Just another Trucker

Just Another Trucker

The Kenworth truck bounced along the highway. The long nosed semi was painted bright red. Stenciled on the side was a picture of a Jersey cow. The wording read RRR Trucking :We'll Get Her There”. Reflectors outlined the cab. Today the tractor was pulling a refer ( a refrigerated trailer)

The driver flips on his turn signal and starts gearing down. He moves the truck toward the exit. Slowing his speed down to make the turn safely, he whistles tunelessly. “Do you have to do that?” His rider asks. She is a blonde woman who has seen the better side of thirty. Her hair is obviously bleached with dark roots peeking through at the hairline. She has a clean country girl look about her. The only feminine article of her clothing is a bright red headband that holds her hair back from her face. She doesn't wear any make up. A dark colored button up shirt and a pair of jeans finish her ensemble. The cowboy boots are expected and they are worn as if she really could go out and lasso a bull. Even though she is on the other side of thirty, she looks like she is in great shape. Her long legs fill out her jeans nicely. The button up shirt is unable to hide the natural curves.

“Well, darling” says the driver, “I know, that you know. I hate that driving these refers and that whistling helps calm me down. When we drop this load off I promise, I will try to keep from whistling”
“O.K. My little bull” she says. She stops filing her fingernails to take a look out the window. “I am sure glad we are here. Now don't forget we are heading it home for a real vacation. Don't take any loads from these guys. You know they always try to short you.”
“OK, I won't, but dropping this one off will take a little while, they always try to tell me they are going to pay less because of some made up thing, like some of the load is spoiled. They know it's not true. I watch my temps and check the loads frequently but they know they can whack off some of the price for shipping. I am glad this is the last load I promised to haul for them. After this they can call one of the big lines like Smith, that can afford to haul and take a loss. Every penny means something to us. We weren't meant to be a non-profit company. If we are ever going to retire we need every penny to pay off this truck.” He reached up to take off his baseball cap revealing a balding head with a short ring of hair. She reaches over and rubs his head, slightly damp with sweat. “Now, sweetie, you know I don't like that.” He drawls, but his smile contradicts his words. He leans over and gives her a little kiss, all the while keeping his eyes on the road. They are turning into a gated driveway now. The loading dock is just off to the right. He carefully turns toward the dock. The gravel crunching under his tires sounds like the tinkle of change to him. He is anticipating a big fat check for this load. But he knows he may have to fight to get all that is owed him. “Thank God this is the last load for them,” He thinks.

He stops the truck near the dock. “Where do you want this beast” he asks. “Right over there in that empty bay”, comes the answer. He walks over to the back of the truck. He reaches up and unlocks the door. When both doors are open, he latches them in place in order to back up to the bay. He gets back in his cab and starts to slowly back up.

He backs into an open bay, grabs his clipboard, shuts off the motor and jumps out of the cab.
A man in a shirt and tie, standing on the dock looks up. He acknowledges the driver with a brief nod of his head and goes back to chewing his unlit cigar and reviewing numbers on a clipboard. Robert, the driver, or Bull as he prefers to be called, walks toward the man chewing the cigar. Bull is short and stocky. His shirt sleeve stretch over bulging muscles. His jaw is set and his step is firm. He looks like a warrior ready to do battle and that is not too far off the mark.

“Well let's see what you got” says the man with the clipboard. He takes the manifest and goes over it. “On time I see” he mumbles not looking very happy that the load is on time. “Well, let's check her out” He walks along the dock veering away from the men busily unloading another truck.
When they get to Bull's truck, he stops. The back was already open before he pulled into the bay. Boxes of produce are neatly stacked from the back to the front on pallets.

Inside the truck Liz, or Lizard as Bull insisted on calling her much to her displeasure, shifts around in the seat trying to get a view of the men at the back of the truck. Then the CB radio breaks the silence.
“Hey, Little Bull have you got your ears on, Come on”
“Hey, Buddy, this is Liz, he’s outside hassling with the snot at the loading dock. Come on”
“Well I guess I would call that guy more than a snot. They try to cheap any way they can. They don't care who they cheat to get their pennies. Come on”
“You know that's for sure” Liz says. “What is new out there in the world? We haven't stopped to see the news or anything else on this run. Planning a vacation after this. Come on.”
“Ha. Then you haven't heard the news. Splashed all over the T.V last night. A young girl was found murdered at that big truck stop down by Detroit. She was just over 15. They had the parents on the news even the little sister. All crying and saying how they had been looking for her for days and were hoping she would be found alive. Well, not happening now. Pictures looked pretty gory or at least what they can show on TV. They flashed one of her school pictures on the screen after they showed the blood and guts. She was probably a good looking kid when all the makeup was washed off her face. Anyhow that's not a good thing to dwell on. Where you guys going for your vacay? Come on”
“I think we might just go home and see the families. Come on”
“Well, I got one more day before I head home. So I hope to see you there. Come on down to the Villa and I'll buy you guys dinner. I think it's my turn. Come on”
“OK, big brother we'll do that see you then. Over”
She replaced the speaker and climbed up in the sleeper. She hoped to catch a short nap since she knew this might take a little while. It didn't take too long before she was snuggled down in the bunk. Light snoring was the only sign she was alive. When Bull got back in the truck, the slamming of the cab door barely roused her. She stirred, mumbled something and turned over. Bull smiled at the snoring but decided not to wake her. He pulled the truck out and headed toward home. He was tired but he wanted to put some miles between him and that "so and so" he had to deal with before he got paid. He knew Liz called him a snot, but he had much better words to describe him. He was just trying to stop using those words because, they upset Liz so.

