Author's Note:
I always say I'm going to write a short story when an idea hits me, then fast forward a little while and it runs away from me. As a truck driver, a story like this had always interested me, and I haven't really stumbled across anything like it, so I sat down and wrote it. There are some friendly faces in this one, even if it's just for a cameo.
As always, thank you JFS1212 for editing this work. I hope you enjoy it, and stay tuned for more stories!
**
"Get the fuck out of my way!" I yelled to nobody in particular.
Some steering wheel holder was sitting in the left lane of the two lane section of Interstate Eighty I was on. I mean, he wasn't just sitting there, he was passing. Just very slowly, but I'll at least give him that. Moving half a mile an hour faster than the guy you're passing wasn't a valid reason to hold up traffic.
Again, I was being unfair. he wasn't holding up traffic. He was holding up me. It was three in the morning, and it just so happened that the only three trucks on the road in this particular part of Nebraska were clustered together. Some Swift driver (I've got nothing against Swift drivers, I started there myself) was doing his thing at a cool sixty-five miles per hour, the speed he was governed at.
The asshole, rather, the driver that was passing, was doing like sixty-six. That wasn't a crime. It was three a.m after all, he wasn't holding up a bunch of traffic, just me. I had places to be though. I wanted to hit the 'get gone lane' and, well, get gone. I was on a run from Lincoln Nebraska to Couer d'Alene Idaho with a load of snowblower parts, of all things, that some other owner-op couldn't deliver due to a breakdown, so I got the call, and as luck would have it, I was in the area and just dumped a load.
I knew the few minutes waiting for him to pass would lose me wouldn't really matter in the long run, but it still pissed me off. I left Lincoln a few hours ago, after already driven three hundred miles to get to Omaha to drop off my last load. God Bless paper logs. I knew I wanted to at least making Billings Montana before shutting down to grab a few hours of sleep, and I wanted to get there like yesterday.
That's me, I'm a truck driver. A Highway Slammer, Road Hammer, Gear Jammer, Super Trucker, Johnny Big Rig, or whatever else you want to call me, I've heard it all. I live between white lines and highway signs. I own and drive a nineteen ninety-three Peterbuilt Three Seventy-Nine I was gifted from my father three years into my career. I started trucking when I turned twenty-one, just like my dad before me, and I was twenty-six now.
Off loading the other drivers trailer and loading the stuff onto mine took a little while, but luckily I had a pallet jack so we didn't have to hunt for one. I was still about six hundred miles away, and I was starting to worry that my thermos of Jitter Juice wasn't going to cut it and I'd have to shut down early. I had my own food on the truck so at least I didn't have to worry about finding somewhere to stop with food if I had to shut down before Billings.
The passing truck finally got clear and got over, so I laid into the throttle and let my eight hundred horses sing. Yea, she was tuned up. I knew this stretch of road like the back of my hand, so I knew I should be clear on bears. Really, I knew most, if not all stretches of interstate in the country like the back of my hand.
I got Candy, my truck, because her dominant color was Candy Apple Red, wound up to seventy-four and kicked back to hopefully enjoy another few hours without seeing more than a couple cars or trucks. I knew running that quick killed my fuel mileage, but I liked it better, and I more than made up for it from the pay from my freight. I specialized in other peoples fuck ups. When someone couldn't deliver a load for whatever reason I picked it up and hauled ass to get it there on time. I did other things too, I hauled a reefer, which could be utilized as just a van so I had options.
I had covered about fifty miles since the truck passing incident and was settling back into my grove, jamming out to some Koe Wetzel when I heard my CB radio go off so I quickly killed the music so I could hear. Hardly anyone used the things anymore, but when they did it was usually either good information or good conversation to break up a drive.
"Hey lost souls on the westbound, better back 'er on down. Got a Kojak with a Kodak at the thirty-three yard line," a voice called out.
Sometimes it's hard to tell over a CB, but it sounded like the voice of an angel. The woman's voice made me think she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Maybe she was, or maybe I'd just been on the road too long. It had been four months since I'd been home, and way longer than that since I'd felt the touch of a woman.
The call out was for the thirty-three yard line and I was at the sixty-four, so I knew I had time before I got there, but I made sure to make a mental note to slow down when I got closer. Usually a CB was good for seven miles at most, or so I'd read, but they can be tuned up to reach way further than that, which mine was. It also helped that it was Nebraska so there wasn't anything in the way to block the signal.
"Ten-four on that driver," I called back. "I'm about thirty miles off your back door, how's it look the rest of the way in?"
"Clean and clear, bears seem to be in their dens for the night," she answered.
