Post by Mahnarch on Feb 14, 2009 13:49:23 GMT -5
Here's something that I'm working on.
I've got chapter 1 and part of 2 going but, I'm tuckered out on writing, today.
Check for any spelling errors and grammar and let me know.
Also, if you could give me a good title: It's about a driver who picks up a shady character who makes him go out of his way.
I'm thinking that the character is actually a U.S. Marshall, undercover or something equal. No novelist ever knows the end when he starts - it flows out of him.
(This story is completely fictional - though some names have been used in a fictional sense. Copyright ©Douglas Mahn 2009. No part of this work may be copied or reprinted without explicit permission from the author or publisher).
**
I’ve been gear jamming for these past, oh, almost going on 12 years, now. I’ve got close to 6 million miles under my belt and I’ve burned enough fuel to make Al Gore wince in his britches.
Of course, all of the fuel I’ve burned doesn’t compare to the fuel he’s burned in his private jet but, that doesn’t matter - since I’m not one of the world’s elite, you see.
I’m just a lowly truck driver. Delivering the American economy fifty-three foot loads at a time.
I’m what you’d call an OTR, or Over The Road driver. Sometimes called a Long Haul driver.
I’m the invisible guy you pass, frustrated as you are that I’m going 10 miles under the speed limit on the interstate as the lovely government has set out to keep me, or else fine me a thousand dollars.
The thing you don’t realize is, by the time you do pass me I’ve, more than likely, been on the road driving for longer than you’ve been awake. Like the Marines say, “We do more before 6AM than most people do all day.”
Well, we cover more miles before 6AM than most people do all day.
I’m also probably carrying some product that supports your job. Or something that you use in your daily life.
You like that nice, comfy office chair in your cubicle? Chances are, I hauled it.
You like that nice, big clock in your kitchen? Chances are, I hauled it.
You like that nice, soft negligee your wife wears for you on special anniversaries? Chances are, I hauled it.
Doesn’t matter to you, though. I can tell by the single finger you raise from your window as you speed past me with your cell phone clamped to your ear.
Any way, back to me.
On the second Tuesday of every month I’ll head into our corporate headquarters. Get assigned to my truck - with my longevity I always get my baby, Truck number 85 (a 2006 Volvo sleeper cab, 10 speed with all the amenities). A rolling hotel room with a bunk bed in back, a mini refrigerator, satellite TV with DVD and my personal propane grill for the proper Friday BBQs that I hold at the various truck stops I happen upon - and I’ll spend the next 3 weeks out on the open road. A vacation to some. Hell to others. I guess it depends on your view of things. Either way, you don’t see your own home, wife or kids for 3 weeks. Sometimes longer.
I’m a single man with no kids or family to speak of so, to me, it’s a vacation.
What you do see, aside from the occasional finger, is a lot of stupidity.
Every four wheeler (our derogatory term for anyone who drives a lowly 4 wheeled car and includes those 6 wheeled dually pick up trucks) tends to think that they’re better than everyone else on the road. Truth is, there is no perfect driver - with the exception of myself, of course.
I’ve seen people turning left in ‘No Left Turn’ intersections. Driving the wrong way on a One-Way road. People hitting their brakes on the interstate for no other reason than to get a tailgater off their backs - or a quick hallucination that makes them panic. I’ve seen many a deer sacrificed to the occasional God of the Front Bumper by people who seem to think that they’re on the German Autobahn.
I’ve had four wheelers try to pass me on a two lane black top, only to realize that there are 20 cars neatly packed in front of me, keeping me from maintaining the speed limit, and when they try to fall back into their original position they find that the next person in line of the twenty cars behind me has taken his spot and he has to resort to pulling over onto the opposite shoulder so that the on-coming traffic can go past him lest he be confronted with a head on collision.
I’ve also seen, on a regular basis, cops along side the highway. Giving tickets. Giving roadside field sobriety tests. Changing tires for helpless young vixens shivering in the winter cold.
