8/19/09

Now that's what I'm talking about! Nothing can add a little spice to a rather mundane occupation like getting to watch cops beating the shit out of a guy in the middle of the freeway.

First, in true Godfather II fashion, we'll backtrack and see how we got there...

I woke this morning and had absolutely no idea where I was. This happens from time to time. Today though, even after taking a few minutes and trying to figure out the mystery, I was at a loss. I saw a repair bay to my forward left and not much of anything to the right. It didn't compute in any way. I looked at the alarm setting on my cell phone and saw that the alarm would be going off in 45 minutes, so I went back to bed. Screw it. Maybe I would have better luck the second time around, the theory went.

When the alarm did wake me a short time later, I was able to sort out my whereabouts and so forth. That's always nice. Got a job to do and all. So I made the trip up to Greeneville and ate another 3o unpaid miles in the process. Is that Petro really in Knoxville? I have my doubts. On a more positive note, my message requesting the pay for yesterday's extra stop was met almost immediately with a notification that my $35 was being paid. Good deal.

At the shipper, things went quickly and I was sent on my way back to the west. There were occasional rain showers and this load is fairly heavy, so the tedium that comes with the job was certainly present for today's drive. I don't have to deliver until Friday night though, so I was able to take a nice long nap after I made it through Knoxville. This approach got me back on the road in time to hear another pathetic offensive performance by the Tigers. I was also able and cruise through Nashville and Memphis after the traffic had died down for the most part.

Between Nashville and Memphis, I saw brake lights in both lanes about a mile ahead of me. I eased off the gas, thinking that a Schneider truck or a Swift truck must be trying to pass someone. That situation usually snarls both lanes for a few minutes and then people go about their business. Neither lane cleared though, and I wound up approaching the logjam at a fairly slow speed. I then saw, around a corner, that there were cops ahead in both lanes with their lights flashing. The pace of the whole rolling roadblock was around 45mph. Weird. I flipped on my CB to catch the chatter and see what was going on. Apparently a drunk was spotted rolling along and one of the truckers had called the fuzz to come and get the guy. I had tuned in just in time to catch the play-by-play.

The drunk guy drove his pickup truck into the median and the cops got on each side of him. Traffic, of course, came to a stop for a minute or two. By the time people started to ease past the scene, the cops had managed to drag the driver from his vehicle. As I made my way past, the guy slugged one of the cops and took off running. They caught him quickly and threw him a pretty good beating as far as I could tell. (Darkness and flashing lights and whatnot.) The pickup's passenger window was busted out as well. I'm not sure if that was related to the current incident, but it's definitely not every day that you get to see some good old law-on-drunk fisticuffs in the middle of the interstate.

[Back to the present... Exit DeNiro, enter Pacino...]

I proceeded from there to our terminal in West Memphis and called it a night. It looks like I'll have around 875 miles or so to Eagle Pass from this point. I don't intend to set an alarm for tomorrow, so the next leg of the trip will largely depend on how early I get rolling. If I'm moving at a relatively early hour, I intend to put in a full day and get at least 600 miles behind me. If I sleep late though, I may stop off in Lancaster tomorrow since I know I can find parking there at any hour. I'm probably going to be behind some people on the board whenever I make my drop on Friday anyway, so I'm not terribly worried about how the schedule shakes out from here. As long as I'm on time, the rest will sort itself out soon enough.