Truck Stop Lucky
by Hall Jameson
Sam worked at the Happy Trails Truck Stop and Diner, a joint popular with locals, tourists, criminals, runaways, and, of course, truckers. She’d been waiting tables there for six years, ever since her divorce.
It was almost the end of her shift, 5:00am, and about a dozen customers were scattered throughout the dining room. The other waitress, Lois, was by the cash register, sipping black coffee and reading the paper. The busser, Sam’s cousin Maggie, was wiping down a corner booth.
“Rough night, Sam?” It was Calvin, one of the regulars. He sounded drunk.
“No Cal, I’m fine,” Sam lied. “More coffee?”
“Sure, darlin’,” he purred, eyeballing the front of her blouse as she filled his cup. Actually, she wasn’t fine. She was tired. It had been one hell of a night. And now Calvin was trying to look down her shirt. She had the urge to pour the coffee over his head.
Usually, she loved her job, but tonight was the exception.
It had started when she’d collided with Todd, the cook, while balancing a tray loaded with dirty dishes. The crash had been loud, with multiple plate and coffee cup casualties. It had taken her an hour to clean up the mess, and Todd still wasn’t talking to her.
Then Trevor, her ex boyfriend, showed up, itching for a fight. That had messed up her karma. Thankfully, Butch, a trucker who was a regular and a beast of a man, had persuaded him to go.
She wished Trevor would leave her alone. It had been a month since their breakup, but he had a habit of showing up wherever she was: the grocery store, the Laundromat, and now, her work. He was really starting to scare her.
On top of the unfortunate encounters, her tips for the night had been pathetic, and the customers had been downright rotten. One couple had left her a tip of eleven cents—one shiny dime, and one shiny penny. Bastards. She’d been so nice to them.
Another woman had left her a stick of gum. Asshole.
The majority of customers had left no tip at all. This puzzled her, because she worked hard for her tips, taking care to ensure the customer’s experience at the Happy Trails was a pleasant one. The only person that loved her job more was Maggie, who always told everyone how lucky she was to work at the Happy Trails. She also liked to talk about how she and Sam and her cat, Tugboat, were going to have a house together someday, with a big garden.
That was the plan. Sam saved every penny she could, so she and her cousin could move out of their crappy apartment and buy a house with a garden. A little house would be fine, but she wanted a big garden.
She caught her reflection in the huge windows that wrapped around the restaurant, and smoothed her wilted bangs back from her face. She forced herself to smile, and for a moment, she felt better.
Then she saw the Trevor standing outside the window.
He stared at her, unflinchingly, and she stared back, caught by surprise. He began to walk towards the front door, keeping his eyes on her.
“Trevor alert,” Lois said from over her shoulder. “You want me to call the cops, hon? I think we’ve all had enough of him tonight.”
“No, I got it,” Sam said, thinking that this was a fitting way to end an already shitty night. Trevor settled into the corner booth.
“You need to leave.”
“Come on, Babe, don’t be like that,” he slurred. He reeked of rum.
“Go home, Trevor.”
A trucker dressed in a bright orange shirt sat down in the opposite corner. Sam pegged him for the mildly sleazy type that flirted with every female that came within earshot. She went over to wait on him, hoping Trevor would get the hint and leave.
“I’ll have coffee.” Orange Shirt said, staring hard at her, making her uncomfortable. “You have really beautiful hair,” he added, as she walked away to get the coffee. Sleaze-ball suspicion confirmed. She supposed that he got lucky on occasion from the flirting—truck stop lucky. He seemed way too sure of himself not to have made any conquests, but she wasn’t falling for it.
“I think he likes you,” Lois said wryly, staring at Orange Shirt. “He’s kinda cute.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Sam made a face. Lois had terrible taste in men. “Lois, he’s a creep. Stay away from him.”
“Hi beautiful,” Orange Shirt said, as she set his coffee down. She ignored him.
