It's madness, driving a truck this big. Not just this truck—iceberg white and seemingly as massive—but any vehicle would make me feel the same way: a car, a moped, maybe even an electric golf cart. There's sound reasoning behind the oft-seen caveat printed in eye-blurring fonts on the labels of narcotizing bottles of medicine: do not drive or operate heavy machinery. No shit.

Indian summer in Oregon, warm days made almost hot in comparison to the damp chill of morning, the abrupt cold plunge into night; ground unable to hold onto the receding sun's heat. It's a wild scramble at the hardware store, an overabundance of choices offered by those rushing to finish projects before the rains begin. The frenetic parking lot scrum of workers and employers reminds me of a night long ago in Baja: the grunion are running.

I'm doing good for work, easily landing a job every day, trying to put aside enough to smooth the times ahead when the jobs will blow away like dry leaves. Today, it's another house remodel, yet another racing winter; only a tangled mountain of construction debris left to remove.

As punishing as this kind of work can be, I like it. It requires no higher level thought, only enough intelligence to grab, pull, toss, and grab again, a welcome white noise vacation from my usual circular obsessions. But that's not what I'm doing now, navigating this behemoth down the freeway. I'm astonished by so many things; how high up I am, how the engine growls when I press the accelerator, how incredibly fragile are the surrounding cars pressing close in back and to the sides. From up here, they look like eggs, each containing something infinitely precious and irretrievable once broken.

I haven't driven since my car was stolen. While losing my car was traumatic in myriad ways, in a small, secret voice I've always been relieved that its disappearance precipitated my career as a non-driver, ending the few months' overlap between the start of my habit and my operation of a car. Spending much of my time behind the wheel, living in my car, I worried I would eventually run someone over, that someone would end up in the intersection of a Venn diagram composed of high and driver. I don't have much of a sense of self-preservation anymore but I can't take the concept of hurting another.

Someone else is supposed to be driving this thing, drove it earlier but he went home early. I didn't catch the reason; someone told me he got sick, someone else said he had another job. It doesn't matter, nor did my feeble excuses to avoid this duty; yes, I know how to drive, oh, so it's not a manual tranny? It's my ability to speak English that singled me out, I think. Often, I pretend not to understand but I forgot this time, engaging my employer in a brief conversation about the weather. Several hours later, he waved me over and ordered me to take the debris I helped load to the dump.

I can't see out the rear window, glancing in the center mirror only reflects a battered plywood wall and my frantic eyes. Even with the seat pulled all the way forward, I had to stuff my backpack behind me to reach the pedals. I'd rather be anywhere but here. I wonder if I'm weaving. I wonder what will happen if I get pulled over, with my fake ID and my wasted face. I'm lagging, leaving huge gaps in front of me that prove irresistible for even normally placid Oregon drivers. The driver of a little gray Jetta zips into the space just scant inches from my front bumper; through her open sunroof, I can see the cheerful print of a carseat and plump dimpled hands waving at the setting sun. I can't do this. A bridge is coming up; I signal and take the last turn-off before the lanes narrow, my boss following me in the second truck.

"What's going on?"

"I can't do this."

"What the fuck? What do you mean?"

“I'm sorry, I can't do this." I've already slid to the ground, hauling my backpack out upside down, a few small items spilling out from an unzipped pocket. I leave them on the ground, leave the truck with the keys in the ignition and the door open, and my former boss cursing into a cell phone, my day's wages still in his pocket.

I used to love to drive.