Lot Lizzard

Lot Lizard

H.J. Ted Gresham

Only a long-haul driver knows the feeling.  The end of the day and you’ve been running twelve hours out of some place in the East to some place in the West, up this interstate to that one, ten hours driving, a half hour fueling and inspecting to start and a half hour fueling and inspecting when you stop.  The sun is setting and here on the plains of Texas you can see forever.  Grasslands roll out beyond your windshield like a great, brown sea, swaying with the breeze and whispering gentle things in the wind.  It’s a mid-fall day, the air is cool, the sky is blue, and the West is exploding with a sunset that cannot be described nor photographed.  It has been a good day.  I’m tired and contemplative, and hungry.

I have a hard time looking ahead of me as I walk East across the lot towards the truck stop main building.  The sky is so magnificent in the West I keep turning around and walking backwards.  At the door I stop and soak up one last moment before going inside.  I walk through a foyer full of drivers of all shapes and sizes.  The game room to my left bangs and clangs and pings and dings and makes all kinds of electronic sounds as drivers and co-drivers and riders all throw away that hard-earned by-the-mile pay.  The restrooms are on the right and if there’s one thing a driver never does is pass up a restroom.  I wander from the restroom into the trucker store, walking through the shelves looking at truck lights, audio tapes, junk food, all the things a driver needs on the road, and I ask myself what I’m doing.  I shrug.  Then I head across the way to the restaurant. 

One in ten trucks stop cafés have great service.  I wonder if this is the one in ten.  Truck stop cafés are not what they used to be.  Especially at big chain travel centers like this one.  Ten minutes and no service.  I frown and get up, walk to the buffet and pick up a plate.  When I return to my table an indifferent waitress of middle age and showing considerable wear and tear says, “what you want to drink, honey?”  I’ve never had a waitress in Denny’s or Friday’s or anywhere else call me “honey” or “sweetie,” but I’ve yet to sit down in a truck stop restaurant that one didn’t.

“Tea,” I tell her.  The food on the buffet is fine, nothing spectacular but it is hot and fresh and I eat too much.  Always do when I have the buffet.  On the way out I promise myself for the thousandth time that I’m going to quit doing that.  Sure.  Back across to the store, I collect some bottles of water and a bottle of orange juice and various other things I have no need of, check out, and carry the stuff to my truck in plastic bags.  The sun is down now and the Texas sky is a magnificent, deep-blue inverted bowl, lit with those billions and billions of stars Carl Sagan used to go on about.  “The stars at night, are big and bright,” I sing to myself, tossing the bags onto the seat and pulling myself up into the cab, “deep in the heart of Texas.”  I am always happy to be in Texas.  It is home.  No matter where, the Panhandle, the Valley, El Paso or Texarkana (the Texas side, of course), it is home.  I particularly liked this part of Texas.

My run was going to take me all the way to LA and I had plenty of time to get there.  I figured I’d watch some tube maybe, read a little, or just lie back in my Freightliner Century bunk and stare up at the stars through the skylight.  I didn’t watch enough TV to make one of those satellite dishes pay.  I switched on my small set, let it scan for local stations and when it found none, I turned it off.  Instead I picked up the latest edition of “Trucker News” which I’d grabbed from a rack on my way out of the truck stop a while ago, tossed it on my bunk, changed into shorts and stretched out on my bunk.  I was halfway through a debate on the Hours of Service rules when a banging caused me to almost jump out of my skin.

“Awe, hell,” I muttered.  I was ninety-nine percent sure what that knock meant.  It’s usually one of two things.  Either somebody bumped into my truck and I’d have a damage report to do or it would be a Lot Lizard.  Since a bumping would have caused a shaking, and there was no shaking, I assumed it was the latter.

Of all the slang used by truck drivers, “lot lizard” is the most callous.  A lot lizard is a particular kind of “lady of the night,” a hooker who hung around truck stops and took advantage of drivers’ cash advances and long-way-from-home loneliness.  Of the ones who have offered “companionship” outside my truck door, I can’t remember a one who would not require a sack.  Well, that is even less kind than “lot lizard,” but the fact is that these gals, sometimes not so young gals, would never turn a trick down on Sunset Strip or Front Street where the john wasn’t so desperate and could get a look at the goods. 

Aside from the assorted diseases and the possibility the gal would carry a shiv or a little ’38 and want to take instead of give, I’ve never seen a single one who was the least bit tempting.  So you can imagine my surprise when I pulled the curtain back from my passenger window and saw the biggest, brownest, eyes I’ve ever seen staring at me.  The girl was maybe twenty-five, short brown hair, with those eyes and a face that would be something to write home to momma about.  Well, maybe not momma.  But she was a looker.  Immediately I assumed she was not of the reptilian variety.  I was wrong.

