LUCKIEST DAY OF MY LIFE - Quill Winner

LUCKIEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE
By J
ONE: Luckiest day of your life:
Of course, there’d be a tornado on the worst day of my life why wouldn’t there be? Just one more tasty nugget to the shit pile my life had become since I woke up this morning. I’d just passed a sign reading: “Welcome to Wellston, Oklahoma Pop. 888”, when the town’s storm sirens began to wail and the low-hanging clouds above me began to spin. Even as I leaned into the steering wheel to stare up at the dark, whirlpooling clouds, the storm began reaching its tendrily fingers towards the ground.
If my girlfriend, Caitlyn, were in the passenger seat, like she was supposed to be, she’d make me pull into the Dollar General up ahead and take shelter within the safety of its cinderblock walls. But Dollar General’s walls and friendly yellow marquee were no match for an F-3 tornado much less an F-4 or worse yet, one of the F-5 monsters. Maybe I was just too pissed to stop, or maybe I wanted my dead-end life to end. Either way, I hit the accelerator and with my Corolla engine howling, raced beneath the lowering dark finger and out the other side of town.
And what was my destination as I set the cruise and headed south on Highway 77? A cabin at Lake Thunderbird Falls, cabin B-3 to be exact. “A cozy, romantic getaway with a view of the falls and a grill out front.” According to Lindey.L’s Yelp review. It was the spot where I’d dropped half my paycheck to reserve a romantic weekend of my own. And where was my girlfriend of two years and the love of my life? In the passenger seat of Richie Blanco’s truck with his hand halfway up her thigh. That’s where Caitlyn was.
Five minutes outside Wellston and the sky brightened, the rain slackened, and a rain-freshened world revealed itself through the wipers. I even spotted patches of blue scattered amongst the clouds. With the storm behind me and clear roads ahead, I picked up Caitlyn’s note and read it again. Her words were scrawled across the back of an 8x11 orange flier, one of the dozens tucked beneath the wipers of cars parked at the race. The flier’s front depicted a bicycle-riding armadillo with long, trumpet-shaped glasses in each of his hands. Beneath the armadillo, the ad read:
FUEL UP AFTER THE RIDE @ Don Jose’s Mexican Cantina
Bring your ride number &
Get your 1st Yard-A-Rita for 50% off.
I’d expected to find Caitlyn at the finish line ready to congratulate me on my win but instead, I discovered I was alone. Worry turned to frustration, and frustration to rage as I searched for my girl. I called and texted for nearly an hour before she finally texted back,
‘Read the note on the windshield’, but by then I’d already found it.
The Hotter-N-Hell 100 was the last UCI points qualifier for the Olympic cyclist’s training camp outside Colorado Springs, and my last chance at making the 2024 Olympic team. Leaving my lifelong dream to the last race of the season hadn’t worried me as I’d done well at the rides I had attended, though entertaining Caitlyn had put a crimp in my training schedule and sometimes made getting to races tough. But as long as I make a good showing at today’s race, I’d have the points needed for acceptance to the Colorado Springs camp. A top-five finish was all I needed, and who did I have to worry about besides Josh Riley, and a couple of guys from the Texas Roadhouse team?
That morning, when the starting cannon echoed through the brick canyons and concrete arroyos of downtown Wichita Falls, Texas there’d been over three hundred racers looking for a win. Three and a half hours of hard riding and several well-planned attacks later and only seven of us remained. Leading the pack was the Roadhouse kid outta Dallas, Leu Kim. Then came Josh Riley tight on his ass and me right on Josh’s back wheel. The next four riders included one of Lou’s teammates, a 30s-something weekend-warrior who I was shocked hadn’t had a coronary, then two guys wearing east coast jerseys. Those two might be a threat.
We were a half mile from the finish and everyone jockeying for the final sprint when we passed the dancing neon armadillo above Don Jose’s Mexican Cantina. A crowd of twenty-five, forty, and even fifty-mile finishers already swelled the Don Jose’s parking lot as they celebrated their accomplishment with yards of Don Jose’s margaritas and the blaring music of a local rock band. I had just dropped a gear and jumped into position beside Leu Kim when my girlfriend’s unmistakable donkey-bray laugh, ‘Bwa-ha-ha-ha’-burst from the direction of the Don Jose’s crowd and rolled across the racers. Caitlyn’s laugh was followed by the throaty rumble of a truck roaring from the parking lot and zooming towards the highway. A truck suspiciously similar to Richie Blanco’s candy-apple red F-250. An arm stuck out the pickup’s driver’s side window hoisting one of Don Jose’s half-empty Yard-A-Ritas. And did I see someone in the passenger seat holding up a Yard-A-Rita of her own? A woman with hair the same color and length as Caitlyns?
It was just a brief loss of focus. A momentary blank. But when I looked back, Josh Riley’s blue jersey swelled in my vision and I face-planted into his back. To Josh’s credit, he never went down as the impact slammed him into one of the Roadhouse riders, the two of them wobbling for an instant before regaining their balance and zipping down the road. My bike was thrown into a skid and for an instant, I sat perpendicular to the four riders behind me. They’d all thrown their weight back and hit the brakes but there was no avoiding the inevitable. When we collided, the world became a cartwheeling confusion of thudding bodies, spinning colors, and muffled grunts. When I skidded to a stop, I stood, my head feeling muzzy and my cracked helmet riding cockeyed on my head. I didn’t think about the race or the crash. I just stared up the road trying to catch a glimpse of Caitlyn and Richie Blanco’s candy apple red truck.
“Stupid fuck!” Lue Kim snapped in a spittle-fueled curse that spattered my cheeks and yanked me into the present. I tried remounting my bike as Lue had and peddling after him but as I swung into the saddle and pushed off, my tacoed front wheel only made a half turn before jamming tight against the front brakes. With nothing left to do, I picked up my bike and ran. I don’t know how many riders passed me on my quarter-mile shuffle to the finish. A dozen. Maybe more. Then began the frantic search for Caitlyn and ultimately the text and her note. When I found the orange flier tucked beneath the wiper I began to read:
“Dearest, Isaac,
I want you to know I care for you deeply and our last two years have been great, but Richie and I have fallen in love.”
Fallen in love? What the fuck does that even mean? Somewhere between mile markers twenty-eight and thirty, she decided to dump her boyfriend and all his weekend plans for Yard-A-Ritas and a ride in Richie Blanco’s shiny new truck? Or had she and Richie been vanishing from club rides to screw, as Josh Wilks said? And to think I threatened to shut Josh up for saying so. Josh Wilks the 6’03, 210 pound ex-Marine who outweighed me by sixty pounds. He woulda mopped the floor with me. But I threatened him anyway to protect my girlfriend’s honor. Josh had simply looked embarrassed and walked away. And why not? The whole riding club knew what Caitlyn was. Everyone but me.
Her note continued:
“I know there’s dark times ahead for you, Isaac, but once you come out the other side, maybe we can be friends. And maybe you’ll get lucky and find your soulmate like I found Richie.
Good luck,
Caitlyn “
I blame Caitlyn for what happened next as it was her note I was reading, and it was Caitlyn who’d convinced me to spend money meant to replace bald tires on a pearl necklace instead. So, when I crossed the rumble strips and the car began to rattle, the yank on the steering wheel, meant to pull me back into my lane, sent me instead into a spin. Thank God the road was empty when I crossed the center median and skidded into a field. If Caitlyn had been here, she’d have said something funny yet cutting, but she wasn’t. Her witticisms were reserved for Richie Blanco now and he was welcome to ‘em.
I stepped out to find my Toyota sunk to the axle in mud. Thunder grumbled in the distance and the sun glimmered beneath gathering clouds as I consulted my contact list for someone to call. It was there on the side of the road, standing ankle-deep in mud and all my plans shot, that I realized I had no one to call. Since Caitlyn, I’d not talked to any of my friends, and I realized now how I’d abandoned them. Since meeting Caitlyn, my world revolved around making her happy, training for my dream, and working at Dallas Bike Mart to make ends meet. Now that Caitlyn and my dream were gone, all that was left was my crappy, no insurance, no benefits, why don’t you stay late again, job. A short list of possibilities to call for help was reduced to my high-school bestie, John, who was in Florida for his grandmother’s funeral, and Jamie from work. I called Jamie, but it went straight to voice mail. I left a message. Which left one last possibility. Saachi. The last thing I wanted, the last thing I needed was to call her. Another example of the loser twin needing his sister to bail him out. I waited twenty minutes for Jamie to return my call, then I dialed her out of desperation. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey, lil’ bro? What’s up?”
