There is a level of exhaustion with freight that works like anesthesia. I don't know how you do it. I can't. Finally you say that you'd work for a moving company. Not moving houses. Never moving houses. But the big movers move specialized equipment. You have to have experience. You don't have experience. They won't hire you.
It's snowing outside the windows of your daughter's house in Tewksbury Mass. It is a thick and clean quilt. We sleep for a day. Watch movies with Jessica and Rick at night. A level of exhaustion lifts. I am capable of minor independent thought. While I'm pulling the sheets off the bunk, grabbing the laundry, I find the old trucker magazines. Some pages are stuck together near the front. But it's the back pages that advertise. North American. United Van Lines. Jessica helps me download the applications. You prop yourself up in the corner with coffee. I ask you questions. I fill in the lines. You sign.
United Van Lines is different from the start. No one yells at us over the phone. No one says you have to break the rules. We cross the country in five days instead of two and three quarters. Instead of being confined to the truck waiting for the next order after delivery, we have at least a day off. We go in to the truck stop and pay for a shower.
And you panic. You say you can't make enough money to pay the truck payment. You grit your teeth. You sweat. You start yelling. There's no way in hell you can make the truck payment.
But not killing ourselves driving means not using the fuel. We start getting the truck repaired. The tires aren't wearing down. And the money is coming in.
We get two housemates to take care of the mortgage. We're never home anyway. The freelance archeologist stays for five years. The second housemate is more of an asteroid, coming and going. For a while, a gay opera singer working in a bakery.
And United Van Lines keeps being friendly. When we make it in to Fenton, people in the building smile right in our faces. Ed Cody gives us meal tickets. United has good food. I load up on salad. You love the pork chops.
Ed Cody asks if we've seen the new Driver Lounge. He sends us down to the oustide corner of the bulding where the office people smoke. There's a electronic button to push for security. We walk into the lounge. There's a free coffee machine when you walk in the door. Couches on both walls and a TV. And there's a phone. I walk right over. It unplugs I say. Look Tony, you can unplug the phone for dial up. In the corner is a stack washer dryer and that's free too. This is a room of miracles. But we're not done yet.
You open a door and inside is a shower. I open another door, another shower. And they are both free. We sit down on the couch.