Barry the Truck Driver

or An Adventure in Hitchhiking

We had been hitchhiking for a day when we met Barry.

The guy we were riding with was pulling into Montgomery and he called ahead to see if anyone wanted to pick up two girls and a guy that was going North. One person came over the radio and said that he would, and to meet him in the parking lot next to the truck stop and that he would be in a white truck.

We drove into the lot and tried calling him, but no one was answering on the CB. The guy who was driving the rig called a few more times, but no one was picking up. I guess we thought that whoever it was decided not to give us a ride after all. This guy came up to the truck and we thought it might be him, but it was just someone who wanted to sell us some crack so we left and went back to the truck stop.

We thanked the guy for driving us there and went inside to clean up. When I was in the bathroom peeing, someone said "Are you ready?" I just ignored it not knowing what to make of it. I washed up and stepped outside and there was this guy with some kind of tank top shirt, brown hair (kind of a mullet, but not really) and a goatee. He asked me "Are you ready to go?"

I was a little nervous.

"Go where?"

"Didn’t you kids need a ride?" he asked.

"Oh, that was you on the radio?" I didn’t know that this was the guy who had talked over the CB and ditched us in that crack parking lot. I told him that we were the ones on the radio and he acted like he knew (I guess it’s easy to tell who’s a trucker and who’s begging for rides in a truck stop). He said he’d be in the coffee shop and just meet him there when we were ready.

I went and found Ruby and Shari, who were outside asking around for rides. It turns out that Barry saved us in a nick of time cuz the truck stop security guard had asked him if we were bothering him cuz he wanted to kick us out. He said that we were with him and everything was cool.

The girls were relieved that we found a ride so we all went to the cafe and found him there, drinking a cup of coffee with an apple pie.

We all sat down and introduced ourselves and told him where we were going. He said that he was going to St Louis and could take us that far, but he had to go to Georgia first to pick up a load. It would be a few hours out of the way, but it was a pretty straight route. And once we got to St Louis he’d help us find a ride to Indianapolis. It sounded pretty good, so we all agreed and got ourselves a cup of coffee and got to know each other.

Barry told us on how he came to be a trucker. He’d been to college and had his degree, but found nothing with it that he wanted to do. The road was a place where he could pretty much work independently of anyone and still make a living. A pretty good living at that, too. Truckers make a lot of money (comparatively). The problem is in that you are away from home for so long, but he didn’t have a family and didn’t sound like he was too close to his family anymore.

He told a very interesting story about is family and him growing up actually. Turns out that his family, especially his older brother were really racist. Growing up in that environment, he also became very racist himself. He said that he believed in all that

separation stuff and really looked down on all blacks. Then he told us that him and his brother were even neo-nazis at one time. He kept this up until he went off to college. The first day of school when he moved into the dorms, he was surprised to not only see blacks at his school, but when he got back to his room he found out that his roommate was black.

He said that at first it was very uncomfortable, but then he eventually came to like him a lot. As it turns out they eventually became best friends and have stayed best friends ever since. He said that he learned a lot about blacks and about racism and just how fucked up that whole doctrine is through his friend.

All of this eventually caused some real problems in his family that escalated one Thanksgiving. Barry and his friend were on break from school and Barry told his family that he was bringing a friend home for the holidays. His family was excited and all until they met his friend. His brother was so mad that they ended up getting into a fist fight because he "had the nerve to bring a nigger home with him." His brother knocked Barry’s teeth out and I don’t think they’d ever really spoke much since. But Barry remained friends with him to this day, he told us. "I even have his name tattooed on my ankle and am his daughter’s godfather."

I don’t think that he was totally free of any racial prejudice by any means, but that’s a long way to come from being a racist neo-nazi so I thought that story was pretty incredible.

We stayed in the truck stop for a couple of hours talking about everything from sexism, racism, eating meat, to just living. He was really nice so I think we all felt pretty comfortable riding with him to St Louis. He’d even hinted that he might take us all the way to Indianapolis, but he wasn’t sure. That sounded awesome for obvious reasons. I personally was excited about that prospect because that meant that I wouldn’t have to ask for anymore rides. So we headed out.

Georgia was a couple of hours from Montgomery. We were picking up about 50 tons of watermelons. I think he even said that we’d break a few open somewhere along the way. Once we got to the town where the watermelons were, we had to wait there for almost 10 hours because this guy got there a few minutes before us and picked the last load so we’d have to wait until the farmers got back from the field. This really sucked for us because we couldn’t leave the truck and risk being seen by the other trucker. Barry thought the guy was an asshole anyway and thought that he might rat him out that he was picking up hitchhikers so we had to stay low for a long time. There was a scare for a little bit that he did see us in the truck, but we weren’t sure.
After we waited almost half a day in this farm, the farmers finally came back from the fields and we loaded up and left. Barry was worried that that guy in front of us told the company that he was picking up riders, but told us not to worry. We drove for several hours and started to see familiar places and signs. Then we realized that we were back in Montgomery again. I looked at a clock and it was 24 hours since we first arrived there.

