Chapter Seven - 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. Again, his voice seemed like he coming from a broken radio.

    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, nice and neat and dead. Hopefully.

    “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, who had been staring at me since I picked up the bottle. I spun off the top. The fumes ground out the sides of my nostrils and ended up somewhere behind my eyes.

    “Understand.”

    So I guess Walt was going to give it to me one word at a time. A piss shiver ran through me, I nodded cheers to the dog-creature, tipped the mezcal bottle back and took a long swallow. To say it burned would not give enough credit – the liquid tore down my throat and incinerated everything left behind. Hmm, not bad. I had another long pull, letting the worm float toward my tongue, its bumpy exoskeleton banged against the sides. I brought the bottle down, swallowed and watched the worm float back to the bottom.

    The road became smooth. It didn’t even feel like we were driving any more. Telephone poles whipped by, creating a black and brown paint stripe against the sky, before they slowed down enough to notice small black birds balanced on the wires, and then sped up again.

    “Squeeze-time.”

    I gave my head a shake. It was a different voice. Shit, was that Walt? Or did the dog just say something?

    “What did you say, Fido?”

    I knew that wasn’t the name, but what the hell did I know.

    “Things will speed up and slow down. It can be hard on the head.”

    I leaned forward, blood rushed through my head. I looked up, watched the dog’s mouth move, and then fell back into my seat.

    “Say Walt – your crazy hooch is making the dog talk.”

    “A long rip on this part of the road. We’re riding it. Don’t trust what you see.”

    “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, you will start to understand, but only when you are in tune.”

    I opened an eye and saw Walt’s lips moving 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. You just toying with me, Walt? Let it spill Chatty Kathy.” 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.

    “OK, let’s start with the guys in the hats. What was their deal?” I asked.

    “You are hearing all of what I say now. The gaps were not places you were aware of— but now, and on this part of the rip, while you are starting to understand, you can see and hear. Same as last time.”

    “I’ve been here before?” Now my voice warbled.   

     “You were down here twice. It happens.”

    “Down? Wait, it’s filling in now. We were in that bar, me and her. And someone was coming at me – the cowboy with the big-ass knife. But then it was you – coming fast from across the room. What did the cowboy see.”

    “It happens near rips. That’s how I first found them.” Walt reached across and stroked the dog-creature’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. Everything around me was in sharp focus. Fastest drunk I’ve ever had.

    “What happens by the rips, Walt?”

    “Aggression. Sometimes just people with bad tempers, arguments. Sometimes worse. The one you called the cowboy probably wasn’t even sure why he wanted to do it.”

    “Do what?”

    “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. I saw her handing me a drink, and then she faded in the ice.

    “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 helps. It fills in some things.”

    “What was that thing you told me? I know you said it before, and now 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. How will I know when this is new?”

    “The memory gaps will start to fade, but they won’t be gone completely. You’re not made that way. None of us are.”

    “But why? Why are we riding the rips? Who else is?”

    “Not as many as you’d think,” he said.

    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 stopped and answered my own question in my head.

    We pulled in behind the Charger and the dog-creature 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. Maybe we’d made a left turn at the 1940’s and ended up in the summer of love. No, wait, that was in the 60’s. Damn, should have paid attention during that American history class.

    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 driver. He wore a Nascar hat, wife beater, and black Levis and held up a pump shotgun, levelled 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-creature, 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.” Walt’s huge hands gripped the wheel.

    Again, I found myself peering out the back window and watching a scene of two people exiting the Charger and bending over the guy laid out 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 you knew them 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? Okay, we were moving through space, and at the same time… time. 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 her white face glowing against a black leather jacket. The dog-creature 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?”

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Chapter Six - Fedora

"What kind of vehicle is that mister?"

"Never seen one of those before."

"Says Ford on it – but not like one I ever saw."

"It's a truck," I told them.

"Like hell. No truck I've ever seen."

They took turns speaking and staring at first my truck, and then at me. The one with the baseball bat didn't speak. He just paced around the vehicle, or as they called it, vee-hick-kill.

