Chapter 1: Get off my truck!

I put my truck on the brakes. I then made sure that it would not move or do anything stupid, like it had a few months ago. It had cost me a lot of money to pay for the wreck I had caused, 20,000$ in fact. I was working harder, and faster than ever to get that paid off.

I hated my job if I was going to be honest, my manager, who lived out in Florida would refuse to fix up my truck. It had so many issues that needed to be tended to. Including the problems with the brake, each time I had to stop the truck I had to make sure that it would not go running off.

And for some reason I was always the one who had to pay for the wreck. I told my manager to fix it up, but he said, "if it still works, what's there to fix?" Then him and his little friend laughed over the phone at me.

I wanted to quit, but it was a fair paying job. Each time I dropped off a load somewhere, I will get payed sometimes up to 2,500. It was more of contract work, I split the earnings with my manager. I never understood why, he hardly did anything, but I didn't question the owner.

Once I knew that my truck was to a hault for good, I opened my door and hopped out of my vehicle. Once I was out, I pulled out my wallet, luckily my manager was kind enough to pay for gas. But unluckily at the same time as well, he would track me, and if I went off track at all I did not get payed but 20% of the contract.

I came to find that out as I went to stop somewhere that I had heard about from stories, I wanted to see what it was about. I plugged the card into the machine and then put in the pin code. I then began waiting for it to register.

I knew it was going to take a while, I was out in the middle of nowhere right now, Kansas, but no anywhere near Kansas City.

The gas station looked like it had not been used it years. But they had an open sign and the had lights on. It was getting dark out, I had to find somewhere to rest for the night, lay off on the road somewhere.

My manager refused to pay for me to sleep in a hotel, so I always slept on the road somewhere. It was uncomfortable but it was better than paying 60$ a night to sleep at a somewhat decent hotel. I didn't have that kind of money just to be dropping every night.

In fact, if I was not on the road at least 14 hours per day, I would also get a part of my contract subtracted. I always wanted to find a new job, but nothing payed as much as this did. Not even other truck companies, besides my manager I was happy with the contracts.

As long as I did not mess up somewhere, which seemed to happen more times than not. Either way, I still did get payed a fair amount even if I did mess up. It was better than working a minimum wage job at some fast food place, that was for sure.

I was happy with it, I was 25, I had a mother and a father that loved me dearly. But they were separated, living far across the country from each other. If I even brought up the other person in a sentence, they would get really upset at me.

They hated each other, my dad often said that she was more of a one night stand. I could understand why my mom hated him so much. I always moved between them my whole life, so it was hard for me stay at one place and steady myself.

Part of the reason why I dropped out of high school, I knew I was smart. I knew that I could have gotten a degree, but it was too hard for me to build a steady relationship with my superiors, and to find any sort of friends.

I shook my head, I cursed myself as the card did not go through. I hated being in these sorts of the country, it seemed like they had nothing, and nothing worked. They always adviced me to move out here because everything was much cheaper. It would make sense as to why though. There was nothing nearby.

"Damn it! The have to be messing with me, every damn time..." I said to myself. I tended to do that, I did not have anyone to talk to. Besides the times that I would call my mom to make sure that she was doing okay.

I never had any friends, I had never had a girl friend in my life. I was always too shy to talk to a girl, mainly because I knew that even if I did talk to her, I would move, and we would be gone.

I put the card back into my wallet, then I dropped my wallet into my pocket. I did not have enough gas to keep going, I had to hope that there was somewhere in that store. There was nothing nearby besides plains, so it would not surprise me if there was no one in there.

I did not have any connection to see if there was anything else nearby, and even if I did, I doubt there would be, and I would have to go off track. Which would get me in a lot of trouble with my manager. He was being pissy lately so I did not want to play with that.

I walked up to the door, the windows were barred and dark. It was too hard to see if anyone was in there. I did not want to try to open the door and set off an alarm, that was the last thing that I needed right now.

