Road Trip

What a day! Ran myself to death, the air conditioner quit working around 10:00 a.m.
and the boss chewed me out for keeping the inventory too high. "Joel", he said, "You are
costing this company more and more money every day that you are here." I could not
argue with him, so I took my beating and then went to the time clock and "punched-out.”
As I ambled to the parking lot all I could think was how badly I wanted to thrash him.
Thrash him as he sat at his almighty desk, with his almighty chair, and feeding on his own
almighty ego.
As I walked up to my dented and scratched 1994 Buick something came over me. My
vision got hazy, my eyes began to burn, and the heat became border-line oppressive. "I'll
just start the damn thing and turn on the air conditioner", I thought to myself. But when I
put the key into the ignition and turned it....nothing happened. Not a whir, not a click, not
a buzz, nothing. I laid my head on the steering wheel and wondered aloud, "what else
could possibly happen to me today?"
It started! Now I can go home. When I came to Lincoln Avenue I turned right. "Wait
a damn minute", I said to myself, "why am I going this way?" I should have turned left at
Lincoln Avenue to go towards home. But, with a shrug of my shoulders, I just kept right
on driving. Forty-five minutes later I found myself staring at an Interstate 10 sign with the
choice of going east or west. I pulled to the side of the road and reached into my pocket
and pulled out a quarter. "Heads we go east, tails we go west", I said aloud, and flipped
the coin. It stayed in the air for what seemed like an hour and finally came to rest in the
palm of my hand. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and cocked my head back onto the
headrest of the car. "Please be heads, please be heads", I pleaded. And when I opened my
eyes and looked down a huge sigh of relief escaped my lips.
As I headed east on Interstate 10 the sun was setting at a rapid pace, behind me. It
shone into the rearview mirror like a beacon of the past. A beacon of what had transpired
earlier that day and a beacon of what lay in wait behind me. I pushed the accelerator a
little bit more and cussed that bloody beacon for another hour and a half.
The further I drove the darker it got. It got so dark that I could not even see the stack
of cassette tapes that were in the bucket seat beside me. I thought to myself, "this is
ridiculous, I gotta get off of this road." At the next exit, which just happened to be the
exit for Interstate 75, I pulled into a gas station for a quick fill up and some caffeine. As I
gazed into the night I contemplated quietly over my north or south decision. The roar of
diesel trucks was the only sound coming from the night and the majority of them were
heading south so I took the hint and decided to go north.
Near Tifton is where the car went berserk. As I approached an off-ramp the whole
inside of the car started to vibrate, then there was the loudest bang since the "shot heard
around the world" and a zillion red lights lit up on the dashboard. "Dammitt, dammitt,
dammitt", I screamed as I pulled off onto the shoulder of the off-ramp. I reached down
and yanked on the lever to open the hood then opened the door and stepped out of the
car. I leered at the hood as I reached down and found the safety catch and slowly raised
the hood of the car. There were broken belts everywhere!
I sighed deeply and closed the hood, wondering what I was going to do next. I gazed
up the off-ramp and saw neon lights illuminating the fog that had begun to settle in around
me and everything else in this God-forsaken place. Shrugging my shoulders I began to
ascend the off-ramp towards the lights.
About halfway up the ramp I heard a vehicle rapidly approaching from behind me. I
spun around just in time to jump out of the way as the red pickup went flying by me.
"Damn drunken hillbillies", I uttered to myself and continued up the ramp. When I
reached the intersection of the ramp and whatever rinky-dink little road it was I noticed
that there was an open Shell station across the street. Looking both ways before I crossed
the street I noticed there was no traffic. "As a matter of fact", I thought to myself, “it
feels as though there has not been any traffic through here in days”.
When I reached the parking lot of the convenience store, much to my chagrin, I noticed
the red pickup truck that had almost run me over parked at the gas pumps. Not being a
big fan of confrontations I scanned the inside of the station before I entered.
The only person that was noticeable was the slightly balding, short, dumpy clerk behind
the counter. He looked up from his comicbook when the little bell on the door sounded,
signifying my entrance into the store. "Good morning", he said as I shivered from the cold
that surrounded me. "Good morning", I uttered back wondering why he had said that. It
was pitch black outside but when I looked at the clock behind the counter it read 2:03
a.m. "Holy Toledo", I said out loud. "What's the problem?", the clerk asked. "I have
been driving all night and didn't realize that it was this late", I replied in a shaken voice.
