Black Mack

by Michael Bracken

I rubbed my sweating palms on my faded blue jeans and looked out the living room window at my aging red Peterbilt.

“You can’t go out there,” my old lady pleaded, her voice on the ragged edge of fear. Her blue eyes were red and puffy; she’d been crying most of the evening.

“I’ll be okay,” I told her.

“But they killed that guy up north a few weeks ago,” she said, pushing herself up from the couch and walking toward me.

“I’ll be okay,” I repeated. “I can’t afford to sit out the strike. I’ve got a $2,800 payment on the truck next week and the company’s willing to double my usual fee for hauling a load to Chicago.”

Betty fell into my arms, her long brown hair cascading over my thick forearms.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said.

“If I don’t drive, I lose the truck. You remember what happened during the last strike.” We had been two days away from repossession of my truck, hadn’t eaten any real food in a week, and I’d damned near taken Fat Freddie’s offer for the Harley I had sitting in the garage. I couldn’t go through that again.

“I don’t care about the truck,” she said between tears. “I care about you.”

I stroked her hair with my thick fingers and felt her body shake with silent sobs. “The truck, the bike, and you,” I said. “That’s all I got.”

“John,” Betty whispered as she turned her face upward toward mine. “Before you go...?”

I took her chin in my hand and held her face while I pressed my mouth against hers. Betty’s full red lips parted and I slid my tongue into her mouth, tasting the beer we’d shared during the late news.

Finally I pulled away from her. “It’s time to go.”

“John?”

“Yes?” I turned from the door and looked back at her. Fear had returned to her face.

“Call me when you get there.”

I blew her a kiss, then stepped outside and walked to the Peterbilt. I climbed into the cab, feeling the comfortable bulk of the seat quickly form itself to my shape as I settled into place.

The engine roared to life beneath me and I took one last look at the house, saw Betty standing in the doorway and saw the Harley parked neatly in the center of the garage. Then I drove the truck down the street away from the house and toward the highway. Driving bobtail—without a trailer—made the Peterbilt handle like a two-ton sports car, and I made good time.

Across town, I turned off the highway, downshifted several times, and eased up to a loading dock. I checked with the man in charge, then backed my cab under a load of frozen foods. With help from the guys on the dock—one of them a fellow biker with heavy alimony payments—I quickly hooked up the pneumatic and electrical cables on the truck, double-checked everything myself, then gathered the paperwork and climbed into the cab. I tried my best to ignore the picketers at the far end of the dock entrance. I hated to cross their line, and they hated me for doing it, but this was a question of survival. When I eased the truck toward them, they yelled “Scab!” and worse, but they didn’t damage the truck.

My goal was Chicago by dawn and as I eased the Peterbilt and the trailer load of frozen food onto the highway, I realized how easy the trip had been in the days before the truckers’ strike, and I realized how many times I’d cruised the same highway with Betty on the back of my bike and the wind whipping through our hair.

I wiped my hands on my jeans, then used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe the steering wheel dry. The highway stretched dark and empty before me and I slowly eased the truck up to the speed limit, and then edged beyond it when I’d passed Smokey’s favorite hiding places just outside the city.

Half an hour later my CB crackled and I heard the first of a series of voices shouting “Scab!” as I passed a usually busy truck stop filled with idled semis.

I saw no other trucks on the six-lane highway so I knew the insults were meant for me. Even though I sympathized with my brother truckers, I couldn’t afford to let my truck sit idle. For me it was a simple matter of drive it or lose it. I lowered the volume on my CB, realizing that important information might cross the airwaves despite the various insults hurled my way.

The insults from the idled truckers at the truck stop had almost ceased when a new voice crackled through the CB. “Hey there, good buddy in the cab-over-pete,” the voice said. “I hope you got your ears on ‘cause this here’s the strike  enforcer. 10-4.”

I listened, but I didn’t respond.

I pressed my foot a little more heavily on the accelerator, watching the speedometer needle creep past 65 M.P.H. and edge its way toward 70.

“Look, motherfucker in the big red one,” the voice called. “We got you in our sights. You won’t deliver that load, good buddy.”

I swore to myself and snapped off the CB. I couldn’t tell if the asshole on the other end was making idle threats or if he somehow meant to keep them. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I wiped at them with my shirt sleeve and watched the empty highway stretch into the darkness ahead. The rearview mirrors showed me nothing coming from behind. I was alone on the road.

I relaxed, thinking the strike enforcer was nothing but mouth. After all, Illinois had been a pretty safe state to drive through since the start of the strike.

The further I got from the truck stop, the better I felt. I calmed down, my body slowly becoming one with the Peterbilt I’d driven most of my life. I felt the highway beneath me as the truck continued rolling toward the Windy City.

