Tow Be Or Not Tow Be
March 26, 1999

The story you are about to read is true. The names and actual events have been changed to protect the innocuous.

I left town one weekend for a guitar gig at Steven and Ira's in East Starkansaw with the Slack Mamas. When I came back Monday morning, my house was emptier than a Biafran stomach sack in Sally Struthers' back yard. My ol' lady had up and taken all our furniture and moved with her boyfriend to New Jersey. I thought about chasin' em both down but then I remembered: She did the same thing last month. I sat back on the cold terrazzo, strummed my Gibson . . . and waited.

Two days passed. Then the call came. "Oh baby honey dog breath, oh love of my miserable life, I made a horrible mistake," she began. I put the phone down and strummed awhile. I'd heard it all before: "I never realized how good I had it with you. Cooking and cleaning, working my fingers to the bone, waiting on you hand and foot without so much as a grunt of gratitude from you. This guy I'm with won't let me do a thing. All he wants to do is treat me like a queen. Please Raiford, take me back. I want to be a martyr again!"

I picked up the phone. "Too bad baby," I said, quoting scripture from the gospel of Cad 3:16: 'You made your bed with the fleas, now you can lie with the dog." I hung up feeling the manly man that I am.

But then I remembered that hot sister of hers that still lived up that way. I picked up the phone.

"Okay baby, you can come back on one condition."

"Anything," she cried.

"You take a Greyhound back and I'll go up and bring the furniture back by myself."

So that's how I ended up driving through Bruce Springsteenland on a snowy evening with a rented U-Haul full of furniture. I got tired of her sister real fast when she introduced me to her seven-foot tall boyfriend named Shaq. He was wearing a shirt that said "I Ain't No Basketball Player and I Don't Like What You're Thinking!"

I was daydreaming about what might have been when, suddenly, out of nowhere appears the Starkansaw exit off the New Jersey Turnpike. As I started slowing down, the brakes locked, and I careened off the road and ended two wheels in a drainage ditch. I was stuck surer than a warm tongue on a frozen swingset pole. I got out and walked two miles to the Turnpike toll plaza. The attendant called for a wrecker to winch me out.

It wasn't that long before a mysterious black pickup truck appeared and out jumped a fat man with long hair, bad breath, one good eye and a drooling socket where the other eye was supposed to be. There was something in his pocket that was either wood or a weapon. I didn't want to find out, either way.

"Uh . . . are you with the wrecker service?" I stammered, reaching into my back pocket. "Or do you want my wallet?"

He turned to me, shook his head and said " Whewwee! Boy, yew done got y'self in a heap a' trouble, ain't ya."

I did a double take. This guy didn't sound like he was from New Jersey at all, but then I remembered I was in South Jersey.

"I'm from South Florida," I said, hoping to get on his good side.

"Hail, yew'r a yankee, son," he said, "Them's all yankees down there. Yew'r also on Turnpike property, son. But no need to get yew'r knickers all up in a bunch. Mah name is Billy Joe Paines, owner of Four Skynyrds Towing and Winching. Yyep," he said shaking my hand, "yew done lucked out today. Folks rown here like to call us 'The Good Sam-ritans of the Highway'"

And with that, two huge vehicles, bigger than any wreckers I've ever seen, show up. So do four Ford Broncos and ten other men, all with long hair, ballcaps and tallboys. Whew, I thought, the Molly Hatchett Marines have landed. Soon the winch cable was hooked up under the front of my truck from one of those big machines . My truck was back on the highway shoulder ready to roll.

Mr. Paines came up to my window and pointed straight ahead. "Yew see those Ford Broncos. Yew follow 'em back to the office so we kin fill out some paperwork, son. "

And we all proceeded to convoy to the Four Skynyrds Towing office. Inside, an old woman sat behind a chickenwire screen, her face twisted into a permanent gurn. She had two eyes, and a large ear-to-ear mouth that kept swallowing and spitting out the rest of her face with each breath. Mr. Paines told me to give her my keys, my driver's license and my rental agreement.

She pointed to a small waiting room. I sat down and looked around. There were 14 of us depressed souls in there, all towed, winched, or otherwise pulled out of highway trouble by Mr. Paines and his sons that very day. "I think we're in trouble," said the guy next to me. "Triple A says to steer clear of this part of the Turnpike."

That made me feel real edgy. It seemed like an eternity before I heard a grunt over the intercom: "Raiford Starke."

