Pour Us a Road

                                          Pour Us a Highway



The darkness engulfed him as he looked at the world through glassy eyes. The stars shined brightly in the midnight air, casting spotlights on the lonely stretch of highway. All he had to do was keep one foot in front of the other. He stared forcefully at the white line painted in front of him, going for miles and miles. His entire life balanced on this one moment, this one shot at getting it right.


He had always been the type of guy who had everything going for him. He lived the picture perfect life, down to the very last minute detail. Ivy League graduate, great job at an advertising firm in New York City… he was always talked about back home as a man who was “going places”. He proved them all right of course, because he got to those places that he had always dreamed about. Paired with a quick sense of humor and a knack for salesmanship, advertising was the obvious route for him and he hit the ground running with success.


He took a tentative step, gulping as he did so. The white line blurred in front of him and he squinted, trying to make the two lines go back to being one. The black soles of his sneakers gripped the pavement in falsely sure steps. He concentrated with all of his willpower on just continuing on this line. One step. One step. Taking it slow and easy. Keeping a steady pace, unlike the way he used to live.


Climbing steadily to the top in an advertising firm was no easy task, regardless of how flawless he may have looked on the outside. The parties. Endless parties, filled with schmoozing your way into your boss’s best graces, enduring the cold sting of rejection for your once brilliant ideas, realizing that college was the best of times and the real world was the worst. He was persistent though, not letting any minor setback get in his way of making it in the Big Apple. Money drives success. In advertising, it was all about the money.


He wobbled a bit, losing his balance despite his efforts to keep a calm, cool exterior. He teetered on the edge of the white line, trying everything he could to keep from falling off. The line blurred again, this time creating three white pathways on the road. He didn’t know which one to choose. His head was swimming with the thoughts of which line to choose. Which line was the right one? Why hadn’t he noticed the gash in his forehead until now?


Money drives greed. Money can push a respectable man to do unrespectable things. Things like bribing firms to buy your idea for an ad, sleeping with your boss’s wife behind his back, losing all of your friends and family around you because you are no longer that man you once were. After a while, when you have nothing else to lose, nothing else seems to matter.


The pain in his head was growing worse, and he picked the wrong line. Stumbling as he did so, he felt defeated. It had come to this. He could hear someone talking but the sounds seemed muffled, as if he was underwater. Depth perception was no longer apparent. He felt himself reach his arms out to his sides, and the warm wind brushed over him like a blanket. He slowly moved one hand towards his face, not really knowing why. His pointed finger brushed the wound on his head and he clenched his teeth, frustrated with himself for not finding the place he was supposed to touch.


After a while, when you become famous and well-liked in an upscale community, your dirty laundry can resurface at any time. Secrets you never wanted told suddenly come out in tabloids, and the people who you owe your newfound life to can start questioning your actions very quickly. Forget morals, forget values. The real world is a vicious cycle, bound and determined to make sure that you fall. And when you do fall, when you hit rock bottom, it hurts.


He sighed. He breathed deeply. And was asked to breathe again. Things were not looking good, that much was obvious. To him, the world suddenly looked terrifying. Harsh realities were strikingly bold to him as he took in his surroundings, suddenly snapped out of his stupor and hazy notion of the world in front of him. He sensed that the lights flashing on the white line, causing it to change from red to blue every few seconds, were casting shadows that he wasn’t sure he wanted to face. What if he was to turn around? What horrors would he face on this empty highway?


His best friend was Jack. Jack’s last name was Daniels. He seemed to be a pretty popular guy for those who were down on their luck. Him and Jack, they hung out a lot. Maybe too often. After a while, they became inseparable. Best friends. Jack was a **** of a good guy. Jack helped ease the pain of being fired from the ad firm. Jack helped calm the nerves when he found his things scattered on the front yard of his apartment by a girl whose name he couldn’t recall at the time. Jack kept him warm when all he had was a beat-up Chevy to sleep in. Jack kept the problems at bay, kept them hidden and quiet. He kept the tears from coming. Jack kept him comfortably numb.


He turned around slowly, remembering suddenly that Jack was helping him through this anyway. The cool metal stung his wrists as he felt himself become restrained. The fuzzy sounds of the world faded away and his hearing returned to him in full force. Someone was screaming. Two people were screaming. Three people were screaming. One was not. He felt beads of perspiration erupt on his forehead as he stared, dumbstruck at the scene. The colored lights were blaring, so loud to his ears. The people’s screams were louder. They were too loud. He couldn’t take how loud they were. But he was motionless.


Motionless had never been in his vocabulary. However bad things got, he never just stood still. He wasn’t apathetic. If something bothered him, he would do something about it. He would fix it. Speed was the key. Constant movement was the key. Moving helped him evade life, helped him slip by it quickly before it caught up with him. Fast. Very fast. He was a fast driver. His Chevy could pick up serious speed. Him and Jack liked to joyride, especially lately. There was one night where he and Jack just went out of control. They had lost everything and were numb to everything, and they took a ride. They sped along a highway, fraying at the edges of insanity. The night sky blurred by past the windows of his truck that night, and the warm wind whipped through the car. Everything felt so warm. After a while, he felt safe. Jack relaxed him up a lot and his eyes closed.


Screams pierced the night as he stared into the wreckage that lay before him. He stared for what seemed like hours, watching as workers swarmed the area wading through the shattered glass and twisted metal. Policemen stood erect, grave looks on their faces as they exchanged somber words to two people sitting in the back of an ambulance. He watched silently as they listened to the policemen’s quiet words, and grew frightened when they suddenly shuddered and shot a look at him that cut him like a knife. He felt a stab in his chest as he watched a worker zip a bag. He saw a pale face inside it, a beautiful face that would no longer light up again. That was when he felt the tears come.


He dozed off. Jack must’ve taken over the wheel, for all that he could remember. He never saw the other car. He felt his own Chevy drift, but nothing mattered to him anymore. He just didn’t care. His life was gone. Everything he’d ever loved or wanted had vanished. So he drifted. Over that white line that would soon prove to be so important. His car became just another blur in the night air. A lonely highway. A lonely man. The cars collided with a jarring jolt. Glass splintered into a million fragments; intense heat flooded his senses as he was awakened into a living nightmare. The red and blue lights came later. He opened his eyes and could see the other car. He saw a beautiful face and thought it was an angel. She was so beautiful.


The bag zipped up. His face was streaming with tears as he began to realize that it was him who was the cause to all of the pain on this night. He began looking around for Jack in a frantic state, needing the veil he provided against the world. He began screaming, apologizing, begging with God to let him get away from all of this. He didn’t want to feel. He didn’t want this reality to be real. But it was and there was no escaping from it. The police car opened and he was shoved into the seat. The stale smell of cigar smoke lingered in the air as the catastrophic scene played on outside of the car windows. Nobody could save him from what he had become or what he had done. Not even Jack.