Driving Alone - Carol Arnold

“From now on, you’re driving alone! Just take your fat ass outta here. I don’t want to see your face again!”

She’s standing on the asphalt next to the driver’s door of a maroon 18-wheeler, one of about twenty long haul trucks stretched out in the parking lot like a herd of lonesome beasts. I’m sitting in a booth near the window of the Junction 80 and 57 Far West Diner about ready to savor my first fork full of my favorite trucker’s special breakfast when I hear the commotion outside.

“I’ve had it with you, Jeb,” she screams. She looks about 5’ 2”, a little bit of a thing with a big voice. “You think I like sittin’ there listening to you croak out those Johnny Cash songs over and over like you’re at the Grand Old Opry or something? You don’t smell so good either, might want to stop and pick up a bar of soap now and then instead of driving all night popping those Bennies like there’s no tomorrow. I didn’t marry you to sit in a goddamn truck while you tweak your way from New York to California. Why don’t you just get a bumper sticker sayin’ ‘Benny is my Co-Pilot’ cause I’m not anymore! I quit.”

She slams the door in the poor guy’s face and tromps into the diner. I’m sopping up some cream gravy with my biscuit when she plunks down across from me. Now, I chose a booth to myself because I like it that way. Trucking is a hard business and I find that if I don’t keep to myself, thing’s get messy. I stay away from the hookers at the truck stops knowing they’ll only bring a mess of trouble. Now I apparently got some guys wife sitting across from me and she’s a mess of trouble all by herself.

“What can I do for you, darling?” I say, wiping the sausage grease off my mouth. She’s pushing 50 for sure, long stringy hair, skinny like she’s been tweaking herself. But her teeth don’t look so bad, so maybe she’s just naturally skinny.

“You truckers are all alike,” she said. “Can’t do a goddamn thing for me.” She’s talking to me like I’m the guy in the 18 wheeler. Hell, I don’t even own an 18 wheeler. Just got that little old tractor trailer rig sitting out there is all, been moving people for 18 years from one end of the country to the other in that thing and never had an incident.

“Well, darling,” I say, “I guess that about says it all, doesn’t it. You can’t trust me, and I don’t think I can trust you. So why don’t you take your pretty little butt off of that seat and go sit on another one down the way.”

“See! See what I mean?” She breaks down and starts to sob. The other truckers are starting to look this way, the waitress too. I don’t need this kind of trouble so I reach over and take her hand.

“Don’t worry, honey, I won’t do anything to hurt you. Why don’t you just order a plate of sausage, biscuits, eggs and grits like I just did. Nothing like the trucker’s special to calm you down. Go ahead, my treat.”

She blows her nose as I call the waitress over. “Little lady wants the trucker’s special. Over easy, plenty of gravy for the biscuits.”

We’re waiting for her special to arrive when I look outside the window and see the 18 wheeler pulling into the parking lot. The guys driving like he’s Sterling Moss or something. Before I can even get myself out of that booth, he jumps out of the cab and stomps into the diner and over to our table. He hauls off and let’s me have it on the nose. I grab my napkin to wipe the blood off my face when he let’s me have it again, this time on the chin.

“Hey, man,” I’m yelling. “What you think you’re doing. I didn’t ask her to sit down here.”

“Come on, Florence, get in the truck. We gotta go.”

“If you promise me no more tweaking, Pete. No more Johnny Cash either. Just you and me and the moonlight, OK?”

“Sure, darling, sure.”

They walk out and get in the truck. I sop up the last of my gravy with my third biscuit. It’s cold.