Truck Stop

by Lachlan Philpott

  JOSIE: I’ve already looked at your results.

  KELLY: Heart pumping in my ears. And?

  JOSIE: They’re fine. All negative.

  KELLY: You’re sure? It’s not a mistake or something is it?

  / I’m fine?

  JOSIE: You’re fine.

  KELLY: Do I have to come back again in three months or anything?

  JOSIE: No. That’s it.

  KELLY: So I can just go?

  JOSIE: You can go. But…

  KELLY: Yeah?

  JOSIE: I have been thinking about you a lot. I have been wondering something and… I think I just need to ask you this straight up.

  KELLY: Yeah?

  JOSIE: What made you do it?

  SAM: How it started?

  KELLY: You mean how what we did started?

  SAM/KELLY: It was her idea.

  KELLY: She said that but /

  SAM: It was our idea.

  It’s lunch at school. I’m sick to death of standing in the sun. Sick to death of how the guys get all the good places to hang out and how we are stuck there like fucking cows in a field so I say let’s get out of here. Just the two of us.

  KELLY: Out the school gates and up the highway, really hot day but it feels good being out of school. Nobody staring.

  SAM: And we’ve gotten away from Aisha.

  KELLY: Still feel shit about that.

  SAM: Bullshit.

  KELLY: I do. What we did. How we froze her out.

  SAM: She deserves it. She’s a real pain in the arse Kelly.

  SAM/KELLY: Just the two of us.

  SAM: Like it should be.

  KELLY: Out of school.

  SAM: Walking up the highway.

  KELLY: No balls flying past /

  SAM: No boys shouting shit at us /

  KELLY: Just cars and trucks speeding past.

  SAM: A hot shirtless guy in a red car passes beeps his horn and / we wave at him.

  KELLY: We wave at him.

  SAM: Some hot guy in a red car.

  KELLY: How it feels when he does that, and it doesn’t matter if he beeped at you or at me, how I feel is like we are on some adventure while everybody else is stuck in the real world in that fucking hot horrible playground, there we are… like in some video clip.

  Sam and Kelly sing the first three verses of ‘Your Love Is My Drug’ by Ke$ha.

  SAM: We could be running away you know. Escaping forever.

  KELLY: You changing out of your school clothes? We’re going back aren’t we? After lunch.

  SAM: Maybe.

  KELLY: Traffic passes on the road.

  SAM: One truck after the other.

  KELLY: None slow down.

  SAM: None turn in.

  KELLY: None notice us, walking like ants in the sun.

  They both raise their arms up and scream.

  SAM: We are alive. We not sitting in some fucking classroom reading about the world.

  KELLY: No /

  SAM: We are living /

  KELLY: Bell for class rings in the distance. / We keep walking.

  SAM: We keep walking.

  Sign up ahead.

  KELLY: ‘Rest Area’.

  SAM: You look at me and grin the same grin you had on your face when we tried speed I remember what you said that night when the speed came on you said / It’s like I’m at the top of a roller coaster.

  KELLY: It’s like I’m at the top of a roller coaster.

  Where we going Sam?

  SAM: Just up here. Peace and quiet. / Then we are at the truck stop.

  KELLY: Then we are at the truck stop.

  SAM: Just the sound of the highway. / Nobody here.

  KELLY: Nobody here. Just us in the dust. Flies on your back.

  SAM: Brush ’em off then.

  Magpie on a picnic table.

  Go on scare it off hate magpies fuck off.

  KELLY: Scare it off, sit reading the shit people scribble on tables. Jonny for Nerrida.

  SAM: Johnny roots Kylie.

  KELLY: John eats out Cathy’s cunt.

  SAM: I’m sixteen with a big fat cock wanna suck?

  KELLY: Where’s the action? Been looking all day? Want some action call me.

  SAM: Want a smoke?

  They smoke.

  Give us your phone. Let’s ring the guy with the big fat cock.

  KELLY: What for?

  SAM: What do you reckon?

  They laugh.

  What would you do if your dad drove in and stopped?

  Pause.

  Eryn Jean Norvill as Sam in the 2012 Q Theatre production at the Seymour Centre. (Photo © Amanda James)

  KELLY: We talk about sex.

