Bent Highway
Chapter Eighteen: Line
Every damn scientist, theologian, mathematician, and super-funked out guru since forever ago has been trying to figure out time. Is it a line, a circle, an inverted cone, or a can of silly string? I’ve seen it every which way these past days, hours, moments. For the most part, one thing follows another—or at least that is how my brain tries to make sense of it.
For instance, when the bad-ass I know as Harold got out of his car, he walked with purpose to the Charger, where I sat with the good ole boys. A moment after he got out, the boys both closed one eye and took a bead on Harold’s forehead. Shortly after, or maybe at the exact same time, the girl with the perfectly bowed lips and increasingly tragic smile, got out the passenger side. The driver sporting the Nascar hat yelled something about cutting down. I didn’t really hear him over the R and B blasting out the car speakers.
For me, time kept getting snipped—it was like those crafts in grade school where you fold over a piece of paper and use your scissors to take out chunks and bits. It seems like you aren’t doing anything but making a mess on the classroom floor, and then you open up a beautiful little snowflake. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Pretty as hell, that’s what I wanted life to be. But it never was.
I didn’t want a snip taken out. I wanted everything to stop. I needed to walk out there on the road, go up to Chalk Girl and ask her what the hell was going on. Write it all down on a piece of paper:
Dear M.,
Who is Harold? Insert answer.
Who is Walt? Insert answer.
What is the highway? Insert answer.
What the fuck is going on? Please insert answer.
Scratch that. I didn’t care what was going on. I just wanted to get the hell out of here, maybe after kicking Harold in the nards. I wanted to go to a place where things happened one after another. Like two and three follow one. Like when you drink a beer, then you follow it with another, but only after the first one is emptied. That’s how it works. Or was supposed to.
I needed to tell her that I was sorry I couldn’t help her back in the trailer, all the times we had went back. I lost track how many times, but they flipped through my head like a spinning Rolodex full of tears. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Walt told her that some things can’t be changed. Trailers burn. People die. Even young ones. Life sucks. And so does time.
I wanted no more of Harold and whatever shit he was trying to pull. He got into Chalk Girl’s life, her memories, her line, and he tore it apart. I know she was not the first, or the last, that Harold would do this to. The fuzzy headed freak liked things that way—scrambled, the more messed up the better. He created chaos because he lived on it like vitamin supplements.
Walt found me in that field all those years ago, wandering, unsure of where I was, and more importantly when or why it was. There was something in my head that kept blipping out the memories—sure, they flooded back in from time to time—but they always faded. I know Walt wanted it this way. If my mind was a mess, then Harold couldn’t get in there and control it like he did with Chalk Girl.
Walt had been trying to take out Harold for years, decades even, or probably longer. I guess he figured somehow I was the guy to finally put it through the uprights, drop the three-pointer at the buzzer, sink the long putt, or just plain flush the bastard down the john. Lucky me.
I looked back to the highway. This washtub full of thoughts swirled in my head in what I knew took up only seconds of real time. Harold's sword was covered in a maze of ornate lines that would have made a samurai jealous. He held it high above his head and was about to bring it down on the back end of the Charger. I had no doubt that it was some ancient blade, sharp enough to cut through steel, rock, bone or flesh —whatever was needed. It would cut through the Charger, and then it would cut through us.
I watched the blade and waited. It didn’t move. I realized that Harold was in freeze-frame. Turning around in the car, I saw the good ole boys were also frozen, as was the driver. The music had stopped, outside the wind had went still. One of the boys had a gun pointed out the window. About an inch from the barrel hung a bullet, floating in the air, a puff of smoke drawn behind it.
Well, this was convenient.
A knock on the passenger side window made me jump and knock into one of the Statue Boys. The door opened.
“You coming or what?”
“Are you doing this?”
“Yes, me and a bit of Walt. Well, more Walt. Does it matter?”
I looked out the back window at the frozen Harold.
“If you can do this—shouldn’t we take him out?”
“You been riding with these hillbillies too long. Let's go.” She turned and started walking down the highway. I got out of the Charger, gave a nod to the Statues, and followed her.
“How long?”
“How long what?” she asked.
“Can you make it last?”
“Ha. That’s supposed to be what the girl asks isn’t it?” She laughed again.
I glanced back, waiting for that sword to drop, for the bullet to rip through the air, for the carnage to begin. I felt the edge of it, the chasm was about to open. The road rippled under my feet.
“Here he comes.” Chalk Girl pointed to a dark spot that appeared on the edge of the horizon.
The spot widened, the ground shook, and I squinted into the distance. Something was coming fast, just ahead of the dark spot.
“Why were you with him?”
“Hmm? Oh that. Walt’s idea.”
“That’s him coming isn’t it? Walt?”
“About damn time, too,” she said.
My next question was blocked out by the sound of screeching metal—a blade cutting into the back end of an orange muscle car was my guess. Wind swept up and over us. The ground had moved from shaking into heaving. Behind me guns went off, more screeching and clanging. Someone emptied a cartridge. I didn’t look back at the cacophony. It was hard enough just staying upright.
Walt’s sedan was still a half a mile away. The black crevice was a half a mile and about 100 yards. The sedan was still ahead, but the crevice was gaining.
“Why did Walt want you with Harold?” I yelled over the wind.
“We need to run.”
It was the crazy-ass Olympics, charging forward, leaping over rippling asphalt, the yellow lines whipping like rattlesnakes. An engine fired up behind me, squealing tires and smoke filled the air. Chalk Girl reached into her jacket and brought out a shiny piece of metal. She tossed me the gun while leaping over a three foot high chunk of road. I grabbed it and jumped, coming down hard on my ankle. I tripped and half-fell, half-rolled onto the shoulder.
“M. Slow him down.” She yelled back to me.
“What?”
The Charger was coming down on me hard. The fuzzy headed driver held the sword high out the window, a trail of black smoke followed him like storm clouds from hell. There was no sign of the Charger or Statue Boys.
I could have used some of that time-stopping ability about now, or at least a slowing down. I was a second away from being roadkill. I closed an eye and fired. Sound waves bent and warbled around me, the ground, the road, even the air moved out of focus as if someone had twisted a lens. A long golden line shot out of the gun, over the hood, and plunged into the windshield. The entire car lit up. A skeletal image of Harold flashed, his mouth wide open, his eyes as red as the headlights on his car. The line whipped and pulled the Charger with it, flipping it over and dragging it like a hooked trout off the highway and into the ditch. The last of the line left my gun and snapped in the direction of the twisted orange muscle car.
My leg pounded, a line of blood ran down my thigh. Edges around me sharpened. Walt’s sedan came into focus. The crevice would be on us in a few seconds. The door was open, she reached out a hand, her white face bent toward me, the lips formed a single word.
“Come.”
Ooooh nice action sequence!
That was quite the visual chapter.