Lois sauntered over. “Aren’t you going to have any breakfast, handsome?” She said, winking at Sam, who rolled her eyes and went over to help Maggie clear a table.
Maggie was special, and not just to Sam. Everyone in town looked out for her. Ten years ago, she and her husband had been in a car wreck. They’d hit a tree. He’d died on impact, and she’d gone through the windshield. There was talk around town that he’d done it on purpose—aimed for that tree—he’d been an unstable, temperamental man. But even Maggie couldn’t say for sure what had happened that night. The memories were jumbled.
“I don’t think that man is very nice,” Maggie said, pointing to Orange Shirt. “He told me that I have a ‘nice round bum’ when I was wiping down his table. I didn’t like that,” she frowned. “Why does Lois like him?”
“That is an excellent question, Mags. Why does Lois like any of the men she hooks up with?”
Maggie paused to ponder the question, as if it was the most important question in the world. “I think she’s afraid to be alone,” she finally said. Sam smiled at the observation. It was dead on. Maggie had a gift to see things exactly for what they were. She always had, both before and after the accident.
“I think you’re right.”
“Can we have pinwheels in our garden, Sam? They’ll spin in the breeze. I could watch them turn all day long! And a birdbath for the purple finches and robins. I’d think they’d like that, don’t you? Birds like to play in the water.” She frowned. “Tugboat better leave the birds alone!”
Sam laughed. They had this conversation about their future garden every day, dreaming and planning. “Yeah, I think we should definitely have pinwheels, Mags, in every color. And lilac bushes too, and maybe an apple tree. We’ll keep an eye on Tugboat. We can put a bell around his neck, so the birds hear him coming…” She felt Trevor’s eyes on her from across the room. For a precious moment, she’d forgotten he was there.
“Sam, come on!” He said loudly. “Come over here! Talk to me, girl.” She hated it when he called her ‘girl’. She was forty-one years old, for Pete’s sake, and he didn’t say it in an endearing, playful way, but with a mocking lilt. The last time he’d called her ‘girl’, he had slapped her, and that had been the end of them. Or so she had thought.
“I don’t like Trevor, Sam,” Maggie said. “He’s a mean man. I was married to a mean man once. He died.” She said casually. Sam put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“Trevor, you need to get the hell outta here! She does not want to talk to you,” Lois barked, stalking over to his table. She put her hands on her hips.
Trevor glared at her. Lois glared back.
“Get away from me, you bitch,” he snarled.
Sam trotted over to the cash register and picked up the phone. It was time to call the police.
Orange Shirt chuffed from across the room. He walked over and stood behind Lois, placing one hand in the small of her back. Sam saw what a big man he was—broad in the shoulders, and at least six inches taller than Trevor. She held the handset of the phone to her ear, her other hand frozen on the buttons.
“Time for you to leave, son,” Orange Shirt said quietly, but firmly.
Trevor and Orange Shirt stared at each other for a long moment, before Trevor finally rose and headed towards the door. “She’s not worth the trouble, anyhow.”
His retreat did not surprise her. He was a coward. He liked to bully women, not men.
Orange Shirt and Lois followed him to the door and watched as he got in his car. Sam saw the red flash of his retreating taillights, and let out a breath. She looked over at Lois just in time to see Orange Shirt whisper in her ear and give her a peck on the cheek, before he left the diner.
Sam cleared Orange Shirt’s table and saw that he hadn’t left a tip. She lifted the coffee mug and found a packaged condom underneath. Perfect.
“I think this is for you,” Sam said, giving the condom to Lois, who plunked down at the table and sighed happily. Sam frowned. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Lois. He could be a serial killer for all you know. He left a condom as a tip. A condom.”
“I’ve gotten worse tips.” Lois smiled. “And he’s not a serial killer, Sam, he’s really nice, and he just did you a favor, I might add.”
“I was about to call the cops. You guys didn’t need to get involved.”