“Want some company?”  She said it with a sweet voice, mid-range and clear as the complexion of her face.  She didn’t smile or even look seductive.  She just looked at me over that half-way-down window.  “Well?”

OK, so I’m stupid.  Absolutely insane.  But she was beautiful.  And besides, I had made no commitment or committed no sin, not even in my heart.  In my mind, maybe, but only in passing.  I had to find out why a looker like this was banging on truck doors for money.  I pulled my curtains back so the world could look inside and opened the passenger door.  She slipped into the seat, dropped a tattered bag on the floorboard, and just looked at me.  Honestly I hadn’t a clue what to say or do.  I had no intention of taking the girl to my bunk for “companionship,” believe what you will, but I just had to find out.  “Well?”  I looked at her now, waiting for an answer.

“Well,” she said, her eyes falling, “I, um, my name’s Sarah.”

“James,” I said.  She nodded.  She still just sat there.  I said, “New at this, are you?”

“Kind’a,” she said.  I sat in the driver’s seat sideways after pressing the floor switch and moving the steering column up and out of the way.  “I, um,” she said.  She unbuttoned the two top buttons of her blouse and arched her back in an obvious manner to show off the goods.  And trust me, the goods were just fine.  “Um,” she sputtered, “are you going to, I mean, the curtains.”

“I’ll get’em,” I said.  I had no intention of closing those curtains because now that she was sitting in that seat and looking the way she did, suddenly I was tempted far more than I should have been.  “Later.”

She turned sideways, swinging her legs into the space between the seats and tugging on her short skirt.  It would not cover as much of her legs as she seemed to want it to.  I saw goose bumps on her shapely legs.  I wondered if it was from fear or from the cold air blowing out of the vents in front of her.  I figured it was from the former.  Her eyes surveyed the inside of my truck.  They held the look of amazement.  “Looks bigger from inside,” she says.  In saying so she betrayed just how “new” at this she was.  Hesitantly she stood and then reached high above her head, trying to touch the top.  She could not even come close.  I wished very much she had not done that because she was a sight to behold and I was having second thoughts about my second thoughts.  She smelled very nice, too.  I’m a sucker for perfume.  She took a step and turned, sat on my bunk and cast me her first seductive look.  It melted me.  I decided I had to get her the hell out of my truck or I was going to be in trouble for sure.

“You are a driver, aren’t you?  I mean, you’re not a cop or nothing, are you?”

“Sure,” I said, picking up my billfold from the tray beside the bunk, flipping it open and pulling out my CDL.  I showed it to her.  “Certified and all that,” I said.

“I need, I mean, it’ll be two hundred.”

I have never, ever, been with a prostitute or known anyone who had, or at least who had admitted it.  But some how I figured setting a price in that way, right up front, was not the way things were usually done.  “Two hundred,” I said.  I put my CDL back and held my billfold in my hand.  “Quite a bit.  For how long?”

“Um,” she said, thinking.  “Two hours.”  Her face searched mine in an effort to discover if her rates were reasonable.

I put the billfold on the dash and looked at her, the thumb and forefinger of my right hand twirling the gold wedding band on my left hand.  I figured I had let this go on enough.  Especially since I had exactly two hundred bucks’ cash and I did not want to keep thinking what I was thinking.  “Look,” I said, “what was your name?”

“Sarah.”

“Right, that’s right.  Sarah.  Pretty name.”  I looked into her eyes.  Those were some eyes.  A man could get lost in those eyes.  That was reason enough to see that this girl should not be banging on truck doors and offering companionship to truckers.  “To be honest, I haven’t any idea what is reasonable.  I have never even opened my door for anybody, you know, not ever.”  I took a breath.  “I am a married man, a long-time married man, and a rather happily married one.”  I think the use of “rather” is what philosophers call “hedging.”  I am a happily married man, not rather.  I love my wife very much.  And just about now if she looked into my truck, she’d be a self-made widow.

Sarah’s eyes looked into mine like a schoolgirl’s eyes, full of questions but losing the fear they held when she climbed into my truck.  “You are one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen and that’s why I opened my door.  Almost as beautiful as my wife.  So what the hell are you doing out here playing Lot Lizard?  You don’t belong here.”

Her eyes grew moist.  Her lower lip quivered the slightest bit.  She looked up and out of my skylight at the stars.  As she did, I saw some discoloration of her skin, just at the edge of her open collar.  She was bruised.  “Lot lizard,” she said.  I got the idea she may not have heard the phrase before.  I don’t think she liked it.  Suddenly her features grew hard and she looked back at me and said, “look, I think two hundred bucks is a good deal, considering,” with that she pushed out her bosom, “and if you’re not buying, I’m out of here.”  She moved to the passenger seat again and reached for her bag.

