Will is using his brain way too fucking much while drinking black coffee at the counter of a travel center diner.
A rail-thin driver with a trembling energy takes the stool next to him, freezing cold and half asleep. A uniformed server buzzes by and pours him a hot coffee. The driver falls asleep on his stool, catches himself and wakes before he falls.
He warms his hands over the hot cup of coffee, gently sipping.
Will glances over and notices the man’s hands are shaking from more than the cold, and his knee is bouncing so rapidly that it’s vibrating the counter.
He leans in and speaks confidentially.
“You need a Tap?”
The driver leans back, “Fuckin what?”
“I asked if you needed a Tap.”
“Fuck’s a Tap?”
“I’ll drive while you sleep, deliver you safe, two hundred.”
“Is that legal?”
“Hell no.”
“Word.”
He extends his hand, “Morris.”
“Hey, Morris.” Will shakes his hand, “Where are you headed?”
“Gallup.”
“Storm’s in the mountains. You got chains?”
“Of course I got chains.”
“Meet you in the lot. Twenty minutes.”
He throws a twenty on the counter and leaves while Morris tries to quit shaking.
The parking lot is whited out by the blizzard. If not for their lights, the trucks would be invisible.
Will begins securing chains onto Morris’s tires without a hat or gloves, while Morris watches from inside his warm cab. A moment later, Morris grabs a wool cap and work gloves from his console, climbs down from the cab, hands them to Will, and gets back into the cab, leaving Will to work alone.
A few slow hours into the trip, with the visibility being maybe ten feet, Morris wakes in a heightened state of anxiety, “How far did we get?”
“Far as anybody can. Sleep. It’ll be a while before we’re free to roll.”
Morris picks up where he left off, “So anyway, I lost my coverage that I paid into all these years. Got a house, my rig, got three kids. That’s a lot to lose to a driverless fuckin robot."
Will drives.
“You been seeing these driverless trucks on the road?”
Morris shrugs.
“Wherever I go and I go all over.”
His knee bounces even faster.
“Anyway, when money was coming in, I customized my cab, bought my wife clothes. Work’s dry now, everybody’s working twice as hard for half the pay, just trying to survive. It gets heavier by the day, prices go up and pay goes down.”
He takes a tin from the console and rolls a joint, inhales deep, “Diesel’s upwards of nine dollars, cost me near two grand to fill up this morning. I got three hundred gallons, cost me eighteen hundred dollars. Dizzies my fuckin mind.”
He cracks his window to the blizzard and takes a breath of cold air. “Benefits dwindling down with our savings. My kids ask me for a toy, I break into a cold sweat, gotta leave the room to fight it.”
Morris pops a stick of gum, “They deemed us first responders, look how we’re treated. We keep the whole country flowing with supplies. Here I am, wondering if I’m able to afford a pack of Juicy Fruit.”
Will watches the Saint Christopher medal swinging in slow circles with the rhythm of the wheels.
“If we stop the flow for three days, stop driving, stop delivering food, supplies, medicine for three days, it all stops dead. Empty shelves. No water. No medicine. Nothing.”
Morris turns the radio on, runs through the stations, then shuts it off, “I hope it don’t come to that, but it looks like it will if prices don't drop. Don’t even get me started on this fuckin war or whatever they’re calling it.”
"Whoever's running the show ought to pay attention to what we do and what we deserve.”
He zips up his coat, “They ought to weigh what we’re worth against what we take home to our families."
“They don't care, they don’t live in our world, man.”
Morris turns up the heat, "They're a brick wall that don't listen."
Will twirls his skull ring and drives.
"We're the lifeblood of the country." He looks to Will. "And they're doing all they can to put us off the road and out of business."
Morris offers the joint to Will, who politely refuses.
“You know the book, you know your rights as a driver?”
“I know how to drive and how to keep score. I ain’t good with logistics. I got trouble dealing with paperwork.”
“You gotta know the rules. You got rights that folks fought for, and you gotta keep fighting for them. From what you told me, you allowed yourself to get beat plain and simple. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Morris opens his window wide and pops a slice of juicy fruit in his mouth.
Will glances at him, “We get beat by insurance companies every day, it’s their job to beat us. In fact, they count on us being lost. Fuck it. Learn from it and move on, and don’t never let it happen again. Fight smart.”
Morris’s leg chills out.
“Your coverage should have stayed intact. No reason you should have lost it. They beat you with a loophole, stole your coverage, and you weren’t paying attention.”
Morris closes his window.
“You gotta know your business. Educate yourself to the facts you need to do your job. Haulers died fighting for rules and protections to write that book. They fought for you. Do them justice. Read the book.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t read no more. Got no focus. Can’t see the words on the page and I can’t remember nothing no more. Everything goes right out of my head.”
Traffic opens up and Will drives on at speed.
Morris cracks his window and takes a breath of cold air, “The only time I feel like I am who I am is when I’m driving.”
He falls quiet looking out the window.
Will cracks his window, “How many deployments you do?”
“Lots, let’s put it that way. Action every time.”
He turns to Will, “You?”
Will closes his window, “You got your paperwork with you?”
“Yeah, in the bunk.”
“Get it, give it to me.”
Morris reaches into the bunk for his paperwork as Will unbuckles his seat belt, “Switch seats.”