"Late?", he inquired, "Why, son, things are just beginning to get started 'round here 'bout
this time."
I heard a door shut from somewhere behind me and as I turned to look where the
sound had come from I saw her. She had come out of the restroom and was smiling at me
as my gaze met hers. She was tall, approximately five feet nine inches tall, had hair of the
deepest auburn color ever created and eyes so brown they burned holes in your soul when
they looked at you. The power of her gaze nearly knocked me to the floor, but I held my
ground. She was coming straight for me and if I hadn't been frozen in time I might have
run like hell but I was stuck, trapped in Georgia Hell.
"Hi", she said as she stuck out a hand in greeting. "Hello", I said as I put my hand in
hers. "Didn't mean to almost run you over back there but I really had to 'go' and I didn't
see you until I was almost on top of you." The way she said 'on top of you' made the hair
stand up on the back of my neck and all I could manage to say was, "It's no problem I
needed the zap back into reality." I knew as soon as though words left my lips I was in
trouble.
"Reality", she said in a deepened voice, "now that's a word I have not heard in quite
some time." I raised an eyebrow in anticipation of an explanation but all I got was a smile
and a wink. "Odd", I thought to myself. Shaking the cobwebs out of my head I
introduced myself and gave a brief explanation to the reason I was in the store at 2:00 a.m.
She said she knew of a 24 hour garage about five miles down the road, and reached into
her purse and handed me a phone number. "The number for the garage?", I asked. "No",
she laughed, as she closed up her purse and raised her eyes to meet mine. "That is my
home phone number and feel free to use it if you get into any sort of 'trouble' while you
are here."
Why did I have the sudden urge to hug her? Was it the friendliness of her gesture? Or
was it something deeper? "Thank you very much", I said in a humbled voice. "Hopefully
I won't have to use it", but those words echoed emptily across the store. She walked up
to the clerk and paid for her gas and giggled something to him that made him smile and
then she turned to leave. My eyes were transfixed on her as she made for the door. As
she reached it she turned and looked back at me and said, "Well, come on and I will give
you a lift down there." I wanted to run, run like hell, run and never look back. But
something made me open my mouth and say, "Let me use the bathroom first and I'll be
right there". When I got done I hurriedly made it towards the door but before I got out of
the store the clerk stopped me and said, "Thank you for stopping in, this shall be a night to
remember."
She was already in the truck and had the motor running when I got to the truck. "Is
there anything you want to get out of your car before we go?", she asked in an almost
hushed voice. I thought about it and said, "No, I don't think there is anything that I
necessarily need." "You don't want your book?", she asked. My jaw hit the floorboard of
the truck. How in blazes did she know I had a book in the car? But before I could ask
her that, she explained that she could tell by looking at me that I was either a reader or a
writer or both. "Yes, we better stop so I can get it", I uttered and she just smiled and
nodded her head. "One book coming up", she laughed as she put the truck in gear.
It was a psychological thriller that I had only just started reading when I had gone to
break earlier the day before. I couldn't even remember the title of it when she asked me
what it was. I looked at the cover and the title read, "Lost in My Own Mine-d".
When we pulled into the parking lot of the 24 hour garage the lights reflecting off of
the fog and bouncing off of her face gave me the feeling that I was embarking on a dream.
Not a nightmare, necessarily, but a dream. For the past hour or so everything had seemed
to slow to a crawl. I was not worried about the car, my job, or anything else for that
matter. I was relishing in the moment, hoping it would never end.
We stopped in front of the door to the garage and she turned the truck off. "I know
the guy that runs this place", she said, "that should help you get things squared away in the
shortest amount of time." We both got out of the truck and entered the garage through
the front door. When I saw the manager I almost fainted. He was the spittin' image of the
clerk at the store down the road. "They have to be twins", I thought to myself. My
'newfound friend' explained to him what my problem was and he smiled and said, "Just like
what happened to that other guy last week?" She responded with a nod and, again, I got
that sudden urge to run, run like hell, run and never look back.
"It shouldn't take me but a couple of hours to get things fixed up", he said to her with a
wink and she turned towards me and said, “there ya go, sweets, all set.” I thanked her
most humbly and shook her hand and watched in silence as she climbed into the truck and
drove away.