“You’re only twelve-minutes older, Saachi, and you know how I hate that.”
“Well, someone’s in a mood.”
A pickup passed and sent a rooster tail of water rushing into the air. I ducked away to protect the phone and my back was bathed in lukewarm spray.
“Where are you?” She asked, “Do I hear traffic?”
I sighed, putting off my need for rescue one heartbeat longer.
“Can you bring your Jeep and pull me out?” I asked. “I skidded off the road, and now I’m stuck.”
“Oh, my! Is everyone okay?
“Nothing big. Just hydroplaned and ended up in the grass.”
I left out the part about bald tires and breakup notes.
“Are you guys, okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Was Caitlyn scared?”
“Caitlyn’s not here.”
“Whaddya mean she’s not there? I saw her Instagram post of you guys this morning before the race.”
The sounds of merriment on Saashi’s end of the phone dwindled to silence before the hollow echo of her footsteps down a hall and the slam of a door came across the receiver.
“She left me for a guy named Richie Blanco,” I told her. “She fell in love, according to her note.”
“Note? She broke up on a note?”
“Yup, though I suppose I’m lucky she did that before she and Richie grabbed Yard-A-Ritas and headed into the sunset in Richie’s shiny new truck.”
“Yard-A-Ritas?” The question was followed by silence.
“Oh, Isaac. I’m so sorry.”
I had nothing to say.
“So, can ya come get me?”
“Sure. Where are you?”
“Four miles north of a little town called Wellston. On Highway 77. Ya can’t miss me. I’m the only car for miles. Hell, the only anything for miles.”
I heard her keyboard clatter.
“W-E-L-L-S-T-O-N, right?” A clatter of keys. “Okay, I see it. About an hour and a half to get there.” She paused. “Have you checked the weather? It shows several lines of storms rolling through there all night long. Tornado warnings too.
You might wanna ride your bike into town and wait for me there.”
“Can’t. I wrecked it.”
“Wrecked what? Your bike?”
“Yup. Crashed at the finish line and tacoed the wheel. Bent the fork too.”
“Oh, no. Did you get the finish you needed?”
“Nope, not even close. Don’t know how many passed me, but it was sure as hell more than five. So, no Olympic training camp. No Olympic tryouts. No nothing. Seven years of riding and my lifelong dream down the tubes.”
There was a long silence.
“Oh, Isaac, I’m so sorry.” She sighed. “I’ll be there in an hour and thirty-seven minutes. Are you gonna try an’ make it into town, or should I pick you up on the road?”
Even carrying my bike, I could make Wellston before the storm hit and certainly before sunset and it beat the prospect of riding out another tornado in my now immobilized Toyota.
“I passed a Dollar General as I drove outta town,” I told her. “I’ll meetcha there.”
“I’m sorry ‘bout Caitlyn,” she said, “and the race.” She paused. “Maybe you’re lookin’ at this all wrong. Maybe this isn’t all bad after all.”
Just like Saashi, making lemonade out of lemons. But life’s different when you’re not the high school valedictorian. When school doesn’t come easy and you’re happy just getting a diploma.
“Yeah, and how’s that?” I said, not hiding my sarcasm.
“For one thing, Amma gets another chance to set you up with a nice Indian girl.”
Despite myself, the smile in her voice and the image of our chubby, gray-haired Grandmother suddenly energized to find me a partner brought a grin.
“And last Diwali,” she continued, “didn’t you say making training camp was no guarantee of making the team? That there were just too many good riders and you needed a new life plan?”
Saachi was right. Isn’t she always? I trained more out of hope and habit now than a solid belief I could make the team. Life’s easier living in denial, pretending everything’s fine instead of facing the hard fact you’re a loser. And isn’t that what I was? A loser. Now Caitlyn, the only positive thing in my life was gone.
“And one last thing you need to hear, little brother,” Saachi said. “No one liked Caitlyn. Not even Amma and she loves everyone.”
“Amma didn’t like Caitlyn?”
“Nope. After you two left, last Diwali, she said your girlfriend doesn’t eat enough and spends too much time in front of a mirror. If you ask me, this is the luckiest day of your life.”
“Lucky? How could any of this be lucky?”
“Well, I guess we’ll have ta see.”
I hung up and grabbed the only things of value in the car, a two-inch square box at the bottom of my duffel bag and my bike. Everything else, the cooler filled with rib-eyes and champagne and my duffel bag of clothes I left behind. I started for town as the first fat, chilly drops of the approaching storm peppered my skin. By the top of the first hill, my exhausted legs were mush, I was soaked to the bone and shivering so bad I had to clamp my teeth together to keep them from clattering. I was 29 years old with no prospects for the future, no girlfriend to love me, and everything of value I carried on my back. Yup, the luck train just never stopped chugging for Isaac Ashan Haldar. I almost looked forward to the next little tidbit of joy the universe had in store. Maybe a lightning bolt at the top of the next rise. Or better yet, a tornado. Then it began to hail.
 
TWO: Your kind ain’t welcome.
Only one car passed on my way to Wellston, a blue Chevy with a rusted bumper, its taillights dwindling into the distance as I crested my third hill and the rain finally stopped. I stood upon a rounded hilltop surrounded by deep emerald pastures dotted with cows and scattered with stands of oak. I hadn’t seen a house in almost a mile. Now that the rain let up, I balanced the bike on one shoulder and dug out my phone. I opened Caitlyn’s Instagram and started thumbing through her posts. Her day began with an image of her and Richie at the start of the race, arms over each other’s shoulders and smiling. It must have been after I left. Then a shot from one of the rest stops, streams of water frozen midair as Caitlyn douses Richie with her water bottle and he smiles and dodges away. The last pics were at the crowded tables of Don Jose’s Cantina. In one they stood with Yard-A-Rita’s raised in a toast. In another several riders from our club had joined them and they stood in a smiling circle glasses raised. Everyone was there; Jake Sanders and Kathy Peel, that chubby guy, Ron, and all of them with drinks and smiles.
I didn’t hear the truck coming up the hill behind me until its engine rose to a throaty roar, and the sudden wail of its horn made me leap onto the shoulder in fear. I glanced back in time to see an arm extended from the passenger window of a white pickup. An object was lofted from that hand and sailed toward me.
The entire scene played out in slow motion. I jumped back but only managed to put myself even more in the missile’s path. The giant convenience store cup, which was what it was, hit me in the chest and exploded in a cold, whisky-scented spray. The truck kept going, its horn dopplering into the distance as a blonde head and shoulders emerged from the passenger window to yell,
“Go home Niiigerrrrr.”
I caught a final glimpse of a blue rear quarter panel and red taillights as the truck disappeared over the next hill.
My first thought was; I’m not black, followed immediately by the revelation that my tawny skin, darkened to mahogany by a summer of riding, made me look that way to them. Growing up in Flower Mounds, just North of Dallas, I’d experienced my fair share of discrimination. Word calling at high school football games, Curry muncher and raghead being the favored terms used by racists. But most of that ended with high school, at least as far as my own experience went. This sudden assault pushed my Caitlyn questions into the background as the world seemed suddenly darker and I realized I was alone. I thought about calling Saachi but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. She was already on her way. No, the best thing was to keep moving. I did a couple deep knee bends and shook out my thighs then shouldered the bike and set off. It was just 2.03 miles to Dollar General, according to the GPS, and I needed to hurry. In case they came back
Though sunset was still an hour off, the sky continued to darken as a second wave of storms crowded the western horizon. Fortunately, the rain held off since the cup incident though the heat and humidity skyrocketed, and I kicked myself for not bringing a water bottle. But the Dollar General was close, I reminded myself, and I thought it possible to see the store's bright yellow marquee from the top of the next hill. Twenty minutes more, and I’ll be there. I was wondering whether I wanted a Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper when a man stepped from a bamboo thicket growing thick beside the road.
It's Richie Blanco coming to give me a beatdown as well as steal my girl, was my first thought, because all I could make out was he was tall like Richie and with the same broad shoulders, and I was surprised because I didn’t feel scared but angry, and I wanted to punch him in the face.
Then I thought, why would Richie be here?
The sunlight hit him, and I saw he wasn’t fit like Richie at all, but an athlete gone to seed, and his thin nose, broad blue eyes, and pockmarked face were a far cry from Richie’s chiseled features. Not to mention Richie wouldn’t be caught dead in an OU ballcap or a grungy black tee-shirt with the words: BAMA BIKE FEST scrawled across the front. Behind him, I spotted a blue truck fender tucked behind the bamboo.