We stopped at a Shoney’s and got a salad. Barry paid for most of the stuff because we were all poor and I guess he felt sorry for us. Then we headed out to St Louis.

The way up to St Louis was a pretty crazy. It was neat because we got to see a lot of things but it was just a long trip and we’d already been riding for almost two days now.

Those rigs are really big and this was my first time riding in one. They were really like little houses. Big bed, TV, radio, fridge. It was pretty interesting. A lot of trucks even had an intranet where they could stay in contact with the dispatcher (whenever I picture that I think of Sputnik with a CAT baseball cap). Some even had a regular internet connection that they’d hook into when they pulled into a stop. It was like a whole other world. We even talked about becoming truckers ourselves. Barry said he’d teach us. Even now its kind of appealing. Having a few friends start riding, like a little punk rock trucking company. The IWW even has a queer trucking company unionized. The whole idea of a radical trucker collective seemed really awesome and still sounds great.

I think the craziest thing that Barry did was let us drive the rig. When I think about it it’s really insane. He just asked us if we wanted to drive for a while. Shari was first. She white-knuckled the steering wheel and barely moved the whole time and looked as serious as if she was in the middle of open heart surgery. I was next and, seeing that Shari didn’t crash the truck, was a little more at ease. Not much more though. I did get to pick up the CB though and talk. I fucked up though because I signed off by saying "10-4 good buddy." All these people came over the radio and started saying "good buddy?" and laughing. Barry said that they only say that in the movies and that if you say Good Buddy on the radio it means you are their "good buddy. If you know what I mean." I went back on the radio and apologized to all my good buddies that I may have offended.

Ruby was next and was a natural at it. She was honking the horn, talking on the radio. She even gave Barry a hassle when he wanted the wheel back. It was a lot of fun, but still a pretty crazy thing to do. Especially considering that not all of us even had driver’s licenses.

We pulled into St Louis about ten or twelve hours later and dropped off our load at some grocery store. Barry called the company and it turns out that guy at the farm ratted us out after all. I think Barry saw him as he was leaving and threatened to kick his ass,

but the guy took off. I could tell he was a little worried about it and he typed in for his next instructions on where to go on the Truck computer. The dispatcher ordered him back to the company headquarters and he knew he was in trouble. Before he headed back, he pulled into this truck stop outside of St Louis and filled up and got something quick to eat. He said that he called dispatch and they said that it wasn’t a big deal but they had to write him up. He was talking about quitting and that he’s had enough of their shit and was going to sign his papers and tell them to fuck off. Maybe kick that guys ass

who turned him in if he saw him. He mentioned something about a truckers strike that was getting ready to go on, too with his union. So a lot of things were up in the air now. But he told us not to worry about it and that he’s come back in two hours after he signed the papers and pick us up and take us right to the front door of the friend were going to Indiana to see. He sounded pretty sincere so we said goodbye and told him we’d call him in an hour or so and see what was going on.

We waited and waited at the buffet in the truck stop. Drank coffee and read. Coincidentally, I used to live about 5 minutes from that truck stop and hadn’t been back there in six years, so I was kind of going through a nostalgic trip. Ruby called his voice mail first. We waited for him to call back, but nothing happened. I called him and nothing happened. We repeated this about a dozen times and waited and waited. Then we realized that Barry wasn’t coming back. We kept trying to call and started asking around for rides. Then Ruby held up a sign that said INDIANA on it and a waitress saw it and called the police on us. "You can’t do that kind of thing here. Get out, NOW!" We decided to leave before the pigs showed up. Now we were on the road again. No Barry, no truck, no ride, and it was night time and we were all feeling like shit.
I don’t know if Barry ever showed up later, but we were stranded now and had to start holding up our thumbs again. We walked for like 10 or 15 miles until someone finally picked us up and took us all the way to Indianapolis. We rode in the back of a pick up truck without a tail through the rain for several hours until we finally got there in the morning.

We found a ride in Indianapolis with this crazy drunk guy who raced the Dolly Madison truck the whole way and found our friend the next day. That whole trip took 3 days to take us what was really a twelve hour drive if we went straight through. Still though, it was a good experience. At least looking back at it a year later. Oh yeah, Barry forgot to give us a watermelon, too. I think that’s what hurt the most.

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