Attempting to steady her arm, she tried to read her wristwatch as she barreled along, but many things were not cooperating and the hands seemed to jump from 1:30 to 2:30 to 3:30, and finally she gave up as the car crashed through a pothole, challenging her to slow down and reassess where the road was. Slowing the car to a stall in the middle of the road, she clambered out and slipped down the bank, losing her footing and falling against a fence post. A dull thud against her skull suggested pain would be imminent, although none arrived. Grabbing the wire with both hands, she steadied herself somewhat and started to pee. The barbed wire bit into her hands, and she unfolded one to see the sharp teeth imbedded in her palm, the glow of the moon illuminating glossy black saliva as it dripped down her arm. Wiping it on her dress, she toppled over sideways and scrambled back up the ditch into the car. Again it sprung to life, and she felt like she’d acquired a silent partner. She roared the engine, spitting gravel up behind her as she picked up speed and swerved her way toward town. She kept her foot locked on the gas pedal; knew she had to gather enough speed so that the momentum could fuel her up the last leg of the hill even if the car’s engine could not. Knew if she could go down Main Street fast enough, cause enough of a blur, maybe she could just sweep the whole place from her memory. Cause her whole life to be a sad, forgotten dream.
Town was around her before she knew it. She puzzled over when she’d rounded the corner, crossed the bridge and gone past the dump, but it was beyond her. All she knew was that they were behind her and somehow she’d made it this far and now Main Street was streaming past her window like a watercolor in a rainstorm, the base of the hill rushing up to defeat her. The car rose into the hill valiantly, but was quickly subdued as if a giant hand had reached up from the valley floor and grasped her by the tail. She searched the rearview mirror, cursed the fading lights and drank a victory salute as her vessel crawled toward the crest of the hill. She watched as the summit became visible above her. Watched as her life faded behind her, folded out before her. Suddenly, angrily, she pulled to the shoulder, parked and began to cry.
None of them had seen the headlights. Nor the vehicle as it veered off the side of the bridge, shot through the air and landed on its back in the shallow part of the river. For a brief, stunned moment they just stood and stared at the rusted undercarriage, black tires spinning useless as the waving appendages of an upside-down beetle. Slowly reason began to trickle into their stupefied brains and one, quickly followed by several of the others abandoned their drinks and ran toward the car.
Victoria could hear voices and water slurring together, felt the push and pull of her body as strong hands attempted to free her. Annoyance swirled with the water in her mind, and she wished they would just all go away and leave her alone. Let her sleep. The rushing current twisted her hair and her dress around her as it begged her to slip free, flow with it into oblivion, but the hands holding her tightly pulled her back and she cursed them. She felt from a distant place as her body was hauled forcibly from the wreck and dragged through the water toward shore. Hard arms locked around her and raised her upward, floated her in a time without place. Maybe her luck had changed after all. Maybe she was being born backward, God finally realizing his mistake and calling for her speedy return in the arms of Gabriel. A sensation occurred faintly against her face and a dim memory told her it was fire. Perfect. Just her luck. The promise of heaven, then she’s delivered to hell.
A young girl, sober with fear, yet drunk with the effects of the night, almost hyperventilated as she tried to speak.
“Oh my god . . . oh my god. Is she okay? Is she dead? Oh my god . . . I should go get help. Someone go get help.”
“Sit down, Amy! You can’t even bloody stand much less go fer help. She’s all right anyhow, just cracked her head. Just got to get the bleeding stopped that’s all.”
Victoria felt a thick pressure against her head and wondered whether she was seriously hurt. She felt no pain. No fear. Felt no connection between her body and her mind whatsoever. Instinctively she knew she should be able to gain access into the world surrounding her, but she couldn’t remember how or why she would want to do so. She hovered at the periphery of her self and listened to the voices, tried to discern the entities around her. Even with her eyes closed and her mind lost somewhere between two dimensions, she knew exactly where she was. She wondered if this was how it was to be a ghost, a spirit trapped between realities, observing one yet existing in another.
The sandbar had been the traditional partying spot for years. Her, Bobby, Diana, John Jr., their whole generation had hung out there, explored things best left unexplored and hurled themselves into adulthood. And before them, her own parents and before them, only the guttural voice of the river knew for sure. And now this new group had sprung up to replace them, add their tales to Hinckly’s history.
“Is that that Bobby’s wife?”
“Ya, looks like,” affirmed the slurred and heavy voice above her.
“No, it ain’t,” challenged another voice, a male’s but high-pitched, tipping toward hysteria.
“Ya it is, ya dumb shit. That’s her car, ain’t it?”
She felt something soft and rubbery under her cheekbone, the toe of a sneaker as it nudged her head over to reveal the other side of her face. Immediately a chorus of horrified shrieks rained down on her.
“Ohh, gross! Look at her face . . . that’s so disgusting.”
“Oh my god . . . her eye. Ohh, what happened to it? That’s so sick!”
She felt pressure against her temple as someone lolled her head over further and examined her face.
“Shit! That don’t look so good, do it?”
“It’s gross! Turn it back the other way. Makes me want to throw up just looking at it.”
She felt the sensation of the fire creep across her face as her head was adjusted so as to appease the delicate sensibilities of the girls in the group. She felt like a dead fish, washed up and rotting along the shore, foul and disgusting to those who gave a wide berth as they passed by. A maze of confusion claimed her thoughts, and whether she lay there dead or asleep she could not tell until the voices, all husky now began to return to her, even more slovenly and tinged with anger.
“Should take her in to the doc, I tell ya.”
“No! I told ya already. Ain’t no need to wake the doctor. She’ll be fine once she warms up. Ain’t nothing broken.”
