My Friend Who Became a Trucker
By Don Iannone

Roger was a high school friend of mine.
He grew up to become a trucker.
I should have known that was his destiny,
but what does any 17-year old know
about the future?

Nobody handled the wheel
better than Roger.
His large farmboy hands seemed
a natural fit on any steering wheel.
Our wistful Saturday night spins around town
in his metallic blue '64 Impala
were more beautiful than any poem.

I passed many truckers
on the road today,
driving back from Detroit.
It made me think of Old Rog,
and that miserable day in 1968
when the in-crowd at the high school
voted Roger the "least cool guy"
in the junior class.
I despise myself now
for having laughed with the rest,
when they hung the sign "Least Cool Guy"
on Roger's locker.
Young people can be cruel,
especially when they're struggling
with who they really are.

Roger always wanted to be somebody.
He told me once
that his life would've been better,
if he had had different parents--
parents who would let him be
who he really was.
Old Rog was very smart.
Even without studying,
he easily got A's and B's.
That is until he was targeted
as the school's biggest non-person.
He nearly flunked his senior year.
I think he did it deliberately
because he didn't want
to face the decision
about his next step in life.

Maybe it was his severe acne,
or his short bent-over frame and long arms,
that caused the other kids
to call him "Ape Boy."
I noticed that Roger
never looked at himself in a window
when we walked down the street.
At times I found myself struggling
to look at him when we talked.
I didn't want him to think
I was staring at him.

Over time,
I lost track of Roger.
It wasn't until some years later
that another high school friend
told me that Roger lost control
of his rig on a snowy evening,
and plowed head-on into a car
with a mother and two little kids.
They were all killed instantly.

Roger took to drinking.
He couldn't handle the memories
from that gruesome winter night.
Roger died about a year later
when his rig veered off the highway
and over an enbankment.
Under the seat,
they found an open whiskey bottle
and a well-worn copy
of our '69 high school yearbook.
I know why he drank,
and I know why Roger's gone.
What I don't know is why
kids do these things to each other.