by Jay Harez
WET DRIVE
BY
JAY HAREZ
Copyright © 2015 by Jay Harez. All rights reserved.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Wet Drive
Opportunity
Captive
A Friendly Face
Stop Over
Crossing
Epilogue
WET DRIVE
“All in all Charlie I see your contributions to this operation as limited at best.” Said the Operations Manager.
Charlie, a total fuck-up had dreaded this day.
Charlie owed child support, a great deal of child support. He had left his wife bleeding on the kitchen floor of their two-bedroom doublewide home in Port Arthur, Texas. His four girls watched as he grabbed two shirts and one pair of jeans, put on his boots, walked out the back door and drove away in his pickup.
“Are you hearing me boy? Whatever arrangement you had with my predecessor is over! You know what else? I’ve been going through the books here and guess what I found? Not you! Can you explain that?” The Operations Manager asked.
The new Operations Manager was settling down now. Less bluster and rage and an almost reptilian coldness emanated from the man. This new Operations Manager had “oilfield trash” written all over him. A layer of beer-fat covered what was once a muscular frame. He had a nose that had been broken, sunken eyes, and a pig face on a bullet-shaped head sat on over two hundred pounds of attitude and cruelty.
Charlie was already thinking about what to do next. He had been driving off the books for almost a year now. His hotel room was paid up for the next three weeks and he had about six hundred dollars to his name.
When he first got to Laredo he had pawned everything he owned for a few nights lodging and some food. Now this asshole was threatening what he had turned into a livable life.
“I didn’t think you could,” the Operations Manager continued. “So what to do with Charlie?”
New in town Charlie had found another broken down truck driver living at the local homeless shelter. Charlie had offered to share some tamales with him in exchange for any leads on places that needed drivers and didn’t require a lot of references.
Those three tamales had led him to Shoreline Shipping, LLC. What it really was, was a three hundred yard long, drive through with sheet metal walls and roof. It was a place where cargo could be loaded and unloaded discreetly as long as it happened after dark. It was a weigh station for anything that could fit in a semi-trailer and didn’t require lots of maintenance in transit. This meant no ‘wets’. But it did mean lots of other cargo. Cargo the Border Patrol didn’t really give a shit about.
All those Washington suits with their ‘immigration reform’ rhetoric kept the American public focused on what was going north of the border. Illegal immigrants, drugs and whatever else could find a market in the US. But not a word was ever mentioned about what was going south. And lots of cargo was going south, more than anyone knew or cared to talk about.
Charlie had signed on originally to run bat guano to nurseries in the states. Believe it or not bat shit was worth as much as marijuana by the kilogram. Every nursery owner and horticulturalist in the southwest could tell you that bat guano or “Wayne-soil” as it was known could make anything grow anywhere.
As soon as states started legalizing weed the cartels started focusing on making bat guano available in quantity. So Charlie had found work…steady – although risky – work.
Thirty or so yards from the loading/unloading bay was the Pit. It looked like most union halls. Long collapsible tables with metal folding chairs on either side ran in multiple parallel rows. The worst coffee known to man brewed on two industrial coffee makers twenty four hours a day. Charlie had never seen anyone make the coffee.
The broken down trucker that had told Charlie about Shoreline turned out to be a former employee. Charlie knew him as Darryl411 but all of the other drivers called Flipsy when he wasn’t around. He kept the other drivers entertained with his conspiracy theories and plans to get into real estate as soon as he got out of the shelter.
After Charlie had done a dozen or so runs he asked some of the other drivers why Darryl was called Flipsy. It turned out that Darryl had flipped two trucks in as many months. Darryl liked to drink. Those two trucks were not what got him fired; it was the third one that led to his termination. It was laden. Getting caught was one thing. Getting highjacked was one thing. However the one error that could not be forgiven was damage to the vehicle. Each truck and driver was estimated to generate a certain amount of revenue. Drivers came and went but vehicles were treasured and were kept in pristine condition by a team of mechanics that worked twelve-hour shifts six days a week. Darryl had cost the company a truck and a load. There was no coming back from that. Not everyone could be a driver. So Darryl became Darryl411 offering info on jobs that you couldn’t find on the Internet.