I just wanted to get back on the road and get to Portland as soon as possible. This was absolute hell that I was going through right now. It should not be taking me this long to get from Montgomery to Oregon. I opened the door anyways, I needed gas I couldn't just stop.

I figured there had to be someone in there, there was a truck up at the front. It looked fairly beaten in, I thought that it may have just been left there to die. I opened the door, and luckily it let me in. I saw I guy up at the front reading a newspaper.

Kind of like in those old movies, but who read newspapers anymore. I shook my head and walked over to the back of the store. The guy did not even seem to recognize that I was there, I wondered if he maybe happened to be deaf, but I did not think that deep into it.

I looked through the fridges to see what it was that I wanted to get. I knew I was not allowed to get drinks, but I really was craving one right now. I was not a drunkie, a lot of truckers I knew were. But not me, I was just sort of craving a drink right now.

I shook my head anyways, last thing I needed was to get drunk and get into a wreck. Even the smallest amount of beer always seemed to give me a little bit of a buzz. I walked away from the beer section, I knew that I could've, I was going to stop for the night fairly soon anyways.

I went over and I grabbed a Dr. Pepper, as I grabbed it I instantly noticed that it felt quite a bit sticky. I almost dropped it because it kind of disgusted me, I gasped exasaparently, the guy finally looked at me wondering what was going on, he shook his head at me and then continued reading his paper.

I looked at the Dr. Pepper a bit more closely and I noticed that the date on it had expired 3 months ago. I felt like I was about to through up, I hated shit like that. I thought about throwing it away, there was a trashcan right beside me, but last thing I needed was to piss off the guy at the front.

I put it back into the fairly warm refrigerator and then I walked to a different side of the store. It was a fairly small gas station, most were small anyways, but this one just happened to be smaller than the others.

I looked at the snack section, I could see the dates on over half of them, a lot of them had also expired. I shook my head, did the owner of this place not realize this? Or maybe he did not care... Or maybe the guy at the front was the owner.

I kind of doubted it, but it would not surprise me, the hours on the store seemed ton be a lot less than a normal gas station, I was about 30 minutes away from the time it got shut down, at least I was lucky about one thing today.

I grabbed a cool ranch dorito, it was one of my least favorite types of chips, but I was kind of hungry, and I did not have much to work with right now. I then walked over to another refrigerator, it had different types of water in it. As I opened it, it was still not very cold, but at least it was not as warm as the other one.

I grabbed a deer park, looking at the date, it still had a fair amount of time before it expired. I then walked over to the front and dropped it at the front desk. The guy finally looked down from his newspaper and he sighed and rolled his eyes at me.

It was a bit rude, I had not done anything to him, but I was not one of those types of people that was going to say anything about it. He then began scanning and then I heard a bit of a loud beep come from his very old computer.

"Shit... Guess I'll just have to type it in." He said to himself. This was my type of luck to have some shit like this happen to me, but I was in the middle of Kansas to be fair. It did not surprise me to have something like this happen to me.

I looked at the ground and kind of shook my head, I just wanted to get out of here, I was kind of tired, I just wanted to find a place that I could rest for the night. I then looked at him, I decided I may as well start a conversation with the guy, he did not look all that happy and I figured I would at least try to cheer him up.

"So... How you feeling about the Chiefs odds of winning the Superbowl?" I said to the guy. He stayed silent for a few more moments, as if he had not heard me, or maybe he just did not want to talk to me as he continued typing in the stuff that I was trying to buy.

"Sorry buddy... I'm a Patriots fan, I could care less about football right now." He said to me. Well, there went that I suppose. He pulled the far right side of his shirt up and showed me his Patriots tattoo that he had.

I nodded to him, he was right I suppose, all this talk about the virus. I doubt that football was on a lot of peoples minds right now. I then looked at the ground, there was not much left to talk about now, it was like I was thinking about earlier, I moved so much I just never got into talking to people.

I sat there for a few more moments, then I looked around the store. It was a small store, there was not much that I could spot that I might want. I saw some magazines, but those looked like they might even be up to a few years old.

