I've been driving big rigs for nineteen years. You know the ones. They have eighteen wheels and the interstate highways are littered with them. They're ubiquitous, they're everywhere, and you always seem to get behind one when you're driving. You get particularly upset when they try to pass each other going uphill.
Before driving big rigs for a living, I drove big rigs for the US Army Transportation Corps, 143rd Transportation Command. They taught me how to drive under the worst conditions, including a deployment in Iraq in 2003. I was one of the first drivers in Iraq with a machine gun in the cab.
Before joining the Army, I was an athlete for the local high school in Enid, Oklahoma. I was a so-so athlete and I graduated with so-so grades from the so-so high school. I had no chance of either an academic or athletic scholarship and, as a disappointment to my parents, no college fund either.
My folks were a big deal in Enid. My father's successful business eventually led him to president of the local Kiwanis Club and then into politics. He always fancied my following him into the business and was upset when I joined the Army instead. He didn't understand I needed to get away from him, Enid and Oklahoma. I never thought he ever considered me worthy anyway, but I was his only son and he had no one else to take over the business. He never referred to me by name. He gave me the same name as his, Jerauld Bruce Wheatridge, Jr., which left me with Jerauld Bruce Wheatridge, III. I think he regretted naming me after himself since it caused confusion both in the family and the community. He just referred to me as "the boy." He'd say things like, "Where's the boy?" or "I need the boy to mow the lawn."
I felt similarly about my name and welcomed any nickname offered. For years I answered to "Daboy" as my nickname. The military gave the name "Miles" since I drove trucks for them. I liked it and it stuck. Today I answer to Miles and few people know my given name.
I met my first wife in the Army. She was part of the Quartermaster Corps and out ranked me. I don't know what she saw in me but we hit it off right away. We kept our relationship low key, got married right after the US withdrew from Iraq in 2003 and our tours ended.
When I left the service, I had my choice of trucker jobs, all with great pay. I settled near Oklahoma City since I had grown up in nearby Enid and my wife was from Oklahoma as well. I loved my wife but I loved driving better. Long times in the cab, in the driving groove, were addictive to me. I regularly opted for long haul opportunities where I would be away for a week or more. My wife adapted but I don't think she was ever comfortable with it. I was selfishly unaware of the depth of her discomfort until she served me with divorce papers after seven years. We split amicably and I haven't looked back.
I met my second wife on the road. Cindy was a driver for a competitive company also based in Oklahoma City. We traveled separately and rarely had time together at home. We did well scheduling our trips so we could meet someplace. We had liaisons all over the Midwest. We screwed in motels, back rooms and sleeper cabs whenever we could. Even when we were home together, we sometimes got it on in the sleeper cab parked in the yard just for the fun of it.
Truck drivers are notorious for their exploits on the road or at least bragging about them. I have no idea how much of what I heard was true. For the most part, I didn't participate in one upping the other drivers. I was probably doing much better than most since much of the time I was doing my wife. The women drivers had their own stories. I know this since my wife and I shared experiences and the tall stories we heard at truck stops. We had an agreement. We understood the possibilities when we were apart so much of the time. We agreed not to talk about it if it happened and never to let it bother us. What happened on the road, stayed on the road.
For years I listened to other drivers tell about what they saw and did while driving. From tall tales of women in convertibles flashing their tits to other drivers to lecherous descriptions of hand and blowjobs from hitchhikers. It never happened to me so I discounted most of what I heard.
Until I'd been driving for six years. I was pulling a load from fifty miles north of Oklahoma City to Spokane. I left at six am on Saturday. It was a good time to leave. I'd be driving in daylight and I'd miss the weekday traffic and road construction. With luck I'd make Laramie by dinner time. I had a fourteen-hour window and eleven hours of driving to keep within regulations, if I took a half hour break. If I pushed it a little I could make Laramie.
Laramie was one of my favorite stops. They had clean showers, lots of hot water, good food and the friendliest waitresses. Regulations required I take a ten hour break before driving again and Laramie was a great place to take the break. I'd been building a relationship with Lucy, a waitress at the truck stop for several months and thought this trip I might get lucky.
I fudged the driving time by ten minutes to get there, but luck with Lucy was not on my dance card this trip. Lucy had settled on another trucker and moved on. As I was sitting alone, sadly half enjoying my dinner, I was approached by Josh. Josh is a homeless guy who makes a buck pairing hitchhikers with drivers. He finds out where some transportationless traveler needs to go and then finds a trucker going in that direction. He is well known and likeable, so the staff sends folks with problems his way. Most tip him a couple of dollars for his service and sometimes more.
Josh had a short woman, maybe five foot four, in tow. She hung back, looking down while Josh talked to me. "This lady needs a ride to Seattle. I've asked around. Nobody's going anywhere near there except you. If you could take her to Spokane, then maybe she'd be able to find another ride the rest of the way."
I looked around Josh to see whom he was talking about. She was pretty in a girl next-door kind of way and looked to be in her mid twenties. She was maybe a hundred-ten pounds soaking wet. I looked at Josh and said, "I'd be glad to help if I don't intimidate her."
I'm six-four, two hundred forty pounds. I can intimidate almost anyone without trying.