This new Operations Manager was going to be a problem for both Charlie and Darryl411. Shoreline needed a name and a Social security number for every driver along with a copy of their Commercial Drivers License. Whose didn’t matter as long as they had one set of documents per truck on the road at any given time. Shoreline kept records on hand in the event the Texas Department of Transportation got curious or if they missed a payment to the Federales.
One night over some refried beans and what passed for beef Darryl had proposed Charlie use his social because Darryl didn’t pay taxes, period. Charlie thought about it and concluded he might as well use Darryl’s CDL also. The toasted and agreed. Darryl would of course get a percentage whenever Charlie got paid for a run and Charlie stayed off of the Attorney General’s radar.
The Operations Manager at the time didn’t care as long as the loads got delivered. Charlie wondered if he was being paranoid but in his mind there was no such thing as too much paranoia when it came to protecting oneself.
Charlie didn’t weigh more than one hundred and forty-five pounds with a dozen tamales in him. Darryl was six-foot three and one-ninety. Thank God for poor photo-copiers and men’s greed, Charlie thought at the time.
“As a matter of fact I think I know what I’ll do,” the chunky Operations Manager stated as his chair strained under his weight. “You come in here with proper ID, Social Security card and a current CDL and we will talk about your future with this this organization. What do you say? Now get the fuck out of my office.”
Charlie got up, walked to the door and slowly began to open it. Just to his left and above the light switch was the former Operation Managers prized possession. A hand-made bullwhip from the last rodeo held at the Astrodome Arena in Houston. It was a hard-won prize and the craftsmanship in the braid showed its worth. The weekly rubdowns with mink oil by the owner had kept it in working condition.
A whip can be as deadly as a knife for two reasons. First is the fact that the end, or cracker, is moving faster than the speed of sound, and contact will remove flesh from bone when wielded by a professional.
The second reason is tied to the first. Breaking the sound barrier in an enclosed area can be devastating to the human eardrum. In tandem, the two effects can leave the person on the receiving end, bleeding and with temporary hearing loss.
Charlie had done some time as a rodeo clown and wrangler but had never been one of those cowboys who could take a lit cigarette out of a woman’s mouth without leaving a mark on her. However, at that moment everything he had ever learned combined with the perfectly balanced handle of the whip came to bear. Charlie saw his small and dirty hotel room, gone, his plans of buying a new ID on the black market, gone, whatever money he had held on to, gone, even his ability to feed himself, gone.
Before Charlie was fully conscious of his actions the door was closing and whip was in his hand. His rage unfurled along t
he nine cords of braided cowhide and became an extension of himself.
The Operations Manager extended his tongue to lick the tip of a worn down number two pencil.
The cracker reached Mach one at the point of impact with the pencil tip. The tips of the pencil and Operation Managers tongue vanished instantly. Small pieces of wood and flesh careened into the back of the fat man’s throat. He reeled backwards, falling out of his chair and clutching at his throat as he gasped for air.
The phone began to ring. On the second ring Charlie realized where he was and what he had done. The Operations Manager was staggering to his feet and his face was purple with rage.
Charlie bolted out of the office. He ran through the Pit past a half dozen stunned drivers trailing the whip behind him.
The other drivers outside the office thought they heard a gunshot and as Charlie ran past them, that he had finally grown a pair and shot somebody.
Charlie got outside and looked around. It was evening and he decided not to go to his hotel immediately. He wandered through the small town center thinking about what his next move should be. He didn’t have a next move. He had enough money to fill up his gas tank and get a dozen tamales and rent was due in the morning.
The sun was setting and he made his way to his hotel. He arrived just after dark and made his way into his room.
