A Trucker's Tale

by Ed Miller

  On another break from college, I returned to WMTS to drive for three more months. This is when I met Junnie Jones. Junnie can’t be put in a box. He certainly danced to the beat of a different drummer and was either one-of-a-kind, or the mold was thrown away when he was born. I’m sure as hell that I will never meet another person like him.

  For close to a week, Junnie and I received duplicate dispatches. Each of our loads were picked up at the same shippers and delivered to the same consignees. We both questioned the accuracy of each dispatch, because it rarely happened that more than one load shipped daily from the same shippers to the same consignees, but sure enough, there were two loads waiting for us every time we pulled into a shipping location. We had several short runs of three hundred to four hundred miles and a couple longer trips of six hundred to seven hundred miles.

  Due to the fact that we ran together, we stopped at the same truck stops for fuel and food. Usually, when you spend this much time with another person, you get a pretty good idea of what makes them tick; with Junnie, I never did. After several meals together, I noticed that he always let me be the first to order, and then told the waitresses he would have what I was having, including whatever I’d chosen to drink. It didn’t matter what I ordered; Junnie always got the same. Curiosity eventually got the better of me, so I asked him about this. He said he didn’t much like or dislike any foods, and that the only reason he ate anything was because he had to eat to stay alive. He felt it was a hell of a lot easier to copy someone else’s order than to suffer the aggravating chore of having to make his own selections. If Junnie traveled alone, he would sit at the counter at truck stops and drink coffee until another driver arrived and sat beside him, and then he’d order what the other guy got. He said there were many times he had to laugh it off when one of the drivers referred to the “strange fellow” or “fruitcake” sitting next to him.

  As Junnie and I talked more, my assumption that his eating habits were only one of the unusual things about him was confirmed. He told me a number of “out there” stories and a good bit of them involved shotguns. One of them was of an event that took place several years before I met him. He said he’d been living in a house in a swampy section of Eastern North Carolina, and one day watched a snake crawl under his house. He didn’t think much about it at the time, but over the next few days, he saw several more snakes crawl under his house. When he finally opened the door to the crawl space, he found a den of snakes. Fuming, he went into his house, loaded his shotgun, reopened the crawl space door, and then, to borrow his words, “killed every one of those sons of bitches.” Unfortunately, he also killed most of the plumbing and electrical wiring running throughout the crawl space. He said he replaced the pipes and wiring by himself, and that although it was pretty expensive, at least he didn’t have to crawl around with live snakes down there. Kind of makes sense to me . . . kind of . . . .

  This snake killing story sounded so bizarre that if anyone else had told it, I would have been sure it was made up. But if Junnie couldn’t even think up his own food choices, I doubted that he could concoct his own stories, and damn if I wasn’t spot on in that judgment. Friends later told me they’d read about Junnie and the snakes in their local newspaper.

  Another of Junnie’s stories was of him being awakened during the night to find his wife straddling him and pointing a loaded handgun at his face. He asked what the hell she was doing, and she said that she would blow his damned head off if he ever messed with another woman. Junnie asked why she was saying this in the middle of the night, and she informed him that she couldn’t sleep; she needed to tell him how she felt. When Junnie finished this story, I just sat there shaking my head. For once, I was not able to utter a single word.

  Another story Junnie told me was that one day while he was sitting at his kitchen table cleaning his shotgun, his wife called down to him from the top of the stairs to ask if he was watching the television, which was playing in the den. He answered that he’d been watching, but wasn’t watching at that moment, so she asked him to turn it off. Half an hour later, she hollered from the top of the stairs, “I said to turn off the goddamned television!” At this, he calmly loaded his shotgun, pointed it at the television through the den doorway, and turned it off by blowing it all to hell. His wife ran down the steps yelling, “Why did you do that, you crazy bastard?!”

  “Well, you told me to turn off the goddamned television,” he replied.

  “What if I had told you to turn off the oven or the dishwasher?” she asked.

  Junnie must have taken it as a challenge.

  After all the appliances were blown, the police hauled Junnie off to the pokey. At his court appearance, he told the judge he didn’t know why everyone was so upset. Everything he had blown to hell was his, so what did it matter? The judge replied, “No, Mr. Jones, everything you did not shoot was yours. Everything you shot belonged to Mrs. Jones, and you’re going to replace all of Mrs. Jones’s appliances that you shot.”

  With a straight face, and in a manner he might have used to describe a mundane task like taking out the trash, Junnie told me he bought a new television, dishwasher, range, refrigerator, and washer and dryer. It seemed like it was just something that happened every day.

  Junnie told me that story just as our week together was coming to an end and I was relieved about that because the story left me shaking my head so much that I got a terrible headache. It sounded so bizarre that I felt sure he had made that shit up. But damn was I wrong; friends told me they had also read about this one in their local newspaper.

  For years after I left WMTS I wondered what happened to Junnie. All I knew was that he was there for a while and then went to drive for someone else, and I assumed that his shotgun must have continued to be a big part of his life. Just recently, I learned that he has driven for the same company for many years and is soon to retire. I believe he managed to take care of his demons, even if he probably blew the shit out of them.

