The Third Step

by William Lobb

  The biggest thing he didn’t want to deal with was running into Pam, but he did need to get home and see his grandmother and Alex and get drunk at Turf’s. They usually had one hell of a Fourth of July picnic there too, so there was that. A pass-out- somewhere-with-some-stranger party sounded like just what Frankie needed. He grabbed a couple of white crosses out of his bag and the morning rolled on as they headed into Georgia.

  This trip felt different. He looked around more. He felt the Georgia heat through the windshield. Hot as hell; hot as Georgia in July. The drone of that huge Cummins engine was such a constant the past few months he realized that he missed it when it stopped. It was the background noise of this life. He loved the idiotic noise on the radio. “The Flying Gonzo Brothers” on the CB radio screwing with everyone. Singing songs and fighting with each other for all the trucking world to hear.

  The morning wore on, into the Carolinas and on northward. It was going to be stupid hot all the way up. Frankie would lose his mind a little in the Carolinas where every goddamned radio station for what seemed like a thousand miles played nothing but country music. Then he would take to the CB as Captain Flakeo and proceed to do everything in his power to piss off every other driver who could hear him. Sometimes he’d even join in the hunt for The Captain, picking on some other guy in another truck and getting all the other drivers after the poor bastard. He had to do something to pass the time.

  The beautiful late June, early July sunset was still hours away as they rolled into Virginia. Everyone agreed they were making really good time and they needed to stop and eat and get fuel. A diner near Richmond would work. Rolling up route 95 about 75 miles an hour, Eddie was in front, about a half-mile out, followed by Jones and then Frankie.

  It all happened in a second. Jones saw it first. A bright light, followed by a huge orange and yellow flame. He screamed into the radio, “There! On the fucking bridge, two guys tearing ass for a car; he’s got a gun or something!” Eddie’s truck was engulfed in flames, the tractor completely consumed and the trailer was quickly burning now, front to back.

  Frankie screamed in the radio, “What the fuck? What the flying fuck?” Frankie and Jones pulled up near the flaming wreckage and stopped their trucks, jumped out of the tractors and ran to the cab of what was Eddie’s truck, now his crematory oven. The fire was so intense they couldn’t get within ten feet. The aluminum cab was melting and the fire now engulfed the trailer behind them. They could make out the distinct odor of burning marijuana.

  It didn’t seem possible that Eddie was dead. Frankie and Jones stood there for what must have been a full two minutes in total silence. Finally, Frankie said, as cold as if he was ordering a sandwich, “We need to get the fuck out of here” Jones looked at him and turned around to walk away. Their pace quickened. They wanted no encounters with the police, but maybe it was too late. Stay and they might be screwed, take off and they might be screwed. Jones said they should go to the trucks and wait. They would say they don’t know Eddie or anything about anything. There sure as hell was nothing left of Eddie or his truck. The cargo was burned too. Nothing to tie him to them. Everything was completely burned like hellfire had come through. They decided to just stand there and wait for the fire equipment and tow trucks and cops.

  The two stood outside the idling trucks on the hot summer night. They could feel the heat of the day radiating up from the dark, oily pavement. It was even hotter standing next to the funeral pyre of their friend. They stood there, hands in pockets, looking at the ground and waiting for the cops; hopefully, they would be overlooked and ignored. Frankie spoke first, “What the fuck was that? A rocket? A bazooka?” Jones couldn’t offer much; he saw a really bright flash from the bridge and then he saw Eddie’s truck explode. Traffic was stopped for miles. They heard sirens approaching quickly. Other trucks had pulled up alongside the road. Many cars were stopped now, sitting, idling. The sun was low in the sky and a west wind blew the smoke from Eddie’s truck over all of them in an ugly gray cloud.

  Jones spoke next. “We need to get off 95; we’ll take some back roads through Maryland and PA and into Jersey. We will cross over 80 and across the GWB and into the Bronx. It’s longer, but what the fuck is this, a warning? Who do we trust now? Part of me wants to drop this shit and run, but they will be after us then. Frankie, my friend, we are seriously fucked. Who the fuck did this to Eddie?”

