More True Tales From The American Highway

I promised yesterday to share with you more true tales from the 32 years I spent in the trucking industry and because I got an e-mail from a reader asking that I share more I thought I'd share a real life experience about a trip to New Jersey some years ago.

Somebody Give Me A Sign

As I exited the toll booth from the New Jersey Turnpike the man in the booth shouted, "Good luck, you're gonna need it."

Had I known them what I know now I would have made a U-turn and headed right back down the turnpike. It's been several years and I can't remember which New Jersey city I was delivering to (all of northeast New Jersey pretty much looks the same) but in less than a mile after leaving the turnpike I realized I had entered New Jersey's adaptation of Hotel California. You see, all of the local street signs were gone and without street signs navigation becomes quite difficult.

The area I was in was the sort of mixed residential, commercial and industrial area common to New Jersey but almost unknown in much of the nation. The houses were old, the retail shops were old and the industrial buildings were old. And none of them looked to be well maintained. Trash covered the potholed streets and everywhere I looked there were suspicious looking characters.

The place I was looking for was said to be only about 2 miles from the toll booth but every street looked too small to safely accommodate a tractor-trailer including the street I was already traveling on. I stopped at a store to ask directions but the folks inside all agreed they'd never heard of the place I was looking for or the street it was said to be on. Just past the store there was a well-worn lot where it appeared many trucks had turned around so I wheeled my rig the other direction thinking I'd stop at another store up the street and ask them. All the while I was reassuring myself that at least this delivery was during daylight hours and not in the middle of the night as is often the case.

After about 4 passes up and down the street I decided to give up trying to find this place. If these people want this shit then let them come get it, I thought. I'm going back to North Carolina.

It was then a man standing by the left side of the road walked out into the road waving at me. He didn't look very threatening but as I stopped I placed my .357 revolver in my lap just in case. "Yo, what you lookin' fo'?" the man asked.

I told him the name of the business and he offered to show me where it was if I'd give him 2 bucks. "It's not far," he assured me. "I'll ride out here on the running board and hang on to the mirror so you don't even have to unlock your door." That and Smith and Wesson was enough to convince me to give him a try.

When we arrived at the warehouse it was only two blocks from the first store I'd stopped at to ask directions. I was so happy to finally find it that I handed the man on my running board a $5 bill and told him to keep the change. "What's this?" the man angerly asked. "I told you I wanted twenty dollars."

"You told me you wanted two bucks, I gave you five bucks."

"Muther fucker, I told you twenty. You gonna give me twenty or I'm gonna take it from you!"

"I don't think so," I calmly answered as I leveled my revolver directly between his eyes. "Take the five and get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

The man left running, five dollar bill in his hand so I walked inside and inquired about which of the 3 docks they preferred I back to.

Minutes later, while unloading my trailer by hand, 2 police officers walked into the warehouse and began to question me. It was explained to me that possession of a unlicensed firearm was a felony in New Jersey involving many years in a New Jersey prison but the man would be happy not to press charges if I were to pay him the twenty dollars he claimed I owed him. "After all, this is really just a misunderstanding," one of the cops chuckled.

I didn't think him funny at all. Nor did I think it a misunderstanding.

Of course he had forgotten all about the 5 I'd already given him so it ended up costing me $25 for him to lead me 3 blocks. As the police walked outside one of the guys working in the warehouse commented, "Don't feel too bad, you're the third one this week."

That was when I made up my mind that all of New Jersey will starve to death before I ever bump another dock in The Garden State.