Profile: Durante Franklin, tow truck driver
March 16, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Brooke Williams in Profile
(photo by Joeff Davis)
Don’t get mad at Durante Franklin for towing your car from the courthouse parking lot. He’s just doing his job. Franklin has been a driver with A Tow Inc. for five years and is actually a pretty friendly guy.
“We tow from city, state and federal government properties. Also private and commercial towing; if you break down and you have services through your insurance company, then we come get you and bill your insurance.â€
As an occupational hazard, Franklin has gotten on-the-job threats. “Maybe ’bout four times. And I also got ’jacked at the courthouse in 2005 by Brian Nichols.â€
On the being carjacked by Brian Nichols: “I was at Five Points. A guy walked around the truck with a gun telling me to get out. I said you can have the truck, just don’t shoot me. So he took off with my cell phone, radio and everything down Peachtree.”
“I went to an accident scene where a young lady was killed. Another car had flipped up and came through the windshield. But her two kids were still alive in her SUV.â€
On karma: “If you’re doing wrong, it is going to come back and bite you in the butt.â€
Occasionally, Franklin is offered bribes by desperate car-owners. “They’ll be like, ‘Uh, man, I give you $300 to let it down,’ and I’ll be like ‘No, you going to jail and I’m going to jail … I don’t think so.’â€
On how man can achieve salvation: “First of all he’s got to get himself together with the Lord. If he don’t believe, then he needs to believe.”
On people he admires: “I like a lot of people. I love me some Tupac because he always speaks the truth.”
On what he wouldn’t do for money: “There is stuff you put guidelines on, like that show where they used to have to eat pig guts for money. It’s Fear Factor. How are you just going to eat a hog head, and they just killed it, and they say they will give you $20,000? I will pass.”
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