Her abrupt change startled me and she had the door open before I could recover.  “Hold on,” I said, “I didn’t say I wasn’t paying.”

She stopped, her hand on the door handle and one foot on the step outside.  I picked up my billfold and opened it, withdrawing several twenty-dollar bills.  She saw and pulled her leg back in and slammed the door.  “Two hundred,” she said, “minimum.”

“Sweetheart,” I said, “you look like a million bucks.  Any guy on this lot who is so inclined to accept your, um, services, would pay twice that.  But that don’t mean you should take them up on it.”  I looked hard at her.  “Now tell me why you are out here.”

“For the money.”

“I figured that.  I’m certain it’s not for the view.”

“Are you going to pay you or not?”

“Don’t worry about the money,” I said.  I had no intention of giving the girl two hundred dollars but I was very sure she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing and was in some kind of trouble and I decided I was the Lone Ranger to the rescue.

She mistook my intentions and pulled at the curtain, sliding it across the windshield.  Then she stepped into the sleeper, sat on the bed and started to unbutton her blouse more.

“Sarah,” I said, “that was not what I meant.”

“What is wrong with me?  Or you just too old to….”

“Are you kidding?  I’m a middle-aged rough and tumble truck driver who sees few pretty faces, much less one like yours.  There’s nothing wrong with me, either.  But I am married.”

“So? Aren’t all truckers?”

“Well, no.  But that is beside the point.”  I was getting nowhere.  I had to get her out of my cab and I had to figure out a way to keep her out of somebody else’s cab.  “Are you hungry?”

“What do you mean?”  She looked at me with a worried expression.

This was getting ridiculous.  It seemed like everything had sexual connotations.  “I mean, do you want a burger?  You know, food?”

Her expression was blank.  “I need money.”

“Make you a deal,” I said.  “You let me buy you something to eat and tell me what you are doing out here where you don’t belong and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”

She looked at me oddly.  I think she couldn’t believe I was turning her down.  “I think, maybe, two hundred is maybe too much.  A hundred?  An hour?”  She was persistent.

“Listen, Sarah.  It’s not the money and believe me I’m tempted.  But I have the feeling you don’t belong out here and somebody hasn’t been nice to you and maybe you are in trouble or something and I have time so let’s go get something to eat and talk.  I’m a good listener and I just might be able to help.”

I saw her features soften again.  And then grow weary.  “I, you, um, you are not what I expected.”

“Not all truck drivers wear chained wallets and have tattoos and have a girl in every town.”  I managed a smile at her, “most of us are just regular schmucks who are out here trying to make a living and usually wishing we were fishing or at home mowing the yard.”  I pulled the curtain back again.  “Let’s go, shall we?”

“OK,” she said, buttoning up her blouse.  When she turned and bent to crawl out my passenger door, I looked at her and said to myself I must be the stupidest driver to ever run the roads.  But as I slipped out behind her, pushed the lock and slammed the door, I said to myself again that I was the smartest one.  We walked towards the restaurant.

“It’s a beautiful night,” I said.

“It is,” she said, looking up, “I’ve never been to Texas before.”

“So, where you from?”

“Missouri.  Springfield.”

“Been there.  Couple weeks ago.  Had a load of….”

“Couple weeks,” she sighed, thinking out loud, “two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“Oh, nothing.  It’s nothing.”

“Of course it’s something.  Has something to do with you being down here in the plains of Texas banging on truck doors, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, the son-of-a-bitch.”  The words did suit her.  “Bastard.”

I held the door for her and she stepped through, obviously accustomed to such favors.  “Do you have any bags or anything?”  I suddenly wondered if she had anything at all.

“Yeah,” she said and as if to answer she yanked a well-stuffed backpack from an open-faced cabinet along one wall which held a couple dozen large, deep compartments.  It was there to hold drivers’ bags while they shop before or after they get a shower.  We walked back into the restaurant and I took a table next to the one I’d had before.  The well-worn waitress was still on duty.  She looked from me to the young girl, rolled her eyes, and said, “how can I help you?”

“I’ll have coffee,” I said.  I looked at Sarah.  She shrugged, picking up the menu.  “What you want to drink, Sarah?”

“I’ll have a margarita.”

“Sorry, sweetie, we got no alcoholic stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, just water then.”

The waitress lifted he nose and shot me a look that said, “you bad boy.”  Then she disappeared into the kitchen.  She was a long time in returning for our order.  Sarah closed the menu.

“You might consider the buffet,” I said, “it is faster than getting something out of the kitchen.”

“Oh, ok, no, I think I’ll just have a salad.”  She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.  “I’m not so hungry now.”

“You want the salad bar?  It’s there.”  I motioned.  She nodded and rose.  I deliberately did not watch her walk to the bar but instead looked at the darkness beyond the window across the way.  Soon she was back with her salad.  Not much on it.