“What’cha doin’ out here, boy?” he asked. “Your kind ain’t welcome.”
I cut my eyes to the phone screen, held low beside my leg, and fumbled to pull up the dialer so I could call 911.
“He ain’t a nigger,” a second voice said from behind me.
I spun to see a second man round the other side of the bamboo and cut me off. They were both mid-twenties, but this second guy was thinner and he had brown, military-cut hair, a freckled nose, and sapphire eyes that squinted as he studied me. He wore a white tee shirt that read: Rock & Roll in block letters above the silhouette of an AR-15. When he stepped closer, I spotted a ball bat held low beside his leg. It was the small kind of bat they hand out at exhibition ballgames downtown.
“He’s one ah them Indian boys,” the thin one said, “Dot not feather.”
“Look, guys, I don’t want any trouble.” I said and slipped the bike from my shoulder. I set it down between myself and the bigger guy. It was light enough; I could lift it and use it as a shield.
“Someone’s pickin’ me up at the Dollar General, then I’m outta here.”
I raised my right hand.
”I swear, you’ll never see me again.“
The Dollar General was barely a mile away. I could see its yellow gleam in the distance, just over the big man’s shoulder. The skinny one glanced toward town and shrugged. Then he reached behind his back and produced a pistol from his belt. The gun was black and chunky, and he leveled it at my head.
My mouth went dry as I stared down its barrel. I’m gonna die, ricocheted through my brain.
“I don’t think you heard me.” His eyes narrowed even further. “I said, your kind ain’t welcome. Not here.” He waved the gun in an arc. “Not town. Not anywhere.”
“I-I…” I stuttered before looking first to the skinny one then to the blonde. “I don’t know what you want. I can’t leave without being on the road long enough to leave.”
“You bein’ a smart ass?” The skinny one’s brows narrowed into a scowl.
I held up my hands in a palms-out gesture of surrender.
“Not at all. I just wanna go.”
“He is being a smart ass,” the blonde said. “Maybe he needs a lesson in manners.”
“I think you’re right,” the skinny one said.
He aimed the pistol at my feet.
“I think you need to get on your knees an’ beg for your worthless life.”
Was he joking? I swallowed with an audible click and looked from one to the other. There was nothing in their eyes but hate. Then, despite the anger, despite the humiliation, I lowered first one knee to the wet, gritty earth, then the other.
”My bike’s worth over four grand,” I said leaning it towards him and lifting my downcast eyes. “Just take it and let me go.”
“I don’t want your fuckin’ bike,” the skinny one chuffed. “We ain’t thieves.”
He tucked the pistol in his belt and turned for the truck. Was he letting me go? Tension melted from my shoulders, and my racing heart slowed.
“We ain’t just leavin’ him here, are we Jackie?” the blonde asked.
“Yeah, come on,” the skinny one named Jackie called over his shoulder, “Our work here’s done.”
The blonde stepped past me on his way to the truck and shoved me sideways into a puddle. But that was okay. They were going. I was free.
But when Jackie reached the truck, he paused.
“You remember what Pastor Bill was sayin’ last night at the bonfire?” Jackie asked.
The blonde met him at the tailgate and they both turned to consider me.
“I remember,” said the blonde. “But what part you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“The part about the mud people,” Jackie said. “And what needs ta be done about ‘em to get this nation back on the right track.”
“Yeah,” the blonde said, and his intense consideration of me sharpened. “I remember.”
“An’ you remember what we talked about on the way home?” Jackie continued. “How things were when my grampa was a kid and how we need a spark to ignite the people.”
Like two icy blades, the blonde’s eyes sliced into me
“I remember.”
As the blonde glared, Jackie stepped to the driver’s side door. It opened with a rusty groan. If they’d been cruel before at least their maliciousness held an undercurrent of dark mirth. An inside joke with me as the butt. When Jackie reappeared, I saw in his cocksure strut, and the athletic crouch of the blonde that their attitude had changed. I imagined them in high school, the charming quarterback and his muscled center breaking the huddle and strolling to the front line. I couldn’t tell if Jackie still held the pistol as he kept his hand behind his back. Which was worse.
“Look, you won’t ever see me again, I promise.”
I held the bike between us and stepped away, but they split to flank me. A glance showed the road behind me was empty. I was alone.
“Look, I already called the police,” I bluffed. “They’ll be here any minute.”
My muscles were bunched as springs, but there was nowhere to run. No front doors to bang on. No deep wooded glen to hide in. I was surrounded by open fields and an empty highway. I was alone. I swung the bike from side to side to keep them at bay, but they kept outside my reach like hyenas analyzing a wounded zebra and readying themselves for the kill.
“What about microdots?” the blonde asked.
Microdots? What was he talking about?
“Washed away by the rain,” the skinny one answered. He lifted his face to the storm as fresh drops peppered the ground.
When Jackie looked back at me, his posture had changed. His ready stance was relaxed, and he looked at the blonde with a tilt of the head and shake of the wrist. A movement to stay back.
“Maybe you did call the cops,” Jackie said. “And I certainly don’t want any trouble with the authorities.”
I couldn’t believe it. My bluff had worked.
“Just so’s there’s no hard feelings.” He held out his hand for me to shake.
But his hand wasn’t empty. It held a gun. It was unlike any gun I’d ever seen. For one, it didn’t have a barrel but a flat yellow cube front end and black plastic handle. I blinked thinking it was a toy.
“We’ll make ya famous,” he said.
There was a pop as he squeezed the trigger, and two silk thin strands shot from the gun’s yellow front and struck me in the chest. The lightning jolt that exploded through my body when the barbs on those strands hit flung me to the ground and shook me like Amma’s schnauzer shook a squirrel. When the spasms stopped, I rose to an elbow and looked around. I was lying in a puddle, soaking wet, and covered with grit. The taste of blood floated in my mouth.
“Hit ‘em again, hit ‘em again,” the blond said excitedly.
Once more my body seized. Pain exploded from every pore. I flopped in the puddle for what seemed an eternity. Then the pain vanished, and I opened my eyes to see the blonde leaning over me. His massive hands were balled into fists.
“Nighty night,” he said.
When his punch landed, everything went dark.
THREE: No plan ‘B’.
The grumble of thunder and flash of lightning woke me, and I opened my eyes to darkness, a jackhammer in my head, and blood in my mouth. I tried reaching for the throb at the back of my skull, but my hands wouldn’t move. They were held behind me by something tight around my wrists. My legs too were bound, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw they were taped at the ankles and knees. The room was lit by dusky light filtering through a pair of windows ahead of me and another window to my left. To my right, lit by a bulb in the ceiling, was the kitchen. I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus, then opened them and looked around.
I was leaning against a rough wooden pillar in a cluttered living room not much larger than my apartment back home. My hands were bound with metal cuffs that pinched so tight my fingers tingled, and when I moved, I felt a length of thick chain running from a rough metal collar around my neck, down my chest, and to the floor where it was padlocked around the pillar’s base. Rough-hewn cedar columns, like the one I was chained to, were spaced evenly around the room and rose to the ceiling in a crisscrossed network of beams. At the room’s center sat a worn leather sofa, a coffee table, and a recliner, while against the opposite wall, there was a bookshelf-flanked fireplace situated between the windows. To my right, the recessed light over the kitchen sink showed a circle of illumination on a filthy counter, a round table with three fold-out chairs, and beside the table, the back door. The front door was to my left beside another window, this one shuttered by blinds. The last item of note, which sent a chill down my spine, was the floor-to-ceiling Confederate flag hung on the wall beside me.
I ran the chain through my numb fingers and explored each link. As I did, I felt the panic rise. How would I ever get loose? Where was I? Why was I here? I brought up the faces of my attackers trying to recall ever seeing them before. I hadn’t. I tried putting a ‘Why’ to my situation but there was nothing. I paused and took a few deep breaths. I needed to focus. I needed to stay calm. I needed to get out of here. I shifted my attention to the tape binding my legs and saw that if I bent just right, I could work my fingers beneath the strips around my ankle. Then I heard steps on the front porch and voices outside the door.
“You got everything we’re gonna need?” the one called Jackie asked. “We gotta do this right or the cops’ll be breathin’ down our necks.”
