The Snowbound Brunette

I rolled my butt out of the sleeper bed of the Mack at a little after five in the afternoon. Once I was dressed, I pulled back the curtain, looked out the windows and swore to myself. It was mid-January, it was snowing, and it looked cold. The people walking in and out of the Love's building were bundled up like it was Alaska instead of East Tennessee. That night was going to be one long-ass drive that I wasn't going to enjoy very much.

To people in the northern US, half an inch of snow on the ground is just a nuisance. An inch, like it looked had settled on Love's truck lot, might cause them to leave for work or to go shopping fifteen minutes early, but that's about it. An inch of snow in Tennessee can pretty much shut down everything until the road crews get out and start plowing and spreading salt.

That wouldn't be so bad if the people would stay home until that happens, but they don't. They get in their cars and trucks and hit the road. Often they hit each other as they try to navigate on the slippery pavement. Several of them will end up sitting in their car or truck in the median of the interstate or off and down the side while waiting for a tow truck to pull them back out.

I suppose it's not really their fault. It doesn't snow very often or very much in the South, so people here don't learn how to drive when the roads are slick. They'll slow down a little, but forget they can't make sharp turns or stop quickly. It only takes one hard turn while changing lanes and they start to lose control. They try to brake then.

Most cars today have anti-lock brakes, so they'll probably be able to get it slowed down enough to straighten things out. If they don't have anti-lock, the back end of the vehicle, especially a pickup with no weight in the bed, tries to catch up with the front when the rear brakes lock up. It spins out right there in the middle of other cars with drivers trying to stay on the road. Those other drivers also try to brake, and the result is usually at least one collision..

Antilock can't do anything once the spin starts. It only helps you stop without starting to spin and in return, it stretches your stopping distance. That means you might not lose control, but you might run into the vehicle ahead of you. I remember a huge pile-up with forty-six cars one winter when I was driving for Allied Logistics, and that's what caused it to be so bad. I was stopped in the lane going in the opposite direction, and watched as car after car tried to stop. Even if they could manage that, they were hit from behind by another car that couldn't.

I couldn't wait for the plows that night. I'd stopped at the Love's outside of Dandridge because I'd been on the road for ten and a half hours and I couldn't make the Love's on the other side of Knoxville before my eleven hours were up. It was either stop in Dandridge or pull off on the shoulder in the middle of nowhere for ten hours of rest.

I was due at a factory dock in Nashville in six hours. When I checked the weather on the laptop beside the bed, it said the band of snow stretched from the Tennessee line almost all the way west to Ashland City. It looked like it would probably take me most of that six hours to make what was normally only about a four hour drive.

After starting the coffee pot and then pulling on a jacket, I walked the hundred or so feet to the building. I could have stuck a frozen sandwich in the microwave and had my breakfast, but I figured since it was gonna be a long night, I'd treat myself in advance. The egg and bacon burritos looked pretty good, so I bought a couple and headed back to the Mack. An hour later, I pulled out of the parking lot, down the street and then took the ramp onto I-40 West. It had stopped snowing and my headlights showed me the twin tracks other cars and trucks had cut through the snow that covered the asphalt.

A lot of people, including some truck drivers, don't like driving at night. It's dark and since there aren't a lot of people on the road, there's not much to see except what your headlights show you. I like driving at night for the same reasons. I don't mind being alone on the road, and in fact, I'd rather have it that way. Without a lot of normal daytime traffic that would make me slow down and then accelerate over and over, the Mack would roll on at a steady speed that saves fuel and eats up the miles before you know it.

I-40 wasn't particularly slick in most spots, but then, my rig weighed a little over sixty thousand. As long as I didn't hit snow that had been packed down hard, that weight would hold me pretty tight to the pavement. Braking could still be a problem, but the Mack and my trailer have anti-lock and I was going to keep my speed down so I wasn't too concerned. There wasn't that much snow left on the road anyway, and the outside temperature on the dash of the Mack told me it was just a little below freezing. What snow was left on the road was more like slush, so apparently the highway guys had already been out with their salt trucks.

