ROAD STORY

by: Elizabeth Holloway

They’re cruising down the highway at an acceptable speed for a ticket. She let’s down her thick black hair, done up with chopsticks, curls and hair spray. Black make-up is still smudged on in an almost elegant way. The sweat from the exertion of performing is drying on her skin. They skipped out early after the show. Just in time to miss the rounds of drinks and congratulations and questions. She has always hated that part, much preferring to crawl back into her head after such a large display of exhibitionism. He nabbed her right as she got off stage, not even giving her a chance to change out of her stage clothes. He watches her out of the corner of his eye with her bare feet up on the dash, pulling at the lacing of her black leather corset. She pulls on a loose gray shirt in its place and goes to work on stripping off her fishnets. These are the moments he relishes. It’s rare that he gets his girlfriend alone. Now he’s whisking her off to butt-fuck-nowhere to, well, fuck among other things. The dark circles under her eyes have been an outstanding feature on her face for weeks now. She’s just come back from touring with her band. Two months to get halfway across the country and back. One week to play a couple local venues. Tonight she played the last show before getting some time off. Not that she’s actually going to be taking a break. These little hiatuses are times for other pursuits. She’s always busy, hard to pin down.

The field is full of fireflies and tall grass. He parks the car in the middle of it. Most cars would get stuck in one of the many large ruts. The field looks deceptively flat but his truck can handle it, even if it is quite small. When the hum of the engine dies out they are left with the late summer soundtrack of crickets and frogs and other nighttime critters bleating out their rhythms. She leans back in her seat with her feet up and her eyes closed, she lets out a sigh. His hand rests on her knee, now clothed in ratty, faded skintight jeans. He just watches. She cracks one eye.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just looking.” The inside of his truck is small and cluttered. Odds and ends, food wrappers, cds and other detritus litter the space. Her bag is tucked under the foot of the passenger seat. She is easily at home here. He on the other hand is feeling decidedly cramped. He exists the car, walking around to the other side to pull her out as well.

“Come on.”

“What are we doing out here?” He can hear the strain that so much performing has put on her voice.

“We are out here to be out here.” Watching him pull out blankets from a compartment in the back of his truck, she shivers, not ready to have left the warmth of the car. He pulls her up onto the truck bed with him.

“Is this where we have really passionate and/or kinky sex like in all those erotica books your sister reads?”

“Only if you want to.” He cracks a crooked smile.

Her voice sounds tired as she answers the phone. Everyone knows that she’s never been one for keeping in touch with people. So he’s taken it upon himself to call up his lead singer and see how she is fairing.

“Hello?”

“Shit. Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

“No. I wasn’t sleeping.” He can hear some shuffling in the background.

“Oh okay. Well I was just calling to see how things are going with you.”

“Things are fine.”

“’You sure? You sound kind of out of it.”

“Yeah. Derek’s been gone for three weeks. I don’t know where he it.” There is a heavy thud of her putting some things down as she sighs into the phone.

“What happened? Did you two break up or get into a fight or something?”

“I don’t know. One morning he was just gone. He won’t return any of my calls or messages.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Right now, I’m reorganizing my apartment, finally. I’ve got a few odd jobs lined for the next few weeks.”

“I meant about Derek.”

“If he wants to come back, he will. But if he’s not back by the time we leave again then fuck him. I’m not waiting.” There is an even louder thud and then the sound of many things falling over.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Some shit just fell over. Listen, can I call you back?”

“Sure. Have a good night.”

“You too.” She hangs up the phone and looks around her somewhat in dismay. Small stacks of her life lay around her feet on the floor. It’s been one of those nights where she couldn’t find anything to with herself. She hasn’t wanted to go out much since he left. Too much time around the house has made her sick of everything. She’s pissed off that he had to pull this shit now. There wasn’t even a note. He wouldn’t have left with no reason. She just hates being left to pick up the pieces. So she dismantles the material of her life. All the books she’s read, all the movies she’s watched and records she’s listened to are scattered around her. None of it brings him back. She hates him for abandoning her as she slams everything back onto their individual shelves. He should have left before she came back. That would have been better. The bottle of rum sits on the coffee table. She never drinks the stuff, thinks it’s dirty. But the bottle is his so she unscrews the cap and starts to pour shots for herself.

