“I-80 M. 490-M.205” by John Sayles

 

“Ahh, copy you, Roadrunner, she's been clean all the way from that Grand Island town, so motormotor.”

[A moving van accelerates.]

“How about that Roadrunner, this is Overload up to 424, that you behind me?”

[The vans headlights blink up and down.]

“Well come on up, buddy, let's put the hammer down on this thing.”

The voices are nasal and tinny, broken by squawks, something human squeezed through wire. A decade of televised astronauts gives them their style and self importance.

We have a rare short story from screenwriter, John Sayles, the excellent film Lone Star being just one sample of his Western work.

This was written in 1975 for The Atlantic magazine; conceived in the midst of America’s CB radio fad.

A pop culture boom that brought us Trucker-as-Cowboy stories in film and song and spawned many a non-trucker to install a radio in their vehicle, spawn a handle, hit the highway and see who had their ears on.

This story told almost exclusively in CB jargon, mixed with screenplay bullet points for action and forays back into standard prose is more than a pop culture curiosity.

Sayles’ tale is darker. We have a voice out there in the midst of the chatter that is up to no good—one intent on darker things.

The story of the Voice and how truckers attempt to figure out who or why this voice is doing what they are doing is mighty intriguing.

The story has a bit of that 1971 film Vanishing Point’s existentialist vibe to it.

All in all, an interesting story—creative in premise and creative in execution.