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Creede
I gripped the front of the dash as she pulled onto the side of the road. Not the ‘good’ side of the road, mind you. The other one, next to the opposing lane. I could hear the engine of the small truck redlining.
Terror had been driving like she usually did, foot to the floor, holding the wheel with her wrists while unscrewing another mini bottle, all while passing a car that was passing another car. This time, however, it was on a banked, blind corner. Horns blared from everywhere.
For the thousandth time since I met her, I rued my suspended license. Usually, it wasn’t a concern. I could drink as much as I wanted in the passenger seat, guilt-free. It worked for me, kind of. Until she did shit like this. I took a bottle out of the cup holder, took a swig, then gripped it tightly.
I wasn’t going to spill my beer for this shit.
We hit a small bump and the cab shook violently from side to side. I looked over at the speedometer. It read a steady 120 mph. That was the limit of how far up it went. You could get away with that kind of speed in those parts. There was just too much road and not enough money to pay the cops. And the ones that you did see were too busy getting paid off by the cartels to notice one small Chevy with a faded paint job flying past. Horns blared. We were passing everyone, she just had to—
The hole appeared and she hit it expertly. I had to hand it to her. For all the crazy shit like this that she pulled, she missed her calling as a race car driver. The truck somehow managed to accelerate, moving swiftly into the correct lane on the freeway. She banked into a turn, then another, flying up the narrow highway. I finished my beer, then opened two more and handed one to her. She downed half the bottle in one chug, belched, then turned up the music. Her face crumpled in a frown. She was upset about something.
It was probably the fact that we were on our way to get her an abortion. Or maybe it was something about work—no. It was definitely the abortion.
We both worked at a small-town bar, nestled in the mountains of Southern Colorado. The closest place to get one of these procedures was five hours away. Terror was my best friend. I couldn’t let her go alone. Plus, I had a thing for nurses.
The baby wasn’t mine. She had shown up for the season already knocked up. We had been out drinking for the tenth consecutive day. There was a saloon in town that stayed open as long as we were spending money. There was nothing else to do, so we took the lemons we had and made margaritas. I remember knocking back a shot of Fireball, everyone in the bar joining in, when Terror had silently appeared at my elbow. She was pissed.
Her name wasn’t really Terror, but it might as well have been. She was a massive human, half-Samoan, with a massive head and broad shoulders. She stood at least six feet, but she also had a nimble grace. This was most likely from a life spent behind a bar and behind bars, where space comes at a premium. She could move when necessary.
I found this out on more than a few nights when she crawled into my bed, pushed anyone who was already in it off to the side, and furiously cuddled me. I was usually laughing too hard to say no.
Terror constantly gave off the impression that she wanted to crack your neck between her enormous tits. She was loud, passionate, abrasive, and utterly unapologetic. So when she appeared the way she did that night, wringing her hands and furtively looking at the ground, a blind man could have sensed that something was awry.
After a brief pause, she reached around me, brusquely dragging her immense gazoombas across my back and arm, grabbed the bottle of whiskey I had bought, and took a deep pull. Then she spun me around, put both of her hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
Her eyes were limned with red; the fringes of her eye sockets more sunken than normal. She had been crying. I should also mention, Terror was an absolute asshole at all times. She had no tact or accountability, and never considered the repercussions of her behavior. I immediately tried to do the math. She had crawled in my bed nine nights ago… or was it ten…
Good God. Did we have sex?
Luckily, she laughed. “Oh no, dumbass. It’s not yours. Some guy in Texas. Or maybe Oklahoma.”
Sweet heavenly father of all that is holy, thank you. I am sorry for my sins. Please forgive me. Thank you. I will pray more, I promise. Thank you, thank you, thank you…
I returned her stare for a few seconds. Then I said something warm and comforting, like: “Well, shit!”
I certainly have my moments.
My support and kindness had no effect. She began tearing her way through the bottle so fast that I grabbed it from her. This was a daunting thing to do. Getting in between a bear and her cub is never a good idea. But she didn’t try to eat my face or tear my arms off. Instead, she did something I hadn’t seen her do. She became very afraid.
I had only known this woman for a month at this point. We were the two talented bartenders in a very small town. This equated to a high social status that we took full advantage of. The restaurant was a legendary place. I worked the upstairs, she worked the lower level. Between us, we cranked out enough drinks to sate the hordes of Texan tourists that flocked there in the summer. We made serious dough.
We had become fixtures at the saloon, waddling over after we had finished mopping, always greeted with cheers and warm smiles. And we had quickly become inseparable. It was an arrangement of convenience, a meeting of star-crossed misanthropes ravenous for companionship. We shared the immutable bond of the completely self-reliant. But here was something real, a life-changing moment that she couldn’t face on her own.
There was no option but to find a place to get the procedure. Politics and morality aside, we both knew that with the amount of alcohol she had poured into her body over the past few months, there was absolutely no way that a healthy child was going to come out of her. We would fly to Europe if we had to.
