The average tractor-trailer driver training program, usually offered at a commercial school, lasts for anywhere from three to six weeks. The first few days are spent learning the Commercial Driver's manual, then taking a series of written tests administered by a state Department of Motor Vehicles. They include a basic driver's knowledge exam, plus a series of written exams that lead to various endorsements such as air brakes, transportation of hazardous materials, driving double and triple trailers, driving passenger vehicles, etc. The next couple of weeks of a student's program consists of doing various driving maneuvers on a large parking lot - turning, straight backing, angle backing (known in the trucking biz as "alley docking"), parallel parking (both driver's side and "blind side"), and hazardous weather maneuvers. The final weeks are spent actually driving on the road - highways, rural roads, city streets - practicing as a student driver in actual traffic. At the end of the program comes the road test that leads to the Commercial Driver's License, or CDL. But when a student graduates from a truck driving school, he's hardly a trucker. Like other fields such as law or medicine, it's not until the student gets out into the field - the real workplace - that he begins to truly learn how to be a *trucker*. The job market for truck drivers is wide open. Hell, starting from scratch, it's never taken me more than a couple of hours to land a job. And when a student graduates from a truck driving school, he'll usually find several job offers waiting for him. At the same time, you don't want to put a freshly minted trucking school graduate in a $100,000 piece of equipment in which he can wreak havoc. Therefore, most trucking companies send their newly hired, fresh graduates out on the road with a seasoned driver- trainer for several weeks. When I was certified as a driver-trainer earlier this year, I did so with a great deal of hesitation. One of the risks to being a driver-trainer is that you never know who you'll get stuck with. A newly hired trainee might be a safe driver who is willing to learn the ropes, or he might be an hot-shot who thinks that he owns the road - risking not only his own life, but yours and everyone else's when he gets in the driver's seat of that 40-ton monster. But there's another factor. You can also get stuck with someone who's a total dork. An absolute asshole that you have to virtually live with in an enclosed space for a month of hell. After all, much of the life of a long-haul trucker is spent in a six-by-eight cab, and drivers share *everything* with each other - every burp, every fart, every hang-up, every blow-up, every frustration, every piss break... Even straight drivers get to know each other intimately in the course of driving together day and night, especially when you wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed to piss in an empty water jug or orange juice bottle, knowing that it's too damn cold to go outside half asleep to water the tires. But it's not total intimacy. A truck like the one I drive isn't as confining as smaller trucks. My tractor is a condo, meaning that you can actually stand up inside. There are two bunk beds - a lower bed with a comfortable spring mattress, and a fold-down upper bunk with a foam mattress. There is storage space for clothing in cabinets as well as under the lower bunk, as well as compartments for a small refrigerator and TV/VCR. The front of the cab has two high-back air-ride seats which are more comfortable than the seats in any car, and for one person, there is a lot of space. When you get two people in any truck, however, things can get a bit cramped, so the most important quality for two drivers is that they get along with each other or, at the very least, develop a respectful toleration for each other. After all, team driving is a 24-hour-a-day gig. In the course of driving with a partner, the drivers talk about almost everything - politics, sports, music, relationships... The one thing straight drivers don't talk much about is sex. Hell, everyone gets horny, but straight drivers don't even talk about how they get their rocks off on the road. When I became a driver-trainer, I reserved the right to reject any trainees I thought I wouldn't get along with. And I planned to exercise that right. I didn't want to get stuck with a beer- bellied, belching, farting redneck who would bend my ear with tales about the rifle rack in the back of his pick-up and the bitch he left back at home. Yeah, I know it sounds sexist, but that's how drivers tend to talk about their wives - as one more piece of property, just like the pick-up and the rifle rack. It was early July when I pulled my rig into the terminal in Indianapolis, where a new crop of drivers had been hired and was waiting to be assigned to driver-trainers for a month. I checked in, caught up on my paperwork, then went to the dispatcher's office where I would find out who they wanted me to take on the road and turn into a trucker. As I was handed the personnel file of the new driver, I