“Somebody needs to teach Trevor a lesson. He’s such an asshole. I’m worried he’s going to hurt you.” “Just be careful,” she said quietly. “Hey, do you mind if I sneak out of here a few minutes early? I’m beat, and Linda and Bev should be here any minute.”
“No, go ahead.” Lois jumped up to go.
“Hey Lois?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Hey, us gals have got to look out for each other, right?” Lois gave her a long hug.
“Right!” Maggie said emphatically, joining the hug.
“Yeah, we do,” Sam agreed.
*** Twenty minutes later Sam and Maggie were in the parking lot, skirting rows of purring semis.
The sun was just starting to rise in a cloudless sky. It looked like it was going to be a perfect summer day. Sam had the next two days off. When she got up this afternoon, she planned on planting Early Girl tomatoes in an old whiskey barrel planter she had found at a garage sale. It wasn’t a garden, but was better than nothing. She loved the feel of the moist soil running through her fingers, the rich green color of the young plants.
She was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn’t see Trevor sitting on the hood of her car. Maggie was first to notice him. She elbowed Sam in the ribs.
“Trevor,” she whimpered.
“Sam! Sam! I’ve been waiting for you, sweet Sam!” Trevor sang. He followed that with a harsh laugh. He sounded very drunk.
“Get out of here, Trevor,” Maggie yelled fiercely. She slipped a trembling hand into Sam’s.
“Shut up, retard,” Trevor snipped.
“Trevor, get the hell out of here! Leave us alone! You’re wasted!” Sam yelled, furious he had called Maggie that horrible name. “Maggie, go back in the diner and call the police, okay?”
“No! Come with me!” Maggie pleaded, tugging her arm. Trevor calmly hopped down from the hood of the car.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. He grabbed Sam by the ponytail, and yanked her towards him. Maggie jumped between them, but he shoved her away with his free hand. She began to yell. “Help! Help! Help!”
Sam saw Trevor reach into his back pocket. She heard a click, saw the flash of something shiny, and remembered that he always carried a switchblade. She felt the tip of the blade sink into her stomach, again and again, then he stepped back. She looked down in wonder at her belly, wondering why it didn’t hurt. In the seconds before she struck her head on the car, she recorded three things in her memory forever: the look of horrific fascination on Trevor’s face as he watched her stand there weaving, blood soaking her shirt; Lois jumping down from the cab of a nearby semi, running towards her screaming; a shirtless Orange Shirt following. And Maggie, sweet Maggie, tackling Trevor hard from the side, blocking the final slash of the knife.
All these things sketched in her memory before her world went dark.
*** Sam stood up and inspected her work. She winced at the stitch she felt in her abdomen when she straightened her body. It had been two years, but there was still pain. She knew the pain would always be with her, and the twinge in her gut would be the least of it.
The garden was close to perfect. A narrow path led directly from the back door of her house, tucked under an arbor, and eased into the garden. A tangle of sweet autumn clematis and climbing hydrangea hung from the arbor. The path, bordered by snow-in-summer, lavender, and columbine, formed a gentle loop around a birdbath in the center of the garden. Shasta daisies surrounded the pedestal and lilacs grew at the far end of the yard.
Pinwheels were everywhere, motionless, because there was no breeze, but still pretty.
She sorted through the box of petunias that Lois and Jack, formerly known as ‘Orange Shirt’, had dropped off earlier in the day.
He hadn’t been a serial killer after all. Go figure.
A fat tiger cat named Tugboat jumped up on the picnic table and nosed the flowers. The bell around his neck jingled merrily. Sam stroked his head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the garden and smiled.
The pinwheels were spinning. Maggie would have liked that.
* * *
Hall Jameson is a writer and fine art photographer. She was born in Damariscotta, Maine and lived in New England for thirty years before moving west in 1997. She now lives in Helena, Montana. When she's not writing, Hall enjoys hiking, photographing grain elevators, and cat wrangling.
by Hall Jameson
Sam worked at the Happy Trails Truck Stop and Diner, a joint popular with locals, tourists, criminals, runaways, and, of course, truckers. She’d been waiting tables there for six years, ever since her divorce.