This breaks one of the biggest promises she’s made to herself. Do not drink alone. It is how bad habits start and she knows it. She’s had far too many bad habits in her short lifetime. Maybe this is nothing, maybe it’s not. She goes to bed drunk, tired as hell of sleeping in an empty bed.

He wakes up on the floor of a motel room, his mouth tasting like old basement carpet that has been flooded over. He’s not sure what time it is, or what happened last night. Come to think of it, he’s not even sure what day it is or where he is. The past who knows how many days are a total blur to him. He checks his phone, it’s dead. Looking around, he doesn’t see any of his things. The room looks like it have been touched since the seventies. The TV with fake wood paneling sits with a large crack and small hole in the screen. There are cigarette burns on the night stand where someone repeatedly missed the ashtray that has been glued down. The threadbare drapes, carpet and bed sheets are all matching shades of brown and orange. The colours alone serve to remind him of how hung over he is. Slowly, he pulls himself up onto the bed where he lies sprawled out motionless, face down. The sheets smell of stale detergent. It’s suffocating but he can’t be assed to move in his current state. Instead he wills himself to sleep, hoping to wake up to everything being the way it is supposed to be.

Sleep does not come to him. Only flashes of memory of the days and weeks passed. It seems like years since he left her sleeping in bed at their apartment. He woke up with an incredible itch that would not do to be left unscratched. And scratch that itch he did, to the detriment of everything else. It amazed him how easily he sunk back into a life he’d abandoned long enough ago. Old friends found him without him even thinking about it. All the pieces fell into place with no effort at all. This is how he’s always been meant to live life. Alone but in bliss. Shooting up and smoking up with what ever is at hand. There is no need for anyone else but the supplier. The unscrupulous things he has done come back to him now in the form of a list on the paper of his mind. The room starts to spin if he lifts his head off the hard mattress. The circular patter on the wallpaper winks and bobs around as he stares at it. His eyes shut, slowly seeping him back into unconsciousness.

It’s dark when he wakes up again, still as confused as before if only less incapacitated. He gets up and finds himself a glass of water in the dingy bathroom. After downing the whole thing he can’t decide if it helped any or just made things worse. Looking into his pallid reflection, his mind takes him back years to when this was a normal occurrence. There are deep bruises around his eyes. The inside of his eyelids are completely white, as colourless as his lips. A grayish tint shines through his normally tan skin. It feels like he’s aged ten years in only several weeks. Staring at his reflection starts to make his stomach churn. So he resorts to pacing up and down his motel room. Panic is setting in. It’s been a long time since he’s fucked up like this. In a rash movement, he picks up the phone and dials her number. She answers;

“Hello?” He doesn’t know what to do. There is a pause and then he slams the phone down onto the receiver. His keys are in his jeans pocket when he shoves his hands into them. Without a second thought he grabs what few possessions are scattered around the room and heads for his truck. He doesn’t know where he’s going but it is better than standing still.

It’s been an unusually warm week for mid-January. The snow is melting around her as she walks through the park towards the metro station. He black lace-up boots quickly cake with mud even though she is keeping to the path. It isn’t until she’s almost reached the centre of the park that she sees him walking towards her. Even at this distance she can tell how obviously disheveled he is. Derek’s normally shaved head is about three months overgrown. The straight-legged jeans he typically sports are torn in a few more places and everything about him just looks worn down. Her temper flashes up and momentarily she debates changing direction to avoid him. He’s already seen her anyway. They stop walking a few feet from each other. In the distance people are walking dogs or pushing strollers.

“You have the worst timing.” She is the first to speak. There is a chill in her voice that makes him shudder.