I saw headlights coming up behind me and whatever it was was flying low. When it moved into the left lane, it fishtailed a little, but then got straightened out and went by me doing about eighty to my sixty. That speed was crazy but the driver would probably have done OK if the road conditions had stayed like they were. As the Ranger pickup went by me, though, I saw the yellow sign on the shoulder that said "CAUTION Bridge May Freeze Before Pavement".

That's a common sign before bridges and overpasses in the South. Even if the temperature is below freezing, the earth under the pavement will keep it above freezing for quite a while. Bridges and overpasses are another story. Cold air blowing under the road there can cause the surface to freeze into ice even though the rest of the road doesn't. I backed off the pedal a little just in case, and it was a good thing I did.

I was sitting high enough I saw the glare of ice on the overpass long before I got there and slowed down some more. The driver of the Ranger finally saw it just as it started across. A second later, I saw brake lights come on, then head lights, then brake lights again as the truck spun in a slow circle. I don't know what kept it from hitting the rail one side of the overpass or the other, but it didn't. The pickup made one complete circle and was almost lined up with the road when it got back off the ice again. The tires caught in the pavement on the other side, and the Ranger started swerving all over the road as the driver tried to correct for the spin.

The driver managed to keep the Ranger on the road long enough to get past the guardrail leading away from the overpass. It would have been better if it had hit the guardrail. If it had, it would have been torn up some, but wouldn't have run down the embankment of the median.

As soon as the Ranger started spinning, I hit the dash button for the emergency lights and began stopping as fast as I could without doing the same thing. When I finally got the rig on the shoulder, I was a couple hundred feet from where the Ranger sat out in the median. I pulled on my jacket, grabbed the flashlight I keep beside my seat and got out to see if anybody was hurt. I heard the tires on the Ranger screaming as the driver tried to back up, but it wasn't going anywhere. I don't think there's anything other than solid ice that's slicker than wet snow on grass.

The temperature might have only been about freezing, by the by the time I got to where the Ranger had dived for the median, slipped and fell twice down going down the slope, and then got to the driver's side door, my teeth were starting to chatter.

The woman in the driver's seat was leaning over the steering wheel with her head in her hands, and she was shaking. I tapped on the window twice before she looked up. She rolled down the window when I made a cranking motion with my hands.

"Are you hurt", I asked.

"No, I think I'm OK. I'm just scared, that's all. Can you pull me back up on the road?"

I shook my head.

"I'm driving the semi you just passed. You'll have to call a tow truck to get you out."

"I can't. I don't have my phone with me."

"Well, get out and come back to my truck. I'll let you use mine."

When she shut off the engine, opened the door and grabbed her purse, then stepped out of the Ranger, I saw that in addition to not knowing how to drive on slick roads, the woman didn't know how to dress for cold weather either. All she had on was a T-shirt with a low-cut V neck, jeans, and tennis shoes. She was also shivering.

"Don't you have a jacket", I asked.

She shook her head.

"No. I was in a hurry and I didn't think I'd need one. I never thought about anything like this happening."

"Well, let's get going before you freeze to death. You can warm up in my truck."

I got her in the passenger side, closed that door and then got back in the driver's seat. I was more than a little surprised when I turned on the cab lights so she could see to use my phone.

There wasn't much of a moon that night, so down in the median, it was black as the ace of spades. My flashlight is a good light, but the beam isn't very wide and we didn't spend much time down there so I didn't really get a good look at her. Going back to my truck I was more concerned with keeping myself and her from slipping and falling down than looking at her. There in the bright LED lighting of the cab, I did look.

She wasn't some young kid who'd just started driving like I'd thought was probably the case. She looked about the same age as my ex, and that would have made her about twenty-six. She wasn't really pretty, but I chalked that up to the fact she wasn't wearing any makeup that I could see, not even lipstick, and her long, brown hair was just pulled back in a ponytail. She looked about like my ex used to look when she got out of bed in the morning -- not ugly, just kinda plain.

The rest of her was about the same, though I thought her breasts were probably smaller than my ex's. The T-shirt was cut pretty low and she wasn't showing much in the way of cleavage. My ex had big breasts, but then she was bigger all over than this woman. My ex wasn't fat by any means, but she was filled out a lot more in her ass and legs.

