Marisi
Ornstein
Will is spinning on his stool sipping a strawberry malt at the horseshoe counter of an owner operated truck stop diner filled with tired drivers and stranded travelers in the middle of the night.
The place super clean, paneled in polished local wood with photographs of customers through the years on the walls.
On the metal shelf between the counter and the kitchen is a fresh turkey, a roast beef, a meat loaf, and a ham that the cooks are carving from, and there are fresh pies everywhere.
There’s a guy down the counter in a technicolor flannel, eating apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
There’s a driver by the jukebox wearing rolled up dungarees, a red cotton jacket with the collar up, long sideburns and a Pompadour, just like Will’s.
Veronica, the owner of the diner, delivers a generous slice of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream and cherry preserves on top, “What are you doing out here so late, Will?”
He smiles proudly, “I’m on a Ramble. First night.”
She picks up the plate the pie was on, “Watch yourself.”
“I will.”
Veronica moves on down the counter, delivering hot and fresh coffee to drivers who are either fast asleep or nodding out.
A sturdy old ruddy driver takes the empty stool next to Will’s and nods off immediately.
Will nudges him awake, “Driver, sir. I can drive for you, if you want me to.”
The old man’s in a fog.
Will whispers, “You can sleep, I can drive. I’ll deliver you safe. I promise.”
The old driver squints to look Will over and speaks low, “You a Tap driver, your age?”
Will also speaks low, “What’s a Tap driver?”
“A ghost of a driver legit drivers hire to drive while they sleep. Just like you said.”
“Absolutely.” Will nods, “I’m a Tap driver.”
The old hauler leans back to get a better look at Will and is struck with a far off recognition that makes him smile.
He juts his chin to the door, “Meet me in the lot in twenty.”
“In the lot. Twenty. Thank you, sir.”
Will throws a ten on the counter, runs outside, gets on his bike and speeds round to the mechanic shop.
A bell rings as he enters, prompting a mechanic to poke his head out from under a semi, “Willie!”
“Jon, would you keep my bike safe? I’m gonna be gone a while.”
“Where you going?”
“Going to work. I’m a Tap driver.”
Jon laughs, “What’s a Tap driver?”
“A clandestine outlaw legit drivers hire to take the wheel while they sleep, delivering them safe and on time to their destinations.”
Jon shrugs, “Cool fuckin job.”
“Yep.”
He holds up the keys to the Triumph, “Key’s on the seat.”
Will runs back to the entrance of the Travel Center and finds a good spot to stand. He leans against the wall, waiting for the old driver.
The driver comes through the door and keeps walking into the lot.
Will tries to keep up, but the old man is spry, “I said meet me in the lot. Not at the front fuckin door, McCarty.”
“Sorry.”
He turns back to Will as he walks, “Learn to listen. Taps are illegal. I could lose my fuckin license letting you drive.”
The old hauler lights another Lucky with a wooden match while walking fast through high wind and cold rain, “You got to listen.”
He tosses the still lit wooden matchstick over his shoulder and it hits Will on the arm, “If you don’t listen, you’re a danger. A fuckin liability.”
The driver stops walking, “Death comes in a flash out here and nobody sees it coming.” He inhales half the cigarette at once, “You hear me?”
“Yes. How do you know my name?”
The old man ignores Will and calmly gazes over all the trucks in the lot as if he’s looking out over a picturesque landscape, “Can’t fuck around on the road, son. Somebody tells you to do something, you listen, word for word.”
He flicks his smoke into the air and the wind takes it for a loop-the-loop “Word for word.”
The old driver walks to his own wicked sunken ship of a semi, fallen apart and put back together Frankenstein-style from odds and ends of other trucks, with quick fixes like a rope tied around the hood to hold it down at speed.
The old hauler gets into the pristine passenger seat while Will settles into the battered and torn driver’s seat and sparks the engine, “Sir. How do you know my name?”
The driver cracks his window, “My family goes back generations on McCarty Territory. Your grandfather taught me how to fish. I remember the day you were born, my wife made pastelitos.”
He settles in to his seat, “I never used a Tap in my life. Only reason you’re at the wheel is you’re a McCarty.”
He stretches a woolen cap over his eyes, “Head West. Get going, I got time to make.”
As Will pulls out and maneuvers through the lot, he catches a glimpse of the guy from the diner who was eating pie and ice cream, standing on the side of the road watching for a hitch, soaking wet from his knapsack to his huaraches.
He glances at the driver’s cracked hands, “What’s your name, sir?”
The driver wraps himself in his coat, “Out here, integrity stands for a name. It’s actions that count in the stories that you leave.”
He’s asleep and in dreamland before they leave the lot.
Will drives down a two-lane road in the suspended silence of nighttime, while the old hauler sleeps.
He takes the black-haired girl’s photograph from the pocket of his Levi’s jacket and props it on the dashboard. Once the photograph is positioned perfectly, he aims straight ahead, sailing into his first open road journey on his own.
Hours into his bliss, Will sees a distant lantern swinging on the road ahead. He snatches the photograph of the black-haired girl from the dash and gently slides it back into his pocket, while nudging the old driver awake.
The old man, slams the dash, “Switch seats. Now.”
As Will slows to a stop, he counts three armed men blocking both lanes and computes the math of the situation in his head, “I’ll handle this.”
“The fuck you will. Get out and run.”
The old man grabs the wheel, “This trouble’s mine. Run.”
“Too late.”
A hijacker with a bandana over his face knocks on the window with the barrel of his shotgun.