"You guys on the way to some sort of show? A live play, or some weird renaissance fair thing, but out of 19--"

I stopped talking when the guy with the bat smashed out one of my headlights.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" The one with the squarest, biggest melon of a head, barely contained by a black fedora, pointed a finger at me through the open window.

"And what kind of words are those – ray nonsense?"

"You making fun of us, fella? You want some nonsense, we'll bring you some."

He smashed out another headlight. Then the guy with the tire iron tipped his grey fedora back and swung down on my hood. I pulled the door handle and smashed all my weight against it. I caught the lead fedora in the small of his back. He let out a whoomp sound and hit the asphalt. I sprang out of the truck without one single plan in my head.

"Grab the son of a bitch."

A fist swung toward me, and then a fiddle swept through the air. It clipped the side of my head and stung like hell. I felt a line of blood slide down my forehead. On reflex, I kicked out, caught somebody in the knee. I heard it crack. Whoever it was, they hit the ground with a scream. I tried a spin kick - don't know where the hell that came from, maybe some long ago martial art movie – and made contact with a face. When I tried another one, Tire Iron guy grabbed my ankle as I spun around in mid-air. He brought the hunk of metal down on my back. He was in a bad position, so it wasn't a full hit, which was a damn good thing. I stumbled, trying to hold it together.

In the midst of swearing and a rustle of bodies I was slammed against the truck, and then pinned like a kid's insect project. The end of the Louisville smashed into my guts, left me wheezing for breath. Spots of light hovered at the corner of my vision. I gasped for air, blood reached my nose and then my bottom lip. I pushed against the arms holding me, Louisville and tire-iron guy. They drove me back against the truck. It hurt like hell, but I figured if I could fight back, then they hadn't broke anything. Yet.

Lead fedora, the black-hatted fridge head, was up and breathing heavy into my face.

"Sammy. Pop the hood on this jalopy."

Fiddle-guy opened the truck door. He let out a whistle.

"Take a lookee at this." He swung his arms back at his friends.

"The hood Sammy."

"Yeah, well where the hell is it? I've never seen anything like this. Oh, here we go. What happens if I pull this?"

The hood popped just as another vehicle was heard coming down the highway. It was coming fast, engine revving, and all of us looked up. It was another antique looking one, but some sort of sports model, roadster, I think they were called.

Things moved slow and fast at the same time.

 The car fishtailed, slammed on its brakes and slid across the road. My attackers swore as gravel from the shoulder sprayed up, hit their chests and necks. A rain of pings sounded against my truck.

The man was up and out of the car, but not as quick as the dog through the window.

"What the hell?" Louisville man unpinned me and swung and missed at the beast as it leapt for his throat.

My arm throbbed. I knew that animal.

A shotgun was racked. Black fedora man stopped in his tracks. The man in front of the roadster was tall. No, he was gi-fucking-normous. He swung the gun around and fired at one of the antique car's tires. He pumped once, and shot out the other one's.

He racked it one more time and swung it back at us.

Nobody said a goddamn word.

A boot slid against the gravel. It sounded like an avalanche.

"Car."

He was talking to me.

"You want me to just leave the--"

"Car."

The dog had Louisville pinned on the ground, teeth bared, a low growl that sounded like violence could erupt at any second. The bat sat alone on the road. Black fedora man looked back at the other two. Fiddle guy still on the ground, cradling his knee, shook his head.

"We don't want any trouble there, big fella."

"Good."

"This one a friend of yours?"

The gi-normous man raised the shotgun so it was in perfect line with black fedora man, then slid it out in a small arc, pointing at each of them, dipping down to focus on the two not standing.

"Shit. He's going to kill us, Pete."

"Car."

My guts ached as I walked over to the giant's car. I went in the back door. The man walked back, keeping the shotgun trained on the four men. Once in the car, he whistled. The dog growled, bared his teeth again at Louisville – though with his eyes slammed shut he might not have seen it. Then another whistle, this one lower -- and the dog that looked like a wolf jumped through the window.

The driver spun a u-ball on the highway. I watched the fedoras through the back window. Nobody moved at first, then they all moved together. There were no motions towards us, nobody shook their fist and ran down the road like you might expect. They gathered around the one I kicked, helped him up, gave him his fiddle. They all dusted themselves off.

