Trucks of a feather flock together (Fiction)

Terrain similar to the fictitious Copperhead Cove compound. The circled regions are relatively flat and suitable for agriculture. Horizontal legs of "E" are very vulnerable to erosion. Approximately 48" of silty-loam over shale bedrock.

Blaise (henceforth known as Blain, a change of name to make it harder for authorities to track him down) asked Sig if he could ride along on the next trip to town so he could pick up his “kit” at the campground.

“We don’t drive to town” Sig said. “You gotta hitch a ride.”

Blain’s face must have showed his surprise.

“The trucks ain’t registered or insured” Sig elaborated. “We drive them off-road.”

“But they have plates?” Blain said.

“Expired plates” Sig clarified. “They might pass on a public road in a pinch, which is why they are on the trucks. But we don’t go courtin’ trouble.”

Sig then explained that they had a neighbor who drove to town almost every day. They would tie a bandana to a branch the day before they wanted a ride and (usually) the neighbor would stop at the end of their driveway the next morning and give them a ride into town. Depending on the neighbor’s errands the stay in town might be just a couple of hours or it might be almost all day.

Blain met Lliam as the eastern, night-time sky was first starting to lose its blackness. Lliam fired up the old Ford F-150 and let it warm up for a minute before turning on the headlights and easing it down the rocky two-track that served as the driveway.

It was a quarter-mile to the public road.

Lliam was pretty excited to have some time with the “new guy” and was extremely talkative. Lliam, “Short for William. My mom said nobody is ever happy to see a bill” looked like he was all of fourteen years old.

Lliam parked the truck about fifty feet shy of the road, pulling it off the two-track. The truck was surrounded on three sides by thick mounds of thorny brush. Blaise was pretty sure the truck would be invisible to passing vehicles due to its chalky, faded paint and the brush. The road was not the kind of road that was pedestrian friendly (or friendly to bikers). It twisted and turned and rose and fell. It was the kind of road that strongly suggested that the driver not sight-see. Blain rememembered it from biking. It had no shoulders so he doubted there would be too many folks casually walking by.

“Grab the other two gas cans, wouldjya?” Lliam suggested to Blain. The two men carried the four, empty five-gallon containers to the side of the road.

Lliam handed Blain a paper bag. “We generally don’t eat in town. Costs too much money and folks is nosy” by way of explanation.

Blain could hear their ride coming for three minutes before it showed up.

Blain loaded the empty gas cans into the back of the battered work-truck that stopped to pick them up.

Lliam had a few brief words with the driver. Blain was not able to make out what Lliam was saying over the wheezing and rattling motor.

Lliam told Blain “I will let you ride shotgun on the way in and you get to sit in the middle on the way back.”

That seemed fair to Blain and he said as much to Lliam.

“Name’s Salisbury. Most folks call me ‘Sally’” the driver said, reaching across Lliam to offer Blain his hand.

Blain shook it and replied “My name is Blain”

“Pleased to meechya, Blade” Sally said.

 

Blain deduced that Sally's hearing wasn't all that good.

“I been havin’ problems with this old-gurl over-heatin’” Sally said. “Good thing I ain’t got far to go, cause we ain’t getting’ there fast.”

Sally was the most unlikely looking “Sally” imaginable. He was ancient and had a scraggly beard. His cheeks were sunken and his skin was reamed with creases and lines. He smelled of old, stale tobacco smoke and sweat.

Blain had the sudden suspicion that Lliam might have pulled a fast one on him. Riding next to Sally in the heat-of-the-day might be enough to gag a goat.

They rode to town with the windows rolled down and the heater blasting.

“I savin’ up to replace the thermosat” Sally informed Blain. “Runnin’ the heaters sucks some of the heat out of the motor.. a little bit, anyway. It was still a slow ride even though it was down-grade for most of the distance.