I was tempted to go and get one anyways, because I was so bored. I kind of doubted that I would have connection tonight, when I laid to rest, I was trying to use a meet and greet website to talk to women, but I was still not having very much luck.

Then the guy opened up the register and he coughed to me, to get my attention. I looked up at him and then I nodded, he was pointing at the total on the small little screen that he had. I could barely see it and I was squinting my eyes trying to do the best that I could possibly do.

"I can't see it..." I said to the guy. He looked at me and then shook his head, he then sighed and then began looking at his computer once again. I was not the best at what he was doing, but if I had to give it my best guess I would have to bet that he was trying to see the prices and guess the tax.

Right as I thought about that, he pulled out a calculator and began typing into that. I was a bit surprised to even see that working, with how much was not working for me right now. He looked back up at me and then he nodded to me to get my attention once again.

"Your price is 4.29..." He said to me. I looked at him for a few moments and then I nodded back to him, I then pulled out my wallet. I was almost about to pull out my normal card, but then I realized that I was paid for 3 meals a day and gas.

I was still getting used to the meal part, normally I would have to pay for that. I then realized as well that I had not asked for gas either.

"Oh yes... And can I get 30 dollars on pump 2?" I said to the guy. There were only 2 pumps, that's how small the place was. I looked at the guy as he sighed at me and then grabbed the drinks for some reason.

I thought for a few moments that he was going to take my stuff and make me leave the store. But then he began going back into the computer once again.

"You should have told me that already." He said to me. I looked at him, I kind of felt bad for the guy. I lowered my head to the ground, I had just not thought about it before, clearly the guy had been having a fairly rough couple of days. But it seemed worse for me, it seemed like every day for me was rough.

"I'm sorry... I just didn't think about it." I said back to him. He looked at me for a few moments and then he began tapping into the computer once again. He squinted into it, for a few moments I was thinking that he was going to tell me that it wasn't processing, but luckily he began talking in a good sort of voice this time.

"Alright, the cost is going to be 34.29$" He said to me once again. I nodded to him and then I pulled out the card that my manager had given me. He looked at it for a few moments a bit confused, but then he realized that I was from out of town, if there even was a town around here.

"Our card systems are down right now. Your gonna have to pay that with cash." He said to me. I looked at him for a few moments, taking in what he said, and then I nodded. I cursed myself in my mind, this was going to be a lot of my wallet.

I figured I would tell my manager about it, but he had already been fairly upset at me lately, mainly because his wife had slept with another man. I wanted to feel bad for him, but I really did not. Good for her, I suppose.

Luckily before I had gone on the trip, I had gotten 5 20s out of an ATM machine. I was going to Portland, I figured once I was there I would take a day off there and go explore. I had never been to Portland before, I kind of wanted to see what it was like.

"Alright, I've got some cash on me." I said to the guy, nodding to him. He looked at me for a few moments, watching as I was going through my wallet, then he nodded to me as I gave him the 2 20s.

He then opened up the register once again, and looked through it for a few moments, and then he finally handed me a 5, but he did not give me any change, was he that lazy? Or was he really that bad at math? He then explained to me why.

"We don't have any coins on us right now... Just say your giving that to charity." He said to me. He then let out a bit of a weird laugh. I wish I could laugh with him, but it was not that funny to me. I nodded to him and then I accept the 5 dollar bill.

He then handed me the drink and the chip, I was expecting him to at least put it in a bag, but I did not say anything about it to him. He probably did not have a bag, along with many other things that he did not have on him right now.

I nodded to him and then turned around and then began walking out of the store. I just wanted to get out, and then find somewhere to rest for the night. I kind of wanted to sleep in a nice motel, but I had just dropped 40 out of my own cash just a few moments ago, so I thought best not to.

I then looked out the window and saw something beside my truck. I looked a bit closer and then I opened the door to the store. I saw 2 kids messing around with the front side of my truck. I looked at them for a few moments and then I yelled to the teenagers.

"Hey kids! Get off my truck!"