I leaned forward in the car.

"I heard your name is Walt."

"She calls me that."

I waited for more explanation, or even what his real name was. I know he was the one L had introduced me to, the one who had the way to escape. I was having a helluva time putting together, and it was really starting to piss me off. But I guess when Walt showed me whatever the fuck he showed me, my brain got scrambled. I hoped that wasn't a permanent thing, because I had kind of grown fond of knowing my A, B, C's, and the capital city of Slovenia. Did getting unleashed in time mean that I lost all the stuff I thought I knew? Or did I just figure out that none of it mattered one shit.

"Listen, Walt. Those guys in the cars and whacking sticks. Are they out on the highway like me? Did they go through a rip or did I? I need to get a foothold here. So, you wanna tell me what the fuck just happened? "

"Something that will always happen."

"What?"

The giant drove the car and refused to say anything else for miles.

"Walt, when am I gonna make sense of all this?"

"In time."

"I'm getting damn sick of that word."

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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. Drive. What the hell else was there to do? Lately, driving was the only constant in my life. The only thing that moved me forward.

I thought back to that day I had cut out from Harold and his Lime Green Slurpee. Or it might have been a Big Gulp, who knew, who cared? I had lived in the same town, with the same hockey rink, same bar, 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, never really at home. 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 settled in and stayed.

I know a part of me longed for another time, any time, just not my time – I couldn't imagine an age that was any better than any other. I didn't long to go to a simpler time like the oldsters were always saying. The future wasn't that appealing either, with it's flying cars and pills that gave you a full meal in one swallow. But I wanted to live in some other time when life made more sense. Or at least something that was more beautiful, or maybe it was about more simple, or both. If I was honest, I didn't know what the fuck I was looking for. I just knew I had to get the fuck outta Dodge.

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 used to be a racoon and now was part of the road. I was surrounded by life, fields of wheat, barley and mustard, creatures scooted through the long rows, birds overhead flew in arrow formations, swirling with wind. And there was death everywhere – hawks that plucked mice from the field, bobcats that ripped apart rabbits on the run, plants that withered and collapsed back into the very ground that birthed them.

I let my mind drift between those two states of being: alive and dead. Which one was I escaping from? I had 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 in the midst of picking out which 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 was 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 me saying that 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. A line of mistruth. I can pretend to me anybody."

     "Try me."

     I told her about my life the last few years. I started out 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?" I asked.

     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. I met a man named Walt. He showed me a way to escape this plodding life, where one second follows another, and then that drips into a minute and hour, into a month and a year. Before you know it, you're in the rest home watching the Price is Right. And you actually give a fuck who wins the showcase."

     I laughed.

     "Never thought of it that way."

     I watched her drink for awhile.    

     "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 – that's the only way I can describe it. I don't remember much of the journey through it, dark outlines of people, a lot of country music. As weird as it all was, the twangy guitars and vibrating mandolins made sense. 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 could have been a mind-retina burn from the movie. A tall figure came toward me, walking through waving prairie grass. A wolf trotted beside him. When he was just about on me, I saw that the wolf was just a dog, or at least part dog. Icy blue eyes stared at me like I would 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 man strung together so many 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, nuzzled my hand just like the German Shepherd I had as a kid. Something flashed in the hand of the giant that Chalk Girl called Walt. I let out a scream that I didn't know I was capable of producing.

     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 I guessed these were from the forties, and still in mint condition.

     Now that I thought of it, which city were they headed toward that would have a car show? And why didn't I remember the highway being this rough before? 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 lately, 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, decades even.

     I leaned over to twist the dial, my hand stopping as I slammed on the brakes. The two antique car owners had turned their cars around and formed a barrier 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 was the tire iron one of them carried. Another slung a Louisville slugger over his shoulder, the third guy held clenched fists at his sides. The last guy held a fiddle, but not like he was about to play it.

