{"id":23885,"date":"2026-03-31T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=23885"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:30:13","slug":"vanishing-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/vanishing-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanishing Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our slight town, my father might\u2019ve been the best gambler. He could bluff, sure, but more often than not he held the best hand. At one point his friend Buck had a full house, but he\u2019d run out of chips. Buck owned some kind of asphalt business. With kings over fours, he threw in his steamroller. My father called, throwing in his chips and a Volkswagen Bug. If my mother\u2019d known of this occasion she\u2019d\u2019ve probably requested a divorce. This was a game of seven-card stud. Everyone else folded. I was there, in our den, circling the table and helping myself to pretzels. My father had two jacks showing, but he also had two jacks in the hole. Four of a kind beats a full-house, of course. I\u2019ll give Buck this: He delivered the steamroller the following morning. We lived about five miles apart, so he must\u2019ve left in the middle of the night. My father sold real estate, or at least he bought property and then turned it over as quickly as possible. He didn\u2019t need a steamroller. He used the thing only to run over beer cans in the driveway, until it came time for me to take my driver\u2019s license test at age sixteen.<\/p>\n

Like I said, Burburg didn\u2019t hold a thousand residents. Kids my age took their driver’s tests using tractors, dump trucks, tow trucks, garbage trucks, hearses, the occasional homemade dune buggy. \u201cI\u2019m not going to take the test driving that old steamroller,\u201d I said to my father. \u201cLet me use the Volkswagen, at least.\u201d His other car was an old 1963 Cadillac with fins on the back end.<\/p>\n

Rightly, my father said, \u201cYou can\u2019t drive the VW because you don\u2019t know how to shift gears. And you\u2019ll never be able to pass the parallel parking part of the test in the Caddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I left our house one afternoon after tenth grade, and got to the DMV right before they closed. Man, the driver\u2019s test guy wasn\u2019t happy. He had to stand upright behind me. Me, I used hand signals for left and right turn, then held my left arm down to show that I slowed. Basically\u2014the steamroller didn\u2019t ever go more than five miles an hour\u2014I drove the entire time with one hand on the steering wheel and the other pointing toward the road. Sometimes I waved traffic around me.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how long it took to finally parallel park, but I do know dusk set in, and the man conducting me wasn\u2019t happy. On about the fortieth time I wrenched the steering wheel all the way to the left he said, \u201cJust pull out. You did good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about this guy a lot in college, when I was with my girlfriend.<\/p>\n

So I got my Class G license, then almost got rear-ended a hundred times going home, seeing as I didn\u2019t have taillights. I don\u2019t know how many kids my age driving hay balers sped right up to me at ten miles an hour, then yelled out \u201cBeep, beep, beep\u201d because they, too, didn\u2019t have horns.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe any of that story, Lamar,\u201d my wife Valia said to me when I told it to her, only last week. \u201cI know you never come close to driving the speed limit when we\u2019re out on the interstate, but I don\u2019t believe the steamroller story. No way.\u201d<\/p>\n

We live near the state capital. We live in the same county as Burburg, but in another tiny place way on the other side. It might even be smaller than Burburg, a place called Mangle. The road out front of our house, here in the country, is dirt. Both of us drive a mile before hitting asphalt, then heading out to our less-than-exciting regular jobs in government, which we\u2019ll probably lose for no reasonable reason. She\u2019s been to Burburg, but never paid attention, I guess.<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cWhen my parents died, I sold the steamroller back to Buck for a dollar. I felt as though I owed it to him, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valia and I married each other in our early-thirties. We plain went to the courthouse. Both of us were only children, and her parents died in a tragic boating accident when she and I were in college together. My parents died one right after the other, of heart attacks, just when I felt proud for getting a job at the Department of Transportation, of all places. So Valia and I didn\u2019t need any kind of wedding registry. Between us, we owned silverware, China, toasters, and whatever else people request for their marriages. We had plenty of mid-century furniture, wine glasses, blenders, ashtrays, yellow ware bowls, tools, pots, pans, and towels. We lived together for a number of years and then\u2014thinking wrongly that it would be better to file to the IRS together instead of separately\u2014we went down and had a woman named Gladys witness our marriage vows.<\/p>\n