It was almost the end of her shift, 5:00am, and about a dozen customers were scattered throughout the dining room. The other waitress, Lois, was by the cash register, sipping black coffee and reading the paper. The busser, Sam’s cousin Maggie, was wiping down a corner booth.
“Rough night, Sam?” It was Calvin, one of the regulars. He sounded drunk.
“No Cal, I’m fine,” Sam lied. “More coffee?”
“Sure, darlin’,” he purred, eyeballing the front of her blouse as she filled his cup. Actually, she wasn’t fine. She was tired. It had been one hell of a night. And now Calvin was trying to look down her shirt. She had the urge to pour the coffee over his head.
Usually, she loved her job, but tonight was the exception.
It had started when she’d collided with Todd, the cook, while balancing a tray loaded with dirty dishes. The crash had been loud, with multiple plate and coffee cup casualties. It had taken her an hour to clean up the mess, and Todd still wasn’t talking to her.
Then Trevor, her ex boyfriend, showed up, itching for a fight. That had messed up her karma. Thankfully, Butch, a trucker who was a regular and a beast of a man, had persuaded him to go.
She wished Trevor would leave her alone. It had been a month since their breakup, but he had a habit of showing up wherever she was: the grocery store, the Laundromat, and now, her work. He was really starting to scare her.
On top of the unfortunate encounters, her tips for the night had been pathetic, and the customers had been downright rotten. One couple had left her a tip of eleven cents—one shiny dime, and one shiny penny. Bastards. She’d been so nice to them.
Another woman had left her a stick of gum. Asshole.
The majority of customers had left no tip at all. This puzzled her, because she worked hard for her tips, taking care to ensure the customer’s experience at the Happy Trails was a pleasant one. The only person that loved her job more was Maggie, who always told everyone how lucky she was to work at the Happy Trails. She also liked to talk about how she and Sam and her cat, Tugboat, were going to have a house together someday, with a big garden.
That was the plan. Sam saved every penny she could, so she and her cousin could move out of their crappy apartment and buy a house with a garden. A little house would be fine, but she wanted a big garden.
She caught her reflection in the huge windows that wrapped around the restaurant, and smoothed her wilted bangs back from her face. She forced herself to smile, and for a moment, she felt better.
Then she saw the Trevor standing outside the window.
He stared at her, unflinchingly, and she stared back, caught by surprise. He began to walk towards the front door, keeping his eyes on her.
“Trevor alert,” Lois said from over her shoulder. “You want me to call the cops, hon? I think we’ve all had enough of him tonight.”
“No, I got it,” Sam said, thinking that this was a fitting way to end an already shitty night. Trevor settled into the corner booth.
“You need to leave.”
“Come on, Babe, don’t be like that,” he slurred. He reeked of rum.
“Go home, Trevor.”
A trucker dressed in a bright orange shirt sat down in the opposite corner. Sam pegged him for the mildly sleazy type that flirted with every female that came within earshot. She went over to wait on him, hoping Trevor would get the hint and leave.
“I’ll have coffee.” Orange Shirt said, staring hard at her, making her uncomfortable. “You have really beautiful hair,” he added, as she walked away to get the coffee. Sleaze-ball suspicion confirmed. She supposed that he got lucky on occasion from the flirting—truck stop lucky. He seemed way too sure of himself not to have made any conquests, but she wasn’t falling for it.
“I think he likes you,” Lois said wryly, staring at Orange Shirt. “He’s kinda cute.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Sam made a face. Lois had terrible taste in men. “Lois, he’s a creep. Stay away from him.”
“Hi beautiful,” Orange Shirt said, as she set his coffee down. She ignored him.