“What?”
“Switch Seats. Take the wheel.”
“No.”
“Come on, it’s okay.”
Morris switches seats and gets behind the wheel as Will settles into the passenger seat.
“That ain’t legal neither.”
Will leafs through the paperwork, “See, they used your medical leave against you.”
He reads on, “You had legitimate medical reasons to take the time for treatment. They made it seem like you missed three payments But you didn’t.”
“No. I tried telling them.”
Will flips the page, “That time should’ve been reported and qualified in dates on paperwork. The fact you didn’t report it sunk you, and it’s no accident. You gotta go back into the system, resubmit for paid leave on account of medical. Stand up for yourself and fight.”
Morris shakes his head, “They’re just gonna deny it again.”
“You in touch with your rep?”
“No, I don’t have time for all that.”
“You spend more than half your life in this cab. You don’t have time to make a phone call?”
“They get me bopping from person to person.”
“Bop them back. Fight for yourself.”
“Now they got robots making believe they’re people.” He laughs, “Only way you can talk to a human being in customer service now is to talk to a robot. What the fuck is next.”
“I don’t have the energy.” He turns to Will, “To tell you the truth, I’m feeling spent, man.”
Will looks at him, “We’re all spent. Might as well be spent together.”
Morris laughs.
“I mean it, man. The only way our rules, protections and regulations are gonna survive is if drivers keep them alive. We gotta keep them updated, fine-tuned, and we gotta keep believing in them enough to see they’re upheld. We have to depend on each other, fight for each other. We got a lot of changes coming, a lot of change is already here. The only way we’re gonna survive is if we ride the wave, stick together and fight like hell for what we know to be right. Together.”
Morris stares at Will, “Who the fuck are you, man?”
“I’m a Tap.”
Will separates some papers from the rest and hands them back to Morris, “Switch.”
They switch seats and Will turns to Morris, “Resubmit those papers. Take names. Keep notes and records. If they stall you, barrel through. Keep in touch with your rep every step.”
Morris looks to his hands and nods.
“Fight for yourself, Morris, like I’m fighting for you right now.”
Will peers through the snow to make out faint flashing red, yellow and blue lights ahead. Traffic slows to a near stop to reveal a jackknifed semi that rolled more than twice, judging by the trail of splintered trees and a widely scattered debris field.
Morris is transfixed by the sheer violence of the accident.
The trailer is reduced to an unrecognizable twist of jagged metal with pieces of its cargo everywhere.
The nose of the cab is pointing straight up, like a breaching whale, and the roof is ripped clear off. All the glass is gone, the doors are torn open and the interior of the cab is gutted by heavy tree trunks and branches.
Local and state law enforcement, paramedics and firefighters are trying to locate the driver and, possibly, passengers.
Morris sees an exhausted paramedic holding the leash of a black-and-white dog who is frantically barking, searching for someone in all the action, “At least they got the dog.”
Then, he recognizes the paramedic’s distant stare and sees that she is holding a torn child’s doll in her other hand.
Morris gently closes his eyes and keeps them closed.
Once the road opens back up he shakes his head, “Where was Saint Christopher for them?”
“Chris is where he is. He don’t apologize for where he isn’t.”
Will twirls his ring, “Life is life, Morris. You know that better than most.”
“Yep.” Morris closes his eyes.
Will turns to him, “Get some sleep.”
“I don’t sleep.”
Morris zips his coat up, “Bees won’t quit buzzing.”
“Got some bees of my own.”
“Yeah?”
“Get in the bunk. Sleep”
“I just might.”
He climbs into the bunk and draws the curtain while Will watches the Saint Christopher medal swinging in circles.
He places the photo of the black-haired girl on the dash and drives on until he hits the White Thunder Travel Plaza, visible from many miles out, due to the high powered searchlights twirling and beaming up into space.
The lot is buzzing with activity at three in the morning.
As Will navigates through the blizzard, he sees a row of gleaming electric semis feeding from a line of newly installed and unsanctioned charging stations.
He parks in a slot with the diesel trucks, takes the photograph of the black-haired girl from the dash and knocks on his window with his ring, “Morris. Wake up. Gallop. We’re here.”
Morris emerges from the bunk, “Deepest sleep I ever had.”
He starts counting out two hundred in small bills and Will puts his hand up, “Put that away.”
“You earned it. Take it.”
Will shakes his head, “If you see this through, I’ll take the two hundred and put you to work myself.”
Morris laughs, “You gonna put me to work?”
Will stares.
Morris quits laughing.
As Morris puts his money away, he notices his Saint Christopher medal is still swinging even though they’re in a stagnant vehicle.
He decides to put it out of his mind and turns to Will, “How do you know all this? You ain’t even a legit driver.”
“I ain’t a lot of things, man.”
Will flips up his collar and climbs down from the cab, “Fight smart, Morris.”
He walks through the blizzard and spots a driver having a hard time securing and balancing his load. Will strides to the driver and helps him out without a word.
Morris watches Will work like he is watching a sport.
After a moment, Morris steps down from his cab wearing a woolen hat and gloves.
He plants his feet in the snow and takes a full breath of cold air.
A powerful calm pours through Morris like warm syrup as he finds himself running to Will and working beside him, fueled by an old and familiar energy that he feared he’d lost forever.
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