The waitress placed a carafe and a cup of coffee in front of me, a glass of water in front of the girl, and asked, “buffet or salad?”

“Salad,” Sarah said.

“Very well,” the waitress said, scribbling on a pad and tearing the ticket from it.  She dropped the ticket on the table and went away again.

I was trying to come up with a lead.  “How many guys you had” came to mind but I moved past that one quickly.  “How much money do you need,” was another one I passed on.  Nothing I could come up with in my head felt appropriate so I just looked across at the now sad-faced girl poking around in a salad she did not want and said, “I’m listening.”

She looked up abruptly, her eyes seeming to sink into her face.  “My dad used to say that.”  She looked at me.  “You’re kind’a like him, in some ways.  He was about your age.”

“Gee,” I thought to myself, “I sure did want to know I was old enough to have a twenty-five-year-old girl.  “How old are you?”  I know it’s not appropriate to ask a woman that but I did anyway.

“Twenty-three,” she said.

“Great,” I mumbled. 

“Huh?”

“Nothing.  I just don’t like the idea of being so damned old.”

“You’re not old,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said.  “So, like I said, I’m listening.”

She looked at me.  “‘Kitten,’ He used to say, ‘I’m listening, Kitten,’ and I’d sit in his lap and he’d pat me on the back and give me a hug and I’d tell him.  Whatever.”

I assumed she was referring to her childhood.  “Where is he now?”

“Navy,” she said.  “Who knows, somewhere out there.”  She fiddled with the salad on her plate.  “Mom divorced him a couple years ago.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged.  “It’s OK.”

Time was slipping away.  I noticed it when my digital watch beeped on the hour and I looked down at it.  “Tell me what your trouble is,” I said, hoping the impatience in my stomach didn’t make it into my voice.

She put her fork down.  “It is a long story.”

“Fine.”

“Mister,” she said with a start, “I am not one of those kinds of girls.  I’ve been with men, sure, but never,” she paused, looking past me at something, “never, you know.”

“I figured that out,” I said.  She was a polite girl, well mannered.  “Call me James, OK?”

“OK.”

“It was that jackass, Bobby, Bobby Carter, how stupid can I get?  Stupid, dumb, I should be blond.”

Her words struck me and I laughed.  She didn’t.  But I did see her features relax and her eyes smiled.  “Bobby Carter,” I said.

“Bastard.”  She spit the words.  “Men think love means, ‘come along with me and we’ll screw and be happy.’”  She picked up her fork, twirled a piece of lettuce, then dropped the fork.

“Not all of them,” I said.

“I’m not so sure,” she said.  “I thought Bobby was different.  We were together a long time.  He was kind and thoughtful, mostly, except when he got mad.  He almost never got mad.  I kept away from him when he got mad.  I love him.  I did.  I think.  Yeah, I do.  Still.  The bastard.”  This time she picked up a pickle from her plate and bit the end of it off.  I got the impression it was Bobby Carter’s head she was chewing.  “See the country, he said, travel, have fun.  I finished college, got my degree, and to think!”  She bit the pickle again.  “I gave up a good job for the bastard.  And he pulls this.”  She finished off Bobby Carter the pickle.  Then she looked at me.  “If you have to know, you were my first.”

For a minute I was lost.  Funny how some women can flip back and forth in a conversation and keep a man off balance.  My wife was excellent at that.  I finally understood.  “I am, huh, was I good?”  The words popped out before I thought.  It was my turn to feel stupid.

She looked at me blankly.

“I’m sorry, never mind, that was a stupid thing to say.  How does Bobby Carter fit in with you being here banging on truck doors?”

“Like I said, he said, ‘let’s go see the country.’”  She looked angry now.  “In my car, of course, my graduation present.  We did fine for a while, over to the East Coast, down to Florida.  Florida is nice.  I had some money, gifts from graduation.  He had some money, too, but not much.  I don’t think.  He was always using mine.  He decided we should go to California.  We had a flat in Louisiana, some dump of a place, I had to use up my cash to get a new tire.  He said he was about out.  Like he’d spent anything.  Well, we got here, up the road here.  There’s a cheap motel up there.  Then he got mad and,” she frowned, “here I am.”

“Where is your car?”

“He has it.”

“Where is he?”

“Halfway to California.  The bastard.”

“Report it stolen.”

“Can I do that?  Even if,” she said quietly, “If we are married?”

“Married?”

“Florida.  It was his idea.  Some little chapel.  Paid some preacher, I think.”

“Are you sure it is legal?”

“How should I know?”

“So why did he leave?”

“He got mad.  When he gets mad, he’s not nice.  He took a couple swings at me, hit me, it hurt.”  She rubbed her shoulder and winced.  “Still does.  The bastard.  I yelled at him, said for him just to go to hell so he said fine and left for California.”  She looked past me again, this time at something that put the fear back in her eyes.  “He’s here.”

