Mauve Momma #10

In the dark is my favorite time. When it's nothin but you and your headlights and a little piece of road that looks like it disappears five hundred yards up. Other drivers are nicer at night, too. There's less of em and we all kind of understand each other. Not just other truckers. I like it when the road's empty for a couple minutes, and then, whoosh, you know, a little red car zips past in the other direction, and I think about that guy and where he's goin and why, just until the next car comes.

I watched that movie, Six Degrees of Separation, with my daughter one time, and she started talkin about the universal soul and how everyone is connected and some other stuff, and I know she thinks I don't really listen to her, but I did and I thought it was kinda neat. So sometimes on the road I try to find someone who looks totally different from me, you know, like a rich Asian lady or a young gang-lookin kid, and I think about how they might be related to me. I like that game a lot. You need things to not feel lonely on the road. It gets to a lotta guys.

But me, I've always been okay. My daughter's mom never understood why I kept truckin when we had enough money for me to work a stay-put job (that's what she called it). I think part of her thought I had a girlfriend or some crazy double life in central California I had to keep drivin up to. But, I don't know, I just liked it. I liked being alone with just the radio and the thoughts in my gray old head. I gotta good boss who doesn't make the guys drive so many hours that they fall asleep 50 miles outside of Bakersfield and hit a car fulla kids. Those stories make me so mad.

And I like the stories of all the crazy things I've pulled with this old girl, Miss Molly I been callin her lately. Boxes of candy bars, dining rooms sets, stuffed bears, anything. My favorite was four hundred boxes of kids' socks. I looked in one box that was comin open and they were purple and green and yellow with little pictures of bees and flowers and things. I don't know why but it made me happy to think about all those cheery little socks in back of me on that trip. Next time my daughter called I told her about the socks and she laughed. She's a good kid.

The truck stop diners are funny. Like little floating islands in a big black sea. 'Cept I imagine most islands don't have the same strong coffee and bored-lookin waitresses that might be pretty if they'd crack a smile, and the smell of grease and tired men. Everyone nods at you and you nod back, and dollars to donuts if you don't know at least one guy in there. It's mostly us same guys who do dry goods in this state. I like to sit with another guy and hear about what he's been carryin and about his family and stuff. All the guys like someone to listen about that, and most of em have a dogeared little picture in their wallets. Of course I talk too, about my ex-wife, and my son in high school who looks just like me, and my daughter who got herself into college and is gonna take her old man on a trip one of these days. New York City, maybe! Yeah, I think about that a lot.

And, this is gonna sound funny, but sometimes if a guy's really your buddy, he'll tell you to come with him to show you something in his truck cab, and you'll get to see his little house on the road. Guys set it up all crazy in there with fancy seat cushions and rosaries and pictures and those bobbley things on the dash and way more. I like seein inside their trucks a lot, sometimes 'cause I get an idea if they have something really good, like when I got my 49ers steering wheel cover- but mostly 'cause it's like seein inside a guy's mind. You see what he looks at all day, and what he must be thinkin, you know? Then when I see that guy next time I feel like I know a little secret about him.

Anyway, you can't stay at the truck stop forever, you got deliveries to make, so you get the coffee in a styrofoam cup and some jerky or cornnuts and say later to all the guys. And after a good stretch in the parking lot, it's back to that disappearing dark road. It's a real weird feeling, when you're leaving the diner with the bright lights and the smell of burgers and eggs, and it fades away to nothing before you hop up into the familiar smell of your cab. I sit there in Miss Molly for a minute and look at where I been, and it feels like another world I was just in. I was tryin to explain it to my daughter when she called but I don't know if she understood me, although she said I was turnin into a regular philosopher. So last time I stopped I bought one of those little throwaway cameras with a flash button, and I took a picture when I was just sittin there lookin back at the diner. It came out real nice with the lights reflecting off my hood, and it was just like I was tryin to explain.

I got it in my coat right now if you wanna see?