Do what right? I thought
“Sure, Jackie,” the blonde said, “I threw everything in the truck just like you said. I even grabbed the cuttin’ torch an’ a second toolbox.”
“Good thinkin’,” Jackie said.
The blonde said something I didn’t catch followed by, Jackie’s response of, “Good idea. And while you’re doin’ that, I’ll check on our guest. Make sure he’s comfortable before we go.”
There was the fading scrunch of footsteps on gravel before the front door rattled open. I closed my eyes hoping to convince him I was still unconscious, but when Jackie walked over, grabbed my shirt, and gave it a shake, my eyes flew open.
“Hey, there he is,” Jackie said, then he slapped me hard enough to reopen my split lip and send a fresh stream of blood drizzling down my chin. As he spoke, he tugged at the tape binding my legs and ankles, checking their strength.
“Me, an’ Tyler are gonna take care of your car for ya, but don’t worry. We won’t be long. Then we’ll start the main event.”
Take care of my car? What did that mean? Then I heard, ‘main event’, and my heart skipped. Chains, tasers, kidnapping. I had bigger problems than my car or missing bike. These guys were playing for keeps and there was no telling what horrors they had planned.
“Okay, boy.” He pressed an elbow against my sternum and produced a knife from his pocket. I was surprised the blade was so cold when he pressed it against my throat and wondered how long it would take to die once he sliced across my jugular.
“I got a couple questions even you ain’t gonna have trouble answerin’.”
He pressed the blade deeper but with my head pinned against the wall, there was nowhere to go. A warm stream of blood trickled down my neck and patted onto my chest.
“First question. What’s the security code to your phone?”
My heart raced fast enough to carry me away, but there was nowhere it could take me. Despite wanting to answer, there was a fog across my thinking that made it hard to speak.
He yanked the metal collar higher and cut off my air.
“Last chance,” he said, flicking the blade across my earlobe with the associated flash of pain. “Then you lose an ear.”
“2-4 6-8,” I gasped, the lisp from my swollen lip turning ‘six’ into ‘thicks’.
He pulled my phone from his back pocket and poked in the code. His eyes darted to the front door when the blonde stepped in.
“We’re all packed,” the blonde called.
“I’m almost ready too,” Jackie said.
He checked my phone, then his gaze returned, and he leaned closer. He smelled of whisky and cigarettes.
“Who’s Saashi, and where’s he picking you up?”
Would they wait at the Dollar General and kidnap my sister too? I didn’t think so. The collar tightened as he lifted the chain higher.
“Sister,” I choked out. “Saashi’s my sister.”
He lowered the chain, and I sucked in a breath.
“And where’s she meetin’ you?”
The blade was pressed to the base of my ear.
“Answer quick or I’m feeding this ear to the hogs.”
“Dollar General!” I gasped. “The Dollar General.”
“Ask ‘em if she’s hot,” the blonde said.”
“Shut up, Tyler,” Jackie snapped. “We’re not playin’ games.”
Had I just doomed my sister to a fate worse than death? A sudden shame turned my insides cold at the realization I’d say almost anything to survive.
“Does she know where your car’s at? Answer quick or the ear’s mine.”
The pain took my breath away when he pressed the blade’s tip into my flesh. I leaned away, but he pressed the blade deeper.
“I don’t know,” I screamed. “Outside of town! I told her outside of town!”
“Take his ear,” the blonde said excitedly, “You know they all lie.”
“Tell me or I cut it off.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I felt my bladder go. Warmth spread across my riding shorts and pooled beneath my thigh.
“Maybe I told her,” I sobbed. “I don’t remember. I swear I don’t.”
“Jesus Christ, what a mess.” Jackie hopped back and eyed the widening puddle. “But what can you expect from an animal?”
“We’ll teach ‘em a thing or two when we get back won’t we Jackie,” the blonde said.
“Why wait?” Jackie asked. “Let’s teach him something now.”
He eyed me, his face stern.
“Sit!” He pointed to the ground where I was seated. Then he turned his palm outwards and said, “Stay!”
He leaned over and patted my head, and in a baby talk voice said, “That’s a good boy, what a good boy.”
I stared.
“You got his keys?” Tyler asked.
Jackie snapped his fingers. “Ah, the keys.”
Jackie checked my jersey pockets, taking the keys, my wallet, and the two-inch black box I’d grabbed from my duffel.
“That’s mine,” I said, rising to my knees when I saw he had the box.
The next instant stars exploded across my vision, and I was back on my ass. The numbness across my jaw where he’d punched me thawed to a dull throb as he flipped the box open to reveal the engagement ring within. It was a simple gold circlet with the biggest diamond, $900 cash, and a $1,500 loan could buy. He wasn’t impressed.
“What’s this,” he said, holding the ring up for the blonde to see. “Is the darkie gettin’ married?”
“Ask him if it’s a white girl,” Tyler said.
When I didn’t answer, Jackie kicked me in the thigh so hard I doubled over.
“He asked you a question,” Jackie said, yanking me back up.
“Yes, she’s white. So what?”
“See, “Jackie said. “This is exactly the kinda shit Pastor Bill’s talkin’ about. Diluting the white race. This right here’s the reason we gotta act.”
Jackie examined my engagement ring a moment longer then jammed the ring and my keys into his pocket.
“Let’s go,” he said, and they walked out the door. The pickup rumbled to life a moment later followed by the diminishing scrunch of gravel as they left me to my humiliation. I stared at the door for I don’t know how long before a flash of lightning rattled the house and shook me back to thinking. I wasn’t going to just sit here and wait for them to return. I had to get free. And I had to warn Saachi.
My hands were bound behind me with handcuffs, and my legs were taped at both ankle and knee. If I could just get to the kitchen, there’d be a knife, and even with my hands behind me, I could cut away the tape. The metal collar around my neck and the chain binding me were the problems. I examined the chain a second time and checked every link I could reach. Then I examined the gold-bodied padlock binding the chain to the column. Lastly, I checked the column itself, a foot-thick post running from the floor to the ceiling. How long had they been gone? Ten minutes, maybe fifteen? And how long ‘til they returned? I’d been unconscious when they brought me here, but for how long? I had vague memories of my head bouncing off the truck bed floor as we bounded along a dirt road. And another of them carrying me from the truck. I didn’t think I’d been out more than ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Which meant a thirty-minute round trip to my car and back. And nearly half of it was gone. The kitchen microwave flashed 12:00, but I still had my watch. I set a five-minute repeat timer then pressed my back against the wood column and rose to my feet.
When I stood, the hammering in my skull turned my head into a gong and for a moment the world’s edges blurred. When my knees threatened to buckle, I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. In, hold, and out. In, hold, and out. As the pounding receded, I opened my eyes.
From this higher vantage, I reexamined the chain hoping for a miracle, and found it thirty links down. A single improperly welded steel link with a gap between the arms. It wasn’t much, barely a fingernail's width, but it was something to work with. A voice at the back of my head shouted the insanity of trying to break a chain, but I had no other options. The pillar was too thick, and the lock too strong. What else was there?
An inventory of everything I was wearing and anything within reach came up flat. My bike shorts and jersey were useless. Nothing but lycra and bright colors. The timer at my wrist buzzed.
Five minutes gone. Twenty left.
I searched the post and the wall beside it for anything to use as a tool and discovered a staple at the column’s base. It was a heavy construction staple with a piece of plastic snagged beneath it. I worked the staple free, and the buzzer went off again.
Fifteen minutes.
I straightened the staple and worked it into the gap between the link’s arms while managing to punch several holes in my fingertips as I did. I pressed the staple deeper into the gap using the wall as a base.
The buzzer again. Half my time gone.
I tried levering the link’s arms apart even a bit, but the staple snapped. When the watch buzzed, my sanity snapped too.
I tried formulating a plan ‘B’, but there was no plan ‘B’. Plan ‘A’ had sucked from the start, as the angry part of my brain reminded me. I examined the links again, and my breath quickened as panic slowly slipped back in. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to be anyplace but here, and an animal wildness I couldn’t control or explain grabbed me. When the watch buzzer went off, I lost it. I screamed and pulled at the chain until the collar began choking off my air. Then gritting my teeth, I pulled all the harder, one foot braced against the column, the other against the wall as the collar’s unexpected roughness bit deep into my neck and blood trickled down my back. The strain on my neck grew until the world darkened along the edges and compressed around me.
Please, Krishna. Let the chain break. I prayed. Or my neck.