I even once saw a cop smash a kids face into the front windshield of his cruiser for what ever reason.
I often wonder if that cop is still working, today.
None of this compares to the little adventure I took with Teunis, pronounced ‘Two-ness‘. I made him show me his I.D. to make sure he wasn’t playing me for a sucker. And he wasn’t, as far as the state of Colorado was concerned.
Driving for hours on end on the open road can get pretty boring. Even with your fancy satellite radio services and the modified and amplified CB radios you tend to get lonely. So, it’s not uncommon for a driver to pick up a hitch hiker to two on his trips.
It’s not like the stereotypical homosexual trysts or kidnapping/ransom ruses that the media or Hollywood portrays of all truck drivers being sadistic maniacs looking for fresh blood. At least for me it’s not. I’m looking for conversation. Some sort of human contact on an otherwise dull, flat plain where there’s nothing to see for mile upon mile but corn and the rare up cropping of some asparagus or soy.
When you pick someone up along the interstate I tend to find that you can learn a lot about an area you are unfamiliar with like this one time I picked up a hitcher named Tim in Pennsylvania who let me in on the vast history of several Civil War battle sites along our trip. Or the time I picked up a shy girl named Danielle who, after a quick burger and getting to know me, wouldn’t shut up about her ex-boyfriend and how he ended up sleeping with three of her ex-girlfriends - at the same time.
I’ve also picked up the random person who’s tried to rob me at gun or knife point - which is why I now carry a .38 Special on the left side of my seat, out of view from a potential passenger.
Most of these passengers have faded into oblivion over the miles but, the one I’ll never forget it Teunis.
It was late at night, probably 2 in the AM, when I decided to pull over in a little town called Sterling, just inside the Colorado state line and call it a night.
A week and a half into my 3 week gig I decided that I wanted to stay in a hotel for the night get a release from the constraints of my little 10 foot by 6 foot bunk in my rig.
There was a quaint little Holiday Inn just off the exit. Nothing special. A two story outside facing hotel that could’ve been a saloon back in the Old West. Where sidewalks consisted of wooden planks. Bar doors were two loose, swinging Dutch doors and folks had their six shooters slung loosely on their sides.
My six shooter was slung tightly under my shirt in my hidden holster but, I still felt like I was part of that time, if only in my own mind.
The only difference between me and the gunslingers of old was that I had to pay the federal government a fee of $125.50 a year to carry mine, legally
Never mind all that, though. That night in the hotel was the first time in 4 days that I could finally take a shower that didn’t cost me $8 straight up or free, if I’d bought $400 in diesel fuel at a truck depot.
It was also the last time I’d take a shower for 8 straight days.
Time and priorities, my friends. Time and priorities.
That night I slept in the single twin bed of that hotel, sprawled out for once, with the local news program running all night on the TV about events in the area that I didn’t really give two thoughts about.
**
The following morning I arose with the sun peaking just over the Eastern horizon. Flat and plain. To the West I could just make out the tops of the mountains through the haze of morning’s brisk. They didn’t look like much from this distance. Tiny mole hills. But, from experience I knew that once you get to them, and you’re climbing through 10,000 feet at 12 miles per hour those were some pretty big mole hills.
I closed my account with the Holiday Inn and walked out to my truck. The door handle, and most of the truck, was soaked with morning dew. The windows were glazed over in a white mist.
I started my truck and let it warm up as I did my ‘Federally Required’ walk-around. Make sure all the lights work and what-not. That’s when I noticed him.
Leaning on the ride front tire of my tractor was a young man, no more than 30 years old. Lean build. Shabby dark brown hair. Wearing tattered clothes but, not to the point of being labeled a hobo.
I leaned down and poked him, surprised that the rumble of my Detroit Diesel hadn’t woken him - somewhat fearing he might be dead. It was, after all, still early spring and the late March air in these Colorado mornings was still in the low 30s, at best.
