White Truck Tale of Woe

 I believe in Hell. With the capital H.  It is a place where the innocent must deal with the evil creations of automotive engineers. This subset/splinter faction of the engineering profession has the mission of placing as many impossibly small tabs, clips, bolts and retaining rings in the most unreachable, unseeable and unwrenchable places possible, and creating a gauntlet of steel and plastic torment for all those whose life choices brought them to this desolate and cramped Forum of Absolute Suffering. The most comfortable truck repair yoga pose for me was on my back in the driver's side footwell with my feet in the door pocket.

Perhaps I'm overdramatizing, and thank god Orris saved me from creating a practice fire for the Matinicus volunteer fire crew, or going all Jack Nicholson and putting my splitting maul first through the windshield and then through every other surface on my once beloved Silverado 2500 HD. I don't golf, so the maul would be the next best thing. Better really. 

The actual problem presented when Megan went to move the truck in order to mow the lawn. The shift lever was flopping about in all positions at once, none of which would result in the vehicle moving off that patch of lawn. 

After my routine assessment of everything I've done wrong in life which brought me to this place, and my usual self-blame for simple mechanical failures, I ordered a new shifter cable from NAPA. Henry, my mechanically gifted nephew, was coming out the next weekend and agreed to install it. 

The report back from Henry was encouraging with one exception, which is that he didn't get the new cable properly entwined around Satan's own support bracket, resulting in the new cable breaking apart when he shifted into drive. 'Support bracket' is a little misleading in that this is a sturdy metal silly-straw-shaped contrivance bolted to the upper and inner surface of the steering column in a place one cannot see or reach into. The DIY videos mostly skip this part because it does not cause people to like and subscribe. 

After a good bit of diligent procrastination, I ordered a second cable from NAPA and watched videos, including Henry's where he stuck his phone into the upper under-dash orifice to conveniently identify the proper routing of the cable through Lucifer' silly straw. 

I started fresh around 7 a.m. and promised if I wasn't making progress by 9, I'd just find something else to do. Aside from the really hard parts, almost every step of the process of removing the broken cable and installing the new new one showed me the malevolent face of pure evil from automotive engineers. Each fixture presented a fresh set of tests of my fingers and my sanity and my ability to be upside down for lengthy periods with flakes of rust falling into my mouth while I was trying to utter long strings of profanities.

The cable comes in an upper and lower segment and there are no re-do's when connecting them. Once joined, three bishops and a cardinal could not annul the union. 

And so I pushed the halves together. Pretty much. By pretty much I mean I couldn't get them apart, but things did not look right. There was much fiddling with plastic locking collars and other elegant horrors created by said engineers. When I thought I had things connected, I tried to start the truck with no luck. I assumed the battery was dead from sitting for 2 months, which would prove incorrect. 

For whatever reason, the automotive engineers also had great concern about 35 pound truck batteries floating up out of their snug sockets, and so placed a retaining bolt in a place requiring a very long socket wrench extender. Thankfully, this is where I called Orris for such an extension.

He and I wrestled, jumped and used a battery booster go-go box thing to try to start the truck with no luck.

Then he took a look at the not perfect union between the upper and lower parts of the cable and suggested disconnecting the cable at the steering column end. With that piece of mechanical insight and a good bit of shoving and growling, the ends and all the elegant plastic horror pieces went together properly, at which point the truck shifted into park and started right up. 

I like to find meaning in these struggles and I suppose this time it is the collective wisdom of Henry, Orris and I against the dark forces of automotive engineering. 

Henry and the Red Truck

 The other ancient truck in the island fleet is a bright red 1995 Ford Ranger, which hadn't moved since some time last September or October. My crude diagnosis was a bad fuel pump or wiring or fuses because if I fuffed in a good charge of starting fluid, it would fire until the ether was gone and not a moment longer. I couldn't hear the buzz of the fuel pump. I had replaced that component once before, but not so long ago in the mileage life of a truck limited to a habitat of a 1x2 mile island. There it sat until this morning.

I woke to what sounded like the thump of sliding barn doors if they're not latched during a windy day. Looking out the northerly bedroom window to my wind-gauge, which is a large horse chestnut tree off the end of the house, I saw no movement. I started to fall back asleep, but heard more shuffling and was concerned that I'd left the shop door open, inviting raccoons- after they finished looting the bird feeder- to rummage through my pantry totes. 

