Tales Of The Big-O: I Drive But The Other Man Don't Sleep

I'm Frank. Been driving the Lawson's Big-O run for fourteen years now. You know, "Get that juice up to Lawson's in 40 hours." I chart it. My average is 38 hours 53 minutes. Couple three years ago made it in 35 17, don't know how, but the clock don't lie, and it wasn't Daylight Savings Time switch or nothing. Even made it through the blizzard of '66 in 39 42 and Hurricane Sylvia in 39 56. Just once in those fourteen years I didn't come in under 40, 41 11, and that was the emergency run I had to make with Somrak, so I don't really count it, that lunatic Slovenian. Sure, Somrak and me are the only drivers left who remember Old Man Lawson, but we mostly keep away from one another. Guy gets his groceries from Franklin's, go figure.

Anyway, I been driving the last few months with a new guy, only goes by the name of Novo, like he's some Indian chief or something. Good driver, I'll give him that. So far we're averaging 38 17 and he never once has to stop to pee, so there's all of that. But damn the guy talks. Anything and everything from any and all angles. Spent the whole of Georgia one time talking cashews. Haven't been able to look at one, let alone eat it, since. Now I don't mind him yakking when he's driving; driving's hard work and what a guy has to do behind the wheel of a rig like this, a guy has to do. Hell, I drove four straight years with Napoli singing church hymns the whole time, I can take it. See, if I'm not driving, I'm sleeping. Takes me no longer than six minutes, seven tops, to be out cold once my driving shift's done. So it don't matter if Novo's talking strategy for the game Battleship or telling me how he filched all the Canadian change from the collection baskets at Saint Therese's for three years ("Old Father Kraft said he didn't like them Canuck coins, so I took it upon myself to, you know, cleanse the baskets of 'em; financed a nice day at Geauga Lake, including cotton candy, for the whole family, couple little cousins, too")--within a couple rounds of me going, "Uh hunh, uh hunh, yeah sure" I'm out like a baby.

But when I'm driving, I don't need and I don't want somebody yammering the whole time about carp fishing near the power plant or about the differences in the check out girls between Giant Tiger and Zayre's. Last night it got too much. I take over in Jelico for the long haul back to Cleveland and he starts right in on Mary Tyler Moore: "Mary Richards, God! Talk about squeeze as you please, hunh? Hunh? Gimme one night with her and I guarantee you that M on her wall spins into a W. The Big-O all the way, right? You know what I mean, hunh? But that's just it, she never gets laid."

"Hey, Novo," I says, "I'm trying to merge here, let me think for a second."

"Believe me," he says, never hearing me, "I seen every Mary Tyler Moore Show they ever made. You notice I don't run the weekend hauls. Church usher duty's just a cover. I can't miss good ole Mary Mary Mary! But I don't just watch, I study. I defy you to name one episode where it's clear, unaquivickly, that Mary Richards does it with another guy. Name one, go ahead."

"Look guy, please," I plead.

"See what I mean? You can't. What the hell? She's a liberated woman, of course she's having sex, right? But not on the show, not even back in that mysterious walk-in closet thing of hers. What's the deal? Even the TV executive stud guy who was on the show for three straight episodes. Any talk, any hint, any little twinkle in their eyes that they done it? Hell no! What gives? I mean, really, what gives?

I admit it, I snapped. "Look guy. You gotta be quiet while I'm driving. You're supposed to be sleeping, you know, 'One man sleeps while the other man drives,' it's in the contract."

"Contract? I never signed no sleeping contract, guy."

"Well, maybe not a contract, but it's the code. That commercial and all. Anybody ever spent twelve hours in Cleveland knows that commercial. People expect it. I been filling the gas tank at four in the morning in Valdosta and people pull up in station wagons demanding a peek inside the cab at the other man sleeping. They expect it. Somebody sees this rig on the road with one man driving and the other man yapping away, they lose confidence in the brand. Start drinking Minute Maid or some other slop. That commercial's not a legend, guy, it's the fact. Now hit the hay."

Which, I admit, was a bit bossy, maybe fighting words, but luckily Novo's just a big talker, not a pugnacious guy.

"Hell, I can't sleep anywhere but Garfield Heights, my own house, my own bed."

"Gimme a break."

"Honest, twenty-one years I haven't slept a wink anywhere but Garfield Heights. Just won't happen. Took the family down to Lookout Mountain for a week once. The drive back, one week later with no sleep, was, needless to say, kind of harrowing. Can't say it led to the divorce, but neither did it help matters. Besides, all due respect, you seeming like a nice guy and all, and clean, but I ain't bedding down on that same rucksack you just been sawing logs and drooling on for eight hours."

"Oh hell, Feighan the crazy Mick had the same issues and he just flipped the thing over and put his head the opposite way. Slept fine. Quiet, you know?"

"I wasn't aware my conversation was so irritating, Frank." Did I mention the guy used to drive for Uncle Bill's?

"It's not irritating," I says, not quite honestly, "it's just the way things are supposed to be. One man sleeps while the other man drives. Trademarked, I believe."

"Well then. Trademarked, hunh?" What followed was about precisely two minutes of silence, I know because I have this thing about noticing all the mile markers, and the silence lasted between mile 115.7 to 113.6. Now maybe the guy's got some similar thing about talking, granted. So maybe those two minutes were excrutiating for him, I don't know. All I know is before 113.5 he started again. "Now Rhoda, well, Rhoda's a different species of bird all right. She gets it, hunh? I mean really gets it. See, I got it all figured out. I'd take Georgette for a quickie, just to hear what she might sound like. And Phyllis would be my one night stand--sexy at night, but God, a pain in the morning, no? And Rhoda for a wild weekend, maybe at Atwood Lake--no need to sleep that weekend, if you know what I mean. But for long-term romance, well, it's all Mary. And believe me, it's only Mary Richards, in the Twin Cities. Laura Petrie does nothing for me, she's just so--"

"What about Sue Ann? You forgot Sue Ann Nivens. She's the feisty one."

"Sue Ann!? Betty White? You're joking, aren't you? These are the Seventies, guy. Betty White in the Fifties maybe, definitely, come to think of it. But Betty White now? My God, she's ancient!"

And so we rolled on. Kentucky was all the inadequacies of Murray Slaughter. Ohio was a blur of Ted Baxter and all the bosses Novo ever toiled for. If not for the construction around Medina, we might have cracked the Golden Fleece of 35 hours. As it is, we made it in 35 23. By then I was so drained I almost fell asleep driving myself home. I slept for twelve hours and it would have been longer if I hadn't awoken from a dream of Mary Richards leading me by the hand into that mysterious walk-in closet while Lou Grant sternly knocked from the hallway, "Mary Mary Mary! I know you're in there." And damnit, I'm out of orange juice.