticipation of the lunch crowd. Many of the kiosks advertise choripan, a conjunction of chorizo (sausage) and pan (bread). There’s another offering called vaciopan, which literally means empty sandwich, but it also is a cut off the cow. This is not a place for vegetarians. The slang here, called lunfardo, is many-layered and inventive. There’s even a genre of slang called vesre when you reverse the syllables—vesre is reves (reverse) with the syllables reversed. Tango becomes gotán and café con leche becomes feca con chele. Sometimes this is compounded and complicated even further when a euphemism for something—a word for marijuana or one’s wife—is pronounced backward, adding yet another layer of obscurity to a slang that already approaches a separate language.

One evening in April a thirty-two-year-old woman, unconscious and severely injured, was admitted to the hospital in a provincial town south of Copenhagen. She had a concussion and internal bleeding, her legs and arms were broken in several places, and she had deep lesions in her face. A gas station attendant in a neighboring village, beside the bridge over the highway to Copenhagen, had seen her go the wrong way up the exit and drive at high speed into the oncoming traffic. The first three approaching cars managed to maneuver around her, but about 200 meters after the junction she collided head-on with a truck. The Dutch driver was admitted for observation but released the next day. According to his statement he started to brake a good 100 meters before the crash, while the car seemed to actually increase its speed over the last stretch. The front of the vehicle was totally crushed, part of the radiator was stuck between the road and the truck's bumper, and the woman had to be cut free. The spokesman for emergency services said it was a miracle she had survived. On arrival at the hospital the woman was in very critical condition, and it was twenty-four hours before she was out of serious danger. Her eyes were so badly damaged that she lost her sight. Her name was Lucca. Lucca Montale. Despite the name there was nothing particularly Italian about her appearance. She had auburn hair and green eyes in a narrow face with high cheek-bones. She was slim and fairly tall. It turned out she was Danish, born in Copenhagen. Her husband, Andreas Bark, arrived with their small son while she was still on the operating table. The couple's home was an isolated old farmhouse in the woods seven kilometers from the site of the accident. Andreas Bark told the police he had tried to stop his wife from driving. He thought she had just gone out for a breath of air when he heard the car start. By the time he got outside he saw it disappearing along the road. She had been drinking a lot. They had had a marital disagreement. Those were the words he used; he was not questioned further on that point. Early in the morning, when Lucca Montale was moved from the operating room into intensive care, her husband was still in the waiting room with the sleeping boy's head on his lap. He was looking out at the sky and the dark trees when Robert sat down next to him. Andreas Bark went on staring into the gray morning light with an exhausted, absent gaze. He seemed slightly younger than Robert, in his late thirties. He had dark, wavy hair and a prominent chin, his eyes were narrow and deep-set, and he was wearing a shabby leather jacket. Robert rested his hands on his knees in the green cotton trousers and looked down at the perforations in the leather uppers of his white clogs. He realized he had forgotten to take off his plastic cap after the operation. The thin plastic crackled between his hands. Andreas looked at him and Robert straightened up to meet his gaze. The boy woke.

We listened as he and his wife told us their wildlife stories. I wasn’t sure why, but they seemed to really hate emus. I think it was because a panicked, running emu could put a hole right through the fence. “You know, an emu is supposed to be able to run sixty kilometers per hour,” he said, relishing his story. “But if I run my truck right up their bum, they will actually reach about sixty-eight kilometers an hour. It’s funny how they look back over their shoulder just before they get run over.” They laughed long and loud until they realized that none of us were laughing with them. His wife must have thought we didn’t get the joke, because she tried to explain it further. “Our oldest child, he always begs his dad,” she told us, “Run down an emu, Dad, run down an emu!” While we drove the fence line afterward, it was obvious that Steve was trying to get back to the job at hand and move on from the awkward conversation. Suddenly he had a premonition. He turned to me. “Something’s going to happen,” he said. Just ahead of us, a koala ran through a paddock over open ground. Steve immediately jumped out of the truck. “Get John and catch up!” Steve yelled. I scrambled into the driver’s seat, bouncing like hell over the muddy track, rounding up John and the crew to come film Steve’s encounter with the koala. “How did you know something was going to happen?” I asked Steve, once we’d filmed the koala and gotten it safely to a nearby tree. “How did you sense it?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, mate, it’s the strangest thing.” Were Steve’s bush instincts simply more finely honed than anyone else’s? I didn’t think it was that simple. He seemed to be able to tune into some sixth sense with wildlife. After years in the bush, he had refined his gift into an uncanny ability.

Tommy suddenly picks up his stuff and starts walking down the stairs. “I’m honest, I’m never late, I respect people, I try my hardest, I’m friendly, I love my wife, I love my children,” he rants as he makes his way out of the building and toward his truck. “It’s just like, no one wants bugs around, so no one wants me around.” Tommy shakes his head and shoves his supplies into the truck. “I mean, why do you think it’s un labeled?” He waves an arm outward toward his truck. “Because people would be embarrassed to have it in their parking lots, that’s why.” He shakes his head, suddenly stops talking, and sighs. “Ehh, stupid landlord. He’s just an asshole anyway. What do I care?” Tommy smiles and his body becomes less tense. “Hey, here’s one I’ve never told you, my dear. What do you get when you cross a centipede and a parrot? . . . A walkie-talkie!” He gags, and bends over laughing. Tommy slides into the driver’s seat of his truck and shuts the door, sealing the plain white shell around him.

Difficult to believe what hurts so much when the cement truck bounces you off a tree trunk is not solid knocking solid but electron cloud repulsing electron cloud around the overall emptiness of matter, a clash of miniscule probabilities in the beehive of the void. Somehow you're only scratched and bruised but the driver's in agony, no license no immigration paper a picture of his wife still in Oaxaca five kids he sends money to so you try to assure him you're okay look not hurt hopping foot to foot which only seems to him you've got trauma to the head or were already loco either way problemo. Your bicycle bent, he lifts it tears in his eyes which are mirrors showing everything on fire in black water...

Determined to get back on track with the kitchen renovation, Aggie decided to ask Luke if another coat of paint was necessary, or if she should carry in the flooring now. “Okay, Luke…” Aggie looked around for him, and eventually she saw him through the picture window in the living room. He was out front, guiding a large truck, as it backed up the driveway. Curious as to who was backing in, Aggie dashed out the door and tripped down the steps, fortunately unseen by teasing children or an over-protective Luke. When she saw Luke and a man she didn’t recognize unloading cabinets from the truck, she gasped. “Luke, where did you find them? They are exactly what I wanted!” Her squeals of excitement brought children from every corner of the house. Even Tavish the hermit stepped from his own little world to see what made Aggie squeal with such obvious delight. Luke and Laird helped unload each cabinet from the truck and carry them to the back step. Once finished, Luke thanked the driver for bringing them, as he handed the man a check. The burly man jumped into the truck, and as he put it in gear, he stuck his head out the window and said, “Hey, Luke. Anytime you feel like building more cabinets like those, let me know. My wife is green right now. I’d love to see her natural color again.” With that, the truck slowly drove down the driveway and pulled onto the road.

And in that moment, I understood not only my fears but the fears of the world. A man jealous of another man who took his wife. A mother upset at her child for disobeying. A truck driver worried he wouldn’t be able to feed his family. A country putting up defenses at its borders to keep enemies out. A pastor worried he wasn’t serving the flock well enough. On they went—a million fears that blinded humanity to the light of love. None of the fears were less damaging than others, I saw. Anger was as destructive as murder.