The Divine Breakdown

By George Ganssle

It was in December of 2004 that my mother gave me a book to read. With God in Russia, the story of Father Walter Ciszek, a Pennsylvanian of Polish extraction who was a wild young man, well on his way to becoming a good-for-nothing adult. Destiny—combined with the circumstances of the time—set a very different course for this budding reprobate.

He became a Jesuit priest and requested a posting to the Soviet Union. His wish came true in 1940, on the eve of the twentieth century’s greatest upheaval, which within six years would send some sixty million souls to their Maker. He was arrested near Moscow, charged with espionage, and spent more than twenty years imprisoned in Siberia. Upon release from the gulag, he was placed on parole and forbidden to leave northeastern Russia. He found work driving a truck in that frozen hinterland and was finally released during the Kennedy administration.

The United States had recently apprehended a high-profile Russian spy, and Khrushchev wanted him back. The two superpowers haggled in a game of international quid pro quo. The Communist spy was the quid, and Ciszek was the quo.

Back in the States, Father Ciszek was urged by family members—who had believed him dead since the 1940s—to write about his experiences in that godless land. He followed their advice, and the result was the book my mother gave me on that gray winter afternoon.

It was a compelling read. Of special interest to me were his descriptions of driving a truck through boundless woods, rolling along barely discernible tracks. No truck stops out that way.

On December 23, 2006, I backed my eighteen-wheeler into an Air France loading dock in Queens, New York. A forklift was offloading eight huge crates I had picked up in Orlando two days earlier. JFK Airport is twenty-nine miles from my house, and I could barely wait to get home. Autumn was only four weeks old when I left.

The lunch buzzer sounded, and the forklift driver headed for the break room.

“Come on, man—there are only two crates left,” I called. “I haven’t been home in two months. How about throwin’ me a bone?”

“Hey, Mac, if I do it for you, then I gotta do it for everyone—it’ll never end.”

“Well, I got twenty-five bucks in my pocket, and it’s tellin’ me you’re having a late lunch today.”

“I guess I hafta do it,” he said, returning to the machine with a big, non-union grin, “’cause I never hoid of twenty-five bucks tellin’ a truck driver anything but the truth.”

Ten minutes later, I was done. It was hammer-down-to-the-house time. My birthday was two days behind me; Christmas was two days ahead. Halfway across the Throggs Neck Bridge, my cell phone rang. Caller ID said it was Mike, my dispatcher in Boston.

“Hello-o-o, you’ve reached George, the trucker who is off for the next eight days. If this call is urgent, then please—”

“Hey, knock off the fake recording, tough guy. I know it’s you. Listen, we got a hot load goin’ to—”

“You can stop right there, Mike, unless the hot load is goin’ from my kitchen to my living room.”

“You don’t even wanna hear about it?”

“No.”

“Let me just lay it out so when you talk to the driver who eventually takes it, you can say, ‘Yeah, I turned that one down.’”

“Okay. What is it?”

“It loads in Boston tomorrow: twenty-two mainframe computers going to Seattle for Cingular Wireless. Delivers on the 28th.”

I laughed. “Mike, are you kidding? Crossing two mountain ranges, fully loaded, in winter, in four days?”

“George,” he said solemnly, “this is the highest-paying load I’ve seen in my twenty years in trucking. Eighteen grand.”

I did the math. My cut would be nine thousand. After fuel, tolls, and a truck payment, I’d clear about sixty-six hundred dollars for less than five days’ work.

“If Cingular can’t get someone by four today, they’ll charter a plane,” Mike added.

I hesitated. I could really use the money, but I miss enough holidays as it is.

“Let ’em charter a plane,” I said.

“Can I tell you the clincher?”

“What’s the clincher?”

“They’re paying all fuel and tolls—eighteen hundred bucks.”

I pictured my family’s reaction when I told them I wouldn’t be home for Christmas and knew I was roped. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

“All right, Mike,” I sighed. “Gimme the address in Chowder Town.”

“One more thing: the load weighs thirty-seven thousand pounds. You’ll be right at the limit. Fill your tanks, and you’re overweight.”

“Most weigh stations are closed for the holidays,” I said. “I’ll roll the dice. I feel lucky.”

At nine that evening on Christmas Day, I fueled up east of Fargo, North Dakota, filling only one tank to keep the weight down. Each of my two 150-gallon tanks holds more than a thousand pounds of fuel.

Before leaving Boston, I’d jettisoned everything nonessential—three spare tires, cargo bars, plywood, even my chains—and I was still right on the cusp of being overweight. Digging through the belly boxes, I tossed nearly everything I found. One item remained: a plastic bag containing a secondary fuel filter and a receipt from 1999. Every fuel problem I’d ever had involved the primary filter, so the secondary had sat untouched for seven years.

To this day, I can’t say why I kept it. Logic said I’d need a spare tire long before a lowly secondary filter. Yet there I was, heading west on a dark, lonely stretch of Interstate 90 with not a single spare tire aboard.

Something didn’t feel right. The Caterpillar engine seemed a bit off as I climbed the grades between Fargo and Jamestown. I shut off the Christmas music and listened. Maybe it was my imagination—after all, the truck had never hauled eighty thousand pounds before, and the wind was stiff. Still, on the next hill, I felt it again.

Drivers on the CB were talking about tainted diesel in the area. I took the next exit and pulled onto the entrance ramp shoulder. Crawling under the truck, I closed the crossover valve to protect the good fuel. Less than twenty gallons had crossed over—fortunately, from the tank the engine drew from.

Cold slush soaked my back as I emerged. I shut down the engine and scanned the horizon. Nothing. No lights. No life.

I pulled the primary filter, drained fuel into a bucket, cleaned the filter repeatedly, and reinstalled it, diesel still dripping off my jacket. I eased back onto the interstate.

It was worse. The engine coughed and sputtered at thirty miles an hour on flat ground. Even the next exit was in doubt.

When I reached it, my speed had dropped to twenty-two. Unlike the last exit, this one had no cell signal. Thirty-seven thousand pounds of cutting-edge wireless technology behind me, and not a bar to be had.

I shut down the truck and sat quietly, wondering what to do. The tank would need draining—but first I had to get there. The only option left was the secondary filter, which I knew wasn’t the problem.

As I sat there, I thought of Father Ciszek, stranded in Siberia at twenty below zero, dismantling fuel lines until frostbite nearly took his fingers. He waited thirty-six hours before help arrived. Compared to that, my predicament felt small.

Still, I hesitated. I wasn’t about to ask for help over something this trivial. That would be impudent.

After waiting fruitlessly for traffic, I changed into dry clothes and installed the seven-year-old filter. It looked pristine—bad news. As I worked, I muttered that I wasn’t asking for help. If it worked, it worked. No crumbs from Providence required. Yet I couldn’t help imagining Father Ciszek watching with a knowing grin.

I fired up the Kenworth and merged back onto I-90, my heart pounding. Ten miles an hour. Fifteen. Just before twenty, I heard myself say aloud, “There’s still ten minutes of Christmas Day left. Father Ciszek—how about throwin’ me a bone?”

Thirty miles an hour. Forty. Fifty.

Ahead loomed a steep upgrade: uphill, into the wind, eighty thousand pounds. The ultimate test. I crested it like a Roman candle. From there on, everything went smoothly. I reached the West Coast right on time.

Any mechanic could probably explain exactly what happened in purely physical terms. Still, I like to think Providence had a hand in it. No mechanic can explain why my mind told me to keep that useless filter—when every rational instinct said to leave it behind.