My universe was firing on all cylinders as I pushed north on Interstate 95, putting Exit 12 Carteret/Rahway in North Jersey behind me. Yellow sodium arc lights from the factories, refineries, and warehouses discharged a murky, stagelit glow onto the gantry towers at Port Elizabeth. The horizon was broken by steel girders, steel cranes, steel storage tanks, steel trains, steel bridges, and steel ships. I had “Born to Run” blasting out from the oversize speakers, which sit on my sleeper mattress stuck to the back wall with strips of Velcro. (Last month in Miami I slammed on the brakes coming over the crest of a blind hill on the Southeast Expressway where the traffic was completely stopped. Both speakers hurled forward. One hit me on the back of my head, and the other cracked the right windshield. I’ve got two living-room-size Polk Audio speakers in the sleeper and two Visonik Little Davids sitting cozily on a pillow on the dashboard. Me being me, I replaced the windshield and put the speakers back on the Velcro, figuring I’d never have to slam on the brakes that hard ever again. Wrong.)
Coming into metro New York from points west or south has always supercharged me, but doing it in a big truck is pure adrenaline. This is the closest I ever come to feeling the true essence of life on the road. I’ve got a hard-muscled body, a big, comfortable, new tractor hauling a 53-foot moving trailer, grooving with my killer sound system, a 30-ounce Dr Cola in the holder. There’s the whistle of the supercharger as I shift into thirteenth gear, the whoosh of the air dryer, my mouth slightly sour, arms shaking from the pounding of the wheel, making money, setting my own schedule, the Manhattan skyline on my right, flying fast and furious on my way up to home plate in Connecticut. I’m inside sixty miles of tremendously satisfying task saturation, what I call threading the needle. Me and the monster truck are hurtling through sixteen lanes of the most intense, dangerous, and exhilarating piece of roadway ever devised by man, and I’m the king of it all with my truck, my tunes, and my big independence. All the stories, the longings, the dreams, the books, the movies, the songs, the great American Dream of chucking it all and hitting the road? Well, right at this moment, I am the song.
These moments don’t last long. Exhilaration will step aside and make room for the other reality that’s always pushing to get in. Are these brief moments of euphoria worth the punishing loneliness, the physical abuse, and the lack of direction my job entails? Right now the answer is yes. Tomorrow morning, after three hours of fitful sleep, when I wake up shivering in the cold sleeper and stagger into a truckstop looking at another frozen burrito for breakfast, the answer will be no. My ambivalence, after almost ten years doing this, is starting to coalesce. Sometimes I can see the end coming but I’m stuck. Something will need to happen that will break me out. Some days I pray for that. I guess I’m not the master of my ship after all. Is that maturity, or is that resignation?
I parked my rig at 2 a.m. at the Callahan Bros. warehouse. I’d driven 1,095 miles in a little over twenty-two hours.
The next morning I was awakened by a loud bang against the side of my truck. I jerked up completely disoriented and terrified. I opened the curtain a slit, looked in my mirror, and saw Little Al at the tail end of my trailer holding a two-by-four like a baseball bat and giving me the finger. I had no idea where I was until I looked out the other side and saw I was parked in the Callahan Bros. yard along the fence rail under the drinking tree. Al was walking back to his straight truck, laughing. It was ten minutes after eight on a fucking Sunday morning.
I didn’t find Little Al’s wake-up call funny. I felt like ripping him to pieces, but since it was Little Al, who had been my mentor, I didn’t. Since I was in my sleeper and naked, I lurched over and mooned the crew as they drove past. They’ll be telling that one under the tree on Monday.
I got dressed and walked past Dan’s Service Station over to the Callahan office. John was there checking to make sure Little Al’s crew took off before going to church. John looked up from his desk and smiled.
“How’s it going, fella? I thought you were in Florida.” John never knew where I was.
“That was yesterday.”
“You need anything?”
“I need some cartons and a few pads. I’m heading up to Vermont today and loading back to Florida. I was hoping to get some cash.”
“How much do you want?”
“Three thousand.”
“I’ll be right back.” A couple of minutes later John returned and handed me thirty Ben Franklins. “You know you’ve got a lot more than that in your account. I think it’s about forty thousand dollars. What do you want me to do with it?”
“Hang on to it for now. I’ll just load the equipment and head out.”
“Are you OK, Murph? You’ve been running pretty hard.”
“I’m OK, John. Just tired. See you later.” That was my stop at home plate.
Thirty-six miles south of White River Junction, Vermont, on I-91, I was running an easy 65 up and down the hills. It was a lovely afternoon. There was the Connecticut River on my right and to my left a forest, then a patch of pasture, and a white farmhouse with a red barn. I saw a green sign that read SCENIC VIEW 1 MILE, so I slowed down to get off and take a look. Then I saw the next sign: NO TRUCKS. So much for seeing the country in a tractor trailer.
Vermonters have a totally different way of looking at life than the strip mall desert denizens of Florida. There’s a Yankee stubbornness the way the farms are built into the hillsides and the way they all keep a certain distance from each other. It must be hell trying to make a living off this land. It’s odd how Vermont’s topography and geography are so pleasant and it’s such a nice climate, but practically nobody lives here. Florida, which has a depressive climate and no topography, has people flocking there.
In St. Johnsbury I needed directions to the agent’s office, so I pulled into a general store. The blight of the Quik Stop and Kum & Go hasn’t completely infected New England yet, though I’ve no doubt it will. The woman inside was reading Buddenbrooks. I disturbed her. You definitely would not find a store clerk reading Thomas Mann in South Carolina. As I walked out eating a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar, this little kid looked at me, then my truck, and gave me the victory sign: “Go, trucker, go!” Good old Vermont.
Chapter 5
SEVEN SHIPPERS