This is just a taste of a bigger story I’m working on called, Try Your Luck In Reno. I’m warning y’all aheada time too — it’s pretty explicit. So there’s that.
Hank watched the transmission temperature like it owed him money — the gauge was steadily rising. Despite his best efforts he could not keep Ole Dually Girl in overdrive — the Wyoming winds were just too much for her.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said aloud to the truck. “These winds are a damn whore, ain’t they girl? Just get me to a good spot and I’ll give you a break.”
The road was winding up into what had been a sandstone mountain sometime long ago. But years and years of the relentless wind had almost beaten it down to nothing. Lord please get me out of this, too much has already happened on this trip. I know I’m pushing it — Reno’s still over a thousand miles away, I just…
Hank rounded the next turn and spotted a gravel spot, maybe just big enough for him to get off the roadway. He pulled over without a second thought.
“Thanks Girl,” he said, and patted the dashboard. “I told ya I’d get’cha a break.”
Thank you too, Lord. He thought to himself, as he watched the transmission temperature gauge hover just below the yellow line. This was new to Hank — it was hard for him to understand how the wind could be that hard and relentless, not gusting, but just as steady as a block wall.
He got out to raise the hood so she could cool off quicker, but had to yank it back down after the wind damn near took it away from him. He left it latched loosely, even though it kept teetering up and down like a surfer on a small Atlantic swell.
When he got back in the truck there was a missed call from Brooke — the voicemail was already full so she’d texted him a message asking where he was, and why he hadn’t answered his phone. He didn’t want to, but he pressed call anyway.
“What the hell’s going on, Hank?” Which was the same, good morning, he’d gotten yesterday he was pretty sure. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? Where are you?”
“I’m just outside of Cheyenne. The winds real bad, as bad as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “So we had to stop.” He knew he’d screwed up, but she was on it before he could correct himself.
“We?!” She damn near screamed, “Who the fuck is we, Hank?”
“Nobody, Brooke — I swear. I was just talking about the truck.”
“Whatever,” she replied, with a snark. “I wouldn’t have any way of knowing it if you had ten hookers with ya.”
“I don’t want any hookers, Brooke, Jesus,” he said with a long drawn out sigh. “Look, I gotta figure out what’s going on with this wind. I’ll send you a screenshot so you can see for yourself…”
She cut him off, “Figures, don’t bother.” And hung up.
Hank yelled, “God damnit!” And threw a tantrum right there in his driver’s seat — stomping the floor and banging his fist on the steering wheel. He jumped out of the truck, slammed the door and was almost run over by a big rig passing, but he barely noticed. He just paced there in between the truck and the guardrail, cussing the whole world for ten minutes or so before he cooled down.
He sent Brooke a screenshot of the weather map showing his location and the current wind speed. Then another one, showing an alert that said that I-80 had been closed due to ‘Dangerous Winds’. Brooke immediately replied, “Bullshit.” Hank just shook his head.
A half-hour’d gone by now since he’d pulled over, so he turned the key forward to see what the transmission temp was — good, it’s back below the halfway point. Maybe I can get to the next town — I’ve never driven on a closed interstate before. Wait, yeah I did, during Hurricane Irma. But that was different. Anyway, I gotta try and get parked somewhere safer than this.
The wind had slacked off not-a-damn-bit — it might’ve even been stronger, though he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that Dually Girl was having a tough time getting up to speed. But he figured he could get to Buford, it was less than 10 miles away. And sure enough when he’d arrived at the lone exit off I-80 West, he saw that the entrance back-on had a railroad crossing arm down and blocking it. Parked safely at Applebee’s, Hank called Brooke to give her an update.
“Why, Hank?” Brooke pleaded, “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m not doing anything to you, Brooke. I have to work.”
“But you don’t have to work out on the road, there are plenty of jobs here.” Hank didn’t respond, he knew where this was going. So Brooke continued after a silence that felt longer than it was. “I just don’t understand why…”
Hank cut her off, “ I can’t do this right now, Brooke.”