Descending the stairs at 5:50 a.m. on a Sunday, I see Henry walking from the mini-bike he salvaged and revived off the beach over toward the red truck with his prospector head lamp illuminated. Henry is my nephew, and he and his iPhone can pretty much figure out anything mechanical. I went outside to offer coffee and a warm place to take a break, but didn't stay long owing to my bare feet on a morning in the high 30s. 

I checked in a couple more times in between making coffee, starting the diesel heater and getting a fire going in the wood stove. Henry quietly mentioned relays and went about putting the multi tester into various crevices and places mechanically minded persons know about. He also had pieces of wire stripped at the ends and talked of hot-wiring this or that component to figure out if the problem was upstream or downstream of the pump, connector, relay or other things Henry has insight into, but which, to me, are just pieces of the unknown. 

At one point, I looked out the kitchen window and saw him bending over the engine and then taking a sudden small jump upward. "Did ya get bit?" "Yeah. I think I'm hot on the trail though." Looked like. 

After coming indoors to plug his phone in, he pulled up the wiring diagram for the truck and explained in a language I've no fluency in about the issue being upstream of the fuel pump relay. I saw lines and markings on the diagram, but could not follow. 

After a bit more fiddling, I joined him again at the engine compartment. Henry was trying to figure out some element of the chain of wires and components, but then opted instead to wrap his sweatshirt sleeve around a wrench and place that across 2 poles or bolt ends coming off the fuel solenoid. This created an impressive display of sparks immediately prior to the 'careful what you wish for' moment. 

After coughing a few times, the engine started. With great enthusiasm in fact, owing to a stuck throttle linkage, and then roared loud and high enough to possibly disturb the shore birds on the far end of the island. There was also a luxurious cloud of white smoke engulfing the truck and ourselves such that it was more like the early stages of a spacecraft liftoff than a small pickup truck waking up. Henry moved very quickly to shut off the ignition key. He does not tend to overstate things and suggested in his steady way that we "probably want some WD on that."

The culprit turned out to be a different relay which Henry left on the seat of the truck where I couldn't miss it. All of this at a very early hour on a Sunday with no fanfare or trace of self congratulation. That is Henry. 

April and an Old Truck

 It’s a gradual awakening. For me and the house and various machinery as well as the lobstering business I insist on staying in contrary to any common sense.

Here at 33 South Road, Matinicus Isle, Maine, the Easter vibe comes not in pastel or fluorescent pinks, oranges or yellows, crocuses, daffodils or forsythia blossoms, but in dirt-crusted black. 

The truck Megan paid $800 for in 2014 is now in its 11th season here. Hundreds of trips have been made up and down the island with as many traps as would stay stacked on the bed. The black Mazda pickup truck has had its share of malfunctions and breakdowns, but picture tightening battery terminals after lugging the battery up out of the basement, tipping some fresh gas in, sweet talking the dodgy starter until she comes to life and then watching the black beauty rise up out of the dead grass as the tires are inflated. That is resurrection. 

The lawnmower obliges, though it feels wrong to just about need mittens to cut the grass. Buoys get inspected for weak bridles and cleaned prior to this year’s fluorescent blue and orange coat. A few need my initials and license number re-branded into them.

So it goes with me as well. I really do my best to adapt to the mainland, but once I’m boots on the ground here I realize how much I need the crazy that comes with this remote island; how much I need the raw connection to the environment; how good it feels to be picking up dry broken limbs off the yard and warming myself with them a little later by the stove. I realize how much I cram down and out of sight the suffocating sensations of the suburbia that the mainland coast is becoming. As wonderful as it is, it’s usually not working for me by April, and I don’t consciously realize why I’m such a drag. Then again in November, the fear of cold man winter will have me grateful for a comfy nest. 

Thinking further out than just the yearly migratory cycle, this place reminds me I need the wildness and impracticality, if for no other reason than to remember how showing up here one April long past felt like being released from confinement. I felt there was adventure ahead in life and I was right. I often do not feel that way these days, so it’s good I came out and fired up black beauty one more time in April.