Just Trying to Get Home

Note: This story is kind of a follow-up to the story called "Roxanne."

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So, there I was a 100+ miles from my home town in 15 degree weather dumped unceremoniously at a truck stop in rural Iowa.

I had less than 16 bucks in my pocket, a single change of clothes and a jacket that wasn't nearly up to the task of battling the elements. It was rapidly approaching darkness. I had no place to go, no phone and no friends to call if I had one. It was a pretty dire situation.

A few hours before, I had thought I was going to California, but it didn't turn out that way. Now I was just one more piece of truck stop trash just like the hookers, dealers, hustlers, transients and other undesirables mixed with the rare stranded traveler that broke down or went broke on their way from point A to B.

With the exception of the hookers and dealers, we were all beneath contempt to the truckers that passed through. They treated us as invisible and unworthy of their time.

The management saw truck stop trash only as a source of crime, turning a blind eye to the dealers and prostitutes because they were necessary evils to attract business, but driving the rest away as fast and as coldheartedly as was necessary.

On this day I was lucky in that I could blend with the most tolerated of the undesirables. It was easy to think that I was a hooker new to the scene or perhaps a young dealer looking to sell a trucker some speed. I might have been both - a lot of hookers did double duty - servicing the needs of the flesh and the spirit for the professional driver clientele.

I sat in the small diner near the parking lot and drank my cup of coffee. It had been made clear to me that it wasn't "bottomless" and that my time in the warmth of the restaurant was growing shorter with every sip.

I approached trucker after trucker asking the same thing. "Can you help me get back to Charles City?" Most gave me the once over and simply shook their head no. Others asked "how much?" The twinkle in their eye or cocking of an eyebrow made to plain they weren't looking for me to pay them for a ride - they wanted to know what it would cost to ride me.

As the day turned into night I was getting desperate - but prostitution was a line I hadn't crossed in my time on the streets. I'd fucked a few men at least partially because I wanted what they had - be it drugs or a clean bed - but I never sold myself out of need. I was running out of options though.

The restaurants patience with my presence disappeared with my last few sips and I was invited to vacate the premises shortly after the sun went down. The waitress knew the score and offered to call a women's shelter if I needed one, but I was paranoid about such places as I was carrying drugs I wasn't anxious to stash or trash. Those places could be more dangerous than the streets anyway.

I slipped out onto tarmac to live by my wits one more time. From practically the moment I stepped into the night I realized I was feeding myself to the wolves and that the elements were my enemy. There wasn't going to be any comfortable little outbuilding I could break into and sleep overnight here. No place out of the wind that I could hang. It was well below freezing and the death clock started ticking as soon as I stepped outside.

I debated going back on the waitresses offer, but pride or stupidity prevented me from it. I pointed myself out to the lot where the parked rigs were concentrated.

Walking towards the rigs, I felt suddenly small. I'd been in this kind of environment many a time in "my town" but here in the middle of nowhere my self-confidence was dropping as fast as the temperature. I had about $70 worth of quality crank hidden in my pack - a bargaining chip of sorts that I would not have mentioned in the crowded diner. That was about all that separated me from freezing to death at this point, and I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

I had no trouble getting people to talk to me. A girl walking along the parked rigs draws attention. Everyone knows you aren't there on a casual stroll to buy milk. There were nods and hellos, and questions about where various agendas might connect. With most, need trumped their desire - they either weren't going my way or didn't want to carry a passenger. I found no love - only lust.

It's hard not to sound like a racist saying it now, but this was no place for a young white girl. It didn't take long for a small piece of shit Ford full of black hooker girls to find me and let me know I wasn't welcome. I was working their turf and that could be very damaging to my health.

I hadn't expected this complication. It didn't happen in Charles, but I'd heard the stories from drifters from other lots about how hard these women could be. The beatings - the torn flesh of fingernails dug into both cheeks that would destroy a pretty face forever. There was reason to be scared. The prostitution at truck stops in this area was mostly run out of the mob in St. Louis and they were bad, bad people.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My savior came in the form of a rough truck driver with the kinds of tattoos on his arms one only saw on ex-cons. Words like Aryan and White Power plainly visible on his forearms. He vaguely had a skinhead look.

