I could not believe what I was hearing — I did not want to believe what I was hearing. It was one of those things that somewhere deep inside your heart, on some level, you know is really happening; but your mind just doesn't want to accept it. It's like a train wreck; you don't want to look, but some part of you just can't turn away.

“We would like to bring one of our drivers in off the road and put them in the office,” my head dispatcher said.
The icy fingers of death ran down my spine.

“And we think that it should be a senior driver,” he went on, slowly, letting it sink in. “Someone who has been here a long time. Someone who knows all of our runs and has driven most of the routes and lanes.”

“Someone in a burgundy Frieghtliner?” I sneered. “About six-foot-four, long hair, blue eyes, motorcycle boots and likes biscuits and gravy?”

“You interested?”

“No,” I replied flatly. “Not only no, but hell no. My office has an ever-changing view, and you are part of the scenery only about once every two weeks. I'd really like to keep it that way.”

“Great!” He exclaimed and slapped me on the shoulder. “You can start Monday. Take the weekend off. I knew we could count on you, Highway.”

“You aren't listening to me,” I insisted. “Why don't you ever listen to me?”

“Don't worry about dressing up,” he went on. “We like to keep it casual.”

“I am going to spend the weekend job hunting, you know.”

“And you'll get paid salary,” he went on, disregarding what I was saying. “So at least you won't have to worry about making mileage.”

“I like mileage,” I said. “I can run a lot of miles. I can't run miles from a desk.”

“If you give it a chance and don't like it, you can go back in the truck and have the run of your choice. In fact, we'll even buy you a new truck if you do.”

“Great!” I exclaimed. “I hate this job. Now run down to the dealership and get me a new Pete. I like blue with lots of chrome. And I want my El Paso run back as of this morning.”

“No, you have to try first,” the evil little skillet-head reminded me. “Do we have a deal?”
“If I say no?”

“You won't,” he said, an evil grin on his greasy face. “Because we are eliminating your run and selling your truck.”
Well, I would love to tell you that righteous indignation took over at this point and I walked off the job, but my car payment and the fact that I was trying to buy a house at that time won out over any pride that I had left. Funny how the realities of life tend to keep you from doing what you should sometimes.

Besides, I'm married, so I'm used to being told what to do, and doing it dutifully without needing to like it or even understand it.

I spent the entire weekend between staring at the walls of my den and closing my eyes and weeping quiet, manly tears. The grim realization that I was going to become, god help me, a dispatcher, had sunk in fully. How was I going to tell my friends and my family? How was I going to hold my head up in public? How was I going to drive to the office every day with a paper bag over my head?

“Honey, are you okay?” My wife asked late Sunday morning when I had yet to emerge from Friday night. “Did something happen at work?”

I said nothing, but the look on my face must have spoken volumes.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “You got fired?”

“Worse,” I muttered.

She stared at me a moment.

“Dispatch?” She finally managed.

I nodded.

“Oh, baby,” she said softly. “It's going to be okay.”

“But I don't want to sell my soul,” I whined. “Or get a frontal lobotomy!”

“It'll be okay,” she promised. She patted my head and went into the kitchen to make me a cup of hot cocoa.

Funny, isn't it? It doesn't matter how old you are, hot cocoa made by the love of your life still makes everything better.

MONDAY.

I stared at the computer screen. I could hear someone talking in the background, but the noise sounded more like Charlie Brown's teachers than actual English. My eyes drifted up to the card board that showed where all of our trucks and trailers were supposed to be. My mentor caught the glance and thought that it was a good time to cover that.

“Those little cards show where everything is supposed to be,” he said. “But it's never actually right. We very rarely have any idea where the trucks are.”

“So what do you tell customers when they call up and want to know where their freight is?”

“We guess, for the most part,” he said.

“Or lie when a good guess is not available?” I asked sarcastically.

“Pretty much,” he nodded. “Like they can dispute it. Anyway, let's get back to the computer. Now, do you want to learn how to play solitaire, or should I show you how to get the internet porn sites out of the history so that Dave doesn't find out what you've been looking at?”

“What about the load boards?” I asked. “What about finding loads for the drivers? What about getting them directions?”
“First day on the job, huh?” He chuckled, and then went back to the keyboard. “Okay, there's a great pinball game on this computer, too. Let me show you how this works.”

It was beyond comprehension. This guy was supposed to be looking out for us, finding us work, and making the company money. He was supposed to be on top of things, and should have known the whereabouts of every truck on his board. Instead, he sat around all night playing computer games, hanging out in internet chat rooms and visiting porn sites on the web. If you think about it, he was actually stealing the money that we drivers were making for the company by sitting around, doing basically nothing, and sponging up a paycheck at the end of the week, while us drivers were running thousands of miles through snow, sleet, rain, hail, and dark of night, fighting off lot-lizards, dodging scales, and creeping through Ohio at a snail's pace because if we got one more speeding ticket we would not be able to get a job driving an ice cream truck.

It was absolute genius.

But it was evil genius, and I am one of the good guys. I wear the white hat, and do battle with the black hatted—and black hearted—dispatchers and office staff that have no compunction about lying to us and ripping people off. It is my job, nay, it is my mission, to expose their wily ways and bring them to their knees, begging for the chance to mend their ways, to straighten up and fly right. How on earth could I possibly stay in a job like that? Well, I didn't, I couldn't, and I wouldn't.

That's why you'll find me still, a dispatcher no more, running to El Paso or Atlanta or Cincinnati, wild-eyed and grinning from ear to ear as I tune out that S.O.B. in the office as he fabricates directions while he's playing pinball on the office computer……and my leaving had nothing to do with crashing the computer while trying to wipe out the history box.
C.G. Cole, was raised in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. Growing up in the outdoors, he learned to hunt and fish early on, and his childhood playgrounds were generally old ghost towns and mines. His father and he took part for years in the Wild West shows that were popular there, portraying mountain men and learning the stories and legends that he still loves today.

Cole started writing short stories in elementary school, even attempting his first novel in the fourth grade. While in the Navy, he stopped writing for a time, but began again in earnest after he was discharged. Driving a truck to put food on the table, he writes after hours and on weekends, often carrying a portable computer with him to write while he is waiting to pick up a load. He has finished four novels and wrote a weekly column on the humorous side of life ‘over-the-road' for awhile, gathering a small but loyal following of readers who know him only as ‘Highwayman'. Today he lives in the Ann Arbor, MI area, driving a truck and working on his fifth novel.