Bent Highway: Chapter Seven
Friday, August 31, 2012 at 09:26AM 
Mezcal
“Under seat.”
Walt’s voice dipped down and warbled like he was going over those bumps in the highway that warn you that you’re drifting into the ditch.
“Look,” he said.
I reached under and pulled out a dusty bottle, no label, just some yellowish liquid. Oh yeah, and the worm curled up at the bottom.
“Mezcal.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. You don’t expect me to—”
“Drink.”
We hit a real bump on the highway and the bottle leapt out of my hand. I grabbed it before it flew into the front seat and nailed the dog creature. I spun off the top. The fumes ground out the sides of my nostrils and ended up somewhere behind my eyes.
“Understand.”
A piss shiver ran through me as I tipped it back and took a long swallow. To say it burned would not give enough credit – more like tore down my throat and incinerated everything left behind. Not bad. I had another long pull, letting the worm float toward my tongue, its bumpy exoskeleton banged against the sides. I swallowed and watched it float back to the bottom.
The road became smooth. It didn’t even feel like we were driving any more. Telephone poles whipped by, and then slowed down enough to notice small black birds balanced on the wires, and then sped up again.
“It’s called squeeze-time.”
I gave my head a shake. It was a different voice. Shit, did the dog just say something?
“Things will speed up and slow down. It can be hard on the head.”
I leaned forward, blood rushed through my head, and fell back into my chair.
“Say Walt – your crazy hooch is making the dog talk.”
“A long rip on this part of the road. We’re riding it.”
“Whatever. Bow-wow.” My voice was slurred. I felt like a sixteen year-old on his first drunk. How had that happened that fast? I closed my eyes. “Hey Walt, ask the dog why his kind hates cats so much.”
A low chuckle.
“Sound will change on you too. Hard to pinpoint the source. Waves echo and bounce along a rip – but only when you are in tune.”
I opened an eye and saw Walt’s lips moving, but not quite in sync with what he just said.
“How come your voice is different? And this is the most I’ve heard you say at once.” I sat up, pushed the heels of my hands against my temples. “Shit. You were going to tell me what just happened.” A car whipped past us going the other way, faster than a car should be able to go. “The guys in the hats. What was their deal?”
“You are hearing all of what I say now. Only now, and on this part of the rip. You went down twice. It happens.”
“Down? Wait, it’s filling in now. We were in that bar, me and her. And someone was coming at me. It was you – coming from across the room.”
“It happens near rips. That’s how I first found them.” Walt reached across and stroked the dog/wolf’s head.
His words were matching his lips now, though the voice was different than the times before.
“He doesn’t talk does he?”
“Not usually.”
My own voice had straightened out. Fastest drunk I’ve ever had.
“What happens by the rips?”
“Aggression. Sometimes just people with bad tempers, arguments. Sometimes worse.”
“How worse?”
“I had to get you out of there. It wouldn’t have been good. She shouldn’t have taken you there.”
Her white face drifted through my mind.
“Where is she now?”
“Not sure. She didn’t follow.”
I spun off the cap of the bottle without thinking and took a couple of swigs. I was either getting used to the fire, or all my nerve endings were fried.
“What the deal with the booze?”
“It fills in some things.”
“What was that thing you said? It repeats in my head once in awhile.”
"You straddle the line, your body, your blood, needs to be in both places.”
Something tugged in the back of my brain, it was stronger than deja vu, I pictured myself at a bar, a line of glasses, and Walt repeating what he had just said. Outside my window a tall white globe rose on the horizon. At first I thought it was the sun, or maybe the moon. The sky was darkening. The letters formed into Texaco.
“You’ve told me all this before.”
“The memory gaps will start to fade, but they won’t be gone completely. You’re not made that way. None of us are.”
Walt pulled our car into the gas station. A long sedan was pulled up next to one of the pumps, and a bright yellow Charger was next to that. I didn’t know much about cars, except Chargers. I’d always wanted one.
“Wait a sec. Those fedora guys. Where – when were they from?”
“Can’t really identify years on the highway, maybe the 40’s.”
I pointed outside.
“74 Charger. Last of the great muscle cars. I always wanted one too,” Walt said.
“How do you—” I answered my own question in my head.
We pulled in behind the Charger and the dog let out a half-growl, half-bark, half-voice from the deep. I cranked my window down and poked my head out to get a better look at the vintage car. Though, I guess wherever, shit, whenever we were it wasn’t an old car.
I damn near decapitated myself on the window when Walt slammed it into reverse, spun into a two point turn. A blast echoed off the back of the car. The right tailfin, the one near just ahead of where my head used to be, disappeared. I looked out the front windshield and saw the guy in the Nascar hat, wife beater, and black levis pump the shotgun and level it square with Walt’s forehead.
Damn if time didn’t stand still.
And I don’t mean it felt like it.
It did.
Then like someone released the pause button, there was a squeal of tires and Walt gunned it right toward the guy pointing the double barrel. He fired and I swore I saw every pellet zipping through the air. I waited for the windshield to explode, followed by Walt’s head, then mine.
And waited.
What the hell?
The car swung out in a long arc and I watched the pellets float by. Walt reached across in front of the dog, still cranking the wheel, popped open the passenger door and clipped Mr. Nascar. He spun around like a pissed off ferret, the gun flew out from his reach and he hit the ground. The gun went off again when it hit, but I couldn’t see where the blast went.
“Damn. Knew I knew that car.”
Again I found myself peering out the back window and watching a scene of two people exiting the Charger and bending over the guy on the ground. His neck was bent at an angle that necks shouldn’t go.
“How could you know them?” I studied Walt’s face, deep lines from his eyes led into the corners of his mouth. He was the type of guy where you didn’t know if he was a hard-living forty, or a fit sixty… or a two hundred year old fucking druid. No idea. He seemed taller outside, if that was possible. Behind the wheel he still looked like a big guy, but outside when he took on the fedoras he was massive.
When he didn’t answer, I asked him again. “You mean from before?”
“I’ve met a few others like them on the highway.”
“Others? Wait – why are you doing it? Why are they…who are—”
Questions knocked against the inside of my skull as I tried to take in what Walt had been telling me. Somehow this highway, and maybe others had places, rips, that led to another time. Einstein aside – could I even be thinking this? Outside it had become too dark too fast.
My head swam, and in a weird way I felt the effects of the mezcal seep into me again. I figured what the hell and grabbed the bottle. I took a long swallow and let the worm bob against my tongue. Then I swallowed the fucker.
I didn’t do it as some macho thing. Walt had slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop next to a lone hitchhiker. The headlights lit a white face glowing against a black leather jacket. The dog gave a soft bark. I slid over in the seat as she joined me. She took the bottle from my hand.
“Buy me a drink?”