I walked up to the window.

"Sir, Ryder trucks will not pay this bill because you didn't take out the insurance. We need to have $794.36 in cash now." I noticed my keys and driver's license sitting on the desk behind the little caged area. Then I noticed several gnarly grease monkeys staring at me with gapped toothed Southern Jersey cracker smiles.

I demanded to see Mr. Paines the owner. He could tell I was mad.

"Hold on thar sonny, lemme see that bill. " He grabbed the paper out of my hand and gave me the breakdown: $100 for the heavy-duty underreach. $100 for the heavy-duty underreach escort ve-hicle. $100 each for the four heavy-duty underreach escort ve-hicle escort vehicles (the Ford Broncos) and $100 for labor. The rest goes to Uncle and Aunt Sam."

"But it only took one of those vehicles to winch me out of that ditch!"

" Now hold on thar, ease up now Mr. Starke. Reason why we had so many ve-hicles was because yew'r truck was originally called in as a 'roll-over' We brung out our big guns to save yer life!"

"But my truck wasn't rolled over," I said "My life didn't need saving!"

"Tha's right, and tha's why we didn't bring out the crane. Heck, this is barely half what we're chargin' them other guys. Good Lord, we gave you a deal, son!" He grabbed the bill from me and scrawled through one of the line items, deducting $100 just like that.

"Mildred," he called back to the gurn-queen, "Give this man the yan-kee special. Hunert doller off the total." He turned to me: "Happy birthday, son."

"I don't have that kind of money," I said.

"Well yew better call yo mama, cause this stuff don't leave this property 'til yew pay up in cash."

"This is planned obselescence," I stammered. "Highway robbery!"

Paines looked around, lowered his voice and suddenly began to talk in perfect English: "You're in Southern Jersey now, on Four Skynyrds property. You're about to get in the worst trouble of your life. Next time take out insurance. We didn't push you into that ditch, boy. Lord knows you're to blame," he began to sing, " 'Cause I'm as free as a bird, now . . . And this bill you cannot change . . . Lord knows it can't change . . . Lord help me . . . it can't cha . . . a . . . a . . .ange' "

I knew there was no arguing with this guy. He just wouldn't change. I had to act fast. So I went to the nearest phone booth and made a collect call to my buddy Pete from Sunset Beach. I told him I'd give him half the songwriting credit to "Stockbroker Took My Girl" if he would wire me $700. I needed to get the heck out of Dodge.

Somehow the story made it into the Trenton Times. They ran a three-part series: "Raiford Starke Ripped Off By Towing Company." "Turnpike Authority Doesn't Care!" "Mr. Paines Daughter Married To Turnpike Director" Before I knew it, newspapers and television stations were calling. It became the hot topic of conversation at every water cooler, breakfast table, and prison bathhouse across the fruited plain.

Just for relief, I clicked on C-Span to see what the Senate was up to today. I saw President Clinton's wheelchair-bound attorney Charles Ruff addressing the House Managers; "Now I want you to look deep into your hearts, and ask yourselves the question: 'Does a fifteen foot, straight-job U-Haul box truck . . . meet the standards . . . to be an Article . . . of Underreachment?'"

I couldn't believe it. The scandal had literally permeated every fabric of public and private life.

The next thing you know, my phone rings. It's Turnpike Supervisor Dwight Lye with Four Skynyrds' owner Paines on three-way. "Go ahead, tell him Billy Joe" I hear Mr. Lye's voice say.

"U-Uh Mr. Starke, th-this is yew'r ol' buddy 'ol friend good gosh amighty Billy Joe. Look my boss, I give up. I'm gonna give yew all yew'r money back. Just call off the dogs. I mean maybe me and Mr. Lye can gosh darn paddy cake paddy cake give the dog a bone, cut yew a deal . . ."

"This all never happened, did it Mr. Starke?" asked Mr. Lye.

I guess not. I musta been dreaming. A million Raiford Starke CDs. To be handed out to every toll paying patron for the next year. Courtesy of Four Skynyrds, and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. Now that's reality. In fact, I even got a new song out of it:

"If yew ever break down
On the New Jersey turnpike at dark
Just tell the man in the tow truck
Yew'r a friend of Raiford Starke"

-- Raiford Starke is a South Florida blues musician.

© March 26, 1999, The Seminole Tribune