Bent Highway: Chapter Twelve

New Wave

My life had become a Godard movie - and not just the fucked up parts. I used to watch those French films, for some weird reason my small town video store had a full collection of French movies, all the New Wave ones, Godard, Renoir, Truffaut. I got bored with all the Hollywood crap, and started watching them. At first they made no sense, like that poetry that English teachers take apart as the whole class shares the same blank stare. Then I’d watch them again, and again. Just by myself, in my crappy apartment, after a shift at the hardware store. I drank warm Pilsner and chomped on Doritos - no Cabernet and smelly cheese for me. There was no way I’d invite anyone over to watch them with me - not even Harold. My mind did a swoop when I thought of him.

For one thing, the main thing, they were all chopped up. The stories didn’t play out like they did in regular movies. The first time I rented one, I took it back the next day and complained.

“Someone took chunks out of it.”

“That’s just the way they are.”

“What? You got them on sale or something?”

The video store owner took a long drag, he kinda looked like the skinny French guy in the movie.

“Watch it again. They're more like life than you might think.”

I went home and watched it again. And again. Then I went back and rented two more. Damned if he wasn’t right. Someone had told me that the video guy had gone to film school, tried to make it as a director, and came back with his tail between his legs. They also said there was a group of people looking to collect on some debts from his failed movie - the kind that got paid off in broken kneecaps.

I’d been on the highway for more than two hours - my mind drifting over to things like French movies. Back then, I kind of got the idea how life didn’t always run in a smooth line - but now, I’d been living it.

I don’t remember leaving the white room. Damn, I barely remember being in it. And what the hell was that thing with Harold? He burnt down my parents' house? For starters, that never happened. And then what about the kid talking about his friend Harold? The kid being me - and there was no way I’d known Harold back then.

Maybe Lester’s tire iron knocked me more than I knew.

And I sure as hell don’t remember finding my truck again. But here I was, peeling down a stretch of highway, with the same yellow lines, the same empty landscape, the same insignificant towns with combination grocery, liquor and insurance stores.

Some French director had taken my life as a film strip, cut out all the bits that made it make sense, and stitched it together again. I was thinking how this included the girl that kept popping into the story, when I saw the hitcher on the road. Of course it was her. I pulled over and she got in.

“You’re wet.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not raining,” I said.

“Not here.”

I reached behind the seat and pulled out a roll of paper towels. 

I drove, and Chalk Girl dried off.

“Why do you have these?”

“My mother always kept a roll in her truck - said they’d come in handy.”

“She still around?”

“Both my parents have been gone for a long time.”

“Hmm.”

We didn’t say anything else for a long time - though, I couldn’t say it it was ten minutes or a hundred. I’d given up trying to give markers to it. She looked out her window, and I thought I heard her hum, though no song I knew. The rain started just as we’d come out of a long grove of trees, drops that landed on the windshield like fat bugs. A few moments later it was a driving sheet that came with gale force winds.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You care to tell me?”

“What did Walt show you?” she asked.

“You mean in the room? That place he called—”

“The rest stop.”

“You’ve been there?” 

I couldn’t look at her when I asked. I was too focused on keeping the truck on the right side of the road. The rain moved into hail, peppering the windshield and body of the truck, reminding me of stones thrown against metal fences, of pellet guns fired into graineries. A huge gust came up and I swerved onto the other side. Twin circles appeared, seemingly inches away from me. I wrenched the wheel and swung the truck across the median as an earsplitting horn erupted. The back end of the truck fishtailed behind me, catching the force of the semi that ripped past with the force of a locomotive. The sound of loose gravel told me I had slid onto the shoulder, I steered into the fishtail, the truck righted it self and I eased back onto the road.

The rain suddenly slowed, then stopped as if someone had turned off a tap. I glanced over at Chalk Girl. She still peered out the window - unmoved by our near miss of becoming road kill.

“There’s a turn coming up. Half a mile.”

“A turn for where?”

She resumed humming, this time I caught the song -  one of those old folk songs that gets sung around campfires and protest marches.

A bent yellow sign appeared in the distance. As it grew closer, I made out the black arrow, pointing at the ground, and the pattern of dents I recognized from my days of firing .22’s at road signs.

“This it?”

She pointed.

I was about to ask her again to tell me where we were, and then I saw the edge of it. A house trailer with a long skinny antenna. Another French jump cut, and I saw it in flames. I was running away from it - or was it towards? There was a long drawn out scream from bowed lips. I’d been here before - I’d been here more than once.

“Do you see anything in front of it?” She had stopped humming.

I looked over at her - she stared out her window, away from the direction we were headed.

The truck came over a small rise, and I saw the trailer, intact, no sign of the fire that had filled my vision. 

“Anything like what?”

“He drives a long green car, I don’t know the name of it. One of those huge landshark deals.”

“The yard’s empty.”

She pointed again.

I pulled the truck in next to the mobile home. I gazed past the skinny row of poplars, into a wide field of grain, the sun beating down made the gold sheaves look like tiny fires. I walked toward the field. The truck door slammed behind me. I spun around. She pulled in front of me and rolled down the window.

“You’re going to leave me here, just like before.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’ll wait for you out on the road.” Her eyes were red.

“Tell me this,” I started, “whose car am I waiting for?”

“My husband’s.”

“What’s his name?”

“You know his name.”

She dropped it into drive. I listened to the tires on gravel leave the yard and head back to the highway. I walked back to the poplars, plunked down and rested my back against the thickest one, barely six inches across. A warm wind had picked up and rustled through the leaves, sounding like water through a channel.

She was right, I did know his name.