Before long I was safely away from the city and the truck stops that surrounded it, flying through the night on Peterbilt wings. I watched carefully as I passed an occasional car, or saw one approaching in one of the southbound lanes. I laughed at a candy-ass with an unmodified Honda when I saw him pull off the road cursing and kicking at the bike.

For almost an hour after I switched off the CB, the trip was incident-free. It stayed that way until a brick crashed through the front passenger window as I drove beneath an overpass. I cursed when the glass flew into my bare arms, cutting me with dozens of tiny sharp edges. Cold wind whistled through the broken window and I shivered.

I switched the CB back on, then reached behind the seat for my thick wool jacket. While I put it on and zipped up the front, the CB crackled.

“You deaf, good buddy? When the strike enforcer tells you to pull over, you better pull that cab-over-pete off the fucking road. The next time it’ll be worse than a brick.” The CB crackled quietly for a moment, then from it came, “You got your ears on, motherfucker?”

I didn’t respond. I’d finished almost half the trip and I knew I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t let the striking truckers beat me out of my truck payment. I couldn’t let them destroy everything I’d worked for.

A pair of headlights swept down the on-ramp and gained on me. I glanced down at the speedometer, saw I was pushing 75 M.P.H., and realized the car coming up behind me wasn’t any late-night joy rider.

I listened to the insults as the car behind me continued gaining, my anger rising. I grabbed the microphone and shouted into it. “The Windy City Express don’t stop his truck for no chicken-assed mothers.”

“You’ll learn, buddy-boy,” came the response.

Before long, a late-model brown station wagon with no license plates cut into the center lane in front of me and the voice crackled through the CB again.

“This is the strike enforcer, good buddy. You pull that Peterbilt off this fucking highway or you’re a dead man. You read me?”

The rear window of the wagon opened and a man in a full-face ski mask poked his head out to stare at me. He pointed a gloved finger toward my face, then pulled a rifle from the rear of the station wagon, braced himself carefully, and took aim.

“You had your chance Windy City Express,” my CB crackled. “Now you’re dead.”

I swore. Before I could respond, the man in the ski mask pulled the trigger. A bullet crashed through the remaining glass on the passenger side and struck the roof. I turned the wide steering wheel sharply to get out of the line of fire, but a second bullet punctured the glass in front of me. Then a third bullet ripped into my arm.

I swore again and pulled my foot from the accelerator. The weight of my load helped slow the truck, and the station wagon continued to move on for a moment. Then red brake lights glowed on the wagon’s tail and the distance between us closed again.

The CB crackled and I heard a new voice: male and deep-throated.

“This here’s the Black Mack,” it said, “and I want my good buddy in the cab-over-pete to put the hammer down tight.”

I touched my bleeding arm with my good hand—it was sore as hell but I figured I could get by—then gripped the steering wheel with both hands. My left hand felt wobbly, not closing tightly enough around the hard plastic of the wheel. I told myself it was just the wind and the cold.

When I looked up at the road again, the gunman in the ski mask had repositioned himself, aiming at my cab again. I glanced into the left side mirror and saw a black and chrome Mack truck pulling up along my rear in the fast lane. The gunman barked some order to his driver and the station wagon swerved over into the slow lane ahead of me; now the rifleman had a straight-across shot at me through the broken glass of my windshield. He fired, the bullet spitting over my ducked head and blasting out the window beside me as the Black Mack passed me, its chrome gleaming in the moonlight and the red glow of brake lights. The Mack’s air horn roared long and hard as its long silver trailer pushed past the nose of my truck and moved into my lane.

I heard a voice swear into the CB, but the broadcast crackled into silence. I pulled off on the gas, leaving the Mack beside the wagon. The man in the ski mask, hanging half out of the rear of the station wagon, twisted to stare at the silver trailer and the night-black cab. He fired at the Mack, aiming for the massive tires, but missed. Then he spun around toward me and fired two more quick rounds. But I had pulled sharply back into the right-hand lane, and his shots disappeared harmlessly into the night..

I stomped on the accelerator, shifted twice, and rammed into the rear of the station wagon, spilling the masked gunman to the highway and under my Peterbilt. If he screamed, the roar of two huge diesel engines drowned him out.

The Mack started to move over into the right lane and into the station wagon, bumping the little vehicle with its big rear tires. The wagon skidded over the gravel shoulder, then corrected itself, shooting back onto the highway and ahead of the Mack.

