The Code of the Road

Chapter 1

Splut……splut……splut. Douglas Johnson’s 1999 Toyota Camry was gasping for its last few precious drops of gasoline. Suddenly the sputtering gave way to total silence in the chilling air of the October night in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains. The wind whistled by the windows of the champagne colored sedan as it started to coast down the gradually steepening curves of Interstate 75. Nothing but an occasional tap of the brakes broke the silence of the evening as the Camry wound its way down the mountain towards the twinkling lights of Knoxville miles off in the distance. Douglas shook his head in dismay. Six hours away from Chicago, or was it eight? When was the tank last filled? Was it in Cincinnati, Columbus, or was it in Indianapolis? It was a moot point now as Douglas fought to balance between maintaining speed in neutral and control of the car as the tires started to squeal as the speed odometer crept past 70 mph. Three twisting and sloping miles remained between being stuck on a dark mountain and coasting into the Volunteer Truck Stop, just north of Knoxville.

The Camry began to threaten the center line as it battled speed and burning brakes. Douglas was not mechanically inclined and knew little more than how to change a tire or fill a gas tank on a car, but he knew he should not try to slow the car down by putting it in gear. The smell of burning brake pads filled the cool night air and the brakes squeaked its high pitch voice into the night. Douglas Johnson, professor of advanced mathematics at Piedmont University, calculated precisely the amount of braking force versus the minimum speed to reach the safety of the truck stop. The week long seminar on Mathematics in the Internet World at the University of Chicago played itself over and over again in Professor Johnson’s journey home to central North Carolina. The yellow low fuel warning light never had a chance to fight for Douglas’s attention.

Eighty miles an hour with nothing but a one foot metal guard rail separated Douglas from an expensive price to pay for his carelessness with his gasoline supply. Seventy-three miles an hour and smoking brakes signified that it was now metal to metal with any signs of brake pads now long gone. The two ton automobile hurled itself from one side of the lane to the other as the descent managed to flatten out considerably over the next quarter mile. Douglas took this as an opportunity to let his brakes cool for a few tiny moments. Sixty-one miles per hour quickly changed to fifty-four as for some road architect’s strange cut through the mountainside created a quarter mile upgrade. Thirty-eight miles per hour and the speed odometer was dropping numbers by the second. Douglas quickly juggles the numbers in his head and tries to conjoin mathematics with physics and mechanical engineering to calculate his odds on getting off this mountain. The answer gave him no mathematical chance for making it. Douglas was a man of numbers, formulas, and cold hard facts. Thirteen miles an hour and the Camry slowed to a slow crawl on the interstate highway. Douglas started to edge over to the right side of the road so that when his car’s wheels turned their last rotation he would be far enough off the road not to create an accident for cars traveling at a normal speed down the mountain. Douglas looked down and saw the arrow point to 5 miles per hour and there was still fifty feet to go before the road dipped back on a downward descent.

As zero approached on the speed odometer Douglas sighed disgustedly aloud and reached for the door latch. Before the door opened into the chilly mountain air the speed slowly started back towards higher numbers. Fifteen, twenty-two, thirty-seven and Douglas gripped the wheel firmly with both hands. Volunteer Truck Stop is barely a mile down the road and Douglas saw a chance to make it now. His quick calculations based on distance and slope told him that he had to keep the Camry rolling for only 46 more seconds. The smoking squealing brakes did little now to slow the car down as it approached the wide dark asphalt tar pavement of the truck stop. Suddenly the brakes had breathed their last bit of usefulness and locked up bringing the Camry to a sideways skid fifty feet away from the parking lot entrance.

Douglas started his analytical mind to running numbers through his head as he leaned forward with his head on the steering wheel. Did he lay on the brakes too long at the two and half mile mark as the car was plunging at eighty-three miles per hour? Did he fail to calculate the centrifugal force of the 30 degree curve when fifty-eight was determined to be the maximum safe speed? Douglas was shaking his head trying to figure out how he could have squeezed fifty more feet out of the journey downhill because after all it was just a matter of math to solve it, when there was a loud tapping on his driver’s side window.

“Hey buddy, are you okay in there? What’s wrong?” shouted a voice that brought Douglas back into the conscious world of eastern Tennessee. Douglas gained a quick assessment of the man in the cotton flannel shirt and blue jeans as he rolled down the window.

“I’m alright. I just ran out of gas on top of this mountain ridge and tried to ride my brakes in as far as I could and it looks like I came up about fifty feet too short. I know it wasn’t very intelligent of me, but I lost track of my gasoline level and now I will need new brake pads.” Douglas lowered his head in disbelief of his current state of fortune.

