The Long Haul

by Finn Murphy

  “Mr. Murphy, can you please describe the events that occurred today, resulting in the loss of twelve trees on this property?”

  “Yes sir. Earlier this morning, in attempting to unload at the King residence, I went too far down the driveway with my truck and got it stuck. In order to extract the truck, the tow truck operator was required to cut down several trees.”

  Mr. King butted in. “Did you verify it’s twelve fucking trees? A dozen beautiful fucking hardwoods?”

  “Mr. Murphy, do you dispute the number of trees?”

  “No, sir.”

  Mr. King kicked in again. “Hardwoods, goddammit. Hardwoods, all of ’em.”

  “Mr. King, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room.” He headed for the door, muttering, “Hardwoods,” all the way down the stairs.

  “Mr. Murphy, were all of the trees cut down hardwoods?”

  “I can’t say, sir. I don’t know my trees. All I can say is that all of the trees cut down were in the way. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, Mr. Murphy, ask away.”

  “Is this going to be some massive claim?”

  The insurance adjuster reached over and turned off the RECORD button. “Mel downstairs thinks he’s going to get a check for what it would cost to get every tree replaced and replanted by the guys at the garden center. So suppose you go out and buy a twenty-five-year-old oak tree and move it in with a big tree mover and plant it where the old one was. That’s probably five grand. Multiply that by twelve trees, and old Mel here has probably already spent the sixty grand on a tricked-out bass boat. But here’s the deal: Loss of trees in a situation like this is calculated as a percentage of trees lost as a percentage of the land’s value. This here’s a five-acre lot worth about a hundred grand. The value of the trees is a tenth of that, so say ten grand worth of trees. There are a thousand trees on this lot, and you killed twelve of them. so that’s .012 percent of ten grand. Mel’s got $120 coming.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Two reasons. One is we’re on the same side. The van line is my client. The other is Mel’s an asshole. I could smell him a mile off. And you look like you’ve had a pretty bad day.”

  “Thanks. My day’s not even close to being over yet.”

  “Fuck Mel. You take care of yourself.”

  I still needed to get the truck unloaded. It was a job that would take three experienced men about six hours under normal conditions. It was four thirty, and the truck was half a mile from the house. Screw it, I thought. Drastic times called for drastic measures: I called the local Manpower office and asked for twelve movers for immediate work going until midnight. Amazingly, they said there would be a van full of men with me in less than an hour.

  I went back to the truck and prepared to unload. I opened the back doors, set up the walkboard, and instructed my two helpers about what was about to happen. I’d been paying them for dozing and smoking and wandering around since this morning. Frog never said another word to me after his initial advice. Mr. King picked this time to come back and tell me that his whole family was tired, that it was almost 5 p.m., and that we should pick up tomorrow at 8 a.m. sharp.

  “Sorry, Mr. King. We’re unloading now. We’ll be done today, or tonight, rather.”

  “Three of you walking a half mile? No fucking way. It will take you three days.”

  Just then the Manpower van pulled up, and a dozen workers of various types spilled out onto the pavement. Some of them looked a little worse for wear. Mr. King decided not to argue and scurried homeward to defend his womenfolk against this armada. Laborers who are available at a moment’s notice for any kind of work that might take all night are generally people who have run out of traditional options. Mr. King had probably never seen this end of the American employment pool. His American Dream doesn’t take note of economic losers, so he, and others like him, tend to treat such people as invisible—until a couple of them are carrying your sacred marriage bed into the master bedroom suite with the Jack and Jill closets, separate toilets, and the Jacuzzi tub.

  My crew was reasonably diligent, and we emptied the truck by eleven thirty. We were just finishing up the last loose ends, putting beds together and bolting legs onto tables, when I realized I didn’t have any money to pay the crew. I had left Connecticut the day before with $2,000 to cover labor, fuel, and lodging, which would normally last over a week. But the tow truck had taken $1,600 and I had a labor bill of two men for fifteen hours and twelve additional men for eight hours, for a total of more than a thousand dollars. In my pocket I had $175.

