| an
ecologically questionable burial alternative |
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"Coffin Run"
an 18-wheeler story
by John Aalborg |
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Drive team? With a rookie who looked like a boy wearing makeup? Little did Bull Schaffner know the load would be even better. Bull felt of his clean-shaven face and the top of his balding, suntanned head. He was angry but determined to hold his tongue. This was the boss he was dealing with — the owner — not just Safety Director Spivak. Bull had to wonder, though, why Spivak's office looked oh-so-much better. The man said, "It's a deal you can't turn down." "I don't drive team." Bull glanced at the corner behind the man's desk where all his gear had been piled. If he were the boss there would be a fancy bookcase there, or an entertainment center like Spivak had. Not a pile of personal belongings pulled out of a tractor because the driver over-stayed his vacation a little too long. Even Bull's flatbed dunnage was leaning up against the wall — the vee-boards and the 8-foot 4-by-4's. The boss looked like a pink-skinned version of President Mubarek of Egypt. He was rumored to be Hungarian but his last name was actually, well, the plastic, wood-toned name-plate on his desk said, without the "Mister" everybody used: HOSNI
He was a little older than Bull's middle-age — rich
now, Bull assumed — who had started the company in the early
eighties
by driving a truck himself. A muscled, barrel of a man in a sharkskin
suit and a good haircut, his porky hands were folded in front of him on
the desk blotter. Big, flashy, diamond ring.... Mr. Hosni said, "You're at the prime of your life, Bull, your safety record is perfect, et cetera, so why do you keep jumping jobs? Stick with me, with us. We need your confidence and all those years of flatbed experience." Bull was thinking about that "confidence". Yeah, and when I'm in the sleeper I crawl under the covers and pretend, like when I was a little kid, that I'm safe under there. The cops aren't going to bust in looking for my gun. I'm not illegally parked on an off-ramp in New Jersey or Mississippi. I'm not over-weight. My plastic's not maxed out... "... Spivak cares about our drivers, but I love them." "Yeah, and I come back a day late and you move my stuff out of my unit and hand it over to some new dude. I emailed you I'd be late." "Two days late. There's twenty tractors out there waiting for a driver." "Exactly my point." "Yours was better and the new hire wanted it. Good record, a lot of experience.... Here's the deal. You don't quit. You don't find a new company and have to watch all their safety videos in a hot room on a picnic-table bench for three days. Instead you head up to Boston. The outer belt and US-1. Two blocks from Mike's truck-stop or whatever. You get up there, you pick up your new rig, and run a load to Miami. The load's hooked. It's a new tractor and your permanent assign. A Kenworth T-2000, not even broke in yet, like that wheels-oh-justice truck. As-seen-on-TV. Only yours is black. Batteries included." Hosni opened his mouth wide and his teeth exploded into his big smile. Teeth as white as a movie-star's. Gleaming, high-dollar, top of the food-chain teeth. "The driver abandoned it up there. Some special-made caskets to Miami. Curtain-side trailer. The driver used to be my girlfriend so if somebody puts a bug in your ear about that, hire a chick to blow smoke in it. From Miami you can deadhead here to Tampa and pick up one of our new flats when all this is over. The new ones got a little ladder in the back you can slide out, for you older guys. And we'll keep your stuff here safe and waiting on you. Why'd you paint your chain-binders purple? Those are company binders. My binders. I don't care, though, don't get me wrong. Why ten chains? I used to get by fine with eight." Bull ran the tip of his tongue back to the sharp edge of a crumbling molar, a piece of which had broken off into his bacon-cheeseburger a month before. For no apparent reason. Through no fault of his own.... He said, "When all this is over...." "My word on it." "And the KW is mine?" Bull looked at his stuff in the corner. Somewhere in there with the chains and binders and bungee-cords and his personal, titanium ratchet-bar, were all his clothes and his toilet