  A Virginia state trooper approached the truckers as they smoked cigarettes and talked quietly. Jones was the first to speak. Frankie got that shaking feeling all over him again, the one he felt every time he dealt with a cop. The shaking, the anger, it wasn’t fear. It was a matter of authority. Frankie’s war with the world started with the police. He closed his eyes and smoked his Marlboro and listened to Jones. He lied to the cop. He said traffic was light that night. He was about a half mile behind the burned truck and all he saw was the tractor just explode. Frankie, acting like they had never met before, said he was behind Jones’ truck and saw the fire after he saw the truck in front of him slow down. That seemed to satisfy the cop. Frankie’s anger and nervous shaking were hidden from sight. The cops seemed to be looking for witnesses, nothing more or less.

  The fact that each truck was smuggling about $200,000 worth of weed suddenly became very real to Frankie. He had managed, for the past seven or eight months, to put this fact out of his mind. Standing there in the middle of stopped traffic, on route 95 northbound, on a steamy summer night, maybe twenty miles south of Richmond, with the burned carcass of his friend and his friend’s truck smoldering fifty feet away, it became very real. This was a hit. Who did it? He had no idea. The only thing he knew was that there were guys out there looking to kill him and his friend Jones, the guys they were working for had little patience; if they did not deliver and on time, those assholes would probably be looking to kill them, too.

  For the first time since he became a smuggler, the job seemed to lose some of its glamour and luster. It took a lot to scare Frankie; it seemed like the events of this night were certainly enough. Frankie climbed back into his cab first and waited for Jones. He watched as Jones’ truck pulled away. Frankie grabbed the CB and said, “Mr. Jones, I think we ought to get the fuck off this interstate, pronto.”

  Jones said, “I agree” and the two slowly took off down the highway , looking for the next exit, still not sure if there was a grenade lying in wait for them up ahead.

  Chapter Twelve:

  Stones

  Frankie picked up the CB and spoke again. “Mr. Jones, did I ever tell you about my stone collection? I’ve had these stones with me all my life: magic stones, plain stones, fossils, heavy stones, boulders, little stones, big stones, the stones of ugly old and gray memories.

  When I was a boy I had none; no boy does. He accumulates them over time. It starts with the small stones of the smallest crimes, boy crimes. The stones grow heavier and get larger as the crimes become more complex and life turns from daylight and sunshine to twilight and darkness. The bag we carry just gets fuller and fuller, but it seems there is always room for one more stone. The stones of long-dead relatives, the stones of my dead father, impossible to carry; the stones of my dead grandfather and the stones of his life, again, impossible to carry; the stones of their existence, the passing of the weight of their stones to me. Somehow, one day, their weight, their stones, became my stones; my load to carry through this life.

  Someday I know these stones will kill me. The weight will drag me down, back down into the earth with them. I do not go higher. I cannot. It’s not my place. I don’t soar. My place is under the earth, in the cold dirt, in the deep and dark and moist and violent forest, in the ground with the mud and worms and decay. It is not my place to rise above. It’s my place to fall below. I cannot give these stones away. I cannot throw them in the stream and watch them disappear.

  Nothing can lighten my load. I can’t lose them; they are always with me, following me, reminding me. This
night, my friend, watching Eddie burn, is going to bring many of his stones into my bag. I can feel his weight already upon me. I’ll carry his weight with me through the rest of this life. I know now that is how we die, how men like me die, how violent men die. The weight of all the stones of all the lives we’ve twisted and broken and manipulated and disappointed just weigh us down until we are slowly dragged under the ground, until forward motion stops, and breath stops and life stops. Finally, expectedly, predictably, perfectly, we become one with the ground.