  Temporary employment offices like Manpower operate on a cost-plus basis. They charge a certain rate per hour per person, and they pay the person a certain portion of that hourly rate and keep the rest for taxes, overhead, and profit. The Manpower people had given the work invoice to one of the men, and I was instructed to pay the crew the rate on the invoice; Manpower would bill Callahan for the rest, and Callahan would then debit my account. This wasn’t how Manpower usually worked, but nobody from the local office was going to be around at midnight to distribute wages, and it’s not like the guys in my crew could wait a day to pick up their pay. These folks needed to get paid so they could eat.

  I was in a quandary. I was too young to have a credit card. A personal check would have been a cruel joke, since none of my workers would have bank accounts. In the end I called up TC just before midnight and asked him to wire me $2,000 via Western Union. TC wasn’t too pleased about being called at home in the middle of the night, but he wasn’t too miffed either. He knew I’d had a bad day because Mr. King had called him several times complaining about what a fucked-up move he’d gotten. TC never minded too much when a driver called late at night with a money request because, as he told me once, he was going to be back in bed in less than five minutes, whereas we were still dealing with the flat tire or the accident report or the freezing cold or the blazing heat or the tow truck or, in my case, the help.

  I told the crew I had to drive to the truckstop in Doswell, north of Richmond, to pick up the cash to pay them. This was about thirty minutes away, and they grumbled a lot. I told them they’d all be paid for an extra hour and I’d add in taxi fare for everyone to get home. That settled them down. I put five of them in the tractor, four in the sleeper and one in the passenger seat, and put the other nine in the trailer. You see this often with straight trucks where a crew is inside the van with the door strapped open, but you don’t see it often with a trailer.

  At the truckstop, I stopped at the fuel island and let everyone out. In the dark, it must have looked like a Rio Grande coyote was unloading a shipment of border crossers. I bought some fuel, and they cashed my Western Union check, thank heaven, and I paid everyone off. For the first time in months I splurged and rented a motel room. This trip was a total bust. My labor bill at destination should have been about a hundred dollars; instead it was over a thousand. I’d paid the tow truck bill, plus there was body damage to the trailer that I’d have to have fixed before I brought the truck back. You can’t swipe a tree aside, even a small one, with the side of a trailer. I knew that now. I crawled into bed at half past midnight and set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. I’d left this same truckstop exactly eighteen hours earlier.

  Just before falling asleep, I thought through the day: I had lost money on the job, the shipper was extremely dissatisfied, and the management at Callahan Bros. were probably reviewing their options with respect to my contract. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that from the moment my truck was wedged between the trees and I put Mr. King out of my mind, my judgment and actions had improved. It was my first big lesson in aggressive problem solving. Nobody was going to help me. No excuses would improve the situation, and there would be nobody around to blame or lean on. I don’t think I had ever before been thrown completely onto my own resources without a backstop. Lying in that motel room I started to giggle, realizing in that wonderful moment that I’d been a mewling child my whole l
ife. Getting stuck in the trees in order to prove my skills to Mr. King and TC and even Frog had certainly proved everything about my skills. I had none. As I thought about it even more, my giggle turned to a laugh. When I turned off the truck in the woods and climbed down to meet Mr. King, my destiny was balanced on a knife edge. I could continue the way I had been or I could change. It could have gone either way, but something smart within me decided to leave the man-child behind. It was by no means a conscious decision. When I flicked my smoke into the woods and took a good look at Mr. King, I was no longer a scared kid. I got the truck out, found the labor I needed, emptied the truck, and paid the help. Goddamn! It was funny and energizing to know that I was leaving a lot of things behind, but it was also terrifying to understand that I was now committed. The King saga was the beginning of my life as a real long-haul driver.

  I had a long way to go, but I’d started.

  PART II

  THE POWERLANE

  Chapter 4

  HAMMER DOWN

  “Driver Murphy, 6518. Howzitgoin, good? Good. I’ve got news.”

  It was Gary Greene, my longtime dispatcher at North American Van Lines in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was shooting a game of pool at the Boot Hill Saloon in Daytona and waiting for a load north when he called. It was my ninth year as a driver and I was a grizzled veteran. North American had assigned me to the Florida Powerlane, which was the coveted run from the Northeast down to Florida. The Powerlane was reserved for furious and frenzied drivers like me who could turn loads fast. The beauty of the Powerlane was that I’d always go down with a full load; the ugly part was that because so many more people moved to Florida than from Florida, it was always difficult to get a full load, or any load, coming out.

