Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies (15 page)

The dude stood on the right side of the road, thumb out. I piano-keyed down the gears and the air brakes hissed and squealed at the tap of my foot. The semi slowed and the big diesel made that gut-deep dinosaur-belch of shuddered-downness. I leaned across the cab as everything came to a halt and swung the door open.

“Where you heading?” I asked.

He laughed and shook his head, then spit on the soft shoulder. “I don't know,” he said. “Hell, maybe.” He was thin and tanned with long greasy black hair and bluejeans and a vest. His straw hat was dirty and full of holes, but the feathers around the crown were bright and new, pheasant if I was any judge. A worn gold fob hung out of his vest. He wore old Frye boots with the toes turned up and soles thinner than my retreads. He looked a lot like me when I had hitchhiked out of Fresno, broke and unemployed, looking for work.

“Can I take you there?” I asked.

“Sure. Why not?” He climbed in and slammed the door shut, took out a kerchief and mopped his forehead, then blew his long nose and stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “What you hauling?” he asked.

“Souls,” I said. “Whole shitload of them.”

“What kind?” He was young, not more than twenty-five. He tried to sound easy and natural but I could hear the nerves.

“Human kind,” I said. “Got some Hare Krishnas this time. Don't look that close anymore.”

I coaxed the truck along, wondering if the engine was as bad as it sounded. When we were up to speed—eighty, eighty-five, no smokies on
this
road—he asked, “How long you been hauling?”

“Two years.”

“Good pay?”

“I get by.”

“Good benefits?”

“Union, like everyone else.”

“That's what they told me in that little dump about two miles back. Perks and benefits.”

“People live there?” I asked. I didn't think anything lived along the road. Anything human.

He bobbled his head. “Real down folks. They say Teamsters bosses get carried in limousines, when their time comes.”

“Don't really matter how you get there or how long it takes. Forever is a slow bitch to pull.”

“Getting there's all the fun?” he asked, trying for a grin. I gave him a shallow one.

“What're you doing out here?” I asked a few minutes later. “You aren't dead, are you?” I'd never heard of dead folks running loose or looking quite as vital as he did but I couldn't imagine anyone else being on the road. Dead folks—and drivers.

“No,” he said. He was quiet for a bit. Then, slowly, as if it embarrassed him, he said, “I'm here to find my woman.”

“No shit?” Not much surprised me but this was a new twist. “There ain't no going back, for the dead, you know.”

“Sherill's her name, spelled like sheriff but with two L's.”

“Got a cigarette?” I asked. I didn't smoke but I could use them later. He handed me the last three in a crush-proof pack, not just one but all. He bobbled his head some more, peering through the clean windshield.

No bugs on this road. No flat rabbits, on the road, snakes, nothing.

“Haven't heard of her,” I said. “But then, I don't get to converse with everyone I haul. There are lots of trucks, lots of drivers.”

“I heard about benefits,” he said. “Perks and benefits. Back in that town.” He had a crazy sad look.

I tightened my jaw and stared straight ahead.

“You know,” he said, “They talk in that town. They tell about how they use old trains for Chinese, and in Russia there's a tramline. In Mexico it's old buses, always at night—”

“Listen. I don't use all the benefits,” I said. “Some do but I don't.”

“I got you,” he said, nodding that exaggerated goddamn young bobble, his whole neck and shoulders moving, it's all right everything's cool.

“How you gonna find her?” I asked.

“I don't know. Hitch the road, ask the drivers.”

“How'd you get in?”

He didn't answer for a moment. “I'm coming here when I die. That's pretty sure. It's not so hard for folks like me to get in beforehand. And... my daddy was a driver. He told me the route. By the way, my name's Bill.”

“Mine's John,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you.”

We didn't say much for a while. He stared out the right window and I watched the desert and faraway shacks go by. Soon the mountains loomed up—space seems compressed on the road, especially out of the desert—and I sped up for the approach.

They
made some noise in the back. Lost, creepy sounds, like tired old sirens in a factory.