“How you bloody know? You ain’t no bloody doctor.”
“Ya, well I worked a whole summer with Doc Feribee asshole. Don’t be forgetting that.”
“That ain’t the same. That ain’t the same at all.”
“Screw you it ain’t the same. It’s all the same shit. Bones are bones, don’t make no matter whether they’re animal or human. Where the hell’s my beer? Virgil, where the hell you put my beer?”
“Ouch! What the hell you cuffin’ me for? I didn’t take your friggin’ beer.”
“You gonna sit next to the case, you got a job to do. You gonna slack off, you gonna get smacked. Now give me one ’fore I smack ya again just for fun.”
“Last one.”
“Shit! Where the hell they all go?”
“I don’t bloody know. Girls I guess.”
“Four sacks of beer and the bitches all go home without us. Bloody poor investment I’d say. Gotta upgrade to pantie-remover.”
“Pantie-remover?”
“Yeah, pantie-remover, numb nuts. Don’t you know nothing?”
“Screw you. I know stuff. I know she ain’t got none on under that dress.”
“And how the hell would you know that?”
“You kin see. Right there. See?”
“Wholly shit! I think you might be right for once.”
“Where ya think she was going, anyhow? Pretty slinky getup to be driving around in in the middle of the night. You think she’s dicking someone on the side?”
“Naw.”
“How’d you know? You ain’t bloody know everything.”
“She ain’t.”
“How you know?”
“Just do.”
The voices ceased, replaced by the crackle of the fire and the murmur of the river. A spray of orange fanned above her as someone took a stick and provoked the coals.
“Bet I could get it in up to there.”
“What you talking about?”
“Bet I could. Ya wanna bet I could?”
“Forget it jerk-off. That far and it’d be coming out her friggin’ mouth.”
“There?”
“In your dreams lard ass. Try about three inches back.”
“That’s it? Bullshit! Bet I could get it least up to there.”
She felt a short, hot stab shoot through her as someone stumbled and fell across her legs. Her eye flickered open, delivered the image of a bulky form hovering above her, fat hands between her thighs.
“Virgil, you perverted son-a-bitch! Get off her!”
“I just wanna see. In the interests of medical science?”
“Medical science?”
“Ya. Didn’t I ever mention I always wanted to be a pussy doctor?”
“Every guy wants to be a pussy doctor, you moron. Get off.”
“Come on. In the interests of science?”
“In the interests of your face. Now get your fat ass off her ’fore I kick it so hard it takes you two weeks to shit again.”
“Aw, come on.”
“Get off, Virgil. Now!”
“Aw, shit. All right already, sit down! I gotta get home, anyhow. My old man gets up pretty soon, and if he catches me out with his truck I won’t have an ass left to kick. Whatcha gonna do with her?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of her.”
“Ya need some help?”
“Have a think, Virgil. Do I look like I need some help?”
“Just asking.”
“Well, don’t. If ya wanna help, take Monty home. Saves me a trip out to his place.”
“Monty? Where the hell
is
Monty? I thought he left with the girls.”
“Naw, he’s passed out in your truck.”
“In my truck? He’d better not be! Shit, I’ll kill the bugger if he pukes in there! My dad’ll kill me if he pukes in there. Man, my old man’s gonna kick the beejeezus outta me.”
“He’s not in the cab stupid. I chucked him in the back.”
“Oh. You coming?”
“Not yet. Gonna let the fire die down a bit first. I get home when I feel like it. Be a sad day for my old man if he ever tried to kick the beejeezus outta me.”
Victoria listened to the irregular crunch of cowboy boots on gravel, heard the tinny slam of a door and a motor growl as a lonesome song drooled away into the night. Slowly the soft rumbling of the water and the warm glow of the fire settled around her, and she felt the slip of her consciousness drift into their gentle undertow. She felt the presence of a body parallel to her own and strong arms encasing her from behind as she struggled within herself as to whether it was real or fantasy. Hope or delusion. She felt the warmth leave her face as he crawled over her, began to nurse and nuzzle against her breasts then pressed himself into her, pounding her to a place beyond time.
The horses had spotted her first. Stamped and snorted and steadfastly refused to approach any closer until finally the Patterson grandkids had given them full rein, and they’d raced all the way home, the children screaming hysterically that they’d found something dead. And their grandparents, after first scolding them for running the horses so hard, had finished up their chores then driven down to the river expecting to find a dead deer or at worst a bloated cow, but had found Victoria Lackey instead. The doctor had stitched her up, held her overnight and then sent her home to let time mend her wounds. The superficial ones. The ones that could be seen and touched and healed by the mere passage of time but were but scratches when measured against the emotional ones which could not.
Bobby had arrived late to pick her up, and she had hidden behind a magazine of smiling female faces as the passage of time swelled into public humiliation. She watched silently when he finally made his entrance and was updated on his wife’s condition, just beyond her hearing. Nodding his head grievously, he cast a long, woeful look in Victoria’s direction, purely for the benefit of the perky nurse who had, by her unamused, no-nonsense attitude already made it perfectly clear she had thrown her lot in with the unfortunate husband. The long ride home proved excruciating as well, every jar of the truck twisting the knife imbedded behind her eye and forcing her mouth open in a cry of silent agony.
Bobby fumbled with his cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth and struck a match.
“So . . . what exactly
were
you doing, Vic? All dolled up like that, driving around in the middle of the night?”
“I wasn’t
doing
anything.”
“Ya, right. Who you ’specting to meet?”
“No one.”
“And you ’spect me to just believe that?”
“Believe whatever you want, Bobby. I don’t care.”
They drove along in heavy silence.
“You know, Vic, I been thinking maybe we should get some real plans drawn up for the house. What you think about that?”