11 A Cut Above

A few months later I was having coffee at the Burns Brothers Truck Stop in Troutdale, Oregon, when I spotted a blonde, about five-two and maybe one hundred pounds, blue eyes—looked a little like Maggie in Northern Exposure, add ten or fifteen years. She sat with her back to me in the next booth. I said, “Now there’s a back I’d like to rub.” She laughed and motioned me over.

She said her name was Julie Winningham and she couldn’t believe her luck to run into me. She said, “Where did you come from?” A lot of truck-stop women felt that way about me. There weren’t many six-foot-six truckers around, especially ones that kept their weight down and had wavy brown hair and a good profile.

 

We talked for two hours and found out we were definitely on the same wavelength. We got so close that I asked her to take a trip with me. I promised never to force myself on her and told her she would always have the option of falling in love—her choice, no pressure. I really felt that way about her. She was a cut above most of the lot lizards.

I had a load for Seattle and was scheduled for engine maintenance in Yakima the next day. Then I’d be hauling a load of potatoes to the Lucky Stores Warehouse in Irvine, California. I asked her to come along.

She said it sounded like an interesting ride. In a few minutes she was on the way to the parking lot to put a note in her car window saying she’d be gone for a while. She came back with an overnight bag and said, “Let’s go!” I couldn’t believe how easy it was.

 

We pulled into Seattle in plenty of time. After we made out in my sleeper, we headed back to Yakima. In the shop my friend Butch asked if the pretty girl was a true blonde. I hadn’t screwed her yet, but that’s about all I hadn’t done. I told Butch she was blonde all over.

Julie and I took my Mercury Topaz downtown and ate. She was a hit wherever we went. She told everybody she wasn’t so sure about me but she’d fallen in love with my ’89 Peterbilt. I was in the process of buying it from another trucker. Her ex-husband drove truck and she knew which ones were good and which ones were all chrome and no balls.

 

After our Friday-night dinner we started our trip together. Irvine is just south of L.A., and I had to deliver by Sunday morning. By driving nonstop I made Irvine just after midnight Saturday. After the potatoes were unloaded at dawn, I had a free day and took Julie to Knott’s Berry Farm. We partied on the rides till closing, and I bought her a silver necklace and matching bracelet and had her picture taken on a fake newsmagazine cover. Later she gave that picture to her mother and it ended up splashed in all the papers. There was only one bad sign: she acted annoyed that I didn’t do drugs or pot.

 

That night we parked at Truck Town on Cherry Avenue just north of I-10 in Fontana, halfway between L.A. and San Bernardino. The sex was okay, but she didn’t make any extra effort. I thought I deserved better after dropping a couple hundred on her jewelry.

I went to a phone booth to check in with my company, and when I got back to the truck she was trying to score some drugs over the CB. She said that pot made her horny and made her a better lover.

After we kissed a few times, she asked me to marry her because she really loved me and wanted to be mine forever. What I didn’t know was that she was on the prowl for some big dumb idiot to buy her things and pay her way, and big dumb Keith had taken the bait.

I told her not to try to buy any pot over my radio. The cops monitored all the frequencies. I bought a joint off the truck-stop guy while he was polishing our wheels. Charged me forty bucks—was I shocked!

Julie and I drank doubles at a motel bar in Bakersfield and retired into a sex orgy. She was drunk and horny and we enjoyed each other a long time—not the best sex I ever had, but good enough.

The next morning we picked up another load and headed back to Oregon. She retrieved her car and drove it home. I spent the night with her and then headed back south.

 

For a long time after that, I would stop by and see her whenever I got a chance. I introduced her to my friends Billy and Ginny Smith, and the three of them got drunk and friendly and she ended up renting a room in their house.

Every time I was routed near her place, I’d call her on the phone and we’d get together. But after a while I realized that something was wrong. My pal Billy had wanted into her pants and I knew it. He was always looking for outside pussy.

I dropped Julie when I realized she was making it with him and didn’t care about me and never had. All she wanted was my car, party money and a steady supply of pot. She’d say, “Don’t you want me to have fun while you’re gone, Keith? Don’t you want me to feel good? You have to get me a better car. Don’t you want me to be safe?”

I told her I didn’t intend to buy her a car or supply her drug habit. We had sex one more night, but she was like a rag doll. In the morning I took her to breakfast and told her we were finished. We’d dated for almost a year, off and on. We got along great at times, but I didn’t smoke, and pot was the biggest event in her life. How could I have hooked up with someone like her?

I said to myself, If I ever see that money-grubbing pothead again, I’m gonna run as fast as I can. It was a good idea. If only I’d carried it out.