He grabbed his duffle, threw in a pair of jeans and two shirts and turned to leave. The one advantage of not having a pot to piss in – he thought – changing locations was easy…actually it got easier every time.
He stopped at the door and turned to look at the dirty room. He hadn’t looked back when he left Port Arthur and oddly enough he wondered why. Charlie wasn’t into introspection and considered the question to be akin to his room – something he would never see again - so he let the thought go.
Ironically, that one out of character glance gave Charlie a glimmer of hope. Charlie didn’t anymore know the condition of the Operation Manager than he did his wife the night he left her. And at that moment he wasn’t thinking about either. He was focused on a scrap of paper on top of the beat up chest of drawers that wasn’t there when he had left earlier that day. Charlie was a gatherer of receipts and other random scraps of paper from his travels and he frequently let them pile up whenever he stayed someplace for any period of time. One piece of paper was out of place. It was sheet of paper from a steno pad but it was neatly folded so it made a little A-frame structure atop a pile of otherwise flat scraps.
All it said was: Call me. 411
Charlie didn’t feel he had time to ponder just how said note had arrived in his room or when. He stuffed it in his pocket and left the hotel.
OPPORTUNITY
The next day Charlie found Darryl sitting on the curb outside the Salvation Army in Harlingen, Texas.
“Glad you could make it Charlie,” Darryl said as he put his brown paper bag on the street between his feet.
“Good to see you Darryl,” Charlie sat down on the curb beside him. With his shades and ball cap on Charlie looked like the dozens of others day laborers, homeless vets and other vagrants milling around the shelter without purpose.
“Any beds available tonight?” Charlie asked.
“Bed-bug epidemic going on. Problem’s pretty bad. No beds tonight, but Thursday is the first of the month,” Darryl paused to take a swallow from the bag.
“Yeah, first of the month,” Charlie thought about how the world changed at these places on the first. Benefits day – disability, SSI, retirement and a number of other types of compensation Charlie had never been able to get would arrive via direct deposit into thousands of bank accounts at the stroke of midnight. The homeless would flood into hotels offering weekly rates that actually amounted to twice what an apartment would cost monthly. This shelter would be a ghost town. Charlie looked forward to that.
“Slept in the bed of my pickup last night,” Charlie continued.
“Not bad, not bad,” Darryl looked up at the sky. “I know it’s been getting cold at night, colder than it has been. We may get a few nights of rain?” Darryl half-way asked with a sideways glance at Charlie. Darryl couldn’t read anything behind those dark glasses with the shadow of the ball cap’s brim over Charlie’s face. So he waited.
Charlie understood the question.
All truck drivers are superstitious. Border drivers in particular were obsessive when it came to the subject of road-luck. One thing border drivers agreed on was that going south laden was easier than going north, but going either way in the Spring rain made it harder. Lots of drivers even the legit ones would be taking the first part of Spring off from work. They couldn’t see the point of being on the roads with idiots who couldn’t drive on dry asphalt let alone with a thin coating of oil sitting on top of standing water. The Spring would offer some opportunities.
Two nights of vicious bed bug attacks later, Charlie was waiting under the awning of the Flying J truck stop. It was raining hard enough to limit visibility to just the first two rows of vehicles parked in the massive lot but Charlie was focused on the foot traffic. The pros got down from their rigs and walked in. Tourists ran for the front doors of the truck stop as if speed would keep them dryer.
Darryl had set up the whole thing. Charlie was sure Darryl was making a commission or finder’s fee for him standing in the rain but he didn’t care. Charlie stood to make five thousand dollars for one run. A south-bound run at that. Fuck the rain Charlie thought. Charlie was about to make a new life for himself starting in Harlingen, Texas. It sounded stupid even to him when he thought about it.