Lois sauntered over. “Aren’t you going to have any breakfast, handsome?” She said, winking at Sam, who rolled her eyes and went over to help Maggie clear a table.
Maggie was special, and not just to Sam. Everyone in town looked out for her. Ten years ago, she and her husband had been in a car wreck. They’d hit a tree. He’d died on impact, and she’d gone through the windshield. There was talk around town that he’d done it on purpose—aimed for that tree—he’d been an unstable, temperamental man. But even Maggie couldn’t say for sure what had happened that night. The memories were jumbled.
“I don’t think that man is very nice,” Maggie said, pointing to Orange Shirt. “He told me that I have a ‘nice round bum’ when I was wiping down his table. I didn’t like that,” she frowned. “Why does Lois like him?”
“That is an excellent question, Mags. Why does Lois like any of the men she hooks up with?”
Maggie paused to ponder the question, as if it was the most important question in the world. “I think she’s afraid to be alone,” she finally said. Sam smiled at the observation. It was dead on. Maggie had a gift to see things exactly for what they were. She always had, both before and after the accident.
“I think you’re right.”
“Can we have pinwheels in our garden, Sam? They’ll spin in the breeze. I could watch them turn all day long! And a birdbath for the purple finches and robins. I’d think they’d like that, don’t you? Birds like to play in the water.” She frowned. “Tugboat better leave the birds alone!”
Sam laughed. They had this conversation about their future garden every day, dreaming and planning. “Yeah, I think we should definitely have pinwheels, Mags, in every color. And lilac bushes too, and maybe an apple tree. We’ll keep an eye on Tugboat. We can put a bell around his neck, so the birds hear him coming…” She felt Trevor’s eyes on her from across the room. For a precious moment, she’d forgotten he was there.
“Sam, come on!” He said loudly. “Come over here! Talk to me, girl.” She hated it when he called her ‘girl’. She was forty-one years old, for Pete’s sake, and he didn’t say it in an endearing, playful way, but with a mocking lilt. The last time he’d called her ‘girl’, he had slapped her, and that had been the end of them. Or so she had thought.
“I don’t like Trevor, Sam,” Maggie said. “He’s a mean man. I was married to a mean man once. He died.” She said casually. Sam put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“Trevor, you need to get the hell outta here! She does not want to talk to you,” Lois barked, stalking over to his table. She put her hands on her hips.
Trevor glared at her. Lois glared back.
“Get away from me, you bitch,” he snarled.
Sam trotted over to the cash register and picked up the phone. It was time to call the police.
Orange Shirt chuffed from across the room. He walked over and stood behind Lois, placing one hand in the small of her back. Sam saw what a big man he was—broad in the shoulders, and at least six inches taller than Trevor. She held the handset of the phone to her ear, her other hand frozen on the buttons.
“Time for you to leave, son,” Orange Shirt said quietly, but firmly.
Trevor and Orange Shirt stared at each other for a long moment, before Trevor finally rose and headed towards the door. “She’s not worth the trouble, anyhow.”
His retreat did not surprise her. He was a coward. He liked to bully women, not men.
Orange Shirt and Lois followed him to the door and watched as he got in his car. Sam saw the red flash of his retreating taillights, and let out a breath. She looked over at Lois just in time to see Orange Shirt whisper in her ear and give her a peck on the cheek, before he left the diner.
Sam cleared Orange Shirt’s table and saw that he hadn’t left a tip. She lifted the coffee mug and found a packaged condom underneath. Perfect.
“I think this is for you,” Sam said, giving the condom to Lois, who plunked down at the table and sighed happily. Sam frowned. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Lois. He could be a serial killer for all you know. He left a condom as a tip. A condom.”
“I’ve gotten worse tips.” Lois smiled. “And he’s not a serial killer, Sam, he’s really nice, and he just did you a favor, I might add.”
“I was about to call the cops. You guys didn’t need to get involved.”
