Richmond Hill, Georgia

Everything

My nasty ass I’da ripped him up.

Uh huh

An be sure you didn’t get caught.

Ha, whew, hey Laurence you know…

Right, I’m in the…

You fuckin with em nasty

(a roll of laughter)

Oh man.

Bitch was doin shit all night,
He’s sittin’ there at the kitchen table all cryin’ and shit
He aint even looking at me just got his face in his hands

Do I really give a fuck at all, really.

You got me bro.
You know what I’m saying.
My moms a whore, ha.
You know what I mean.
I seen him out at the bar and shit.

(a high pitch cackle)

I made your sisters fall out.

I’m talking about bitches I, I used to fuck.
Sisters and cousins.

The above, snippets of a conversation of the mechanics overheard while I was getting a PM (preventative maintenance i.e. oil change) I didn’t catch all of it and I didn’t type it out because I thought it was exceptional in any way. It was just something to do.
I’m in Georgia. Richmond Hill to be exact. South of Savannah. I came down here because I needed to get a PM and a front end alignment. They don’t do front end alignments here and so the PM is all I get.
I have this load that was supposed to be delivered at midnight however the guard at the warehouse said people don’t show up at the Electrolux part of the facility until 6am and I should probably come back at 8am. Way to go Werner with that well made appointment.
The warehouse is in Port Wentworth on the northwest side of Savannah. In a rundown (very southern) part of town with narrow roads, deep ditches, and tight lots jam packed with trailers and containers. I would guess that it is the destiny of these washers and dryers in my truck to be put in a container and given a fine cruise to Europe. Electrolux after all is a European brand. Design it in Europe, build it in Iowa, truck it to Georgia, ship it to Europe. The logic of this system fails me still. Sometimes I wish I could get together a team of people who would look at where everything is made and reorganize the whole goddamn mess so that things were made near the source of their materials and near the place of their sale/use. The increase in efficiency would blow everyone’s mind but truckers would get all pissed off cause all of a sudden there would be many fewer jobs in this area. But we humans are so terrible at seeing the forest for the trees especially when the trees are ourselves.
When I open my bakery I hope to buy local wheat and sell bread to local people. I have no desire to sell bread outside even of Kent County, Maryland. If people in other states or counties want bread baked in small batches in a wood fired brick oven someone is going to have to build that oven and bake that bread but it won’t be me. Maybe I’ll help start it up. I don’t hate money.
It is always so nice to be in the south in the colder months. The surprise of stepping out of the truck and not being bitten in the face by the wind is lovely, like a hundred first days of spring. The traffic southbound on I-75 from Chattanooga through Atlanta all the way to Macon was heavy. Lots of Cadillacs moving slowly toward Florida. At Macon I veered slightly east onto I-16 possibly some of the dullest road in the country. From Macon to Savannah 165 miles of nothing but pine trees. I really dislike driving in the inland south because you can’t see anything. Nothing but dry scraggly loblolly pines. Nothing like the lush evergreens of the northwest. Driving near the gulf is not so bad. I-95 in Georgia is close enough to the Atlantic, with its wide estuarine marshiness, as to be interesting. The southern Appalachians are great. But these fucking pine trees. They feel so empty.
And then there is the smell. The paper mill smell, overcooked broccoli and something metallic, chemical, carcinogenic. Maine smells like this, Louisiana, Washington, but each place is a little different, each place is cooking different trees into Copier Paper.
It’s a nice clear night, a low in the high forties, fresh oil in the crankcase.