ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE
SOURCE: WENDY GROSSMAN THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
HE OWNS ANYTIME TOWING, and that's not false advertising. In a highly competitive business, Bill Zemenieuski has to be available day and night.
The Portsmouth Police Department recently called Bill Zemenieuski at 5 a.m. They needed him to tow a stolen Honda Accord with no rims and no tires out of a field.
Zemenieuski, 28, is the owner of Anytime Towing. And he means it. He's on call 24 hours a day.
``Sometimes I wish I had a break for a couple of hours, or a couple of days off,'' he says.
But he doesn't get it. Not with all the competition out there. There are six pages of towing services in the Yellow Pages.
Country music by Alabama plays on the radio of Zemenieuski's air-conditioned truck as it bounces down the road. With one hand on the wheel, he talks on a two-way radio with Anytime's other driver and scribbles notes on a clipboard. His cell phone's ringing.
Zemenieuski 's company has contracts with AAA, three junkyards and two auto dealerships as well as local and state police. He hauls between 20 and 30 cars a day.
But he's not one of those guys who tow away your car in the middle of the night.
Too dangerous, he says. ``I went to pick up a Corvette one time, and the man stepped out on the front porch with a shotgun and told me not to move the car.''
Most car owners aren't that volatile - but they're not always happy to see him. They scream and holler that he's late, even when he's on time. Or they curse and tell him he's doing it wrong.
He just smiles and does his job. Sometimes he helps them out by fixing a flat tire, jumping the engine, recharging the battery or reattaching cables. If he can fix the problem, he will - instead of hauling the car to a mechanic who will charge them.
Zemenieuski just loves driving, and messing with cars. When he's not out in the wrecker, he's at home in Chesapeake with his wife, Deborah, and their baby boy. He spends his free time dispatching calls or driving the family tractor-trailer.
He's done everything from bagging groceries to construction. This job's the best, though, because it takes him all over the place.
Last week, he drove to Wise, at the opposite end of the state. He's also gone to Pennsylvania, and he's returned a stolen Mercedes to its owner in Miami.
Except for a silver Volvo he picked up four times, Zemenieuski says, ``you're never in the same place twice. You might go on the same street five times - but to a different house.''
And when he gets there, he's never sure what he's going to find.
Once, he pulled a car out of 18 feet of water. On Memorial Day, he towed a stolen car with a 450-pound dead pig in the back seat. The Suffolk police told him to take the porker home.
In his eight years driving tow trucks, he's seen cars hit so hard they split in two. Arms and legs sticking out of shattered windows. His worst job was pulling a car off a 4-year-old girl.
Today's not so rough.
Zemenieuski's gloved hands drag the eight-inch J-hook across the truck's metal bed and attach it to the undercarriage of the rust-colored '79 Cadillac. The license plate says ROLNFAT. Not anymore.
Floyd Lewis, 33, pulls his bag of groceries out of the passenger's seat and watches Zemenieuski spin the wheel three times to straighten out the tires, and move it onto his truck.
It's happened before, Lewis says, ``so it ain't no big deal. I just don't like seeing my car hooked up like a fish. It looks like the catch of the day.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Zemenieuski does it all in the towing game, exceptby CNBfor taking away cars in the middle of the night. He quit that after
someone pulled a shotgun on him.