The Last Haul
The truck shakes as I take the ramp too fast, the weight shifting under me. Doesn’t matter how light or heavy the load is; the Freightliner lets me know when I’ve screwed up. I mutter a curse and straighten out, eyes flicking to the mirror. One of those automated rigs glides past me on the left, its body perfect and unbothered, like it owns the damn road.
I keep one hand on the wheel and flip it the bird with the other. It doesn’t respond, of course, but it makes me feel better. God knows someone’s gotta push back.
The company I’m leased onto used to have more than 200 drivers. Now I’m one of just three left—same as just about every other company out here now. More trucks. Fewer drivers. That’s the way of things. Used to be 3 Million of us out here. Now, I bet it ain’t more than two or three thousand. But there are still 3 million trucks. most of them have gone electric. All of them self-driving.
“Last haul,” my dispatcher said this morning— like it’s some kind of privilege to retire from a job no one will ever hold again— as if putting me on this one last cross-country run is a gift. They’re calling these runs these days “tribute’s to human truckers.” I don’t buy it.
We all know the truth. This route isn’t a tribute. It’s a funeral. And I’m the body in the casket.
I’ve been doing this longer than most of these rigs have been steel. Fifty-one years behind the wheel. I bought my first rig when I was twenty-one. A shiny new Peterbilt 359 with a sleeper cab I thought was the height of luxury. $158,000 I didn’t have, but the bank took a chance on me. First couple of years were lean. Just me and the road, scraping by, hauling grain through the Midwest. Then came the good years, the busy years.
I married my first wife, Marcy, back in 2005. I was so young then. I promised her I’d settle down, take shorter runs, be home more. I meant it, too. But the money wasn’t in short runs. The money was in coast-to-coast hauls, burning diesel and chasing deadlines. She stuck it out for twelve years before she left. Said she couldn’t raise two kids by herself while I played cowboy across the country.
I don’t blame her. I was gone more than I was home. Missed birthdays, first steps, school plays. My boys, Alex and Danny, grew up with me in photographs more than in person. I tried to make up for it when I was home, but kids don’t run on make-up time. They run on consistency. Marcy knew that. I didn’t.
The hum of the highway fills the cab, a low, vibrating whisper. It’s not like it used to be, back when you’d hear the roar of diesel engines, air brakes hissing, the static crackle of CB radios. You could tell who was on the road by their handle. Mine was Midnight Joe. Stupid, I guess, but it fit me. I preferred night runs, when the traffic was lighter, and it was just me and the stars.
Sometimes, on those late-night stretches, you’d hear a voice come over the CB. Another driver, lonely and looking for a chat. We’d talk for miles, swapping stories about road rage idiots, truck stop food, or weather up ahead. Some of those voices I never met in person, but they were friends just the same.
I miss the chatter. Now the roads are quiet. Too quiet. The machines don’t talk.
I pull into a truck stop just outside Kansas City. The sign’s flickering, barely holding on, like this place is trying to remind itself what it used to be. There are a couple of old rigs parked in the lot, beaten-up Peterbilts and Freightliners like mine. Most of the spots are filled with automated rigs, their electric batteries humming softly as they charge— their sleek, spotless bodies lined up like soldiers in formation.
Inside, the diner smells like burnt coffee and fryer grease. A couple of old-timers sit in a booth, hunched over their mugs like they’re guarding their last bit of pride. I nod at them as I pass. They nod back. It’s the kind of nod that says everything and nothing all at once.
“You’re on the last haul, ain’t you?” one of them asks. His voice is rough, like gravel in a tin can.
“Yep.”
He doesn’t ask anything else, and I don’t offer. What’s there to say? They know the score. We all do.
The miles blur together. I think about Danny, my youngest. He’s a mechanic out in Omaha. Still calls me every week, still calls me “Dad.” I think about Alex, the golden boy, who used to idolize me. He worked for one of those tech companies, the ones that built the rigs that are replacing us. He was proud of it, too. Said it was the future. Said I should be proud of him. Of course I was, but pride don’t beat cancer. Neither did he.
Hell, maybe I should be long-retired. But I can’t feel it. All I feel is the weight of everything I gave up for this life, everything I sacrificed to keep food on the table and the lights on. The road took my marriages. It took my knees and my back. It gave me two good boys, but it took the time I should’ve spent raising them. It took those final months—those final moments with Alex. My dear boy.
It gave me freedom, though. That’s the one thing I can’t let go of. Out here, with the wheel in my hands and the open road ahead, I’ve got something no machine can take from me. Something no machine can understand.
Nevada. The desert stretches out in all directions, flat and endless. The sun dips low, painting the sky in streaks of red and gold. I pull off the road, kill the engine, and step out into the silence.
The air is sharp and clean, the kind that cuts right to your lungs. I light a cigarette—first one in years—and take a slow drag. It burns, sharp and bitter, but it feels good. Real.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel pulls me back. I turn, and there’s Alex stepping out of one of those sleek electric sedans. I know it’s not him. I know better. His mama buried him twelve years ago while I was stuck in a snow storm in Montana. Looks out of place here, like a man who wandered into the wrong movie.
“Dad,” he says. “You’re off route.”
“You’re following me now?” I ask, flicking the cigarette to the ground.
He sighs. “The company knows you’re out of route by now.”
“Company boy to the rescue, huh?” I cross my arms. “What’re you here for, Alex?”
He flinches at that. “You don’t have to do this, Dad. You can let it go.”
“Let it go?” I bark out a laugh, sharp and bitter. “This truck, this road—it’s my life. You took that from me.”
He looks at me, his jaw tight. “I didn’t take anything. The world moved on, Dad. It’s not my fault you won’t let go. Come on, Dad. I’m not even here.”
I stare at him for a second, and then I look up at my cab. I think of the boy who used to sit in the passenger seat, asking me how far we could go in one day. My throat tightens, but I force it down.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I say quietly. “It wasn’t just a job. It was who I was. It meant something.”
“And it still does,” he says, softer now. “But this isn’t going to bring it back.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy as the desert air. I don’t have the words to fix this, and neither does he.
I think about what I came out to this desert to do. The cliffs ahead. Not like anyone would give a shit. I wouldn’t even be missed. I wouldn’t be the first of us and likely not even the last. “So what the hell is Alex doing here?” I wonder aloud.
I climb back into the truck and grip the wheel. The leather is soft under my hands, worn smooth by decades of use. Alex stands there, watching me, waiting for something. I don’t know what.
The engine roars to life, loud and defiant. It’s the last roar, but it’s mine.
“Where are you going?” Alex asks. He’s beside me on the front seat now.
I glance at him, then back at the horizon. “This freight ain’t gonna deliver itself.”
The Freightliner rumbles onto the highway, the open road stretching out ahead. It doesn’t belong to me anymore, but I’m not done with it.
Not yet.
Not today.
I think about the brochure I saw for brand new motorhomes. It won’t be the same. But maybe that’s just the way it is. I flip off another ghost in the night. What the hell else am I supposed to do?
Wow.......