She was still shivering, so I bumped up the temperature control on the cab heater a couple notches and turned the fan to high. She leaned over to take the full blast of air on her chest and put her hands beside the grill in front of her, then looked at me and smiled.

"I'm really glad you stopped. I'd have frozen to death in my truck."

I smiled.

"Yeah, it's pretty cold out there to be dressed like you are. By the time I got to you I was cold, and I had a jacket on. You tell me when you're warmed up enough and I'll give you my phone."

She spent the next five minutes or so with her hands in the air stream from the heater and with her face staring out the side window. She'd stopped shivering by then, but I could tell she was still shaken up.

I couldn't blame her. I'd had that experience when I first started driving a truck and trailer. I'd tried to stop to avoid hitting a car in front of me, and when I decided I couldn't, had made a sharp turn onto the shoulder. I missed the car, but ended up driving off the shoulder and down into a ditch. The rig didn't tip over and I didn't pee my pants, but it was touch and go there for a while.

When she turned back to face me, I could see tears in her eyes. She wasn't crying or anything like that. Her eyes just looked really wet. I asked her if she was ready to call a tow truck. She nodded and said, "about as ready as I'll ever be, but if it's all right, I have to call my mother first. She's expecting me and she'll be worried sick when I don't show up tonight."

After I nodded, she tapped a phone number into my cell phone and then put it to her ear. A couple seconds later, the woman said, "Mom, this is Brenda."

There was a pause while the other person said something I couldn't hear, then the woman sniffed as she spoke.

"Mom, I'm not gonna make it tonight. I hit a slick spot and slid off the road."

After another pause, she said, "No, I'm all right. A trucker stopped to help me. I'm using his phone to call you."

As the woman listened again, I saw a tear stream down her cheek. As second later, there were more. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before she spoke again.

"I know, Mom. I didn't think he was that way either even though Betty warned me. I'm not going back, not ever, not even to get the rest of my stuff. I didn't have that much there anyway."

She wiped her eyes again.

"I don't know, Mom. I don't know how long it'll take to get me pulled out and I don't know how long it'll take me to get there. I was in such a hurry to leave I forgot my phone so I can't call you when I get started again."

There was another pause, then the woman sighed.

"Yes, I'm glad it's over too. I'll be there as soon as I can get there. You can help me decide what to do next."

She sniffed a few times and then wiped her eyes again.

"I will, Mom. Bye."

When she tapped the phone to end the call, I grinned.

"So, your name's Brenda?"

"Yes, Brenda Wilson."

"Pleased to meet you Brenda. I'm Tim Simmons. You gonna call a wrecker now?"

She smiled a forced smile.

"Yeah, if I can figure out who to call."

I smiled.

"Gotcha covered there. Give me my phone."

I pulled up the browser on my phone and started the map program. A couple seconds later, the map with a little pointer filled the screen. We were about fifteen miles from the county road that went to Kodak. I typed "kodak tn towing" into the search box of the browser and then waited until the listings appeared.

All the listing were in Knoxville. That didn't surprise me all that much. There aren't a lot of towns or cities between the Love's where I'd stopped and Knoxville, and the ones there are aren't very big. Even the Love's where I'd spent the day was out in the middle of nowhere all by itself. Brenda was going to have a long wait, and I couldn't very well just sit her on the side of the road and drive on even if it made me late. I handed her the phone.

"You can try calling any of these, but it'll probably take them an hour to get here. I'll wait until one does. Tell them we're on I-40 west about mile marker four-hundred."

Brenda called the first company on the list, and when they answered, she told them where she was and what she needed. As soon as she stopped talking, she first frowned, then the tears streamed down her cheeks again.

"Not until tomorrow? Is there another company I can call that's not so busy?"

She wiped her eyes again as she listened, then said "OK, if I decide to, I'll call you back. Thanks."

Brenda turned to me then.

"They said there are cars off the road all over Knoxville and that all the tow trucks in Knoxville and the suburbs are busy. They won't be able to come out until about noon tomorrow."