articles. His coats and stuff from last winter. His snack-box full of jars of whole cashews, and his cans of "Sweet Sue" brand chicken-and-dumplings. His "Number-1 Lover" coffee cup and his Band-aid assortment and his deod. His 12-volt, Chinese vacuum cleaner.... "You could fly me up there." "You take your laptop with you on vacation?" "Huh? Yeah...." "You ever use an ultraviolet scanner? Dust for prints, test blood-type in the field? Shit like that?" "What? I'm a truck driver." "Okay." "Okay what?" This was one of those times when Bull had to wonder how some people made such a success of themselves. "How do I get up there?" "Looking at your last ten jobs, one says..." Hosni looked up from the papers in his hands. "I know every sparrow that falls, Schaffner. Says here you solved a missing driver case for them. Then there's the missing rig you found...." "I always wanted to be a P.I.." "Anyway, while you were building sand castles and popping Kalik beers in Bimini last week, besides the guy who got your rig we hired a rookie. I want you to drive team up to Boston with her. One run. Not a big deal. What've you got against team driving, anyway?" "I got this thing I saved." Bull dug out his wallet, and a little card. "A buddy of mine copied this from the net. They polled some team drivers, and a third of them said that at one time or another they'd dumped a partner before a run was over. The reasons?" Bull squinted his eyes at the card in his hand. "Neatness, twenty percent. Where and when to stop? Fifteen percent. What to do while waiting for a load, fifteen percent. Who drives when? Twelve percent. When you get home? Fifteen percent. Hygiene, fifteen percent." Bull shoved the card back into his wallet. "I got a better reason, though. Sharing a bunk. Laying a sleeping bag on top of it don't cut it for me." "I've got calls blinking on my phone. I'm offering you the best tractor we've got. Plus, it's a known fact in the office that your dispatcher, Pamela, thinks you're a god. What — is — the — problem?" "What's she like? My teamer?" "She can back a trailer into a hole with one hand and apply lipstick with the other. Straight out of driving school but she's a natural. You can show her how to read a map." "Not that R-model Mack out front." "Unfortunately." "The load with the four, iron pipes? That coffin sleeper? Team?" "We like to give rookies some incentive to earn a better rig. Besides, there's only room for one in that sleeper which is the way she wants it. The load's chained down and ready to boogie. You can stash your personal stuff in one of the pipes. I checked the weather forecast — I used to drive OTR myself, you know — clear skies, temp mid-seventies, no rain, perfect picnic-weather all the way. In other words you won't have to bury any children on the trail. Team, two days taking it easy, and you kiss goodbye to Rebecca in Boston when you pick up your new, Kenworth, made-in-the-USA rig. If that ungrateful dipstick who abandoned her left anything inside, it's yours." "Her...." "It's a KW T-2000. Pure P." "P is for Peterbilt." "Suit yourself." Hosni shot out a Nazi salute with his left arm to pull the cuff back from his golden Rolex replica, then bent the elbow and swung the watch into a dusty beam of sunlight streaming in from the blinds. Diamonds or whatever winked and flashed. "Take a minute to make up your mind." *
* *
An old, local driver, whom Bull had seen around the yard once or twice,
helped him haul his gear out beside the waiting Mack. The two of them
hesitated at the dunnage and the binders and the chains piled in the
corner of Hosni's office.The old guy said, "She's got her own stuff, and the chain-box is slam full. I seen it. Her cheater-pipe's got stickers of sunflowers pasted all over it. And little farm animals. She tossed the chains over the load herself, though, like they was nothing. She don't look like much but she's got this voice, well, throaty like. Sexy. When she talks you got to keep on looking at her so you know it's real. You'll see.... You best keep the CB away from her, though. Once that voice gets out on the air it'll take a toilet plunger to break through on channel nineteen." "Wonderful...." "She can back a trailer. Fast. I seen it. Back there in a hole yesterday she put a dead possum right between the right-hand tandems. So she wouldn't crush it too bad, she