Big Time Truckin: True Trucking Stories
Dispatch 4: Night Driving
by Kirk Gonnsen
There were three cops standing on interstate 94. Three uniforms in the Detroit
night, standing around a body on the highway. Each cop had a long flashlight and the body was draped in a white sheet. The cop cars were blocking 3 lanes of
southbound traffic and the red, white and blue lights were flashing on and off
of everything; the windows of the waiting rigs, the wet road, my truck cab.
There were no wrecked cars. No shattered glass or splintered fiberglass. No skidmarks. Just a body by itself - resting in the middle of I-94. The CB
rattled with opinion, "some crazy fucker out for a night time stroll?!"
They're all waiting for the ambulance and the medics and someone with
authority to move the body. The dead must be pronounced before the traffic can
move again. Despite the trucker's raving, the cops know better. They know it's better to let him stay on the asphalt and let the traffic jam keep growing like a tapeworm.... and the cops standing over it - the body.
Only two cops remain at the scene. The third uniform has moved over to the
hammer-lane to lay down flares as more cars come, some with lights flashing red, white and blue. And all I can think is 'thank God, I'm going north.'
