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A funny thing has happened on the way to my CDL.

I’ve been befriended by my truckmates. I mean, who’d a thunk it? Certainly not me.

Derek, Michael, and Haner have become my friends. To those of you who’ve been keeping up with this, and believe you me I feel your pain, Derek is the opinionated black vet, Michael is one of the two Twee? or Twi? guys, and Haner is the sadly conflicted Iraqi war runner and gunner.

Over the last coupla weeks while we’ve been driving together I’ve listened to them and their life-stories and found out that Derek, at 41, longs for the stability and companionship of marriage, that Michael is planning to send for his wife in Ghana just as soon as he starts trucking- hoping that they can make a life of it on the road, and that Haner, for all his brashness and bravado, is just a bewildered kid trying to sort shit out.

I’ve also witnessed and been caught up in a weird kinda tribal group think thing. Men, by nature, are competitive (duh?) so it was no surprise to see a hierarchy forming after the first day or two as those of us who were catching on to the double clutch pump compared our progress to Michael who was really struggling with just shifting gears.

We were at first supportive (I spent several break periods with Michael explaining the shift pattern and the use of gas and clutch- he’d never driven anything but an automatic transmission) and then almost gleefully dismissive as Michael continued grinding gears winding up in neutral with the diesel howling or simply stalling the truck.

We took comfort in the fact that we were better than him. That by his failing we were passing. That there was the us and then there was the him.

Then on Friday, a curious thing happened. Michael had a breakthrough and kinda figured it all out. Sure, he was still grinding the gears and dumping the clutch but he was moving through the shift pattern and was even driving the truck in a raw kinda way. It was cool to watch. But what was even cooler was the immediate flood of genuine support from all of us. Join us we seemed to be saying, become one of us. I almost teared up but I can’t ’cause I’m a guy.

Instead it made me realize how much I’ve changed in the last seven weeks. Whereas, I once was the self-imposed outsider clutching my aloofness and aloneness and not really wanting to mesh with these guys, nor wondering how or where or why I might fit in with them, now I’m finding myself caring about them and actually wanting to keep in touch with them when this is done and we all strike out in our wildly different directions like exploding fireworks. I’m hoping that they all find good trucking jobs and happy endings to their lives and I almost think I’ll miss them.

Jeebus.

It’s like I’m becoming a chick.

Today was a weirdly interesting day in tractor-trailerin’ land.

Instead of cutting us loose to rumble dangerously amongst an unsuspecting public, we were kept in the yard because the school was having a commercial shot to bolster the already sold out seats.

The commercial dudes and dudette needed motion as a backdrop for the voice-over, a kinda lumbering ballet of behemoths slowly moving to and fro. And guess who was hand-picked to lumber the star behemoth?

Yeah, baby.

That’s me rolling the big dog back and forth over and over again across 100 yards of scarred concrete busting my acting chops while the camera rolled. At each pass I’m running through my repertoire- sad, plaintive, happy, sorrowful, hopeful- for the camera. Sometimes I even waved.

Anyway.

Being a star is harder than I thought. I sure was glad when the director finally called CUT and I could stop the to-ing and fro-ing and exhaustedly climb down from my truck cab and embrace my new reality.

‘Cause ya know what? Life is different now.

Now that I’m a big star, I’m not the who that I thought I was- I’m a somehow subtlety changed somebody, and even though the mantle of stardom rests lightly on my broad shoulders, I’m finding myself viewing others differently. It’s, like, the little people seem clutching and needy and maybe just a little bit distasteful. And all the sudden, I’m keening for stuff like no green M&M’s in my bowl, and having the crusts cut off my sandwiches, and I’m screaming for my beer to be chilled to 34 degrees.

I mean, I’m still me, so none of that’s a bad thing, right?

After a month of classroom and seven tests and six days spent creeping around carefully laid out courses practicing backing manuevers, we hit the road on Wednesday.

And somehow I lucked out.

For good or bad, the instructor I drew has unleashed us on the general driving public and let us drive, which has been amazing. Picture driving as an adventure again, picture sitting in front of 20 tons slowly trudging through traffic grinding through 10 gears until suddenly, finally, you’re rolling free, stacks billowing.

Ooooh, baby, baby.

All would be rainbows in a bright blue sky and unicorns cavorting if it weren’t for the double clutch pump.

VDOT, in their infinite wisdom, requires double clutching through every gear as you upshift and downshift, which means you clutch, shift to neutral, clutch, and shift to the next gear.