Sally let them out at the farm-feed store in Dayton. Lliam walked around to the driver’s side door and had another private conversation with Sally. Blain saw Lliam carefully count money off a book-of-bills held together with a clothes-pin. He watched as Lliam fished around in his pants pocket and pulled out a wrinkled list and handed it to Sally.

Sally looked the list over and nodded. Blain assumed that meant that Sally could read the writing.

Sally put his truck into gear and gently gave it a little bit of gas.

Lliam led the way into the store. Blain followed.

The clerk was already waiting on a customer. Lliam stopped a good fifteen feet behind the other customer but within the line-of-sight of the clerk.

Blain was impressed by Lliam’s patience as the customer hemmed-and-hawed and asked about the price of a dozen different types of feed and worming and fly control products. Lliam stood without complaint or shifting of feet. 

Blain followed Lliam’s lead and stood as if carved from stone.

Lliam did not immediately move up to the counter after the customer concluded his business but waited until the beefy, red-faced man had exited through the door. Only then did he move to the counter.

“Ma’am, how much is a fifty-pound bag of wheat?” Lliam asked, the model of politeness and civility.

“Let me check the spot prices” the middle-aged woman said. “The price has been bouncing around something awful.”

She tapped a few times on her keyboard and then cleared her throat. “It went up some” she said.

“I need $37.34 for a fifty-pound bag and I gotta charge 4% more if you use a credit card” the woman said after checking a couple of screens and typing some numbers into a calculator.

Lliam pulled out his wad of bills and carefully counted them. “I reckon I can afford two of them.”

Blain noticed that there were not many bills left after Lliam pulled four, $20 bills off of the wad.

“Can I pick them up later?” Lliam asked.

“Sure. Just lean them over there by the muck-boots. I’ll make sure nobody bothers them” the matronly woman assured him.

“Mind if I go out and talk to Sheldon?” Lliam asked.

“Suit yourself. Just keep an eye out for the fork-truck” the woman cautioned.

“Sheldon’s one of my buddies” Lliam said to Blain by way of explanation.

“Don’t we have to hustle so we don't miss Sally?” Blain said, worried that Sally might leave them behind.

“Nope. Sally won’t be back for four hours. He is driving over to Athens to shop at the Wally-world. He does a bunch of shopping for neighbors, including us” Lliam said.

Satisfied that his ride back home was assured, Blain tagged along with Lliam as he sauntered to the pole building behind the store-front.

They walked up to a group of idle, young men at a loading dock who were watching a huge, white pick-up truck with horses painted on the doors. The driver of the truck and trailer was attempting to backing up and turn around. Blain recognized the driver as the man who had been in front of them at the counter.

It took a solid four minutes before the driver was able to sort-out the geometry and leave.

“What's with him?” Blain asked. He had never seen anybody so inept at backing up a vehicle.

One of the younger guys chuckled and said “That is one of them smart-trucks. He musta had some mud splashed them sensors. Hadta figure out howta drive it himself.”

Then Blain heard one of the other workers mutter the term “white-top” as if it were a derogatory term.

Lliam and Sheldon went off to the side to converse when the grain-bagger started up again. The other men walked over to their job stations and started working.

Blain asked what Sheldon had been doing and was told that Sheldon had been carrying the filled and sewed bags and stacking the on a pallet.

 

Blain looked over at the next pallet over to see what pattern Sheldon had been using and started stacking the bags to kill time while Lliam chewed the fat.

The other workers assumed Blain was purchasing the next pallet. It didn’t happen very often but sometimes a customer would pitch-in to make things go a little faster. Usually, it happened when the customer had an appointment and they were running behind.

Afterward, when Blain and Lliam were walking from the feed-store to the camp-ground, Blain had a few questions.

“What’s a ‘White-top’?” Blain asked.

Lliam shot Blain a sideways glance to see if he was joking. Clearly, he was not.

“A white-top is a govmint man” Lliam said.

Blain found that puzzling. “Are you saying that the only people who drive white cars and trucks work for the government?”

