Delivery Day, Los Angeles

August 27, 2018

At the Days Inn, Barstow, California. 6AM. The Trucker’s phone alarm tweedle-dee’d any dreams to oblivion. A new day, a long one. We arise and move quietly, aware that in the neighboring rooms it is 3AM Pacific time.

Brief showers, just because we can, a short packing job, then with bags in hand and over shoulder, we face the day. The early morning is cool, with light breezes stirring the palm trees. We tread across the balcony, down stairs, and uphill to the parking lot where the big green Kenworth and others of its ilk are waiting quietly.

A quick turn of the key to waken the beast, and the Trucker leaves his Passenger to organize the bunk and prepare breakfast, after a fashion.

Rolling west on I-15, the Passenger feeds the Trucker his oatmeal/applesauce breakfast. The truck is moving and swaying, the early morning hour is dark. After two mishaps in three tries, the Trucker turns on the interior bulbs to light the spoon’s way from dish to mouth. Gotta keep that shirt presentable, it will travel many miles and meet many dock workers with the Trucker today. Not everyone gets fed their breakfast via spoon at 60 mph on a crowded freeway before sunrise.

The split speed limit – 55mph for trucks, 70 mph for cars – is busy causing its own set of hassles.

The freshly washed and shined truck’s windshield made the whole world look crisp and clean. Route I-15 through Barstow took us past the many truck stops here, every space filled with a truck (hundreds of them), biding their time for the call to head into the city with their loads. Four to six lanes one way, the freeway was lightly traveled, and that mostly trucks, at first.

Very soon, side roads began releasing channels of traffic onto the freeway, flowing smoothly into the main stream, which was rapidly becoming a river. Some changing lanes and adjusting their speed as needed, others maintaining their preferred speed no matter the inconvenient adjustments their actions required of other vehicles. Closer and closer they came, til the freeway was a solid mass of moving vehicles.

Then it was down the Cajon Mountain Pass where, according to the Trucker, the idea that became the Jake brake was born. Though darkness still reigned, and a full moon shone out of the clear sky overhead, dim black shapes gave evidence of the mountains, hills, and canyons through which we passed.

Partway down, the Passenger inquired as to whether the hot brake smell wafting in the open windows originated with the green Kenworth. The Trucker laughed. He had not yet used his brakes enough to heat them up, leaning heavily instead on the Jake. Then there was the lone runaway truck ramp on this pass, but a long line of red taillights between us and it. If needed, one wouldn’t necessarily have had a clear opening to it without decimating many vehicles on the way, or going over the mountainside.

And then there was the weigh station for trucks, seemingly permanently closed. It does seem a nasty location to use for pulling all trucks off the road and then causing them to re-enter traffic.

Down and out of the hills, and across the valley, merging with a similar river of traffic, flowing uphill into the mountains. The Passenger looks forward across the landscape, and the lights of the city spread out below. How beautiful Los Angeles is from here, now!

“No,” the Trucker says with amusement. “That’s not LA, not even close. It’s Victorville. Not an LA suburb; we have yet to reach even the suburbs of that city.  This area is what is called the high desert.” Oh.

Lights. Lights without number, each parting the blackness with an individual marker of its existence. Streams of red lights before us. Streams of white headlights facing us. The city below. The stars above. And the full, bright moon overseeing them all. Only a light haze over the hills, hanging between the stars and the city, altered the contrast between light and dark.

Closer in to the city limits, more side roads empty onto the freeway, traffic shifting from lane to lane. Among these, a city bus, its bright interior lights shining onto the road. Empty, but for a back seat where a young woman dressed a sleepy toddler on her lap. Local time is now 5:45AM. What is her life like, that she and her little one are on a city bus at this hour?

Ahead, a white tractor and trailer, maintaining speed, now straddling the dotted line, now centered in its lane, now swinging back again. The Trucker tenses, watching, and the Passenger worries til safely past.

Finally it is our turn to be a small eddy that swirls out of the river, and washes up on a side street, down to only four lanes, then three, then two, and we have arrived.

GrayBar. In the Pomona section of the greater Los Angeles area. The huge, new looking warehouse where the first third of our load of spooled wire is destined. Our world is suddenly quiet. No one is here. Lights are out. High up the bank, waves of traffic roar on the freeway. Here, the lot is empty and swept clean. All 24 truck parking spaces, generous turn around area, and twelve dock doors, though the building is much longer that what twelve doors require.

The Trucker parks in front of the warehouse, every light lit on truck and trailer. After investing in a thorough wash and shine, why not get the most of it in a pre-dawn photo session?

The Passenger makes a phone call to Eastern Standard Time, and takes a brisk walk or three round the perimeter. Bare feet on the pavement is a comfortable change, not even small stones underfoot. The air is cool. The moon has vanished into the mist.

Beside the curb.  A termite mound, or a pile of dirt?

Blooming hedge along the curb.

Another truck has arrived. Both back to dock doors. The Trucker and I enter the receiving door, into a tiny caged area. A short counter is straight ahead, fronted by two new looking bar stools. On the left is a comfortable arm chair, by which a sizable bell hangs. The words “Alligator Hope 1986” is engraved on the bell, and a sign hangs by it instructing one to ring the bell for service.

The bell is duly rung, and shortly a man on a forklift zips over, and grants permission for us to enter the warehouse proper, so the Trucker can remove the trailer load locks in preparation for unloading. He then requested use of the restroom. Another warehouse worker escorts us to the far end of the warehouse, and for safety regulations, waits to escort us back.

And what restrooms they were! Spacious, and meticulously clean – too clean to use – this Passenger thought.

Then back through the warehouse, dwarfed by tall racks holding all manner of sizes and weights and colors of wire on spools. We learn from our gracious escort, they stock the spools here, and cut wire and re-spool it to fill orders that are shipped out. Even combining different wires on the same spool if so ordered.

In record time, the order on our truck was unloaded and stacked in the tidy warehouse, and bills were signed. Then it was back in the truck, back out onto the freeway to “play in the traffic’ as the Trucker said.