I've got chapter 1 and part of 2 going but, I'm tuckered out on writing, today.
Check for any spelling errors and grammar and let me know.
Also, if you could give me a good title: It's about a driver who picks up a shady character who makes him go out of his way.
I'm thinking that the character is actually a U.S. Marshall, undercover or something equal. No novelist ever knows the end when he starts - it flows out of him.
(This story is completely fictional - though some names have been used in a fictional sense. Copyright ©Douglas Mahn 2009. No part of this work may be copied or reprinted without explicit permission from the author or publisher).
**
I’ve been gear jamming for these past, oh, almost going on 12 years, now. I’ve got close to 6 million miles under my belt and I’ve burned enough fuel to make Al Gore wince in his britches.
Of course, all of the fuel I’ve burned doesn’t compare to the fuel he’s burned in his private jet but, that doesn’t matter - since I’m not one of the world’s elite, you see.
I’m just a lowly truck driver. Delivering the American economy fifty-three foot loads at a time.
I’m what you’d call an OTR, or Over The Road driver. Sometimes called a Long Haul driver.
I’m the invisible guy you pass, frustrated as you are that I’m going 10 miles under the speed limit on the interstate as the lovely government has set out to keep me, or else fine me a thousand dollars.
The thing you don’t realize is, by the time you do pass me I’ve, more than likely, been on the road driving for longer than you’ve been awake. Like the Marines say, “We do more before 6AM than most people do all day.”
Well, we cover more miles before 6AM than most people do all day.
I’m also probably carrying some product that supports your job. Or something that you use in your daily life.
You like that nice, comfy office chair in your cubicle? Chances are, I hauled it.
You like that nice, big clock in your kitchen? Chances are, I hauled it.
You like that nice, soft negligee your wife wears for you on special anniversaries? Chances are, I hauled it.
Doesn’t matter to you, though. I can tell by the single finger you raise from your window as you speed past me with your cell phone clamped to your ear.
Any way, back to me.
On the second Tuesday of every month I’ll head into our corporate headquarters. Get assigned to my truck - with my longevity I always get my baby, Truck number 85 (a 2006 Volvo sleeper cab, 10 speed with all the amenities). A rolling hotel room with a bunk bed in back, a mini refrigerator, satellite TV with DVD and my personal propane grill for the proper Friday BBQs that I hold at the various truck stops I happen upon - and I’ll spend the next 3 weeks out on the open road. A vacation to some. Hell to others. I guess it depends on your view of things. Either way, you don’t see your own home, wife or kids for 3 weeks. Sometimes longer.
I’m a single man with no kids or family to speak of so, to me, it’s a vacation.
What you do see, aside from the occasional finger, is a lot of stupidity.
Every four wheeler (our derogatory term for anyone who drives a lowly 4 wheeled car and includes those 6 wheeled dually pick up trucks) tends to think that they’re better than everyone else on the road. Truth is, there is no perfect driver - with the exception of myself, of course.
I’ve seen people turning left in ‘No Left Turn’ intersections. Driving the wrong way on a One-Way road. People hitting their brakes on the interstate for no other reason than to get a tailgater off their backs - or a quick hallucination that makes them panic. I’ve seen many a deer sacrificed to the occasional God of the Front Bumper by people who seem to think that they’re on the German Autobahn.
I’ve had four wheelers try to pass me on a two lane black top, only to realize that there are 20 cars neatly packed in front of me, keeping me from maintaining the speed limit, and when they try to fall back into their original position they find that the next person in line of the twenty cars behind me has taken his spot and he has to resort to pulling over onto the opposite shoulder so that the on-coming traffic can go past him lest he be confronted with a head on collision.
I’ve also seen, on a regular basis, cops along side the highway. Giving tickets. Giving roadside field sobriety tests. Changing tires for helpless young vixens shivering in the winter cold.