"My name is, Pete", he said, "and if you'd like to ride along we'll go and tow your car
back up here and get you back on the road." I introduced myself as 'Joel' and agreed to
ride back to the car with him. When we got into the towtruck he had Bob Seger in the
tape deck. "Night Moves" was playing and I sang all the way to where the car was. Pete
just grinned real big and chewed on his cigarette as we rode. It only took him ten minutes
or so to get the car hooked up and then we were on our way back to the garage. I looked
at the time on the dashboard of the truck and it read 2:03. "Is the clock right?", I asked.
"Never been wrong", he said.
I blew it off as the clock in the store being wrong and when we made it up to the top of
the exit ramp I gazed over at the store. Much to my surprise there was her red pickup
truck parked in front of the same gas pump it had been parked in front of when I saw it
earlier. I could see nobody inside and craned my neck as 'Pete' turned and made his way
towards the garage. He pitched his soggy cigarette out of the window and began to
whistle the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show". I joined in and we made it back to the
garage in what seemed like seconds.
He said to me, as we got out of the truck, "just have a seat in the garage, relax, and
read your book." The way he said 'book' made my insides jump and I hurriedly made it
back to the inside of the garage. I plopped down on the thirty odd year old vinyl couch
and opened my book. I started over because I couldn't remember exactly where I had
stopped before. After thirty minutes or so I looked to see what time it was and noticed
that there wasn't a clock anywhere to be found. "Odd", I thought to myself, and went out
in search of Pete. There wasn't a sound emitting from the garage and I received no answer
when I said, "Pete", in a slightly raised voice. "Must be in the bathroom", I thought to
myself and went back inside. A few minutes later he came into the lobby through the shop
door, covered in grease from head to toe. Smiling faintly he said, "I have some good news
and some bad news." "Ugh", I thought to myself, "this is all I need."
"Give me the bad news first", I said. I always want the bad news first in a 'bad news,
good news' scenario. Why spoil the good with the bad? He looked me square in the eye
and said, "Well, the bad news is that I cannot get your car fixed until after the parts store
opens later this morning. The good news, however, is that I see no damage to anything
and after the belt replacement you'll be in great shape." Struggling with mixed emotions
over this news and the fact that I was having one of the strangest nights in my life I sat
down to ponder my fate. "How much longer until the parts store opens?", I asked. His
reply flabbergasted me. "About six more hours", he said. "You mean they don't open until
10:00?, I inquired. Laughing so hard it practically shook the entire garage he said, "Why
no, they open at 8:00...it is only 2:03 right now."
"2:03? 2:03? 2:03?, what do you mean it is only 2:03?" I was in a state of panic, now.
"What the hell is going on here", I demanded. He looked at me quizzically then shrugged
his shoulders and went back out to the shop. I was pacing now. Pacing like an expectant
father would minutes before delivery time. "2:03?" "Six hours?" Surely, I had been here
for at least two hours, so it should be 4:00 a.m. How could it be the same time as it was
when I got here? My pace quickened and then suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks.
"Where did I put her phone number?", I asked myself. I hurriedly searched my pockets
and my wallet. Ran out to the shop and looked in the car. Turned and almost ran over
Pete as I ran to the tow truck to see if I had dropped it in there. Twenty minutes, or so, of
searching and no phone number. "Damnit, damnit, damnit" was all I could utter.
I went back inside the lobby and plopped my weary body down on the vinyl couch,
again. I noticed lights shining on the wall opposite me and turned just in time to see Pete
leaving the parking lot in the tow truck. "How odd is that?", I asked myself. Leaving me
here by myself with his shop and his cash register at 2:30 in the morning. Or is it 3:30?
4:30, maybe?
Sighing out loud I reached for my book and when I picked it up the post it note with
her phone number fell out. I didn’t recall putting it in the book but didn’t really give it
much thought as I ambled over to the telephone. I picked up the receiver and put it to my
ear....nothing, no dial tone no nothing. I hung it up and picked it up again, still nothing. I
punched every button on the cotton-picking’ thing, and still nothing. I felt as though I
wanted to scream as I slammed the receiver back down on the cradle.
As I made my way back to the couch I noticed a payphone on the wall near the shop
door. My heart leapt to my throat as I “flew” to the phone. I picked up the receiver and
very slowly put it to my ear, fearing that empty sound would hit me again. This time,
however, I heard a dial tone. I was practically laughing now as I searched in my pocket
for the necessary coinage to deposit in the slot. When I drew my hand out of my pocket
and opened it I discovered, to my chagrin, that I was ten cents short for the phone.
