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.

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.”

How the hell do you explain a book?

Maybe not the most elegant title for a post, but something I have been thinking about... a lot. One of the issues the Big 6 publishers had with Correction Line (as forwarded to me by the agent for the novel) was that it couldn't be easily placed in a genre. It was too literary to really be a suspense thriller, but it had too many suspense type elements to really be a literary book. (And no one seemed to be buying literary books anyway).

Oh, and then there is the whole supernatural thing.

Insert Homer voice: D'oh!

Now, back then, I was pretty bitchy about the whole thing. I mean, c'mon, cross-genre books are the new black right? (As in, the dress everyone wants). But after self-publishing Correction Line on Amazon, and having to talk about the book, I am seeing their point. (Gasp!) It is a book that sits in-between.

As the reviews come in, and they have been very favourably thus far, I am seeing how the book can elicit different opinions. Comparisons run from James Lee Burke (love) to Clive Barker (never read). And of course I am delighted when a reader drew a comparison to Marquez (a definite influence) and Allende (only read one of her books).

The minimal approach is mentioned, which for me rest in Carver, but even more so with Richard Ford. Note - a big fan post will be upcoming, as I am seeing him read tonight.

So this is all to say, in this soup, how do you tell somebody what your book is about? Readers seem to often want some sort of touchstone, notably a book that they've read, or at least heard of. Well it's kinda like Moby Dick, but without the whale. Or it's a kind of Harry Potter, but with Meth. (Breaking Hogwarts?)

Okay, that's just silly.

I digress. Often.

But take one of your favorite novels, and try to explain it without comparing it other books. For me, it's Underworld by Don DeLillo. What is Underworld about? Everything.

DeLillo combines life in New York (the Bronx), with Truman Capote, J. Edgar Hoover, with the Cold War, Nuclear bombs, waste management, the Zapruder film, installation artists in the desert, chess, Jackie Gleason, Lenny Bruce, nuns, miraculous visions, the internet, and oh, of course: BASEBALL!

Now, did I mention this is one of my favorite books? Maybe this sheds some light on things.

If you do pick up Correction Line, shoot me a message and tell me how you would explain it.

I'd sure like to know.

Bent Highway: Chapter Ten

Airstream

Lester’s front porch sagged like a Sally Ann bargain mattress, and just as stained and worn. Two of the four supporting posts were completely gone and the others had two by fours nailed into the parts that weren’t rotten. He pulled up the half-ton next to a dented airstream that I recognized right away.

Lester got out of the truck and banged on the trailer door. 

Inside there was a muffled, “What?”

“Where’s your mother?” Lester yelled through the door.

“Damned if I know.”

“Hey, no swearing you little fuck.” Lester turned to me. “What the hell’s with kids these days? No don’t answer… I’ll tell you - it’s hippies like you. They see you going around with your lily white fingers holding up peace signs, and don’t trust anyone over thirty, and stupid-ass flared pants that have rainbows stitched on them… shit, don’t get me started.”

Too late.

A phone rang from inside the house. I worried that the vibrations might be the final blow to the porch. Lester went inside to go answer it. The yard was a mixture of gray dirt and long brown grass. My eye caught a single brush of colour sprouting up from the ground.

“My mom planted it. Said she got tired of looking at nothing.”

I turned to the voice that had emerged from the trailer. A skinny kid with long Neil Young hair, and the plaid shirt to match, stood in the open doorway. Damn, I loved that shirt. The faded jeans led down to a pair of cobalt blue Adidas. The gazelles. Holy crap, I worshipped those shoes like Lester did his Lamas.

“It’ll be dead in a week anyway. Knowing my Uncle, he’ll probably come and piss on it in the night because it’d be easy to hit.”

The voice had that forced quality to it, trying for 70’s cool, Pacino-esque, but still having the hiccup of a kid with recently acquired pubes.

“So who are you? Lester bring you back for my mom? Cuz, I’ll tell you, that ain’t going happen Superfly.”

A shiver went through me. What the hell do you say when you meet yourself?

“He just picked me up,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Like ole Lester’s going pick up hitchers. He tries to run them over with that piece of shit truck of his.” The voice broke, skipped up an octave and landed back down.

“I guess he’s softening.”

The kid sniffed and threw his long hair back.

“Right. Well, she ain’t here anyway.”

Lester came out of the house, yanking on his overalls. I swore his boots looked even shinier.

“Hey you little shit. I thought I told you to cut the lawn.”

A roll of the eyes and a head twitch. I looked across the yard to a rusted pushmover that poked above the two foot high, mostly dead grass.

“See what I mean?” Lester said to me. “Well you flower-children can just fend the fuck fer yerselves. I gotta go out on a call.”

“Emergency paint situation? Someone’s wall peeling?”

Was I really that much of a smartass? I was tempted to give the snot-nose a tap myself.

“You can take yer Pepsi generation and shove it right up the ass-crack of the world.”

Me and teenage-me looked at each other with the exact same shrug of the shoulders. The teenager’s eyes flashed, the cool act flickered, then after another head shake, it was back.