said." "Probably stuck to the tires permanent by now." Somebody behind them said: "No, I pried him out and gave him a decent burial." Bull wheeled around at the most wonderful, deep, female voice he had ever heard, then caught his breath. She looked like a fireplug in a jumpsuit. Like a boy wearing makeup. Buzz-cut, dark-eyed, bottle-blonde. "What are you looking at?! You expected E.T.?" "Uhhhh...." "Do I look like a serving of meat? Or what!?" "I'm a driver made out of meat. What about your mother? She made out of meat?" The rookie took a step back and smiled, and Bull sadly noted the white, perfect teeth. "Woe!" she said. "Good comeback! My name is Rebecca." Her eyes looked up and nailed his. "Your mother got the same sloping forehead? The prominent eyebrow ridges?" "Your mother short? Ooooops, I mean, vertically shorted?" "Maybe, but her elevator makes it to the top floor." Pamela, the dispatcher-made-in-Heaven, clicked out of the office with a fat, manila envelope and handed it to Bull. "For the rig you're picking up in Boston, baby." She glanced at Rebecca, then back at him. "Don't do anything I would do, Bull." Rebecca said, "In his dreams!" She hopped up into the Mack on the passenger side and waited. When Bull finally heaved himself up behind the wheel she had an atlas spread out on her lap. "I know the way to Beantown," Bull said. "Well, I don't. I did the pre-trip and my logbook is all filled out. Fuel is topped up. You waiting for something?" Heading onto I-75, Bull had to drop two gears to accommodate the 4-wheeler slowing down in the acceleration lane. "I had to drive one of these 5-speed Macks when I first started out," he said. "Once you get the hang of it you never forget. I hate 'em." "I love it. I've been driving this rig all week." That voice.... "Good. You can show me how much you love it in a couple hours." "I was thinking five-hour shifts." "I'm thinking I drive the city stuff. Period. I want to be able to sleep when I'm in the bunk." "If the hours-of-service work out..." "Are you a boy or a girl?" "I am a woman." "Woman, huh? You know what the 'wo' in woman means?" "Same as the first two letters of 'woof'!" "Good gurl." *
* *
In the pre-dawn darkness at the rest-area south of Florence, South
Carolina, Bull returned from the "rest" building to hear Rebecca's
deep-throat voice, like she was talking to herself inside the cab. The
window was rolled down and she was at the wheel. It was his turn to
drive and Bull was about to bang on the door when he realized she was
praying. He stood down there and waited, his fist balled up and
hovering in mid-air. She was praying for a loved one, somebody who died
name of Billy. She followed that with a prayerful reminder regarding
her concerns about herself and her safety and her health —
especially her health after "that horrible thing I did and will never
do again, never, never, with Your help". After a pause, as Bull's fist
relaxed and his arms hung down at his sides, she included a few other
people who needed help, by name — "please guide and protect them,
always" — then the same for foreign people, then all people, then
for
pets and animals, then a special one for guidance for "my new team
driver", then for relief for all animal suffering — "horses tied
to
poles in the hot sun, dogs chained up without water" — and after
that
Bull raised his fist again and whacked the door a good one.After the argument, he hauled himself up into the passenger seat. Let her drive a little longer. There really wasn't going to be much easy stuff running north on I-95, anyway. He could take over before Richmond, and run it through D.C. and Baltimore. "And from now on, when I'm in the coffin I want you to stay off the CB." "Coffin?" "The sleeper!" Bull noticed she had her thumb keying the mike even as he was speaking. Nothing shy about the way she pulled back onto the big-road, though. Perfect, progressive shifting-up with the mike glued to her right hand. And that voice! When he closed his eyes he could hear the voice of every girl and movie star he had lusted after since boyhood, all sucked into one. North Carolina. Rebecca yapping into the mike. They crossed US-74 and the CB crackled. "What's the twenty on the baby doll?!" "I think it's the flatbed with the pipe load. The Mack. Northbound, coming up on the coop." "I ain't never seen the promised land, but I think I heard it." Rebecca keyed the Mike. "Thank you, baby." "Oooooooooh, baby doll!" She suddenly flicked on the right directional and started hitting the brakes. Bull straightened up in his seat. "What are you doing?" "I can't drive over that scale. They listen to the CB and they're going to stare at me through that window. And then they'll see what I really look like, and..." "You look fine. Get back on the road." "Fine?" Bull was tempted to tell her she was beautiful, but decided against it. "The coop is on my side. I'll sit up tall." *