  –

  We all hear horror stories of how badly cops have treated truckers, but I have no stories like this to tell because most of my experiences with the police were positive. One officer found me lost while roaming the streets of Manhattan one spring morning just after daylight. Observing one of New York City’s finest sitting in a three-wheeled cop mobile—which resembled a golf cart with NYC police markings—parked at a curb, I stopped and asked him for directions to a printing plant. He told me I had driven past the address, and explained that I needed to turn around and go back the other way.

  He said, “Can you swing it around in this intersection?”

  I replied that although there was enough room to make a U-turn, the traffic was too heavy to attempt the maneuver.

  He looked at me and with a wink in his voice asked, “You think so?” Then, to my surprise, he climbed out of his three-wheeler, walked into the middle of the intersection, blew his whistle to indicate that all traffic, from all four directions, should stop immediately, and looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “Well?”

  I quickly performed my 180-degree turn, waved thanks to him, and took off down the street. Half a block later, I heard his sirens and saw him approaching. I knew he wanted me to pull over and as I did, I was pissed. I thought, Damn, he set me up so he could give me a ticket for making a U-turn. But I’d thought too little of him, because far from ticketing me, he walked up to my vehicle and said he’d remembered the delivery address as being a “motherfucker” for truckers to get to. It apparently required that truckers back into the dock from their blind side. In trucking terms, the blind side refers to the passenger side of the vehicle, where the view can only be observed by looking through mirrors, as opposed to being able to also looking out the driver’s side window while backing up. He told me to follow him and not only did he lead me the half-dozen blocks to the correct address, but once again he got out of his vehicle to stop traffic for me. Any driver who has sai
d NYC cops were assholes hadn’t met this fine gentleman.

  Once in Chicago, I was directed to pull into a delivery alley to unload some furniture at a store downtown. I broke down four or five widow-maker heavy desks while the two lazy, bastard receiving clerks watched me damned nearly kill myself. When I finished unloading, I climbed into the tractor to continue through the alley since the receiver had said every other trucker did this, but, dammit, evidently the other trucks were smaller, because my 13´6˝ high trailer wouldn’t even come close to clearing some of the fire escape ladders protruding down the length of the alley. Since I couldn’t proceed without knocking them over, I slowly began backing up toward where I’d entered the alley, but I had to stop when I reached a busy sidewalk and an even busier roadway.

  I have no idea where he came from, but one of Chicago’s finest noticed my dilemma. He didn’t even ask me if I needed help, he just went ahead and stopped oncoming traffic by parking his car to block the lanes. The policeman got out of his car, halted the sidewalk pedestrians, and then directed me to continue backing onto the highway.

  Another good experience was with a Maryland state trooper on US Highway 301 North. Close to midnight, as I crossed the William Lane Chesapeake Bay Bridge east of Annapolis, CB-equipped drivers informed everyone that there was a “smokey,” our word for a cop, entering 301 North from Highway 50. I was driving the speed limit while pulling a refrigerated load of pharmaceuticals, so I maintained my speed knowing the trooper was behind me.

  The trooper soon passed me, and I flashed my lights to indicate to him that he’d safely passed me and could come back into my lane if he wanted to. He did, and he came on the CB and said, “Thanks, Mr. WMTS.” We conversed for a few minutes and he asked where I was headed. Replying that I was staying on 301 North, while heading to New Jersey, he told me he would not have a problem if I wanted to pick up my speed if the truck was capable, since he was the only trooper out tonight.

  It didn’t take too long before I started creeping up on him, and he said something like, “Man, I guess it is capable of more than the speed limit!”

  The trooper and I ended up having about ten miles worth of good conversation. When he had to exit, his parting words were, “I just checked and I’m the only cop out here tonight. The highway is clear to the Delaware line, so you can keep the hammer down. Hope to talk to you again someday.”

  I never saw, or heard, from him again, but the nice memory is still vivid.

  For the most part, very few truck drivers enjoy runs into New York City or Long Island. The exception to this are runs for deliveries being made near the end of Long Island, where the scenery is spectacular and the real estate makes you wonder where all that money comes from. Unfortunately, most truckload freight deliveries occur within about ten miles of crossing one of the river bridges. It’s also often necessary to deal with traffic at rush hour, which is always bad to horrible. Friday night rush hour, especially during the summer, is the worst, since everyone is in a hurry to get to the Jersey Shore.

  I had the misfortune of having to deliver to Maspeth, Queens, late one Friday afternoon in summer. The crush of cars, trucks, buses, and recreational vehicles clogged the roads so badly that traffic was inching along at just a few miles per hour. As I passed an on-ramp, and with no warning, I watched as the front end of a car tried to sneak between the front bumper of my International and the rear bumper of the car ahead of me, even though there must have been less than two feet separating us. Then came a crunching noise, along with a pulling motion on my steering wheel. Thankfully, there was an exit within one hundred yards. I pulled onto the exit so all the other drivers wouldn’t be cussing any more than they were already.