There was also the fact that she was on the run from something. She’d kept it close to the chest, but it was obvious that she was lying low. And having a child while you’re trying to stay five steps ahead of the Marshalls is just a bad strategy any way that you slice it. I handed the bartender a fifty, took the bottle, and we went to the corner of the room to start Googling instructions.
A week had passed since then. She had waffled once, at which point I had to take the cocktail out of her hand and explain to her, in vivid detail, what fetal alcohol syndrome was. It was then that she revealed that she already had a child, and that she had given birth to that child in prison… I plied her for details but received none. She had completely shut down.
Well, shit.
I was already in. There was no running now. Even if I had tried, where the hell could I go? I knew how fast she drove. She’d track me down, hand me a beer, then bear hug me on the side of the road until I wasn’t mad anymore. For all her faults, Terror had a heart of gold. And that heart was breaking for what she had to do. I kept her between the lines, made sure we had the days off that we needed, and ushered her toward the finish line. A line we were now approaching at a speed that would kill us on impact.
“Hey, Terror?” I said, reaching over to turn down the stereo. It took a serious effort to keep my voice level. I could feel the dashboard beneath my hand, the engine straining and groaning… “Let’s make it there alive, eh? Terror. TERROR!”
Her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead, but I could see some of the tension start to drain away. The truck began to slow. Groaning. Grinding. The barren landscape to the side of the highway remained unchanged. The desert gave the impression of finality, infinity…
I knew this wasn’t ‘it.’ Somewhere, there was a place for me. Out there… I reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. Her façade was cracking, the tough demeanor rupturing, fractures splitting to the heartwood. She drained the rest of her bottle and patted my hand.
“It’s gonna be alright, Terror,” I said.
“I know, muffin.”
…
Muffin?
…
Ah.
I did what I did best, ignoring reality and creating my own. I looked down at my feet and counted the bottles. There were plenty left. I busied myself picking out a new playlist. The road hammered away, the truck continued to whine, albeit less intensely, and the broad expanse flashed past. Tumbleweeds rolled across the tar-lined pavement until they were crushed underneath our tires.
My hand still hovered above the surface of the dash. I cast furtive glances at her. I wasn’t in love, not even close. I was very fond of her, though. I hadn’t had a friend like that before. Ride or die. Someone who would have your back, no matter what. And I felt the same.
Despite her size, she looked small then. We were just two kids, adrift in an extended childhood, drifting aimlessly across the Wild West. Outlaws, completely detached from the real world. We could have been abducted by aliens without batting an eye. I should have said something then, anything to ease her mind. Instead, I took another swig and stared out the window.
It only took two more stops at the liquor store to get us the rest of the way. When we pulled into the parking lot, Terror’s fists clenched around the wheel, her white knuckles began to pop. As the engine died, wheezing with exhaustion, she leaned her chair back and cracked a mini-bottle. I started to speak, but she cut me off.
“I can do this.”
I nodded and we crossed the parking lot. I put a hand on her broad back as we passed the picket line. Several protestors stepped briefly in the way, but immediately thought better of it.
When we approached the desk, the nurse at the front smiled and handed us a stack of forms. I ducked into one of the chairs and filled them out for her, occasionally asking her questions. I received terse, faraway responses. Then a pair of stout nurses popped into the room and called her name. She stood without a word and followed them through the double doors.
Hours passed. I caught a lot of meaningful looks from the women behind the counter. Terror had been adamant that the child wasn’t mine. I couldn’t bring myself to rise to the occasion. In that setting, primal desires took a backseat to vicious realities.
Dozens of terrified women surrounded me, all huddled in cloaks of grief and self-loathing. This was a stark reminder that everything can change in an instant, that our entire trajectory can be altered by one broken condom or poor decision. For the first time, I considered a different way of life. In the background, the chants of the protestors were barely muffled by the blaring TVs and air conditioning. I kept my eyes peeled on the doorway, just in case.
Hours later, Terror emerged. She was staggering, a shredded and shattered husk of the human that had passed through earlier that morning. I rushed to her side and slid under her armpit. The two nurses stood in the hallway, looking thoroughly exhausted. We left by the back door.
Terror tried to get in the driver’s seat, but I refused. Something had shifted in that clinic. It was time to take the wheel for a while. I drove for a few hours, then found us a hotel. The town was nameless; a bar, gas station, and the room I had rented were the only evidence of human habitation.
I checked in, then went to collect my friend. She barely made it through the door. With one giant step forward, she collapsed on the bed. A single, brazen spear of daylight came through the drawn curtains. Terror’s mask had fallen, her mystique and strength completely stripped away. She was snoring within seconds. I spent the rest of the afternoon on one arm, gently brushing her coarse hair away from her face.
Somewhere around dinnertime, she awoke. Her eyes blinked once, twice… A grimace twisted across her mouth.
“Is there a bar nearby?”
***
Dust was everything and everywhere. We lived on the sand, rootless and migratory. It was a transitory existence spent at free campsites and barren expanses of BLM land. We were as wild and unchained as the scenery. Jobs and money came and went without rhyme or reason. Our only contact with humanity was a loose assembly of malcontents and meth heads, most of whom stayed as far away from us as possible.