“Goddammitt”, I said aloud, as I slammed the receiver back onto the cradle. “Now
what?”
I went back to the damned couch and plopped down too frustrated to think straight,
much less read. Raising my eyes to the shop counter I couldn’t help but be transfixed by
the cash register sitting on the end of the counter like a lighthouse on a point. Try as I
might, to read my book, my eyes would occasionally rise up as the “lighthouse” beckoned.
My mind was struggling with the thought of opening the cash register and getting that
necessary dime and with the thought of it being totally wrong and what might happen if
Pete pulled in while I was behind the register.
“Oh, what the hell”, I said to myself as I pulled what seemed like my 700 pound body
off of the couch. I turned my head from side to side as though I was watching a
high-speed tennis match as I walked over to the counter. I noticed, when I reached the
counter, that if I got onto my hands and knees nobody could see me from outside. So I
crouched down onto my hands and knees and began to crawl around the corner of the
counter. It took what seemed like hours for me to reach the spot the cash register was at.
I took a deep breath and got ready to rise up and push the amount tendered button to
open the register.
As I exhaled that deep breath two things happened almost simultaneously. Headlights
hit the wall beside me and looking down at my left hand I noticed a dime just laying there
on the floor. Without so much as even a thought I snatched up the dime and crawled at
the speed of light back over to the couch.
Just as I got situated back on the couch, Pete came ambling back into the shop. He
gazed towards me as he made his way back out into the shop. I got up from the couch
and made my way back over to the pay-phone. Once again, I raised the receiver to my ear
and heard the sweet sweet sound of a dial tone. I dialed her number and waited an
eternity for the sound of the ringing of her phone. Finally, it came. And without so much
as a full ring the ringing stopped and in a deep raspy voice I heard a woman say, “hello?”
“Hello”, I said in a shaken and broken voice. “It’s me, Joel”. “I kind of figured that”,
she said, “anything the matter?” “Well, not really ‘the matter’”, I said, “it is just going to
take longer than Pete first anticipated...hours longer.” There was a deafening silence from
the other end of the phone until finally she said, “Well, if you’d like, I can come pick you
up and we can go get some breakfast.” For the first time, since I had left work, I noticed
that my stomach was empty and rather pissed off. I leapt at the chance to get something
to eat. “That would be marvelous”, I said in a rather excited tone. “Fine, I will be there in
about fifteen minutes. Just let me throw some clothes on, okay?” The thought of her
standing there talking to me with nothing on instantly clouded my mind and I stuttered,
“Umm, ummm, that will be fine thank you.” She laughed so loud I had to remove the
receiver from my ear and hold it at arms length away from me until she had finished. Now
I was embarrassed and blushing and I thanked God that she couldn’t see it. “Okay, see
you in about fifteen minutes”, she said in a hurried voice. Before I could say “thank you”
I heard the click of her receiver being hung up and the sound of emptiness on the phone. I
quickly hung my receiver up and began counting the seconds.
When I reached 400 I stopped. “This is silly”, I thought to myself, and went outside to
smoke a cigarette and wait. I paced in front of the garage for what seemed like hours.
Finally, out of the foggy night, I heard the now familiar sound of the red pickup truck. I
stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the approaching headlights and my heart began
beating in double time. She pulled into the parking lot at breakneck speed and came to a
screeching halt not ten feet from where I was standing.
As I peered through the smeared windshield I could tell that she was smiling. I smiled
in return and she motioned for me to get in the truck. When I had gotten seated and shut
the door I looked up and saw Pete coming towards the truck at a quickened pace. He was
approaching my side of the truck so I rolled my window down in anticipation of his
arrival. He stuck his head in the window and said, in a rather stern voice, “You kids don’t
to be gone too long. It won’t be that much longer before I am finished here.” As I
looked at Pete I couldn’t help but notice that his gaze and his statement were directed at
my companion and not at myself. And I thought it was going to be ‘hours’ until he could
get started on the repairs.
Trying to shake the confusion out of my brain I waved to him as we pulled out of the
parking lot. Without a word she reached over and opened the glove compartment and
pulled out a cassette tape. I stared at her hand as she put the tape into the stereo and
pushed the rewind button. Her hands were a bit large for a womans hands but they were
very neat in appearance. Two rings, both of which were on her right hand and her nails
looked as though they had been recently manicured. I practically whimpered at the
thought of reaching out and touching one.
