C. Box: The Highway

He gained four hours, he figured, by the time he hit Miles City, Montana. Four hours of free time, where no one would be watching. He’d carry that four free hours with him as he pounded west, and not withdraw a minute of it until he got to the truck stop outside Billings.

Four hours was more than enough time to do what he needed to do. He’d done it in two, so he was sure of it.

* * *

He’d arrived early to the truck stop, an hour before dark. At that time there was plenty of room in the back row of the trucker’s lot when he arrived, and he took a middle space without neighbors on either side.

Choosing the back row meant something to other truckers. Either the driver wanted to get some real sleep in his cabin behind the seat, or he wanted privacy to rest or do paperwork, or, in this case, he was sending a signal that he was available to the truck stop prostitutes who worked the facility. The lot lizards.

He carried a duffel bag across the lot in the dusk and went straight to the trucker’s entrance of the building. Inside, he paid eleven dollars for a shower. He shaved and changed into a disposable one-piece Tyvek jumpsuit with elastic bands on the sleeves and cuffs. The jumpsuit got no strange looks in the trucker’s lounge because truckers wore all kinds of strange clothing. A driver with a full beard, a multicolored serape, and flip-flops sat at a table reviewing his logbook. The man didn’t even look up. One driver he knew drove in his underwear with the heat on high.

Still, though, when he became the Lizard King he knew his presence made a statement. People shied away from him when they saw him coming. Conversations stopped as he passed by, like there was some kind of malevolent black cloud hanging over his head. And when he stared at others they tended to quickly look away. It used to bother him, but now he took a kind of perverse pride in it. He didn’t want to make new friends, anyway. What was the point?

The Lizard King had never felt brotherhood toward other drivers. In fact, he found many of them as disgusting as the amateurs on the road. He noted how many piss-jars and urine bombs had been tossed on the side of the road, how many Walmart bags of feces. He’d seen the cutaways in the floorboards of some trucks, and he cringed when he witnessed fat truckers parking as close as possible to the truck stop restaurant so they wouldn’t have to waddle far to eat. And then there were the Bible-thumpers …

He avoided the public retail section of the truck stop, and took a long route back to his Peterbilt through dozens of idling trucks so no one would track where he went. As he passed between two semis in the first row he was dismayed to find a small knot of five drivers shooting the breeze back and forth. Three men leaned against the fuel tank of a blue Mack on the left and two others mirrored their posture against a red Kenworth on the right. He had no choice but to walk right through them and to betray no surprise or caution. To his chagrin, they were arguing about a Bible passage.

“That ain’t what it means,” one of them said. The man was tall and well built and clean-shaven. He wore a yellow chamois shirt and a ball cap that read TRUCKING FOR JESUS. His Mack truck had the same logo painted on its door behind him. He said, “Listen: ‘The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression.’ That’s in Proverbs. It means look the other way.”

The driver he was arguing with leaning against the Kenworth had bushy muttonchop sideburns and wore a cowboy hat. He shook his head and said, “No, you listen. Romans 12:20 says, ‘If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink; for in doing so you shall heap coals of fire on his head.’ That says to me God will get your revenge for you so you don’t need to do any thumpin’. That says God don’t look the other way but you should.”

“God doesn’t do revenge,” the man in the chamois shirt said, rolling his eyes. “He does love and forgiveness. Maybe you ought to do the same.”

“And I will if I know God will do the thumpin’. But if he’s just going to let the bad man get away with it-naw, that don’t seem right.”

“You’re readin’ it wrong, friend,” Chamois said. “Remember that later in Proverbs…”

“Excuse me,” the Lizard King said, “just passing through.” He wanted to get by them as quickly as possible. He hoped they were so deep into their discussion they wouldn’t even recall him later if asked. The front row truckers weren’t all Christians, but many of them were. They’d park next to each other in their sanctimony and self-righteousness and spout verses and lessons to each other while looking down on people like him. He avoided them whenever possible.

The Bible-thumpers sometimes hung bras out their drivers’ side windows at night as a way of warding off the prostitutes since it suggested a husband and wife driving team inside. It was a message known well among truckers, but not all the whores knew what it meant, which caused great consternation among the faithful.

“Hey, you look familiar,” the muttonchop driver said to the Lizard King.

Since he couldn’t just charge through now without making more of an impression than he wanted to, he glanced up at Muttonchops and said, “Sorry, I don’t recall.”

But he did. The truck stop out of Amarillo. Muttonchips had been down there, parked in his Kenworth the row in front of the Lizard King, when that fat lot lizard in the Ugg boots and micromini waddled her way to his Peterbilt. The Lizard King was ready- oh, he was ready -but as he reached down to let her in he looked up to see Muttonchops watching him through his side sleeper window.

It ruined the moment, and destroyed his plans. If Muttonchops was later questioned and could say he saw the fat lizard get into the Peterbilt …

So instead of inviting her in and starting the process, he’d opened the door and as she reached up for his hand to climb inside greeted her face with a kick from his size twelve hunting boot. She fell in a heap on the pavement, blood streaming out of her nose. She was angry but not nearly as angry as he was as he slammed the door shut. He hoped like hell Muttonchops didn’t get a clear look at his face that night when he opened his door.

“McAllen, Texas, then?” Muttonchops said, not sure. “The Flying J down there?”

The Lizard King shrugged. “Nope,” he lied. “I ain’t been down there in years.”

The McAllen truck stop was one of the better locations for lot lizards in the country. It ranked right up there with the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike or any truck stop in Gary, Indiana. Other infamous lot lizard high spots included El Paso, Detroit, and the Port of Albany in New York. Although truckers rarely used CB radios anymore, they still had them. Lot lizards knew it, and he’d hear his radio crackle with, “Anybody need company tonight? If you do, take it to 21. This is Barbie Doll…”

Once the lot lizard and the trucker switched to the other channel-along with everyone else parked at the stop who wanted to listen in-there would be a discussion of services, prices, and the location of the man who wanted company. The Lizard King didn’t ever respond. He waited for them to come to his door.

“Feel free to join us, brother,” Chamois said. “You’re more’n welcome. You don’t have to know nothing about the Bible. My friend here doesn’t, either.”

Muttonchops said, “Hey,” as if offended and a couple of the others laughed.

“Thanks,” the Lizard King said, waving over his shoulder but not looking back.

“You a Christian, son?” Chamois asked.

“Sure,” he said without conviction.

“God bless you, buddy,” Chamois said. “Whatever you are. Whatever the deal is with you.”