Estoy Fuerte

She’s heavy. She wasn’t terribly heavy when I decided to carry her out. But you can only carry a woman for so long before she starts to feel like the world on your shoulders. And I’ve been carrying this one for a while now.

She’s still breathing. I could feel that against my back. She was the only one who was still breathing when I found her. She hasn’t done much else but breathe since. There was some coughing as we sat by the burning wreckage. That’s why I decided we needed to move, I think. But I guess that’s just part of the whole breathing thing. Maybe all she can do is breathe. I had hoped to reach something by now, before I had time to think.

Before the blood could get any worse.

Blood from my forehead gets into my eyes. It’s the only injury I ever get. I slip in the shower, I cut my forehead. My ladder kicks out from under me while I’m cleaning out gutters, I cut my forehead. My bus ride home turns into a big fuck-all… I don’t even want to think about it. The point is my forehead is cut again.

I had hoped to reach somewhere by now. I never thought you could walk as far as I have without running into something. I also never thought you could sit next to a giant, burning signal flare in the middle of the highway for as long as I did without getting anyone’s attention. But there I was sitting, what couldn’t have been more than an hour ago, a whole lot of nothing up and down the highway. And now here I am, a whole lot of nothing all around me. I wanted to stick to the highway, but I couldn’t carry her under the concrete struts of the overpass so I had to try and go around.

She’s getting heavier. I just have to put her down long enough to clean off my face and get my bearings. Why should I worry about putting her down? She can’t do anything but breathe, anyway. There’s grass all around. Some trees here and there. I think I remember where the highway is but I can’t see clear enough to know.

I put a little extra strain on my legs to let her down and I suddenly realize they won’t work. It’s weird. My legs burned the whole time and I didn’t notice until now. My shoulders and back tell me something similar about having been in pain for the past hour. Then I drop her.

I hit the ground not too long after she does. I try to lift my arms, but all they can do is tell me they hurt. I wriggle back and forth a little but the will to keep moving in a specific direction is gone. Now I know why I was afraid to put her down. I wasn’t going any further. Not with someone on my back. I look up through blood and I see something.

She’s stirred. I don’t know how long it’s been or how she moved, but I can feel movement beside me. I roll over toward her. Save for some dirt on her face, she’s barely scathed. There’s no blood. No burns. Maybe just waking up from a long nap. I smile a little at the sight.

When she sees me she scrambles upright. Her eyes widen and she starts firing off words too fast for me to understand.

No.

It’s not because the words are coming too fast. It’s because they’re in Spanish.

Fucking Spanish. I hate Spanish. I don’t understand Spanish.

No.

I do understand it. I understand just enough that I should know what’s being said and be able to reply. I should know. But I don’t. A problem the shrieking woman doesn’t understand.

“Shhh.” I make the one sound I think should be universal to get her to slow down. After several attempts I see it’s not working. Well, it’s working a little. It works better than it would with me had the situation been reversed. I decide on something a little different to try and get my message across.

“No hablo Español.” I say, deliberate with each word. “Comprendo Español. Para, no hablo.”

For I do not speak? I understand just enough to comprendo that I sound like an idiot. Based on the long pauses and deliberation between words I imagine I sound like a caveman or ethnic 70’s superhero to her. She seems to get the message, though, and she briefly stops talking. There’s a pause. A pause where I sit up and stick my hands out as to prepare the brilliant series of emotive, impromptu sign language that will make everything I say understandable. A pause where I wait for her to say it’s alright because she’s fluent in English. A pause where her heavy breathing doesn’t turn into an all-out heart attack because she’s waiting to hear me fumble out in caveman Spanish why everything’s going to be all right. A pause that disappoints.

“Yo… um… Como se dice…” I snap my fingers, furl my brow, and look down as if there are words to explain what happened and I simply forgot them. Como se dice to someone that the big coach bus we were on drifted into the divider. Como se dice that I took the same injury I get falling in the shower while everyone else was pulverized. That she was the only breathing body close enough for me to carry out before the whole thing erupted in a fire fuck-all. Yeah. Como se dice that.

“Estoy…” I start again. I still have no idea where I’m headed. But, this time, my fumbling speech is accompanied by back and forth hand gestures, like I’m rolling a large ball of clay. “…fuerte y….” I trail off because I have nowhere to go. I’m strong at the moment. I’m strong sometimes. Thinking back, I honestly don’t know what I was trying to do, pulling her from the wreck. Just starting another sentence I don’t know how to finish.