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Chapter Four - Tequila

The Spireton was more shack than bar, and shack was a helluva compliment. Six scarred tables from a nearby bingo hall were placed haphazardly in the room. A row of red vinyl stools lined up against the bar, all ripped but one. Water dripped from a crack in the ceiling into plastic pail. It wasn't raining out. A yellowed sign behind the greasy haired bartender read Occupancy: 54. Between us and the other patrons we still had 49 more to go.

"Do you have Tequila?" She leaned against the bar.

The bartender peered down her t-shirt. "Might have a bottle somewhere. Don't sell much of that stomach-burner."

"Do you have any lime?"

"This ain't some fucking fruit bar." He ducked down below the bar and started to rummage in one of the cupboards. After a bit of clinking and crashing he pulled out a dusty bottle with a golden label and black writing I couldn't make out. "My cousin brought this back from Mexico. Tastes like turpentine if you ask me."

He set two highball glasses in front of us and poured until each were half full. The liquid was the colour of a bush fire.

"You want some coke in that?"

"This will be fine," she said.

He looked down her shirt again and then back at me. A voice from one of the bingo tables yelled for a pilsner.

She handed me one of the glasses.

"How are you doing? Things beginning to straighten? This will help."

She brought the glass to her lips threw her head back and drained it. Damn, there had to be four fingers in there. I took a sip and my mouth caught fire. I'd drank tequila before, but never like this–I was thinking the bartender's cousin had brought him turpentine. She made a flipping gesture with her wrist. I brought the glass up again and finished it. I slammed the empty glass back down gasping, trying to stifle a huge cough. Someone snorted from the back of the room.

"Two more."

"I like a goddamn chick that can drink." The bartender sloshed another four fingers into each glass and winked.

"You wouldn't like me after a few of these. Trust me." She carried both glasses over to a bingo table and slid out the chair. She put both drinks in front of me and repeated the wrist thing.

"I--"

"Drink."

Pilsner guy started to say something, until she gave him a dick-shriveling look. She got up, walked across the bar to a dusty jukebox. I watched her bend over,  someone muttered "damn". In a long pull, I drained one of the glasses. The fire travelled down my throat, swirled in my guts and then found some unknown path up to my skull. A wheezing violin player cranked up, followed by wavery mandolin strings. A high-pitched voice sang about shifting sand. I brought the other highball to my mouth, the rim felt thick on my lips, invisible odours drifted up the sides, my eyes watered. I knew the song. I was just about to name it out loud and then my head folded in on itself. I fell back in my chair, reached for the edge of the table, and waited for my body to slam into the concrete floor. Instead, I went through it. My body tumbled and turned in an inky liquid, glycerin bubbles floated up. Was that up? One by one the circles burst with a soft ping.

I set the glass down. Empty. I was now sitting on one of the vinyl stools, but these were navy blue, and shone like a freshly waxed Corvette. It was a bar like the Spireton, but not quite. For one thing, the place was three-quarters full. A trio of musicians teetered on a stage crammed into the corner. They strummed a Hank William's cover.

"Buy you a drink?"

I spun around and glared at the chalk girl – it was her, but she was dressed differently. In Spireton, she had wore a painted on black t-shirt and tight Levis. Now, she was decked out in a peacock blue dress with a floral pattern, her black hair held back by a lime-green hair band. Her lips were still the same shade of stunning red. When she smiled, they opened up into arc of white that excited me and scared me at the same time.

"Where are we?"

"When might be a better question. We're still in the Spireton." She smiled.

The band stopped, there was scattered applause as they walked off the tiny stage.

"We went through a rip."

The word just came out of me. I looked down at my checked sleeves. I've never worn plaid in my life. I stared farther down into a pair of dust covered cowboy boots, shit-kickers we used to call them.

"Now you're getting it. I keep telling Walt that tequila works a lot better than water. Eventually you can do it with water or any liquid, but it's never as effective, or even as fun."

"Walt's the tall guy," I swallowed and touched my knee, "with the knife."

"That's what I call him. I don't why, but he reminds me of Disney. The theme park, not the guy."

"One of the scarier rides," I said.