  “Stop fuckin’ around, Gary. Whaddya got?” Gary talked to road drivers all day long. He was completely impervious to bad attitudes or impatience. Besides, we’d been working together for years. We were like an old married couple except I was looking to do some stepping out. Not with a new dispatcher, but a new life. I was almost thirty, had some money put away, and the years on the road had made my world very small.

  “The good news is I got you a full load. The bad news is that you’re loading in Vermont, someplace called St. Johnsbury, which I think actually is in the United States, though barely. You’re loading Monday morning, and according to the tariff book it’s only 1,688 miles from Daytona. Since today is Friday I know you can get there in plenty of time. Ready? OK, listen up.” Then he gave me my load particulars in the quick deadpan of a horse race announcer:

  9/21AM OA Woodway St. Johnsbury Shipper Murray 1,000 SIT line haul $1,500 DA Kendall

  9/21AM OA Woodway Shipper Howell 1,000 res line haul $1,600 DA Accredited Largo

  9/21PM OA McClure Essex Junction Shipper Gross 2,200 SIT line haul $1,800 DA Atlantic Sarasota

  9/21PM OA McClure Essex Junction Shipper Warren 1,200 SIT line haul $1,600 DA Murray Fort Lauderdale

  9/22AM OA CMS Bangor Shipper Taylor 3,000 res line haul $2,400 DA Ray Naples

  9/23AM OA Ray Manchester Shipper Fowler 4,000 res line haul $4,200 DA Accredited Largo

  9/24 OA Stewart Liner Newburgh Shipper McNab 8,000 res line haul $6,000 DA A1 Key West

  “Got it?” he finished.

  “Got it.”

  “Go get ’em, kid. No claims this trip, right?”

  “Right. See ya, Gary. Gotta get rolling.”

  Here’s the translation: 9/21AM meant September 21 in the morning. OA was the origin agent who booked the move. That’s where I’d pick up paperwork and arrange for helpers. I had a directory in my truck that listed all the North American agents, so Gary kept it all in shorthand. Murray was the shipper, and 1,000 pounds the estimated weight of the shipment. SIT (storage in transit) meant I’d be loading out of Woodway’s warehouse and not out of a residence, which is represented as “res.” Line haul was what the shipment would pay, and DA was the destination agent, which told me where the shipment was going.

  I was figuring out a bunch of things all at once; what I had here was 20,400 pounds, loading in seven shipments on four different days. It had a line haul of $19,200, which was solid, but I don’t get a paid a nickel to drive empty, called deadheading, up to Vermont. That would cost me $1,000 in fuel and tolls, plus marginal expenses in cigarettes and Dr Colas (half Dr Pepper and half Coca-Cola, loaded to the brim with ice—my trademark road-sprint drink). I would start back south on the 23rd and unload Beverly Hills, Largo, and Sarasota on the 25th, unload Naples, Fort Lauderdale, and Kendall on the 26th, and finish in Key West on Sunday the 27th. The categorical imperative would be for me to be empty and ready to load on Monday the 28th. Movers are busiest at month end, when house closings occur and lease periods end. All I can do is set up my schedule to be ready at the right time. Full loads out of Florida were so rare that Powerlane drivers called one a “Pot of Gold.”

  I woke the next morning at five thirty and headed north. I had 1,700 miles to do in forty-eight hours. (That’s the same as going from Philadelphia to Denver.) I needed to keep the hammer down and break the back of the trip on day one. I generally enjoy a couple of days driving because it’s easy. I don’t have to worry about getting help, lifting stuff, or dealing with shippers, but this was a marathon, not to mention highly illegal since I’m only allowed to drive ten hours per day.

  I filled up with fuel at the Ormond Beach truckstop for $800, checked my fluids, restarted my logbook, cleaned my windshields inside and out, examined the wipers, grabbed a couple of extra gallons of Rotella motor oil, and remade the bed in my sleeper. Then I changed into a loose shirt, shorts, and sneakers, bought two Dr Colas, three packs of smokes, and an audiobook. I was ready for the northbound dash and my truck was too.

