Methical Communication

Unless you’re going fishing, there is something wholly unnatural about one’s alarm bleating before the sun is up. For a Pacific Northwest produce-trucker, when the summer bounty bursts from the verdant valleys and fertile foothills, the wee-hour wake-up is an all-too common occurrence.

One such Thursday in June 2006, I am summoned from sleep by the caterwauling clock at a crisp 1:00 am. This does not surprise me, even though I’m fairly confident I laid down not four hours prior. My pregnant wife is still awake though, and even that takes several minutes to register as I stagger woodenly about the house, trying to locate myself in time and space, hoping to find my Carhartt pants and work-shirt in the process.

“You got clothes in the dryer,” she calls from the kitchen, her words mingling with the glorious scent of fresh coffee. “And don’t forget your books.”

“Fuck the dryer,” I mutter, realizing I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothing. To hell with it, though. It’s finals week: Five days of forced-insomnia punctuated by extemporized exams and turgid term papers. And through it all, that nagging 50 hour week of trucking. Since Sunday, I’ve enjoyed perhaps 12 hours of bed-sleep, a few stolen naps—some unintentional—and a few less showers than I’d like. My brain is melange of social-science theories and delivery times—neither of which I can keep straight. And this last exam is assuredly an essay, and will likely require an actual interpretation of the salient points, rather than my usual regurgitation of the required readings… Dirty pants are the least of problems.

“Come on,” urges my wife, putting a steaming travel-mug in my hand. “You can fuck the dryer later. Last run and you’re off for the weekend. One more exam and you’re done with your sophomore year.”

I offer a half-ass grin and don’t bother reminding her that the sophomore-designation means nothing to a 33-year old man. Instead, I kiss her good bye, brush my fingertips over the growing lump that will be my daughter, grab my backpack and point my clapped-out ’87 Corolla down the road to work. 

Half an hour later, I arrive at one of the countless warehouses in South Portland, where my loaded semi awaits, reefer howling against the warm night. I park nearby, grab my now-empty coffee-cup, a spare hoodie, and my large, industrial metal clipboard. I briefly consider taking my entire backpack before settling on the 400-plus page “Ethical Issues in Interpersonal Communication” which I load into my clipboard’s hinged storage compartment, along with the waybills I find on the tractor’s driver-seat. 

After all, I have several stops in Salem, Albany, and Woodburn, OR, and none are particularly safe places at this foul hour. There’s no sense in enticing any light-fingered night-walkers by leaving a backpack in my cab. And more to the point, I’ll assuredly get hung-up somewhere waiting for a load to be received, a perfect opportunity to whip-out my text and skull-fuck myself full of Ethical Communication tenets.

I give the tires a precursory kick, check the slack-adjusters on my trailer brakes, fire-up that Freightliner and get rolling.

First stop is around 3 a.m., at a rundown warehouse along the tracks in South Salem. It’s a trash-strewn kind of place where the streetlights rarely work, the roads haven’t been paved in 30 years, and the few inhabited houses nearby feature omnipresent television sets and front yards full of vehicles in various states of disrepair.

I have keys to the building, and as I back my 48′ trailer up to the crumbling dock, I’m planning on making this a quick stop. Thoughts of the big Chevron Station on Commercial Street cross my mind. Pour myself a scalding cup of coffee, nuke a burrito and enjoy a little harmless flirting with the smart-ass blonde girl who cashiers there… Maybe sit in the well-lit parking lot and have a quick browse over Chapter One before heading toward my 5 a.m. appointment in Albany…

I shut the tractor down, grab my hefty clipboard  and hop out of the cab, quickly flipping my reefer motor off and standing in the silence for a few minutes, taking in my surroundings—much as I would anywhere dark, secluded, and so utterly beyond luck. I’ve delivered here hundreds of times and tonight it’s the same old scene: A distant train-horn carries through the starry sky, blue light flickers behind the always-drawn curtains in the shack across the street, and the faint aroma of fresh-amphetamine hangs in the air; softly sulfurous in the nose and close enough to leave an odd sensation on the back of the tongue that brings cat piss to mind. 

Yep, business as usual, and not two miles from The Oregon State Capitol Building. 

But something isn’t sitting right, and I pause, before hearing the dog barking. There it is, I think, recalling that the shit-shack over the road usually features a good-sized brick-red pit-bull who prowls among the derelict Chevy pickups and kiddie-toys littering front yard. But the barking is getting louder, and I register an instant of paws scrabbling on gravel before the pit’ bursts into view, charging toward me like it’s got ripe serrano up it’s ass, teeth barred in a blind fury, raving and snarling like I just stole his owner’s last box of cold-medicine.

