The Driver's Story

A low hum resonates in the background, broken every few seconds by the distant thump of tires hitting breaks in the road. The sound of music gradually begins to permeate the monotony. It is Alice in Chains. The album is Dirt. Track 07. The resonation of the hum changes pitch momentarily as the truck's gears shift.

"Yeah. That's more like it." A gritty voice says as the first verse of the track begins.

Chink.

Shhh. Ssss... "Ahh..."

Chink.

Ssss...

"Well, here we are, on the open road." The voice says through an exhale of nicotine filled smoke.

"My high is gonna wear off soon, so I'll start while I'm still in the mood, and while I still have tape left."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"My name's Jack. Jack Driver if you wanna be specific about it. Those that care to know me call me JD. The old crowd I ran with used to say that my initials really stood for Jack Daniels, because I loved whiskey more than anything. They were joking, though. I like vodka better."

Ssss... "Those were the days.

"We've been on sixty-four for around an hour now, and it's been a good ride so far. Things got rough at the last bar the band played at; a run-down hovel just outside of Louisville, Kentucky named Ed's. Yeah, real fuckin original. The band was loud, the crowd was drunk, and so the fight was practically meant to be. That's how I see it, anyway. After they tossed the loser out back I slipped out the side door, and paid him a visit."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"He was pretty fucked up. Black eyes, hand mashed up pretty good, probably some cracked ribs, and blood came outta his mouth under a bubble-filled saliva coating. So what if he looked like he just tangoed with Atlas and Hercules. Made no difference to me. The alley was presently deserted, so I bent down and took my fill of that which, until now, kept him alive. After I was satisfied, I ran my tongue over his sweaty, stinking flesh and stood up. I staggered back as my eyes struggled to refocus. Holy shit, this guy was high as a kite. Bonus. As I walked away, I let out a hollow laugh as I pictured the look on the "winner's" face tomorrow morning when the cops show up to charge him with murder one. Fuck him.

"I go back inside. My crew, the band, is sitting at the bar - doing their best to party with the fans. The band's called Satan's Handbag, and I'm their driver. We've been on tour for awhile now, and they're developing what I'd call a strong underground fan base. They're not a band you'll ever hear on the radio, but they have a few people that like 'em, and they usually draw a crowd at all the little shit-holes across the country. And that's where I come in. I got the wheels and the knowledge to cart their asses all over this god forsaken country."

Ssss... "Ahh... I still love to smoke. I guess it's psychological.

"Anyway, we party for a little while, and then decide to ditch Ed's and head into the heart of Louisville. I help the band pack up their gear, and we load it into the semi trailer. I lock them in the trailer, hop into the cab, and head out to a truck stop I saw on the way in. I don't mind the solitude of the cab while everyone else is in the trailer. I've got the back of the trailer rigged up with lights and some furniture and shit like that, so it's not a bad place to crash while we're on the road. But I've always believed that putting too many of our kind in a confined space for too long can have some really adverse effects on one's psyche. Not to mention the mess they make. I always keep the lights on when I walk back there, cuz there's no telling what I'm going to step in. And don't even get me started about those fucking flesh drums that Geneva made. Creepy.

"After I get my rig parked, I open up the trailer and click a button on my other key-ring. Headlights instantaneously illuminate me and some of the interior of the trailer. I slide a metal ramp out from the end of the trailer bed. I walk up the ramp and into the trailer. Once inside the trailer, which looks like the remains of Ed's long lost sister, I walk up the ramp to where my car sits suspended a few feet off the floor. I've gotta couple metal ramps welded into both the floor and the metal platform the car rests on. It's a pretty nice operation, if I do say so myself.

"Now I'm in my car; my car. And what a car it is. 2000 Audi S8. Black onyx finish, black leather interior. V8 engine. Most models will do zero to a hundred in five point four off the block. Mine will do it in four point nine, four point seven five if I'm having a good night. Hell yeah. I may miss the vodka, but at least I can still drive. And I can drive like nobody's fuckin business.