* *
"Richmond," she said. "All these lanes!" Bull was at the wheel and
Rebecca, after climbing into the tiny sleeper, had pretzeled herself
around and was looking out between the seats. Her mouth was inches from
Bull's ear.Bull was saying, "I remember back when all this was under construction and I thought how great for the city fathers to make it so wide, plan ahead, instead of always one step behind like I-94 through Chicago. They'll be working on I-94 after Mrs. O'Leary's cow gets out of Purgatory." She whispered, "Purgatory...." The hair on Bull's arms bristled, and the word wrapped itself warmly around his neck. Purgatory.... He tried to picture her without the red jumpsuit ten sizes too big. He tried to picture driving team with her after this trip. She could drive okay, and maybe he could even get used to that buzz cut. He checked the mirrors for problems — okay — and raised his right hand. "Let me feel your head," he said. "I never was with a girl with a crew cut." She poked her head past his ear and he felt of it. "Feels good!" he said. He brushed his hand back-and forth again, and tripped his fingers over her little ears. "You have cute little ears, too." Her head ducked back into the coffin. "I'm not a girl, I'm a woman. And I'm not cute, I'm beautiful." "Me, too." "You're old." Bull swallowed. "And you're married." Bull checked the dashboard. Sixty-eight miles per hour at 2000 RPM. All the dog would do. He checked the air, the oil pressure, the engine temp, the pyrometer, the manifold pressure... "I checked," she said. "You're married." "Yup. One of the good guys." "Married more than once, Mister Hosni said." "Yeah, well, when you're young...." "Without benefit of a divorce, Mister Hosni said." "Bless his heart!" "He said all I had to do was put up with you until we find your new ride, that KW. That abandoned rig." "He said that? Like I'm hard to get along with?" "He said I'd have more fun watching submarine races." Bull thought about it. "He told me he loves me." "Me, too. I'm his new girlfriend, by the way. Keep that in mind." "He's married." "Purgatory," Rebecca said. "See you there." Bull was not Catholic but he had "gone steady" with a Catholic girl way back in high-school. She told him all about it, Purgatory, on dates, and whenever she knew they were going to go too far she would tell him that she would have to tell about it during her next confession. Purgatory.... Neither Heaven nor Hell, but some dreary place in between where you could be stuck for years. For centuries. Maybe even forever. I-94 north through Chicago from Gary always reminded him of her, and Purgatory. Sometimes time would seem to magically stop and the trip through the Windy City would stretch on forever and ever without end. He would daydream then about her, or his frustrated desire to be a P.I. — a private trucking investigator — or the DJ he wanted to be as a kid. If he were a DJ now he'd get a job in Chicago and get the greatest audience share in the area and then he would get all his listeners to do something he'd been plotting for years — get the newspapers in on it, too, and the TV stations — get everybody who lived and worked in the thirty-mile-long megapolis to do this one thing. Get everybody in all the highrises and skyscrapers and factories and whorehouses to flush their toilets at twelve noon on a day he would specify. The whole city would break off and float out into Lake Michigan. "Bull! You're all over the paint!" His eyes widened and he jerked out of his slump at the wheel, and checked the mirrors — whew! — his heart pounding but not just because he had been drifting off. It was that low, electric, female voice — the wake-up shock and impossibility of it — turned to velvet now and worming through his brain. "Pull over, I'm