Alan's Story
2816
Alan’s Story
One night, while Alan was in his parked truck using his laptop to chat online, Bubba started talking. The odd thing was that Bubba was a cat. Bubba and LeRoy were housecats that rode in a semi with Alan. Alan was a truckdriver.
“Hey...Fat boy...gimme a beer”, however, was a little out of the ordinary. Bubba WAS very vocal..but normally didn’t speak English. In fact it was quite unusual. Alan looked a little cross eyed at Bubba.
Alan had had a rough day…and was drinking a few brews before going to bed. ”What did you say?”
“You heard me”,snapped the big black Tom. “Me and LeRoy want a beer...hop to it”. LeRoy...a somewhat smaller Siamese Tom nodded his head in agreement.
“Oh”. Alan thought about that for a minute. That sounded reasonable. The two cats were with him, in the truck, every minute of the day. If Alan was having a hard day it seemed logical that his boys were also.
“We’re tired of having to dump the dregs out of your beer cans after you pass out just so’s we can have a little sip” said Bubba. LeRoy nodded his head in agreement…
“Um”. Alan thought about that for a minute. It certainly sounded legitimate. He knew that he would purely hate to dig through empty beer cans to drain a bit to drink. So that was what happened to that last pint. He didn’t recall having drank much of it..but it was empty in the morning..and...
“So give us one….now. Pour it in a bowl. Mind the head...I hate froth on my whiskers” Bubba...interrupted his train of thought….licking a paw in anticipation. LeRoy nodded his head in agreement.
Alan just kinda sat there for a minute...sipping on his second (or was it third) pint of SteeleReserve. He was a little taken aback, numb really, Bubba hissed.
“Uh...well yeah. Sorry”....mumbled Alan. He got up and cleaned their food bowls out and then poured some of his beer in each one. They thanked him and lapped it up. Alan just sit there and watched them...bemused. He didn’t know if beer was good for cats or not. Too late now. Guess if not he’d find out.
It was a long night and the computer was left on all night. Lucky he didn’t have a load the next day. He, and the boys, drank all the beer he had in the truck. Not much really since he only bought what he planned on drinking that night. He’d bought more than his usual pint because the damn convenience store didn’t sell singles, only six packs.
awwww.
That set a precedent. From then on, at the end of the day...the boys and him had a few brews. Him and them would sip the suds and surf the net. Oddly enough they seemed to be paying more attention to his laptop computer than they used to. They’d sit on the arms of his seat and watch. For all the world like they knew what was going on.
It got to be a routine. He’d set there in the driver seat with his laptop on the steering wheel. His beer was in the cup holder and the cats’ beer was in a water bowl in the floor. He’d take a sip now and then and the cats would hop down and drink then jump back up beside him. Come toward late at night the cats weren't all that coordinated. The cats fell down a lot actually. He didn’t fall down cause he never stood up. He just sat there.
They usually spent an hour or so every night chatting with the “Crazy Cat Lady’s Cat House”. He had no idea who or what she was. He’d found the CatHouse one day during a long surfing session. He’d like what he saw and bookmarked it. He seemed to be spending more and more time in it lately.
He was online all the time when he wasn’t driving actually. He tended to leave the computer on after he went to sleep so in a manner of speaking he slept in the CatHouse.
……...she was interesting and fun to talk to...as were the other “cats” who frequented the place. Dave, Hank, and Sloan were three of his best “Alley Cat Buddies”. There were more.
That was enough. The boys seemed to get something out of the experience as well...and so it went. The cat’s vocabulary improved as the days went by.
He did notice that the cat voices were in his head...he couldn’t HEAR them out loud. It was all in his mind. He was probably just going (more) insane. No big deal.
Sanity was over rated. Truckers just about had to be insane. It was pretty much required to do the job. If they weren’t insane to begin with the job made them that way.
It was all fun and games until a terrorist tried to firebomb his truck.
Leroy woke him up. He and LeRoy were sleeping together. No, it’s not like that at all. They just slept. It was purely a thermal relationship. LeRoy didn’t like the cold. Alan gave off heat. It was therefore normal that when it got cold at night that LeRoy curled up between Alan’s neck and shoulder…or in his armpit….to stay warm. They’d been doing that for years, even before Alan noticed them talking. Talking English that is, that he could understand.
Bubba even slept with them when it got really cold. Alan was too damn cheap to idle the truck for warmth unless it threatened to get cold enough to gel the diesel. That would be pretty cold. It was rather more accurate to say that Bubba slept ON him. Bubba didn’t like being covered with a blanket like LeRoy did.
