Long Haulin’: The Misadventures Of Truck Driving
Posted By:
The Hud
What day is it? The Date!: June 2nd
THE YEAR?!:2010
Four months in the world of Commercial Driving loosely interpreted using characters from the 1987 classic ‘Over The Top.’
Part I: Over the Top
and Into the Ditch
“How much longer do we have to go on like this, sir?”
Your eyes, against your will’s better judgment of prolonged sleep, confront the morning rays pouring into the truck’s cab head on. There is no equal playing field here. That searing yellow ball – nature’s unforgiving alarm clock – comes charging forward towards unadjusted eyes with little mercy.
Like a rusty bear trap the lids rip open, tearing through the crust and tears. They’ve finished their shift – the bastards were blessed with the easy one – and now made way for the day crew: Two pupils screaming like newborn babies “Put us back in!”
Everything’s coming into focus now; a television channel you can’t seem to switch. This Is Your Life – airing seven days a week and available for viewing whenever conscious. The channel had been shut off for the past six hours and the dog squirming for release made keeping the show at bay for even a few more hours impossible.
A spirited Basset Hound was our third traveling cohort in this submarine on wheels and a dear friend to my father. Won in an arm wrestling match seven years ago while traveling near Chugwater, Wyoming, this constant companion acted as the anchor to this ship’s operation. The loud mouthed, ever present canine prevented this whole gig from flying off its heated wheels and heading out into the atmosphere like a flaming bullet.
If the sun wasn’t enough, his cohort in sleep thieving antics was readily available every morning at five a.m. to help finish the job. That dependable yellow orb in the sky had set up the dominos and it was the basset’s whine which began knocking them all down.
“He’s going to wake Lincoln up, dear god please, not this early.”
Father and canine resided in the sleeper, another amenity obtained from a late night arm wrestling match; somewhere near Alamogordo, New Mexico, I think. It had doubled the Freightliner’s living space and expanded it into the area of six by six feet. Three people living for months at a time in an area comprised of thirty six square feet; my place being sprawled out in the front cab resting atop the driver’s seat, an old ice cooler and a converted doggy lair which had at one time been the passenger’s place of residence.
“Lincoln’s up. The sun and the dog strike again. Sorry boys, the day shift is inevitable.”
I picked the dog hair from my mouth and dusted off my shirt for nothing more than my own sense of sanity. These hairs weren’t going to come off, hell, far as I was concerned they were permanently ingrained, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to try. Every morning I tried to look presentable before 
heading into the truck stop. Why? God knows. A cast of characters assembled 
from ‘The Garbage Pail Kids’ movie no doubt waited to great me upon arrival yet I still wished to look like something that hadn’t been scraped off the side of the road in a bloated heap. More for myself than them, I guess. I couldn’t dwell on it but who was I kidding? The same sweat stained clothes plastered upon my body for days at a time, hair which looked like it had been attacked by a ravenous pack of Flowbee’s and drool coated across my cheeks. From a visual standpoint, getting rid of the dog hair off of my t-shirt was like attempting to dust off a turd.
Part II: Piss Jugs and Puny
Arms
“I’m thirsty, I’ll have a drink from this bottle – no! Remember, that’s the stinky juice.”
Feast your eyes upon an innocent bottle of Gatorade. Silhouetted, many claim the brand’s 32 oz. plastic container resembles the tip of a male reproductive organ. While filling a bottle which used to hold your Lemonade flavor with a liquid very similar to the one you just drank, you can’t help but to think the silhouette legend is actually subversive advertising at its finest. They claim their drink to be the ultimate thirst quencher; what you’ll never know is their bottle also acts as the ultimate bodily fluid reliever. Stout, durable and with a leak proof twist on cap, your Gatorade is more than happy to become the mini urinal on the go. A word of advice: draining the dink while in motion is an act better performed by the seasoned few. The battle scarred roads of I-5 on your way to Los Angeles are liable to make even the sturdiest handed bottle filler spray his contents throughout the cab with little remorse. The trucking life is a cruel mistress and she shows no mercy for your suffering bladder; you learn the Gatorade filling ropes or you strap yourself into a fancy pair of adult diapers.
“I step inside the truck stop and the crowd sizes me up, arm wrestling me with their enthusiastic eyes.”
I had covered up my untidy bundle of disheveled hair with a baseball cap before heading in, never stopping to realize it was the hat’s logo stopping them in their tracks to point, gawk and stare. Lincoln Hawke Trucking, LLC. My lineage had become my curse and wearing my namesake like a crown hammered the nail of inescapability further into my fragile brain.
Blazing a white hot trail of success all throughout the mid to late 1980’s in the form of arm wrestling competition, my father had forearm flexed his way into the hearts and minds of truck stop denizens all throughout the North American territories, in the process branding me with a namesake I could never hope to live up to – backwards baseball cap or not.
We had both yearned for the day I could wear the sweat dried Lincoln hat with pride; bicep busting and wrist whipping my way to the very top of the sport and beyond. Fate, cut from the same cruel stock as Sunbeams and bellowing Basset Hounds, had decided it wasn’t in my cards. My father’s forearms held a Royal Flush; mine looked more like a disorganized hand consisting of a pair of 2’s, an Uno card and four dollars in Monopoly money. I had stepped up to the god’s of arm wrestling and they had snapped my feeble bones in half; no better way of alerting me to the fact that their prideful game of masculinity was forever out of reach.
On the other end of the spectrum was my father, Lincoln Hawke. A prodigy powered by chart failing 80’s pop songs and single armed bicep curls while traveling cross country in a sleeperless big rig he had looked even the hairiest backed arm wrestling foes in the eyes and laughed. At one point in time he was considered a backwards baseball cap wearing god, but fate showed no favoritism and sadly my father’s time had passed him by.
Forearm flexors stretched beyond capacity, biceps past the point of bursting and a foolhardy resolve which constantly left his wrists in a crumpled heap when challenging the young lions; my father had reduced himself to a sideshow attraction for a new generation of arm jockeys.
“Come see Lincoln Hawke and his son, Noodle Arms; relics existing in the time capsule of Reganomics alongside My Buddy dolls, Pee Wee’s (pre-pornography bust) Playhouse and Philip Michael Thomas’ dream of EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).”
To be continued next week in parts 3 & 4…