driving." "D.C. up ahead." "The beltway is a bite of cake and you know it. And while you're feeling vulnerable and properly contrite and humiliated, you need to know Mister Hosni said I'm to go with you when you pick up your rig. Make sure you don't hook up with the driver, or make some kind of deal with her, or..." Bull knew the reason he wasn't getting enough sleep was the cluttered bunk. No shelves to put stuff, the lotion bottles and make-up kits all over the mattress, the way she used her clothes for blankets, her underwear hanging from the vent levers at both ends, and the pillow smelling like perfume, with loose jewelry and family photographs under it.... "He doesn't trust me?" "Bull.... Would you trust you?" *
* *
Daytime I-495, the outer Boston belt, and exit-14 to US-1. They passed
the truckstop and found Bull's new rig two blocks down, parked in full
view of the highway."Well, there's your new Ken doll," Rebecca said. It was alongside what appeared to be a large, old funeral home which had been converted into a small casket factory and showroom. Sign said: CASKET CREATORS Wired & Custom but you could still read the faded "Butts Funeral Home" over the white-columned veranda. The T-2000 was a black beauty, and Bull's heart was jumping at the sight. Until this moment the best tractor in his life had been the last one, a '95 Peterbilt 377 with a weapons-grade 4 1/4 CAT. Even the HOSNI logo on the KW's doors looked good, in gold leaf instead of the usual red paint. The curtain-side trailer was black, also, but with no markings. Bull had just enough room to pull alongside, and the R-model Mack shuddered to a stop when he pulled the parking brake prematurely. "Hey!" Rebecca hollered at him as he jumped down and headed for the Kenworth. Even when she shouted, it was a voice Hollywood would kill for. "Your log entry? Hey! Take care of business first!" A quick look inside. Clean. Loaded. Double-bunks and a TV and microwave; a pull-out laptop desk; thick, freshly-vacuumed carpeting; the lower bed made-up with a black coverlet with a PLAYBOY bunny logo (he would have to get rid of that - duh), the CB radio with what looked like a linear above it, CD stereo.... Familiar fifteen speed. No GPS, Bull noticed, but there was a cell-phone with a built-in charger and a satcom modem connection.... "Mister Hosni said you would like it." Bull looked down from the open driver's door at a short, smiling , thirty-something man with a mangled mouth and a huge mustache hanging over it. Bull turned his head sideways a little and tried to peer through the mouth hair. "Lit a cherry bomb while I was holding it in my teeth." "Oh! Yeah, well, when you're a kid...." "Last year. Fuse was shorter than I thought. Like the truck?" "Yeah," Bull said, "But..." "May I come in?" "No!" Bull leaned toward him. "Who are you?" "Donald Butts. I took over the business after my father died. Strictly casket manufacturing now. Designer caskets. The poor and the unplugged and the Charlie Tunas of the world will pay plenty to lay their loved ones to rest in luxury, but the rich and wired will pay the universe. My father, rest his soul, was looking through the wrong end of the binoculars but I have decided to fish in higher-revenue streams." Donald looked like one of those Russian, wooden dolls down there — shiny face on top of a bow-tie and a dark-gray pin-stripe suit. "I have an envelope for you. Mister Hosni's request. Shhhhhhh! Cash, to ensure a safe and direct trip to Tampa." "Miami, then Tampa." "There's been a change in plans. Before you make the drop in Miami, a single casket goes to your terminal in Tampa. Playboy-Pink, you can't miss it. In the left-middle but it will fork off the side. The new manifest is in the envelope." Bull sighed, but what the hell. His new "Ken doll", as Rebecca put it, would make up for everything. He whipped past the wheel and scrambled down to the ground frontwards, forcing Butts to jump out of the way. Bull wanted to look under the hood but before he could do anything another man walked up. Looked and dressed like a truck driver in the movies — one of those Burt Reynolds ones with a full head of black, wavy hair. "You guys got your stuff out of the Mack?" Burt took a step closer. "You leave the papers for the load? I need to get rolling." Butts ignored him and turned to Bull. "Mister Hosni wants the