Well, that was a problem. If I didn't make my dock time in Nashville, I'd have to wait until a dock was available. They wouldn't dock me for being late, but it would put me behind schedule for my dock time in Memphis. If I was late for that one, I wouldn't have a chance at making the dock times in Texarkana, Dallas, and Phoenix.

I thought about calling the police, but then I realized they'd be just as busy as the tow trucks. Some of the problems in Knoxville were undoubtedly collisions, and the local police and county sheriff's department would be trying to sort all that out. They wouldn't have time for an accident where nobody was hurt.

It was possible a state trooper might be in the area, but each car patrols a lot of miles and there were bound to be more cars off the road, so it might be several hours before one got there.

That left me only one option that I could see. I'd have to take Brenda with me into Knoxville and find her a place to stay. She could call the towing company in the morning and wait until they brought her Ranger to her.

"Well, Brenda, I can't leave you here. I'll take you into Knoxville so you can get a motel room for the night. Tomorrow, you can call a tow truck to get your car and bring it to the motel. That work for you?"

She frowned.

"I guess it has to, doesn't it."

"Well, you buckle up and we'll get started."

She didn't say anything for a couple of miles. When I looked over at her from time to time, she seemed to be thinking so I didn't try to start a conversation. We'd gone about twenty miles or so when she started to giggle, but stifled it and it came out as kind of a short. I chuckled.

"What was that for?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about what my husband's gonna think when he gets home from work tonight."

"You're married?"

"Yes, in name only though. We haven't been really married for almost a year now."

I chuckled again.

"I thought you were either married or you weren't. I didn't know there was a such a thing as married but not really married."

Brenda sighed.

"Yes, unfortunately, there is. Being not really married is when your husband is sleeping with another woman instead of sleeping with you. That's why I left him."

I didn't think I really needed to hear about that for several reasons, but Brenda seemed to want to tell me.

"See, we'd been married for two years and I thought everything was fine, well, everything but our jobs was fine. We lived about fifteen miles from Johnson City. I worked days cooking at a diner and Jack worked second shift at a factory. We didn't see much of each other except on the weekends, but we made the most of those weekends. Then, about a year ago, he seemed to lose interest in me. I thought it was me, so I tried dressing sexy on the weekends and even started things off one Saturday morning. When I did that, Jack said he was going fishing so he had get up.

"That was the last time we were in bed together. After that, he started sleeping in the spare bedroom, so he wouldn't wake me up when he got home, he said. Well, I still thought it was me but I didn't know what else to do. Mom couldn't tell me what to do so I asked one of my girlfriends at work.

"At first she didn't want to tell me, but Chrissy finally did. She said she and her husband were out on the lake fishing a couple weeks before, and saw Jack go by in his bass boat. At first, she said, she thought the woman in the boat was me, but then she saw the woman was blonde.

"Chrissy said she wanted to tell me before, but she didn't think I'd believe her. Well, if Jack and I had still been sleeping together I probably wouldn't have, but I did then. The next Saturday he went fishing again. I knew where he always put in his boat so I waited about five minutes after he left and then drove my car to that ramp. Sure enough, he was there with a blonde woman in his boat.

"When he got home, I asked him who she was. He just laughed and said she was someone who knew more about sex than I'd ever even thought about. When I asked him what that was supposed to mean, he laughed again and said if I didn't already know, I was too dumb to figure it out.

"It was my fault, I know. There were some things he wanted to do that I just couldn't. I mean, some of the things were just nasty. I guess I should have just gone along and things would have been all right, but Mom didn't raise me that way."

It didn't sound to me like Brenda had done anything wrong. Her husband was just a self-centered asshole. I didn't tell her that, of course, but I did try to make her feel better.

"Brenda, I don't think any of that was your fault. I'm not sure what you're talking about not wanting to do, but no man who loved you would let that drive him to another woman. He probably would have done that no matter what you did."

"No, it's my fault for not listening to Betty. She dated Jack for a while until she found out he was dating another girl at the same time. She tried to tell me he was no good, but I didn't listen. She tried again after Jack proposed, but by then all I was thinking about was being married, having kids, and living happily ever after.