Incarcerated: Letters From Inmate 92510

  I was so deep in thought I didn’t notice it when a guy stopped beside me until I nearly walked into him while pacing back and forth. “You lost?” He sounded even more southern than I did with my hillbilly twang. Standing six feet tall, with a paunchy belly, red hair and a mischievous grin, he was middle aged and his eyes were kind.

  “Sort of.”

  “I’m heading south if you need a ride.”

  “How far south?”

  “Conway, South Carolina.”

  “Is that near Myrtle Beach?”

  He chuckled. “Yep.”

  “Sweet! I’d really appreciate it if I could ride down with you.”

  He stepped off the curb and waved me on, “Come on. We’ve gotta log some miles.” While he checked his load and tires and gauges and all things trucker guys do before they hit the road, I settled into the cab of the tractor. The outside was dark blue and the interior a simple gray. It sort of smelled like stale French fries, which made me giggle. Booger, which was the trucker guy’s handle, had a pair of orange fuzzy dice hanging from his rear-view and a hula-dancer suction-cupped to his dashboard.

  The driver’s side door flew open and Booger climbed up and cranked the engine. I felt like I was sitting on the darn thing. It rumbled and shook so hard my butt was starting to feel numb. But it was a free ride and Booger seemed nice, and not like a Manson-type of guy. He wrote down numbers in a little book thing and checked his gauges, before donning a pair of wrap-around shades I was sure he’d had from the 1980s. The lenses reflected the rainbow and he smiled big, his cheek full of chewing tobacco. “Ready, Freddy?”

  “Ready when you are, good buddy!” I teased.

  “Ten-four, over and out! Let’s get ‘er done!” He maneuvered the massive vehicle out of the parking space and soon, we were rolling down Interstate 64 heading toward my future.