sat down and felt my gut tighten. His name was Henry, and he was hired out of Murphy, Kansas - straight off the farm. Literally. Henry was 28 and, before going to driver training school, he had spent the last several years plowing fucking corn fields on his family's farm. Henry decided to become a trucker after the midwestern farm scene became more economically depressed. "Shit," I thought. Not only was I getting a country bumpkin, but some boondock fart who had probably been stuffing it in sheep butts. I could see it now. "Heeeeennnnreee," his mother would be blabbing from the porch of the farm, "get your backside in here for dinner, boy!" What the hell, I thought, you have to take the good with the bad, and it wouldn't hurt me to gain some experience as a driver- trainer. I went out to meet "Heeeeennnnreee" and begin to get him in shape. And it wasn't as bad as I thought. Henry was tall - about 6'4" - tall and lanky, he was a bit plain looking but not too bad. He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans that were a size too big. At least he hadn't corrupted himself with cowboy boots, a truck- driving staple I refuse to wear myself. As I introduced myself as his over-the-road trainer, he had a firm handshake despite a shy quality that gave away his country roots. There was something likable about him, a natural and easy- going attitude combined with a rural innocence that told me he had no idea what going over the road was truly like. The company had a 45-day training period for new hires, and in those first few minutes I began to have the feeling that it would be as much an adventure for me as it would be for Henry. We were assigned a load that was going to Salt Lake City, and headed out over Interstate 70 toward Kansas City, where we would stop for the night. I spent the first few hours behind the wheel, pointing out the various features of the Freightliner tractor, explaining how handling it was different from the International cabover on which Henry had trained at driving school. As we pulled into a truckstop at St. Louis for lunch, I told him about the various things truckstops had to offer. As I backed the rig into a diagonal parking space, a woman was walking by the truck in a halter top and tight shorts. "She's nice looking," Henry said. "Yeah," I responded, "not bad for a lot lizard." "Lot lizard?" Henry asked, "What's that?" Shit, I thought, they probably hadn't told Henry *anything* about the real world at his driving school. I began to envision an interesting experience or two along with way as Henry got his education about life on the road. "A lot lizard is a truckstop hooker," I answered, "a prostitute." "You're kidding," said Henry, taking it in. "It looks like I have a few things to learn about this job." "That's what I'm here for, Henry. All they taught you at school was how to drive a truck. In the next few weeks, we'll turn you into a *trucker* by going over what they *didn't* teach you." After lunch, Henry got behind the wheel of a Freightliner for the first time, put it in first gear, and lurched out of the parking space as he got used to the gear pattern and clutch action of the tractor. "Let's get a weight on this load before we leave," I said, directing him to the CAT scale at the truckstop. We hadn't weighed out since picking up the load outside Indianapolis, and were lucky not to have passed an open weigh station on the way to St. Louis. Henry maneuvered the rig out of the parking place skillfully and slowly made his way to the scales. I began to get more comfortable with him in the driver's seat - he had learned to operate a tractor-trailer well, although you could tell that he was being consciously careful on this, his first real run. We weighed out within the federally mandated limits, then hit the road heading west toward Kansas City. It was only 500 miles from Indianapolis to Kansas City, but I wanted to ease Henry into the routine. Starting tomorrow, we would do double that mileage, each spending about 10 hours behind the wheel. On this first leg of the run, Henry handled the rig well, and the midwestern hills and soft curves would prove good practice for driving through the Rocky Mountains over on the following days. We pulled into a truckstop in Kansas City, and Henry ran into his first challenge. The only parking spaces available were tight, and you had to back into them carefully. He seemed unsure, so I got out of the truck and guided him in with hand signals, after which he was able to relax. He had gotten through his first day on the road as a professional driver without hitting anything more than a curb. We fueled the rig then hit the restaurant at the truck stop. Finally, we hit the sack with me on the bottom bed and Henry in the top bunk. As we stripped down to shorts, I couldn't resist noticing that, despite not working out or exercising, Henry was fairly well-developed, probably a result of working the family farm for so many years. He also had a more-than- adequate bulge. Nonetheless, it was a long day, and sleep came fast. It was about three in the morning