I detect a hint of a laugh. A giggle, as it were. Maybe she wasn’t as scared as I thought she was. The wide look I interpreted as terror might have just been a queer kind of surprise. There are plenty of people who can function fine in a bad situation and she might not even know how bad things are. Or maybe she understood my meaning perfectly and she’s less together than I gave her credit for.

She doesn’t strike me as the kind to giggle, but there’s no clear reason why I have that impression. She leans forward and squints, carefully examining my bloody forehead.

Wait for it.

She stares at it for a moment. It’s hard to discern colors in this lighting. Wait for it.

She jerks back a little in surprise. Yup, it’s blood. I’m oddly relieved she’s cringing. Maybe it just looks bad. Maybe it is.

She tentatively moves her hand toward my forehead, but about halfway there decides against it and draws back. She starts feeling her own face to see if she’s alright. This check is not tentative. I’m glad she thought better than to check my head. I just carried her out into the middle of hell out of nowhere at ass-fuck o’clock at night and it might have gotten awkward.

Before I can focus, that wide look comes back into her eyes. She speaks. This time it’s slow enough for me to keep up.

“El bus. ¿Que pasado?” What happened? What did happen?

I come back with a little more caveman speak and a little more clay-rolling to get my point across. “El bus…” Crashed. It crashed like a mother fucker. Como se dice crashed like a mother fucker? I’m the unprepared kid in high school again. Now I’m waving my hands in and out. “…accidente.”

The bus accident. Brilliant. Makes me wish it accidented sooner.

She turns her head back and forth. I can feel a little exasperation but it’s difficult to tell where it’s coming from. “¿Donde estamos?” Her voice is calm. Smooth. The wide look seems to fade in and out.

She looks at me, expectantly. “Detras a el… al… accidente… hace un fuego.”

“¿Fuego?” She parrots it back to me. I wonder if I said the right word. From her confusion, I know I said the right word. I couldn’t explain el fuego, even in English. It just happened.

No. There had to be something. Someone was smoking in the bathroom. There was a spark off the divider. There must be forty pages of ass-fuck calculus explaining some crazy engine failure. Things don’t just explode.

Then comes trouble. “¿Tienes familia… amigos… en el bus?” I’m glad I don’t remember my past tense.

She shakes her head. “No.” She almost sounds guilty that she didn’t. I’m fucking relieved. It’s all down hill from here. Hell, we could throw a party.

Fuck.

“¿Puedes caminar?” I have no idea how I remembered that one. I’m developing a knack for saying the things I’d hoped to avoid. But I’m not going any further, not with someone on my back.

She stirs again. She uncurls her legs from under her and slowly lifts herself off the ground, as if my question makes her unsure of the answer.
She makes it to her feet, starts to wince but stops. She doesn’t say anything. She just puts on a creased smile and nods.

She gives me her hand to help me up. She’s obviously hurt, somehow. I stand without taking her hand and pretend that nothing’s wrong. My legs, back, and shoulders all give me little nudges, one at a time. They can’t very well let me forget them. Funny that my head doesn’t bother me. It might even still be bleeding.

She starts to make the clay-rolling gesture and a mild hum. Maybe she’s trying to figure out how to speak my language.

“¿Donde vamos?” She picked out the words just fine. Short and clear. Where are we going?

Fuck.

When have I known where I’m going? I just picked a fucking direction.

I point in the direction I think I was going before. I think I’ll stick with it. Got to learn to trust my instincts. I start walking.

She stops after her first step. My instincts tentatively jerk me towards her, but I decide against it. I’ve trusted them quite enough for one day, thank you. Besides, I know I can’t carry her anymore.

“Estoy bueno.” She says, and I nod in agreement. She’s about as bueno as I am fuerte right now, but the most important part of a business relationship is knowing which lies to pretend to believe.

Ah ha! Why didn’t I think of it before? “Tienes un…cellular?” In spite of the pause, my words come out as excited as my thoughts. Not everyone’s living in the Stone Age, like me.

“No.” She replies matter-of-factly.

But some folks are. Why would she go another step with the crazy person if she did? We keep walking.

Neither one of us has a watch. It was a bitch trying to figure out how to ask. I kept on saying tiempo and pointing at my arms. She was patient, if not a bit sarcastic. First she mimicked me, pointing to her arms and saying tiempo while laughing. She thoroughly enjoyed herself for a few minutes before correcting me.

“No tengo un reloj.” She said, speaking slowly.

She seems fine. Better than before. Every time I look at her she quickly shoots me a broad smile to tell me everything’s fine. I almost believe it. She hasn’t even questioned the wisdom of the direction I picked.

My legs pretty much stop caring. They don’t burn anymore. They’re just hollow. I keep going, but with a gimped slide. Then I fall.
Flat on my damaged, dumb face I fall. It sends a nice clear ring through my jaw and into my skull.