"So we get into the heart of Louisville, and see a slightly run-down bar just a little ways off the strip. I park the car a block away, which is my standard operating procedure. As we walk up, the atmosphere of the place becomes apparent. It was the type of dive you see all over America - complete with burned-out neon letters and everything. The capital 'L', the first 'a', and the 'C' in the neon sign were burnt out, while the other letters in 'The Last Call' burned a sickening red. If you ignored the burnt-out letters, the sign read "The stall." I chuckled under my breath, if for no other reason than having noticed such unintentional foreshadowing.

"The place was lightly packed, but the grit made up for the lack of volume. A lot of real winners in here. AC/DC playing from the jukebox against the wall. Pool table in the rear. The entire place seemed to be littered with white trash and other assorted garbage. Now this is where it gets good..."

Chink.

Shhh. Ssss... "Ahh...

Chink.

"Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. So, we walked in and all of the regulars immediately took notice. They turned and stared for a second, and then went back to their regularly scheduled positions. A couple guys kept staring at Devyn, probably because she has enough metal in her ears to pick up the local radio stations. As we made our way to a table, she made a point of staring back at them the entire time. Jerry had walked over to the bar and loudly ordered a beer. He couldn't even drink anymore, let alone hear. I guess he liked to keep up appearances."

Ssss...

"Well, a couple cigarettes later, Jerry started to bitch about wanting to eat, and I could tell that Devyn was getting fidgety. She hadn't been in a real good fight in the past few nights, and was just waiting for an opportunity to start one. Well, she got her wish.

"Ahh...

"One of the locals walks into the pisser, and I notice his woman get up and walk over this way as soon as he's out of sight. Devyn has her back to this chick, so she doesn't notice any of this. So, this third place trophy from a monster truck rally starts yelling at the back of Devyn's head about how she "better stop lookin at ma mayn." Devyn's eyes get really wide, then they narrow, kind of like how a predatory animal acts before the kill. She doesn't even turn around. I see this big smile creep across her face."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"Then this beauty queen diverged from her rant to shout "look at me when I'm talkin to yoo, bitch!" She grabbed Devyn's shoulder in order to spin her around. Before Ellie-May realized what was going on, Devyn had turned, begun to stand up, and had her right hand firmly clamped to the back of this chick's skull. As the girl's eyes doubled in diameter, Devyn used the momentum from standing to introduce the girl's face to Devyn's knee. Sometimes big things come in small packages."

Ssss...

"I heard the sickening popping and crunching of bone as her nose shattered against Devyn's knee. As the chick reeled back in shock, blood flew from her face, hitting both the table and Jerry. I see his nostrils widen as he takes in the smell.

"Ahh...

"By this time, the wife beater has finished draining his lizard, and is running towards Devyn. He never got a chance to lay into her, though. It's funny, because during this whole episode, I could always see Jerry's bottle of beer out of the corner of my eye. As the guy started to run towards Devyn, I guess I blinked, because one second the bottle was there, and the next second there was just broken glass and spilled beer on the table. Jerry was quick like that.

"Devyn started to turn towards the guy, but Jerry was in between them before she could do anything. The business end of the broken bottle quickly met the charging man's neck. The guy flailed his arms and started to make a gurgling noise in his throat that most people didn't hear over the jukebox. I could tell Jerry was transfixed on the blood coming out of the guy's neck. He jerked the bottle out and fastened his mouth around the open wound.

"By this time, some of the other patrons of this fine establishment were starting to stand up. Devyn was proceeding to rearrange the beauty queen's face, and the bartender was on the phone. Fuck. He's callin' the cops. The situation wasn't unusual; we had similar experiences many times before. So I played my part as flawlessly as Devyn and Jerry played theirs. I stood up and ran for the door.