I heard the scream of the Mack’s engine as the driver shifted, pushing the black and chrome rig ahead of the station wagon again. The driver faked a lane-change ahead of the wagon, twisted the wheel again, and let the chrome trailer slam into the side of the station wagon. Ahead of me, the wagon twisted right, then left, then right again, spun out of control onto the shoulder, then nose-dived into an open culvert. The last I saw of it was in my right rearview. It flipped over and landed on its roof. I’d put a good quarter of a mile between me and the wagon when I saw the red and orange flash of an explosion. The sound came a moment later.

The deep voice returned to the CB with a laugh. “Follow me, good buddy,” the voice said. “You’ve got a load to deliver.”

I wrapped my left hand weakly around the CB mike. “Black Mack, you suppose we ought do something about those friends of ours back there?”

The CB spit static and Black Mack answered, “Those bastards weren’t friends of any trucker, good buddy. You just lay your hammer down as hard as you can now, ‘cause you got a load on a reefer gonna get spoilt if you don’t. 10-4.”

Chilling wind bit my face as it whistled through the broken windshield. As bitter as the night cold was, I felt sleepy. I let my left arm drop to my lap and rest there, feeling thick wetness on the leather seat and on my pants.

“Hey, there, good buddy, you keep awake now,” Black Mack called on the CB. “We

ain’t got but a little ways to go to Chi Town and you owe me ‘bout three tall beers.”

I laughed, putting my arm back on the wheel, letting the thick fingers wrap around the grip. Black Mack shot ahead on the highway, and I sped up to follow, keeping his yellow and red rear lights right in front of me. Bands of pain tightened across my chest and a fog kept clouding my mind, but I answered Black Mack’s call. For the next two and a half hours I followed the black and chrome rig, a two-truck convoy chewing up the highway. The driver’s deep voice hammered at me the entire time, joking, singing off-key, talking about roadside women and some damn fine bikes, and forcing me to stay awake when the only thing in the world I wanted to do was sleep.

Just before dawn, almost an hour ahead of schedule, I followed Mack into the truck terminal where I was to deliver my frozen load. Black Mack rolled to a stop near the gate and gave me a long air horn salute as I eased my red Peterbilt to a halt near a loading dock.

Then a wave of nausea swept over me and I blacked out.

When I woke, I was looking up at the Chicago dispatcher. The first thing I thought of was trouble—for me. I shouldn’t have passed out in my truck. But I wasn’t in my truck. I was in a hospital bed.

“Did you call my wife?” I asked.

He nodded. “She’s on her way. She said somethin’ about some guys havin’ your hog polished and purrin’ by the time you get back.”

I tried to smile; Betty knew just what I’d be thinking of. The pain in my arm and the painkillers they’d given me made my thoughts and my mouth work slowly, though.

“You know Black Mack?” I managed to ask.

“Sure, Bud McKay. Big guy with a black and chrome Mack. Helluva guy.”

“What kinda beer does he drink?”

The dispatcher patted my good arm. “Why don’t you just settle back, huh? Think about drinkin’ beer later. You almost bought it last night. When we pulled you from the cab of your Peterbilt, you were soaked in blood. Doctor said you was runnin’ on empty, just about.”

“What...what kind of beer?” I repeated weakly.

“Oh, Mack? Any kind. Never mattered, sure as hell doesn’t matter now. Helluva trucker but not one for unions. Too bull-head, if you ask me.” The dispatcher looked around for nurses, saw none, and pulled a cigarette from his pocket.

“Lousy singing voice, too,” I said.

The dispatcher nodded with a grin. “That’s the truth. I didn’t figure you knew him.”

“Yeah,” I answered slowly. “He helped me finish the run up here last night. I owe him a beer.”

The Chicago dispatcher took a long drag from his cigarette. “Black Mack quit driving years ago,” he said. “Would be 65 or 70 by now. His kid was a trucker, too. Down near Bloomington about two weeks ago some goons took potshots at Mack’s kid. The kid and his rig went over a guardrail and blew up. Never did find out who did it.”

He took another long drag from his cigarette. “The only things Mack had in this world were his kid and his truck. Kept the truck parked in his back yard.”

“And Mack? Where’s he now?” I asked.

“Downstairs,” the dispatcher said. “Everyone was so worried about you... McKay was dead before anyone thought to check his rig. One shot punctured his lung, same caliber as the one they pulled outta you. We found McKay slumped over the wheel, clutching a picture of his boy.”

The dispatcher and I sat in silence for a long, long time.

Michael Bracken is the author of All White Girls, Bad Girls, Deadly Campaign, Even Roses Bleed, In the Town of Dreams Unborn and Memories Dying, Just in Time for Love, Psi Cops, Tequila Sunrise, and more than 700 shorter works.
His short crime fiction has appeared in Blue Murder, Espionage, Gent, Judas_ezine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Score, TheCase.com, and many other publications. 

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