Will rolls the window down and the hijacker takes a step back, “Get out the cab.”
Will shakes his head, “Nope.”
The old driver leans forward into the light so the hijacker can see him “He’s just a Tap, got nothing to do with this.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Will notices one of the hijackers is drifting further into the shadows, near an old Ford pick-up, while another hijacker casually strolls to the passenger side.
The hijacker kicks the driver’s door, “Get out the truck. Now.”
Will holds steady, “I’m going forward and I’m going intact.”
The hijacker laughs and looks to the others, “We got a hero, this kid.”
Will lifts his leg far enough to slide his knife out of his boot and rest it under his thigh, “I’m older than I look.”
“How old are you, driving a fuckin truck?”
“Younger and quicker than you.”
The hijacker’s eyes narrow, “How’d you learn to drive?”
“My uncle taught me.”
“Who’s your uncle?”
“Name’s Francis.”
The hijacker lowers his shotgun, “You Beatrice’s kid?”
“I ain’t nobody’s kid.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I’m working, like he said. Driving Tap.”
The old driver leans back into the light, “Do you know who the fuck this is?”
“I do now, asshole.” The hijacker hikes up his bandana and spits on the road, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why’d you put me in this fuckin position?”
Will catches the hijacker’s eye, “What do you want?”
The hijacker laughs, “What do we want. We want the cargo.”
“Cargo belongs to him.”
“Not my problem who it belongs to. It’s mine now.”
“Not yet.”
The hijacker takes a moment to calm himself.
Will pops a piece of Bazooka and chews, “You taking tolls on this road?”
“No.”
He checks the road for headlights, “I’m a legitimate fuckin hijacker, sanctioned in the book. Longstanding.”
“You’re not sanctioned for this load. This driver is with me.”
“I been hijacking this guy for thirty fuckin years.”
Will turns to the old man, who shrugs, “It’s true.”
The hijacker stares, “If memory serves, the book says anyone setting wheel to road for commerce is subject to the rules of the road. Seems to me that would count for you, too.”
He winks, “Ask your uncle, he’ll tell you.”
Will pops a quick bubble.
The hijacker points his shotgun straight down the road, “Get the fuck outta here. Go on, get outta here.”
The other hijackers lower their weapons and start walking away.
Will rolls his Bazooka into a perfect ball and wraps it in the wrapper, “Hey, mister.”
The hijacker turns back. The others stop in their tracks.
Will puts his hand on his knife,
“I remember everything I see. Can’t help it. I never forget nothing. Words and numbers, entire books, I got a whole library in my mind. Eyes and faces are the easiest to remember. Your left eye has a unique shape to it, like a bent crescent. You think you’re hiding under that bandana?”
The man shifts on his feet, “What the fuck did you say to me?”
“I said, bandanna or not, I can pick you out of a crowd.”
The hijacker’s eyes go dark, “Tell you what.”
He unties his bandana, throws it on the ground and nods to his associate on the passenger side, who swings the door open, sucker punches the old man, yanks him out of the cab, and throws him roughly to the ground.
Will and the hijacker are eye to eye, listening to the old driver receive a vicious beating, his high-pitched grunts filling the woods around them.
The hijacker on the passenger side kicks the old man in the face and walks around to Will’s side, while the third armed man shifts in the shadows near the pick-up.
The hijacker grins, “You pushed your luck. Think that’s smart? That was fuckin reckless. Unprofessional.”
“Francis would kick you in the ass for being reckless.” He spits on the ground, “Did you learn anything from this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can always learn more.”
The hijacker shifts his toothpick, “Correct?”
“Sure.”
The hijacker lights a Lucky, “Collect your pal. Go on, get him up.”
Will opens his door and walks around to the passenger side to collect the old man from the ground. He gently shakes him and the old man pushes him away, “Did they get the cargo?”
“No.”
He hears his truck thrown into gear, “Son of a bitch.”
As two hijackers drive off in the old driver’s truck, they throw Will’s knapsack through the window, while the third hijacker follows in the pick-up.
Will steadies the old hauler, “You’re bleeding.”
“Who ain’t.”
He spits some blood onto the road, “Get your knapsack and run the fuck back here.”
When Will returns, the old hauler rests both his calloused hands on his shoulders, “I told you to listen to me in the lot. Did you listen?”
“No.”
“I told you to run. Did you listen?”
“No.”
“You gotta be a wiseass and make threats to a killer out here trying to earn a living.”
Will nods, “That was not smart.”
“You bet your ass that was not smart. They drove my cargo and truck away. Thirty years running, all they took was the cargo. Tonight they took my truck. Cause of you. Huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, my ass.”
The old man puts a finger in the air, “See my finger?”
“Yes.”
“Keep your eye on it.”
The old hauler cocks his arm back and slugs Will with a whopping open palm, sending him up into the air in a full twirl before landing hard, “You hear that?”
“I heard that.”
“I know you meant well. You got a pure heart. I can’t be mad at that.”
The old man stands over Will and lights a smoke.
“Don’t never get cocky. Renders you weak. Never let your guard down and take your hands off the wheel, it’ll get you sunk. Never trust nobody except who you trust with your life. Keep your eyes open and your mind flowing. And keep that pure heart of yours pure. Guard it with your life, Billy. It’s your North Star.”
Will wipes some blood from his mouth, “Thank you, sir.”
The old hauler extends his hand, “Welcome to your road, McCarty.”
He pulls Will up, and they lean on each other, walking through a juniper scented morning, into a brand new day.
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