It leaps directly at my mid-section, and I am instantly wide-awake and completely aware of which of my tender body-parts the dog is planning on biting. I’m totally on instinct as I spin on my left foot, pivot my hips and favored-flesh away, and I bring the book-laden steel-clipboard down on Fido’s skull with all the adrenaline-fueled strength my 220-pound body can muster.

Fido howls in pain and hits the ground chin-first, which I notice from the corner of my eye as I cover the 50-odd feet to the dock in about four huge steps, literally vaulting up the dock to safety as the dick-biting dog leaps around below, emitting a hellish guttural warbling, completely unafraid of my fiercest commands to “GO THE FUCK HOME!”

I catch my breath and realize the thing is probably too damn injured or overweight to leap up onto the dock, and mercifully too stupid to use the stairs at the far end of the loading platform. Not really sure what else to do, I cautiously unlock the dock-door, open my trailer and begin pulling off the palletized potatoes I’m here to deliver. Erstwhile, tweeker-dog roars and growls all manner of murderous threats from beneath my trailer.

Needless to say, things at the meth-shack remain as serene as ever. 

Having completed my delivery, I lock up, stash my pallet-jack in the trailer, and consider my options for returning to the cab. Perhaps I could climb up on the trailer-roof and try a Dukes of Hazzard move through the tractor window? How about some sort of Tom-and-Jerry idea where I divert the dog with a snack? Realizing I lack a string of sausages, and that my tractor’s window is rolled up, I liberate a stout oak plank from a stack of empty pallets, and with my clipboard as a shield, I slip around the other side of my trailer and down the dock-stairs. 

Fido immediately comes at me again, gurgling in his rage, though this time going for the cuff of my pants. I spin away at the last second and catch him full-force with the plank across the rippling muscle of his haunch, which splits open like a blown-retread. He howls and drops to the ground, and I deliver a sickening steel-toe to his ribs before he rights himself and goes bleeding and shrieking into the night.

I head directly toward the house, and before I’m halfway across the yard, a skinny white-guy of indeterminate meth-age, wearing sweatpants and a filthy wife-beater opens the door and delivers his toughest-sounding, “What the fuck’s goin’ on out here?!”

“You better get a hold of your fucking dog!” I roar, getting right up in his waxy face with the scrap-wood shillelagh. “Because the next time I deliver here, I’m going to shoot him dead.”

To my surprise he tries to bluff, “Wonder what the cops would think about a gun in a semi-truck?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I snap, in no mood to debate the inaccuracy of the commonly-held belief that one can’t carry weapons in a commercial vehicle. “Manufacture and Distribution of Methamphetamine is what you oughta consider! And who are the cops going to believe? The gainfully employed truck driver and college student, or the unemployed scumbag meth-cook?”

He sways a little as he stands, eyes bouncing like pin-balls as he tries to focus on a point roughly two feet above my shoulder. “Go back in your fucking house.” I tell tell him, tossing the stick aside and heading for the tractor. He’s clearly no kind of threat. And true to form, neither dude or the dog follows me, nor do I ever see either of them again, though I carry a .357 for years thereafter.

The remainder of the run goes much as I’d anticipated; coffee, burrito, sassy-cashier, and several impromptu study-sessions included. I arrive Friday at 9:00 a.m. for my exam after a solid three hours of sleep, my cranium leaking varied and largely-useless facts. Hell, I think, taking my customary seat in the back of the room, I’ve even managed to change my pants.

In walks Dr. Kettlemeier, a plump, bespectacled professor with the commensurate wild-hair and comfortably disheveled garb of tenured academia. “Please take your seats and clear your desks of everything but a pen and a Blue Exam Book,” he begins, the shuffle of book-bags and rustle of papers loud against the tense silence of the exam room. 

“Obviously, the test will be in essay format,” he continues, his dry-erase marker squeaking-out an illegible blur across the white-board at the front of the room. “Please take a few minutes and describe a communication event from your personal life, and interpreting the appropriate concepts from our readings and lectures—in your own words—outline where you feel your behavior exhibited effective and ethical communication. If needed, please describe where and how you feel you might have room for improvement…”

I smile, and put my pen to the page. 

I got this.