“Bobby?”  I turned in the seat.  Across the way and out in the truckstop breezeway I saw a man, more a boy, wearing an orange tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans with one of those hip hair cuts.  He was light skinned, tall, slim, a lady-killer type.  I turned back to Sarah.

“That him?”

“Yeah, I better go.”  She started to get up.

“No, listen,” I said, “you don’t need a guy like that.  Why don’t you go home.  You have a home, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure, my mom’s place.”

“Missouri.”

“Right.  That’s why,” she paused, “I needed the money.” She sank down into her seat.  “Mom don’t have any money.”

“OK, well, let me help.”  I didn’t know how I could but the thought of this pretty girl being in the clutches of a jerk-looking kid like that got to me.  I always had problems with boys like that.  They were the ones with girls on each arm, the ones who got the breaks, who were football stars and school presidents and who sat behind nice desks and looked down their nose at truck drivers.  Here was my chance.  I was going to take it.

“What will you do?”

“Do you still love this guy?”

She looked at him.  He was now in the trucker store looking at the shelves of CDs.  “No, I don’t.  Don’t think I did.”

“Good.”  I started sliding out my side of the booth. 

“Don’t,” she said, then paused, “hurt him.  Just get my keys back.”

“Oh, I won’t hurt him too much.  Not much,” I smiled, standing.  I still had no idea what I’d do yet.  I am not a fighter or a bully.  I am a thinker and I can assure you I was thinking a lot.  “I’ll be back.  Stay here.”

She just looked up at me.  I walked to the trucker store and sized up my prey.  I doubted he was much of a fighter, either, more the Don Juan type.  I left the store and went through the breezeway towards the back entrance, the driver entrance.  I saw a couple of drivers, the stereotypical driver types, tattoos, long bony arms, scruffy, scarred faces.  I then set on an idea.  I walked out to my truck and flipped on the CB.  “Some of you drivers want to have a little fun?”

“What you talking driver, come on,” the voice said. 

“We got a real lady-killer over in the trucker store.  Likes to beat up on pretty girls.  Anybody want to teach him a little lesson?”

“Motherfucker,” the radio cracked, “Never did like a woman beater.”

“Ten, driver, where’s this pussy?”

I told where my truck was.  “Sounds like fun,” someone said.  I slipped out of my truck and stood by the running board.  Three drivers walked up from various places on the lot.  One, I’d seen, came climbing down out of a big, yellow Pete which had a couple dozen chicken lights on it.  This guy looked like an independent and I liked that.  Usually independents didn’t have a lot to do with company drivers like me but they could be useful in a pinch.  This was a pinch.

“Where is this asshole,” one of the drivers asked.

“In there,” I said.  “This little girl, well, twenty-something, came knocking on my door….”  I told them about Sarah.

“And you didn’t get a little?”

“She’s young enough to be my daughter,” I said.

“Yum,” the driver said, “sounds tasty.”

“Alright,” I said, throwing in more bravado than I had, “I’m taking care of this girl.  She’s no Lot Lizzard, she’s a good kid and needs to go home.   We are going to help her.  Without the prick.”

“Lead the way, driver.”

I shook my head and started across the lot.  The drivers followed.  When I walked into the driver’s entrance, I caught a flash of Sarah as she went out the front door, Bobby Carter right behind her.  We went through the truck stop like men on a mission and blasted out the front door.

“Sarah,” I said, loudly enough to get her attention.  She and Bobby Carter were walking towards the far side of the lot.  She turned.  She looked afraid.  I approached her.

“I’m OK, James, everything is OK, I’ll be OK.”

Bobby Carter looked me up and down.  Behind me he noticed the three other scruffy drivers.  “We don’t need you,” he purred, “Old man.”

“Say, driver,” one of the men behind me said, “this the wife-beater.”

Bobby Carter bristled.  “I ain’t no wife beater, dude, you better stay back.”  He stuck his hand in a pocket and the four of us halted.  When he pulled out one of those cheap switchblades, I heard the Pete driver laugh.

“He, he he,” he said in his high-pitched but menacing voice, “look, fellas, he is gonna cut us or something.  Tough guy.”

I got worried.  Suddenly I saw my driving career ending in a brawl in a parking lot with blood and cops and handcuffs.  I can get myself into some of the biggest messes.

“Bobby,” Sarah yelled, “don’t be stupid.”

Bobby Carter looked from one to the other of the four drivers before him.  I put on my best tough-guy face but was sure it just looked comical.  The other men, though, grizzled veterans of the road, looked the part.  He thought better of himself and tossed the knife into an open car window next to where he stood.