“Get your lazy ass out of bed...someone is trying to set the truck on fire” screamed Bubba.
“Get up!, (bounce) get up! ,(bounce) get up!,(bounce) get up!!” shouted Leroy...jumping up and down on Alan’s chest.
“Oooof!” said Alan...LeRoy wasn’t the biggest cat...not near as big as Bubba...but he packed a wallop bouncing up and down on his chest like that.
“Waszit?”...Alan gasped...as he lay there in the bed being pounded by LeRoy…LeRoy was really getting into the trampoline thing. Bubba looked out the windshield and hissed...
“Get up!, (bounce) get up!, (bounce) get up !, (bounce) get up!!”...LeRoy kept jumping up and down on his chest. Alan, not in the best shape, was having a little trouble breathing. He lay there grimacing with his eyes closed while LeRoy continued to bounce.
“Get up!, (bounce) get up!, (bounce) get up!, (bounce) get up!!”
Alan...with his eyes closed, saw through Bubba’s eyes.…… another flaming object hit the hood of the truck...and bounce. It fell off the truck on the drivers side. Someone was throwing molotov cocktails at them.
“Houston...we have a problem.” Alan said to himself. He finally managed to avoid LeRoy and rolled out of bed, naked as a pot bellied gorilla. He slid into the driver’s seat and looked out the driver's window to see where that flaming object had bounced. Someone was right beside the truck bending over to pick up the guttering molotov cocktail. He was evidently going to try again. Alan swung the door open, hard, and smashed that someone in the head. The smashee staggered backwards.
Abdul was smashed in the head and face by the swinging truck door. The infidel driver had broken his NOSE! How infuriating. This was not to be born. Abdul stood up and started shouting. Things just weren’t going right for some reason. Abdul couldn’t understand it. He was the chosen martyr. His Holy Man had given him a Holy Mission.
The Holy Man had said “Make some molotov cocktails...go to a nearby truck stop early in the morning…..set some trucks on fire....then shoot the drivers when they jump out of their trucks. Truckers don’t carry guns in Illinois. Law Abiding citizens don’t carry guns here...there is a law against it. You should be able to kill a large number of the infidel truckers before the police arrive to take you into custody”.
That sounded good to Abdul. He’d seen how other mass shooters had been treated. They’d been treated well. In fact it seemed that the odds were in his favor of dying a natural death unless he killed himself. Abdul didn’t plan to do that. He planned to survive and be a hero. He would be hailed as a hero. He was striking against the Great Satan.
Being a hero would be nice and then there were the seventy-two virgins. He kinda liked redheads.
There was a problem though. He had not been able to find the big glass wine bottles his Holy Man had recommended, for the molotov cocktails. To tell the truth he didn’t like wine much and hadn’t looked very hard. He really DID like whisky. He kept that a secret though. It was his secret vice. His Spiritual Advisor would not approve.
He’d had plenty of plastic pint whiskey bottles. Whiskey and Vodka. He’s saved his empties. He kept them hidden. If he threw them in the trash someone might notice. They should work. So he’d filled them all with gasoline...and stuffed them in all his pockets.
Unfortunately, in his eagerness to be a hero, Abdul had arrived at the truckstop early. Too early. It was before daylight and quite dark. It had also rained the night before and everything was wet. He’d picked a rundown truckstop and it had a dirt lot full of potholes. Those potholes were full of water.
The molotov cocktails didn’t seem to be working. They kept going out...and bouncing.
When the Infidel Trucker smashed him in the face with the door he’d fell on his butt...squashing several bottles that were in his back pockets. Plastic whisky bottles didn’t shatter like glass..but they split open when sat on hard. Now his pants were soaked with gasoline.
He was enraged. All caution was forgotten. He was fuming, in both senses of the word.
The infidel would pay. Abdul stood up while jerking his gun out of a pant’s pocket. Unfortunately he didn’t practice proper safety procedures. For one thing the safety was OFF. For another thing he had his finger inside the trigger guard. The gun went off. Luckily he didn’t shoot himself. Unluckily the muzzle flash ignited the gasoline fumes. He was on fire.
Abdul, also known, briefly, as the human torch, dropped his gun and ran around the Truck Stop splashing through mud puddles and potholes as he went. The heat from the fire melted more of the plastic bottles. They just added fuel to the fire. The heat cooked off many of the rounds in the many spare magazines he had for his pistol, which he had dropped. Abdul ran, screamed, burned and popped. If anyone had been watching it would have been quite impressive for a short time. No one was, it was too early. All the truckers were still in their bunks.