“I’m sorry.” He hunches his shoulders a little more as he says this. They stare at each other for moments that seem to drag on. Her eyes are steely, his are more timid. She had been starting to think that he wasn’t planning on coming back. Now that he’s here she doesn’t know what to say to him. Apparently he doesn’t know what to say to her either. It takes one second more and then her anger slips off her tongue.

“That’s all you have to say?” Her tone is harsh and that satisfies her.

“I hadn’t really thought past that part. Didn’t really think you’d let me get this far…” His words are mostly mumbled.

“Well…?” A look of annoyance flickers across her face.

“What?”

“Where did you go? You couldn’t leave a note?”

“I needed to deal with some shit and I couldn’t do it if you had to see me like that.”

“What kind of shit?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s dealt with now.” She’s ready to walk away right now. This isn’t getting her anywhere and she has somewhere to be. The bags she is carrying seem so much heavier now that she is standing still. She always gets really frustrated when he talks like this; lots of words, little content.

“What? You feel you have to protect me from your problems? I’ve plenty of chapters of bad history in my life before I met you. I’m not exactly squeamish.”

“What kind of problems could you possibly have?”

“If they ever come up again, I’ll tell you all about them. They aren’t so bad that I would shun the ones I love because of it.” She gives him a good hard glare as she says this.

“You and I have always dealt with things in very different ways.”

“You should have told me what was going on.” The bag on her shoulder cuts into her forcing her to shift it over to the other side. The movement forces his attention to the luggage she has with her.

“So you’re leaving now?”

“The new label wants us at a recording studio out of town for our first album with them. You knew this.”

“Right.” He makes vain attempts at shaking the mud off his burgundy Doc’s.

“You can contact me in the usual ways.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes. I have to go now.” Walking past him, she squeezes his hand. He keeps heading back to their apartment.

Dawn broke almost a half hour ago and the highway is still deserted. The redeye flight had dropped her at the airport an hour out of town where Derek picked her up. It’s been over a year since she’s been inside his truck. Everything looks exactly the same as she remembers it. He’s oddly quiet so she focuses on separating the hair that’s clumped together with half a bottle of hair spray that was involuntarily applied for a photo shoot. This record deal is turning out to be not nearly as amazing as they thought it would be. She feels exhausted and used. The bigwigs had decided to turn her into their little poster girl and she hates it. Things with Derek being in a weird kind of limbo don’t help. They talk but they never really talk. Which explains the awkward silence filling the car. She puts her bare feet up on the dash, leaning back to get a better look at him. Facing forward, he concentrates intently on the road ahead of him.

“So are you just dropping me home or are you going to stick around this time?” The words come out sharper than she means them to but she’s tired. She hears him suck in breath sharply.

“Wow.”

“We never did talk about last September. Never found time for it.”

“What is there to talk about?” She blanks out for a moment before thoughts flood her brain almost chocking her ability to speak.

“How are you so nonchalant about all of this? You act like nothing happened, no remorse or anything. How am I supposed to trust you after that? When leaving is so easy for you?”

“There was remorse. A lot of fucking remorse and regret and anything else you can come up with. That was one of the dumbest things I have done to date and I don’t even know why the hell I did it. So what am I supposed to say to you?”

“You could have said that.” He shrugs, gripping the steering-wheel that much harder.

“I don’t know.” He reaches over and turns off the radio. It seems to him like they are over the music and that is stressing him out. “I just want to move as far away from this as possible. I was scared shitless to come back. I figured if I ever brought it up, you’d remember that you’re mad at me and just tell me to fuck off.”

“Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. This whole time, you’ve left me in the dark and I feel like I can’t be close to you because of it, like you don’t want me to be, even. It’s been months of wondering where you went, why you would leave. Was it my fault? Did I drive you away? Was it another woman? I mean, where you in some kind of trouble you couldn’t tell me about? It ate away at me.” He squeezes her knee in an attempt to reassure her.

“I’m sorry. This was never about you and I should have made that clear.”

“I just want things to go back to the way they were before.” Staring out the window again, she sighs.

“There’s no going back. You’re famous now.” She groans.

“Don’t remind me.”