When the words "white bitch" came blasting out of the open window of the hookers' car I could tell than in his mind, I became his obligation. I was quickly invited into the warm cab of his 18 wheeler.

At first, the girl gang thought they were witnessing my brazenly pulling a trick on their property, and stepped out the car and began to advance towards the doors of our vehicle. When the trucker stepped out, a crowbar in one hand and something wrapped in a jacket in the other, the girls suddenly realized what time it was and turned tail.

I sat alone in this truck - far enough off the ground that no one outside could see in. In the short time I had been walking the lot I had gone almost into a paralysis with the cold, but I sat shivering for more reasons than the freeze while this big trucker stared me down.

He introduced himself as Rich and with a grimacing sort of smirk he let me know that he didn't buy parking lot meat. When I told him in no uncertain terms I wasn't selling any, his smile got a little warmer.

As we talked further, his manner went from suspicion to respect. He didn't like hookers or vagrants but didn't mind a girl hard on her luck. But he still wanted to know the answer to that age old question - "what a nice girl like me was doing in a place like this."

This, in my case, was a tough question to answer - so I gave him the short version about being dumped on the side of the road like a puppy that had lost it's cute. When that didn't do the job, I confessed to holding rocket powder and found that crank is a language that all truckers understood. The young relationship we had established turned up another notch. His opinion of me had grown, and if I hadn't exactly warmed to him that was no big deal. Something told me he was used to not exactly being liked.

We talked for a while and I found out he was from Vegas on his way up to Minneapolis. No surprise, he'd been in prison, but the white supremacist style tats where more about protection than anything he really believed. (He did have some choice epitaphs for the hookers who had tried to attack me though. It reminded me that this guy was not exactly a charm school graduate.)

I offered him a line and he refused saying that he was in lockdown - meaning he was on a legally enforced rest after too many hours driving - and had to sleep.

I looked around the cab and realized the implications. This truck stop didn't have a hotel and this was a sleeper cab. We were here for the night - or rather he was and I was going to be if I was lucky. A small heater whirred somewhere so it wasn't cold, but this was going to be close quarters for the next 8 hours or so.

He didn't seem in a hurry to crawl into his bunk, so we sat and talkedfor a while. He had family that was in the trucking business that had hooked him up when he left prison. (A bad rap when he wrecked a stolen car was his explanation, but I knew people who had been popped for stolen cars, and they didn't do the kind of time he had.) He was single and drove too much to really have a life and a wife. Had plans to settle down some day in Sedona but that was a long way off. If you could get past the overgrown muscles and deep scary tattoos, he was just like a normal guy it seemed.

Eventually he broke out a small whiskey bottle and we sipped on it together. He didn't seem concerned I was probably not 21 and I didn't push the point. Eventually though, it was obvious to both of us he was practically asleep in his chair. He had to lie down. The awkward part of the evening was about to be negotiated.

Watching his eyes watch me I was tempted to remind him I wasn't a prostitute, but he knew that. I wasn't going to be giving anything up for free either, but I wasn't anxious to take any unnecessary stands given it was far below freezing, hours until daylight and somewhere out there was a pack of girls who considered me unfair competition. (I believe their racial slur was something about having a "white sale.")

Eventually I think my predicament sunk in with him and he said he'd be a good boy but it would be nice if I'd lay with him. I have him a "don't bullshit me" look and he put up his fingers and said "Scouts Honor" which made me laugh in a way. I finally gave in and lay beside him. While he did spoon me pretty good in his sleep (or at least he pretended to be asleep) I'd say his leisurely trip to first base with his hands was a small price to pay for my safety and comfort from the cold.

