Bent Highway: Chapter Fifteen

Milk

Walt looked even bigger than his usual gigantic self. Maybe it was how he was tucked in behind the corner table in one of the darkest bars I’ve been in – and that’s saying something. I expected to see a line of shot glasses splitting the table, so the tall glasses of white liquid threw me.

“Milk? Are you kidding?”

“Drink up. Good for your bones.” Walt drained the last of his glass, leaving a mustache that made him look more regal than silly.

“I thought the whole reason—”

Walt slid the glass in front of me.

“Things change,” he looked at Chalk Girl as he continued, “ don’t they?”

“Can I get a real drink?” she called over to the bar. “Something dark and murky? You know, bad for my liver and my self-esteem.”

The bartender brought over a green bottle and poured three fingers into a highball glass. Walt turned back to me.

“Didn’t really think I’d see you again. There’s been a turn of events.”

“Where’s Harold?” I asked.

“How much do you remember?” Walt’s voice dropped even lower and reverberated threw my chest like a hi-fidelity woofer.

“I’m putting it together.” A pain shot across the back of my skull and down my spine.

Walt pointed at my untouched glass. I lifted and chugged back half of it. It was thicker than I’d thought, milk-like, but there was more than bovine juice in there. It dulled the fire of pain. I drank some more, and it was if the fluid travelled down every nerve ending, soothing and enveloping them in a blanket of safety.

“Introduce me to this cow sometime, Walt.”

Chalk girl had refilled her highball.

“Take the bottle and go sit by the bar. I need to talk with M.”

I watched her leave, the edges of my vision blurred.

“So where are the Charger guys? And can I get some more of this damn milk?”

Walt gestured over to the bartender. Only now did I realize we were alone, except for Chalk Girl. I could have swore there were people in here when we entered. I looked over to the bar and suddenly she was gone.

“What's going on, Walt?” The words came out of my mouth like slowed down reel to reel. 

A dome of light appeared over the table, and glowing white walls slid down and around us. I could just see the rest of the bar through the light cave that had formed around us.

“You have been on the highway a long time - I don’t expect you to remember it all. We have been in this place before and many like it. But this is the closest we have ever come to stopping him. He fears you, though he doesn’t show it.”

I nodded. A low drone emanated from the light walls, if Gregorian chants would have started up, I wouldn’t have been surprised. A flash of memory back to a stretch of land, people wandering, some wrapped in rags, some with their face covered, a burning stench.

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter. We have help from an unlikely place.”

“The trailer park boys in the Charger?” 

“Yes, among others.”

“The ones that tried to put a hole in Lester and his truck? And us. Wait, you said he fears me?” My voice had went back to its normal speed, though it had a lilt to it, almost sing-songy.

“The time of the highway is coming to an end. Harold, as you call him, knows this, and has been creating even more chaos than usual. Rips are increasing, both in frequency and size. I have tried to hold things together, and he has tried to tear it apart. That’s how it’s always been. But now, there is a chance to have closure.”

“Walt, can I just say, I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

A rare smile spread across the giant’s face. It was cut short by the sudden disappearance of the light walls. The room around me short circuited - there was a flash, reality around me blipped in and out back in again, and then was gone.

I was on a road.

Again.

I’d been in Wyoming once – who knows when. I had gotten out of my truck and stood in the middle of a highway, staring as far as I could it in either direction. There was not a single soul to be seen, heard, or even talked about. I thought maybe I’d landed back there. I waited for the howl of wind.

Instead, I heard the growl of a bored out carb. I turned toward where the blacktop dipped and bent around a hill. The growl turned into a roar and a flash of orange appeared on the horizon. I stood my ground, straddling the yellow line. The wind picked up, but the engine noise beat it out. 

Sure, maybe it’s a stupid-ass thing to do, standing in the middle of a highway as a car barrells toward you - but I thought, if this was it, then this was it. Walt said the highway was going to close, whatever the hell he meant. But maybe I wanted to close with it.

The Charger grew on the horizon - no sign of slowing down. My leg started to throb, and I didn’t have to look down to know it was bleeding. I laughed and thought about the thing Walt must have told me a hundred times.

"You straddle the line, your body, your blood, needs to be in both places.”

In about sixty seconds my body and blood were going to be in a lot of places.

Tires grabbed the pavement and squealed, smoke spilled out the back of the Charger. Snips taken out of time again – the car almost on me, swerving by me, slowing down, spinning and stopping. The air thick with the smell of oil and burnt rubber. The Charger pulled up next to me, and the driver rolled down the window.

“I could have made you part of my grill.”

The wife beater was bright white, like he’d just bleached it.

“Get in the car.”

“Where we going?”

The driver spit, a brown goo landed next my black Lama boots. Not sure when I picked those up.

“Just get in the car asshole.”

“How about you ask nicely?” I admired the shine on my boots, and for a moment I understood what Lester was always going on about.

“Please get in the car asshole.”

“Tell your wife she used too much bleach.”

“What?”

I got in the Charger. Two good old boys were crammed in the back. The driver’s Nascar hat could have used a run through the washer. He slammed on the gas and we peeled down the highway. I knew a green sedan would soon appear. I just didn't know if it’d be behind us, or if we were driving right into it.