Jay Singh, 29, is one small link in that chain. A resident of Bakersfield, California, he’s been a long-haul trucker for eight years. He first got the idea, he says, when he was working at a gas station, looking for better work. A typical job, he says, might involve driving up to Salinas, where he loads up lettuce and spinach, or to Tulare for dairy products. He then hauls the goods wherever they’re wanted—often to warehouses owned by companies like Walmart, Costco or Little Caesars. 

He usually drives from California to Texas, but sometimes goes as far as Pennsylvania. Along the way, he subsists on fast food, cleans up in public bathrooms, and sleeps in the parking lots of state-owned picnic areas. But as the country enters a period of lockdown, his normal routine has started to become impossible. Restaurants have shut their doors. All-night truck stops are daytime-only. And states are closing public parks, including the rest stops that provide crucial respite throughout his journey. 

I talked to Singh hours before he got back in his Freightliner Cascadia truck and hit the road—this time, for a six-day round trip to an H-E-B warehouse in Temple, Texas, to deliver lettuce, spinach and other produce. His story has been edited and condensed.

—Sam Bloch

Jay Singh: I work for Roadies, Inc., hauling produce from California to Texas and back. Truck drivers are worried about what’s going on, but the worst part—what I’m facing today—is that truck stop restaurants are closed. It’s hard to get food, and they’re closing the washrooms. And where we’re delivering the produce, they don’t let us use their restrooms, either. Day by day, it’s getting worse. Our families are telling us to stop, but we cannot stop. Because we are the ones delivering food to shelves. And if we stop, then these big stores will stop. And no one will have food.

I bring lettuce from California shippers to Walmart, our main customer. The shippers aren’t big names—Taylor Farms, Andrew Smith in Salinas, Earthbound Farms. I also pick up oranges from Sun Pacific in Bakersfield. We deliver lettuce all over Texas—Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, all over. We take it to the warehouses and Walmart supplies the local stores from there.

Maybe 20 days ago, work was pretty heavy. But in the last four days, orders have gone down, I’d say, around 20 percent. All these restaurants are closed. So if they don’t order anything from the big wholesalers, then they don’t give orders to us. I get paid 50 cents a mile—whatever I drive in a week, that’s how I get paid. If the pizza places are closed, and don’t order as much cheese, then I’ll be sitting at home for three days, waiting for the next shipment to come.

I’ve been more successful stopping at mom-and-pop stores. If there’s a truck stop with their restroom shut, I can go across the street to a 7-Eleven, or a Valero or Chevron. Those are privately owned stores. I’ve stopped at some small places too—a Pilot truck stop in Arizona, Bombay Grill in Gallup, New Mexico. They were pretty cool. 

I have a bunkbed behind the driver’s seat, and sleep in my truck every day. A few weeks ago, I had a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for C&S Wholesale, and the rest areas and picnic stops were shut down, due to coronavirus. Now, finding a place to stop after 5:00 p.m. is chaos. If you stop at 9:00 or 10:00, there’s a very small chance of finding parking. So to get a parking spot, I just took an exit, and found a place off the exit ramp. I just park my truck in the dirt and sleep.

Pennsylvania and Ohio shut down the rest stops first, but now it’s in every state. I’m starting another trip today—I’m going to see how Arizona and New Mexico are doing. I’ve heard from other drivers that their rest areas are less maintained—they send a janitor or maintenance guy once a week. They are getting closed. There’s less traffic.