"Ryder P. who?"
"Moses. This is Ryder P. Moses."
"What? Who said that?1"
"I did. Good evening, gentlemen."
Fingers fumble for volume knobs and squelch controls, conversations are dropped and attention turned. The voice is deep and emphatic.
"I'm Ryder P. Moses and I can outhaul, outhonk, outclutch any leadfoot this side of truckers' heaven. I'm half Mack, half Peterbilt, and half Sherman don't-tread-on-me tank. I drink fifty gallons of propane for breakfast and fart pure poison, I got steel-mesh teeth, a chrome-plated nose, and three feet of stick on the floor. I'm the Paul mother-lovin Bunyan of the Interstate system and I don't care who knows it. I'm Ryder P. Moses and all you people are driving on my goddam road. Don't you spit, don't you litter, don't you pee on the pavement. Just mind your p's and q's and we won't have any trouble."
Trucks pull alongside each other, the drivers peering across suspiciously, then both wave hands over head to deny guilt. They change channels and check each other outhandle, company, destination. They gang up on other loners and demand identification, challenge each other with trivia as if the intruder were a Martian or a Nazi spy. What's the capital of Tennessee, Tennessee Stomper? How far from Laramie to Cheyenne town, Casper Kid? Who won the '38 World Series, Truckin Poppa?
Small convoys form, grow larger, posses ranging eastbound and westbound on I-8o. Only the CB can prove that the enemy is not among them, not the neighboring pair of taillights, the row of red up top like Orion's belt. He scares them for a moment, this Ryder P. Moses, scares them out of the air and back into their jarring hotboxes, back to work. But he thrills them a little, too.
"You still there fellas? Good. It's question-and-answer period. Answer me this: do you know where your wife or loved one is right now? I mean really know for sure? You been gone a long time fellas, and you know how they are. Weak before Temptation. That's why we loveem, that's how we get next to em in the first place, int it, fellas? There's just no telling what they're up to, is there? How bout that Alabama Rebel, you know where that little girl of yours is right now? What she's gettin herself into? This minute? And you there, Overload, how come the old lady's always so tired when you pull in late at night? What's she done to be so fagged out? She aint been haulin freight all day like you have. Or has she? I tell you fellas, take a tip from old Ryder P., you cain't everbe certain of a thing in this world. You out here ridin the Interstate, somebody's likely back home ridin that little girl. I mean just think about it, think about the way she looks, the faces she makes, the way she starts to smell, the things she says. The noises she makes. Now picture them shoes under that bed, aint they a little too big? Since when did you wear size twelves? Buddy, I hate to break it to you but maybe she's right now giving it, giving those faces and that smell and those noises, giving it all to some other guy.
"Some size twelve.
"You know how they are, those women, you see them in the truckstops pouring coffee. All those Billie Raes and Bobbi Sues, those Debbies and Annettes, those ass-twitching little things you marry and try to keep in a house. You know how they are. They're not built for one man, fellas, it's a fact of nature. I just want you to think about that for a while, chew on it, remember the last time you saw your woman and figure how long it'll be before you see her again. Think on it, fellas."
And, over the cursing and threats of truckers flooding his channel, he begins to sing -
They curse and threaten but none of them turn him off. And some do think on it. Think as they have so many times before, distrusting with or without evidence, hundred-mile stretches of loneliness and paranoia. How can they know for sure their woman is any different from what they believe all women they meet to be — willing, hot, eager for action? Game in season. What does she do, all that riding time?
I imagine — as I'm hauling Back this load, You waiting for me — at the finish.Of the road. But as I wait for your hello There's not a sound. I start to weep, You're not asleep, You're slippin round.
The truckers overcrowd the channel in their rush to copy him, producing only a squarking complaint, something like a chorus of "Old MacDonald" sung from fifty fathoms deep. Finally the voice of Sweetpea comes through the jam and the others defer to her, as they always do. They have almost all seen her at one time or another, at some table in the Truckers Only section of this or that pit stop, and know she is a regular old gal, handsome-looking in a country sort of way and able to field a joke and toss it back. Not so brassy as Colorado Hooker, not so butch as Flatbed Mama, you'd let that Sweetpea carry your load any old day.
"How bout that Ryder P. Moses, how bout that Ryder P. Moses, you out there, sugar? You like to modulate with me a little bit?"
The truckers listen, envying the crazy son for this bit of female attention.
"Ryder P.? This is that Sweetpea moving along bout that 390 mark, do you copy me?"
"Ah yes, the Grande Dame of the Open Road! How's everything with Your Highness tonight?"
"Oh, passable, Mr. Moses, passable. But you don't sound none too good yourself, if you don't mind my saying. I mean we're just worried sick about you. You sound a little — overstrained?"
"Au contraire, Madam, au contraire."
She's got him, she has. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
"Now tell me, honey, when's the last time you had yourself any sleep?"
"Sleep? Sleep she says! Who sleeps?"
"Why just evrybody, Mr. Moses. It's a natural fact."
"That, Madam, is where you are mistaken. Sleep is obsolete, a thing of the bygone ages. It's been synthesized, chemically duplicated and sold at your corner apothecary. You can load up on it before a long trip — "
"Now I just don't know what you're talkin bout."
"Insensibility, Madam, stupor. The gift of Morpheus."
"Fun is fun, Ryder P. Moses, but you just not making sense. We are not amused. And we all getting a little bit tired of all your prankin around. And we — "
"Tired, did you say? Depressed? Overweight? Got that rundown feeling? Miles to go before you sleep? Friends and neighbors, I got just the thing for you, a miracle of modern pharmacology! Vim and vigor, zip and zest, bright eyes and bushy tails — all these can be yours, neighbors, relief is just a swallow away! A couple of Co-Pilots in the morning orange juice, Purple Hearts for lunch, a mouthful of Coast-to-Coast for the wee hours of the night, and you'll droop no more. Ladies and gents, the best cure for time and distance is Speed. And we're all familiar with that, aren't we folks? We've all popped a little pep in our day, haven't we? Puts you on top of the world and clears your sinuses to boot. Wire yourself home with a little methamphetamine sulfate, melts in your mind, not in your mouth. No chocolate mess. Step right up and get on the ride, pay no heed to that man with the eight-ball eyes! Start with a little Propadrine maybe, from the little woman's medicine cabinet? Clear up that stuffy nose? Then work your way up to the full-tilt boogie, twelve-plus grams of Crystal a dayl It kind of grows on you, doesn't it, neighbor? Start eating that Sleep and you won't want to eat anything else. You know all about it, don't you, brothers and sisters of the Civilian Band, you've all been on that roller coaster. The only way to fly."
"Now, Ryder, you just calm — "
Benzedrine, Dexedrine, We got the stash!
he chants like a high-school cheerleader,
Another thousand miles Before the crash.
"Mr. Moses, you can't — "
Coffee and aspirin, No-Doz, meth. Spasms, hypertension, Narcolepsy, death.