One second, I was pushing myself to the breaking point, and the next, ‘Crack’, and I was flying through the air. I hit the floor hard and landed with my left hand crushed beneath me and a spike of pain exploding from my wrist. When I sat up, I saw the chain was still padlocked to the post and strung across the floor. The collar, a rusted antique circlet with a broken metal clasp was still attached to the chain and lay beside it on the floor. It had been the collar’s rusted hinge pin that snapped and set me free. Looking at the collar, I realized I’d seen something like it when Amma took me and Saashi to the Museum on one of our visits. It was a slave collar like they’d used in the South. I remember looking at it with Amma and her saying; Can you imagine?
Regardless of how it worked out the fact was, I was free. Well, free-ish. My legs were still taped, and my hands still cuffed, and when I flexed my left wrist, it felt like it was filled with broken glass. But now I had options. Not much time, but options. The kitchen was my next goal, and I gave myself a second to catch my breath, before scootching across the floor on my ass. When I reached the kitchen counter, I wedged my back against it and pushed myself up. I opened the first drawer I saw and there, amongst scattered silverware, rubber spatulas, and metal whisks, was a five-inch steak knife with a serrated edge.
The tape around my ankles came away easily though I had to kneel on the floor to get at it. The strips around my knees were tougher and required me to squat above the floor despite the protests of my exhausted thighs. I could only manage five, maybe ten seconds of squatting and cutting before having to drop into a crouch and give my fatigued muscles a break. Squat, cut, rest. Squat, cut, rest. By the time the last strip fell away and the timer on my wrist buzzed, my legs were a quaking mess, and the back of my knees were bloody from a dozen tiny cuts. I’d lost count of the times my alarm had buzzed and checked my watch. Thirty-five minutes had elapsed since I’d first set the alarm. Which meant my kidnappers would be back any second and I needed to get out.
I hurried to the window beside the front door and nudged aside the blinds with my elbow. The window looked onto a wooden porch running along the house’s front . Beyond the porch was a puddle-dotted yard of packed gravel, and scattered weeds. The driveway ran through an open metal gate and disappeared over a ridge. And what would I find if I opened the door and followed that drive? A neighboring farmhouse and help just beyond the ridge? Or would I instead find acres of open fields and my captors trundling up the road to find me? I opened the door ready to make a break regardless of the direction when the rush and rumble of a highway caused me to pause. I went back in, crossed to the kitchen window, and looked out. There, on a hill, just a half-mile away lay my salvation. The glowing heart-spangled marquee of a Love’s Travel stop. The only things separating me from that bright oasis was the barbed-wire bordered gravel backyard, a sloping field of tall grass, and lastly, a cut field full of round hay bales. And of all those approaching headlights and streaming taillights, someone was sure to stop. And if not, the Loves was just across the highway, the white lights of the pump stations, and the Loves Travel Stop marquee offering gas at $3.28 a gallon.
The problem was the two, maybe-three barbed wire fences between me and freedom. Getting over or through them with my hands cuffed behind me would be impossible. Not to mention I couldn’t even feel my fingers and I wondered how long my hands could be cut off from blood before they were permanently damaged. An hour? Maybe two? I glanced at the desk in the living room wondering if there were a chance these freaks kept cuff keys in their desk. I weighed the option of running out the back door versus taking a minute to find a key but the idea of life without hands decided it.
My kidnapper’s desk was remarkably neat compared to the disorder in the rest of the house. There was a stack of magazines on the left, with a comic book called: Alt-Hero Volume I on top. Beside this sat a well-worn bible, an empty Coors bottle, and a coffee mug full of pens. I opened the center drawer and upended it onto a leather chair pushed up beneath the desk. I found change, paperclips, post-its, and a dozen more pens. But no key. I considered picking the cuffs with a paperclip but figured that only happened in movies. The bottom drawer held a ream of paper, a box of charger cables, what looked like a dismantled gun, and a handful of bullets. It was then I noticed the round glint of steel from the shadow box on the wall.
The mahogany framed display case was two-feet-wide and every bit as tall and it hung in a place of honor on the wall in front of the desk. And the thing that caught my eye? A pair of handcuffs. They were displayed in one of the cutouts at the shadow box’s center. Mounted above the cuffs was a palm-sized swatch of fabric, stained and torn. Below the cuffs and fanned out like a hand of cards lay five black and white photos. At the very top of the display was mounted a yellowed newspaper article. And the cuffs themselves? A blackened and slightly bent pair of antiques which I discovered upon leaning closer, had a key in its lock. And not just one key, but two hooked together on a slender metal ring.
I crawled atop the desk and scooched across it sending magazines, the coffee mug, and the bible tumbling to the floor. When I reached the shadowbox, I gripped the frame’s bottom and lifted. The frame was heavier than I imagined, and it tilted away from the wall the second it came free from the hook. I hadn’t considered how I’d open it, but fate took care of that for me as the frame tilted towards the desk with ever-increasing speed as it rotated around the pivot point of my grip and gravity took hold. It hit with a satisfying crystalline crash and sent glittering glass shards spinning across the desk and chittering to the floor. When I flipped the frame over, there were the cuffs and the keys held in place by a hair-thin metal wire. Rain slashed the windows and the storm outside grumbled as I tweezed the keys between numb fingers and pulled them from the frame. Then came the hard part, working the key into my own cuffs. The angle was impossible, and the gloom made even seeing the keyhole difficult. The key’s shaft was no thicker than a cocktail straw and my fingers felt so distant it was like they belonged to someone else. I worked by touch and skidded the key along the cuff’s surface until it slid into the slot. Then came the sound I’d been dreading. Tires on gravel. My kidnappers were back.
FOUR: Ain’t got a soul.
Oh, Ganesh, I prayed, Dearest, most powerful, and granter of luck. Please, please, please, I need some luck now.
I turned the key and the cuff clicked open.
I hurried to the window and peeked through the blinds as heat prickled through my hands and feeling seeped into my fingers. Their truck was parked just paces from the porch and angled so I was looking at the passenger side and taillights. Twilight was deepened by clouds and a slow drizzle and all I could make out was two shadowed forms through the truck’s back window.
If I’d known they’d just sit there instead of rushing in, I could have made it out the back door. I looked across the room and considered making a break for it when the truck’s doors popped open, and they rushed onto the porch. And just like that, my opportunity was gone. They would step through the door any second and I was defenseless. I searched the desktop for the steak knife, then I checked the floor. It wasn’t there.
“It’s all set,” Jackie said as I tilted up the picture frame and peered underneath. I spotted the knife immediately and pulled it out.
“Pastor Bill, Seth, and Cody are gonna meet us at Turkey Creek bridge,” Jackie continued, “then we’ll take ‘em someplace where we won’t be disturbed.”
I stepped to a spot so that when the door opened, I’d be behind it. From there, I’d take ‘em by surprise. And do what? Kill them? I couldn’t jump the first one, the second one would stop me. The last one in, that’s who I’d kill. I worked the key into the other cuff, still dangling from my wrist, and snapped it free. As I stood there waiting for them to step through the door, I examined the knife’s five-inch serrated blade and tried imagining how murder with such a weapon might be done. Slash their neck and hope to cut an artery? Or stab through their back and hope to hit something vital? I couldn’t imagine where something vital would be, so I settled on the neck. But what if the big blonde came through second? If I didn’t make a killing blow with the first stroke, I was done. Even if I did manage to slice an artery, then what? Run? If I killed Jackie first, the blonde would beat me to death before I got twenty feet. If I killed the blonde first, Jackie’d shoot me with his gun. From the shadow of the blinds, I watched. Waited. And prayed.
“You think they’ll ever find his car?” The blonde asked.
“Well, the Japs sure know their stuff,” Jackie chuckled, “That thing floated almost to the downed cedar before those holes I put in the door with my .38 finally sank it.”
My Toyota gone? I had bigger problems, but still. That car and my bike were the only things in my life of value. Now they were gone.
Which reminds me.” Jackie pulled a silver revolver from his waistband and handed it to the blonde. “Reload this before we go, we’ll need it tonight.”
The blonde took the gun and turned it in his hands. “Need it?” he asked. “For what?”
“To put the poor bastard out of his misery,” Jackie said.
Out of his misery? Were they talking about me? They were talking about me.
Electric pinpricks tingled down my fingers as I squeezed and released the knife’s plastic handle and pumped strength into my grip.
“I know it’s hard.” Jackie put his hand on the blonde’s muscled arm. “But you know if somethin’ ain’t done, our nation, our whole way of life’s gonna be destroyed by socialists and queers.”
