Bent Highway: Chapter Eleven

Rest Stop

I awoke in a glowing white room, unable to tell the source of the light. My leg throbbed. I didn’t have to look to know it was bleeding. Instead, I stared into the snout of the wolfdog – and towering above him, a man I needed to ask some questions.

“Where is this?”

“Think of it as a rest stop.”

The wolfdog growled.

“Seems more like a interrogation room.”

“We needed to get off the highway.”

“Where is she?”

“That’s not your concern.”

I knew what happened after we left Lester’s place – after I left myself behind. I had to tell myself that I didn’t die in that trailer, in that hole, I mean, here I was running away from myself, so I had to have made it. Thinking about all this was an existential two-by-four to the skull.

 The ground had opened up again once the airstream had disappeared into it. I had looked back to see Lester’s house finally give up the ghost, the last post snapped, and the whole shebang collapsed. Like the mouth of one of those big-ass sea monsters, the ground split again, swallowed the house and the surrounding sad bushes. Then, as if they were arrows pointed at us, the cracks moved away from the yard and towards where we ran.

I also remembered Walt squealing up next to us in his roadster. I’d jumped into the back seat, thinking she had gotten in the front, squeezed next to the dog. But like so much lately, the middle part between getting into the car and then ending up in barest of all rooms, was missing. Snipped right out like an article in the daily news.

“What is my concern then?”

“The rips are widening.”

“No shit. I just about got swallowed by one.” I ran my hands along the arms of the chair. “Why was I there?”

Walt reached behind to an area in deep shadow, funny how I hadn’t seen it before. He pulled out a tall backed chair, the wood a deep ebony in stark contrast to the room. My chair was some sort of scarred spruce deal. He sat down, the wolfdog eased down onto a spot in front of him, his eyes still fixed on me.

“Have you thought about why you travel?” Walt asked.

“I think I’ve asked you the same question. You never gave me an answer.”

Walt stared back at me. A low hum eminated from the walls - they seemed to be casting the warm yellow light filling the room “Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “All I know is I hit the highway running, like those old blues songs. And I mean the actual highway, just looking to put some miles between my hometown – and then I ran into you.”

“How much do you remember?”

“Of what? I told you, I left town, my crap-ass job, and I ended up in one of the craziest dreams I’ve ever had.”

“So you think you’re dreaming?” Walt’s hand’s picked up the colour from the walls, showing a line of scars across both sets of knuckles.

“I don’t know anymore. I just had a talk with myself, and I don’t mean that in the way psychiatrists like to suggest.”

“Some might say you are finally awakening.”

“Oh thanks, Plato. And what’s this place, the cave?” I swept my arms around the empty room.

Walt reached across and put his hands on my knees. He slid one hand up to the gash on my leg. I was about to yell out, when he reached across and put his left hand on top of his right. Warmth spread through the leg up into my torso and across my chest.

“I—”

“Don’t talk. Feel.”

The warmth reached my neck, slid across my chin, somehow behind my eyes and then deep inside me. The room changed around me – I was unsure if my eyes were open or closed. I was back in my hometown, standing outside my house. Or what used to be my house. I stared at the burnt shell, the boards that still smoldered. When is this? This never happened? Will it happen?

I heard Walt’s voice coming from somewhere in my head.

“Your friend has been causing some problems.”

“What? What friend?” I yelled into the sky.

“Hey, M. Who you yelling at?”

I turned around and faced the figure walking up what used to be the driveway. He kicked a squarish rock and sent it flying.

“Harold?”

“I don’t see no one else that’d come to that name.” Harold gave one of his big goofy grins and took a long slurp out of his green soda.“Kinda early to be lighting up – I mean, just saying.”

“Why are you here?”

“There you go with your philosophy again, M. You and that mind bending shit. Why are any of us here?” He laughed, finished the soda and tossed it on the burnt pile of lumber that used to be my bedroom.

Ask him what happened.

“Why do you keep looking up like that? Ain’t nothing but low flying crows up there my fuzzy headed friend.”

“What happened to my house, Harold?”

“Hmm? Fucked if I know.” 

Harold walked over to where he had thrown the soda cup, picked it up, turned around and walked backwards. A string of gibberish came from his mouth, like someone rewinding a cassette. His movements were jerky, again like cuts taken out of time. My house reassembled behind him. He turned again, and was suddenly holding a gasoline can, and then walked backwards around the house, leaving a trail of liquid. I heard the crack of a match, and then a larger snip was taken out and Harold stood behind me again. The soda cup was back on the pile, the house was a burnt heap of lumber.

I stared into Harold’s face.

“What’s up, M? Schrödinger’s cat got your tongue?”

“How long have I known you?”

“Hmm? Shit, guys like us, seems like there was never a time before we knew each other.”

“There was a before. A long time before.”

An intense pain shot through my head. My knees started to buckle. Harold lunged at me and I fell back. I expected to hit the ground, or stumble into the ashen wood, but I didn’t.

I kept falling.

And falling.

And.

* * *

“Now that he knows, he will make things very difficult.”

“Knows what?”

Walt stroked the wolfdog. My leg was bleeding again.

“He knows that you know.”

“Quit hurting my head and tell me.”

“He finds people like you, rides their memories, rips them apart.”

“Harold?”

“That’s how he appears to you. If you are finally awake, and it sounds like you are close, you know that he is not now, nor has he ever been a part of your life.”

“He is ripping it apart.”

“Now you are awake.”