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TWELVE
As the eighteen-wheeler turns onto the county road, I weave off the shoulder and onto the blacktop, trying not to look inebriated, trying instead to appear suddenly afflicted, as with a seizure or a stroke. Most people don’t have sympathy for sloppy drunks who might vomit on them, but they’re likely to rush to the aid of a clean-cut young fellow who seems to have been suddenly dealt a cruel blow by fate. Unfortunately, I am about to contribute to one good Samaritan’s transformation into a cynic.
I make no claim to being an actor. Therefore, as I stagger into the middle of the road, I hold in my mind’s eye the image of Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow on the way to the gallows, toning down the flamboyance but not too much. I collapse onto my left side, half in one lane and half in the other, my eyes squinched shut and my face contorted in agony, with the hope that the truck driver doesn’t turn out to be the sloppy drunk that I am striving not to appear to be.
As the air brakes hiss, I’m relieved that I won’t have my head crushed by a massive long-haul tire. The door opens, and there’s a clank that might be a cleated boot landing on the cab step. As he hurries to me, the driver makes a jingling sound. I assume he’s not Santa Claus, that what I’m hearing is a cluster of keys chained to his belt and a lot of coins in his pockets.
When he kneels before me, he does appear to be Saint Nick, though barbered for a summer vacation: his luxuriant holiday mustache and beard still white but considerably trimmed down, his flowing locks cut back. His eyes still twinkle, however, and his dimples are merry, his cheeks like roses, his nose like a cherry. His belly doesn’t shake like a bowl full of jelly, but he would be well advised to forego a truck-stop cheeseburger now and then in favor of a salad.
“Son,” he says, “what’s wrong, what’s happened?”
Before responding, I wince, not with pain and not because I’m getting better at this acting business. There’s such genuine concern in his face and voice, and he puts one hand on my shoulder with such tenderness, that I have no doubt I’ve chosen to hijack the truck of a nice man. I’d feel better about this if the driver were a snake-eyed, stubbled, scar-faced, cruel-mouthed, sneering lout in a T-shirt that said SCREW YOU, with swastikas tattooed on his arms. But I can’t keep lurching into the road and collapsing in front of eighteen-wheelers all morning until I find my ideal victim.
I pretend to have trouble speaking, sputtering out a series of muffled syllables that almost seem to mean something, as if my tongue is half again as thick as it ought to be. This has the desired effect of causing him to lean in closer and to ask me to repeat what I’ve just said, whereupon I draw the pistol from beneath my sweatshirt, poke the barrel into his gut, and snarl in my best tough-guy voice, “You don’t have to die here, that’s up to you,” though to my ear I sound about as tough as Mickey Mouse.
Happily, he’s a sucker for bad acting and not a savvy judge of character. His eyes widen, and all the twinkle in them goes as flat as a glass of 7UP left exposed to the air for a day. His dimples don’t look so merry anymore; they appear to be puckered scars. Once like a bow, his mouth sort of unties itself a little, trembling, as he says, “I’ve got a family.”
Before traffic comes along, I’ve got to get this done. We rise warily to our feet as I continue to press the gun into his belly.
“You want to see your kids again,” I warn him, “come along quiet like to the driver’s door.”
He accompanies me without resistance, putting his hands up until I order him to put them down and act natural, but he isn’t quiet and in fact he babbles. “I don’t have children, wish I did, love kids, it just never was meant to be.”
“But you want to see your wife again, so be cool.”
“Veronica died five years ago.”
“Who?”
“My wife. Cancer. I miss her a lot.”
I’m stealing the truck of a childless widower.
As we arrive at the driver’s door, I remind him that he said he had a family.
“My mom and dad live with me, and my sister Berniece, she never married, and my nephew Timmy, he’s eleven, his folks died in a car wreck two years ago. You shoot me, I’m their sole support, it would be awful, please don’t do that to them.”
I’m stealing the truck of a childless widower who’s devoted to his aging parents, supports a spinster sister, and takes in orphans.
Standing at the open door, I inquire: “You have insurance?”
“A good life policy. Now I see it’s not big enough.”
“I meant truck insurance.”
“Oh, sure, the rig is covered.”
“You an owner-operator?”
“Used to be. Now I’m a company driver for the benefits.”
“That makes me feel better, sir. Unless they’ll fire you.”
“They won’t. Company policy on hijack is let it go, don’t fight back, life comes first.”
“Sounds like a good employer.”
“They’re nice folks.”
“You been hijacked before, sir?”
“This is my first—and I hope last.”
“I hope it’s my last, too.”
A cluster of cars and trucks races by on the coast highway at the top of the slope, and their slipstreams spiral into vortexes that spin down the embankment, causing the tall pale-gold grass to flail like the hair of wildly dancing women. No vehicle appears at the top of the exit ramp.
“Hijackers come in teams,” my victim says. “You being alone sort of disarmed me.”
“I apologize for the deception, sir. Now walk north a couple miles. If you flag down any traffic, then I’ll kill you and them.”
To my ear, I sound about as dangerous as Pooh, but he seems to take me seriously. “All right, whatever you say.”
“I’m sorry about this, sir.”
He shrugs. “Stuff happens, son. You must have your reasons.”
“One more thing. What kind of load are you hauling?”
“Turkeys.”
“There aren’t any people in the trailer?”
He frowns. “Why would there be people?”
“I just need to ask.”
“This rig is a reefer,” he says, pointing to the refrigeration unit on the front of the trailer. “Frozen turkeys.”
“So any people in there would be frozen dead.”
“That’s my point.”
“Okay, start walking north.”
“You won’t shoot me in the back?”
“I’m not that type, sir.”
“No offense, son.”
“Get moving.”
He walks away, looking forlorn, Santa stripped of his sleigh and reindeer. As he passes the end of the trailer, without glancing back, he says, “Won’t be easy to fence frozen turkeys, son.”
“I know just what to do with them,” I assure him.
When he’s about eighty feet past the rig, I climb into the tractor and pull the door shut.
This is really bad. I’m embarrassed to have to write about this. I’ve killed people, sure, but they were vicious people who wanted to kill me. I never before stole anything from an innocent person—or from a wicked person, either, come to think of it, unless you count taking a gun away from a bad guy in order to shoot him with it, which I’d argue is more self-defense than theft or, at the worst, unapproved borrowing.
Taped to the storage ledge above the windshield is a group photo of my victim with an elderly couple who might be his parents, a nice-looking woman of about fifty, who is probably his sister Berniece, and a boy who can be no one but the orphan Timmy. Clipped to the flap door of the storage space above the overhead CB radio is a photo of my victim with a cute golden retriever that he clearly adores, and beside that is clipped a reminder card that in fancy script says JESUS LOVES ME.
I feel like crap. What I’ve done so far is bad, but I’m about to do even worse.
THIRTEEN