when I woke up to a faint but familiar noise - the sound of skin stroking skin, with the occasional heavy breath that accompanies someone jerking off, trying to be subtle because someone else is sleeping in the same room. I remember hearing that sound at summer camp, in a dorm room, and in other situations in which I was sharing a room with someone who was presumably straight. "Well," I thought, "Henry may be naive, but at least he beats his meat like the rest of us." Obviously thinking I was still asleep, his quiet but heavy breathing became more intense before I heard a restrained groan - obviously Henry shooting his load. Much as I was already hard at that point myself, I was also damn tired, and I drifted back off to sleep. As we had breakfast and prepared for the rest of the run to Salt Lake City, I didn't mention anything I had heard the night before. It would be another long day, and we decided to drive five hours on, five hours off, so neither of us would have to stay behind the wheel for ten hours straight. We would catch up on sleep during our respective breaks, during which Henry would sleep in my bed (federal law prohibits someone from sleeping in the top bunk when the truck is in motion). Henry drove the first five hours, and I watched a video and caught a couple of naps during his first shift. I woke up and took the passenger seat for a while before we changed places, then we made small talk through the rest of Kansas. It wasn't until several hours later as we were entering Colorado that I asked Henry, "By the way, how did you sleep on your first night in a truck?" "Better than I thought I would," he replied, "though I had to move around a bit go get used to the bunk. I hope I wasn't bothering you." I decided to go for the gold. "Nah," I said, "I woke up once when you were jacking off, but turned over and went right back to sleep." Needless to say, Henry's face became flushed as he stammered for the right response. "Ummm," he embarrassingly responded, "I don't know what to say." "Don't sweat it, man. Everyone does it, and when your ass is bouncing around in a truck all day, you're bound to get horny. Hell, don't you think I whack off, too?" "I guess I never thought about it," Henry reflected. He went on to describe how he was raised in a religious home, and that jerking off or having sex were things that simply were not talked about. "Look, Henry," I proclaimed, "I'm not trying to corrupt you." (Like hell I wasn't.) "But it's a fact that guys get horny and that truckers need to get their rocks off on the road. Hell, lot lizards are too damn dangerous for any number of reasons, and half the time truckers simply get it on with each other. It's just not the kind of thing you hear about at trucking school." Henry paused as the implications of what I had just said began to sink in. "You mean... you've done it with other guys." "Well, yeah, I have. Don't sweat it, man. If that's not your scene, you don't have to feel threatened." He took it all in, and we rode in silence for a while, passing through Denver and climbing the Rockies toward the Continental Divide. Henry managed to catch some sleep himself, and I could only began to fantasize him beating off in my bed back in the sleeper. It was dark by the time we moved through the mountains toward Utah, and Henry woke up and came forward to sit in the passenger seat. There was the usual small talk then, out of the blue, he said, "I used to check out the other guys in the locker room in gym when I was in high school. I guess I have thought about doing it with another guy." I nodded and smiled - I wanted to communicate acceptance of what he had just said. We went back to small talk, and about 20 minutes later I pulled into a rest area on I-70 near Grizzly Creek, Colorado. It was Saturday night, and there were only two other rigs in the truck parking area. Even though it was July, there was a mountain chill in the air, and it was cool enough to shut off the engine for the night (many trucks run their engines all night in order to run the heat or air conditioning inside the cab). I got up and went to the back of the dark cab, but Henry stayed in the passenger seat, taking in the fresh mountain air. "Wow," he said, "this is the first time I've been in these mountains. Hell, I've hardly ever been out of Kansas." "You're kidding," I replied. "No, seriously. My parents took me to Washington as a kid, there was a school trip to Chicago, but other than that... Hell, Wichita is like the big city to me." I sat down on the side of the driver's seat and looked at him. He looked over as if there was something else he wanted to say but the words didn't come and, on impulse, I leaned over and kissed him. "Welcome to the wider world. It's not too bad out there, and it can be a real adventure." I stood up and put my hand on his shoulder, and he put his arm around my waist as he continued to look out at the mountains. Perhaps this training run wouldn't be so bad after all. It was obvious that Henry was starved for human contact. Not necessarily sexual contact, though I had the