FanStory.com - Truckin, Ch 4by Wayne Fowler

In the last part Clyde enrolled in truck drivers’ school to better understand his enemy.

Chapter 4

Cutting cars off with quick lane changes and camping out in the passing lane were not the only infractions that Clyde noted as punishable offenses. Entering a freeway at a veritable crawl when it was within a driver’s control to accelerate to highway speed scored high. Certainly, a driver has no control over those ahead of him, but when a driver chooses to stop and sleep on a freeway on-ramp, limiting his approach distance to near nothing, he could not possibly reach a safe merging speed. Many times, Clyde witnessed truckers virtually demanding through traffic to take unsafe evasive actions – Truckers’ Prison. Dealing with these offenders was not terribly easy – unless you had all the time in the world. And also, if he didn’t insist on actually witnessing the crime, but simply assume the potential. That being the case, all Clyde need do once spotting trucks parked on on-ramps, or on the approach to freeways at the very end of rest stops, was to circle back. It might take hours to return to the scene, but who was counting? The easiest way, though, was to simply pull off at the next exit, wait for the offender to pass by, and then re-enter the freeway.

The first time Clyde attempted a truck stopped virtually on the freeway at the very end of the approach lane from a rest stop, his shot missed entirely, firing six of his eight rounds. He had to accelerate to freeway speed in order to safely merge, giving on-coming traffic most of his attention. Finding his right-side rearview mirror in the way of forward shooting, he had to wait until he was nearly broadside. Not knowing whether, or not he’d scored Clyde opted to wave it off and not circle back once again just to find out. He would need practice, which he got the very next day, but with no confidence in the results. This venture was cut short, and he returned home from a single state away.

Rather than making another rifle barrel hole enabling him to shoot forward, ahead of the side mirror, he decided to machine-gun fire, emptying the magazine in what he called Billy the Kid fashion down toward the bottom of the tires. His main concern then was to avoid the gas tank. Billy the Kid was known for emptying his gun in a fight, just throwing lead instead of aiming. Once reaching a semblance of merging speed and beside the offending truck, Clyde would do a no-look spray of bullets and hope for the best. If he scored, fine, if not, well, sometimes a trucker just got lucky. Not knowing whether or not he’d disabled the truck was disconcerting, leaving him dissatisfied, but he had learned to accept life’s shortfalls.

One extremely upsetting factor that sorely frustrated Clyde was the too-often inability to satisfactorily isolate an offending trucker. Traffic was simply too heavy, never letting up. Clyde surely hated to give up on a deserving victim.

Then it finally happened – calamity. All went routinely except that after setting his license plate correctly, Clyde saw in his rearview mirror that the driver had failed to control his vehicle. The truck jackknifed and then rolled onto its side, sliding to a stop totally blocking all lanes. Traffic would be stopped for hours, for miles. Clyde felt awful.

He considered using the next median cross-through, the path reserved for emergency vehicles only to survey the damage, as well as to immediately change his pattern. He nixed the idea as being too dangerous. He might be seen performing the illegal maneuver, or worse, recognized by the trucker. The next exit, six miles on seemed interminably distant. Using back roads, Clyde criss-crossed his way back in the direction he’d come, hoping to get to a motel in time for the evening news.

Clyde resolved to change tactics. Shooting the front tire was simply too dangerous, unsafe for following traffic. Taking aim at the tractor’s rear dual, drive tires, he would from that point on just snap off as many shots as he could, hoping to get both duals.

+++

“Hello, Dad! Wow, I finally got you!”

Clyde had moments before plugged his phone into the dash to charge it. “Hi, Corine! What’s up?” His daughter rarely called. He got right to the point in case there was a problem.

“Nothing much. There’s a three-day weekend this weekend and I thought Ellie and I would come see you.”

“Well, you know how much I’d like that, but, well, I’m not home.”

“Oh, where are you?”