"It's the only way you can straddle both lines. Of course, you need to be close to a rip. Eventually you won't black out any more, and it will still hurt when a rip is close. That's what you felt in the diner. You want a beer?" She held up two fingers and waved them at the clean cut guy swiping down the bar. "Black Label." She turned back to me. "Hell of a beer. Nothing like what we have now."

"We've talked about this before haven't we?"

"Yes, but I don't expect you to remember everything yet. When Walt first cut me, it was six months before my head cleared." The bartender plunked down two stubbies and opened them for us.

"Why?" I asked.

"It just takes a while that's all – you're wired to experience life in a linear fashion. Think about it this way: recalling the past can release a powerful emotion. It's more than simple nostalgia, for some of us it's a deep longing, or a pain we're trying to escape. We let our minds drift back to a different time, both when we dream at night and in our daydreams. You've done that right?"

I nodded.

"But why do it?"

"Walt figured out a way to go farther than dreaming. He tuned himself to the rhythm of the chronos."

"Chronos?"

"Time. He found its rhythm, its flow. And then he started to find the rips."

"Places it didn't flow?"

"Right." She closed her eyes in a such a long blink that I thought she'd gone to sleep. "But here's the thing. Walt understood that we stand in all those places at the same time."

"What places?"

"The past, present, and future. The rips were a short cut to each."

I took a deep swallow. The cold beer eased the lingering flame of the tequila. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't drunk out of my skull. People in crisp Stetsons and bolo ties swigged back mugs of beer. Most of the women were in dresses, hair piled up high and lipstick that gave chalk girl a run for her money.

"This is bat-shit crazy, you know that?"

"Yeah, you said that last time." She swigged her beer and winked.

Someone hit the table across from us, an open-palmed smack, and the place erupted in laughter.

"How did he find the rips?" I asked when the sound died down.

"I'm not clear on that. Something to do with astral projection." She laughed. "Remember that? There was a big movement in it for awhile – a couple of doctors swore they could prove it but no one took them serious. Everybody was wrong. Anyway, that's where Walt found the rips and Philo."

"Sorry, you lost me again."

"The thing you called a wolf." Her elbow spasmed. "Drink up." She gulped down the rest of her beer.

"What? Why – we just got, uh, here."

She turned her neck fast, like someone had grabbed it and twisted. I looked to a space behind her. A huge mother of a cowboy took a step toward us. As he walked, he unsnapped a side holster and pulled a knife out damn near as big as his hat.

I abandoned the beer, let the last swallow dribble down my front as I leapt from the stool. Out of the corner of my eye, another figure appeared, large and moving fast. A flash of metal appeared in his hand, and as if someone took a snip out of what happened, he was on me, his breath hot against my face, smelling of freshly toiled ground. I opened my mouth to speak.

"Walt."

A guttural sound, in-between human and animal.

"Let it happen," Chalk girl's voice from across the room.

It felt like someone had just sliced off my kneecap. My eyes slowly filled with ink. I slipped through a crack in the Corvette vinyl.

I awoke face down in the back of my truck. I got to my knees and stared at the empty parking lot. A neon Closed sign shone out of the Spireton bar window. The "C" and the "d" were burnt out. A memory flash, and I checked my knees. Both intact.

I climbed into the driver's seat. A note was thumbtacked to the steering wheel.

"Just Drive."

It was signed, "L".

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New Chapters of Bent Highway will appear weekly (or more) at this blog.
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Direct links to all the chapters here.

Chapter Four Teaser

M is slowly trying to put his scrambled egg brain together - and Chalk Girl will help him... possibly.

Here's a teaser for the next chapter - up by the weekend, or sooner.

Chapter Four - Tequila

"Buy you a drink?"

I spun around and glared at the chalk girl – it was her, but she was dressed differently. In Spireton, she had wore a painted on black t-shirt and tight Levis. Now, she was decked out in a short floral dress, her black hair held back by a lime-green hair band. Her lips were still the same shade of stunning red. They opened up into arc of white that excited me and scared me at the same time.

"Where are we?"

"When might be a better question. We're still in Spireton." She smiled.

The band stopped, there was scattered applause as they walked off the tiny stage.

"We went through a rip."

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