“Put your car in neutral and we will push to the pumps.” Douglas turned his head quickly to see who the ‘we’ were that the man was talking about. Out of the darkness of the parking lot behind his line of vision came a man with a black leather jacket and a tattoo of a spider web on his neck. Douglas knew this was no time to be selective in who he chose to be his rescuers. Doing the only civil thing he could muster now, Douglas spoke out the open window with his genuine North Carolina southern twang, “Thanks.”

Douglas double-checked to be certain the car was in neutral and turned the key to unlock the steering column and carefully guided the empty vehicle to the pumps in the only set of pumps allotted to automobiles in this large truck stop. Calculating as rapidly as he could on what he should tip two men for the one hundred fifty foot push to the car pumps across a grease splattered parking lot, Douglas reached for his wallet.

“Five dollars each should do it.” He thought to himself aloud, removing two wrinkled five dollar bills from his wallet. Douglas opened the door and turned to the men and extended the bills in his hand to them but they were already twenty yards away heading slowly towards the diner.

“Wait up guys.” Douglas yelled over the constant roar of the big eighteen wheelers rolling through the lot. Douglas picked up his pace to the point of a slow jog until he was able to grab the arm of the first trucker. He stuck out his hand with the money clearly visible.

“What’s that for?” the trucker asked directly as Douglas fought to regain his breath from the short jog.

“You have no idea how much that helped me back there. There was no way in the world I could possibly push a car. I am out of breath just running twenty yards. You two really saved me back there.”

The other trucker with the spider web tattoo spoke up. “Keep your money, mister. It’s the Code of the Road. You can repay us by passing on the favor to the next guy that needs help. When you help another as we helped you, consider us paid back. That’s what we call the Code of the Road. Save the money and pull your car into the repair bin over by the air compressor and tell them that Johnny said to look at your brakes and see if he can fix them for you.”

Douglas was amazed at the kindness of total strangers and was taken back by the generosity of a gentleman with a spider tattoo and leather jacket. Douglas stuffed the money back into his pants pocket and went back to the pump and filled his car up with unleaded and made sure that he would have enough to get him back to High Ridge, North Carolina. He calculated the distance and time and averaged in the speed figuring that without any further mishaps he could be in Asheville by 12:55 AM since it was now 10:30 PM, and with a little luck and a tail wind could be back at 115 Shady Oaks Lane in High Ridge by 2:57 in the morning.

“Sir, your change.” The cashier interrupted the deep concentration of miles times speed versus time equals time of arrival. “And for your fill-up sir, you get a two dollar discount on any meal you order in the diner.”

The adrenaline rush of statistics and probability theorems running through the professor’s mind masked the fact that he was feeling a few hunger pangs having been fourteen hours since his last meal. Yes, it’s all about the numbers. Numbers tell you when the car runs out of gas and numbers will tell you how far your car will go and when it will reach its destination. Numbers will also tell you when you are hungry, although the stomach usually does so equally as well. Professor Johnson pulled out his notepad from his shirt pocket and started scratching away. Twenty minutes for a late night dinner would push the estimated time of arrival to 3:17 AM. Seventy-eight miles per hour between Knoxville and Seiverville could shave off another twelve minutes leaving a net loss of eight minutes for this late night truck stop diner dining experience, Or would that be nine minutes saved?
“What am I thinking?” the professor chided himself. “I have wasted thirty-seven valuable seconds trying to calculate the savings of eight minutes. I have lost six percent of my time savings figuring out my time savings.”

Life, after all, is about numbers, 24 hours to the day, 60 minutes to the hour, and 60 seconds to the minute. That’s the way it was a million years ago and that’s the way it will be a million years from this eventful night. Civilizations will rise and fall and governments will fade into the history books but the numbers will never change. That is life’s only constant.

Douglas reached into his car and pulled out his brown leather brief case and walked across the dark parking lot and entered into the surprisingly full diner for 10:30 PM. Douglas never went anywhere without this brief case and would never dare leave it in his car. Looking around, he discovered an empty booth back in the far corner. It was a well decorated and clean eating establishment for a bunch of late night truckers. There were red checkered tablecloths and an eclectic floral display of real cut flowers inserted into empty beer bottles in the middle of each table and booth. It seemed that there was not a matching set of salt and pepper shakers to be found in the place. Glancing around the room Douglas saw long haired truckers that he described to himself as misplaced hippies with no ambition in life but to drive a truck from point A to point B and back again. There were some truckers that were dressed as though they were members of some motorcycle gang and had many more tattoos than just a spider web on the neck. If there ever was a fish out of water it was Professor Johnson. It was obvious that this was not the regular social crowd that he ran with on a daily basis. It was an uncomfortable situation and it showed readily in his face.

