Flyswatter

The fly was resting itself behind the yellow, parking break knob, located at the center of the dashboard of the Kenworth T-3000 when Calvin's sudden sneeze forced it to vacate the premises, buzz by Calvin, and relocate itself elsewhere. Calvin, having a thing about flies, and a gusher of a nasal drip, didn't know if he should reach for a Kleenex, or the flyswatter he kept on the shotgun-seat next to him. But he didn't have time to make that decision.
It was at that instant a white SUV darted out of the bullet lane, crossed two lanes of traffic and, narrowly missing the front bumper of the Kenworth, cut in front of Calvin to make a last ditch effort to take an off ramp. With the confidence of fifteen years in the chair, Calvin calmly applied soft breaking, dropped a gear lower to save the fading RPM's, and steered the 18 wheeler in to the lane of traffic to his left. Thinking, as he glanced in the driver’s side-mirror, if a Smoky had seen that move, he would have been the one to get the ticket for an illegal lane change; he hadn't had time to use the turn signal.
As he passed the off ramp an arm shot out of the SUV's side window and Calvin got the 'middle digit wave'. "Yes, I am," mumbled Calvin, as he brought the KW back up to speed. "I'm numero uno at your funeral, idiot!" The fly, disturbed by the movement of Calvin's feet and legs, as they worked the peddles, buzzed Calvin again on it's way to another safe haven.
Calvin sniffed, then shifted his 230 pounds in the seat, and tried to find more room for his long legs. The soreness in his calves and hip joints alerting him that his cold was getting worse. Not just the sniffles anymore, he thought, but feeling more like a full blown case of the flu. He moaned, as he shifted in the seat again.
He would like to pull over somewhere and climb back in the sleeper and get some badly needed rest. But there was no time for that; can't be late with the freight. And, if Calvin had anything to do about it, he wouldn't be. It didn't matter to Calvin how many hours he got screwed around sitting at loading docks, waiting to get on a, so called, 'hot load'. If there was time at all to run it, he would see that the freight reached the gate at the appointed time; funny book or not.
But this run was going to be close: Chicago to Denver in less than fifteen hours. Calvin wasn't too sure he could do it, not on three hours sleep the night before, and with a flu bug that was eating him up. As he reached over and flipped the cruise control switch to accelerate a couple of clicks, he was reminded of a line out of a Jerry Reed song, from 'Smoky And The Bandit': "a long way to go, and a short time to get there."
Shifting again in the seat, he felt the soreness surge through his muscles. It felt bone deep and he reached for the bottle of Advil he carried in an open briefcase over on the shotgun seat. Calvin saw the fly then, crouched there on his log book, cleaning itself with its busy front legs.
Calvin forgot about the Advil and, instead, reached for the flyswatter that lay there next to the open briefcase. He didn't like flies, in fact, his abhorrence for them boarded on hysterical. And, as it always did, the sight of one brought on the flashback of the first time he had visited his Grandpa Harvey's old Outhouse; stepping in to that fowl smelling little red shack, with it's crescent moon hole cut in the door, and immediately being swarmed by a million blue, blow flies. In his three year old's mind, those flies seemed as big as the Turkey Buzzards that roosted in the trees down on Frog Creek. He had been horrified and had crawled in to a corner and sat there screaming until Grandpa Harvey had come a-runnin' to see what all the racket was about. From that day on, Calvin had been at war with all flies.
A flyswatter had always been Calvin's choice of weapons in his personal war on flies and he used them with a vengeance. He left them laying all around his home in Buzzard Roost, Kentucky and there were two in the truck; the one he now held in a trembling hand, and one hanging from a stick on hook back in the sleeper compartment.
His wife, Dorothy Rose, dead of ovarian cancer two years past, had always scolded him about how cruel it was to kill flies with a swatter. A firm believer in reincarnation, she took her belief even further, and believed that, just maybe, the life spirit in all living creatures on Earth was transcendent and took turns as insects, animals, and humans as it worked it's way towards Heaven and Angel hood. "You just might be killing a future Angel by doing that," she would scold. She said sticky flypaper was the best way to rid the house of pesky flies; it gave them a fifty fifty chance of escaping through an open door or window..... or dying naturally; caught in a spider's web in a dark corner somewhere. If they did die stuck to flypaper, it was God's will. Calvin would always listen patiently, never believing any of it, and would go right on with his mad war on flies; using his assortment of flyswatters.
As he moved the swatter towards the fly it quickly disappeared, in a burst of flight, back in to the dark recesses of the sleeper compartment. "Damn Buzzard," said Calvin. "I'll get you sooner or later!" He threw the flyswatter back on the seat next to the open briefcase and picked up the bottle of Advil.