  You tell me about how out of control things got with Trent. The look on his face when you finally dumped him. How you wish you hadn’t lost your virginity to him ’cause he came so quick.

  SAM: And when I ask you about virginity you tell me that you lost your ages ago and I laugh at you and say bullshit!

  Pause.

  Do you want to talk about it?

  KELLY: No truck driver pulls up that day.

  AISHA: Go to Westfield after school, food court smell of meat. I sit alone near Donut King wait for something, anything to happen. Nothing does.

  Go home. Sit online alone.

  I’m on Facebook checking to see if Kelly dumped me yet and there’s a friend request. From Noah. From Noah Futemana. Message says I’m really sorry Aisha. Hope I can make it up to you.

  KELLY/SAM: Next day at lunch, we go back.

  SAM: Did you see Aisha this morning?

  KELLY: Yeah.

  SAM: Think she’s finally got the message?

  KELLY: Yeah. Looked straight through her.

  SAM: Me too. Froze that bitch off like a wart.

  They laugh.

  We go to the truck stop every day now.

  KELLY: We sit there at lunch.

  SAM: Don’t do the mall no more.

  KELLY: We change out of our uniforms in case someone dobs us in and /

  SAM: Sit on that picnic table / at the Truck Stop.

  KELLY: At the Truck Stop.

  KELLY: Quieter than anywhere else.

  SAM: Our picnic table.

  SAM/KELLY: Just us.

  Pause.

  SAM: The day it first happens.

  KELLY: We get there and there is a truck parked right up the end.

  A truck with a bowl of fruit on the side.

  SAM: Anyone in it?

  KELLY: Can’t see.

  SAM: Just sit at the table.

  KELLY: You got a smoke?

  They smoke.

  SAM: We talk and shit. Look at the cover of a magazine I nicked.

  KELLY: Boys boys men written on the cover.

  SAM: And sex moves that’ll rattle his brain for days.

  KELLY: Article promises to tell the way to find your perfect sex match. You reading it out / when

  SAM: When this guy gets out of the truck. Shit. Look.

  KELLY: You see him first. I’m reading and you stop me.

  They watch him in silence.

  SAM: This young dude /

  KELLY: Tanned with thick legs /

  SAM: Tanned with tattoos / This dude who drives the fruit truck is /HOT!

  KELLY: HOT. He doesn’t see us.

  SAM: He walks around the truck looking at the tyres.

  KELLY: Bends over. Look at that.

  SAM: What’s he looking at you reckon?

  KELLY: Dunno.

  SAM: You reckon he’s seen us?

  KELLY: No. Do you?

  SAM: Dunno. No.

  They watch him.

  KELLY: The magazine pages flutter in the wind.

  SAM lights a smoke.

  SAM: This is like some video clip.

  KELLY: I lean back, camera on me.

  SAM: Stand up play with my hair, camera on me.

  KELLY: Then he turns around. Camera on us. / He sees us.

  SAM: He sees us.
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  KELLY: Don’t know whether to wave. Or /

  SAM: Don’t look at him. Read the magazine.

  KELLY: He forgets his tyres, looks this way for ages.

  He’s looking at us.

  SAM: Shut up.

  KELLY: He can’t hear me.

  They giggle.

  What should we do?

  SAM: Camera on him. He leans against the truck, lights a cigarette.

  Go over to him. Say hello.

  KELLY: Me? Why don’t you?

  SAM: I will if you want but… I dare you to. Double dare /

  KELLY: What’ll I say?

  SAM: Ask him where he’s going?

  KELLY: Then what?

  SAM: Ask him if he’s tired.

  KELLY: Then what?

  SAM: For fuck’s sake Kelly. I don’t know. If you like him… ask him if you can make his journey better.

  KELLY: Make his journey better? You mean…

  SAM: Fuck it. Do you want me to do it?

  KELLY: No. I’ll go.

  SAM: Then go.

  KELLY: I will. Mind my bag.

  KELLY walks towards him.

  Gravel and dirt under my feet sweat under my arms. What am I doing? He’s looking at me now. I want to look back, check if Sam’s watching but I can’t. I just keep going.

  SAM: Sun beats down, flies everywhere and Kelly stands in front of the truck driver.

