【美国电台节目】最孤独的职业之一

TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to ROUGH TRANSLATION from NPR. It was the fall of 2010 when Jess Graham started to upend her life. She left her abusive partner, took her 10-year-old daughter and hit the road in her new tractor trailer.

GRAHAM: I came in, packed her up and went to the school and told her that she is no longer enrolled and that she will be homeschooling. And we hit the road.

WARNER: The living space was 8 feet by 8 feet - two bunk beds.

GRAHAM: I have a picture. And she's got all of her stuff in her little cubbies and sitting on her bed smiling.

WARNER: She got her rollerblades and her Nintendo DS and a big backpack stuffed with schoolbooks. For now this was going to be home for them.

WARNER: Even then, Jess wouldtell herself this life on the road was only temporary. She was carefullybudgeting to afford a real home where she and Halima could settle down.

GRAHAM: I tried to keep asmuch fun going - certain things we did in survival mode that I turned into agame. Like, OK, I'm driving. So you're in charge of what we eat. So here's yourbudget for the day. And so she would plan it out. OK, Mom, if we stop at FlyingJ, we can go to Denny's, and we can get this off of the 2, 4, 6, 8 menu. Andthat leaves us this much for the day.

WARNER: Halima was beinghome-schooled in the truck, which meant that crossing state lines - that was ageography lesson.

GRAHAM: She'd pull out themap, and then she'd start looking up, what is along those routes? Is theresomething we can pull off and see or drive by or something like that?

WARNER: Drive time - that wasstudy time.

GRAHAM: You know, we've haddry erase markers, where she's just writing down the side of the window a mathproblem that she's struggling with. And so we're walking through it together.

WARNER: Wait. Wait. She'swriting the math problem on the windshield? Like...

GRAHAM: She would leanforward in her seat and write on the windshield the math problem. And we couldwalk through it together as I'm driving down the road.

WARNER: And Jess' escape plan- it worked. Less than a year after they first pulled away from her ex's house,Jess was able to put all the money she'd saved trucking into a house. And shegot a nanny, a friend of theirs.

GRAHAM: And so my friendstayed at the house and, you know, made sure that she did her schoolwork anddid her chores. And, you know, I worked and paid all the bills.

WARNER: And Jess went back onthe road without her daughter. And immediately, she noticed a change in thetreatment that she got from some of the other drivers now that she did not havea 10 year old in tow.

GRAHAM: You tend to get asingle woman out here, and you're like, why are you out here? Well, you shouldbe home with your kids. You get that attitude from a lot of men out here.Having Halima with me softened the blow. When they saw Halima, they realizedwhy I was out here and what I was doing. And it reminded them of their ownfamily, so it almost made it easier.

WARNER: Halima's presencealso shielded her in a different way. If her daughter had not been on the roadwith her and the company not made adjustments for that, then Jess might havebeen assigned a co-driver or trainee driver that first year.

GRAHAM: A lot of thesecompanies - after you finish your training or even as part of your training,you have to run team freight, you know, with some stranger in an 8-by-8 box.It's hard.

WARNER: Almost always, thatstranger's a man - sleeping in the other bunk bed. And Jess also found thatwithout her daughter with her, she did not have much reason to linger indrivers lounges. She didn't feel comfortable hanging out in the parking lot ifshe wasn't there to watch Halima rollerblade while the sun went down. And Jesssays that, gradually - and like a lot of women in trucking - her strategy toget through the days was just to keep her head down and keep moving.

GRAHAM: When you see anotherwoman out here - we tend to stick to ourselves and keep our heads down and justself-isolate. And it's easier to just keep our head down than it is to interactor make waves, you know, just quietly go about our day.

WARNER: At first, that wasOK. She'd spend her alone time FaceTiming her daughter.

GRAHAM: As she got older andstarted in high school and enlarging her circle and becoming more busy, Ididn't have really anybody to talk to at that point.

WARNER: Did you feel like youcould handle it?

GRAHAM: Absolutely not. Butthe thought of failing and giving up at that point in my life when I was doingthis for survival meant that I would have been pushed back into that situationwith her dad for survival. So I just powered through.

WARNER: Loneliness - it justseemed like the price that she'd pay for independence. Trucking had let hersupport her daughter on her own. But that also meant being alone. 

GRAHAM: Like, I - honestly, Ihave a hard time functioning when I'm not in my truck. I don't know how togrocery shop anymore. I can't handle that experience anymore, the - going intoa big store like that. So...

WARNER: What about it can'tyou handle?

GRAHAM: I don't know if it'sjust the chaos of everything. We've learned over the years, you know, with -what we have access to is the truck stop. So you go in. You have your onechoice. You know, I think having that many options is kind ofoverwhelming. 

WARNER: But then...

WARNER: Jess's mom becamewithdrawn and isolated in the pandemic. And so Jess started reaching out.

GRAHAM: And so I had to forcemyself out of my little isolated bubble of me just driving along, not talkingto anybody, and really make sure that she had interaction.

WARNER: That's interesting.So the pandemic-related isolation of your mom forced you out of your ownisolation and realized you had something to offer, basically.

GRAHAM: I did.

WARNER: Wow.

GRAHAM: I knew I had thecoping skills to get through it, whereas I don't think that she or othersaround me did.

WARNER: Jess also helped herdispatcher when she was struggling with remote work.

GRAHAM: I think I'm able totalk to people now about what we're all experiencing internally, about our ownself-doubts and the uncomfortable silences, because I've been able to reallyembrace them. And instead of letting them eat me alive, I've used them todiscover who I am and what I want and how I want to be.