We woke up the next AM to a fast falling snow. I don't know if it was predicted, but Rich seemed surprised. (I've noticed weather predictions have gotten better in the last 25 years then they were then, but truckers always knew the winter weather reports the same way the farmers followed them Spring thru Fall.) It was daylight, but the freezing cold wind was blasting and snow was accumulating fast. Rich climbed out of the car to inspect his load and consult with other drivers about driving conditions.

It had never really been settled whether Rich was going to take me with him when he left the lot in the morning. I had been his "white sister" to protect in the dark of night, but by light of day I didn't know if I was on my own or not.

Many truckers have a thing about not having strangers in the truck when they are on the road. Even if he was going to take me with him, his route would take him towards my town, but it was still 40 miles or more out of his way and he probably wouldn't have been able to swing an 80 mile side trip in a piece of equipment he didn't own.

Now we were headed out in tough driving conditions or possibly not headed out at all. I didn't dare hop out of the truck - a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush - but decided I'd had enough of the bra and tee shirt I'd slept in. The little heater that we had had worked overtime and it was actually kind of sweltering hot in the cab. I took a moment to change clothes, and fate being what it was Rich opened up the door and scrambled inside while I was in my jeans and bra. Though he didn't notice at all until he'd been in the drivers seat for 30 seconds or so, had removed his heavy jacket and gloves and had finished delivering a profanity filled overview of the road conditions, the view had an effect when he saw it.

I decide to forget the modesty in my bid to stay in that truck. I crawled forward in my bra and denims and took the right seat. If was kind of a spooky move - this guy was scary - but I knew this devil and he'd behaved, so I did what I needed to do to keep him on the hook. If there had been any question that I'd be his co-pilot at least until Clear Lake, well, I think I settled it.

In the middle of a snow storm he started his engine and buckled up. We were on our way doing perhaps 20 miles an hour once we got to speed. At this rate it would take us well more than half a day to do what was usually a 90 minute drive.

The big truck was cutting through the snow pretty good and the road was straight, flat and fairly empty of traffic. There wasn't much to do and so we didn't do much, just sat and listened to the radio as the weather got worse and the snow got deeper. He snuck peeks at me when he could and I winked at him to let him know this was all part of the fun, and we generally had a good time together.

The weather kept getting worse. If you've never been in a big vehicle when the wind hits it and pushes it out of the traffic lane, it can be very frightening and this was happening now every few minutes. By about 2 hours in, it was obvious we were never going to make Clear Lake. Even at slow speeds in the surefooted vehicle we were odds on favorites to slide into a ditch if we didn't get off the roads soon.

We were near the small town of Thornton - a little slice of nowhere about half-way between our starting point and the highway turnoff where I had planned to break my ties with Rich - when it was time to give up and we pulled into a small travel court of rental cabins. They were small units in disrepair that looked like they had last been painted in the 60s. They had perhaps once had been nice places.

Rich paid for a room - a little one bedroom, one bed affair that was like a vacation cabin inside complete with a fireplace. Rich said a single bed was all they had available. They called these "honeymoon" cabins for a reason. (My guess is that they were probably used more by the hour than for honeymoons, and though some of the guests were married it was likely they weren't married to each other.)

It was freezing cold and windy but we made a short six block hike into town and found a grocery and a package (liquor) store still open. We loaded up on goodies care of Rich's credit cards. (He went heavy on both food and liquor figuring he'd take the extra ahead for meals in Minneapolis - it was a good thing he did.) By the time we got to the cabin the snow was deep enough and winds strong enough that we had no doubt that getting off the road had been the right decision.

We entered the cabin and settled in. There was a sexual sort of tension that developed between us - a byproduct of being alone together in this little dive motel.

When you sell crank in truck stops to stay alive and you've just spent hours that day in the truck cabin wearing a bra but no shirt in order to keep your driver amused - it is hard to play coy. I knew where he thought this was all heading and though he was polite, his eyes were eating into me.