“You never can!” Brooke’s voice began to get louder, “You just keep running, and running. When will it end, Hank? When will you…”
“Look, I’m not doing this. I’ve got enough to worry about without this shit.”
“Yeah, run.” Brooke spat, “Run off to a bar and drown yourself in whiskey for all I care. We can’t pay the light bill, but I bet you’ve got money for that, huh?”
“I’ll probably have a beer with my dinner,” Hank replied. “It’s been a pretty stressful trip so far, I think I deserve one or two.” Brooke started to argue again, but Hank told her he’d call her at bedtime and turned the phone off.
It was early afternoon, so the place was all but empty. The only patrons were an older couple sitting in a booth bathed in sunshine, and a loner sitting at the far end of the bar. Hank pulled up to the second stool away from the gentleman.
“Afternoon,” Hank said as he sat down.
“Afternoon,” the loner offered back in return.
“What’ll it be?” The bartender asked, sounding indifferent as to what the answer’d be.
“Give me an Ultra draft and a Jameson, neat but chilled, please mam.”
“Yup, I figured you for a Redneck,” she said as she sat the draft down, suds sloshing over the side. Hank just nodded a thanks towards her direction, and took a sip of the Irish whiskey.
“Don’t mind Alice,” the gentleman said. “She ain’t that bad, she just likes giving us hell.”
“Awe I ain’t even heard’er,” Hank said, extending his hand. “I’m Hank.”
“Stuart, from Kansas City.”
Turns out that Stuart was a big wig with the Sinclair Gas Company. Of course Hank and he hit-it-off — Hank had a tendency to hit-it-off with just about anybody around a bottle, or a live band. One drink turned into countless — as Stuart evidently had a thing with Alice, so she never did cut’em off. But that was none of Hank’s business.
Anyway, when he woke up lying on top of his sleeping bag fully clothed the next morning, he was still drunk. And the last thing he’d remembered was exchanging numbers with the gentleman, after he’d recommended Oaxaca to him. Stuart, that was the fella’s name. Hank had offered to let him stay in his apartment, in Puerto Escondido.
“Oh shit, did I pay my bill?” He checked his wallet — no receipt. “Fuck.”
Hank picked up his phone — it was off. When it powered on, the thing went haywire — 52 missed calls and over 70 texts, the last one called him a, “Rambling piece of shit.”
He found where he’d texted Stuart, and asked if he knew if he’d paid his bill before he left. Stuart just replied, “Don’t worry about it, you can pay me back in Mexico.” He typed, “Thanks Stuart, you got it!” And then checked to see how far the next truck stop was — two hours, damnit.
Hank removed the magnetic decals wearing his DOT numbers from the truck doors, and replaced his transport plate with a used-but-valid drive-out dealer tag. Commercial drivers were not supposed to drink within 24 hours of beginning a trip. But he didn’t have much choice — he was an extra day behind because of the wind, and had no time to waste sitting around waiting to get sober. If he didn’t get that unit to Reno and get paid before the 5th, his truck insurance would be suspended and he’d be stuck out there. And given the way he felt, a hot shower was all he cared about at the moment.
After doing a quick check over Dually Girl, he pulled back out onto I-80W and was up to 70mph before he hit his second mile. Well, at least the wind was gone. He tried Brooke — straight to voicemail. She must have me blocked. After a few miles he figured that the silence was no good, so he turned on Pandora Radio’s Southern Rock station. The Zac Brown Band started singing, “Colder Weather,” and Hank decided that he’d been wrong about the silence…
Thanks for reading! This chapter was written in response to the Stories from the Jukebox prompt, Colder Weather, but is part of a larger story I’m working on titled, Try You Luck In Reno. If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it and clicking that ❤ button, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Oh and if you’re an email reader, just hit reply—I want to hear from you too!
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