17
T
he turnpike attendant was elderly and cheerful. “Merry Christmas,” she said as she handed him his ticket. “Looks like the snow’s about done with.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“Going to see your family?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, you all have a nice holiday.”
“Thanks, you too,” he said, rolling the Lincoln’s window back up. He rolled onto the turnpike and three miles later passed a sign informing him that he’d cleared the city limits. “Never to return,” he added out loud. The surface of the road was slick but clear, without much accumulation, and he was able to drive over the speed limit without feeling in any danger of losing control of the Lincoln. The big car felt good and familiar. He was definitely missing the Mercedes, though, and he felt that unfaithful, guilty feeling again now that he was at the wheel of the trusty Lincoln, even though this one was Bill Gerard’s and not his. Had been Bill Gerard’s, anyway.
On the quiet, nearly empty road he realized that since he left the Sweet Cage he’d been riding in silence. He turned the radio on and switched around until he found a clear signal. It was another cowboy singer doing a Christmas carol, and when he was done the adenoidal crime reporter was back on the job, reporting live from police headquarters. Charlie wondered what his hours must be like. He never heard anyone else doing the reports, and he never noticed their absence if and when the reporter was sick or took a vacation. Charlie listened with odd satisfaction as he joyfully detailed a brawl at a nude dancing establishment north of the city limits to which sheriff’s officers were called, without mentioning the Tease-O-Rama by name, then reported a Westside home burglary that might or might not have been his own at Bonnie’s house. After that he went into some misdemeanor activity that didn’t involve or interest Charlie. He didn’t have anything to say about bodies being discovered anywhere yet.
He passed the first gas station of the trip and looked for the first time at the fuel gauge. It was moving toward the red, and he didn’t know how soon he’d see another station open on Christmas, so he pulled into the center lane and turned left onto the median. He parked next to a fuel pump, took a hundred-dollar bill from one of the rubber-banded stacks in the satchel, and snapped it taut in his hands a couple of times, admiring the look and feel of it. He had been waiting a long time to spend some of this money.
There was no one in the station but the cash register operator, a pudgy, unhappy-looking young woman with short auburn hair and a pasty, junk-food complexion. “Merry Christmas,” Charlie called out as he walked in. She looked dully at him without responding as he plucked a Styrofoam coffee cup off a stack and poured himself a cup from a Plexiglas pot. He set the coffee down on the counter, followed by the hundred-dollar bill. “Just the coffee, and I’m going to fill up on number seven out there.”
She pouted. “I can’t change this. Anyway, I don’t have to. See that sign?” She pointed behind her at a sign on the wall:
No 50s or 100s Accepted
And No Check’s
“Okay, how about this? Keep the change.”
She frowned, certain that something was wrong with the proposition. “That’ll be like ninety bucks.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah, you too,” she said, examining the bill. Once satisfied it was authentic, she turned the pump on for him. “Thanks, mister. Your coffee’s on the house.”
Back on the road he found the coffee helping somewhat, but he was still fading into drowsiness, despite the cold. He flipped the radio dial around and found much the same thing as yesterday, Christmas music and no talk programs. Unlike his company Lincoln, Bill’s had a tape player, and he reached over and popped the glove compartment open. Inside were two tapes,
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
and
Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits, Vol. II
. He decided to stick to the radio.
At the second median rest stop he passed, the gas station and restaurant were both closed, and he congratulated himself for having pulled over at the first. He began to feel stupid for having fully gassed up a car he was going to abandon, until he realized that he’d have had to spend a hundred on half or three quarters of a tank, too.
Rows of bare, skinny trees lined both sides of this stretch of the turnpike. The sky was still gray, with patches of pale yellow in the distance, just above the horizon. A few stray flakes of snow lighted on the windshield from time to time, and Charlie took pleasure in the knowledge that after two or at most three days in New York, he’d never have to spend another hour in a cold climate again.
Two miles past the closed rest area he passed a recreational vehicle parked on the shoulder, its hazard lights flashing. An elderly man was peering into its engine, and a woman of the same age was standing next to him, her arms folded in front of her chest against the cold and looking as though she were about to cry. He felt bad for them, but he figured a Highway Patrol car would be along soon enough. He had a plane to catch.