Valia works for the Department of Education. Among other things, she\u2019s in charge of trying to convince people that even though our high school seniors read on a fifth-grade level, they\u2019re able to thrive in vocational schools and technical colleges afterward. It\u2019s probably a thankless job, just like mine trying to convince everyone that we don\u2019t have the most potholes in the nation. It\u2019s kind of spilled over into our marriage: I\u2019ve noticed that I say, \u201cWe don\u2019t have as many dirty dishes in the sink as most families,\u201d et cetera. She says, \u201cOur grass isn\u2019t as high as our neighbors.\u201d On and on. \u201cIt\u2019s not like pine needles are flowing over the gutters,\u201d \u201cAt least one headlight\u2019s working,\u201d \u201cMore than half of the rake\u2019s prongs are intact,\u201d \u201cI just checked with ancestry.com<\/a> and only one-quarter of my relatives are ex-felons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true about my driver’s test,\u201d I said to Valia. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019ve never told you this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cMaybe it\u2019s because you usually don\u2019t lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I realized that I\u2019d probably not told Valia about my driver\u2019s test because I still underwent painful flashbacks about taking my first date ever out on the steam roller.\u00a0 My date\u2014she\u2019s asked, over the years, not to mention her real name. I guess she doesn\u2019t want it coming back to her husband, who\u2019s a highway patrolman, or her neighbor who works for the Humane Society. Anyway, she sat on my lap as I drove the steam roller, which, of course, distracted me. A drive-in movie theatre operated not far from where we all lived, just outside the town limits, on highway 378, not far from the flea market. Well, the drive-in operated as the site of the flea market on Saturday and Sunday mornings. On the way there I ran over a cat, then a snake. My date shifted her weight on my lap, and I jerked the steering wheel so hard to the right that I obliterated somebody\u2019s mailbox. Of course it had gotten dark, so when the movie ended I couldn\u2019t see very well. I waited for everyone else to leave in their regular cars and tractors. I crushed a number of drive-in speakers along the way with the 6,000 pound drum on front\u2014listen, I called it a steamroller, but of course it didn\u2019t run on steam. I guess the technical term by this time was a road roller, or compaction roller. Anyway, the business end of it weighed three tons. For what it\u2019s worth, there are drums out there that weigh more than 14,000 pounds. I think those are made in England or some place. So it would actually be 6,350 kilograms, which doesn\u2019t sound as big, at least to me.<\/p>\n

When I dropped off my date her parents sat out on the front porch, I guess waiting, so I didn\u2019t even get to kiss her. But they yelled out thanks for tamping down their gravel driveway.<\/p>\n

The movie happened to be Vanishing Point,<\/em> which depicted a number of car chases with which I couldn\u2019t relate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Because I never owned a regular car, I was forced to attend a university that bragged about the town\u2019s on-time bus system. I\u2019d done better than average in school, but not so great that I received any major scholarships. I got a $250 award from the Burburg Lions Club, and a hundred dollars from the Rotarians. There were no other civic organizations in town, no Civitans, Friends of the Library, Kiwanis, or Junior League. In a way, my dad\u2019s friend Buck put me through college, seeing as he kept losing at poker. All of this is to say, I didn\u2019t own my own car until after I\u2019d gotten a job at the Department of Transportation. You\u2019d think that I would\u2019ve gotten a job as a highway maintenance worker deft in heavy equipment, but, no, with my anthropology degree and a minor in political science\u2014plus my ability to read at an appropriate level\u2014I got tabbed for a position as an Associate OSHA officer. My job entailed plain showing up unannounced at work sites, or shops and yards, and inspecting for environmental regulations. I got a pick-up truck to use. No one ever asked me if I had a real drivers license.<\/p>\n

In case I\u2019m not being clear, OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It\u2019s been around since 1971, during Nixon\u2019s fiasco.<\/p>\n

When I showed up for inspections, people pretty much scattered, or didn\u2019t make eye contact. I wasn\u2019t popular, is what I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n

By this time Valia and I lived together already. Until I saved up enough money to put down some payment for a used Toyota, she took me to work, which wasn\u2019t that far from her office at the Department of Education. She knew how troubled I felt by people avoiding me. She said things like, \u201cBring up sports. These guys like to talk sports,\u201d or \u201cBring up Pabst Blue Ribbon. These guys like to talk about beer,\u201d or \u201cCarry around a pouch of chewing tobacco and offer it,\u201d or \u201cTalk about what I did to you last night in bed so they know you like women.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cThink of how being an Associate OSHA officer can only lead you to higher positions.\u201d I didn\u2019t mention how they didn\u2019t exist, unless I ran for some kind of political post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The young woman I took to see Vanishing Point<\/em>\u2019s name was Carla Wright. Now it\u2019s Carla Wright Turner. I know I promised that I\u2019d never mention her name in public or private. But she\u2019s running for County Council, and one of her main campaign promises is to get the tractors, hay balers, homemade dune buggies, dump trucks, garbage trucks, hearses, and steam rollers off the roads when not being used in an official capacity. People just can\u2019t joyride in these vehicles, that\u2019s what Carla believes.<\/p>\n