first drop in Tampa ASAP. You'll need to drive team to make it in time." Rebecca said, "That okay with you, Bull?" The Burt Reynolds driver turned and looked at her, his mouth hanging open and his perfect teeth gleaming through his perfectly trimmed mustache. "What you hear is not what you get," Bull said. "That okay with you, Bull?" Rebecca repeated. "One more run together?" "Uhhhh...." Bull was flipping through the money in the envelope. "Fine with me," he said. "Wait. What do I do with the other driver's stuff. It's all over the cab. Chick stuff, and blouses hanging in the closets...." Butts smacked his forehead to punish his forgetfulness. "I was supposed to box that all up and ship it. Thirty minutes." He pulled out a radio and did some fast talking into it. "What about my stuff?" Rebecca said. Bull said, "Go ask Mister Butts here for a couple garbage bags to put it in. You can shove them in the load somewhere." *
* *
They had their stuff off the Mack and on the ground, waiting for Butts'
men to clean out the KW — their dark suit-jackets hanging from
the
mirrors but their ties firmly knotted. Bull was going over the manifest. "Prices are x'd out," he said, "but every one of them is five or six digits dot zero zero. And serial numbers on coffins?! Look at this, Becky. Each one has an email address!" "My name's Rebecca." Bull was glad they were not AOL addresses. He hated AOL. "Says here, internet connection included but must be renewed one year from date of sale. They're wired! I gotta see this! How do these curtain-sides work? Oh, a crank...." Both of them gawked at the load. Three high with plenty of space in between, but each layer was strapped in like a jigsaw puzzle to fit the unusual and varying shapes. And the colors! But Bull was more interested in how they could be wired. "Must be battery powered," he said. "Look. They all got a transponder on a cord. Must mount on the headstone or whatever...." Butts came trotting up. "Just a few more minutes and you're on your way. That trailer was sealed when she pulled it out, well.... Mister Hosni intercepted some email the driver was sending through the company network. She was planning on hijacking the load to LA and unloading the rig with it. You ever see Mister Ratkodan Hosni pissed off? Anyway, you're looking at a million dollars, this load. Come on with me to the showroom." They followed him up the brick walkway to the veranda — Bull looking from side-to-side for more clues — the columns needing paint, the lack of people coming and going, the Cadillac hearse parked out in front polished to perfection but with the chassis blocked up and the tires just a hair off the ground.... "Dad died in it," Butts said. "His memorial, so to speak. Now then, these plate-glass windows are new, and the showroom is right up front where the parlors for the mourners used to be. Mostly wholesale now, the demand has been that great." Inside, the display of caskets, with spotlights augmenting the skylights, was more dazzling than the load on the truck. Near the entrance, another of the Playboy-Pink models, the lid closed and taller on one end than the other. "This one, in terminal pink, is called Eternal Hutch. Hefner loves it. We were going to name it Tail's End but that would be tacky, don't you think? Anyway, the client's loved one is placed inside in a semi-sitting position," Butts explained, "with hesheit’s favorite laptop on the lap, so to speak, open, hands placed over the keyboard. Before burial, the laptop is turned on but in 'stand-by mode', but the connection to the internet is activated after burial, at the client's discretion. Each unit has a unique email address, which serves as the activation password." Butts lowered his voice. "Just between you and me, many of the clients, you know, the deceased's loved ones, even after spending all this money, well, they don't activate the connection. I believe they're afraid to! Anyway, the battery supply in the casket can be recharged from above ground and each charge is good for about half a year. Same cord as the transponder. We've already had a few clients claim to have received email from the dead, and one claimed we were in on it to keep the concept alive. Don't worry, we don't need to resort to scams like that." They moved on. "This is the Max Headroom but we're still in negotiation regarding the