“I know,” the blonde said. “It’s just…” He dropped his eyes and turned the gun in his hands. “It don’t feel right, Jackie, killin’ someone that way.”
“Course, it don’t feel right, killin’ never does. Even shootin’ a deer gets me right here.” Jackie rapped gently at the center of the big man’s chest. “But that don’t keep us from huntin’ because we know it’s all God’s plan.”
“It ain’t like we’re killin’ a human being, Tyler. The darkies ain’t like us. They’re formed from earth and molded by God’s hand just like all the other beasts of the field. They ain’t descended from Adam and Eve like we are, so he ain’t got a soul.”
Jackie sighed, then turned and stared out at the rain.
“Our nation’s falling apart, Tyler, and so few of us are willin’ ta do what’s needed to put America back on track. Ain’t that what Pastor Bill’s been preachin’? Ain’t that what we seen back in January when we went to DC with all them other Patriots? Remember the pride you felt lookin’ out over the crowd? The air was cold and held the sharp bite of bear spray and we knew we couldn’t lose.”
Tyler lifted his eyes. “I remember.”
“That’s what we’re doin’ now. Reignitin’ that flame.”
Jackie stepped closer and put a hand on Tyler’s shoulder.
“Not only that, but a lynchin’ will strike the fear ah God into ‘em. After this, all them darkies, pedophiles, an’ Jews, will think twice ‘bout pushin’ their CRT and Woke agendas on people that don’t want or care for their corruption.”
“Right there,” Jackie said, and he pointed straight at me.
I dared not move.
“In the shadowbox above my desk,” he continued, “is the perfect example.”
I realized he hadn’t seen me, but my heart refused to slow.
“As long as I knew my grandfather,” Jackie said, “that shadowbox was in his shop. And as long as I knew him, he’d remind me how we used ta keep the darkies in line. Fear. Fear of the white man, and fear of God’s authority. That’s why we gotta reawaken the tradition, Tyler. People‘ve forgotten how ta keep troublemakers respectful. We’re gonna remind ‘em though, ain’t we?” and he clapped his friend on the shoulder.
Lynching? That was some post-Civil War horror story shit, not something that happened today. My eyes shot to the shadowbox and the yellowed newspaper article within. It was too dark to make out much of the content of the article though the headlines were clear enough when I stepped closer.
MISSISSIPPI LYNCH MOBS UNDER PROBE, it read.
And on the subheading beneath:
Blow Torches Turned on Two Negros Bring Crime Confessions
Then a date:
DUCK HILL, Miss. Apr.14, 1937
The shadow box held five black and white photos that despite their yellowed borders, sepia-toned paper, and the room’s deepening gloom, were crisp enough to see. Their background was of open woods with a scattering of trees in the foreground and a forest dwindling into the distance. The first pic showed two black men tied to trees. Both were shirtless, and by the tilt of their heads and the awkward angle of their bodies, both were dead. The other four photos were much closer and taken from the angle of someone kneeling, or perhaps, I thought, the perspective of a boy of eight or nine.
There were three photos of one man and two of the other, both had been chained to trees. One man was cuffed with the same cuffs I’d taken from the shadowbox. I recognized the huge liver-shaped spot of rust, or possibly blood, just above the keyhole. The man’s legs, from thigh to shin, had been opened to the bone with deep lacerations that left the flesh hanging, and his entire lower body was blackened and charred as if by flames.
The second man, his arms drawn behind him almost to the breaking point and then tied to the trunk of another tree, had an X sliced into his back with the same open gashes seen on the knees of the first man. The swatch of cloth in the shadowbox matched a tattered shirt dangling down this man’s back. In the background, a smiling woman and two laughing men looked off to one side at something amusing. Some crude joke at the dead men’s expense I had no doubt. My eyes darted to the article, then back to the photo. Blowtorches. They’d used blow torches to produce those horrific wounds. I knew with certainty that was their plan for me.
“If we don’t keep these people in line,” Jackie continued. “They’ll be nothin’ left.”
Jackie held his hand in the rain and let it splash across his fingers.
“Ain’t you an’ Angie plannin’ on gettin’ married?” Jackie asked. “Havin’ kids?”
Tyler nodded.
“And how ya want your son turnin’ out? You want ‘em growin’ up ta be a God fearin’ soldier for Christ, or some fag Harvard professor groomin’ children and talkin’ nonsense?”
At this, Tyler’s head snapped up, and he brushed away his bangs.
“A God-fearin’ soldier for Christ, that’s what he’ll be.”
A smile broke on Jackie’s face.
“And that’s what we are, ain’t it? Soldiers for Christ?”
Tyler nodded.
“Then let’s get this unpleasantness behind us and start workin’ towards the future.”
I could barely think over the hammering of my heart. I forced myself into a crouch and steeled myself for the blow. I can do this. Aim for the neck. I can do this. Oh, Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva, and all the Gods. Please, oh please, help me do this.
I pictured Jackie walking through the door first, then the blonde, his back to me, his jugular exposed. I imagined slashing the blade across his neck. Tried not to think of the blood. Once that was done, I’d shove him into Jackie’s arms and run. Hope he was a bad aim.
The doorknob rattled, followed by a flash of white, and a crash of thunder. There was an immediate ‘thunk’ as the porch light and the bulb above the kitchen sink both went out, and the inside of the cabin became dark as a pit. I couldn’t see a thing much less someone’s neck.
A split second later and I heard, “Fuck.” from the front porch.
The front door didn’t open. I held my breath.
Then footfalls thudded across the porch’s wooden planking as two shadows crossed the window and out of sight. I desperately wanted to peek out but didn’t dare give up my spot behind the door.
“Probably blew a fuse,” I heard Jackie say.
“Want me ta fix it?” Tyler asked.
“Naw, I’ll get it, I’m already soaked,” Jackie said. “You just load that gun an’ make sure dumbass is ready ta travel.”
I heard a splash and a second, “Fuck” as someone, Jackie, stepped into a puddle and then squashed into the distance. Still, there was no tread on the porch. No rattle at the door. For some reason, Tyler lingered. Which gave me an idea. The hint of a plan.
My first step towards the kitchen resulted in a grinding, glassy-crunch I was certain Tyler could hear. I didn’t wait or look back but continued to where the swaths of cut tape lay curled on the kitchen floor. I paused long enough to scoop them up, snag the collar, and find my place on the floor with my back against the column. I plastered a twisted strip across my ankles and another across my knees. Then rest I hid beneath my thighs. The front door rattled open, and a gray, lightning-edged rectangle appeared in the wall’s darkness. The sounds and smell of rain filled the room as the block-shouldered silhouette of my captor filled the doorway.
Then I remembered the collar, and I pulled it from the floor. I tried to clamp it around my neck, but with no linchpin, it dropped right back onto my lap.
“Hey, dumbass, you still here?” Tyler called, and the door shut behind him cloaking us in darkness.
I took that instant to pull a strip of tape from beneath my thigh and tape the collar closed.
Just as I put my hands behind me, Tyler clicked on his phone and blinded me with its light.
“I’m thirsty, and gotta piss,” I said as Tyler strolled into the kitchen. I spotted a missed strip of tape on the kitchen floor and prayed he didn’t notice as he jerked open one of the drawers.
“Then drink your piss,” he snapped, barely looking over his shoulder.
In his phone’s glow, I saw him pull out a soap dish-sized box and rattle a handful of glinting brass objects onto the counter. Bullets. Then he pulled the revolver from behind his back and I heard the metallic ‘click’ as he pushed in each round. He tossed the box back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Then his phone light went out. I didn’t see what he did with the revolver.
I was well and truly fucked, but what other choice did I have but to carry on with my plan?
“I said I gotta pee,” I repeated. “Unless you want me ta go right here on the floor… again.”
Hoping to get a rise, I poked the bear.
“Your boyfriend’s not gonna like it if I do.”
He spun around and growled, “What the fuck you say?”
The hardwoods boomed hollowly as he stomped from the kitchen towards me, and when I caught sight of his expression in a flash of distant lightning any satisfaction I’d felt at goading him was transformed into fear. With one meaty paw, he grabbed my throat and hefted me to my feet. He slammed me against the wall, his palm crushing my throat, then he leaned closer, and enunciating every syllable asked, “What … the fuck … did you say?”
