This is the first in a series of stories that I will be writing to describe the friendship between “Jake Brake” and “Sleepy”. It’s a story of how fate and trucking brought two young kids just out of truck driving school together and created an inseparable bond and lifelong friendship. Jake Brake and Sleepy started out fresh in trucking on the same day, and each one had strengths and weaknesses, in order to succeed they had to learn from each other, and overcome the obstacles along the way. All the while inevitably ending up in some form of misadventure, but all the while strengthening their friendship. Sometimes fun, and sometimes sad, it sure to keep you interested and always wandering what will happen next.
Our story begins in February of 2002 with Sleepy who was fresh out of trucking school and had gotten hired by his first trucking company and was in the process of the three week training program. This is not a very long training program at all, and the learning is very fast paced, the main objective of the trainers here is to get there student passed by the companies safety department so they can get there five hundred dollar bonus and get their next student, the emphasis on safely training new drivers is secondary as far as most the trainers here are concerned.
Sleepy however was having a little trouble picking up everything in this short amount of time, especially with the shifting, because the Volvo truck he learned on at the school was a ten speed, and this Freightliner FLD 120 was a “super ten speed”, and the concept is a little more difficult for a new driver to pick up on. He also had some issues in following the correct highways and would often get lost and confused on back roads. Near the end of his training his trainer told him that he may not be able to pass the final test, and thus would be terminated from the company. This affected Sleepy in a very deep and emotional way, because driving a truck was his childhood dream and he had come so far, the thought of failing now made him very sad. He went into the truck stop and got a shower, while in the shower he broke down and started crying. He is not a really sensitive type of guy, but the thought of failure and not becoming a trucker was a very deep blow to his dreams.
His trainer never saw him cry, but he could tell that his comment had affected Sleepy and made him very depressed. He decided the best thing to do was take him to the French Camp, CA terminal because the safety department here was the most lenient and he would have the best chance of passing. At the end of the three week training period Sleepy and his trainer headed to French Camp, along the way the trainer made a suggestion that Sleepy meet up with another student and run teams for awhile to improve his skills before going solo. It was Sleepy’s goal to be a solo driver, but he was very nervous about doing it right now, he was very scared still about driving the truck and knew he wasn’t ready to be solo, so he agreed this was a good idea. But how would he make this work, he would need to find someone who lived close by so they could at least share home time, and how do you convince a total stranger to let you drive with them? It was a great idea, but the chances of actually making it a practical one seemed very vague, so Sleepy was convinced that he would end up being thrown in a truck solo and that scared him to death.
They arrived at French Camp and they stopped at a nearby truck stop, tomorrow was the big day and Sleepy was very nervous if he would even be able to pass at all, and if he did, then what? How in the world was he going to drive a truck alone when he was still so scared of his inexperience behind the wheel? While standing outside the truck stop a man approached him and asked for a few bucks for gas, Sleepy doesn’t have a lot of money, as he was only making twelve cents a mile for training, but he has a big heart for people and he gave the man a few bucks. Next thing he knows he is standing next to a mountain of a man, just over six foot and about three hundred pounds of solid muscle. Sleepy is about five foot eleven inches and one hundred thirty five pounds.
He decided to start a conversation with the massive stranger and told him that he was a student and was here to test out of the training program, the kid then told Sleepy he was also a student with the same company and he was here for the same reason. Sleepy told the kid how nervous he was about testing out and the things his trainer has said. They started talking about home, and he told Sleepy he was from Ohio. Sleepy lived in Colorado, but he had no ties there since he was living with his parents, but he was actually born and raised in Ohio and still had a lot of family there. The kid introduced himself as Nick, he said “they call me Jake Brake, my trainer gave me that name because I never shut my jakes off.” Sleepy told Jake Brake his name was Rich, and he had gotten his handle from some friends before getting into trucking because he worked third shift, and they always found him asleep when they needed him. As you can see, the character “Sleepy” is me, and “Jake Brake” is someone whom I was about to engage on a never ending journey of friendship and adventure with.
Nick was doing very well in the training program, and after talking with me and my trainer at the truck stop that night he agreed to take me under his wing for awhile so that I wouldn’t have to face the big road alone until I was ready. Being that he lived in Ohio and I had family there, it was a perfect match; fate had taken its course and brought us together here this night.
The next day Nick and I and another student crowded into a truck and took turns taking our road test and backing exams, we both passed with flying colors. There was a female student with us who could not even get the truck into gear or shift without excessive grinding, and she passed to, so my trainer was correct, this was very lenient safety department.
Jake Brake and I were assigned our truck, a 1998 Freightliner FLD120 that was located somewhere in the Los Angeles area, abandoned by the previous driver, so we both headed to the local Greyhound station and had to take one more horrendous ride on the grey dog, luckily a short one. After arriving in the Los Angeles area we hopped in a cab and headed to our truck. Much to our surprise we found a ragged out model of something that resembled a truck, we opened the door and found the interior was trashed and filthy, we started the truck up and immediately all kinds of bells and whistles started going off. This was certainly not what we expected to start our career, especially as a team, but hey we were truckers none the less, and we were going to take whatever we had to, we were ready to hit the open road! After a few minor repairs that was, our first trip was to drive the truck to the company shop in Fontana, CA to get rid of all the alarms that were going off indicating some issues that needed to be addressed.
In the next edition we will discuss the first trip out for Jake Brake and me, the start of our bonding together as best friends.
Copyright (2009) Richard Goon
