(For those not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s the National Novel Writing Month – in brief, slap 50,000+ words onto the screen as a “zeroth” draft of a novel. It’s not pretty, it’s not even a first draft, it’s simply an exercise in “Just – Keep – Putting – Words – TOGETHER!” and seeing what comes out the other side. I’ve done it five times and “succeeded” twice. I’ve decided to be incredibly self centered and foolish open about my process so I’ve put my work up here on this site for the last three attempts. Just do a search to see some of the crap I’ve inflicted on my loyal readers in the past. Actually, that might not be totally true – while being “zeroth” drafts, at least three of them had stories and characters that I actually thought were pretty good if I ever managed to get past the NaNoWriMo stage, finish them, and then start editing.)
Fits and starts. I had a car that used to run that way…
One thing I figured out was that I really didn’t have any clue where to go with that second character. The dude with the truck. What was his name? That might be a good place to start.
Well, let’s put him on the road and see how miserable I can make his life. Maybe my muse will find an interesting direction for him to go.
All comments will be welcome.
ANY BAD SITUATION CAN BE MADE WORSE
CHAPTER FIVE
“Listen, Boss, I know what you told me about being in Malibu. I’m making the best time I can. I’m already breaking half the regulations on the books about required sleep periods for a rig this size and those pills you gave me have me buzzing so bad that I’m about to vibrate into another dimension. If I get pulled over right now, I’ll lose my license and you’ll have your equipment impounded. And I know that you don’t want that!”
The pause over the satellite phone connection stretched out just like the road ahead. It stretched out long enough so that Ed glanced over to make sure that he hadn’t lost the connection.
“Yes, Ed, I am aware of the problems that I would have to deal with if my equipment was impounded and the expense necessary to recover it and cover up anything that any local bumpkin might see in poking around with it. What do you call them? ‘County Mounties?’ They’re so inconvenient to get rid of. As for you, if you get thrown into some backwater jail cell for violating some safety regulation or the other, you can sit there until the heat death of the Universe.”
“Gee, thanks, Boss, that’s so kind and considerate of you. And after all that I’ve done for you!” Ed tried to put the sound of some dunderheaded hurt feelings into his voice to cover up the loathing.
“Ed, how did you ever get a doctorate in physics without understanding second grade geometry? Do you not know that the fastest way between two points is a straight line? How can you possibly expect to get where you’re needed while driving over 300 extra, unnecessary miles?”
Oh, good, Ed thought. Let’s go over this all again. That should kill another 100 miles of boredom.
“Boss, the road was blocked back in Indiana. I told you about that, and you saw that it only got worse. To go the shortest route would have meant waiting for those trains and that bridge and then the bridge got stuck and traffic backed up and it was a nightmare for almost twenty-four hours. I got lucky and made the right choice by going south and you know it.”
Ed had no clue how or why he had gotten that lucky, but he would take it. He might still be sitting at that little crossroads if he hadn’t boogied when he did.
“Yes, Ed, you did well by taking an alternate route to the south. But how did you end up all the way in TEXAS? Why did you have to go THAT far south? And you were in Texas yesterday! What are you still doing in Texas? What have you been doing with my precious time?”
Through that entire tirade the Boss’ voice had been rising precipitously in both pitch and volume. Ed hoped that there wasn’t any glass nearby wherever his lair was.
“I’ve been driving. Without sleep. With minimal food and rest stops. At precisely the speed limit to avoid any complications with any local constabularies. You really need to get out into the real world more, Boss. Texas is BIG!”
Another long pause. Ahead Ed could see that the Texas border was finally here, along with a notice that the New Mexico Port of Entry would require him to pay them a brief visit.
“Boss, I’m going to have to get off the line. You’ll be happy to know that I’m about to leave Texas, but I get to do some paperwork in New Mexico. Listen, I know that you said thirty hours to Malibu and I’m going to be a few hours past that, and I’m sorry, but…”
There was a warbling sound, an alarm, insistent in tone if not yet in volume. Ed looked over at the panel that took up the space where the passenger’s seat used to be. Several of the small monitors there were now active, showing charts and readings against an orange background.
“Are you getting an alert, Ed?” the Boss asked. “I’m seeing readings on the satellite feed that show activity over ten times the background readings.”
