Beginnings - Elephant Hills

**** Disclaimer - There is one swear word in the following text. ****

The brakes hissed on the large Mack diesel. Slowly, the dust settled around the tires. The truck had come to rest in the far corner of a field of dirt and gravel, used as an extended parking area adjacent to a nondescript truck stop and gas station. The driving lights went dark and a tired looking dirty man stumbled down from the cab. Hitting the ground, he swung around, in practiced motion, slapped the driver’s side door of the monstrosity closed, with a thud, and hitched up the straps of his stained overalls, which hung like an empty gunny sack over his narrow and gaunt frame.


Jack Shannon had been on the road for most of his adult life. As he hobbled gradually towards yet another in a long history of grease pit restaurants and convenience stores, he slid the beaten KC Royals baseball cap from his head and ran his fingers through the few remaining sweaty strands of graying hair. He was mentally exhausted and sore from the millions of miles behind him.

Fourteen times, Harrisburg Trucking Lines Driver of the Year, Jack had crisscrossed the country more times then he would want to count. Always getting the shipment delivered, his “on time” rating was impeccable. He had always prided himself on consistency and exactness. If it was needed in Minnesota by Friday at two, he was in Minnesota on Friday morning, no questions.

The long hours staring out at the road from behind the wheel, division strips beating at the headlights in hypnotic repetition. His life blurred from truck stop to truck stop, papers to sign, pick ups and deliveries. Thousands of faces with names he could not recall at shipping docks of only vague familiarity. Jack was about done and he knew it.

He had no family to speak of except an old bitter ex-wife, whom he hated, living in a world of cheap plastic pink flamingos in Palm Beach Florida and one adult daughter, a nurse in a clinic in Richmond Virginia, who refused to take his occasional phone calls.

Holidays were usually spent on the road or dawdling in dark corner booths playing with toothpicks at greasy spoons being served by numberless bored, faceless waitresses.

Jack looked back at his rig, sadly, the best friend that he’d known. In the sickly yellow light from the random electrical pole, his maroon colored truck appeared black and featureless, like a huge shadow. He pushed through the smudged double glass doors, into the bright florescent lights of the cramped convenience store. It consisted of three narrow rows of assorted products, from cold cereal to engine oil, in small overpriced travel sizes.

A dumpy middle aged woman with thinning, shoulder length, red grey hair, pulled back with fuzzy green hair clips, slouched over a chipped orange formica counter top next to a single point-of-sale machine. She held a smoldering Salem cigarette casually between two fingers as if it was always there, and thumbed through a three month old copy of Glamour.

Her face looked older than her age, as if it were holding too many bitter memories. It was wrinkled and aged, like a dried peach pit spit out along the highway. She wore a pair of lady’s wrangler jeans, which appeared to be a size too small, and a dark pink tee shirt with a picture of a bull dog sitting in the back of a convertible Cadillac. The shirt was tucked tightly into the jeans and read in faded black letters, “One Tough Bitch.”

She nodded in acknowledgement at Jack as he entered the store before returning to her magazine.