I even once saw a cop smash a kids face into the front windshield of his cruiser for what ever reason.
I often wonder if that cop is still working, today.
None of this compares to the little adventure I took with Teunis, pronounced ‘Two-ness‘. I made him show me his I.D. to make sure he wasn’t playing me for a sucker. And he wasn’t, as far as the state of Colorado was concerned.
Driving for hours on end on the open road can get pretty boring. Even with your fancy satellite radio services and the modified and amplified CB radios you tend to get lonely. So, it’s not uncommon for a driver to pick up a hitch hiker to two on his trips.
It’s not like the stereotypical homosexual trysts or kidnapping/ransom ruses that the media or Hollywood portrays of all truck drivers being sadistic maniacs looking for fresh blood. At least for me it’s not. I’m looking for conversation. Some sort of human contact on an otherwise dull, flat plain where there’s nothing to see for mile upon mile but corn and the rare up cropping of some asparagus or soy.
When you pick someone up along the interstate I tend to find that you can learn a lot about an area you are unfamiliar with like this one time I picked up a hitcher named Tim in Pennsylvania who let me in on the vast history of several Civil War battle sites along our trip. Or the time I picked up a shy girl named Danielle who, after a quick burger and getting to know me, wouldn’t shut up about her ex-boyfriend and how he ended up sleeping with three of her ex-girlfriends - at the same time.
I’ve also picked up the random person who’s tried to rob me at gun or knife point - which is why I now carry a .38 Special on the left side of my seat, out of view from a potential passenger.
Most of these passengers have faded into oblivion over the miles but, the one I’ll never forget it Teunis.
It was late at night, probably 2 in the AM, when I decided to pull over in a little town called Sterling, just inside the Colorado state line and call it a night.
A week and a half into my 3 week gig I decided that I wanted to stay in a hotel for the night get a release from the constraints of my little 10 foot by 6 foot bunk in my rig.
There was a quaint little Holiday Inn just off the exit. Nothing special. A two story outside facing hotel that could’ve been a saloon back in the Old West. Where sidewalks consisted of wooden planks. Bar doors were two loose, swinging Dutch doors and folks had their six shooters slung loosely on their sides.
My six shooter was slung tightly under my shirt in my hidden holster but, I still felt like I was part of that time, if only in my own mind.
The only difference between me and the gunslingers of old was that I had to pay the federal government a fee of $125.50 a year to carry mine, legally
Never mind all that, though. That night in the hotel was the first time in 4 days that I could finally take a shower that didn’t cost me $8 straight up or free, if I’d bought $400 in diesel fuel at a truck depot.
It was also the last time I’d take a shower for 8 straight days.
Time and priorities, my friends. Time and priorities.
That night I slept in the single twin bed of that hotel, sprawled out for once, with the local news program running all night on the TV about events in the area that I didn’t really give two thoughts about.
**
The following morning I arose with the sun peaking just over the Eastern horizon. Flat and plain. To the West I could just make out the tops of the mountains through the haze of morning’s brisk. They didn’t look like much from this distance. Tiny mole hills. But, from experience I knew that once you get to them, and you’re climbing through 10,000 feet at 12 miles per hour those were some pretty big mole hills.
I closed my account with the Holiday Inn and walked out to my truck. The door handle, and most of the truck, was soaked with morning dew. The windows were glazed over in a white mist.
I started my truck and let it warm up as I did my ‘Federally Required’ walk-around. Make sure all the lights work and what-not. That’s when I noticed him.
Leaning on the ride front tire of my tractor was a young man, no more than 30 years old. Lean build. Shabby dark brown hair. Wearing tattered clothes but, not to the point of being labeled a hobo.
I leaned down and poked him, surprised that the rumble of my Detroit Diesel hadn’t woken him - somewhat fearing he might be dead. It was, after all, still early spring and the late March air in these Colorado mornings was still in the low 30s, at best.