Bored yet? No? Keep reading.

That was upshifting. Downshifting requires that you brake to match engine speed to road speed, clutch, shift to neutral, goose the gas pedal to bring the rpm’s back up, clutch, downshift with the gas back on and brake again to slow the truck. It’s quite the tap dance while you’re trying to bring your 20-tonner to a controlled stop before you mow down that little Ford Focus that just cut in front of you trying to get to the light first.

Are we having fun? Is anybody still reading this?

So anyway, in the last coupla days I’ve discovered that clutch and brake tap-dancing these big rig clutches and transmissions that’re as huge and gruesomely tough as the trucks themselves makes driving one of these big bitches a workout.

But ya know what else I’ve learned?

It’s flippin’ FUN.

THAT WAS THEN-

I wrote this during the first week of classroom tractor-trailerin’ training while I was peering around wondering what I’d got myself into this time and thinking these seriously vicious looking dudes were gonna beat the fuck out of me the first chance they got.

One of the people that somehow has the spare time to read my shit was also bored and lifeless enough to e-mail me.

Poor thing.

In her missive she told me that even the medical school D-listers would still be called Doctor when they got their degree- I think maybe inferring that I should just a tad more tender and understanding.

Inferences and warmy, tender understandings shoved aside, I feel like I should explain about Them.

Picture two rows of tables in a tiny cinder block room. Each table can, could, seat two.

At the front left is Baby Huey. He is fricking HUGE. He’s probably 350 lbs. and 6’4″ and has SIEG HEIL tattooed on his knuckles and sleeves creeping up both arms resplendent with Nazi and Adolf Hitler crap. And did I mention his shaved head is tattooed too? Yeah, baby. He sits by himself, I’m not sure why.

Next table back are the Twee? Twi? guys. They’re these black dudes that barely speak english and came from Uganda or someplace and would rather speak Twee. Or maybe Twi. Who knows?

And then there’s the perfect me and next to me is the spooky guy. I don’t know why, but he’s kinda glommed onto me, and, again, I don’t know why, but it doesn’t bug me. But he’s still spooky.

Behind me are two black guys. One has a really lyrical, almost Rastafarian cadence that’s fun to listen to for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the class is 4 1/2 hours. The other guy is really quiet and maybe a gang banger. I don’t talk to them.

Behind them, up against the wall, all by himself in a chair, is this sad white dude. He’s completely separated himself from the class on all levels. He spent time running and gunning in Iraq and just wants to get his CDL and vanish.

To my right is the goofy guy that wants to be my best friend ever and the portly black guy who’s NEVER driven anything with a clutch which I’m guessing will make the driving fun and interesting for the guys in his truck.

On the table in front of them is another vet and this skinny white dude that I’d like to talk to and find out his story, but probably won’t mostly ’cause my introvertedness won’t allow it.

So yeah, that’s Them.

THIS IS NOW-

Fast forward through a month of classroom and testing to the end of our first week actually driving the big trucks- (even though driving consists mostly of creeping back and forth around the fenced in yard trying to not run over traffic cones) and time and proximity and conversation have subtly shifted my perceptions.

Baby Huey is Brandon. He moved here from the pointy part of the state to train for a career that would’ve paid for his girlfriend and her three kids that he helped raise for the last nine years except that she called and told him not to come home during the second week of class.

The two Twee? or Twi? guys? They’re still turds.

I am, of course, still perfect in every way.

And the spooky guy? He’s Robert. After a protracted battle he finally wrested sole custody of his seven year old son from his dead wife’s parents. He adores his son. He’s still spooky but I like him.

The two black guys? The maybe gang-banger and the lyrical Rastafarian? They’re still annoying- if I have to listen to them argue about Eagles vs. Cowboys ONE. MORE. TIME. I might just, um, I don’t know, do something.

The sad white dude is still sadly conflicted. I’ve had a chance to talk to him now and, I don’t know, but, I think he’s heading down a really darkly sorrowful road.

The goofy overly talkative guy is still really goofy and non-stop talkative, like NEVER non-stop talkative, like it might be a disease or something and the portly non-driving guy is trying really hard to handle these trucks.

And the last two of our motley crew? The vet is only mildly annoying and the skinny white kid is David. He’s only 22 and already has a kid and is trying to live up to his father’s and grandfather’s expectations. Both were truckers and it sounds like they expect big things from him. He’s scrawny little guy with bulging eyes that sidles up to you like a whipped puppy. I talk to him every chance I get.

So that’s it.

That’s Us.