I feel some cool grass against my jaw and some warm hands on me. I hear shouting. “Ai, dio.” She’s concerned. That’s nice. “¿Estas lastimado?” Now she sounds downright upset. Not really panicked. I feel the warm hands shaking me.

It occurs to me that I haven’t moved since I fell. I did the same thing once as a kid. Fell down the stairs. I remember being so surprised I just lay still and thought about what happened. My mother saw me and freaked out.

I say the same thing as when I was five. “I thought it best to lay here.” This time I laugh when I say it. I roll over to look at the sky, but see her. Then she hits me.

“¡Stupido! ¿Por que hizo eso? Pense que estuvo lastimado me asusto.” Each syllable comes with a slap across the face. It makes it easier to hear the words but harder to decipher the meaning.

After the “o” sound in asusto she stops and hits the ground next to me.

“Maybe we should rest here.” I say, forgetting who I’m talking to. “I mean…” I snap my fingers like the language was a tune I just missed a beat on. “Nosotros…(snap snap)… dormimos…aqui.” Apparently, we sleep here.

I try to keep looking up. It’s not that cold, I think. Then I start getting hit in a different way, with her mouth against mine. But I still get the distinct feeling of assault. I don’t stop her.

The sun starts to come up. We’re walking again. The light feels odd as it touches my eyes. It’s not exactly comfortable. We’re on the side of a hill and the sun sidles up a little too close to me. There’s an odd silhouette just over the top of the hill. The bit of uncomfortably close daylight makes it possible to see but difficult to make out any detail. Walking, my angle on the silhouette changes slightly and it turns into a crooked Hess sign.
I make it up the hill and look down. Two cars are parked, one next to the station and another running by the pumps.

I guess I knew where I was going the whole time. When I turn to her, I see... never mind what I see.

She gives me a congratulatory peck on the cheek. It’s quick and formal. Then I make my move. I walk into the station.

When I get inside I see the only two things I’m looking for, a bathroom and a set of maps. I feel some dried blood on my forehead and think of which I should take care of first. Then she walks in behind me and I go directly to the maps. I spend a long period of time examining them. Then I head to the bathroom. I take my coat off on my way and drop it. It lands somewhere near her.

I check my head in the bathroom mirror. It looks worse than I thought. But so does the bathroom. After I wash off the blood I can’t find the cut. Whatever it was healed clean.

I’m relieved to find my wallet is still in my pocket after everything that happened last night. I need change to make a call.

After I step out of the bathroom, I pick up a payphone in the station. It was old, but it worked.

She’s wrapped in my coat, sitting on a bench opposite the phone and smiling to herself. I guess it was colder out than I thought. I dial the number and a familiar voice answers. As I’m talking I keep thinking about how she hears my end of the conversation, not understanding a word. She’s still smiling.

“Hey it’s me.” She hears me say in a low voice. The voice is a little shaky, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. “Listen, I need a favor.” An uncomfortable pause. There’s still nothing she hasn’t heard before. “It’s one of those no-questions favors. There’s a shopping center in Rosewood right off the 333 exit. I’m about half a mile away from it, now. I need you to pick me up there as soon as possible.” She hears me pause again. This pause has a deep breath as I look away from her. “I told you what kind of favor this was. Okay. Bye”

I look back at her. Then, I walk over to the man behind the counter.

His hair is a grey and wild mass stuffed under a faded grey baseball cap. The combination seems to give his skin a vaguely grey hue.

“A cup of black coffee and a pack of cigarettes.” I say, very matter-of-factly, like I was talking to someone who didn’t speak English.

“What kind?” Even his voice is grey.

“First one you grab.” I say, giving a glance down at the counter. How should I know what kind? I don’t smoke.

“Eleven fifty.” I lay out the change, exactly. It’s what I have. “Something happen to you folks?” He asks as he takes the money.

“Tell you what. Give her a minute to rest, and she’ll tell you all about it.” I say with a smirk, pointing at the girl behind me. “Right now I need a smoke.”

I walk over to her and hand her the cup of coffee. “Debe.” I say with some confidence. I think I’m getting better at this. She starts to take the coffee, so I think she catches my meaning. I indicate the pack of cigarettes with one hand and reach for my coat with the other. For a moment she’s hesitant to let go of it. But she decides against holding on and lets me take it. Apparently the coffee is a fair trade.

“Gracias.” Her voice is smooth.

“De nada.” My voice is not so smooth. It’s the last thing I say to her. I walk away and toss the cigarettes behind the building.