Spittle dampened my cheeks and his breath reeked of wintergreen. There was no way I could answer with his fingers clamped across my throat, so I gave him the only response I could. I swung the knife from behind my back and drove it into his chest. His reaction was one of wide-eyed surprise though his grip on my neck never faltered. Instead, he grabbed my wrist with his free hand and drew the knife out. Before I knew it, he’d lifted me from my feet and turned the knife towards me.
Use your legs, Saashi’s voice rang in my head, and she was right. Maybe they weren’t Olympic-quality legs, but they were good legs, strong legs, and I bunched them beneath me with the soles of my feet planted flat against the wall. Then, I sprang out with everything I had left.
The giant stumbled back his grip on my neck secure until his feet tangled with the chain, and we went down hard. I rolled off his chest and landed in a crouch though somewhere in the fall I’d lost the knife. There was nothing left to do but fight, so despite my broken wrist and the lack of any weapon, I bunched up my fists and got ready for him to rise. He never did.
The lights came on with an audible ‘thunk’ and I saw what had happened. The black handle of the knife protruded from Tyler’s chest, and already a pool of blood spread like a shadow beneath the big man’s legs. As I stood there staring, his head turned, and his blue eyes found me.
“Why?” Was the last thing he said.
I took an involuntary step back and he just lay there staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t believe it. He was dead. My eyes flicked to the back door and before I knew it, I’d crossed the room and unlocked it. I could see the Loves Travel Stop glowing like an oasis through the door’s curtained window. Then I looked over my shoulder. What about the gun? Go get it? Or run? It was the thought of stepping onto the back porch and finding Jackie walking up, that had me crossing the kitchen and kneeling in a pool of the big man’s blood. The gun wasn’t there. Not on the floor and not in his belt. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d seen him pull it from behind his back and I figured he put it right back in the same spot once it was loaded.
I tried rolling him over with my good hand, but he just slid across the hardwoods leaving a trail of gore. He was heavy, and my left wrist was useless, so I dropped low and wedged my left elbow beneath his shoulder and pushed. He rolled over slowly and flopped onto his gut. And there was the gun’s black checked grip jutting from his belt.
The grip was thinner than I expected, no wider than a broom handle, and as I eased the weapon out, I saw how the grip flowed up to a block of rust-spotted silver with a trigger, cylinder, and a barrel no longer than my thumb. The gun was heavier than I expected, and when I turned it in my hand, I could see the bullets nestled within the thing’s body. That was when the front door opened, and Jackie stepped in.
FIVE: Chopped up and twitching.
“Ya ready, Tyler?” he called and flipped on the lights.
As I knelt over his friend’s body, the pistol in my hands, Jackie’s face went through a series of changes; Surprise followed by confusion, then recognition followed by rage. And when his gaze shifted from Tyler’s body to me, I saw pure hate burning in his eyes. I was never anything more than an animal to him. Now I was the beast who’d snuffed out his friend. In a heartbeat, he retrieved the black pistol from his beltline and aimed it right at me.
How many fuckin’ guns do these people have? Flashed through my mind the instant Jackie’s first shot filled the room with its roar and the dishes on the counter behind me exploded into fragments. I looked back in surprise as a pot spun off the counter and clattered to the floor when a second round thudded into the pillar beside me. Then I was moving, hunched over and dodging for the back door.
The only guns I’d ever fired had been at paintball birthday parties where we shouted through the woods and hunkered behind haybales, so when I pointed the revolver at Jackie and pulled the trigger, the hammer blow kick was unexpected and nearly knocked the weapon from my grip. We were both moving, me to the back door and Jackie diving behind the couch. Then I was swinging the door open, and leaping out. I slammed the door behind me and pressed myself against the doorjamb as shots rang out from inside. The door’s window was the first thing to go, evaporating in a mist of shards and flying into the night. Rounds hammered through the door, one, two, three wood-splintering shots before a fourth and final round tore through the doorframe I was leaning against and hit my left shoulder like a punch. The blow nearly knocked me from the slim concrete porch, and it left my arm hanging numb and useless at my side. I didn’t even think but pressed the revolver through the shattered glass pane and yanked the trigger. Boom-boom-boom, then I was down the stairs and running as if Ravana and his demons were after me.
What I hadn’t expected was the cold. When my tormentors first jumped me, the humidity and heat had been a presence that wrapped you like a skin. Now, the storm’s stinging rain and gusts whipping across the gravel lot raised a shiver as I raced toward the tall grass at the far end of Jackie’s yard. In the distance, the Loves sign glowed, its reflection on the puddles I passed a line of gold and red breadcrumbs leading to freedom. It was then the back door slammed open, and Jackie stepped out. And did he have the pink window curtain from the back door wrapped around his thigh as a bandage?
“You’re gonna die, mother fucker, for what’cha done ta Tyler!”
His shots came in one, two, three explosions as each round smacked into the mud with wet slaps or kicked up a geyser of spray when they hit a puddle. Then he was down the steps and after me. I wasn’t racing for a position on a team or trying to impress my father. I was running for my life, and when I glanced back, I saw he was gaining. My only hope was losing him in the tall grass on the far side of the lot. Once I did that, I’d find my way to the highway and across to the Loves on the other side. Another shot rang out and I heard it sizzle through the rain. His next shot wouldn’t miss.
When I reached an open gate separating Jackie’s gravel lot from the tall grass on the other side, I skidded to a stop, spun around, and leveled the revolver. The shock on Jackie’s face when he saw me take aim brought an unexpected feeling of satisfaction and sent him diving into a puddle. My round went wide, thwacking into the muck ten feet from where he lay, then ‘click-click-click. The gun was empty. Jackie lifted his eyes and grinned.
“Now it’s my turn, mother fucker.”
I turned, and in three quick steps, reached the fence separating Jackie’s lot from the open field. I flung myself over and disappeared into the grass. Behind me, Jackie screamed and fired his pistol. The rounds whined into the distance or thudded into the earth, but I was already on my hands and knees and moving through the tall grass. Then I heard Jackie’s footsteps and labored breathing over the patter of falling rain. He pushed quietly through the grass until his shadow crossed my hiding spot. My revolver was empty and the knife was gone. I was helpless. Then he took a step away. Then another. Slowly, the soft scuff of his passage was swallowed by the patter of rain. I waited until my heart slowed, then crawled off in the direction of the highway. When I’d gone several yards, I lifted my head and looked around. I’d made good progress and crossed nearly half the field but there was one more field to cross before I was free, an open acreage maybe two-hundred yards wide and dotted with hay bales. But where was Jackie? Hidden in the grass waiting for me to move? Or had he gone inside to save his friend? I knew Tyler was dead and I felt no regret, only a grim satisfaction it wasn’t me. Or maybe I’d gotten lucky and hit Jackie with one of my rounds. I thought back to his bandage-wrapped thigh and his stiff-legged run. What other explanation was there? Maybe he’d given up and gone to get help, but I knew that’d never happen. Which left what? Had he called Pastor Bill and his Nazi pals? Would they show up and spread across the field? Flush me out like a rabbit? Or maybe he was calling the police with some half-baked story with me as the bad guy and himself as the hero? Either way, I had to get moving. I had to get to the Loves.
Using the highway sound as my guide I moved off slowly and kept low in the grass so as not to be seen. Pain bloomed in my shoulder with each step I took so I held it tight against my side and tried to keep moving. Thankfully, the rain slackened, and when I lifted my head above the damp stalks, I saw I was only meters from the cut field of haybales and the highway just beyond. That’s when the coughing clatter of an engine rose behind me, and I turned towards Jackie’s house. The rumble grew louder as the doors of a dilapidated barn were flung open, and the headlights of the vehicle inside spilled across the gravel lot. Then I saw Jackie’s silhouette, dark legs scissoring, as he stalked in front of the headlights then disappeared behind them. A second later the engine rose in pitch and the machine trundled across the yard with its right headlight bouncing. The thing came to a stop beneath a pole-mounted light at the spot where the gravel lot ended, and the grassy field began.
The vehicle was a rusty red tractor with a cockeyed right headlight that shone mostly at the ground. It had an attachment on the front that looked like a bulldozer blade, and behind it and folded into a ‘V’, like a boxy pair of retracted wings, was another attachment whose purpose I couldn’t guess. And perched high in the driver’s seat, sat Jackie. As I stood there, my shoulder throbbing and mist speckling my face, I watched as the two boxy wings of the ‘V’ flattened so they extended three meters on either side of the tractor and hovered only centimeters above the ground. Then the dozer blade lowered, and I saw that it too was a ten centimeter-wide, three-meter-long metal plate like the ones on the sides. I realized suddenly where I’d seen this setup before. On the tractors cutting grass at Buffalo Bayou Park when Amma and Dada Ji took Saashi and me there to play when we were kids. But this thing was a lawn mower on steroids with nearly ten meters of spinning blades when you added the arms sticking out on either side. Once the blades were lowered and started spinning, a great mechanical rattle was added to the tractor’s roar as Jackie hit the gas and the tractor leapt forward.