  Every woman, every fight, every loss—they all add stones—every lie, every drink, every pill, every crime, every defeat, they are all stones. I can feel Eddie’s weight now, Mr. Jones, and it is dragging me under. Never fit to carry my father’s stones or the broken promises of my grandfather’s stones and his father and his father before him. Don’t all men carry the weight of their past and their father’s past? I’m too young to die of this weight, but I feel them all on me now. The bag just grows to allow one more. Just one more and one more and one more. In an imperceptibly slow avalanche until I become buried in the stones.

  Who will carry my stones, Mr. Jones? When I die and I’m free from all this, who will drag this bag of stones on? The sins don’t die with the man, his crime, his dishonor. These are the things of every man’s legend. These are the things that never die.

  I love listening to eulogies, Mr. Jones, all the flowering, positive words from the preacher. He’ll talk for what seems like hours about what a good Christian man this guy was, and how he’s now in this Heaven place and seated at the right hand of God. And I want to interrupt the flow of the speech, the imagery and prose and ask the preacher a few questions. I want to ask him if he ever met this guy, and then I want to ask if he knows about the neighbor’s wives, the stabbings, and the people he abandoned; the violent fights, the thefts and the lies, police records, and all the stories he created to cover the stories. I want to walk up to that ugly casket and ask the dead guy who now will carry his stones, and hope it’s not me.

  I’ll watch from a distance as they lower him into the ground. I’ll feel the weight of his stones come upon me as they throw shovels full of rich, brown, sweet-smelling, moist dirt on his casket. I’ll walk away slower, heavier, and a few inches closer to the ground. I’ll struggle to stay upright, above ground.

  I don’t want some preacher to paint a lie for me, Jones. I want you boys standing there telling the truth. Tell them who I was. Break open the lies, for one moment. In the last moment anyone will pay any attention to me, tell the truth. Paint the picture in black and red and dark, dark blue and gray. Paint it in the colors of my life. Tell the stories that will make the well-dressed ladies get up and leave as the men shift uncomfortably in their seats, look at the floor, and pray they are not named.

  Then look around the room of that funeral chapel. Look for that one guy sinking down, staring at the floor. His face is ashen. He may be crying. That’s the guy; he’s already picked up my stones. Leave him be. He’ll leave alone and in silence. Please, leave him be.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Back To NYC

  Frankie looked back at a simple life, now gone, now robbed from him, as if his life was lost, too. Lost, and to exist no more. Tonight was not the night for a diner and great home fries and slimy eggs and pretty waitresses, or even hot Canadian girls and hard rolls. Tonight was a night to get acutely fucked up.

  Jones and Frankie rolled on toward Richmond and they found a small bar and grill. Burgers and a lot of booze were required tonight. They’d sleep it off for a few hours and then try to sneak those loads into NYC. The bar was small and dingy. What must have been a nice wooden bar at one time had been long-neglected and ruined by countless spilled drinks and more than a few fights. They could tell by looking at the woodwork and the light fixtures on the ceiling that at one time it must have been a pretty upscale place. Now a home to bikers and truckers and the general dregs, Frankie’s kind of people, it kind of felt like Turf’s to Frankie. It felt like home. Jones went to use the phone.

  Frankie sat down at the bar, ordered burgers and beers and shots—Jack Daniels for Jones, vodka for him. He flipped back the shot and chased it with a long drink of beer and motioned to the bartender for another, and then another. Some guy in a cowboy hat approached Frankie with some kind of indecipherable swagger. He stood up quickly, his face within inches of the cowboy’s and said, “Today would be a very, very bad day to fuck with me.”

  The cowboy hat simply put his hands up, palms facing out, and said, “Hey, I come in peace. I saw you guys out one the road. I was right behind you. I saw the truck explode. Did you know the guy?”

  Frankie sat back down, ordered the cowboy hat a beer, and offered him a Marlboro. Frankie said he didn’t know the guy, but it was brutal to see. The cowboy hat said the word on the radio was that it was a drug hit by a rival mob. Frankie looked around at the dimly lit room, through the thick, stale, smoky air: the neon beer signs, the sticky, heavily worn floor, the other heroes and hookers around the bar, some really pretty young girls, some girls who were sadly worn and frail and broken, who still looked better and stronger than the men who surrounded them, like hungry dogs begging to be fed.