At first, I was a little offended by the presumptuousness of it all, but I couldn't really be offended that he didn't buy me my own cabin - I was lucky he even thought about me when it was time to buy food. If there was only one king sized bed, well that would still be more room than we had shared when we slept together in the bunk in his truck the night before.

As for what we did besides sleep, it would be a decision I'd face when the time came.

I think Rich sensed that I wasn't comfortable and went into the male mode of "hunter/hero" in order to make our current situation less awkward. He collected wood from a pile near the office and fiddled around with his truck to make sure everything was tied down, buttoned up or whatever it is they do to protect their loads. He called in his location to his dispatch and got the latest road condition reports.

When it became obvious that the winds were so strong we might lose power he bothered the hotel desk person for some candles and extra blankets. He even came back with a board game and a deck of cards. He got us extra towels, drinking glasses and more, going overboard to make our little place a "home" while we waited out the storm.

In return, I loosened up and adopted his attitude of taking care of business. I started a fire, made coffee and helped him hang up his frozen wet jacket and hung his frozen wet clothes by the fire while he showered to defrost from being outside. I made him a sandwich and poured him a small shot of whiskey to help warm him up. When it was obvious that being outside in the cold so long had really affected him badly, I covered him with blankets while I found something he wanted to watch on tv. (No remote control- this tv was from the 60s or before.)

We were like an old married couple in some ways, just making the best of things and trying to stay out of each others way, which wasn't easy in such a small cabin.

By dusk, the place was well warmed and we ate some ham and eggs (just about all I knew how to cook) The wind was fierce - uncharacteristically so for this time of the year - and the snow blasts came and went. We sat at the small dinette and made small talk and drank beer. There was still something unspoken that was making us both uncomfortable - a byproduct of our being snowed out in our honeymoon cabin.

I only owned what I was wearing and one change of clothes and so I used the opportunity of a bathtub to rinse out my things and hung them all on an impromptu to clothes line I had placed next to the fire. My clothes all wet, I pattered around in just a tee-shirt and the one pair of panties that I owned. I think that broke the ice.

We sat at the dinette to play some cards, started doing some whiskey shots washed down with beer, and shared a joint of some weed he had. I offered him a line which he declined as he really wanted to sleep that night, but we ended up getting fucked up in different ways.

By 11PM, when the power went out, we were both completely wasted. He lit a candle and we played a little more, but it was hard on the eyes so we decided this was nature's way of telling us it was time for bed.

I considered dropping the tee and panties when I crawled into bed, thinking that they would probably be coming off one way or the other and I was never one for playing "Try to find your laundry in the bed sheets" in the morning. I decided against and that turned out to be fine as it was hot in the cabin and the sheets and blankets were kicked to the ground.

Rich was very gentle in removing my clothes before we got started, and since we were both drunk and stoned we went at it sloppily for an more than an hour. I was having a good time but was actually kind of grateful when I felt him pull out and felt the hot drops hitting my lower back and ass. We fell into a pile and were asleep in minutes.

That night the snow gave way first a short, heavy rain than then an arctic blast of winds that froze everything in a solid 1/4 inch thick coating of ice. Trees came down with the weight, landing on power lines then the highways and streets. The heavy rain saturated the snow with water and the quick freeze turned it into a solid pack ice layer that was more than a foot deep.

It was the worst ice storm and freeze I had ever been through in my life. Opening the drapes that morning to view the situation through our heavily hung over and bloodshot eyes, it was obvious that we wouldn't be going anywhere soon. Downed tree branches alone would take hours or maybe days to remove from the roadway and they layer of ice on the ground would make driving even with chains a deadly proposition.

Rich contacted his local dispatch from his radio in the truck since the phones and power were out and confirmed traffic was at a standstill. They were advising all drivers stay off the roadway for at least 24 hours. He noted that their advisory was "all drivers" - not just those with non-perishable loads. This was serious shit.

It was perhaps 10 in the morning and we realized we had the whole day to do nothing. It was freezing cold outside, no power inside and nothing to do, so we went back to bed for a while. (We both had hangovers - it wasn't about sex.)