“You wanna play hide-n-seek, mother fucker?” Jackie shouted. “Then let’s play.”
A spotlight snapped on sending a cone of illumination across the field and I watched as the tractor slashed into grass as swirls of exhaust twisted before his headlights.
So, what now? Hide in the field until the blades eventually found me? The same way the frogs hid in the tall grass at Bayou Park only to be found chopped up and twitching after the mower passed through and Saachi and I rushed onto the lawn and found them? Or do I make a break for the open field and the hay bales beyond? Hope he doesn’t see me and put a bullet in my back before I get there?
I ducked as the spotlight swept overhead and kept moving. What could Jackie see from his vantage point up there on the tractor? When he got closer, would my passage across the field be as obvious as the Jurassic Park raptors cutting through the grass toward their prey?
“I see you now!” Jacking screamed a second before the spotlight swept over me and the fear I’d fought to contain exploded at the realization I’d been caught.
It was just speed now, me against Jackie and I rose from my crouch and ran. I pushed through the grass moving as fast as I could when a glance over my shoulder revealed my mistake. I’d been tricked. Jackie hadn’t seen me at all. He wasn’t even looking this direction, but scanning the field looking for movement. But he saw me now. His ploy had worked, and I was caught.
“I gottcha now, nigger!” Jackie crowed and the tractor turned until the headlights pinned me beneath their bobbing glow, and the clatter of mower blades filled my ears.
The sphere of illumination made by the tractor’s headlights created a snow globe illusion with the rain a flurry of white streaks, and the cylindrical haybales like giant building blocks scattered like toys. The smell of cut stubble and fertile earth filled my nose as I realized I’d never make the shelter of those bales. The tractor was too fast and Jackie’d be on me in seconds. But could the tractor turn?
I cut to my left, then when Jackie started to follow, juked back to the right. It was clear he couldn’t keep up as the tractor wallowed into the turn. I was just steps away from the darkness outside his headlights when a gunshot rang out and slammed into the earth at my feet. A second near miss turned me back into the lights.
“Where ya think you’re goin’?” Jackie cackled. “We ain’t done playin’.”
The fence posts and barbed wire separating me from the cut field and hay bales rose before me and I threw myself over. I hit the ground on my wounded shoulder and pain exploded in my arm. Mud caked my face and darkness crept across my vision as I rolled unsteadily to my feet and forced my legs into motion. First one step then another as behind me the blades tore into fence posts and barbed wire with a shriek of overtaxed steel.
“Now we end this,” Jackie screamed, and the tractor’s motor rose in pitch as the rumble of the mower blades filled my ears. A last glance before I died freeze-framed in my mind: Silvered raindrops splashing across the mower’s rust-pitted housing… The soft glow of lights from Jackie’s house up on the hill…And Jackie leaning into the steering wheel his face lit by the crimson glow of the Loves sign. On his lips a leer of pure madness.
I wanted to live. More than anything I wanted to live. I wasn’t going to make the Olympics and fuck Caitlyn and Richie Blanco and all the rest. Just get me outta this Krishna, and next Diwali, I’ll light the biggest fuckin’ candle you ever saw.
A high-pitched squeal arose from the clattering blades and mounted until it filled the entire world with its howl. Then the headlights gave a tremendous jerk and swerved to the right before plunging me in darkness. When I looked back, I saw a moisture-sparkled line of barbed wire strands caught in the mower’s blades and extending to the fence line behind us. Even as I watched, a fence post was yanked from the ground in a spray of mud and grass before its neighbor was snapped off at the base. Both were dragged behind the tractor as it leaned ever further into a turn it couldn’t possibly make.
I shouldn’t have stopped moving but I couldn’t help watching as the tractor tilted ever further then flipped onto its side, crushing one of the mower blades in a grinding metallic crunch and sending a cloud of debris and steam shooting into the air. Jackie was thrown free, his dark form diving from the driver’s seat as the tractor keeled over. I turned then and lumbered off not slowing until I reached the last fence separating me from the highway. I scrambled through the fence’s sharpened strands, barely noticing the gashes they left across my back as I did. Rain sheeted the pavement in serpentine curtains as I stumbled into the breakdown lane shouting and waving my arm. No one stopped. No one even hit their brakes. It was dark and rainy and as each starburst flash of headlights swelled closer and then rushed quickly past, I realized that even if they saw me, I was no more than a mud-covered lunatic on the side of the road.
I heard Jackie before I saw him. The splash of footfalls growing closer. A glance behind me showed he was just steps away, and a flash of lightning showed he’d lost his gun. Instead, there was a blade fisted in his grip and it shimmered in the Loves sign’s ruby glow. I picked up my limping pace, but I couldn’t get away. He was gaining too fast.
Do I turn and fight? I was exhausted, defenseless and had only one good arm. He outweighed me and had a knife. Jackie was going to stab me to death right here on the roadside and no one would even notice. Which left one desperate choice.
In the swelling illumination of the next approaching car, I stepped to the white line marking the highway’s edge and waited as the ghostly silhouette whipped past like a neon shark. Then I forced myself into motion and set off for the middle lane. A car shot past behind me in a hiss of flying water and a blare of its horn. Behind me, Jackie cursed and prayed he wouldn’t follow. Headlights and horns and the shoosh of tires on pavement filled my world as I forced one foot in front of the other and crossed the dashed lines of the middle lane. I was halfway to freedom when Jackie grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. His fisted hammer knife blow, intended for my heart, was halted by my upraised arm. We struggled there on the freeway trapped between the rumble of passing semis and the wail of screaming brakes as he pressed the blade closer, and it bit into my chest. There was no way to stop him. He was simply too strong.
Jackie’s victorious grin became a look of shocked surprise as I let my legs give way and I fell back to the pavement and pulled my assailant with me. We went down together, my back hitting the pavement as I bunched my leg beneath me and positioned my feet on his gut. My legs were as tired as they’d ever been, but they had one last job as I called on them to lift Jackie and hurl him into the next lane.
He landed on his back, and I heard his breath come out in a grunt, but Jackie was athletic and quick, and he rolled to his knees with the knife at the ready. The Mini-Cooper didn’t hit him but ran over his ankles with a wail of its horn and a sickening double thump before it caught him with its fender as it 360ed down the road. The impact sent Jackie rolling and he skidded to a stop just two step from me then, miraculously, he rose to an elbow and looked into my eyes. He still held the knife and he pulled himself towards me. That’s when a semi blew past in a rumble of diesel power that rattled my body and nearly knocked me down with its wind. It hit Jackie with a melony thump and the chatter of locked brakes. When the big rig passed there was nothing left of Jackie but a crimson skid mark that the rain was already washing away.
Crossing the opposite lanes was a snap now that the highway was a snarled pile-up, and I forced myself up the exit ramp to where the Loves sign glowed. As I passed the gas pumps and headed for the front door, I realized Saashi had been right. Today was my lucky day, and not because I’d escaped a madman or run across a dark highway in the dark, but because I had a sister who loved me enough to tell the truth. I was doubly lucky because I realized everything she’d said was right. Right about Caitlyn, right about my riding, and right about my life.
I stepped through the doors and made my way to the register leaving a trail of muddy footprints and drizzled blood. The clerk's eyes never left me as the double glass doors shooshed open and a crusty old trucker stomped in behind me. She had a duffle bag in one hand, and she batted the wet from her jacket with the other. A teen in dark eyeshadow waiting to buy a Big-Gulp eyed me with suspicion and took a step away.
The clerk’s eyes darted to the eyeshadowed girl then me before she asked uncertainly, “Can I help you…sir?”
I reached into my jersey pocket with my good arm and felt for the squared edge of the emergency $20 bill I kept stuffed in the bottom.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling out the bill and dropping it to the counter. “Give me one of the Mega Millions lottery tickets.” I tried unfolding the blood-stained square with one hand but gave up and just slid it across the counter.
She only blinked.
“Didn’t you know?” I told her. “Today’s the luckiest day of my life.”