“What'll you do when you get off work?” Bill asked.

“Go home and sleep.”

“That's the way it was with Daddy, until just before the end. Look, I didn't mean to make you mad. I'd just heard about the perks and I thought...” He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. “You might be able to help. I don't know how I'll ever find Sherill. Maybe back in the annex...”

“Nobody in their right minds goes into the yards by choice,” I said. “You'd have to look at everybody that's died in the last four months. They're way backed up.”

Bill took that like a blow across the face and I was sorry I'd said it. “She's only been gone a week,” he said.

“Well,” I said.

“My mom died two years ago, just before Daddy.”

“The High Road,” I said.

“What?”

“Hope they both got the High Road.”

“Mom, maybe. Yeah. She did. But not Daddy. He knew.” Bill hawked and spit out the window. “Sherill, she's here—but she don't belong.”

I couldn't help but smirk.

“No, man, I mean it, I belong but not her. She was in this car wreck couple of months back. Got messed up. I sold her crystal and heroin at first and then fell in love with her and by the time she landed in the hospital, from the wreck—she was the only one who lived, man, shouldn't that tell you something?—-but she was, you know, hooked on about four different things.”

My arms stiffened on the wheel.

“I tried to tell her when I visited, no more dope, it wouldn't be good, but she begged. What could I do? I loved her.” He looked down at his worn boots and bobbled sadly. “She begged me, man. I brought her stuff. She took it all when they weren't looking. I mean, she just took it
all.
They pumped her but her insides were mush. I didn't hear about her dying until two days ago. That really burned, man. I was the only one who loved her and they didn't even like
inform
me. I had to go up to her room and find the empty bed.
Jesus
. I hung out at Daddy's union hall. Someone talked to someone else and I found the name on a list.
Sherill
. They'd put her down the Low Road.”

I hadn't known it was that easy to find out; but then, I'd never traveled with junkies. Dope can loosen a lot of lips.

“I don't do those perks,” I said. “Folks in back got enough trouble. I think the union went too far there.”

“Bet they thought you'd get lonely, need company,” Bill said quietly, looking at me. “It don't hurt the women back there, does it? Maybe give them another chance to, you know, think things over. Give ‘em relief for a couple of hours, a break from the mash—”

“A couple of hours don't mean nothing in relation to eternity,” I said, too loud. “I'm not so sure I won't be joining them someday, and if that's the way it is I want it smooth, nobody pulling me out of a trailer and, and putting me back in.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Got you. I know where you're at. But she might be back there right now, and all you'd have to—”

“Bad enough I'm driving this fucking rig in the first place.” I wanted to change the subject.

Bill stopped bobbling and squinted. “How'd that happen?”

“Couple of accidents. I hot-rodded with an old fart in a Triumph. Nearly ran down some joggers. My premiums went up to where I couldn't afford payments and finally they took my truck away.”

“You coulda gone without insurance.”

“Not me,” I said. “Anyway, word got out. No companies would hire me. I went to the union to see if they could help. They told me I was a dead-ender, either get out of trucking or...” I shrugged. “This. I couldn't leave trucking. It's bad out there, getting work. Couldn't see myself driving a hack in some big city.”

“No way, man,” Bill said, giving me his whole-body rumba again. He cackled sympathetically.

“They gave me an advance, enough for a down payment on my rig.” The truck was grinding a bit but maintaining. Over the mountains, through a really impressive pass like from an old engraving, and down in a rugged rocky valley, the City waited. I'd deliver my cargo, grab my slip, and run the rig (with Bill) back to Baker. Let him out someplace in the real. Park the truck in the yard next to my cottage. Go in, flop down, suck back a few beers, and get some sleep.

Start all over again Monday, two loads a week.

Hell, I never even got into Pahrump any more. I used to be a regular, but after driving the Low Road, the women at the Lizard Ranch all looked like prisoners, too dumb to notice their iron bars. I saw too much of hell in the those air-conditioned trailers.

“I don't think I'd better go on,” Bill said. “I'll hitch with some other rig, ask around.”