In order to insure that his departure time would fit his calculations for a 2:57 AM arrival back home, he had to scan the menu and find the fastest thing to prepare and eat. It obviously had to be the meat loaf or the pot roast which were the daily special, usually meaning all they had to do was scoop it out and throw it on a greasy roadside diner plate.

10:30 PM seemed the perfect time of night to have two waitresses trying to serve seventeen truckers and the professor. Two minutes and eighteen seconds had passed and no waitress had even begun to approach Douglas even though he was rudely tapping his menu sharply on the table with an impatient twitch. Across the crowded diner a road weary trucker with manners equal to the professor called out to the tall silver haired waitress.

“Helen, get a move on, sugar. Get me the usual. I got to be in Mobile by dawn.”

“Keep your pants on Chuck. I ain’t got but two legs and two arms the last time I looked. I see your meatloaf, mashed potatoes and Texas toast sitting on the serving window now. Tea or coffee tonight, Hun? Oh shucks, I’ll make it coffee. I got to have you healthy enough to come back with more tips the next time you’re in.”

“Right on, Helen. Make it black, no sugar, no cream. And while you are at it, pack me a quart to go for the road too.”

“Hey pretty mama, he ain’t the only one here. We gotta make a living too.” Two middle-aged men obviously traveling together spoke out half joking.

“Don’t we all.” Helen whispered quietly under her breath.

Douglas did not find this roadside working class banter any kind of amusement at all, actually finding it rather irritating. Three minutes and 43 seconds and Douglas remained virtually invisible among the regulars as the music seemed to get louder and louder and more disgusting from the corner jukebox. Douglas could only wonder how any normal human being could possibly enjoy or even digest a meal with that blaring disgusting sound blaring from the jukebox. “What was a guy thinking about writing a song about a whiter shade of pale? Pale is pale. And what about the last train to the coast? Who rides a train to the beach?” Douglas started writing away on the paper napkin at his booth and determined that if the last train to the coast left Raleigh at 2 PM at a speed of 70 miles per hour and another train left the coast at 3 PM at 60 miles per hour at what time a day would they pass if Raleigh was 140 miles from the coast. It was at this point that Douglas realized that he was far beyond tired. He did not even notice the waitress speaking to him.

“Mister, mister! May I take your order please?” Douglas was startled out of his mathematical interlude long enough to look up and see the other waitress working the graveyard shift this fall Saturday night.

“Sorry, ma’am. I had given up on getting service with all these regulars here ahead of me.” Douglas blurted out wondering but not caring if he had sounded too brash. Regardless of how he came across to this total stranger that did not deserve his tone, he still needed to place his order, wait again on heaven knows how much longer, eat and then finally get back on the road home.

“I’ll take the meatloaf, mixed steamed vegetables, and a piece of cornbread, and a large coffee with cream and two sugars.” As the waitress turned to walk towards the kitchen Douglas shouted across the room, “And I have a coupon too.” That statement seemed to bring unwanted attention to him that not everyone in the Volunteer Truck Stop diner tonight was a trucker that travels for a living. His rudeness to the waitress and the penny pinching announcement of the coupon set him out much more than his khaki slacks and sweater with the leather patches on the elbows. Now was the time that Douglas felt he should plan a route of escape to the nearest exit in case the locals decided to give him a lesson in Tennessee mountain manners. Twenty-three steps to the front door with only three truckers in between compared to the fourteen steps to the side emergency exit with eight truckers to maneuver around.

“What on earth am I thinking? These are the guys that helped me for no charge. Am I stereotyping all truckers to be hoodlums on eighteen wheels?” Douglas questioned his fatigued sense of reasoning at this late hour. Six minutes and 29 seconds later the meatloaf was delivered to the corner booth along with a hot steaming cup of coffee. Douglas glanced up long enough to see into the deep blue eyes of the younger waitress to see a very tired and worn looking woman hanging on with her last ounce of energy. The name tag simply read Marilyn with a yellow smiley face to the right of her name.

“If you need anything else, Sir, just call out across the room. That’s the way we do things here late on Saturday night.”