When the tape had finished rewinding there was that brief moment of hissing just
before the tape began to play. In that very moment it occurred to me what song was
going to play. I turned my head to look at my lovely chauffeur as “Night Moves” began
to play on the stereo. My head was positively swimming now. Swimming in a mixture of
fatigue, lust and bewilderment.
Softly I began to sing along with the song, never dropping my eyes from the lock I had
on her lovely profile. I noticed her peering out of the corner of her eye and a small but
poignant smirk came across her face. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as I
sang and before I knew it we were in Alapaha, Georgia in the parking lot of the
“Wayfarer’s Retreat.”
It was a fairly large place. Ten gas pumps, a souvenir shop, a diner and a convenience
store. There were semi-trucks parked on the side and in the rear so I got the impression
that this was a truckstop of significance. I reached the door to the diner and held it open
for her as she gracefully stepped inside. Without even so much as a thank you she walked
on inside, found a booth, and sat down. I was quite curious about the silence that had
befallen us and as I approached the booth I noticed that she had developed a rather serious
look on her face. Now, for the fist time since I had met her, I was apprehensive. I sat
down across from her, cleared my throat in an effort to make some sort of noise, and
picked up a menu. She looked up at me and made an effort to speak but, instead, picked
up a menu and began scanning it.
Our waitress came to the table with coffee and water and took our breakfast order.
She politely smiled at both of us then winked at me as she turned towards the kitchen. As
I watched her walk towards the kitchen I heard someone in a loud voice ask, “who’s
driving the red pickup parked out front?” I quickly turned my head towards the voice and
saw the biggest meanest ugliest man I have ever seen. We made eye contact and he
motioned with his head for me to come towards the door.
I looked across the table, shrugged my shoulders and headed for the door. He held the
door for me as I walked out, not feeling very secure over the events that were transpiring
at the present time. As we walked over to the truck I noticed that the lights were still on.
“Ah,” I thought to myself, “this is why he beckoned me outside.” About that time three
men rose up from behind the truck and started coming towards me. They looked huge in
the dim lights from the diner and shuffled their feet as they walked. The “ugly” one was
behind me and the other three were coming straight for me giving me no place to run. My
heart was racing now and my head was moving from side to side searching, in vain, for an
escape route. “Left, right, right, left” was all I could think. I decided to go left, but when
I did I felt a massive hand on my left shoulder preventing me from going that way. “Right,
right, right”, I screamed to myself, and dove to the right. I must have given myself away
because I dove just in time to catch a boot to the chest.
As I lay on the ground trying to breath again, six hands grabbed me and jerked me up
from the prone position I was in. I was spun around and wound up staring the ugly one
right in the face. As I was gasping for air he looked down at me and said, “ You need to
get out....” and that is when the gun fired. My abductors hit the ground and as I peered in
the direction of the gunshot I saw her standing there with a big grin on her face and a 9mm
pistol pointing up in the air. She ran towards me and put her arms around me and asked,
“are you okay, baby?” I replied, “I think so”, as she turned towards my abductors. “You
apes have six seconds to get the hell out of here,” she said in a stern voice. At that
command they all four got up and ran into the darkness, never to be seen again.
She helped me back into the diner and to our table where our breakfast was waiting.
Not a soul inside the diner turned their head as to acknowledge that anything had just
transpired in the parking lot. “Odd,” I thought to myself, as I sat down and began to eat
my breakfast. My heart was about to explode as I took my first bite of scrambled eggs.
My hands were shaking as though I had developed an instant case of Parkinson’s Disease
and I had to lay my fork down to avoid shaking the eggs onto the table.
“Are you all right?”, she asked in a soft voice. “Yes, I will be fine,” I replied in a
hollow voice. She looked at me inquisitively and took a bite of toast. While she was
chewing she looked down at her plate and uttered, “Those guys are creeps and always
seem to show up at the most inopportune times.” “You mean you know those guys?”
I practically screamed it out loud. “Yes,” she said in a sympathetic sounding tone.
“One night they chased me all the way from Macon,” she said, “and...” I waited a few
seconds for her too finish the sentence but it never came. I didn’t push the issue because I
could tell by the bleak expression on her face that it was not going to be a pretty picture.
“What do you do for a living,” I asked. At that she seemed to come alive and smiling
at me she said, “I am a writer.” “You’re kidding,” I quipped as I shook my head again
trying to figure out all of these coincidences. “I like to dabble into it, myself”, I added,
and she nodded her head in affirmation. “What have you written”, I asked. “Oh, a few
short stories and a few books”, she replied. Now I wanted to dig like a wild man and pick
her brain for every tidbit of information I could get out of her, but something held me
back.