This was his favorite time of the day and he didn't want to let one mean mother stop him from enjoying the peace. He pushed back his baseball cap to wipe his forehead and eased the big rig onto the freeway.
Yep 5 A.M. was a great time. Those pikers at the canning company set the time for delivery at 3-4 A.M. hoping that truckers would miss the deadline and get their pay docked. Well, he showed them.
The sun was just starting to peak out from under the night sky. The roads were almost empty, just an occasional trucker and a few early workers. The bar flies had settled down to sleep it off. The night shift hadn't ended yet. The day shift was still tucked in their beds waiting for the alarm to ring. He ran through the dial on the radio, junk nothing but junk. Who in the world would have believed it would have happened 15 years ago, satellite radio. Well, in his opinion it didn't help much. There were more channels, but the same old junk. You could find lots of talk shows for weirdoes, loud music at the top of the hour, right wing political commentators and preachers extolling the insomniacs to seek forgiveness for whatever sin was keeping them up. He wished there were still the old time radio programs on with stories from the 40's and 50's. Those were worth listening to. He flipped off the radio and turned to the C.B. He liked listening to the chatter on the CB. You could have total anonymity, if you wanted. No one had to know who you were or where you were, unless you told them. Most truckers had gone to cell phones and computers. He had those things too, but the older truckers still liked their CB s.
Sure wasn't like the good old days. When he first started driving, before deregulation, things were better. No dispatcher checking your computer to see where you were, no one calling you on the cell phone or texting you if you didn't answer. No GPS trailing you. Sure you had to call in everyday, but that was it and you could plan that pretty easy. Being on the road was peaceful. It was a chance to be alone with your thoughts. Now everything was cutthroat. Everyone was out for number one. The brotherhood of truckers was slipping away. He was glad his truck was almost paid off. Just a few more runs and he could do whatever he pleased.

Of course, whatever he pleased would probably still be working. Trucking seemed like all he had ever done. It was great to dream about retirement though. He could buy a little farm. Maybe raise some corn and a few cows just for the hell of it. There is something about walking out the front door on a farm in the early morning. What was that sign he once saw. Oh, yeah, it was on a restaurant that used to be a barn. It said, “Come, sit and think where our cows used to stink”. Well, if they were your cows somehow the stink wasn't that bad.

The talk on the CB was picking up and broke his train of thought. “Yeah, they found her in the dumpster, gutted just like a butcher would do, from stem to stern. Only reason she was found is that she had on a brand new pair of tennis shoes, those ones that cost like $200. One of her shoes fell off and was lying in front of the dumpster. This trucker stepped back there to have a smoke. He sees the shoe and opens the dumpster to see if the other one is inside. Boom, there she is her body sprawled on top of the garbage bags. She was so bloody they couldn’t even tell the color of her hair till they washed off some of the blood. That dumpster would have been emptied in another hour. You know, they have those new trucks that the driver doesn't even have to get out of the truck now. No one would have found her, if the trash would have gone to the dump.”

Another voice chimed in, “This world is not safe anymore”
The original voice went on, not even acknowledging the other voice. "She was 14 or 15. They are going through the missing persons records but they don't know who she was yet.”
“Not the same one they found yesterday, was it?” asked another voice.
“Nope this is a new one. I just don't understand it, what are those girls doing to put their-self in that kind of danger?”
“Ah, Hell have you looked at the girls lately? Those are the ones hanging out at the truck stops waiting for some dumb driver to buy their sob story and give them a ride across the country, even though they might lose their job taking on a rider. They are what my wife calls hookers in training, too young to know what to do with it but old enough to try it out. Those are the kind of girls, I worry about my daughter hanging out with,” came still another voice. The air fairly crackled with the excitement of the topic.
“That's what they call hooking up these days” said the original voice trying to regain his moment of glory. “That means they had a one night stand. It's no big deal any longer. Well, that girl they found yesterday. She was the oldest of three girls. They showed her family on TV. The parents sobbed and said they couldn't understand how this happened, she was a good girl. But the next one down, looked like she could have been right out there with her sister. She had so much paint on you couldn't tell what color her eyes were. Her blouse was so tight those “itty” bitty “titties” showed right through.
He began to think of the young girl he had seen standing by the road about an hour ago. Probably one of those run-away. Showing all she had, in hopes of a ride. Sort of an advertisement for stuff you knew better than to buy, but the pictures sure looked good. What were those kids parents doing? What did they think would happen when you let your kids go out looking like that? Then the parents wring their hands and want to know how that could happen. Didn't they know this world is not a nice place? When you let your kids go out dressed like “Hootcie Mommas” what could you expect. Well, that was one nice thing about not having any kids. You didn't have to worry about them night and day.

The talk on the CB had turned to the price of gas. He remembered when everyone was crying about $2.00 a gallon. If he could find gas at $2.00 now he would wonder what the catch was. Well that's the way the world was. He worried about making it out here but so far it had always worked out. He was able to keep the truck on the road, make his payments and send a little home to his sister. He sure wasn't going to get rich though. Especially now that he had a girlfriend. She came with him most of the time and that cost extra. When he was on the road alone, he only stopped at the truck stop for food every other day. Other than that is was sandwiches and canned food. He had a TV in the truck to watch movies in his down time. A few years ago he let his apartment go and moved in with his sister to save money. He wasn't home enough to make it worth keeping an apartment. His sister had the old farmstead and since her kids were grown and her husband passed away a few years back she had lots of room. He put his furniture down in the basement with all the other accumulated stuff and slept in her spare upstairs bedroom. She never used the upstairs, she was older than him and overweight. She couldn't make it up the stairs too much. She was all he had left of family. Well, that and her kids. She had 2 boys and a girl. All grown and married now. (word count 2726)

(to be continued)