The Spit

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

There are four kinds of people in this world – those who hate to drive; those who like to drive as long as they don’t have to go through major cities or drive for long periods of time; those who drive because it’s a job; and those who think a non-stop drive from Barrow, Alaska to Key West, Florida is more fun than three barrels of monkeys and a boa constrictor all thrown in together.

Jerod Huggins of Stinky Creek is the fourth kind of driver. I met up with him the other day at the Stinky Creek Saloon and decided to hitch a ride with him, just to see what his life was like.

“That’s right!” said Jerod as he pulled his 18-wheeler on the interstate. “Driving for me is more fun than watching Helen Burgess in a wet T-shirt give my pet basset hound a flea and tick dip; it’s more fun than working a 7 to 5 job and only getting paid for working a 9 to 5 job; and it’s a whole lot more fun than drinking a case of beer and puking it all up on the highway. Amen and pass the plate!”

Jerod is a long haul truck driver who doesn't mind hearing himself talk, especially when he's all alone on the highway.

“That’s right!” Jerod said as he shifted into the next gear. “I could get me one of those fancy satellite radios and listen to other people talk, but why pay the money when I prefer to hear myself? Besides, you can’t have a REAL argument with a radio because the radio can’t talk back. Shoot, I can have myself a knock-down-drag-out with myself and never have to change the channel.”

Jerod watches as a blue Dodge Neon zooms past him.

“Where you going in such a big hurry, little buddy?” Jerod says, not worrying that whoever was driving that car was never in earshot, anyway. “You must have a hot date with some wild chick from Dallas that you’ve never met and you don’t want to be late, or you’re trying to get away from your wife who found out that you’ve got a hot date with a wild chick from Dallas that you’ve never met.”

Jerod chuckles to himself and reaches for the M&Ms.

“Yes sir! There is nothing better than a big truck, a clear lane, miles to go and a family-sized package of peanut M&Ms to keep you company.” Jerod grabs a handful and throws them into his mouth, putting up a temporary chocolate road block. He offers me some but I decline.

“Yeth thir! There’s nofin bwetter.”

Jerod hasn’t always been a trucker. He spent a lot of time as an English teacher. Eight years to be exact. But one day he just couldn’t take the snotty kids anymore; or the papers that needed to be graded; or the lesson plans that needed to be turned in; or the secretary who complained that he was late turning in his lesson plans; or the parents who believed that their children didn’t deserve bad grades, even though they never turned in their homework or studied for their tests; and a list of other things that just made his blood pressure rocket sky high.

“So I became a trucker,” Jerod said as his truck reached the satisfying cruising speed of 70 mph. “I can listen to my own music when I want to; I can eat when I want to; I can sleep when I want to; I can talk to myself if I want to; I can sing really loud if I want to; and I can suck down these luscious peanut M&Ms like a vacuum cleaner until I’m so sick I have to stop at a truck stop and barf my guts out – if I want to.”

“Yes baby! This is the life.”

For some people, being on the open road is all about getting from point A to point B. They worry about when they have to leave in order to make it to the destination on time. They look up maps on the internet to make sure they are taking the quickest and most efficient route. They listen to traffic reports in the hopes of bypassing construction or wrecks. They listen to the weather channels so they are prepared for any type of weather. They do everything humanly possible to make sure that the ordeal of being on the road is quick and painless.

But that’s not how Jerod Huggins views it. To him, reaching a new destination is not the adventure – the ROAD is the adventure; the constant moving is the adventure; heading east when the sun comes up and then west when it goes back down is the adventure; traveling through several time zones during one day is the adventure; knowing that the destination may come but the road continues on forever, that’s the adventure.

“This is Paddy O’Huggins here, wondering why all those wee little brake lights are coming on up ahead,” Jerod said, surprising me with his best Leprechaun voice. He was making his way through downtown Austin. “There looks to be a wee bit of a traffic jam on such a lovely morning.”

And then, in the blink of an eye, Jerod switches from lovely Irish to swashbuckling Pirate.

“Well I’ll be hog-swallowed. I never be hearing such a racket as those land loving landlubbers blowing them car horns. Why, they should just hunker down like good old Capt. Huggins and enjoy the view of the state capital. I guess nobody learnt them that they can’t shipwreck in slow waters.”

A black Porsche convertible, swimming his way through traffic like a shark smelling blood, cut right in front of Jerod’s truck.

“Avast ye matey,” Jerod yelled, even though he knew that yelling at the shark did as much good as yelling at contestants on game shows. “Slow ye down or I’ll harpoon you, pull you in, gut you, then hang you in the yardarms for the buzzards to feast on. Arrrrgh!”

The former English teacher and now truck driver sat back in his plush seat, watched as the shark skittered through schools of timid fish, making its way through with nary a bite of tail or fin, making his way to places unknown, where his own kind swim.

If Jerrod would have thought about it, he would have probably described the road as a never-ending ocean full of gentle winds and hidden harbors; of virgin beaches; of melancholy love songs; of pirate galleons lying in wait; of sunken treasure waiting to be dug up by adventurous buccaneers; of sharks and vile sea monsters; of fair maidens in every port.

But he didn’t.

He sat there, holding the wheel with one hand, pumping M&Ms into his mouth with the other, humming a seafaring ditty about cans of beer magically stuck to the wall.

To Jerod, being on the road is to be alive. And he thinks of no better life in which to live.