Clyde had to think fast. The last time his daughter and granddaughter came to visit, he had connected with Ellie’s phone to locate each other. Clyde could track their progress. Would Ellie be nearby? Would she look to see where he was? He’d almost been ready to plead that he was revisiting a beach condo that he and Jane Ann had enjoyed so much. But that was before remembering about the phone tracking. He was on I-80, not terribly far from their Iowa house, and no real good reason not to go visit. He couldn’t tell her that he was anywhere near home because then he could go home for their visit. Out of time for a logical, honest answer, he simply stated that he’d been returning to places he and Jane Ann had once toured.

“You sure that’s healthy, Dad?” she asked.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt any more’n stayin’ home. Look, why don’t I come up in the next, oh … few weeks, or month, or so. Call your brother and figure out when would be good. And I’ll call you about it in a few days, Okay?”

They agreed, said their I love you’s, and ended the call.

Clyde had not kept count of his truck kills, but the authorities’ estimate was approaching two hundred. He wondered whether his kids had any suspicions, and what they would think.

+++

“Truckers’ Prison,” Clyde said to himself out loud, the same inflection as if Jane Ann had been at his side. A diesel rig a quarter mile up had been alongside another truck, attempting to pass for over a mile. He’d begun his pass just at the base of a long incline. The incline alone would have slowed him, and then add the headwind. Clyde knew what they taught in driver’s school: "It’s your road!”

Clyde increased his speed just enough to tag behind the offender, but not enough to draw the attention of cops. Atlas Trucking, one of the worst. Clyde held back, slowing to match the truck’s seventy-four miles an hour, waiting for traffic to allow his deed. “Humph, passing a truck, but not even going the posted seventy-five speed limit. Clyde pfffed again his disdain. He noted that the driver of the Toyota fairly close behind the truck that was being passed was driven by a woman talking on a cell phone. He thought nothing of it, except to shake his head at the ever-increasing frequency of drivers talking on cell phones. What he didn’t know was that she was speaking with the driver of the passing truck, advising him of the following Taurus, herself remaining behind the passed truck.

A half an hour later, Clyde calmly made his move, casually easing up beside the charged, found guilty, and soon-to-be-executed criminal, not noticing that the woman in the Toyota, still on the phone and a dash-mounted camera, had moved into the passing lane from behind a truck that was several hundred yards behind. Fortunately for him, he’d covered his plate before the woman came within range. The second before squeezing the trigger, though in hindsight, he might as well have followed through, just before triggering the .22 for the double tap, he glanced in his rear-view mirror. Though the darkened glass prevented anyone seeing his extended right arm, it did not conflict with his sight of the Toyota rapidly gaining on him. By then she would have seen his plate covering and accurately identified his Taurus.

Dropping the rifle, he hit passing gear, slicing across the front of the truck, barely missing him on his way to the shoulder of the highway where, with a fish-tailing correcting move, he braked hard, the truck and the Toyota whizzing past. Waiting for the following trucker to pass, the trucker’s horn blaring as he did, Clyde backed as quickly as he dared for nearly a mile where he saw a median cross-over. Dashing across the lanes and spinning tires in the cross-over dirt, Clyde raced to the nearest exit, expecting the woman to be on her phone to the state Troopers that very moment. Grateful for the Taurus’ 5.0 engine, he began several miles of Bonnie and Clyde's escape driving, hoping his inevitable shaking would await his stop.

He hoped to get off the freeway ahead of a westbound Trooper, and figured that eastbound Troopers would use his cross-over to reach the stopped truck and Toyota, who had parked at the scene of the non-crime. Troopers would want to see her video, which would no doubt be on that evening’s news. It was time to retire the Taurus.

Driving surface roads only, Clyde found a state park within the hour. He figured he had enough food for nearly a week, when it should be safe enough to drive home under the cover of darkness. His plan was to paint the Taurus and then to park it in the backyard, leaving it for emergency use only.

The shaking and vigorous heart palpitations began before he’d even retrieved his tent from the trunk. His major disappointment was that he did not have motel television to keep up with the news.

It was only after heading out in the morning that Clyde realized he’d left a paper trail. He’d listed his vehicle and license plate number, fearing that a State Park official would question falsified tag numbers. A fake name was no problem, but tags…? He considered stealing plates from another state, believing that the tag numbers would never be entered into a database.

Clyde gave no thought to the increasingly criminal nature he was adopting.