“Pretty much” Lliam agreed.

Blain frowned. “I don’t follow.” It was certainly news to him.

“Couple years back some scientist figured out how many billion tons of carbon could be saved each summer if every car had a white roof and mirror-tinted windows. Something about air conditioning” Lliam said.

“Before you could say ‘Boo!’ every govmint car had its roof painted white” Lliam said. "Other folks said that white 'lectric cars never caught fire...somethin' about the battery not gittin' as hot. So you almost never see a 'lectric car that ain't white no more."

Lliam spit like the words left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Folks who like govmint or whose paycheck depends on them won’t buy anything except a white car or truck. Its like them big-city kids in gangs, they get beat up if they wear the wrong kind of shoes or wear the wrong color” Lliam said.

Armed with the new information, Blain looked at the vehicles in parking lots with a new eye. The newer, white vehicles were parked in knots while the older, more colorful vehicles were scattered about. White vehicles and the odd white-roofed vehicle were in the majority in just a few of the parking lots but in other parking lots they were conspicuous by their total absence. While in other lots there were just one-or-two of them and they were parked far away from the more diverse vehicles.

“I can’t imagine picking out the color of my car for politics” Blain marveled.

“I can” Lliam said. “If I had $100,000 to spend on a new truck, I sure as hell wouldn’t buy a white one. Goes against my principles!” 

Once they were to Blain's cabin, Lliam was dazzled by the amount of "loot" Blain had had managed to gather in the two months he had been in Dayton.

It belatedly dawned on Blain just how short his new community was for cash. A closer look, more critical look at Lliam told Blain just how worn, patched and threadbare his clothes were.

"Ya know, we could take a swing through the lost-and-found" Blain suggested. "They might have somethings we could use back at the Copperhead Cove."

"But those things belong to somebody" Lliam objected. Blain had the distinct impression Lliam would starve to death before he would hop across a fence to snitch an apple. It was a novel thought to Blain.

"We can ask the manager. Most of the folks have packed up and headed out...probably never do check out the lost-and-found."

Blain knew where the manager hung out and the manager was bored and more than happy to have a distraction.

"Take anything you want. Most of the folks who camp here are grandparents. They buy toys and clothes for their grandkids when they visit and then just give them to me when they leave. I hang onto them in case somebody can use them."

Lliam was torn.

"Help yourself. Anything you take will be that much less for me to haul away" the manager said.

When Sally swung by to pick them up, Lliam had two garbage bags filled with kids' clothes and a five-gallon bucket filled with hickory nuts.

All told it was a successful venture for all parties.

---Author’s note---

In early production runs most of the vehicles are painted white because it is difficult for customers to see imperfections (dents, bad paint, creases) on a white vehicle. Conversely, painting a vehicle black is like putting on a tight pair of jeans; every imperfection jumps out at you.

Early production is apt to experience more handling through the process and the surface can be damaged every time it is handled.

The other issue is that good white paint is CHEAP. High-end red or metallic paint is expensive. Metallic paint also has the issue of being difficult to match the lay of the metallic material (usually mica flakes) on repaired parts.

Commercial fleets also like white paint for the same reasons. Commercial fleets used to be identifiable by their custom colors. Every city or company wanted their own unique shade of orange or green or blue.

 The vehicles get banged up in fleets and buyers learned that weird colors were fleet cars. In time, companies learned they could get slightly better prices at auction because they didn't shout "flogged like a rented mule" like custom colors and because the white paint hid minor cosmetic damage better than colored paint.

A final point in favor of white paint vs. custom colors is that body-shops have a difficult time matching the paint when repairing or replacing fenders and other damaged parts. Difficult repair means that it is more expensive to fix them.

 Commercial fleets are all about keeping costs down.

So it is not an implausible stretch to assume that vehicle ownership will consolidate and the winners in the consolidation will A.) Require that all of their vehicles are the inexpensive white and B.) Curry favor with the government by bowing to their whims. 

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