I Am the Cheese (11 page)

I hear a car coming.

The cars usually don’t speed on this road because it’s not built for speed and there is barely room for two cars to pass each other. But this car that’s approaching is going fast. I can tell by the motor. The motor roars and whines. The motor grows louder. I grip the handlebars tightly, holding on. I am afraid that the car
will cause a rush of wind that will suck me off the road as it passes.

The car approaches, the sound of the motor gathering in volume, filling the air. It soars past me, at great speed, so close that it almost brushes my elbow. I am thrown off balance and lose speed and the bike almost tips over as the front wheel wobbles. The car recedes ahead of me and I want to raise my fist and hurl an insult at the driver but I look up and see a familiar face in the rear window of the car. One of the troublemakers at the lunchroom.

I pedal furiously now, not because I want to catch up with them but because this road is deserted and I want to reach a better road or highway as soon as possible. I feel more vulnerable than ever. There are no houses in sight. Most of the cars use the interstate that runs parallel to this old road. I keep pedaling. There’s a curve ahead. Maybe there’ll be a house or a new road or something around the curve.

I hear the car again. That unmistakable motor. The car is coming back. The car is rounding the curve, heading in my direction. The car’s grille looks like the grinning mouth of some metal monster. The car is pink, a sickly pink, the kind of pink found in vomit. The car thunders by and I see the face of Whipper at the wheel and his grin is as evil and ferocious as the car’s grille. The other two guys poke their heads out the window and laugh raucously as they go by.

I reach out and touch my father’s package in the basket and I keep pedaling. There is nothing else to do but keep pedaling. I approach the curve and coast for a moment, anticipating rescue there. But there is
nothing. Only open fields. Why do the ecologists think we are running out of space on this planet? I’ve seen so many unoccupied and uninhabited places today that I’m starting to feel lonesome for stores and houses and sidewalks and traffic jams. But now there is a panic in the loneliness. I know the car will come back.

The motor ignites the air again. I hear it coming.

The sound of the motor is louder now, as if magnified, as if the road is a tunnel with invisible walls and the thunder of the motor reverberates against those walls, increasing the decibels. I keep myself rigid, crouched on the bike, and the car comes closer, closer.

This time the car brushes me. I feel the wind, like a monster’s foul breath, and I feel the contact of metal and a whine as the metal strikes my bike. The bike is wobbling dangerously and I hang on. I fight to regain my balance. My shoulder bursts with pain and I realize that something has struck my shoulder. One of the guys in the car tried to hit me as the car went by. Now it’s gone again. But it will come back. I know it will come back.

“God,” I say, and the word fills the emptiness left by the car, fractures the silence of the country air. I should have taken my pills this morning. I think of my options. I can leave the road and hide in the fields. But the fields present no hiding place. There is only a scattering of trees and I would be spotted right away. I would also have to abandon the bike. And I can’t stay here, either. The car will mow me down. I can only keep on riding, riding—hoping a car will come
along that I can flag down. Or maybe the wise guys are tired of the game, maybe they won’t come back after all. Maybe they realize what they’re doing and that it’s against the law: assault with a dangerous weapon. They have turned the car into a weapon.

I hear the car coming again. Not toward me as I expected.

The motor whines. From behind me.

I hang on. I pedal furiously to maintain balance. I gather speed and momentum. My legs hurt and my arms hurt and my body hurts but I keep pedaling, hurried by the sound of the motor like a wind blowing me along. I hear the squeal of the car’s tires and the whine of the motor and it’s coming, coming, louder and louder, powerful and undeniable, and I brace myself.

The car brushes by and hands reach out for me, pushing, grabbing, and I lose my balance, the bike wavers under me and heads for the ditch, the steep ravine by the side of the road, and I am helpless to halt its progress toward the ditch, and the wheels spin and I hear raucous laughter as I loom at the edge of the ditch and then feel myself falling, spinning, sucked into the ditch, sucked into the wetness and darkness of a sudden startling nighttime.

END TAPE OZK009

END TAPE OZK010

“You all right, son?”

I hear the voice and see the face at the same time as I rise from the spiraling darkness where there was nothing to hold on to and I wanted to scream with panic but could not and now suddenly
You all right, son?
and the panic is over and the face above me is kind and concerned, an old face, a grandfather kind of face.

“I’m all right,” I say, struggling up. I don’t like to be flat on my back—I always sleep on my stomach—and I don’t like to be confined or held down. My instinct, then, is to get up on my feet, flailing my arms at anything that might try to hold me down, confine me.

“Take it easy, son,” the man says, still gentle, still calm.

I nod my head, stalling, trying to establish myself in the world again. My arms ache and my mouth tastes metallic, like dirt and acid mixed together.

“You must have had quite a tumble,” the man says.

I stand erect and the world settles down around me and I remember what happened—the troublemakers and the car and the plunge into the ditch.

“Is the bike all right?” I ask.

“Seems okay,” the man says.

We are standing by the side of the road. The man’s car, a big station wagon with paneling, is parked nearby. A white-haired woman sits in the car, a worried expression on her face.

“Is he all right, Arnold?” she calls.

“Yes, he is, Edna,” he answers. Then to me: “Sure you’re okay? Boy, I was coming along slow, the wife doesn’t like to go fast since she had her stroke, and I saw one of the wheels of your bike sticking up out of that ditch and we stopped and I came over to look, although the wife says people should mind their own business. You were lying in the ditch like you was fast asleep. I pulled your bike all the way up and then your eyes fluttered and you came to.”

I nod, thinking of the wise guys. I look around, wondering if they might return. I wonder how long I’ve been unconscious in the ditch.

“What time is it?” I ask. My head aches.

“Coming up to four o’clock,” the man says, his voice a Yankee twang, like a violin string being tuned.

“Thanks for stopping,” I say. “I appreciate it. I guess I lost my balance on the bike and fell into the ditch.”

“No broken bones?” he asks.

I flex my arms and pat my chest and thighs.

“No broken bones,” I say.

“You from around here?” he asks.

“We’re going to be late, Arnold,” his wife calls.

“One minute, dear,” he says, raising his voice. And again to me: “Can we give you a lift, son? We’re going up to Hookset. You look kind of tired.”

“Hookset, that’s right next to Belton Falls, isn’t it?”

“Only a mile or two.”

I know that I have been determined to cover the distance by bike but it’s almost four o’clock and I’ll never make Belton Falls before darkness at this rate.

“Listen, we can throw your bike in the back of the wagon. And don’t mind my lady. She hasn’t been herself since the stroke. Got no patience, poor thing. But she’s a fine lady.”

I realize that the important thing is to reach Rutterburg as soon as possible and not the manner of traveling.

“Well, if you don’t think your wife will mind …,” I say.

“You come with us. How far did you say you’re going?”

“I’m going to Rutterburg, Vermont, but I’ll be satisfied to make Belton Falls tonight. There’s a motel there I can stay at and then arrive fresh in Rutterburg tomorrow morning.”

“Well, you come along,” he says. “We can take you as far as Hookset, and Belton Falls is just next door. I’d take you all the way but my lady has an appointment at the doctor’s.”

I push the bike toward the car and my legs resist movement. They echo with pain, my arms throbbing, my calves pulsing. I am a sheet of pain but the car awaits and I can rest and let my body renew itself.