“Let’s go, Sarah,” he said, then turning to us, “I don’t want no trouble.  We’ll just be on our way.”  He got into the car.  Sarah got into the passenger seat.  She looked very frightened.

The car was backed into a parking slot so Bobby Carter had to pull out forward.  But the Pete driver stood square in front of it.  There was a long silence.  I figured out I had started something I had no control over now.  I felt like a guy who had leaned against a rock at the top of the hill and inadvertently pushed it and now it was rolling down the hill towards a new car full of people.  I had nudged this rock myself.  I could not now get in front and stop it.

“This is the lady killer, right driver?”  The Pete driver looked at me.

“It’s him,” I said.

“Well, then, we don’t want to let him go without giving him a few pointers on how to treat a lady.”  The Pete driver nodded at the girl.  “She is a sweet little thing, like you said, don’t deserve no bad treatment. No girl does.  Nope.  She looks a little like my daughter.”

I doubted his last remark but appreciated it because maybe it would keep him from thinking about making moves on her himself.  The other two drivers walked to the side of the car.  One looked at me, a tall, bald-headed driver with thick hands, a couple tattoos on his shoulder and looking kindlier than the Pete driver.  It was an illusion.  He tugged at the driver’s door.  “Come on now, what was your name?”  The big guy looked at me, “what was his name?”

“Bobby Carter,” I said.  I did want to see this punk get his comeuppance.  I was just a bit reluctant to dish it out myself.  As it turned out I didn’t need to.

“The hell you say,” he muttered, “my name’s Bobby, too.  Sure, Bobby McGee.”  The man laughed.  “No, I sure hate to see a fella with my name abuse a girl.  You saw it, did you driver?”

“Well,” I said, “I saw the bruise.  And,” I started to say more.  The bald guy, Bobby McGee, eased the car door open.  He reached in a huge hand and clutched the arm of Bobby Carter.

“Look, look,” the boy said, all semblance of his earlier bravery gone.  “Look, I want no trouble, I never beat anybody, never ever hit a woman.  Did I?  Did I, Sarah.  Tell them for God sakes, Sarah.”

Sarah seemed to be sizing up the situation.  She carefully opened her door and slipped out.  “James,” she said, looking at me, “you won’t kill him or nothing, will you?”

“Kill him?”  The Pete driver spoke, “girl, what do you think truck drivers are, a bunch of ruffians?”  He walked to her.  “You are a pretty little thing.”  I knew what he was thinking.  He was thinking that if she’d knocked on his door things would have turned out much differently for her.  I knew it too.  That is what I’d wanted to prevent.  Now, though, I had a hand full of drivers who were likely to do something I couldn’t prevent and would always feel bad about.  The Pete driver winked at Sarah, “no, girl, we’re going to help you get home.  That’s all.  And without this piece of shit to hurt you.  Will that be OK?  You don’t want this piece of shit, do you?”

She looked at Bobby Carter.  He was now shriveled and squirming in his seat.  He looked pathetic.  Her nose curled.  “No, I don’t.”  The voice was the hard, stiff one she’d used before when she felt resolved.

“Good, good, then we’ll, um, talk to him a little and send him on his way.  Will that be good?”

“Don’t,” Sarah said, “don’t, hurt him.”

“We won’t hurt the little prick,” the big guy said. 

“Not much,” the Pete driver added. 

The third driver had been silent since we walked away from my truck. I wondered what he was thinking.  He stepped around me.  He was tall and thin.  He wore a leather biker’s hat, had the usual biker’s wallet complete with chain and clasp.  These three were not the best representatives of my profession.  He looked at me as he passed.  “Take care of the pretty girl, driver,” he said.  “We’ll take care of Mister Bobby Carter.”  When the man spoke I thought the ground had shaken.  His voice was the deepest I’d ever heard.  It rumbled out of his throat like the roar of a big KW firing up.  The bald-headed driver, the one who claimed to be Bobby McGee, was gently extracting a very reluctant Bobby Carter from the car.

“Come on, let me go.  I ain’t hurting nobody.”  He squirmed and his eyes were full of fear.  Sarah looked afraid, too.  “Please, please, I have money!”

It was the wrong thing to say.  It showed how stupid the boy was, in addition to being a coward who beat up on girls.  “Do you now,” Pete driver cooed, “well, then, let’s see it.”

“Sure, sure,” Bobby Carter said, pulling a wallet from his hip pocket with a very shaky hand.  “Sure, here, I have money, sure,” he shook and grinned and pulled a wad of cash from the wallet.  The big, bald headed man took hold of Bobby Carter’s hand and gently extracted the money and the wallet.  He thumbed through the wallet, extracting a couple credit cards and cash.

“Looks like you do have some dough,” the third man rumbled.

