Well, I suppose you all want to know who I am.

My name used to be Randy Rollins when I was a kid. Until about 14 or 15 when I started playing High School football, when my teammates started calling me Ruckus. I guess it kinda stuck. In fact, all four years of school down there in Oklahoma, from a year of walk-on JV to being captain of the varsity squad my senior year, that’s what most folks called me around town. Even the teachers. Hell, I remember once in church the pastor even called me Ruckus. Football is a big deal in Oklahoma, you see.

Now, when I was playing tight end back then, I could tell how well I’d practiced by how hard my old man would lay into me that night after he finished his after supper six pack. If I’d blocked well and run the right route, he might only hit me ‘til my lip busted. If I hadn’t… well, that was a long night. I didn’t go to bed without catching at least a little bit of a beating, though, because I never could catch. I got them hands of stone, as they say. It might have been a bit of a mental block, honestly, since I ain’t never had trouble catching a pigskin when someone tossed it to me later on in life, but back then I think a part of me knew that if the old man wasn’t hitting me then he’d be hitting my momma.

Don’t get me wrong now, the bitch deserved to get hit. She was lazy and she talked back. It was like she was daring him to put her underground some nights. Lord, would they fight. But it felt like my duty at the time to protect my mother and so I did.

When I got to junior college I moved to defensive line, and that’s where it really clicked for me. Soon I was shredding every o-line they could piece together across from me and I was a state-wide name. “Ruckus Rollins” was the headline more than once in the papers. Before you knew it I was all set up with offers to transfer to big name, division one schools. I had almost picked one, too, when I blew my knee out on the last Saturday afternoon of the season while playing in the rain. It was the only game we lost that year.

I’d spent so much time concentrating on playing ball that I never bothered getting good at anything else to that point, other than my hobbies. I also wasn’t much for studying, and without games to prepare for I was pretty much done with school at that point. I spent my early twenties learning how to earn a living without an education, which meant getting my hands dirty often. I’ve been an oil rig worker, a trawler, a construction worker… all before I was thirty years old. When I stumbled upon long distance trucking, I knew I’d found something that suited me. The isolation that would drive so many others crazy is soothing to me. I don’t need no other people. Just me and the road.

That was when I hit the road for good. Sure, I got a place up in Washington now just for a home base, but my real home is on the highways of this great country. I’ve driven through 49 out of 50 states, even up and down through Canada and Mexico. I can tell you how to get anywhere, and I’ve probably been there myself more than once. For fifteen years now, I’ve watched the long, black tongue of the endless road lead me where I needed to go, so that in the summer of 2015 I could find myself sitting in this little diner in Memphis, just waiting for enough time to pass so I could get on the road again.







“Where you headed to, mister? What you haulin’?”

This guy’s been chewing my ear off more than I’ve been chewing the overcooked t-bone I waited twenty minutes for. I tell him something vague – east, spare parts - and he keeps yammering on as if I’m asking him for his god damn opinion.

“You ever consider just, I don’t know, taking the truck and the cargo and just hauling ass down to Tijuana? Just selling it off and living like a king down there and buying some chico’s sexy little sister for fifty cents or whatever and just being the fucking man?”

He’s barely understandable through the mouthful of hominy grits he’s working on, some of which shoots out like miniscule birdshot from between his yellow meth teeth. These fuckin’ no good punks are everywhere now, just as likely to steal your wallet as to shake your hand. They all say the same shit. Ask the same questions. I decide I’d rather spend the night somewhere other than a Tennessee jail cell so I get up and drop a trio of fives onto the countertop before I fistfuck the rest of the asshole’s grits down his throat for him. Without so much as a nod in his direction I’m out the door and heading for my rig in the wide open lot.

I make the mistake of not walking fast enough and the little vagabond girl I seen when I went into the diner 45 minutes ago catches up to me, barefoot and with a guitar hung back behind her shoulder. A white girl with hair knotted into those dreadlocks like a Jamaican would have. She’s young. No more than seventeen, even though she has a lifetime of dirt on her face and on her clothes. Who knows where she’s been or where she’s going or why.

“Hey man… hey!”

There’s something in her voice I hear that makes me acknowledge her and turn around. Something unmistakable. It’s the high-pitched waver of desperation that only comes out when you hate saying what you’re saying but have no other choice.

“I don’t want money, honest. I just wanna ride. I saw you come in going westbound earlier. That’s where I wanna go. You don’t have to gimme anything.”

I smirk and pull a smoke out of my nearly empty pack. My last pack, too. I light the butt and thank my lucky stars I’m in this part of the world so I can afford more smokes as well as fuel. If I were in Illinois I’d have to grit my teeth until I come out the other side, or chew gum. Here in the Bible Belt, though, a pack of cigs will still only put you out six bucks or so. The hippie girl sees me light up and I know she wants to ask me for one, but she already told me she wouldn’t ask for another thing so she just bites her lip and looks at the asphalt so I turn away again.

“Wait,”

She stops me by putting her hand on my arm. I tense up. You never know when some bitch is gonna be stupid and try to pull a knife or what have you for something as ridiculous as a pack of cigarettes. The world’s gone to shit.

“I’ll let you touch my tits if you give me a ride and a cigarette. Deal?”

Smart girl, this one. I bet once she figured out what her best currency was it got her halfway across the country. I play my part and I nod my head in the direction of my truck, tapping out the last of the American Spirits from the crumpled yellow box. I light it for her, the same chivalry Bogart used on Bergman being played out in a nasty Tennessee parking lot with a trucker and a filthy ragamuffin. She takes a drag and follows me to the truck, waiting while I open the passenger door and hold it for her. She seems confused by the gesture.

“I’m not gonna fuck you, just FYI.”

But there’s no conviction in her voice. We both know if I want her to she will. She probably expects to at least suck me off between here and Arkansas.

“No miss, don’t you worry about that. Just get in. I got time to make.”

She looks at me, then back at the diner. She senses something. These street people have a sixth sense when it comes to certain things. Living on the road will do that to you. But she’s hard-headed. She thinks she’s strong and smart. She gets into the truck and I slam the door shut, then walk over to my side. She keeps her promise and doesn’t say a word while I start the big engine up and pull in a wide circle towards the road. When I take a quick look, I see she’s staring right back at me and she starts to unbutton her flannel shirt. I wave her off.

“You can keep them titties of your put up, miss. I ain’t givin’ you a ride to feel you up. Just tell me when you want to get off.”

Her fingers stop moving across the buttons and she relaxes, then just points out the windshield towards the setting sun.

“That way, as far as I can go.”

What is she running so far away from, I wonder? Drugs? Abuse? Danger? What sent her down the path that ended with her sitting next to me in a sixteen wheeler full of construction equipment in the middle of nowhere and headed even further?

“Yes ma’am.”

But then again… who really cares?