impression that he could be one horny son-of-a-bitch. I was ready to go to bed as Henry stood up and moved toward the sleeper area. As we looked at each other, I turned around and pushed the upper bunk up toward the wall and into its locking hinge. "I don't think we really need that. Besides, the bed is a lot more comfortable than the foam mattress." Henry stripped down to his shorts, and I was still wearing shorts, but I didn't want to push him too far, too soon. The shorts came off soon enough, though, as we spent the next few hours exploring each other's bodies. Henry was obviously hungry for affection. At the same time, he *was* a horny son-of-a-bitch, willing to both give and receive. And step by step, he took to man-to-man sex like a fish takes to water. Fortunately, we were ahead of schedule for the delivery in Salt Lake City, so there was time to think about other things and catch up on rest after an active day *and* an active night. For me, Henry was turning out to be good company for the next few weeks. For Henry, it was a voyage of self-discovery as he shook years of isolation on his parents' farm back in Kansas. As I awoke after the first night we slept together, it occurred to me that for the past two days, I had actually been wearing clothes while I drove. Henry was still sleeping as I got out of bed and walked a few feet to the driver's seat, taking in the view of the mountains in the daylight. The truck parking area was now deserted except for our rig, and I stepped outside to piss and get shaken awake by the brisk mountain air. I started the engine to warm up the cab and, after a few minutes, put the cab in gear, released the air brakes, and slowly made our way back onto I-70 heading west. Henry had a long day and night as well, and I had closed the light-blocking vinyl curtain that separates the driving area from the sleeper so he wouldn't be awakened by the daylight coming into the cab. About an hour after I pulled out of the rest area, I heard the curtain open. Henry walked out, still naked himself, sat on the floor of the cab between the two seats, and put his head on my lap as I was driving. I reached over with one hand and started stroking his neck and back. I started getting hard right in the driver's seat barreling along I-70 and; unfortunately, we wouldn't hit another rest area until Utah. I pulled off at the next exit and drove the rig into a shopping center parking lot, where we decided to take an early break from driving... If only all of the women in the supermarket knew what was going on in our rig, they'd have enough of their own fantasy material to last a year. The sex came naturally to Henry, and after some more romping back in the sleeper, we took our seats in the front of the cab and headed back toward the highway. I hadn't intended to do so, but it seems that I had helped spawn another naked trucker. "You know," I said as we gained speed on the highway onramp, "You hardly seem like a Henry at this point. "Maybe we should start calling you Hank." "Hmmmmmm... I'll have to think about that one." We finally arrived in Salt Lake City and did a drop-and-hook, when you leave the full trailer and pick up an empty trailer at the receiving company. We then headed down I-15 into Barstow, California, to pick up a load for Atlanta, and spontaneously decided to shoot at least one load with each other in every state as we crossed the country. The beauty of it was that, as team drivers, we managed to have enough time for everything. Since the truck was in operation for almost 20 hours a day between us (commercial drivers are limited to driving a maximum of 10 hours per day, so teams can run the truck longer than solo drivers), one of us would sleep while the other drove. There was still that four hours a day when neither of us could drive, so we managed to think of doing other things. Like each other. And somehow, since we managed to make good time, those four hours were usually extended so we could get some sleep with each other as well. And that's the way it was for the next four weeks. Stop and go, stop and go, fuck and drive... Through virtually all of the 48 lower states, Henry learned a lot more about being a trucker than he had bargained for when he went to driving school. I wasn't looking for a long-term relationship, and Henry was new enough to the scene that I knew he would have some wild oats to sow. We ended our 45 days of running together back in Indianapolis, where Henry was given his own rig, about to begin the same type of adventures I had been enjoying over the past year. I knew that the odds of lucking into another trainee like Henry were slim, so I decided to go back over the road as a solo act. As we stood in the busy terminal saying goodbye with a handshake that lasted a second or two longer than most handshakes, yet short enough that the other drivers around didn't realize how close we had been, I said, "You take care of yourself, Henry. And be careful out there." As we looked into each other's eyes, he smiled and said, "Call me Hank." I knew he would do alright for himself.