Truckers are generally solitary men. Yet occasionally—as in a hot and crowded truckers’ café, listening to some infinitely familiar record blaring on the jukebox—they are stirred, transfigured suddenly, without words or actions, from an inert crowd to a proud community: each man still anonymous and transient, yet knowing his identity with those around him, all those who came before him, and all who are figured in the songs and ballads.