"I could hear a couple guys running after me, but I was able to turn the corner into an alley and they never saw me after that. I jogged down to the car, hopped in, made sure no one else was in my car, and drove back to the bar. As I got closer, I could see and hear two police cars coming from the opposite direction. I engaged the parking brake, and spun the car around, doing a one-eighty. Devyn had emerged from the front window, following a guy she had just thrown through it. While she proceeded to kick him, Jerry crashed through the front door, his face and shirt drenched in blood. He was laughing maniacally while he made the 'heavy metal' sign with each of his hands. It's at this point that I'm glad I invest in plastic seat and floor covers for the car.

"I lay on the horn and they hop in. I peel out, leaving a thick cloud of smoke for the cops to drive through. I've outrun NYPD and LAPD, and these guys weren't even close to that. I lost them in minutes.

"So we got back to the truck, parked the car, changed the plates, and settled in for daylight.

"I had strange dreams that night, dreams about the one who made me what I am tonight. It still puts a chill up my spine every time I think about her. Some little Mexican stick figure, with jet black hair and those big black within black pupils that people who never see the sun tend to develop. Scary bitch."

Chink.

Shhh. Ssss...

Chink.

"Ahh... so anyway, I was out one night racing with some of the guys. I had outrun anyone and everyone who had the balls to go up against me, so we started to hit the booze. I was a lot younger and cockier then, so I felt like pretty hot shit after my earlier victories. This arrogance lead to me drinking a little over half of a fifth of Finlandia Vodka before attempting to drive home. I had a 1992 Corvette back then, so it wouldn't be too difficult for someone to hide herself in the floor behind the drivers seat, especially if she weighed all of ninety pounds. Come to think of it, she reminds me of Geneva. Same frame, similar attitude, different nationality. But regardless of whether she's a spic or a gook, it's all the same amongst our kind. We all get pale eventually. All of us except for Jerry, but I think that's because he's a Jew or something. Religion does funny shit to people.

"Well, it started to rain, so the party breaks up, and I hop in my 'vette and take off. The rain got pretty bad once I hit the highway, but it was late enough that there wasn't much traffic, so I got the 'vette up to around one fifteen. Everything was going ok, until there was this flash of lightning. For a second, the interior of my car was illuminated, and I saw through my rear view mirror that I was not alone. There was someone behind me. She was sitting in the center of the back seat, not moving, not breathing, just staring at me. She made some attempt at what I guess was a smile, and I saw large, elongated fangs prominently displayed in her grin. The shock of this prevented me from noticing the impending turn, and I wrapped my 'vette around a tree. Considering the weather, the toxic consistency of my blood, and the undead chick in the back of my car, I thought I handled myself rather well.

"As you can imagine, I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. I guess the most valuable lessons are the ones you learn the hard way. I remember not being able to mentally keep up with everything that happened. The events entered my mind seconds after they occurred. I remember going through the windshield as my body slammed into the tree. As I lay on the muddy ground, I remember ricocheting off of the tree. I felt like a cue ball that had just been used to break. The bits of glass in my face and hands felt like rusty nails, and the ribs on the right side of my body had pierced one of my lungs and who knows what else. Every time I tried to breathe, I could feel the intake of blood, bile, and other fluids into my lungs. I found it kind of ironic that breathing was going to kill me."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"Then I saw her. She was a few yards away from me, and didn't look to be in much better shape. She started to crawl towards me, like an animal desperate to kill it's prey. Fucking great.

"I was laying on my back, and so I slowly reached into my pocket to pull out the knife I kept on me. It wasn't much of a knife, but it would be enough to fuck with her before I drowned in my own blood."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"As she drew closer, she leaned over me and pulled her hair back and away from her face. She smiled that scary rigor mortis grin at me, and moved like a serpent towards my neck. Before she knew what was going on, I slammed the knife blade through her voice box. Her attempts at a scream reverberated through the knife. Fuckin creepy.

Ssss... "Ahh...