“Thanks, Marilyn, I will.” The corners of her mouth curled up slightly in a tired smile as the politeness of someone recognizing her by her name. Douglass rapidly formulated his coffee with exactly two and a half small half-and-half milk plastic milk tear-opens and doubled his normal sugar to four packets despite his latest cholesterol reports. One sip and he was breathless and gasped out loud. It was obvious that truck stop coffee and college student union coffee are two different breeds of animal. Douglas thought with an obvious frown as he held his mouth open gasping, “This is stronger than 40 weight motor oil and hot enough to boil an egg. Who can possibly drink this crap?”

A frosty glass of ice water with crushed ice was set gently on the table next to the coffee as Marilyn finally let out a full smile. “First time here, huh? This coffee takes getting used to, but it has got many a trucker through the night. Sorry I didn’t warn you.”

Douglas glanced up to a face that was not quite as weary as before with a face framed by long blonde hair. She was quite attractive for a lady to be working late night truck stop diner tables at her age. Thirty years old or maybe even thirty-two at the most would be the guess from this numbers man.

“Thanks so much for the water, Marilyn. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“It’s my job!” Marilyn said nonchalantly as she quickly turned and headed to answer the needs of another late night patron. Now they were even. Brashness has a way of evoking brashness in return. Although they would never cross paths again in their diametrically opposite worlds, Douglas felt bad about the communication tone that had developed between them, even to a public servant in a service industry. No big deal. Five miles down the road and this greasy spoon diner and its strange assortment of characters will be long forgotten.

Half way through the very tasty triple coated meatloaf Douglass was interrupted by his forgotten rescuer with the spider web tattoo on his neck and now a visible skull and cross bones on his bicep.

“Hey Marilyn, doll, we real men got to hit the endless highway. You know what we need. Come on Marilyn. You know it is Saturday night. Don’t pretend like you don’t know why we all wait around here so late on Saturday night. Get with it, Marilyn. You’re up.”

Douglas was filled with a morbid curiosity about what in the world this strange trucker was talking about. It seemed to be a surreal moment as all the truckers suddenly stopped eating and put their knives and forks down in unison. Then quietly at first and then getting louder each time the truckers all started chanting at once, “A-12. A-12. A-12” The truckers all began to clap in rhythm as they continued shouting “A-12. A-12”.

“Hey guys, please, not tonight. I am exhausted. I have been here since 9 this morning covering for Marie’s shift and I still have two more hours. Maybe next time, but please, not tonight.” Marilyn pleaded her case to the truckers who seemed to want nothing of her refusal. The truckers started stamping their feet on the floor and it got louder and louder. Two truckers got up and pulled the salt and pepper shakers and sugar dish from the center table. Another trucker quickly pulled off the checkered tablecloth leaving the oak wood table exposed. A burly overweight truck driver with a heavy uneven beard went to the jukebox and inserted a quarter and shouted out loud.

“Here it is boys. A-12”.

Marilyn lowered her head and sighed loudly as Douglas looked for the quickest exit route as this experience had all the appearances of being something he did not desire to be a part of or even know about.

Two truckers lifted Marilyn gently up onto the table and the music started blaring out from the jukebox and everyone clapped to the beat of A-12. Marilyn slowly swayed from side-to-side on the table with the music until the chorus kicked in and then her arms at her sides starting flapping back and forth as she bent her knees and turned to face the entire diner. The Funky Chicken was in full tune and Marilyn was the queen of this long forgotten dance that is part comedy, part aerobic, and part sexy. For a tiny split second that seemed like an eternity Marilyn made eye contact with Douglas across the room and saw his disgust and disapproval of this event. What Douglas saw was entirely different. He saw a deep sadness of a story untold in her tear filled eyes. It was obvious that she wished she could be anywhere else in the world rather than on a table dancing for a dozen men to a song no one even knew. The guys shouted “Go, go, go . . . . . “ in between the final sips of their hot coffee.

Then something happened that stopped Douglas dead in his tracks as he had left the money for his tab on his table and looked to get out of this madness. Douglas was steaming with anger and disgust at any woman who would degrade herself to such a state. But the truckers started reaching into their pockets and leaving five and ten dollar bills on the table and a pile of crumbled up ones. Douglas did not understand what was going on and did not want to know. His fatigued state of mind filled his head with all kinds of guesses as to what he had just witnessed. None of them were good.

For reasons unknown even to Douglas he reached into his pocket and dropped two five dollar bills at her feet on the table. He did not know if that was to comfort his guilt or to allow himself time to get away from this nightmare. Maybe it was because of the pain he saw in her eyes. It didn’t matter why. He was pulling out onto Interstate 75 heading into Knoxville as fast as he could.

There in his corner booth on the seat was the leather brief case that was so very important to him only moments before.