A mile down the road, thinking of the frightened, desperate look on the old woman’s face, he began to have doubts. He hadn’t seen a state trooper since he started out. It was bitterly cold, and he knew damn well he could catch another plane if he needed to. He’d made it out of town, and now he could afford to be magnanimous.
What the hell, he thought, it’s Christmas. He pulled to the left and crossed the median at the next cop turnaround, with its threatening sign:
TURNAROUND FOR
HIGHWAY PATROL USE ONLY
He drove past them going the other way and was somehow gratified to see them still there. There were no more turnarounds until he got to the closed rest area, and he pulled into it and drove around the restaurant and back onto the southbound turnpike. Two miles later he pulled in behind the big beige-and-white RV. The old man was still poking around under the hood, wearing a lumber jacket and a ratty toque.
“Having trouble?”
The man looked around the open hood at him. “Goddamn thing’s brand-new; I can’t figure out what the hell’s wrong.”
“We’re out of gas,” the woman said, her voice choking with reproach. “You can’t read a damn gas gauge, that’s what’s wrong.” The woman also had on a lumber jacket and a toque. “Must’ve been ten, fifteen cars passed by since we pulled over, and not one of ’em stopped until now.”
“I could give you a ride to a gas station, except I don’t know how close we’d find one open on Christmas. Have you got some kind of a siphon?” Charlie asked. “I just filled up thirty miles back. Otherwise, I guess I could turn around and take you to the station back there.”
“We shoulda stopped when we passed it the first time,” the woman said. “Like I told you.”
“I think I’ve heard about enough of that lip of yours.” The man gave her a malevolent stare, which seemed to have no effect on her at all. “Yeah, I got a siphon. Go get it, Dot. You know where it is.”
The old woman climbed aboard the vehicle and the old man kept looking into the motor. “Mind you, I’m not all the way convinced it’s the gas. These new goddamn engines, no telling what’s really going wrong with them.”
Dot returned momentarily with a rubber hose and a two-gallon metal gas can, and the old man took them around to the Lincoln while Charlie opened the gas tank. “You need help?”
“I can siphon a goddamn gas tank just fine on my own. Thanks.”
As the man began sucking gasoline through the hose Charlie walked back over to where Dot stood. “Sorry about Gunther. He just figures his Christmas is ruined.”
“That’s okay. Where are you headed?”
“The wrong goddamn direction. He thinks he knows a road branches off just south of one of these exits we can take west and save some time. Well, maybe so, but what’s the point of making time if you lose it all running out of gas?”
“That’s true.”
“My first husband was a drunk and a liar, but he never ran out of gas as long as I knew him. I’m a registered nurse. I’ve always had to be responsible and on time, and I’ve never run out of gas in my life. But him.” She gestured contemptuously over her shoulder at Gunther, sucking and draining from the Lincoln into the gas can. “I never met a man so full of shit in my entire life. Look at this goddamn thing. We can’t near afford it, but there it is. Whatever possessed me to marry him I can’t imagine.”
Gunther looked up, narrowing his eyes. “What’d you say?”
“I said you’re full of shit, you foolish old jackass.”
He snorted and went back to work.
“I’d invite you in out of the cold only it’s a mess inside, and anyway he’ll be done there in just a second.”
“That’s okay,” Charlie said. “How does that thing handle on ice?”
“Shitty. At least when Gunther’s driving it. You know you got a cut on your neck?”
He put his finger to his neck where Renata had touched him with the filleting knife. He felt rough, pebbly dried blood, and when he pulled his hand away he saw that some of it was still glistening. “Shaving. Did it shaving.”
Gunther stood up, having siphoned most of the can’s capacity, and moved to the back to pour it into the RV’s tank.
“I expect we’ll have to drive all the way back to that first station,” Dot said. “Won’t be enough gas there to get this thing much further than that.”
“Gunther,” Charlie yelled. “Take another canful if you need to.”
“Much obliged,” Gunther yelled back, and he took the empty can and the hose back to the Lincoln and began siphoning again.
