A Million Miles
by Verless Doran

Thirty years, and over one million miles of road. That’s what he had under his belt. That was his life. A seventy-mile-an-hour journey counted by mile markers on the side of the interstate and the clicking of the odometer. And he had begun it thirty years ago, not at mile zero, but at mile one, for you had to get to mile one before you were getting anywhere, you had to get up to gear sixteen before the journey really started. He was a real greenhorn then. A real gear jammer. He didn’t like the monotony, didn’t like being away from his new bride, but he liked the money, and for somebody like him, the money was good. Real good. And it didn’t take him long to get the hang of it. After the first twenty-five thousand miles he was slipping through the gears like they had been buttered. He moved that big KW all over the place like it was part of him, a big twenty-ton extra limb. He downshifted like he breathed, he backed that fifty-foot trailer into loading docks like he sat down in an old comfortable recliner. He pushed that big monster through city streets and alleyways like he walked. This became his life. This road. He counted mile markers like other people looked at their watches. And he listened for the clicking of the odometer like other people watched a time clock. Every tick meant another 47 cents in his pocket. Thirty years and over a million miles of road. This was his life. But there had to be more to it than that. There were plenty of things that happened in between mile markers.

He lost his first wife at around mile marker 26,327. He called her from a pay phone in Duluth, in some greasy roadside diner. Called her to tell her he’d be coming home on Wednesday. She told him not to bother, that she wouldn’t be there. Said she didn’t know being a trucker’s wife would be like this. The long, dark nights alone. He had asked her what she wanted him to do. That there wasn’t much else a man like him, a high school drop-out, could do and make the kind of money he was making. Did she want him to wash dishes? But she didn’t want a dishwasher for a husband. And she didn’t want a truck driver for a husband. She wanted something else, she said, and that was all she said before she hung up on him. Left him there holding that phone as other truckers waited in line behind him.

At mile marker 36,347 he was talking to an old boy on the CB from Cartersville, GA. He was hauling a load of gas down to Birmingham. Had a toy tractor and trailer he was taking his boy for Christmas. He was talking about his boy when this car cut him off. Jumped a guard rail and piled her up in a ditch. She caught fire and they never did get him out of there alive. The last thing he said was “Shit.” Nothing else. Just “shit.”

He remarried between mile marker 57,958 and 57,959. Made sure this one knew what being a trucker’s wife was. His first child was born at around marker 138,452. He had been snowed in outside of Boulder when that had happened. Found out about it from his dispatcher. Told him it was a boy. Told him he had his eyes. Told him his name was Jacob. At marker 174, 731 little Jacob took his first steps. He said his first word at 256,876. It was “daddy.” Said it over the phone as he listened while waiting on a new fuel pump in Sarasota. At 321,321 he had his first wreck. Piled her up in a ditch outside of Dallas. Scared the shit out of him. At 389,034 his daughter was born. His wife named her Katie. She had something wrong with her. Some big name the doctor had given it. But he couldn’t hear it right over the phone. All he knew was she would never have a straight spine and would always have to walk with braces. Didn’t matter though, he had good insurance to pay for it all.

Somewhere between 436,003 and 436,014, a red minivan plowed into the back of a pick-up truck, flipped over and slid down the guardrail about a hundred feet. He pulled the big KW off onto the shoulder. Ran up to the minivan. The woman, the mother, was already out, a big gash in her forehead, blood pouring down her face. She was screaming about her baby, how it wasn’t breathing. She was out of her mind. The daddy was dead. He could tell that when He looked inside. He had seen someone dead in a car accident before. He thought it was around mile marker 380,000. This daddy had the same look. The baby was in the car seat in the back. Wasn’t moving, Wasn’t breathing. He took it out, a little boy, is what it was, maybe six months old. He knew CPR. The insurance company they used had said the rates would be a little cheaper if all the drivers knew basic first aid and CPR, so the trucking firm he worked for made them all take a class. He sat down with that baby on the side of the interstate. Cars passing by. He cleared out it’s throat with his fingers. Almost couldn’t get the big, clumsy things in there. He breathed into the baby’s mouth, gently, so as not to bust his little lungs. The little chest heaved slightly with his breath, and then fell. The little thing’s face was purple, and it still wouldn’t breath on its own. He checked his heartbeat. Put his cheek on his chest. Felt the little heart pumping away softly. Slowing. He breathed into the baby again. He cried out to Jesus to help him, but that little baby died in his arms right there on the side of that interstate. It might have been at mile marker 436,112. And he had cried and cried holding that little baby.

At mile 527,623 she told him his name was Terry. Said he was an accountant and made enough to support her and the kids without having to be on the road twenty five days out of the month. Said the kids were already calling him “daddy.”

He was at mile 647,009 when he lost his pinky and some of the skin on his left cheek to frostbite while trying to change a solenoid switch in a snowstorm in Rapid City.

He was running double nickel in Chicago, right about at mile 720,235 when he first felt the pain in his chest. At mile 732,867 he had open heart surgery.

At mile 776, 951 in a rest stop outside of San Diego, he took his first lot lizard into his truck. He had always told himself that he would never do it, and it had been a lot easier not to do it when he was married, but lately, the nights had been way too long and way too cold. At mile 777,369 he took another.

At mile 852,467 Katie started college.

At mile 875,301 Jacob got married.

At mile 927,657 he noticed his knuckles started aching while he was tying down a load in Baton Rouge.

At mile 978,336 he couldn’t make a fist in the morning.

Then, at mile 999,999, he was just outside of Seattle. He watched the odometer. Tried to mark the moment. It clicked, fell back, clicked again, and then rolled over to zero. All the way back to the start. But this wasn’t a start over. This, his third truck, was just about wore out. And he was old and stooped over. Had a bad back. Had a pot belly. Smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. Smelled bad, most of the time, like diesel fuel and cigarettes and coffee and armpits. He had arthritis in his knuckles, shoulders and knees. His eyes were getting bad. But he had to keep going. One million miles of momentum won’t just stop on a dime. This is what he was thinking about when the church bus slammed on its brakes in front of him. He saw what was about to happen. He saw it like all Old Men of the Road see things. He stood on that damned brake. He pushed his foot into it has hard as he could. Pushed his foot into it until veins popped out on his head. But won’t nobody know how hard he pressed that brake. Nobody but him and that old twisted pile of KW off in a junkyard somewhere.

Thirty years and one million miles of road. And now he sits in a little apartment. He hasn’t driven a vehicle in over a year. Can’t make himself do it. Can’t climb behind the wheel. Can’t get out on the road. But he drives in his sleep, and sometimes he wakes up with his right foot pushed off the bed, reaching out for something. He wakes up like that, pushing that imaginary brake. He stands on that goddamned brake sometimes in the middle of the night. One million miles and the journey ends. The world comes crashing to a halt. And some people get run over by it. They end up in a twisted mess of metal and rubber and limbs. And some people find themselves at the wheel of the world, trying to stop it before it happens. And one million becomes just a whisper, just a drop in a pond, fizzling for a moment, and then...

Gone.

Verless Doran lives and writes in the hills of southern Appalachia. His works have been included in the following publications:  The New York Review, Tabletalk Magazine, The Suisun Valley Review, Dogzplot Literary Journal, The Shrimp, Sci Fi and Fantasy World, Dark Moon Rising and Heroin Love Songs. His short story "Flathead" is published in the anthology Lowcountry Writers, Vol. 2. He is currently at work on his first novel, entitled The Small Hours.

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