“Is there any food in the fridge?”

“How in the hell would I know?”

Lester got back in the truck and spun out of the laneway.

“So, if you’re not here for my mom, why are you riding with that asshole?”

“It’s an honest question.” A pain shot through my stomach. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. “You think there’s anything edible in there?” I pointed back to the house.

“Pickles and jars of peppers. It’s all he lives on.”

“Explains a lot,” I said.

“Damn right,” I said back.

“I’ve got a cooler in here with some bologna and cheese. You shoot me a buck and I’ll give you one of my Fantas.”

“Grape?”

“Of course. Wait—” Another look. “Do I know you?”

“Just a good guess. The grape is by far the more excellent – especially with salt and vinegar chips.”

“Looks like we come from the same part of town.”

I followed myself into the trailer.

* * *

I crammed a wedge of chips into my mouth and took a swig of the teeth-numbingly sweet soda. Across the tiny metal table a shaggy-haired teen ate in almost the exact same way. It was the weirdest of fun-house mirrors. He didn’t seem to notice anything strange, except for the odd eye flutter, and the awkward body movements that came with being 16.

And this is climbing up the charts, King Harvest is Dancing in the Moonlight.

“Oh damn, I love the guitar in this song,” teenage-me said and turned up the volume on the transistor.

“Yeah, but listen to the bass. And holy crap, is that a cowbell?”

“A what?”

“Nevermind.”

I sat there listening to another blast from the classic rock era, realizing that I wasn’t listening to an oldie station. Damn. I don’t know how the hell I got here, but if this was real, then I had an actual chance to tell myself something that could change my life. And it had to be real. Everything up to now had been. The guys in the fedoras, the good ole boys in the Charger, the tire iron that Lester planted on the back of my head. It was all very fucking real.

My mind raced through all the mistakes I made in life. Drunken nights of puking, bar fights, bad jobs, lost jobs, getting stoned before that Physics final in grade 12, getting arrested for possession, and then there were the women. Shit. Who do I tell him not to date? Susan, the psycho that tried to impale me with her high heels the night I told her it was over. Or Jen, the other psycho that took her dad’s 22 and shot out the back window of my Pontiac. Thank God he’d never taught her how to aim.

“I’m going to get out of this shithole, you know.”

“What?”

“I see what you’re thinking. No-nothing kid living out here in the sticks with Uncle Nutso and the coyotes. You think I got absolutely nothing going on. Am I right?”

“How old are you?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Old enough. My old man took off, but me and my mom aren’t going to stay here.”

“I know,” it was out of my mouth too fast.

“What do you mean you know?” His young bottom lip twitched and I could see the tears form in the corner of his eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

He stood up from the table, his head brushing the roof of the trailer.

“Relax. Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” 

He flicked off the radio, right in the middle of the Bellamy Brothers.

“You some sort of cop or something?” Again, the quaver in his voice. “Because my buddy Harold is the one you should be after.”

What? Did he, did I, just say Harold? I didn’t meet Harold until I was in my 20’s, even 25.

“I’m not a cop. I—” A deep rumble sounded outside. “Look, I want to tell you something.”

Another rumble.

“What is that?”

The trailer shook, and teenage-me grabbed the edge of the table. A slow vibration moved through the entire space, the chip bowl bounced toward the edge, my Fanta foamed.

“What’s happening?” 

I watched my young face twist into a look of fear. Tears ran down his cheeks as the shaking increased. His eyes grew wide as he gripped the edge of a tiny cupboard. His bottle rolled across the table and shattered on the floor.

“WHO ARE YOU?” he screamed above the noise. 

It felt like the entire Airstream was about to peel back like a sardine can. The door flew open and slammed against the metal siding.

She stood there, clad in a weathered jacket, the black leather covered in a layer of dirt. The whiteness of her skin shone through the grime on her face.

“You coming or what?”

I looked back at my younger self - the look of fear shifted. He gazed at those red lips and then slowly turned to me. A hum washed through the trailer, a high pitched whine rose - the trailer jerked and the back tires fell into the hole that I imagined opening up beneath us.

“Well?” she asked.

“I know who you are.”

“Is this going to stop if we leave?” I shouted.

“Probably. Not sure.” She glanced behind her, toward the house.

I got up and leapt for the door, smashing the chip bowl onto the floor. The kid just stood there.

“You’re me.”

Chalk girl pulled me through the door, and turned and ran. I stared at the motion trail following her, black lines bent and whipped through the air. Behind me the trailer sunk. Through the clouded window, I could just make out his face. I needed to go back. I needed to tell him. I needed to tell him it would be okay. I lunged toward the trailer a second too late. I watched the top of it sink below me, my feet on the edge of the chasm.

“M!”

I took a step toward the pit.

“M!”

The ground underneath me rippled. I pulled back as the hole grew into a crack, and then sealed itself with a groan.

I turned and ran after her voice.

King Harvest!

Bent Highway is going to be up within the hour - here is a musical teaser. This tune figures in today's chapter.

Groove along.

More cowbell!!!