  I had named my truck Cassidy. She was a dependable, good-looking GMC Astro 95 with a Cummins 290 diesel engine. (Don’t ask me why GM puts Cummins engines into their trucks when GM makes diesel engines.) Her odometer read 645,783 that morning, and every one of those miles was laid down by me. She’s considered a total piece of shit by the freighthauler fraternity. They all want the long-nosed Peterbilts. Another disconnect between movers and freighthaulers is that movers don’t much care what powerplant we drive so long as we’re making money. The freighthaulers are the opposite. This is totally ludicrous to me, because it’s not like they own what they drive. In my personal hierarchy, an owner-operator driving the junkiest old cornflake Mack is still miles ahead of a clockpuncher in a company-owned Pete. “Whatcha drivin’?” is a standard first question at truckstop coffee counters. “Got a bank account?” would be my first question.

  Cassidy was running really well as I left Daytona, but she was not going to like the trip up north with an empty trailer. The further north you go, the rougher the roads get and an empty trailer bounces like crazy. Diesel engines want to work hard. What they like is a full load and a twenty-hour run at 65. They are phenomenal machines. When you get a good one and maintain it properly, which really only means keeping the oil clean and buying good fuel, you’ve got something that will run a million miles. There are five Class 8 (big-truck) diesel engine manufacturers in the United States: Cummins, which is the market leader, Detroit Diesel, which used to be GM but is now a division of Daimler, Volvo/Mack, PACCAR, and Caterpillar. They’re all great, but the truckstop cowboys prefer the big Cats so they can wear the trucker hat that says DIESEL POWER. Engine manufacturers are different from truck makers. The Class 8 truck brands are Freightliner, Kenworth, Peterbilt, International, Volvo/Mack, and Western Star. All of them make excellent trucks, but Freightliner, also a division of Daimler, is far and away the industry leader. With the premium truck brands like Peterbilt or Western Star, a buyer is actually custom-ordering a vehicle. When you buy yourself a Peterbilt you order the engine, the transmission, the rear end, and any other features that you want, like an expanded wheelbase or a sliding fifth wheel. Petes are expensive because you’re making a composite of the best features made by all the best manufacturers and
putting it into what is probably the best truck chassis. I wouldn’t know how to order one myself because I don’t know a wheelbase from freebase. I’m a mover, not a gearhead.

  I was running north in a convoy with nine other trucks through the interminable 199 miles of swamp, palmetto scrub, and south of the border signs that people call South Carolina. A convoy is a group of trucks traveling together. I don’t get inside convoys very often because most trucks run too fast for me.

  The front door of this convoy was a Bowman freighthauler followed by three Armellini reefers hauling fresh flowers, then me, then a skateboard steel hauler, an Atlas bedbugger, another skateboarder hauling hot tubs, and the back door was a Schneider freight box called a “Pumpkin” because of its orange color. We flew together for 130 miles doing 65 the whole way. It was wonderful sitting in the cradle of the convoy. If the front door saw a gator in the road (gators are big pieces of tire tread on the roadway), he’d drawl “Gator” on his radio and pull into the hammer lane. I’d pull out after the Armellinis. We all fell into a groove. Everybody was driving well, everybody was professional, everybody was going fast but not crazy fast, and there was a plane of consciousness that we had together. It’s the closest thing to a Zen experience I know, except when I’m in my loading trance. Both of those things are what keeps me out here. The rest of it is just hassle.

  There was little chitchat on the radio. We exchanged CB handles and that was about it. My handle is U-Turn because I’m always in residential areas getting bad directions and have to reorient myself, often several times a day. The most common CB handles are Bandit, Lone Ranger, and Coyote. Willie Joyce’s handle is Steamboat, and Tim Wagner’s is Banknote.

  I passed a bobtailer—a tractor without a trailer. Bobtailing tractors have a really weird look about them, kind of like a walrus out of the water. They’re dangerous to drive, especially in wet weather, because the brakes are designed for a tractor and a trailer, so when you’re bobtailing and hit the brakes hard, the tendency is for the truck to spin around.