Battering winds stirred up the dust and sent it hurtling toward my face. There was no possibility of warmth. A strict fire ban was in effect. Thick trails of smoke wafted through the sage and scrub pine, remnants of a wildfire somewhere nearby. I lifted my last beer and drained it, then lit a cigarette. I was outside. Terror was napping in the tent.
We were not getting along.
I had been fired from the bar in Colorado. The owner had seen himself in me, and vice versa. It had been destined to boil over from the moment I arrived. Honestly, I was surprised that I had lasted as long as I did.
After picking up my last check, I went to the saloon down the street and waited. It didn’t take long to hear the yelling. As Terror stormed across the weathered floors into the dark gloom that I sat in, she raised her arms and hooted. I heaved a sigh of relief and finished my beer. I lit two cigarettes and handed her one. Two hours later, we were on the road.
For the next two months we traipsed along the west coast, doing odd jobs and dropping in on friends. The money had run out in Bend. There were countless free places to camp in the area, so we’d pitched a tent and both gotten jobs. But without the framework of the bar and the insulating presence of all of the other friends we had made, Terror had begun to grate on me. Fiercely. What was once a constant back-and-forth had first devolved to bickering, then to open warfare.
The stress mounted by the day. It was only a matter of time, now.
With the dust, smoke, and sand whipping my face, I stared at the tent. I’d had enough. There were too many lies. A mountain of half-truths lay between us like an open laptop showing last night’s surveillance footage. I couldn’t take the stress that emanated from her, and I knew she felt the same. I had booked a ticket up to Portland the night before. I was just waiting for her to sober up to break the news.
It didn’t go over well. The fight was short and loud. Shortly after, we found ourselves in the narrow cab, violently rocking back and forth as she tore down the loose dirt roads. We had almost made it to civilization before we passed a sheriff, cleverly tucked away behind a road sign. He caught up to us quickly, the bright blue and red lights on top of his squad car blazing in the dim morning light. She pulled over and began to wring her hands. Words tumbled out in fits and starts.
“I’ve been running for a while. I did my time. But they wanted so much…” she began.
“So much wh—”
“Money. I never showed up for parole. When they let me out…” Her arms trembled as she spoke. Terror had crept into her voice, a stark contrast to the effect that she exuded. The sheriff was at the window now, gently tapping. She rolled down the window and put up one finger.
“Just a moment, officer. Then I will come quietly.”
To my amazement, the officer put up both hands and complied.
From somewhere behind her seat, she pulled out two 4Lokos. Repugnant stuff, each the equivalent of a six-pack and a pot of coffee in one can. They were good for one thing: getting absolutely annihilated. Fast. She cracked one, chugged the entire thing, then snapped her fingers. I didn’t move, so she violently reached down and snatched the pack of cigarettes from my lap. Then she paused, sighed, lit two cigarettes at once, and handed me one.
“I’m sorry, muffin. I won’t be able to take you to the train station. I have to go away for a while.”
My eloquence and tact are bottomless. I am a paragon of suavity; a stoic fortress of strength and compassion.
“Well… shit,” I said.
“That’s all you’ve got to say?” She asked. Her eyes would have melted the hardest of hearts. They were bottomless pits of grief, moist as a puppy’s, wide as a child seeing their first big-screen movie. I softened.
“You should have told me this months ago.”
She shrugged, deflated. I didn’t love her, and she knew it. And I had never signed on to be a fugitive. I had other crosses to die on. Suddenly, she straightened. Something primal reawakened within her. A fraction of the old swagger returned to her frame.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“I forgave you a long time ago, Terror.”
She smiled at that. Her cigarette had burned to the nub, so I lit another one and handed it to her. She took her time with the second can. The sheriff had returned to the window, beckoning. She took the keys from the ignition and handed them over. The man was completely baffled.
“Just another minute, officer. I’m coming.”
And with that, she finished the can, took another drag, then leaned across the seat and planted a fat kiss on my cheek. Her thick, wet lips lingered on my unshaved stubble. It was just a moment, an illusory snatch of time, yet it was ample time for something to pass between us—an understanding of sorts.
She crumpled the can, slowly rolled out of the driver’s seat, and walked to the officer. The truck whined and shimmied, seemingly… relieved. As she approached his vehicle, she put her hands forward and placed them on the hood. I let myself out of the passenger seat and watched as he cuffed her, then guided her into the back seat. I could not see through the tinted windows, but I was sure she was watching me through the bars. The officer tossed me the keys.
“She’ll need some money for the commissary,” the man said. He was smiling now. That collar must have been the highlight of his week. I was too stunned to speak, so I just nodded. The squad car started with a roar, then took off down the narrow road, bright red tail lights beaming through a thick dust cloud.
I stood and watched the massive plume gently settle. The whole world seemed silent, as if it was holding its breath. And as the last motes fell to the ground, she was gone.
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