"I don't remember what happened next. I think she must of hit me upside the head or something. The next thing I know everything is dark. Pitch black. I can't see anything, and there's something in my eyes. I have this strange taste in my throat, and my heart is pumping faster and harder than I ever would have believed possible. I try to move, and realize that something is on top of me, holding me down. After a few minutes I realize that it's the same stuff that's in my eyes. It's dirt, and muddy dirt at that.

"That's when the old me said good-bye and checked out. The new me was hungry. This hunger seemed to come from within my heart. I was determined to reach the surface, and I did so, clawing with my hands like an animal. The world I emerged into was like a scene from a bad b-movie. The rain poured down upon me, and in the illumination of the lightning, I could see tombstones all around me. Stick figure was there, leaning against a gnarled, leafless tree. She looked at me and smiled. There were others there too. One guy cradled a double-barrel shotgun in one hand, and the other hand had a tight grip on the leashes to two maladjusted rottweilers. He smiled like a jack-o-lantern. Another guy looked like a some kind of preacher. He waved the rosary in front of me and said something that I didn't understand. There were a few others present, as well. Most of them were well-armed, and each of them was disgustingly unique in his, her, or its own way.

"Stick figure walked towards me. She pointed towards the heart of the graveyard."

"In there you will find your prey, if you can become the hunter, vato, she said as she glared at me."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"I ran into the graveyard, and found the kids they had kidnapped and brought out here. They looked liked they were brother and sister as they huddled against a tombstone. The girl was crying. She couldn't have been any more than six or seven. I never saw a little kid die before."

Click.

Click.

A low hum resonates in the background, broken every few seconds by the distant thump of tires hitting breaks in the road. The sound of music gradually begins to permeate the monotony. It is Big Country. The album is The Crossing. Track 08. The resonation of the hum changes pitch momentarily as the truck's gears shift.

"Yeah, I'm in the mood for this," the voice says, a little more distant this time.

Chink.

Shhh. Ssss... "Ahh...

Chink.

Ssss... "Ahh...

"Well, we just started to head south on fifty-one. My crew's next official gig was supposed to be in St. Louis, with some band called Hell's Ghetto or some shit. They're supposed to be really loud and violent, so the concert should be a match made in hell. I can't wait."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"At any rate, we're actually a couple nights ahead of schedule, and Lance, the band's manager, made a call to this place in Washington where the band had played before. Turns out the place, I think it's called Hanger 9, was eager to have them back for a show. So, we're going to Washington.

"We just left the truck stop about a half hour ago. I pulled in to fuel up the rig, and to let my crew out to stretch their legs a little. I could tell Devyn was glad to get out into the open night. She looked around for a little bit, then started walking off towards some guy she spotted. He was leaning against some old beater, looked to be a '79 Buick Regal. This rectangle on wheels used to be a nice tan at one part, but all the dirt and rust made it look like a crusty turd. And the guy was a real fruit-loop too. Looked like some kinda cross-dressing hippie, skirt and all. What a fuckin waste."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"Our manager starts to bitch about needing to socialize and wanders off. Fag. I see Talon's grey almond-shaped eyes reflecting in the light as he starts to skulk along the perimeter of the gas station, keeping his lanky albino body in the shadows. No telling what he's up to. Probably trying to decide if the food mart is worth his time. He's cool to talk to, but he's creepy as all hell.

"The band's muscle proceeds to walk off towards the food mart. I hear Atlas mumble something about smoking a bowl, and Hercules responds with the long, drawn out 'yeah' that only someone who is severely Kentucky fried can do. I hear Geneva playing drums in the trailer. About the only chance she has to practice on her own is when we stop to fuel. She says the guitars can always be turned down, but there's no volume knob on drums. Understandable.

"Anyway, Jugular Jerry's gone before I even realize he was there. Great. I better get my shit taken care of quickly, before there's a body count.