She looked at me, as though she were reading my thoughts, and smiled. “If you would
like, we can go to my house and you could check out my library,” she said. I just about
fell out of my chair. The thoughts in my head were spinning so fast that there was no way
I was going to keep my balance. Without even thinking about what I was going to say I
heard, “sure” escape my lips. And before I knew it we had finished breakfast, paid for our
meal and were heading back the way we had come. It was still as black as the deepest of
night as we sped past the garage where my car was. I shrugged my shoulders and went
back to sorting the thoughts that were spinning in my brain.
We passed the convenience store like an out of control freight train. I could have
sworn we were going a hundred miles per hour. The dashes in the center of the road were
not dashes anymore. It looked like a solid yellow line now and the reflectors looked like a
solid blue beacon warning me of what was about to come. I turned to ask her where we
were going but at that very instant she stomped on the brakes and made a right turn, onto
a dirt road. The road was pitted with “tank traps.” Some of them so big it looked as
though they could swallow houses. As she carefully maneuvered around them she was
humming and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. It was almost as if she had put the
truck on auto-pilot. If it were possible for the night/morning to get darker, I swear it was
getting darker as we wound our way deeper into the south Georgia woods. I was
beginning to get a bit nervous now. Was I stepping into a trap? Was I going to be killed
and chopped into a thousand pieces and scattered throughout this place? “Only one way
to find out,” I told myself.
Ahead, through the thickest night ever created, I could make out lights and the vague
shape of a house. It was the only house I had seen since we turned onto the dirt
road...some twenty minutes ago. She turned into the driveway and 4 dogs came running
to the truck with tails wagging, obviously rejoicing in the return of their keeper. She
sighed as she turned off the ignition and looked at me in one of those, “well are ya comin’
or not” looks. I smiled and stepped out of the truck only to find myself mired in about a
foot and a half of red Georgia clay. “Son-of-a-bitch”, I exclaimed, only to hear the roar of
laughter from the other side of the truck. I snapped my head around ready to explode, but
I couldn’t. There she was leaning on the fender and looking at me. She was laughing so
hard that tears were streaming down her face. I wanted to reach down and scoop up a
handful of mud and sling it at her, but I could not. Why? Because I found myself standing
there laughing almost as hard as she was.
She motioned for me to head towards the house. It felt as though the Devil himself
had a hold of my foot as I emphatically attempted to lift my feet out of the mud. Every
step was an effort. Filled with the “sucking” sounds of the clay trying to prevent me from
reaching my destination. Finally, I reached the front porch. I stood there poised as
though I was the first man to have reached the top of Mount Everest. I was breathing like
a locomotive and the “fog” of my breath into the night proved it. I looked down and all I
could see was red clay. Red clay, inches thick, from about mid-shin down to my feet. “ I
cannot go into the house covered like this”, I said to her. She just smiled and held up a
finger as a sign for me too wait a minute and then disappeared into the house. I stood
there and scanned the surroundings. I must have been a hell of a sight because the dogs
wouldn’t even come near me.
She emerged from inside of the house and when I turned around to look at her I almost
fainted. The lights from the house behind her made her stand out in shadow. She looked
more beautiful than I had seen her, yet. She was holding a pair of bluejeans in one hand
and a pair of slippers in the other. “Here, try these on and if they fit I will wash your other
clothes”, she said in a shaky voice. I turned my head from left to right about a dozen
times and she must have sensed what was running through my head. “A bit shy are we?”
The moment she asked that it was though the weight of a thousand worlds had been lifted
off of my shoulders. Smiling, I replied, “yeah, just a little.” She smiled in recognition of
my unsettledness and said, “I don’t fancy myself too much as a voyeur, so I’ll step inside
while you change. Just come on in when you are finished.” I was already trying to get my
clay-ridden shoes off when I raised my eyes up to her, smiled and said, “thank you”. As I
think back on it now that must have been quite a submissive look I had on my face but I
must not have cared too awfully much.
I must have looked like Superman in high gear getting my jeans off and jerking on the
pair that she had given me. They fit like a glove, too. As I was zipping up the fly on the
jeans I turned and looked behind me. And there, with big grins on their faces, were the
dogs. Just staring at me with their tails wagging. I got the feeling that they had been
waiting for this for quite sometime. What “this” was I did not know. But that is the
feeling that rushed over me like a tsunami.
