FanStory.com - Truckin, Ch 10by Wayne Fowler

In the last part we learn more of the issues that family truckers experience while on the road. The authorities finally caught on to Clyde’s jammer.

Chapter 10

Clyde’s jamming system seemed to be functioning fine. For Peterbilts, though, he learned, he needed to get just a little closer and give it six seconds. After the first success, he found where he could safely stop and check out the gear. All seemed well, except for the truck bed temperature – too hot. The next trip home he would try to ventilate the bed, maybe install one of those fancy, schmancey indoor, box A/C units. Just plug’n play.

Since he was exposed more to the new device, letting truckers get a better description of his outfit than they had with his car, he utilized official crossovers more than in the past. He also took more evasive moves, using country roads that might not be considered escape routes. Mindful that a white F-150 parked between trees out in the country might be suspicious-looking to a local, when Clyde felt he needed to stop and park for a while, he tried to do his hiding in plain sight: at a park, local, or state, at a Walmart, or on a side street next to a pickup truck dealership.

Checking the national news, he often saw reports of his exploits. Some incidents being attributed that he’d been nowhere near, truckers suffering breakdowns wanted a few minutes of fame. He found comical the few truckers who agreed to interviews, expressing stupor, and total ignorance as to why they might have been selected, set apart from all the other truckers. Their lying was transparent. Once, the camera broke away from the trucker, focusing on a scraggily bearded, overweight, shaggy-looking character about fifty years old. The guy started babbling as if asked a question, “I seen him, I did. He was shootin’ out that off-ramp on two wheels, slingin’ gravel. I thought it was one a’ those gas trucks. You know, the frackin’ people, wearin’ that white hard hat. I knew I couldn’t catch him, flyin’ up 213.”

It was on Highway 213. That was Clyde, but he wasn’t flying, always careful to drive over-easy, as he called it. Reflecting, Clyde figured that the guy saw the incident as he drove south on 213, his white pick-up close in front of the diesel rig, and then shooting away as the trucker rolled to a stop. Taking the exit that was just car lengths ahead, the guy had a bird’s-eye-view.

“So, I came down the off-ramp, and well, here I am.”

The reporter from Cheyenne attempted a question.

“I was a trucker,” the Good Samaritan added quickly. “Hurt my back.”

The editor cut him at that point. Clyde wondered why he’d let him continue at all until he saw the camera pan to a load of small bales of hay on the bed of his beat-up Sierra.

Clyde turned off the TV to think. He was relieved when he remembered that he hadn’t flipped the plate cover off until up 213, the exit being so close to the action.

He would lose the white hard hat. And go back to a Taurus, and have a back-up vehicle for while at home, anyway. And he would paint his F-150. A trip to Harbor Freight, a can of Forest Green as well as a can of Clear Coat, the green specific to Ford, from off the shelf at an auto supply store in a different state. With ultra-fine grit emery paper and blue tape for masking, he was ready to change stripes. By the time he was finished, he didn’t know how in the world Earl Scheib could have ever painted a car for $29.99. Letting the truck sit in his garage for a week, or so, he outfitted his reddish-maroonish Taurus, a hole in the side window, and set off to do some retro throw-back hunting, give the reporters and the FBI something else to consider, namely, that there may now be two Turnpike Terrorists.

In no particular hurry after getting a late start, Clyde pulled into the first rest stop he came to. It going on evening, he wanted to check out the game, survey his prey. He had no intention of using the facilities. He never would. Too great a risk of a trucker taking a wild, but lucky, guess. Neither would he ever use a rest stop to sleep for the same reason. He has, though, on occasion, stopped briefly to study a map, though his preference was to take an exit, cross over, and stop on the on-ramp across the road. This time, he idled through the rest area simply to get a feel for the atmosphere. It was well worth the risk. Huddled in three separate groups, he saw truckers engaged in some sort of parley. By body language, he also surmised that they were packing heat, armed. Hmmm. He wondered if any might shoot a hole through his own pick-up’s windshield. Maybe one who owned his own rig. It was certainly something to consider.