"So, I fuel up the truck, and go inside to pay. Needless to say, this place is pretty damn big. It's got a food mart, restaurant, lounge, showers, arcade, and of course the gas stations. One station is for regular vehicles, the other is for trucks. The line to the register is enormous. At least I think it's the line to register, because I can't see a goddamn thing in front of me thanks to some disgruntled brute. We've all seen his type before; tattoos on both arms, long hair, Cubs hat. And he's going on to another guy about how he has to drive to Detroit every day with his partner's stinkin cat. He turns his head to look out the window and I get a good glimpse at him. Holy shit, this guy looks like he stepped straight out of an FBI's Most Wanted poster. Strange."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"Well, I finally get to the register, sign the necessary paperwork, and I'm out of there. It's good to have connections in the trucking industry."

Ssss... "Ahh...

"So I get back to my rig and park it in with the rest of the trucks. After a while, I hear a tapping at my window. I look out the window to one of the realities of America. She was obviously looking to make some money. I could tell by the makeup that was caked on over emaciated cheek bones, and the ribs that could clearly be seen in spite of the small mid-riff top she wore. Her legs were covered with mosquito bites that had scabbed over, although I found it hard to believe that they could find any blood in her. She was thin as a rail, and had probably just did a few rails as well. Meth head. She may even smoke some foils on a good night. Probably had a boyfriend/father/pimp that showed up on a not very regular basis to smack her around some. Tragic, isn't it?

"I don't know why I let her in the cab, but for some reason I did. She sat down and we talked for a little while. She said her name was Jamie. I gave her a cigarette. The look in her eyes told me 'thanks,' but she said nothing. I figured that she had been pushed down and stepped on enough in the past for showing kindness, and she knew better by now. She had learned her lesson. She knew how the world worked.

"So I guided the conversation to focus around her, and how she came to be in her present situation. I could tell she was uncomfortable discussing it, so I would talk about something else for a little bit, and then guide the conversation back to her shortly. Turns out her dad used to fuck with her a lot, I'm guessing when she was in grade school or junior high. She lives with some guy that sounds like a real winner. He probably slings meth on the corner. Her life is every bit as horrible as I imagined it would be.

"I know damn well why I let her into the cab. Yeah, I guess I lied. I didn't let her in to hear her story, to sympathize with her plight, or to gain some deeper understanding of the horrible, shit-filled world we exist in. I let her in the cab so that she could understand that I didn't care. I don't give a shit that her father used to stick his fingers up her when she was a kid, and I don't care that her boyfriend will probably spend most of his life in jail or wasting away from AIDS. It didn't bother me one bit when she screamed in pain as my dick went too far up her asshole. So what if she's bleeding? It's not like it's the first time this has happened to her. She knows what to do.

"What most people never realize is that existence is a horrible, shallow, meaningless lie. People hide their families behind white picket fences in some pathetic attempt to shelter them from all the shit that's everywhere. No one wants to admit that they don't care about all the Jamies out here. No one really wants to go into the "The stall." And that's all this world really is, one big stall of shit. I have no sympathy for anyone. None given, none taken.

"You may label me as an abusive and murderous psychopath, I certainly would if I were in your shoes. I'm not concerned with your labels, though. I have no remorse for the two children I butchered on the night of my creation, and I could care less about anyone else I've hurt, maimed, or murdered since then. Because it's not about them, it's about me. I'm a realist.

"Specifically, when I state that I'm a realist, I'm speaking of the fundamentalism of self-preservation. Now, this is the part of the story where we learn a lesson from Jamie. She makes herself useful to those she runs with, and so she survives. The money I paid her helps her boyfriend keep the meth lab going, so he can sell more meth and they can keep a leaky roof over their heads. Without such a reliable inflow of cash, he may either leave her, or he may just slit her throat out of pent up rage. Jamie never knew it, but she and I have a lot in common. Her boyfriend keeps her around for a reason, and my Pack keeps me around for a reason. She fucks strangers for money. I'm The Driver."

Click.

~The End~

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