Numbness of the Tow Truck Driver: An Excerpt

Hello, I am feeling a bit low today, which puts me in a perfect position to write about lonely people. And so, with that prelude, here is an excerpt from an upcoming essay about the night my little purple bus kicked the bucket for good:

The repair shop was closed until Monday. Remaining there without water, food or electricity felt like the last thing we should do.
And there was the tow truck driver, our unwilling ferryman. We stood aghast that he would rather leave us in the dark than drive us 15 minutes to the train station.
“You can’t leave us here.”
“I’m on call.”
He disappeared behind the tow truck. Victoria followed. From the way she described the interaction, I create the picture:

Her fox-like face and the hazel eyes boring into him, trying to find his eyes, trying to find the part of him that is like her. He avoids looking at her, his arms ever crossed like his last line of defense.
“Hey, man,” she says, “You got kids?”
“No, I don’t.”
Those eyes. Sometimes brown, sometimes green. I know those eyes. They are searching eyes, simultaneously soft and stabbing.
“We are really in trouble here, man,” I picture her saying with her mouth but more with her eyes, “We need your help.” 

In imagining this moment I would like us all to imagine the life of the nameless, terse tow truck driver:
Everyday a series of tasks that are assigned to him but none that are a part of him; none of them emerge from his heart.
He works almost fifty hours a week, and then he goes home.
He has no wife, no girlfriend, boyfriend or satisfying lover and no children.
I picture his living space is a couch, a small, cluttered table and a television.
He regards his co-workers as his friends. Everyday, they exchange pleasantries and use playful nicknames for each other but no one invites anyone anywhere outside of their designated work hours.
He may think of himself as a solitary person. Truthfully, it is unknown to us and perhaps to him if there is anyone left on earth that wholly loves him.

The response to her plea? An instantaneous no.

Check in with the writing page in the next week or so for the full story <3