  Thanks to Lady Luck, there was also a phone booth at the end of the nearby off-ramp, so I pulled over, got out of the tractor, and headed for the phone—which is when I saw the driver who’d tried to squeeze in front of me pull into the off-ramp and then park in front of my truck. He jumped out and began yelling and pointing to his car, “Look where you tore up my boss’s station wagon!” He handed me his license and registration and I wrote the information on a piece of paper and gave them back to him. He told me to hand him my license and registration too, and I assured him that I would do so when the police arrived. When I turned to dial 911, the driver hollered at me, “You aren’t going to give me your fucking information, are you?”

  Once again I informed him that I would give my documents to him when the cops got there. Still yelling, he called out, “Fuck you, asshole!”

  He jumped in the car and squealed the tires as he roared off. As he was leaving, I verified that the license plate number matched the registration he had given me.

  After I called 911 and reported the incident, I asked if a cop could come to write a report. While I was waiting, I noticed some oil leaking from the plastic bearing hub cover on the front of my tractor’s right wheel. It had been broken and punctured when the station wagon hit it. I wiped it as clean as I could, and then learned another of the one thousand uses for duct tape. (Impressively, the tape would stay in place, preventing any more oil leaking, until I made it to a Philadelphia International truck dealer that night. It was a damned good thing the shop was open until midnight.)

  One of NYC’s fine policeman arrived about an hour after I called, which I didn’t think was too bad, considering all the congestion. He made notes of my version of the accident, and then asked where the station wagon’s driver went. I informed him of the driver’s parting farewell before he left, and the cop said something like, “Fucking unbelievable.” When I handed him the station wagon driver’s information, the cop said, “Well, the son of a bitch shouldn’t have left!” He then gave me a copy of the accident report and a copy of the citation he was writing for the guy.

  The following Monday morning, I was sitting in WMTS’s safety director’s office, filling out an accident report, when the safety director, Bill, received a phone call, which he quickly put on speaker. The very pissed-off station wagon owner loudly proclaimed, “Your truck driver destroyed the whole left side of the company car my employee was driving last Friday. What are you going to do about it?”

  Bill grinned at me, and then calmly replied, “Is your driver’s name Dino Avenelli?”

  He said it was.

  “Sir, if you will contact the precinct, you will learn that your driver has an outstanding warrant for his arrest for leaving the scene of an accident.”

  Bill provided the owner with the citation number, and then we could hear the owner giving hell to his employee.

  “Sorry to have bothered you,” he said curtly before hanging up.

  Of course, not all cops were helpful. One I encountered was more chickenshit than anything else. I had entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Breezewood, and then headed west toward Pittsburgh. The state police weren’t too creative around this location, and every trucker knew that a trooper was usually hiding behind the bridge close to the police barracks, and sure enough, when I hit the designated spot, the cop was where he was where he was supposed to be. Anticipating this, I had made sure I was driving at the speed limit, which is why I was surprised when he pulled out, turned on his blue lights, and pulled me over.

  I got out of the truck and walked back to his car—you were allowed to do that then—and he informed me that my trailer marker lights weren’t working. He then followed me back to the front of the trailer, where I climbed up onto the catwalk—the steel decking behind the truck cab—and jiggled the pigtail—which hooks the tractor lights to the trailer—and the lights came back to life. I’m not sure why this light connector is called a “pigtail,” because it certainly isn’t curly, but different wires run from the tractor into this one pigtail, which connects to a trailer and operates its marker, stop, and signal lights. I hopped down and thanked him for letting me know the lights were out, and I turned to head out but he stopped me and curtly told me to bring my license and truck
registration to his car. It must have been a slow night, or he must have needed to make a quota, even though lawmen will swear that there is no such thing as a quota, because the bastard issued me a ticket for my lights not working, or some similar infraction. I questioned why he had to give me a ticket, since now the lights were working fine, and he just shrugged and said that I should have jiggled the pigtail before I came around the curve where he was sitting. Due to the fact that I didn’t want him to write more tickets, I waited until I had driven away before I called him a hell of a lot of unkind things.

  Just about every driver knows there are times, usually an hour or two before dawn, when it is all-but-impossible to keep your eyes open. He also knows how helpful his CB radio can be in staving off his sleepiness because he can use it to shoot the shit with other drivers. Some nights he might talk with another driver for twenty to thirty miles. Other nights, he could travel hundreds of miles with another driver, talking trucks, family, football, or anything at all, really. It helps break the monotony and keep them both awake.

  One night I was driving while listening to two drivers chatting away. It was one of those nights with very little CB chatter, and I enjoyed listening to them for quite some time. They were talking casually, without all the foul language we truckers hear all too often, and other drivers were quietly listening too. Except for an occasional interjection with a smokey alert, we mostly just listened. Then, at one point, the driver of the rear vehicle came on the CB and excitedly shouted, in a very high-pitched voice, to the driver of the leading vehicle, “Hey, man, there’s something running alongside your trailer! I can’t see exactly what it is, but the son of a bitch is running right beside you! Oh, oh, oh, goddamn, wait a minute. It’s, it’s, it’s . . . it’s your motherfucking tie-yah!”