Carla Wright was also Junior Miss Burburg at one time. She\u2019s using that \u201cWright Turner\u201d name as if it connoted \u201cright turn,\u201d meaning she thinks we all need to be more conservative here in the county. I feel the opposite. During Vanishing Point<\/em>, the main character Kowalski\u2014played by the fine actor Barry Newman\u2014speeds from Denver to San Francisco, never pulling over for the cops that chased him. I never asked, but I imagine that Carla Wright Turner, married to a highway patrolman, didn\u2019t pull for the character Kowalski. If you ask me, people who don\u2019t pull for the underdog deserve a special ring in Hades.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t talk about books like The Divine Comedy<\/em> with the men and women whose work I need to inspect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Later on in life I\u2019ll probably tell this story differently, if I tell it at all. I know that what I\u2019m about to divulge seems unlikely, beyond coincidence. Like I\u2019ve mentioned, Valia worked for the Department of Education, and her \u201carea of expertise,\u201d I guess, involved the vocational school network across the state. Students who couldn\u2019t quite grasp such things as Algebra 1, or Civics, or Grammar, or Biology 1 might be prodded\u2014by a qualified high school counselor\u2014to veer over to the vocational school, usually in a building or buildings on the periphery of the actual school, probably on the other side of the school bus lot and smoking area. Here, hard-working and determined not-qualified-for-required-foreign-languages teenagers might opt to study welding, carpentry, small engine repair, automobile maintenance, cosmetology, culinary arts, or agriculture.<\/p>\n

And heavy equipment training.<\/p>\n

So Valia had an in. The director of every vocational school in the state knew her, and maybe tipped her off before each annual auction of damaged and\/or obsolete items used in these programs. I\u2019m talking old arc welders, electric drills, blenders, shears, hair dryers, et cetera. It just so happened that, right after I admitted to her that I took my drivers test atop a steam roller\u2014which she didn\u2019t believe, and wondered what took me so long to admit\u2014that one of those auctions took place and, sure enough, a Caterpillar vibratory roller went up for sale, no one wanted it, no one bid against Valia, and\u2014according to her\u2014she got the thing, including delivery to our house\u2014for less than a thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

I came home from work and found her seated atop the road roller. She didn\u2019t smile. She didn\u2019t say, \u201cI thought this might bring back some happy memories for you. Happy early birthday,\u201d or something like that. No, she said, \u201cI want to see you drive this thing, Lamar. I want to see you parallel park this here Caterpillar. I bet you can\u2019t. I bet you a thousand dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought, Why is it that every used steam roller that comes into my life depends upon a bet?<\/p>\n

In my defense, it didn\u2019t look like the old one my father won off of Buck in the poker game. The roller in front looked about the same, but that was it. This one had an actual cab up top to shield the driver from rain and sun. I said, \u201cAre you insane?\u201d<\/p>\n

Valia hopped down. She said, \u201cI think you lied to me. And if you lied to me about that, I\u2019m of the belief that, throughout our marriage, you\u2019ve probably been lying about other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen, this wasn\u2019t the wife I knew. Had she been spending her lunch hour watching those shows, like Maury Povich and Jerry Springer? Did they have cable TV in their break room, with those channels that aired old talk shows of a sort?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t cuss. I climbed aboard. First off, I couldn\u2019t even find an ignition. I said, \u201cHow do you start it up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought,\u201d Valia said. She shoved me aside when I hopped down, twisting my right ankle sideways. She ascended. I don\u2019t know what she did to start it up, but it roared into life. She didn\u2019t look down at me standing there. No, she rolled down our driveway, then took a left on the dirt road that led to highway 501. I followed behind her for a while, then stopped because of the twinge.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d come across the notion of \u201cprojecting,\u201d somewhere. Maybe that\u2019s what she did. Maybe Valia cheated on me, that she kept a paramour over there at the Department of Education. I stood in the road until Valia became a slight dot on the horizon, barely visible, packing that dirt road harder than it had ever been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On about the fortieth time I wrenched the steering wheel all the way to the left he said, \u201cJust pull out. You did good enough.\u201d I thought about this guy a lot in college, when I was with my girlfriend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":23886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-george-singleton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24792,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23885\/revisions\/24792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}