Bent Highway: Chapter Seventeen

Line

Every damn scientist, theologian, mathematician, and super-funked out guru since forever ago has been trying to figure out time. Is it a line, a circle, an inverted cone, or a can of silly string? I’ve seen it every which way these past days, hours, moments. For the most part, one thing follows another - or at least that is how my brain tries to make sense of it. For instance, when the bad-ass I know as Harold got out of his car, he walked with purpose to the Charger, where I sat with the good ole boys. A moment after he got out, the boys both closed one eye and took a bead on Harold’s forehead. Shortly after, or maybe at the same time, the girl with the perfectly bowed lips and increasingly tragic smile, got out the passenger side. The driver sporting the Nascar hat yelled something about cutting down. I didn’t really hear him over the R and B blasting out the car speakers. For me, time kept getting snipped - it was like those crafts in grade school where you fold over a piece of paper and use your scissors to take out chunks and bits. It seems like you aren’t doing anything but making a mess on the classroom floor, and then you open up a beautiful little snowflake. Ain’t that a kick in the head?

I didn’t want a snip taken out. I wanted everything to stop. I needed to walk out there on the road, go up to Chalk Girl and ask her what the hell was going on. Scratch that - I didn’t care what was going on - I just wanted to get the hell out of here, maybe after kicking Harold in the nards. I wanted to go to a place where things happened one after another. You drink a beer, then you follow it with another, but only after the first one is emptied. That’s how it works. Or was supposed to.

I needed to tell her that I was sorry I couldn’t help her back in the trailer, all the times we had went back. I lost track how many times, but they flipped through my head like a spinning Rolodex full of tears. Walt told her that some things can’t be changed. Trailers burn. People die. Even young ones. Life sucks. And so does time.

I wanted no more of Harold and whatever shit he was trying to pull. He got into her life, her memories, her line, and he tore it apart. I know she was not the first, or the last, that Harold would do this to. The fuzzy headed freak liked things that way - scrambled, the more messed up the better. Walt found me in that field all those years ago, wandering, unsure of where I was, and more importantly when it was. There was something in my head that kept blipping out the memories - they flooded back in from time to time - but they always faded. Walt had been trying to take out Harold for years, decades even, or probably longer. I guess he figured somehow I was the guy to finally put it through the uprights, drop the three-pointer at the buzzer, sink the long putt, or just plain flush the bastard down the john.

I looked back to the highway. Harold's sword was covered in a maze of ornate lines that would have made a samurai jealous. He held it high above his head and was about to bring it down on the back end of the Charger. I had no doubt that it was some ancient blade, sharp enough to cut through steel, rock, bone or flesh - whatever was needed. I watched the blade and waited. It didn’t move. I realized that Harold was in freeze-frame. Turning around in the car, I saw the good ole boys were also frozen, as was the driver. The music had stopped, outside the wind had went still. One of the boys had a gun pointed out the window. About an inch from the barrel hung a bullet, floating in the air, a puff of smoke drawn behind it.

Well, this was convenient. 

A knock on the passenger side window made me jump and knock into one of the statue boys. The door opened.

“You coming or what?”

“Are you doing this?”

“Me and a bit of Walt. Does it matter?”

I looked out the back window at the frozen Harold.

“If you can do this - shouldn’t we take him out?”

“You been riding with these hillbillies too long. Let's go.” She turned and started walking down the highway. I got out of the Charger and followed her.

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“Can you make it last?”

“Ha. That’s supposed to be what the girl asks isn’t it?” She laughed again.

I glanced back, waiting for that sword to drop, for the bullet to rip through the air, for the carnage to begin. The road rippled under my feet.

“Here he comes.” Chalk Girl pointed to a dark spot that appeared on the edge of the horizon.

The spot widened, the ground shook, and I squinted into the distance. Something was coming fast, just ahead of the dark spot.

“Why were you with him?”

“Hmm? Oh that. Walt’s idea.”

“That’s him coming isn’t it?”

“About damn time too.”

My next question was blocked out by the sound of screeching metal - a blade cutting into the back end of an orange muscle car was my guess. Wind swept up and over us. The ground had moved from shaking into heaving. Behind me guns went off, more screeching and clanging. Someone emptied a cartridge. I didn’t look back - it was hard enough just staying upright.

Walt’s sedan was a half a mile away. The black crevice was a half a mile and about 100 yards.

“Why did Walt want you with Harold?” I yelled over the wind.

“We need to run.”

It was the crazy-ass Olympics, charging forward, leaping over rippling asphalt, the yellow lines whipping like a snake. An engine fired up behind me, squealing tires and smoke filled the air. Chalk girl reached into her jacket and brought out a shiny piece of metal. She tossed me the gun while leaping over a three foot high chunk of road. I grabbed it and jumped, coming down hard on my ankle. I tripped and half-fell, half-rolled onto the shoulder.

“Slow him down.” She yelled back to me.

“What?”

The Charger was coming down on me - the fuzzy headed driver held the sword high out the window, a trail of black smoke followed him like storm clouds from hell. I could have used some of that time-stopping ability about now, or at least a slowing down. I closed an eye and fired. Sound waves bent and warbled around me, the ground, the road, even the air moved out of focus as if someone had twisted a lens. A long golden line shot out of the gun, over the hood, and plunged into the windshield. The entire car lit up - a skeletal image of Harold flashed, his mouth wide open, his eyes as red as the headlights on his car. The line whipped and pulled the Charger with it, flipping it over and dragging it like a hooked trout off the highway and into the ditch. The last of the line left my gun and snapped in the direction of the twisted orange muscle car.

My leg pounded, a line of blood ran down my thigh. Edges around me sharpened, Walt’s sedan came into focus. The crevice would be on us in a few seconds. The door was open, her white face bent toward me, the lips formed a single word.

“Come.”