“That’s very kind of you, mister.” Dot shivered. “I just don’t know what possessed us to try and take off Christmas morning.”
North of them in the distance a car appeared, and as it grew nearer Charlie’s sphincter tightened once again. It was a state trooper, and he was slowing down. As he pulled abreast of them, he came to a stop and his partner rolled his window down.
“You folks in some kind of trouble?”
“Not anymore, Officer. This young gentleman is letting us have some of his gasoline.”
“That thing doesn’t run on diesel?”
“It’s a gas model. Too damn hard to find diesel at the pump.”
The trooper in the passenger seat leaned out and looked at Gunther, who had the hose between his mouth and the Lincoln’s tank. He looked up and without unpinching his lips gave the troopers a little nod and wave, signaling that all was well.
“All right, then. You folks have a merry Christmas, all right?”
Charlie and Dot nodded, smiling, and the troopers pulled back onto the road, the window rolling up.
Gunther finished filling the second can and headed to the back of the RV. He poured most of it in and climbed back aboard and tried to turn the engine over. It wheezed and clattered and didn’t turn over.
“See? I told you it wasn’t the goddamn gas.”
“Don’t you know anything? Put a little in the goddamn carburetor.”
Gunther got out with the can, messed with the carburetor for a second, then emptied the remainder of the can into it. Dot looked over at Charlie, her arms still folded over her chest. “He used to be a
policeman
. Can you imagine? Never met a man so helpless in my life.” Gunther retreated to the RV’s cab. On his first try it turned over and began rumbling steadily. He looked down at the hood as if he didn’t trust the motor to keep running.
Gunther stuck his head out and yelled, “Got ’er going.”
“Congratulations.”
“I’ll just give it a minute or two here to warm up.”
“About a mile down the road there’s a turnaround you can use,” Charlie said.
“Thanks again.” Dot went around to the right side of the RV and got back on board.
Charlie looked at them snapping at each other in the cab, and he felt good. He had made a difference in their lives. He started to get back into the Lincoln and realized that he needed to go to the bathroom. He’d already lost enough time without stopping again to take a leak. There was a row of trees ten or fifteen feet back from the shoulder, and he headed past the rear of the RV for it.
Behind the trees was a field, and in the distance he could see a barn and what he thought was the roof of a house. He let loose on a tree, watching the steaming flow arc and splatter on the darkening bark. Now that he was a free man, everything seemed different. He was intensely aware of the smell of the urine, of the bark, and of smoke from a wood fire. He zipped up, turned to face the farmhouse, and saw that there was indeed smoke rising from the chimney. He walked clear of the row of trees and past the rear end of the RV again, stopping to look at something Gunther had had painted on it in large Gothic script:
IT IS NOT THE END DESTINATION OF A
VOYAGE THAT MATTERS; IT IS WHAT ONE DOES
AND SEES ON THE WAY THERE.
DOT ’N’ GUNTHER
So that’s why these damn things are so slow, Charlie thought, and he was about to move on when the RV chugged without warning into reverse and its rear ladder smashed into his face, knocking him backward onto the snow. A second later he felt the right rear tire going up against and then over his right arm, crushing it, and then over his chest, and his vision narrowed suddenly, going red and black around the rapidly closing border, and then it was gone.
“Jesus H. Christ, Gunther, you hit something big.” There was a second bump as the RV’s back wheels rolled over a large object.
“The hell I did,” he snarled back.
“Stop and let’s see what it is.”
Gunther resolutely ignored her and shifted into first. Again the RV lurched as it rolled forward over the thing.
“Goddamnit, stop. I’m getting out.” She opened her door and hopped out, hitting the snow at a slow run as the RV slowed.
“Woman, I’ve told you before not to get out before I bring this vehicle to a complete stop!”
She turned to Gunther, her voice rising. “Oh, mercy. Oh, Gunther, you better get out. You run him over.”
The young man lay on the ground behind the RV, the aura of blood on the snow beneath him expanding around his chest. She reached for his wrist and felt no pulse, then pulled his right eyelid back to check his pupils.