I smiled back at the dogs and turned to walk into the house. With a deep breath and a
shrug of my shoulders I walked in and exclaimed, “honey, I’m home.” “I’ll be right
there”, I heard her say from the back of the house and this gave me ample time to scope
out my surroundings.
The house was modestly decorated. A fireplace on the living room wall and wood
grained furniture gave it a rustic appeal. The smell of a recently extinguished fire
permeated the room and added to the rustic appeal. Nature paintings were hung on every
wall and a huge bearskin rug was located in front of the fireplace. “Have a seat”, she said,
and I made my way over to the couch and plopped down. I looked on the coffee table and
nearly choked on my sudden inhalation. There, laying face up, was the very same book
that I was reading. I picked it up and opened the cover and noticed that it was
autographed by the author. “ A nice choice in books”, I said in a raised voice, so that she
could here me. About that time, however, she emerged from the back of the house. I
rose from the couch in awe of what I saw.
She was standing there with her hair neatly combed, a touch of make-up on her face
and was wearing the most alluring nightgown I had ever seen. She smiled broadly and
asked if I’d like something to drink. I nodded my head slowly, not being able to rip my
eyes away from her, and she turned to walk into the kitchen. She returned, not sixty
seconds later with a glass of iced-tea in her hand. And there I was still standing like a
complete buffoon. She giggled as she handed me the tea and invited me to sit next to her
on the couch. I sat down and gulped my tea, now not being able to look at her without
feeling embarrassed.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her turn her head and look at me. She opened her
mouth as though to speak then turned her head away. At this point the ‘tension’ was so
thick you could cut it with a knife. I, somehow, found the courage to turn towards her
and asked, “you were about to say something?” She turned her head and placed a clammy
hand on top of mine and asked, “Joel, why are you here?”
I was silent. As silent as a piece of granite. The cuckoo clock on the wall was as loud
as a rock concert. I turned my gaze back to the coffee table and without looking up,
replied, “I don’t know.” I could have gone into the details of my miserable day at work
and the car breaking down where it did as reasons but I knew those were empty. As void
as a vacuum. There was another reason I was here.
I looked up and turned towards her again. I noticed a tear forming in her eye.
Without hesitation, I reached for her and managed to catch the tear as it dropped from her
reddened eye. I touched it to my lips and she broke. There was no sound. Just tears
running down her face. It was as though a dam of one hundred years worth of heartache
and misery had been opened. She never uttered a sound as she buried her head into my
shoulder. I held her as the tears continued to fall. I stroked her hair and rocked her gently
but the tears continued to fall. Finally, she lifted her head and looked into my eyes. Her
eyes looked as though she had been through a sixteen round boxing match but she looked
as lovely as ever. I took her chin into my hand and lowered my lips to hers. As our lips
met the world stopped. It stopped spinning, time stopped moving, it just stopped.
Stopped dead in it’s tracks.
She threw her arms around my neck and opened her mouth, ever so slightly, to
welcome my kiss. The wetness of her mouth and the salt from the tears tasted like nectar.
I couldn’t seem to get enough as I kissed her harder and harder. It was as though I was
immersed in a vat of passion. Nothing reached me. Nothing but the warmth of her body
next to mine and the wetness of our kiss. These were the only things that existed.
Everything else had been obliterated from my senses.
She slowly pulled back from our kiss and looked at me. Without uttering a sound she
got up from the couch and headed towards the back of the house. In the numbed stupor I
was in it took me a few seconds before I got up and followed her. The bedroom was lit
with candles. There must have been fifty of them arranged very neatly throughout the
room. The flickering of the flames cast eerie shadows on the walls and the ceiling. As I
approached her she reached out for me and pulled me close. Gently we lowered ourselves
to the satin sheets. Our kisses were long and deep. Not lustful in origin, but passionate.
My hands began to explore her velvety softness and she moaned into my opened mouth.
Without even realizing what was happening our clothes became heaped on the floor like
yesterdays garbage.
I lost all track of time and space. I was lost in a fog of passion and desire. As she
wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me close I became one with Nirvana. Our
mutual climax seemed to come from some unexplored and uncharted realm. It rose from
the depths of time and came crashing around us as would a wave from the sea. I brushed
her auburn hair from her face and gazed upon the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
This was peace.