He also noted civilian cars, muscle cars he used to call them, alongside some of the trucks. Escorts, maybe? Armed guards? Today’s Pinkertons? Maybe. He would have to be alert, conscious that they might lurk a distance behind, ready to call his trucker to cut him off and entrap a car or truck that resembled a suspected vehicle. Clyde decided to let evil-doers go for a while and watch for a truck and guardian team. Not seeing one that evening, he circled back, timing his pass by the rest stop in hopes of spotting one of the teams he’d seen the evening before.

He did. Matching their speed, trying to keep at least one car between them, it was almost a hundred miles before a white F-150 approached from behind running the fast lane at least ten miles per hour over the limit. Sure enough, the truck cut him off, making the pick-up hit his brakes. As many male drivers do, the pick-up, once finally past the diesel, made a quick cut back and gave him a brake check, hitting his brakes and forcing the big rig to hit his own. “It was not at all like I would have done,”” Clyde thought.” I would have let traffic clear, driving normally, waiting until I could have my way with him unmolested, even if it took hours.” Clyde would be in no hurry.

The guardian rocketed ahead, cutting off a car himself. Once he reached astride the truck, the position of his right hand as seen through the back glass, plainly held a pistol aimed at the pick-up driver. Then it was off to the races. Clyde took an exit long before catching up to them, not interested in becoming bound up in any sort of mayhem. He fought disturbing thoughts about a potential incident of a pick-up driver being caught up in his vigilante game.

+++

That night Clyde spent in a state park for the first time using a small, one-man tent and the few camping supplies he’d purchased several months back when he’d first begun his campaign. Not bothering with cookware, Clyde was content with nutrition bars, fruit, and crackers. Since Jane Ann’s death, his appetite, and interest in tasty foods nearly disappeared. Nothing excited him. Even the last ice cream he’d eaten was with Jane Ann. “It would be like cheating on you,” he once quipped. “I’d never go to a Sonic without you!” Since losing her, he’d lost over twenty pounds, but felt fit, glad to be rid of the caffeine addiction, as well as the need to eat four or five times a day.

Trying to settle down, a group of men, probably fishermen of the park's river, became rowdier and rowdier, their friendly raucous behavior preventing sleep. It was obvious that one of them was the superior fisherman, or at least far luckier that day. To Clyde, the man's pride was off-putting. Instantly, Clyde transferred the man's psyche to his own. To what degree was his success affecting his nature? Was he proudly zapping his targets, or did he maintain his original impersonal mind-set? He didn't have an answer, only that he did not want to be the trophy blow-hard of the neighboring campsite.

Without conscious knowledge, Clyde picked up his pace the next several days, working longer hours by earlier starts and later evenings. Almost by rote, he methodically sidelined trucks one after the other, day after day, scoring sometimes more than a few per day. Keeping to his methodology – randomly hopping to a different freeway after each hit – he began to add the north/south freeways to his routine, wondering why he hadn’t used those highways from the start.

Glad he’d taken the CDL course, Clyde was more careful of tanker trucks. He hadn’t known the degree to which sloshing partial loads affected handling. It would be unconscionable to cause a rollover and subsequent calamity. He resolved to lay off tankers … or at least to exercise extreme caution if a tanker driver insisted on being sidelined.

Tanker trucks caused Clyde to take note of load placards. He’d generally avoided tanker trucks during his rifle days for fear of one jackknifing and then being rammed by another big rig. His ray gun brought them back into play. Recalling the classroom study, Clyde paid closer attention to placards that described hazardous, or volatile loads: explosive, flammable, corrosive, toxic, infectious … even radio-active. Each designation had placard detail requirements. For example: a diamond-shaped red and white “dangerous” placard must be accompanied by another citing the specific dangerous material. Also, placards had specific placement regulations. Rules indicated whether placards were legitimate, or that the operator was deserving of punishment. For example, a truck bearing an “explosives” placard but parked near a bridge … no, no, no. Either he’s lying, or stupid. Either way …

The lying concept caught Clyde’s attention. The awareness made him take note of certain placards that didn’t fit. They didn’t seem right: too new, misplaced, misaligned, on the back but not on the side.

Clyde began to include some of them in his targeting whether they’d committed crimes or not.