“Seems to me this driver here told us you been holding out on missy there,” Pete driver said.  “I think it’s time you took care of her.”

“I believe so,” the big man said.  He examined the wallet, making sure nothing was in it but Bobby Carter’s driver’s license.  He handed it back.  “Here, boy, better keep up with your ID.”

“That’s my money,” Bobby Carter protested.

“You said you were broke!”  Sarah’s voice was loud and accusative.  “Bastard!”

“He is, isn’t he, beating up on pretty girls and stealing their money.”

“I didn’t beat anybody and didn’t steal no money,” Bobby McGee protested.

“Right, right,” the big man said.  “Come on along with us, Bobby Carter, let’s us talk to you a while.”  He put an arm around the frightened boy.  “We’ll not hurt you.  Not much.”  They began walking towards the side of the truck stop.

“Take care of the girl, driver,” Pete driver said to me, “we’ll take care of this for ya.”

“Should be fun,” the big man agreed.  Bobby Carter tried to extract himself from Bobby McGee’s arm but couldn’t and only managed to get a tighter headlock on himself.

“Don’t kill the kid,” I said.

“Nah, driver,” Pete driver said, “he’ll be fine.  Just fine.” 

Soon the trio of drivers had disappeared around the dark end of the truck stop pushing and pulling along a frightened Bobby Carter.

“They won’t kill him, will they?”

“No,” I said, “of course not.”  I wasn’t sure.  I just hoped.  “You better put that away,” I said, nodding at the cash in the seat where the big guy Bobby McGee tossed it.

Sarah reached in and picked it up.  “I don’t believe this,” she said, thumbing through the bills, “the bastard.”

I was beginning to think that Bastard was Bobby Carter’s middle name. Bobby Bastard Carter.  I smiled at myself at the thought.

“What will you do, go home now?”

“Yeah, I’ll go home.” She walked around her car, looking at it.  She stopped, looking at a fender.  “Look, the bastard.  He screwed it up.”

Sarah’s car was a nice one, a new, sporty two-door foreign car.  Or were these things built here now?  I didn’t know.  I looked at the front right fender and saw a dent and a yellow scrape along the dark purple paint.  It looked like he’d whacked a post at some gas station.  “Bastard,” she said again.

“Do you know how to go?”

“Yeah, I do,” she sighed, “we used to travel a lot, you know, Navy Brat, always going, new home and stuff.  Mom hated it.  But I learned the country.”

“You should go, then,” I said.  I was not looking forward to saying goodbye but I didn’t want her here if something did happen to Bobby Bastard Carter.  In the back of my mind I was hearing a news broadcast, “the body of a young Caucasian male was found….”

Sarah came around the car and walked up to me.  She walked right up to me, tip-toed and kissed me square on the mouth, then she flung her arms around my neck and held on.  “I can’t repay you, James.”  She squeezed.  “I can never repay you.”

I eased her back and looked at her.  She wasn’t a fashion-model kind of beauty.  She was a girl-next-door kind of beauty, the kind of girl a guy would want to protect, who could have his children and grow old gracefully doing needlepoint and serving up food at the town festival to raise money for the pep squad or something.  She was a good kid, I knew.  “Sure, you can repay me,” I said, “just have a good life.”  I paused.  “And stay the hell out of truck stop parking lots and never be so desperate again.”  I fished in my pocket for a piece of paper and pen.  I wrote down my cell phone and my home phone.  “You call me, ok?  Call me when you get home.  Call me if I can ever help you again.”

She kissed me again and squeezed my neck until I felt very obvious standing there with this pretty girl wrapped around my neck.  I gently pushed her away.  I suddenly had a lump in my throat.  I didn’t have any children but I thought I would hope if I did, they’d turn out like this girl.  Except of course I would hope they would have more sense than to take off cross country with a jerk or try to pick up a trick in a truck stop lot.

“I will call you, I promise,” she said.  She walked to the trunk and opened it with the keys she’d extracted from the ignition.  She jerked a suitcase from it and tossed it on the ground.  “If he’s alive, will you give this to the bastard?”

“Sure,” I said.  Sarah got in the car.  I leaned into the window.

“You should stop, get some rest.  I want you to make it home.”

“I will be fine,” she said.  “I can’t…”  Her eyes were moist.

I touched her shoulder.  “Look, Sarah, if the jerk shows up, send him off, ok?  Don’t take shit from guys like that.  Don’t ever do that.  You are better than that.”

“You are right,” she said.  “I know, you are right. And I won’t.”  She picked up the paper I’d given her.  “I’ll call, too, ok?”

“If you don’t I’ll come to Missouri and kick your rear.”

She smiled.  “You are a kind man, James, thank you.”  She smiled, sadly, pulled the car into gear and eased away.  I watched until the headlights disappeared down the highway.  I was sad, now, feeling like I wished I was home and could hug my wife.  The suitcase she’d dropped lay on the ground at my feet.  I picked it up and headed towards the truck stop.

