FICTION
All The Way Home

by Eliseo Martinez

It was early evening getting into town, mad juices flowing through the mind as the heat seeped into the car and spread its legs across my soul. The traffic was bad, the air was bad, the sky was fading from a sunny pink to a purplish bruise to gentle black, and no stars out yet. The road went on and on but after a while, I chose to exit the highway and get a drink at a nearby gas station.

I pulled into the lot. Parked. I raised a hand to my face and scratched my chin. A couple of days worth of growth greeted my touch with bristles like smooth lightning. I looked in the rearview mirror and found a broken bottle face. The sweat was everywhere, the light shining off my face was jagged. I had to get out of the car.

I walked in. I got a soda. I paid and left.

"Hey."

I turned around. Usually I would not have turned around but for some reason, God bless my brown ass, I did.

She was dressed in black. Very pale. She had a little bad feeling painted over each eye. She could not stand still, but weaved in the air like a flower waking up hung over and full of spit and angry sounds. Her face was dotted here and there with the kind of pimples that develop from road wear and tear. She probably had not slept in a few days.

I looked at her.

"Hey," she said again, as if she did not just see me turn to face her. Her hair was getting in her face. She brushed it away awkwardly and for a second she looked like every lost girl and every broken doll and then I knew I was going to listen to whatever she had to say.

"Hey, are you heading south?"

I nodded my head.

"Man, I just got off the phone with my boss, and he told me I was supposed to meet this guy at this weird address that I could not find anywhere so I called him back and now it turns out I'm too far north, way too far."

We were all so far away from a lot of things, far away from being the great American dream family we were supposed to be, so far from each other and so far from ourselves. We held the night back as far as we could until some psychic dam would break and we would have to murder, fuck, get set on fire, piss on police and children, burn grass, drink death death death from the sweat of our lonely little selves, so proud and magical. And all it did was add one extra grain of salt into the goddamn sea.

"I'll give you a ride."

I wondered if she had a knife, or a gun, or a rabid monkey to leap out of her snatch and kill us all together like so much TNT.

"Alright."

* * * * *

We had been on the highway for quite a while.
"Ah, shit! What the hell do you think I am, a goddamn taxi? Hey, give me some of that."

She passed the flask, wiped her mouth. She wanted to close her eyes but wouldn't let herself. From time to time, I would catch her nodding off only to snap awake like the soul of a grandmother who had awakened from a peaceful afternoon nap in the sun only to find her favorite sixteen-year-old granddaughter getting masturbated with the thick end of a baseball bat by her 27-year-old boyfriend who looked exactly like a shaved sheep's ass, with a bad complexion.

"Grandma …," my metaphor-girl would say in a voice like the confusion of breaking light.

Her eyes opened up like that.

I wanted her to nod off. I had some jumper cables in the backseat. I handed the flask back in disgust after taking a shot of rot-gut whiskey watered down with Coke. God-DAMN it!

"Do you have a joint?" she asked.

That was the first time I hit her.

"Ow! You fucking piece of shit!" She really came at me then, with nails like sharpened coffins, eyes ablaze like the razors of nazi surgeons.

That was the second time I hit her.

She fell back and nodded off. On the highway, in the middle lane, no one noticed. Some blood trickled from her left nostril and the corner of her mouth. I wiped it off using the collar of her shirt. Almost rear-ended the bastard in front of me who was driving along as though he created names for the flowers that blurred past us in a song that rhymed and felt good to sing in the morning. I pulled out from behind and pulled up alongside him. He looked like the sheriff of some small cocksucking town. He was smoking a cigarette, and when he saw me staring hard at him, he smiled dryly like a fossilized glass of white wine.

He gave me the finger.

I sideswiped him with all my force and pulled back gently.

He gripped the wheel with both hands, mouth open in a huge 'O' as if expecting a gift from the gods. His cigarette had fallen from his mouth. His finger was nowhere to be seen.

I sideswiped him again, unrelenting.

This time he lost control and FLEW like a goddamn bird off the highway. I didn't see the explosion, but I heard it. It sounded like death almighty playing a 747 take-off like an accordian. Flamed danced dreamlike in my rearview mirror. I noticed some birds far behind, up above the smoke. Their movements were unanswered prayers, pissed-on mercy, pieces of broken glass. I felt a lot better.

My car, which was already fucked, started to wobble and make funny noises. Smoke was trailing from the tailpipe like so much love. I suspected my rear right tire to be flat. I drove on.

"Ugh …," she said in the passenger seat, waking up from the first good dream she had had in a long time.
Before she could move, I poured the contents of her flask over her head, her breasts, her lap. She wiped it from her eyes like a stubborn girl with severe learning disabilities.

I flicked my lighter beneath her nose.

Her hair was the first to catch, and the rest followed like a stream flowing down a mountainside.

God, she started screaming. I mean, she was loud! Listening to her scream, you would have thought she mattered. And she did, to me at least, in some small way. She was one of the better human beings I had met in a long time. I think I may have even loved her.
I had to set her free.

I reached across the flames, almost burning my goddamn shirt, and opened the door and pushed her out. It was something -- the sight of the burning car and her burning body in the rearview mirror. It was beautiful, poetic. I KNEW this town had it!

Some cops were closing in fast after appearing out of nowhere. It's a good thing I hadn't stopped to let her out, or they would have run into me for sure.
They had the look of loaded guns on their faces with sirens as loud as the goddamn afternoon Texas sun.

I knew they would be glad to meet me.

It was great to be back in Austin, Texas, home of the evening dust.

I opened the glove compartment and reached in for my emergency American flag. In the shadow of these recent tragedies, I knew it would only help make things better for myself and others.

----

Reader Comments

No Comments.

Citizine Home