Open Highways, Empty Checkbooks

A Trucker in the Silverdocs Film 'Big Rig' Talks About Life Over the Long Haul

Director Doug Pray's "Big Rig" takes a bite out of the trucker's life on the road. (By Roger Snider)

The romantic image of the smiling trucker -- gamely sounding his horn in response to kids pumping their fists -- has been replaced by a worker who feels increasingly hobbled by rising gas prices, overwhelming overhead, inflexible safety regulations and a general sense that America has forgotten who really brings the food to its tables.

At least that's what a new documentary reveals, and a recent stopover at a Baltimore truck stop bears out. The misery index is writ large in the lined face and ironic laughter of Jessie Blaine -- a genial, 47-year-old trucker who sits in a smoky, short-order purgatory at the Buckhorn family restaurant, waiting for his next freight order. It's a Thursday afternoon and it's already three hours since he pulled into Baltimore, where he offloaded cargo from West Virginia. So far he's heard nothing from his company. He joins the other drivers huddled at the counter, faces over their coffee cups, ashtrays and laptops.

"It's not just a truck-driving job," says Blaine, in a cadence that comes from Ethel, Miss. "This is a way of life. It's one that suits me. It ain't for everybody. But the politics in it will drive you crazy. If I was in this job for the money, I'd be done quit."

Blaine is one of 13 truckers interviewed in "Big Rig," a documentary that screens tonight, Friday and Sunday at Silverdocs, the documentary film festival at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. Directed by Doug Pray, the movie brings viewers up close and personal with truckers of every shape, size and hue, including an African American driver in a cowboy hat who speaks of a near-death experience on the road, a woman who took to the open roads to escape an abusive relationship, and a Native American who crisscrosses the country his people used to claim as their own. Most of them bemoan an increasingly difficult job.

Pray says he was drawn to the subject as a DJ in college: "I idolized the image of the great American truck driver through those old-time trucker songs." So Pray and producer Brad Blondheim -- the duo previously made a highly acclaimed doc about hip-hop DJing -- followed truckers all around the country for 40 days, starting in early June 2005.

"I thought I was making a film about a cool American subculture, with trucking music and all those images of the chrome and the convoy," Pray recalls. But soon he realized "truckers, being the frontline of America's economy, are really facing hard times. And the film took a turn from a campy, fun 'BJ and the Bear' kind of movie to something like 'The Grapes of Wrath' or something Woody Guthrie might be more comfortable writing about."

The film's darker theme is echoed at the Baltimore truck stop. "Guys out here, they're not happy," Blaine says, pointing to the score of other drivers around the counter. "But trucking's all they know."

Cindy Gallant, 41, wearing a "Don't Mess With Texas" T-shirt, leans over and starts talking about the new crop of drivers.

"It used to be people went into trucking because they wanted to ride a truck," she says. "Now they do it because they need a job. They're 23 years old. Still don't have their act together."

The old ways are gone, agrees Bob Carr, 44, a clean-cut driver who resembles a young Kenny Rogers.

"I learned the trade from an old-timer," he says. "First thing he told you, 'I'm going to teach you courtesy. If you don't learn courtesy, you're not driving.' Nowadays, it's all about money. There's no courtesy no more."

Blaine pulls out a notebook to show his take-home pay versus expenses for the previous week. The grand total: $583. He has to split that profit with Tammy Aquilina, a 36-year-old co-driver and single mother who occasionally spells him driving relief. A trucker of 12 years, she has been spending more time at home with three teenage daughters in Michigan. But when Blaine -- a platonic friend -- swings through her state, she often hops aboard for a little extra money.