As I came through the foyer and into the breezeway, I was surprised to see the three drivers and Bobby Carter sitting in the restaurant.  I blinked.  Then I walked up to their table.  Pete driver and the third guy sat on one side of a booth.  Bobby Carter sat on the inside of the other side with his way blocked by Bobby McGee.  I could see a couple scratches on Bobby Carter’s cheek and I also saw shear terror in his face.  They were eating.  Bobby Carter was eating a burger, stuffing it in his mouth one bite after the other.   I got the idea he was being fattened up.

“Hey, driver, take care of the pretty girl?”  Pete driver looked up.

“Sure, she’ll be fine.  She’s gone home.”

“Good.”

“My friend Bobby Carter here was hungry, wasn’t you, Bobby Carter?”  The big man punched the boy in the ribs.

“Sure,” Bobby Bastard Carter muttered, “sure.”

I couldn’t resist.  “Sarah told me Bobby Carter’s middle name.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.  She said it is Bastard.”

A smile moved menacingly across Pete driver’s face.  “Oh, I see, well, suits him, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” the big guy said, “Bobby Bastard Carter.  Nice name.”  He punched Bobby Bastard Carter in the ribs.  Bobby Bastard Carter jumped.  He didn’t think the name was funny.

“You fellas take care of our friend here,” I nodded.  I was exhausted and wanted to walk away from this one.

“Sure,” Bobby McGee said.

“Absolutely,” Pete driver said.  The third man nodded and grinned.

“Oh, here,” I said, “Here’s Bobby B. Carter’s stuff.”

“His stuff, good, we’ll have a look.”  The big man picked up the suitcase and unzipped it.

“Have a good one,” I said to the crowd, nodded, and turned to go.

“We will, driver,” Pete driver said.

“I have a damn long deadhead,” the third man said, his voice making small quakes in the earth.  “Damn long.”  He grinned.  I wasn’t sure about that grin.  I nodded again and in a couple minutes was again out in the cool, fall Texas air.  I climbed in my truck, looked around, and discovered the girl’s scent was still there.  I took a breath and thought about how close to doing something stupid I had come and felt pleased that I had been the night in shining armor.  Just as I settled in for the night it struck me that I should have taken care of business before I snuck into the bunk.  I rose, put on some flops and swung out of the truck to take care of business between the duels.  It’s a trucker thing.

A big, black KW rolled slowly past my truck.  As the end of the trailer cleared, I am sure I heard a queer banging and a voice, “let me the hell out of here!”  It was Bobby Bastard Carter.  I understood finally what the third man meant when he’d said he had a long deadhead.  Poor Bobby B. Carter.  It can’t be comfortable riding in the back of a trailer.  If  D.O.T. got wind of him riding back there the third man would be in deep shit.  Still, I grinned as I swung back up into the truck.

The next morning just as I pushed down my brake and started to roll my phone rang.  I pulled the brake again and picked it up.

“James?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Sarah.  I’m home.”

“Good, I was worried that you might have trouble.”

“No, no trouble.  Thank you, James.”

“Any time, Sarah.”

“Did they hurt Bobby?”

“Nah, they just, he’s ok.  He’s on a little run with one of the drivers.”  He was.  Just not in the tractor.

“Will he be OK?”

“I think so.”  I did too.  I figured that driver’s just dump Bobby Bastard Carter off somewhere along the road in the middle of nowhere.

“Good.”  There was a pause.  “I have to go, but I wanted to say thank you.”

“You bet, girl.”  I felt mushy, again.

“You are sweet, James.”

“Hardly,” I said, “but thanks.”

“Your wife is a lucky woman.”

“You should tell her that,” I said lightly.

“I might,” she said.  “Be careful, OK?”

“Always.”

“And say hi when you come through Missouri.”

“I will.”

“Goodbye, James.”

“Goodbye.”

The morning sun was in my mirrors as I rolled towards California.  I thought I could still smell the perfume Sarah had been wearing but I told myself that was stupid.  It was just a memory.  I thought of my wife at home.  And the daughter I never had, the one I would be terrified for if she hit the road with some Casanova promising the moon.  I was pleased Bobby B. Carter had got his comeuppance and figured the third man had not done him too badly.  And I thought about Sarah and how good I felt that I took that road less traveled with her instead of letting myself tumble down the wide road that leads to destruction.  Far down the highway from the truckstop and the previous nights’ events I asked myself why in the hell I was thinking so philosophically and said to myself, “get with the program, dumb ass, you are a driver.  Stop this thinking.”  I pushed the search button on the radio, stopped it at a fine country tune, and stared ahead at the beautiful blue New Mexico sky.