She kissed me. Not a passionate kiss. But a kiss of tranquility. “This”, I said to
myself, “is why I am here.” As though she could read my mind she looked into my eyes
and smiled.
“I think your clothes are probably done by now”, she whispered. “Clothes, what
clothes”, I asked. She just rolled her eyes and pointed towards the kitchen. “You’ll find
them in the laundry room just on the other side of the kitchen.” “Oh”, I exclaimed,
“THOSE clothes.” I climbed off the bed and headed for the laundry room. When I got
there I was quite stunned to find them dried and neatly folded on top of the dryer. “Who,
when, how......”, I asked myself over and over again. I jerked my jeans on and went back
to the bedroom to ask her how the hell they had been dried and folded. But, when I
arrived there the bed was made and she was gone. I scurried throughout the house trying
to find her, but she was gone. Disappeared.
I ran out to the front porch and found her, inside the truck, laughing hysterically. If I
would have had a brick I would have thrown it at her but, instead, I just shook my head
and laughed. The dogs were playing in the mud and as I contemplated how I was going to
get to the truck without getting covered in mud again, she started the truck. She pulled it
up to the front porch and beckoned for me to get in.
I practically jumped into the seat beside her, and once again we were off. The trip
back didn’t last long enough, to be honest about it, and before I knew it we were back at
the garage. It was daylight now and Pete was eagerly awaiting our return.
He came bounding up to the truck and told me that my car was as good as new and
ready to go. I turned and looked at her but she wouldn’t look at me. She kept her eyes
focused on something far far away in the distance and I swear I saw a tear well up in her
eye.
I opened the door and got out of the truck. Pete was all smiles now as he led me to my
car. It was running and, hellfire, it sounded better than it did when I first bought it. “I did
a little adjusting here and there and I think you will be quite pleased with the results”, he
said. I thanked him, most graciously, and asked him how much I owed him. You would
have thought my fly was down or something by the way he busted out in laughter. I
looked at him quizically, and between belly-laughs he informed me that “my friend” was
picking up the tab. My jaw almost broke my foot. I spun around to go confront her but
all I saw was the tailgate of the truck roaring away in the distance.
Pete was still laughing when I got into the car and backed it out of the garage. I
waved to him but he wasn’t capable of waving back. He was too busy holding his ribs in.
I pulled out onto the road and headed back the way I had come. When I got to the exit
for I-75 I stopped the car and looked in horror at the convenience store. It was marked
off in yellow safety tape and the gas pumps had been burned beyond recognition. There
was a vehicle amongst the charred gas pumps but it was not distinguishable. There were
no police cars, no firetrucks, and no noticable movement anywhere. The scene looked to
be hours old so I didn’t worry too much about it.
I turned and started south on I-75. I was going home. Why had I traveled all this way
just to turn and go home? Thoughts like that one and many others kept my mind awake as
I traveled back to familiar territory.
Just as I turned onto my street, I noticed a car backing out of my drive way. It sped
past me so fast I couldn’t even get a glimpsa of the driver to see if they were male or
female. I turned into the driveway and there stood Linda, my fiance. She came running to
the car and flung her arms around my neck and nearly choked me trying to get me out of
the car.
I was quite taken aback by this because I assumed she would be madder than the
proverbial “wet hen.” I got out of the car and noticed that she was breathing heavy and
that there was a package lying on the ground at her feet. “I love you”, she said, as she
bent down to pick up the package. “Supper is almost ready”, she said, as she handed me
the package. I walked into the house, carrying the package, and plopped down on the
couch. I was overwhelmed by exhaustion but managed to get the package opened.
Inside I found a book and a newspaper clipping. When I flipped the book over to see
the title of it, I almost screamed. I very slowly opened the cover and there it was. The
autograph. Attached to the first page was a note which read, “this was my last copy and I
wanted you to have it....Love, Julie.” Sweat was oozing out of my pores as I unfolded the
newspaper clipping. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”


The article was dated yesterday, and read, “Author Killed in Fiery Crash”

On Friday morning at 2:03am author Julie Ann McConnell was killed when her truck was
run into the gas pumps at a local convenience store. Police reports say that a chase began
around midnight in Macon with the suspects chasing Ms. McConnell. It is believed that
Ms. McConnell died on impact and not as a result of the ensuing inferno. Ms. McConnell
was best known for her psychological thrillers, the latest to hit the best seller list being
“Lost in My Own Mine-d”.