A man walked up to the newspaper bin, bought a paper, and seemed to read the headline before he tossed the folded newspaper in the trash. After the man got into a vehicle and drove away Charlie reached into the trash bin and pulled out the newspaper, carefully keeping it folded as he did so. He tucked the paper under his arm and walked into the truck stop, and went directly into one of the most sterile bathrooms he had ever seen. A good sign Charlie thought.
Charlie entered a stall, locked the door and leaned against it. Coffee or rainwater had begun to soak the paper but the contents had been wrapped in cellophane. Another good sign Charlie thought and immediately regretted it. He didn’t want to use up all of his luck before he got on the road.
He unwrapped the package careful not to stand over the lidless bowl as he did so. There was a prepaid phone with one hundred and eighty minutes on it - Charlie knew to check. A car charger for the phone, a dash mountable GPS device and a single key for the door and ignition attached to an alarm fob. Charlie noted that apparently he would not be involved in the unloading which was best in his opinion.
Charlie left the restroom, exited the truck stop and walked across the parking lot.
The truck was small. About the size of one of those twenty dollar a day U-hauls college kids used to hop from one dorm to another at the end of each school semester. The back was locked. That was good or irrelevant really because the load didn’t concern Charlie. His job was point A to point B.
Charlie got in the cab and plugged in both the phone and the GPS device. The GPS told him if he left now and had no incidents he would reach his destination just after dark. As driving in Mexico after dark had no appeal for Charlie he started the truck, checked the fuel gauge and drove away.
Minutes after he got on the highway the phone buzzed. Charlie used the speaker function. No point getting pulled over for driving and texting. That would be some amateur bullshit if ever there was any.
“Driver.” Charlie answered.
“It’s your information man…” Darryl said too loudly. He was obviously lit “…with some good news for you.” Charlie could hear Darryl swallowing.
“Do tell,” Charlie said.
“This new group, or old depending on how you look at it ha-haaaaaa,” Darryl’s laugh was cut short by a gruff voice in the background. “Look I’m not gonna waste your minutes my man. This is a double-header with an all-night lay over!” Darryl sai
d.
“What about the vehicle?” Charlie asked.
“Just leave it at the destination and our guys will take care of it. Tomorrow you pick it up right where you left it.” Darryl sounded more serious now, like a drunk who realized they were in cuffs with no memory of how they got to there.
What is this ‘our guys’ shit Charlie thought. Then he realized that it didn’t matter.
What did matter at this moment was that Charlie would need to find a hotel that accepted cash and didn’t ask questions, which meant a place that charged by the hour. Charlie couldn’t imagine what Mexican bed bugs would do to him.
“A layover costs extra,” Charlie said.
“No problem. This run is now paying ten grand total and five hundred for the layover. Get you a decent room for the night and sleep the sleep of the well paid young man.” Another protracted ha-haaaaa came from the phone.
Ten thousand dollars meant he could leave the states. Maybe go to South America or…well, South America. Charlie was silent trying not to let a drunk’s promises of milk and honey cloud his vision.
“Make it one thousand for the layover,” Charlie said. He wasn’t certain if he had pushed too far, but asking is free.
Charlie heard frantic whispering. It sounded as if Darryl was trying to gargle with that cheap shit he drank. Then the gruff voice could be heard again. Charlie was almost certain the person in the background was speaking German or Polish and he was absolutely certain the voice came from a large man.
“No problem my man. Safe travels,” Darryl said. Then the line went dead.
Charlie used his Wal-Mart Green Dot card to get a room a few miles from where he parked the truck. The six thousand he had agreed upon was on his card just as Darryl had said it would be. His road luck seemed to be holding. Charlie sat in his room for a long time. He thought about catching the Transportes Motezuma de La Laguna bus that came through. He could imagine seeing the Panama Canal and the Andes. In his mind he could even smell the ocean. Then abruptly he was back in his room where he could smell the stale cigarette smoke, spilled liquor and vomit. The nicer hotels in the area didn’t take Wal-Mart or cash.