“Yeah, Boss, I’ve got activity here and a lot of it. It’s going up fast.” As Ed crossed out of Texas and into the Land of Enchantment, he started downshifting to slow the large truck in anticipation of the exit to the weigh station ahead. After hours and hours of boredom and pills being used to keep him awake, adrenaline was now doing the job and he suddenly had way too many things to do at once.
“Boss, I’m muting you but leaving the link open for you to monitor. All recorders are running. I’m putting the console in stealth mode and locking the system, full security protocols. Buh bye!”
With that he started hitting switches, entering a security code into the numeric pad. The alarm silenced itself, all of the monitors went dark, and he was able to return his full attention to his driving. There weren’t many other trucks so he pulled into a short line at the scales.
The New Mexico Highway Patrol officer in the booth was bored and hot. Hot was the norm out here in the desert, except when it was freezing. He preferred hot. The useless little A/C unit in the booth was better than the completely useless, miniscule heating unit.
A random number generator clicked over in the system monitoring and recording truck weights and registrations and the lights in the center of the three incoming truck lanes switched to indicate to that driver that they should pull over for an inspection. After a second the lights switched back, indicating the driver should pull through. Then back to stop. Then go.
The office hadn’t seen that happen before, but it was past time for one of the random inspections. Before things got out of hand and these glitchy lights sent someone crashing into someone else, he rose, stepped out of the booth into the heat, and held up his hand to stop the driver of the next vehicle in the center lane.
As the lights initially switched, Ed saw a small, unmarked indicator LED light up on his dashboard. As he expected, the traffic lights immediately switched back from red to yellow and he kept the truck edging forward off of the scales. To his surprise, they switched back to red, then started strobing between red and yellow. Before he could react, the cop in the booth was out in front of him, waving his arms and holding up his hand.
Ed stopped. Shit! That override system had never failed before, so he had never had to stop before. He knew that his paperwork was in order and their cover story was air tight, but he liked it better when their security didn’t get tested to begin with.
He rolled down the window and leaned out to hear what the state trooper had to say.
“Pull over into the inspection area there,” was the message.
“But the light’s yellow,” Ed said, pointing at it. Of course, right about then is when it flicked to red and then back to yellow a couple of times before settling on yellow again. “C’mon, officer! I need to keep moving to keep on schedule!”
“Pull over. We’ll keep this quick, but you got picked, you’re going to do it. THERE. NOW.” With that, the officer started walking toward the inspection area, after stopping at the booth to pull out a tablet.
Ed really wanted to know what his instrumentation was telling him about the alert that had gone off. He had already pissed off The Boss with his detour, even though he knew that it had been the better choice, lucky or not. Now The Boss would be having a fit wanting to direct him into investigating this alert, but he couldn’t do that if he was in jail. It was a bad situation, but it could get worse fast if he did anything stupid. So he checked his mirrors for traffic in the side lanes and then pulled forward toward the inspection area.
As he parked the rig and set the brakes, he left the engine idling. He grabbed his log book, license, and registration and stepped down from the truck. Looking around, he saw the officer already walking around, taking note on the condition of the tractor’s brakes and tires.
Ed went to join him and started answering the random questions being thrown at him.
“Where you coming from?” We started this trip in Maine, here via Pennsylvania, Iowa, Kansas City, Oklahoma, Texas. Make sure to tell the truth, the system would show where he had been. Ed was sure that data was showing up on the officer’s tablet.
“Where are you going?” California.
“What are you carrying?” Wood products, custom furniture pieces. Open up the back, show the large, heavy crates there. Let the officer inspect the serial numbers and compare them to the manifest.
“These cabinets, how many are your carrying?” the officer asked, flipping through the manifest. His voice was still flat, but there was something about the question that made the hair on Ed’s neck stand up.
“Thirty-six of them, just like the paperwork says. I picked them up three days ago at the factory outside of Bangor.”
“This crate says they weigh almost a thousand pounds each. See, stenciled right here. That’s 36,000 pounds, more or less. But that scale back there says that you’re only carrying about 15,000 pounds net, so you’re way light. Which makes me think that there’s a lot of empty space up front of these couple of crates. Do you have an explanation for that, son?”
Ed couldn’t help but notice that the officer’s hand had dropped to the butt of the gun at his belt.
Suddenly it wasn’t hot at all. In fact, it was getting quite chilly.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 