Short Story / Fiction / Life in the Time of C19

The Last Meat Run

Will J outrun the virus?

J fired up her semi tractor after making her required pre-trip inspection. She made sure all the lights were operating, the brakes were working, and the other 100 other things that needed to be checked on a commercial vehicle ere all in specification.

You could never tell when the DOT would stop you and check your rig.

Plus, you didn’t want to be the woman whose brakes failed and caused a million dollar accident.

Not with “The Hammer,” “INJURY!” or “Better Call Saul” advertising looking for clients to sue you into bankruptcy. Those guys knew truckers were required to have at least a million dollars worth of insurance — and maybe more. You didn’t want to be the trucker whose truck would end up being featured in a personal injury attorney’s cable TV ad having run over a car. Plus, nobody wanted to be in an accident where someone was hurt. J always thought about the other drivers as being part of her family.

J was heading south to Logansport, Indiana after fueling up at the little gasoline station that had diesel in Medaryville. Take a drive south on 421, cut over on 14 to Winamac, then south again on 35 to the pork plant.

J heard the news on the AM radio out of Chicago. Something about coronavirus. China. Wuhan. Seems like it’s pretty far away, over there, she thought to herself driving on the quiet Indiana back roads. J liked listening to WGN. It wasn’t hard political like the other stations. It kept her company during the long days on the road. It seemed like she was always pushing the legal time limits, no matter how hard she tried to be efficient. It was drive, J, drive. Get loaded. Drive. Drop the trailer. Get a new one for the next run.

“I could use a nice Corona after work,” J thought to herself. She wondered what would happen to Mexican beer sales if the coronavirus news kept up.

Luckily the state kept the roads nice. They had done some work on 421 a couple of years ago. The same on 35 north of Winamac. INDOT was pretty good about making sure commerce could flow from the rural to urban areas freely.

J was rolling in her truck to pick up another load of pork to haul north back to Chicago when she stopped for fuel in Winamac — a nice little dot on the map. It was a coffee shop, two gas stations, a liquor store, city hall, and library. And, the old Monon terminated in town at the grain silos.

Friendly people. It was a tiny old-style town.

Cranes fly in in the fall and that’s probably the only thing exciting that goes on there, J thought. It would be a nice change of pace from living in the suburbs. J always liked the cute clerk she bought fuel from at the diesel pump in town.

Pulling into the meat plant, J called the scale house to let them know she was pulling on to the scale so they could get her empty weight. She’d check out after getting loaded with 20,000 lbs of meat to bring to Chicago’s grocery stores. It would be a milk run. Like always. Drive, get loaded in Logansport, drive back to Chicago, drop the trailer at the distribution center, pick up an empty, cruise back down to the meat processing plant. Day in and day out.

“One of these days, they’ll program the truck to self-drive. I wonder if I’ll just hang out in the yard to park the truck when it arrives? Can they program it to be able to back up into a loading dock?”

“If they figure that out, I’m screwed.”

“I’ll have to learn how to write computer code for the trucks.”

The routine went on as usual. The radio host talked about the Diamond Princess cruise ship filled with coronavirus victims. “That would be horrible,” J thought as she drive south on I-65 after leaving Chicago. J liked I-65 after she got out of the traffic in Northwest Indiana. She always cut over on the state road at Fair Oaks where the the farmers had lobbied for an exit in the middle of nowhere to open up farm commerce.

J always wanted to stop in Medaryville so she could stop and say hi to her fuel pump honey and top off with some diesel. Unlike the truck stops on I-94 in Gary and Lake Station, there weren’t long wait times to fuel up. And, forget the Chicago truck stops — the one over off of California and I-55 was a nightmare.

Homeless people under the bridge, tight corners, urban spacing and streets. J loved the wide open rural driving. Plus, fuel was always cheaper in Indiana. Plus, cigarettes and beer and everything else cost less. Rural life wasn’t bad, if one was able to keep themselves entertained.

“Maybe, I should find a place here one of these days and settle down.”

J liked the idea of finding some land off of US highway where she could park her truck at night. She wanted to be able to snuggle up with her woman on the back porch and look at the stars in the sky. Up north near the city, the night lights blocked out most of the stars. J always noticed how the moon was white in Medaryville, but red when she was in Chicago. All the soot and particulates gave the moon an ominous look in the city. A mean look. An apocalyptic look.

“Illinois is locking down,” J thought to herself as he heard the news on the AM. “I’m an essential employee because I’m driving food. Good. I can’t afford to stop driving. I am leasing this truck and need to keep paying the bank.”

Later in the week, J heard the news Indiana was doing the same as Illinois and other surrounding states. She noticed vehicle traffic was less on the roads. It was nice to not have competition. Cars raced by her when she was on the Dan Ryan and Bishop Ford in Chicago. People were running their performance cars at over 100 MPH sometimes because the roads were wide open.

J was glad they usually did that in the express lanes on the Ryan because she didn’t drive her truck in those lanes. But, once on the Bishop Ford, there wasn’t protection from the crazies tempting death on the expressways.

The crazy driving made J nervous. More so than ‘Rona, as people were calling the virus.

J pulled into the plant and saw people were coughing when she went into the scale office. J had started wearing a mask and gloves a week or so prior. She didn’t want to take a chance. The guy at the scale told J they might be cutting back on runs because of absentee workers. People were getting sick because of the close quarters in the plant. Workers were lined up next to each other on a meat assembly line slicing and cutting.

It wasn’t looking good, the clerk told J as he handed her the bill of lading for the meat load.

J dropped her trailer at the grocery distribution center professionally and efficiently. She strode into the office and let the manager know she wasn’t available to haul any more meat loads for a while.

The ‘Rona was too scary and people were falling like flies at the plant, from what she’d heard from the scale master. Plants in other states were becoming hot spots and the virus was spreading. J wasn’t going to risk her life so people could have pork chops.

J fired up her rig and pulled out the distribution center and back on to I-94. Luckily she was self-employed. J headed south to Medaryville after calling his honey on the phone. She said J could stay there. J was worried about the virus spreading throughout Chicago. They’d be safer in the small town together riding out the storm.

J sits on the back porch watching the sun set. She’s glad she’s off of the meat run. She’s with her woman. J feels safe.

J’s hoping for the best.

🦄 Chris Hedges, BA, JD, is a photographer and writer. I drove a truck for a couple of years hauling metal to steel mills.