  KELLY: I am close to him now. Smell his sweat his cigarette. I stop in front of him. Look up and see my face reflected in his sunglasses. Say it /

  SAM: Say it.

  Where are you going?

  Are you tired?

  Don’t just stand there.

  SAM/KELLY: Is there something I can do to make your journey /

  KELLY reaches down and lifts up her t-shirt.

  We hear flies seething.

  AISHA: Facebook chat: Noah.

  NOAH: Have to walk my dog after school want to meet me in the park?

  AISHA: Don’t like dogs don’t want to say no. I go.

  He’s sitting at a picnic table with a bag of donuts. The dog’s asleep at his feet, says

  NOAH: She’s old she can’t hear.

  AISHA: He looks at me for ages, says /

  NOAH: Sorry.

  AISHA: Looks at his feet, says /

  NOAH: I really like you.

  AISHA: Looks at his hands, says /

  NOAH: Maybe we could… go out.

  AISHA: You mean?

  NOAH: Yeah.

  AISHA: Okay.

  Noah and me. We’re going out.

  SAM: Kelly’s in the truck. I sit at the picnic table waiting.

  Flies seethe everywhere, questions seethe in my head. I think of backpacker killers and rapists on TV, thinking too much and the seething sounds all around me, listen to my iPod.

  A brown car drives in some woman with a dog.

  Dog runs towards me, I pat it and then it shits near my bag.

  Your dog’s done a shit.

  Want to leave.

  Fifty flies squat on my bag. Highway buzzes. Wish you weren’t in the truck. Wish you’d come back.

  Long pause. Flies and highway noise.

  The truck door opens.

  The truck door shuts.

  Truck engine starts. Rumbles away.

  KELLY walks towards SAM. She looks calm. She reaches into her pocket and pulls a $50 note, holds it up, it waves in the breeze.

  Shit!

  KELLY: I know.

  SAM: I can’t believe you did that. That you…

  What happened?

  How was it?

  KELLY: Guess you’ll have to find out for yourself. / Why we did it?

  SAM: Why we did it? I didn’t think about that much.

  KELLY: I wondered that when I was sitting alone at the picnic table. When Sam went and I was waiting with the bags and the phone.

  SAM: That was the deal.

  KELLY: One of us went and one stayed to keep watch, ready with the phone to ring fuck knows who or say fuck knows what.

  SAM: Didn’t think about what people would say if they found out.

  KELLY: When we weren’t there life went on as normal.

  SAM: Nobody I know talks about truck drivers.

  SAM/KELLY: Why we did it?

  KELLY: Money?

  SAM: It gave me a rush.

  KELLY: It was pretty easy money.

  SAM: When we were sitting there waiting and a truck came in it was like…

  KELLY: Speed and a shot of tequila with your favourite song full blast.

  SAM: Being a long long way from everything you knew.

  KELLY: Trucks with all sorts of shit in them and we keep a record, a list in the back of a book.

  KELLY: Blueberries /

  SAM: Lambs /

  KELLY: Milk /

  SAM: Beer /

  KELLY: Sand /

  SAM: Shampoo /

  KELLY: Petrol, baked beans.

  SAM: Hamburger patties, calves.

  There was this fat bloke. He’d just eaten McDonald’s. Stunk of special sauce and there was a French-fry in the crease of his shorts when he unzipped it. I wanted to…

  KELLY: Second guy wasn’t like the first /

  SAM: Turn back. Wanted to…

  KELLY: Second guy was old. I wanted to take it back when I said / can I make your journey better?

  SAM: Can I make your journey better?

  KELLY: I wanted to turn around and run back to the picnic table but then he offered me a Starburst, a smoke, changed the radio station and Rihanna came on and / I just closed my eyes.

  SAM: I just closed my eyes. Got it done.

  KELLY: I hoped the first guy’d come back. Dude with the fruit. ’Cause most of the others were /

  SAM: Old with hairy ears and shit.

  KELLY: Never really talked about it much. Made a joke about it but never really spoke about what we were doing. And I want to ask you Sam, how far do you go?

  And I wanted to ask you Sam, when you’re in there, in the truck, how do you feel? But…

  SAM: After the first week we have cash. / Cashed-up bitches!

