The Little Red Pickup Truck

There's a little red pickup truck parked in front of my apartment building in one of the choicest spots on the street. It was parked there over a year ago when I moved in. It hasn't moved the whole time I've been here.

In that time, the nearby intersection has been reconstructed into a four-way stop, there has been a snow storm, a heat wave, and almost an entire building has been built nearby.

Things keep appearing in the bed of the truck. First it was just a set of window blinds, the long plastic slats that hang down and clack against each other. The blinds were joined by what appears to be a comforter, and this was finally topped off by a broken down coffee table.

The wind shield sees most of the action, though. Usually it's in the form of different colored notices reminding the truck that it has been there for over 24 hours and that it might get towed. The most recent notice was purple. Maybe that means something.

It's not always paper notices, though. One time the truck was egged. A heat wave came along and cooked the yolks and shells to the surface of the truck. Months later, they're still there.

An eco-system is sprouting up under the truck. The blacktop beneath the truck hasn't seen daylight for over a year, so a forest is growing. Green weeds sprout through the pavement in the protective shadow of the little red pickup truck.

Once the street was shut down for road construction and we were warned a day in advance that there would be no parking for the next 24 hours, and anything parked there would be towed. I thought for sure that would be the last I ever saw of the truck, but it's still there, untouched, to this day.

I wonder who abandoned it and under what circumstances. I wonder if it was an interesting story or a boring one. A cool person or a lame one. A funny situation or a tragic one. Or maybe it was all those things, or none.

I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with the lack of vandalism the truck has undergone over the last year. Sure, there was the egging, and people seem to like to put things in the bed of the truck, but otherwise it looks the same as it did the day I moved in. Sometimes I leave town for a week or so and worry my car will be gone or destroyed by the time I get back. But then I think about the red pickup truck and how everything around it changes and it just stays the same and it kind of comforts me.

Not as much as it would comfort me if someone would tow it so I could park there.

But, a little.