“I'd feel better if you rode with me back out of here. Want my advice?” Bad habit, giving advice.

“No,” Bill said. “Thanks anyway. I can't go home. Sherill don't belong here.” He took a deep breath. “I'll try to work up a trade with some bosses. I stay, in exchange, and she gets the High Road. That's the way the game works down here, isn't it?”

I didn't say otherwise. I couldn't be sure he wasn't right. He'd made it this far. At the top of the pass I pulled the rig over and let him out. He waved, I waved, and we went our different ways.

Poor rotten doping sonofabitch, I thought. I'd screwed up my life half a dozen different ways—three wives, liquor, three years at Tehachapi—but I'd never done dope. I felt self-righteous just listening to the dude. I was glad to be rid of him, truth be told.

As I geared the truck down for the decline, the noise in the trailers got irritating again. They could smell what was coming, I guess, like pigs stepping up to the man with the knife.

The City looks a lot like a dry country full of big white cathedrals. Casting against type. High wall around the perimeter, stretching right and left as far as my eye can see, like a pair of endless highways turned on their sides.

No compass. No magnetic fields. No sense of direction but down.

No horizon.

I pulled into the disembarkation terminal and backed the first trailer up to the holding pen. Employees let down the gates and used their big, ugly prods to offload my herd. These people do not respond to bodily pain. The prod gets them where we all hurt when we're dead.

After the first trailer was empty, employees unhooked it, pulled it away by hand or claw, strong as horses, and I backed in the second.

I got down out of the cab and an employee came up to me, a big fellow with red eyes and brand new coveralls. “Poke any good ones?” he asked. His breath was like the bad end of a bean and garlic dinner. I shook my head, took out the crush-proof box, and held my cigarette up for a light. He pressed his fingernail against the tip. The tip flared and settled down to a steady glow. He regarded it with pure lust. There's no in-between for employees. Lust or nothing.

“Listen,” I said.

“I'm all ears,” he said, and suddenly, he was. I jumped back and he laughed joylessly. “You're new,” he said, and eyed my cigarette again.

“You had anyone named Sherill through here?”

“Who's asking?” he grumbled. He started a slow dance. He had to move around, otherwise his shoes melted the asphalt and got stuck. He lifted one foot, then the other, twisting a little.

“Just curious. I heard you guys know all the names.”

“So?” He stopped his dance. His shoes made the tar stink.

“So,” I said, with just as much sense, and held out the cigarette.

“Like Cherry with an L?”

“No. Sherill, like sheriff but with two L's.”

“Couple of Cheryls. No Sherills,” he said. “Sorry.”

I handed him the cigarette, then pulled another out of the pack. He snapped it away between two thick, horny nails.

“Thanks,” I said.

He popped both of them into his mouth and chewed, bliss rushing over his wrinkled face. Smoke shot out of his nose and he swallowed.

“Think nothing of it,” he said, and walked on.

The road back is shorter than the road in. Don't ask how. I'd have thought it was the other way around but barriers are what's important not distance. Maybe we all get our chances so the road to Hell is long. But once we're there, there's no returning. You have to save on the budget somewhere.

I took the empties back to Baker. Didn't see Bill. Eight hours later I was in bed, beer in hand, paycheck on the bureau, my eyes wide open.

Shit, I thought. Now my conscience was working. I could have sworn I was past that. But then I didn't use the perks. I wouldn't drive without insurance.

I wasn't really cut out for the life.

There are no normal days and nights on the road to Hell. No matter how long you drive, it's always the same time when you arrive as when you left, but it's not necessarily the same time from trip to trip.

The next trip it was cool dusk and the road didn't pass through desert and small, empty towns. Instead, it crossed a bleak flatland of skeletal trees, all the same uniform gray as if cut from paper. When I pulled over to catch a nap—never sleeping more than two hours at a stretch—the shouts of the damned in the trailers bothered me even more than usual. Silly things they said, like:

“You can take us back, mister! You really can!”