“Somebody needs to teach Trevor a lesson. He’s such an asshole. I’m worried he’s going to hurt you.” “Just be careful,” she said quietly. “Hey, do you mind if I sneak out of here a few minutes early? I’m beat, and Linda and Bev should be here any minute.”
“No, go ahead.” Lois jumped up to go.
“Hey Lois?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Hey, us gals have got to look out for each other, right?” Lois gave her a long hug.
“Right!” Maggie said emphatically, joining the hug.
“Yeah, we do,” Sam agreed.
*** Twenty minutes later Sam and Maggie were in the parking lot, skirting rows of purring semis.
The sun was just starting to rise in a cloudless sky. It looked like it was going to be a perfect summer day. Sam had the next two days off. When she got up this afternoon, she planned on planting Early Girl tomatoes in an old whiskey barrel planter she had found at a garage sale. It wasn’t a garden, but was better than nothing. She loved the feel of the moist soil running through her fingers, the rich green color of the young plants.
She was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn’t see Trevor sitting on the hood of her car. Maggie was first to notice him. She elbowed Sam in the ribs.
“Trevor,” she whimpered.
“Sam! Sam! I’ve been waiting for you, sweet Sam!” Trevor sang. He followed that with a harsh laugh. He sounded very drunk.
“Get out of here, Trevor,” Maggie yelled fiercely. She slipped a trembling hand into Sam’s.
“Shut up, retard,” Trevor snipped.
“Trevor, get the hell out of here! Leave us alone! You’re wasted!” Sam yelled, furious he had called Maggie that horrible name. “Maggie, go back in the diner and call the police, okay?”
“No! Come with me!” Maggie pleaded, tugging her arm. Trevor calmly hopped down from the hood of the car.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. He grabbed Sam by the ponytail, and yanked her towards him. Maggie jumped between them, but he shoved her away with his free hand. She began to yell. “Help! Help! Help!”
Sam saw Trevor reach into his back pocket. She heard a click, saw the flash of something shiny, and remembered that he always carried a switchblade. She felt the tip of the blade sink into her stomach, again and again, then he stepped back. She looked down in wonder at her belly, wondering why it didn’t hurt. In the seconds before she struck her head on the car, she recorded three things in her memory forever: the look of horrific fascination on Trevor’s face as he watched her stand there weaving, blood soaking her shirt; Lois jumping down from the cab of a nearby semi, running towards her screaming; a shirtless Orange Shirt following. And Maggie, sweet Maggie, tackling Trevor hard from the side, blocking the final slash of the knife.
All these things sketched in her memory before her world went dark.
*** Sam stood up and inspected her work. She winced at the stitch she felt in her abdomen when she straightened her body. It had been two years, but there was still pain. She knew the pain would always be with her, and the twinge in her gut would be the least of it.
The garden was close to perfect. A narrow path led directly from the back door of her house, tucked under an arbor, and eased into the garden. A tangle of sweet autumn clematis and climbing hydrangea hung from the arbor. The path, bordered by snow-in-summer, lavender, and columbine, formed a gentle loop around a birdbath in the center of the garden. Shasta daisies surrounded the pedestal and lilacs grew at the far end of the yard.
Pinwheels were everywhere, motionless, because there was no breeze, but still pretty.
She sorted through the box of petunias that Lois and Jack, formerly known as ‘Orange Shirt’, had dropped off earlier in the day.
He hadn’t been a serial killer after all. Go figure.
A fat tiger cat named Tugboat jumped up on the picnic table and nosed the flowers. The bell around his neck jingled merrily. Sam stroked his head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the garden and smiled.
The pinwheels were spinning. Maggie would have liked that.
* * *
Hall Jameson is a writer and fine art photographer. She was born in Damariscotta, Maine and lived in New England for thirty years before moving west in 1997. She now lives in Helena, Montana. When she's not writing, Hall enjoys hiking, photographing grain elevators, and cat wrangling.