name." They moved on to a narrow coffin with a peaked, wood-shingled roof. "Here we have — yes, it's small but it's still wired, or wireless, so to speak — The Kikwit, named for that Ebola virus outbreak in Africa. The emergency oxygen supply is optional, but standard in most of the other models." Next to The Kikwit was a much larger model but in the same shape. "For third-worlders whose loved ones die en masse, like those overloaded buses they're always sending down mountain ravines with no survivors. It's a family-size model. The Zaíre can house two adults and five or more children depending on age and nutrition. Great for ferry-boat capsizings, too! When I came up with The Zaíre I thought, well, it might make the Boston Globe but I'll never sell any. Guess what!? The demand has outstripped production, hell, you would not believe how many of the top kleptocrats in Africa and The Philippines and Indonesia et cetera want to keep their upper-tier accident victims together and in style. Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan.... And I can't get enough skilled help to run three shifts!" They moved on and stopped at what looked like a giant, earth-toned cube, with crane-hooks instead of handles for the pallbearers. "This is The Mother," Butts said proudly. "Ever see those exposès on the evening news where some overweight, welfare-cheat foodstamper dies weighing four-hundred plus pounds with a hundred plus k stashed in the bank? This is for them, but we've only sold one." They moved on to a normal-sized but capsule-shaped, bright-orange unit, which looked like a giant pharmaceutical. "This is The Seconal. The client has to score the lethal dose of Seconal he, she, or its self, though. On D-day, hesheit washes down a bottle-full with a glass of vodka, climbs in, and closes the lid he, she, or its self. If the suicide isn't successful, there is always email to a friend or family member. It's the only unit where the internet connection can also be initially activated from the inside." Butts raised his voice to a high, squeaky pitch. "Help! Quick! Come to the house! Open the coffin in the living room, I'm still alive!" They moved on. And on. And on. Finally, Butts said, "It's making me rich beyond my wildest dreams!" Rebecca looked him over, up and down, and Bull noticed a fleeting grimace. She said, "Richer than Hosni?" Butts smiled big. It was his "Just say no to fireworks" smile. *
* *
On the pavement at the truckstop, before heading for the showers and
then the big road south, Bull stood smugly over Rebecca as she fished
through one of her trash bags for a change of clothes. She pulled out a
small, leprechaun-green jumpsuit. "This little one fits," she said.
"The zipper doesn't go all the way to the top so don't get ideas.""Big deal." "Anything I need to know about that Pete 377 you were assigned before you went on vacation?" "What? No. I kept it perfect. Why?" "It's mine when we get back. That new driver they hired didn't work out." "You're jumping from an old R-model, five-speed, single-stack Mack to my Pete?" "Mister Hosni loves me." *
* *
Bull was back from his shower in twenty minutes, and he felt spiffy. He
figured he had some time so he plugged his laptop into the KW and
checked the connection. Not as fast as a DSL wire but it would do! Then
he went down the manifest and typed in the email address of the casket
they were dropping at the terminal in Tampa. What to write? He
shrugged, picked "Hello!" for the subject, and in the message area he
typed out "Anybody home?" Smiling at his own wit, he suddenly
remembered to type in his personal reply-to address before clicking
"send". Then he downloaded his email. Mostly stuff he could deal with
later. A few friends. One of his wives. A job offer from McKay Trucking
he'd seen before. A message from Hosni assuring him that his loyalty
and performance would be returned in kind. Another message began to
download in the background and Bull clicked on it. The reply-to address
was the serial number and ISP for the Playboy-Pink coffin!The message came right to the point. HELP! GET ME OUT OF HERE! Bull stared at the screen, and didn't move when Rebecca climbed up in on the other side of the cab. Bull could feel her breath on his ear. "Don't get in a wad about it," she said. "Let her do a little pre-purgatory." Copyright 2007 John Aalborg |