Carefully steering the truck with his forearms, he opened the bottle of Advil and shook three out and tossed them in his mouth, chasing them down with cold coffee from a 20oz, plastic coffee mug and, at the same time, glancing around at the passing landscape to get a fix on where he was at. It was time to pull in somewhere, get out and stretch his legs, and refill the mug with hot coffee. A mileage sign past quickly on his right. Denver, 476 miles it read. Doing the calculations in his head, he thought: 476 divided by an average speed of 65 MPH.....about seven and a half hours; he would have to run at 70 or 75 to do it and he reached over to hit the resume/accelerate switch up a couple more clicks. There was the fly, sitting right there on the switch. "You're mine," he said, slowly reaching for the flyswatter. The fly jumped and, once again, disappeared quickly in to the fading light of the cab.
After a quick stop at the 'Iowa 80 Truck Stop' at Walcott, Iowa, where he had parked the Kenworth as far away from the truck stop entrance as he could, so he could get some exercise and stretched his legs, he grabbed a quick burger and fries, refilled his thermos and plastic mug with fresh, hot coffee, and was now rolling through a dark, rainy night. In the far distance lightning streaked the sky and, over the hum of the powerful, Detroit Engine, he could hear the faint, rolling boom of thunder.
Feeling feverish now, and aching deep down in his bones, he sniffed back the constant nasal drip and reached for another Kleenex. He thought about the miles ahead; he would have to keep the peddle down if he was going to make Denver by 07:30. His mind drifted through memories of Dorothy Rose, God, how he missed her. He wondered where the fly was now; would it live to see the morning? Was it in the dark cab somewhere, looking down on him? In his mind he heard Grandpa Harvey's laughter at finding him cowering in the corner of the outhouse screaming and swatting frantically at all those swarming flies; his scrawny, three year old's arms flailing away. On through the stormy night he rolled; body aching with fever, nose running, sleep tugging at his awareness. He drove, he sneezed.....and
They were on a beautiful, white sand beach. The ocean lay calm and turquoise before them. Waves rolled gently on to shore. Beyond, on the horizon, the sky was a neon rose color, turning to a pale blue above them. He dozed on a feather soft hammock, his body relaxed, numb, warmed by a sun that did not seem to be anywhere in the pale sky above.
Dorothy Rose, in a brightly flowered halter top and matching wrap around, danced the hula around the hammock, her hips swaying slow and sensual. "Come on lover boy," she sang in a soft, husky voice. "It's time you came back now." She reached out with one of the flyswatters she held in each hand and tickled him under the nose. "Come back, swatter man," she cooed. "It's time to wake up now." And then the sky turned black and thunder rolled as a huge, monstrous fly buzzed by over head.
Calvin sneezed, then slapped at something tickling his nose. He came suddenly awake and sat straight up in the seat. Immediately he knew what had happened. He had nodded off and the truck had drifted off to the side of the road and across the rumble strips. He was now heading straight for the leading edge of a long, steel guard rail. Fully awake now with an adrenalin rush, Calvin used his years of experience to calmly bring the big 18 wheeler back across the rumble strips and headed straight down the road. Pulse pounding, he got the Kenworth back up to speed and then he sat back in the seat and tried to relax . He slapped his chest a couple of good hard whacks and took in some deep breaths. Close, he thought, too damn close!
Reaching over with his right hand, Calvin pulled a Kleenex from it's box and brought it up to his nose. He felt, more than heard, a buzzing tickle.... and then he was blowing hard. Something popped out of his left nostril when he blew and he felt a slight vibration in the Kleenex. Reaching up he punched on the dome light with the back of the second knuckle of the index finger on his right hand. There, stuck to a gob of mucus in the Kleenex, was the fly. I'll be damned, he thought......if that fly had not been up my nose eating snot, and tickling the hell out of it, I may not have woke up in time. And then he thought, Dorothy Rose? Naw, no way!
Calvin made the run on time. Only to wait around for six hours while the warehouse people found room for the product they were not in any hurry to receive in the first place. By the time he had pallet-jacked the 18 pallets of product off the trailer, re stacked it on the receiver's pallets, to their specifications, nine hours had past. He had done his job, the warehouse worker's job, and he was dead on his feet. He called his dispatch and told them he was way over hours in his funny book, and sick as a dog to boot. He wasn't going anywhere but to bed.
The next afternoon the big Kenworth T-3000 pulled away from a sign shop that was tucked in behind the parking lot of the truck stop. On both sides of it's sleeper compartment were identical, freshly painted signs. They read: "I FLY WITH DOROTHY ROSE" Swooping down out of the lettering, in a fiery orange streak, was a caricature drawing of a fly. It had bright, smiling eyes beneath long, sexy eyelashes.
Hanging in a corner of the sleeper compartment was a brand new roll of fly paper. And back at the sign shop, sticking up out of an overflowing trash barrel, were wirer handles of two flyswatters.