  KELLY: Cashed-up bitches! Go into the city /

  SAM: Shop in the city.

  KELLY: We sit on the train next to each other and I want to ask… but I don’t say a word. I want to say something, anything but don’t know how to start.

  Something between us, something different.

  SAM: It didn’t go for that long.

  KELLY: Wasn’t long at all.

  SAM/KELLY: The feeling, when I hear sound of the trucks pulling in.

  SAM: It makes me feel thrilled, that never fades /

  KELLY: It begins to fill me with dread.

  SAM: Just before it ends we’re sitting there.

  KELLY: I hear a / truck.

  SAM: Truck on the gravel, pulls in stops, and the driver, / this big fat dude gets out of his truck.

  KELLY: This big fat dude gets out of his truck. Walks towards us smiling. Tells us some guy on the CB had told him to check us out.

  SAM: Some guy on the radio told him…

  KELLY: The CB / radio

  SAM: Radio… We’re stars… People who don’t even know us talking about us. We’re famous. Famous. / Famous! Then things change.

  KELLY: Famous. Then things change.

  SAM: That day /

  KELLY: This driver.

  I go up to his truck.

  Look up to the mirror.

  Knock on the door climb up look through and he’s eating a ham sandwich listening to the radio.

  Winds down his window and I’m holding onto the side of the truck leaning back smiling saying…

  SAM: He rings the cops.

  KELLY: He just stares at me. The look on his face when I say what I say. Crucifix swinging from his mirror.

  SAM: Fucking Christians.

  KELLY: Takes a while but the cops figure it out.

  SAM: And that Friday.

  KELLY: After school. />
  SAM: We’re just sitting there at the picnic table and / then a cop car pulls up.

  KELLY: Then a cop car pulls up and / we turn and run.

  SAM: We turn and run. Like fugitives in a movie.

  KELLY: Just like a movie.

  SAM: They chase us /

  KELLY: We scream /

  SAM: Footsteps, dust.

  KELLY: A big hand on my shoulder.

  SAM: The cop that catches me is kinda hot.

  KELLY: Cops take us back to school.

  SAM: Make us wait outside the office.

  KELLY: I’m shitting myself.

  SAM: We weren’t doing anything.

  KELLY: Hushed voices and shit inside. And us out there.

  SAM: We weren’t doing nothing.

  KELLY: How much do they know? What do you reckon they’re telling her?

  How much do you reckon they know?

  Sam? Sam? How much do you /

  SAM: Shut the fuck up. For fuck’s sake shut up for once Kelly. Shut up and don’t say a word. If you do. /

  KELLY: What?

  SAM: I’ll fucking kill you.

  KELLY: Rowse opens the door.

  SAM: Her and the cop glare at me like I killed someone.

  KELLY: They call you in. Leave me alone with dead flowers in a vase, the cleaner down the end of the hall fiddles with a vacuum chord.

  SAM: Cop stares at me.

  Rowse stares at me.

  KELLY: / Real quiet.

  SAM: Real quiet, Rowse asks:

  ROWSE: What were you two doing out there?

  SAM: And again:

  ROWSE: What were you doing out there?

  SAM: Then one more fucking time.

  ROWSE/SAM/KELLY: What were you two doing out there?

  KELLY: I hear her shout and then nothing.

  SAM: Cop wants to look inside my bag.

  ROWSE: Your parents have been notified.

  SAM shrugs.

  SAM: I keep tight hold of my bag and I say nothing.

  ROWSE: Samantha, what were you doing out there?

  SAM: Say nothing. Just stare straight back at them like a bad arse bitch in a cop show. Clock ticks. / Tick tock on the clock and the party won’t…

  KELLY: Tick tock on the clock and the party won’t…

  SAM: That’s all they hear, I don’t say zip.

  Then they send me out. / They call her in.

  KELLY: They call me in.

  SAM/KELLY: We swap chairs.

  KELLY: I’m in the hot seat.

  SAM: I’m out in the hallway.

  KELLY: The cop sighs. He looks at me and then he says that the truck driver didn’t mean any trouble. Has a daughter about our age. Just wanted to protect us.

  Rowse and the cop stare and I know I’m meant to say nothing, keep my mouth shut, I know I’m meant to but…