Bent Highway: Chapter Five

Truth

So chalk girl had a name, or an initial at least. I ripped the note off the steering wheel, slammed the truck door and cranked the engine. What the hell else was I going to do? Lately, driving was the only constant in my life.

I thought back to that day I'd cut out from Harold and his Lime Green Slurpee. Or it might have been a Gulp, who knew? I'd being living in the same town, same hockey rink, same bar with the same beer on tap, and the same shoe leather pizza. I stayed in the same place all those years, but I was still adrift. After both my parents died and my sister left town for who the hell knows where, the sadness moved into a lingering depression and then a deep apathy. 

There was a part of me that longed for another time, not my time – I couldn’t imagine an age that was any better than any other – but some other time when life made more sense. Or at least something that was more beautiful, or simple, or both. Truth was, I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking for. I just knew I had to leave.

I didn't hit the road looking for adventure. I didn't have romantic notions of long twilight drives on open roads with stars shining down on me like God's pinpricks of truth or some crap like that. Truth was listening to the smack of a grasshopper nailing your windshield and brushing away his fronts legs with your wiper, or hitting a bump that you knew used to be a raccoon and making it part of the road. Around me there was life, fields of wheat and barley and mustard, creatures scooting through the long rows, birds overhead in arrow formations, swirling with wind. And there was death. All around me.

I let my mind drift between those two states of being: alive and dead. Which one was I escaping from? I’d done the alive thing for more than thirty years – I considered plowing into a speeding locomotive just to try the other state for a while. 

I was picking out the railway crossing when I met L.

It all came back, flooded in, the whole conversation, her face, those great lips, the smell of the bar in Clarksville. Everything.

"You want to talk about it?"

That's how she introduced herself.

"You're assuming I have problems," I said.

"We all do, but I think you have more than most." She sipped a glass of clear liquid. "But let's start with saying no matter what happens, you're not getting in my pants. Just put that the fuck out of your mind."

"Fine with me." It had crossed my mind. "But what's the point of telling you anything. It could all be bullshit."

"Try me."

I told her about my life the last few years. I started out by trying to make it more interesting than it was – but then she reminded me of the pants comment. Right. So I laid it out. Bored as hell. Waiting for something interesting to happen or someone to put a gun to my head or possible do it myself.

"What about you? What's your deal?"

She drained her drink, motioned at the bartender and crossed her legs.

"Similar story, maybe mine had a bit more rape and abuse in it. Fear creates a kind of boredom. So does anger."

"So what did you do?"

"Well, I thought about the bullet to the head approach. Until I met a guy who showed me the ultimate escape."

"You're a junkie."

"Sure, call it that. But not like you think. Walt showed me a way to escape this plodding life, where one second follows another, and that drips into a minute and hour and before you know it, you're in the rest home watching the Price is Right and actually giving a fuck who wins the showcase."

I laughed."Never thought of it that way. So who’s this Walt guy? Can I meet him?"

"Sure. But you'll have to get pissed first." She motioned to the bartender again, pointed to her glass and to me.

A table full of shots and glasses of draft later, I fell into a wide crack in the floor. I don’t remember much of the journey through it, dark outlines of people, a lot of country music (as weird as that was, twangy guitars and vibrating mandolins made sense), and then I landed in the middle of a field. Or I stood up in one anyway.

It was high noon, just like in that old oater. I swore I heard a clock ticking, but it couldn’t have been a mind retina burn from the movie. A tall figure came toward, walking through waving prairie grass. A wolf trotted beside him. When he was just about on me, I saw that it was just a dog, or maybe part dog. The eyes were a icy blue, staring at me like I’d look good with a gash in my throat.

I glanced behind me. Chalk girl had not followed me into the crack.

“Sun.”

The voice rippled through the air, a deep bass that I felt in my chest. I bent my neck, held my hand across my eyes and peered into a dagger of light.

“Son.”

I couldn’t figure out if he was talking to me, the dog, or just pointing out the obvious. Just then the ground swelled underneath me, I lost my balance as it rolled. Flat on my back, I felt a series of diminishing ripples move under me and away. It was like being on a small boat. Except I wasn’t.

“Wave.”

I stood, my knees still a bit shaky, getting my sea legs, in a wheat field.

“Where is this?” The field stretched out in every direction, not a building or a road in sight.

“Straddle the line, your body, your blood, needs to be in both places.”

I was surprised when the giant, because that’s what he seemed like, had strung together a few words. I gave my most intelligent response.

“What?”

The dog moved toward me and I flinched.

“Both places.”

I relaxed as the animal brushed up against me, nuzzling my hand just like the German Shepherd I had as a kid. Something flashed in the hand of the one that chalk girl called Walt.

________

I clenched the steering wheel remembering the pain. Was it the blade or the dog’s teeth that sunk into my arm? And what happened after that?

I was shaken out of the memory as I braked to avoid a couple of cars crossing the highway. They must have been on their way to an antique show. I never was a car guy, but these had to be from the forties, and in mint condition.

Now that I thought of it, which city were they headed toward? And why I didn’t remember the highway being this rough? I flicked on the radio to try and catch a local station. More country twang of course, but at least this had a bit of a swing to it.

“Well there you have it ladies and gents, that new sound we’ve been hearing a lot of from Bob Wills and a fine group of fella’s called the Texas Playboys. Sweet sweet melodies.”

New sound? I recognized the name and was pretty sure the guy they mentioned had been dead for years.

I leaned over to twist the dial and had to slam on the brakes. Those two antique car owners had turned their cars around and formed a line across the road.

My truck squealed to a stop. Two men got out of each car. White shirts and suspenders, sharp creased pants with neat cuffs, all of them wearing fedoras, all of them smoking. But what most caught my eye is the tire iron one was carrying. Another slung a Louisville slugger over his shoulder, the third guy held clenched fists at his sides. The last guy was carrying a fiddle, but not like he was going to play it.

Comments

[Smurphy]

I'm looking forward to discovering, with the guy, what's going on.

[Craig Terlson]

Chuckle.
Yeah, me too..
Another chapter later this aft.