After a little while Abdul burned up. He lay there on the ground...melting into a puddle...sizzling. Every now and then a bullet would cook off. Had anyone been awake no one would have wanted to get close to him.
It was still before sunup.
At the sound of the first gunshot LeRoy was still playing trampoline on the bed.
“(bounce) ,(bounce) ,(bounce) !!” (this was kinda fun)...”oh...wait...what?” He stopped and
…..and instead jumped up onto the dash and looked through the windshield. He and Bubba watched with interest as Abdul ran off screaming, sizzling, smoking, popping and burning. Cats can see in the dark pretty well.
Alan watched also, through their eyes. He was in the bunk putting on some clothes. Then he did his log book. Safety first.
In minutes he had the truck started...the three of them watched carefully, and Alan saw everything the cats were seeing, this see in the dark thing was pretty handy,..as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove the OTHER direction from which the human torch had run. He didn’t notice that his trailer tires ran over Abdul’s dropped pistol and squashed it into the mud. Dirty water immediately filled the tire ruts. The gun was hidden from sight. Shortly they were rolling down the highway.
After a while Alan turned on the radio. He usually didn’t listen to the stupid thing but right now he was curious. He surfed from channel to channel. It was pretty much all the same.
NewFlash!!!
From CNN
“This is the Communist News Network Reporter on the spot Cindy Cleavage...I’ve just arrived in the vicinity of the truck stop in Effingham. I can hear gunshots and it appears that several trucks are on fire. Reports are that multiple gunmen are shooting. Known casualties are in the dozens. Common Sense Gun Control would have prevented this horrible tragedy. Stay tuned for further development….”
Spin the dial...for ABC
“This is Absolute BullShit Continuously news radio ace news reporter Max Butthurt live….”dozens of truckers lie dead on the streets...police and ambulance personnel are pinned down by gunfire. None of this would have happened if we’d had common sense gun control”.
Spin the dial...from CBS
“This is Communist Bull Shit info radio on the scene, Freddy Fellatio reporting...…. hundreds of truckers are reported dead. This wouldn’t happen if we had common sense gun control”.
Spin the dial...from that funny network where people are always angry.
“This is MSNBC….< the owner of the Boston Bacon BasketBall team is reported to have talked dirty to his mistress. The mistress recorded the conversation. None of this would have happened if we had common sense gun control.>”
back to CNN
It was supposedly a special interview “we have in our studio today a congressman Windy FlutterButt from California. What do you think of the situation congressmen?”
“I think this is a clear cut case of gun violence…..the Island Of Guam Might just tip over because of it….this is in violation of the eighty second Amendment and it will have serious repercussion in all 57 states. I have submitted a bill to congress yesterday because of this very thing was sure to happen. We need to pass the bill so we can know what’s in it. We need common sense gun control laws to prevent this from happening. All those poor truckers would still be alive now if….” even the news anchor was having a hard time keeping a straight face…
Last, but very much first in viewership and credibility was Faux news. Unlike all the other news media, who’d just read press reports submitted to them from…..anonymous sources… and lied about actually being on the scene…. Faux News actually sent a reporter to the site to see what was happening.
“This is Faux News...we are at the truck stop where the other networks are reporting a massive multiple truck fire and shooting.
We see nothing .
We hear nothing.
There is nothing.
It appears that a number of the truckers…..
……….are still asleep. There is very little activity this early in the morning.
There appears to be nothing happening, except for a little fire down at one end of the parking lot. It smells like pork.”
Alan flipped channels as he drove. . Surely someone would find the fricassee terrorist. Anytime now?
Eventually someone did.
Eventually the cops were called.
Eventually the cops arrived.
“When seconds count the police are only minutes away”...depending on how far the donut shop is. To be fair there was nothing the police could have done in this case. Abdul was as well done as a charcoal briquet. The pockets of his cargo pants and tactical vest had been fairly stuffed with bottles of gasoline and they’d burnt him to a crisp.
Dead bodies were rare at truck stops but not totally unheard of. For some odd reason junkies, whores, and other forms of reptiles seemed to think truckers were easy marks. In some cases they were correct. In some instances there were reptile fights and occasionally there were casualties. The cops had seen it all before. So, once again, to be fair to the cops...that was what they were expecting.
They did NOT expect to see a crispy critter.
“Now what do you suppose that was all about” asked Alan while he drove. He alternated between sucking down coffee...and sucking on a ceegar. He’d turned off the radio.
“Food” said LeRoy. “Feed me”. ...waving a paw at the Ceegar Smoke. Bubba was in the back somewhere...asleep.