"Hammer time then eh?" I laughed.
"Pedal to the metal and tear a strip off that white line driver," she joked back. Her laugh sounded like music to my ears.
"Whats your cruising altitude?" I asked.
"A nice cool sixty-eight, how 'bout you. come on back." She asked. I don't know how but I could hear the smile in her voice over the radio. Maybe she was just lonely, or tired and wanted entertainment. I knew the feeling well.
"Rockin' about seventy-four. You keep going I'll catch your back door before Cheyenne," I joked.
"If you're goin' south then you just might. Makin' a left turn and headed to Shaky Town," she explained.
"Ten-four on that. Good luck down that way. I'm makin' me a right turn and headed to Idaho"
"I'll trade you," she laughed. "Hate heading my way."
"Yea I stay out of Idiot Island," I laughed back. "Who do I have the pleasure of babbling with?"
"You got Lady Luck on this end, how 'bout yourself?"
"They call me The Kid," I responded. I'd been called that by just about everyone for so long sometimes it took me a second to answer to my given name.
"Pleasure making your acquaintance Kid," she said.
"You as well. Would it be Lady or Luck if one was to shorten the handle?"
"Either works. Most people go with Luck. Guess they don't wanna just call me Lady," she explained. She let a laugh trail off as she let off the mic. There was that damn laugh again.
We rode in silence for a few moments and I started to worry she'd had her fill and hung her mic back up. I wanted to keep talking to her, to kill some time if anything, though I had to admit just hearing her voice made my day.
I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how to keep the conversation going, and I was starting to think I'd never think of anything to say when I heard the radio come on again, and a smile immediately struck me when it was her voice on the other side and not some random dude.
We chatted back and forth until we got out of range from each other. Like I thought, I almost caught her before she reached Interstate Twenty-Five, but I wound up being about three miles off my guess. I honestly thought about running Candy even harder, to try to catch her just so I could get a look as I went by to see if she was as beautiful as she sounded, but thought better of it in the end.
Talking with Luck made that part of the drive feel like mere minutes as well as gave me a new sense of energy. Maybe I would make Billings after all.
**
I obviously thought about her the rest of the night. As the miles ticked by my mind shamelessly conjured up scenarios where we did meet. She was as beautiful as imagined and for some reason she thought the same of me and we hit it off. I knew it wasn't out of the question. I knew I was a decently attractive guy, even if I wasn't jaw-dropping handsome. I ate right and worked out on days I wasn't absolutely dead from a double drive so I was in decent shape for any guy my age, let alone a trucker.
Obviously though, we never met, and I went on to Billings, and eventually Coeur d'Alene. From Couer d'Alene I picked up a load of paper from a mill near there that was headed for Flagstaff. From Flagstaff I grabbed a load over to Laredo, and from there I went just about everywhere else. I even went home for a week over the Fourth of July. I rarely, if ever, went home. I just loved being on the road too much.
With my infrequent stops home I figured it was a waste of money to have a place of my own, so I still lived with my parents, even if I was only there maybe twenty nights a year. I still tried to make it home for major holidays though. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't. My dad, being a retired trucker himself, understood fully. My mom understood as well since she'd dealt with it his whole career.
He retired when I got Candy. He retired when I got Candy because Candy was his before she was mine. He was about ready to hang up the keys anyways, so giving me Candy just made sense.
Months went by and I drove on. I drove a lot of hard miles across a lot of states. I didn't always run two log books and work myself to death, but I didn't hesitate to do so when the load called for it. I hadn't ran in violation in almost a month, but I knew this run would call for it towards the end. I'd reward myself for the hard work with a day or two when it was over.
My life was pretty routine. Wake up, drive, go to bed. A lot of things were different though. What I was hauling, where I was hauling it, or what I ran into during the day. One thing that didn't change though, was the fact that I was thinking about Luck every day it seemed. Something about her voice, her laugh, was stuck in my head and wouldn't leave.
I dreamed about crossing paths with her again, but it was a big country, with a lot of roads, and I didn't know her truck so I didn't keep my hopes up. One thing was for sure though, I kept my CB on channel nineteen with the volume cranked up in hopes of hearing her again.
**
"Hey southbound anyone got a heads up on the bear situation ahead?"
Was that? It couldn't be. Every single female trucker I heard on the radio made me think it was her. I had my music going pretty good, so I heard the words but couldn't exactly hear the tone of the voice.
"Hey driver," I called back. "Just crossed the one-forty yard line and you look clear back to one-ninety when I hopped on."
"Good lookin' out Kid," she thanked me.