  Someone started a whole string of country music on the jukebox, a mammoth box of silver and gold, gaudily lit, with flashing and swirling lights. “I knew him a little,” Frankie finally admitted. “He was a guy like the rest of us, these clowns in here. He loved places like this and he loved that fucking country music; that’s about all I know. I think he had a wife up north. He was just another guy running up and down the road, not making enough money and never having enough sleep, just another hero like you and me.”

  The cowboy hat finished his beer and patted Frankie on the shoulder and thanked him and said he had to “get on down the road.”

  Frankie replied, “Yeah, don’t we all.” He sat there in silence for a few minutes and finished his beer. It suddenly dawned on him that now, no one could be trusted, except for him and Mr. Jones. Anyone could be a Fed. Anyone could be working for a rival mob. From this day forward, his mantra would be “Trust no one.” Kind of what Jones had been saying all along.

  Jones walked up and sat down. He threw back his shot and drank the beer in one long gulp. “Well, here is the good news—we have to drop off in the Bronx by 6:00 a.m. or Vinny, that’s the guy’s name, said things would get hot for us, too. At this point, I have no idea what to think, but I think we’d better get rid of these trailers. We can roll up into Maryland, PA, into Jersey and be in the Bronx by 5:00 a.m.”

  Jones nodded. “I think I’m retiring from the flower business after this run. I like running with you, Frankie, but this shit is getting crazy.”

  Frankie had to agree. Who did that to Eddie and why were the same guys after them? It seemed that Vinny and his partners were very happy with them. Was it a warning or were they going to be targeted too? The burgers arrived and Jones ordered more beers and shots. They ate and drank in silence. Frankie wasn’t quite yet ready to give up this gangster life. There was something about being a smuggler that really appealed to him, even after witnessing the carnage of earlier tonight. Jones could quit if that was what he needed to do, but not Frankie. This was one of those life moments where it could go either way, but there was no fence here that Frankie could see. He had about six hours to decide whether to get in deeper or turn around and go back to the way life used to be. He had the truck now; he could look into a legitimate trucking business. But that had no appeal to Frankie, none at all. Something about being an outlaw, a smuggler, had a deep appeal to him. Even after what he witnessed today, the sexiness of what he was doing was no match for any fear. He already knew as they pulled into Maryland and drove off Rt. 95 that he’d made up his mind. He was going full on with his mission. He was a smuggler now. He realized he had to get a lot better at his job.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Alone In The Woodsr />
  Suddenly, Frankie had a real pang of nostalgia for the simple life that had been his only seven or eight months earlier and the stupid shit that mattered to him: the bar, Pam, getting drunk, getting in fights, going to his grandma to get healed.

  Taking a minute on a blue and gold autumn day to reflect on the hot summer past, thinking ahead to fresh apples and pumpkins—he loved Halloween. Thanksgiving at Grandmas—what a lousy cook she was—eating dry turkey and lumpy potatoes, and celebrating Christmas and New Year’s by getting paralyzing drunk the entire month of December.

  He remembered that the December before the scene at Billy Martin’s house, his friend Tyson came home from the Air Force. His stint had recently ended. When he originally joined, it was because he’d been offered a deal, either the military or jail. Tyson chose military. He brought home all this booze from Greece—Ouzo, the real stuff. It tasted like licorice. They lost the entire month of December that year: total blackouts, waking up with a broken nose, spending a day trying to find his car. It was amazing: Ouzo, tequila, and a whole crap load of Seconal. That was the way to have a merry Christmas and New Year, too.

  He spent the better part of the next year finding out things he did that winter. There was nothing as miraculous as the first shot of that magical fluid or as disappointing as waking up the next day with no idea where he was or how he got there. One day, in early March of that next year, Frankie took off into the woods to find himself, alone and stone-cold sober in the cold, dark woods.