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« on: January 12, 2009, 01:22:42 PM »
[The *censored*ing forum deleted my italics again... grrr]
Chapter Two- A Friend and Another Loss
September 30, 2001: 11:55 PM
Dave is driving with the windows rolled down. He has a smile worthy of a champion on his face, in deference to the earlier events. He remembered his mother say once
‘Happiness is the best revenge.’
Or was it Erica?
And so he picks this time to use her advice. The radio is blasting out “Killer Queen” and Dave is singing along, smiling through all the verses.
October 1, 2001: 12:00 AM
A good number of confused people watch him as he drives by. They’re all going the other way.
Dave. Says Erica, sounding concerned.
Not now, insists Dave, ushering her silence. She responds only with more noise
They’re all going the other way. Dave ignores this comment. He can SEE that they’re all going the other way. So what?
She’s got a point, says The Father.
Dave stops thinking. The Father and Erica have agreed on something-it must be monumentally important.
Dave turns off his radio quickly, and hears nothing but honking. He looks around carefully, and what he sees dismays him.
Dave is the one going the other way.
He’s driving in the wrong lane. All the other cars are going the other way because Dave is driving in the wrong lane. A large semi is hurtling towards the Bentley. Dave reacts impulsively and swerves off to the shoulder lane. He’s almost too late. The semi doesn’t even attempt to swerve away. It rips the door off the side of the car, and the Bentley is sent spinning over the guardrail and into the ditch. Dave hits his head, and his vision is slowly becoming red.
The Father and Erica are screaming. Just screaming.
Dave is shocked awake. The river is still here. The bridge still isn’t. Dave puts his hand to his temple. He can feel a wet stickiness on his fingers. He brings it to his mouth and tastes copper. Blood. What was Other Dave doing? He wonders pitifully. Dave double-checks the banks, but there is certainly no bridge. He lets out a cry of despair.
Dave looks around on his side carefully. There is a hill about two hundred yards away. A large boulder is right behind him. Otherwise, Dave’s side is barren and lost. Nothing but endless, dry desert. Dave has a feeling that he could walk forever on this side, and there would be nothing but the cracked ground and dusty air.
A figure appears faintly on the hill.
Dave calls out.
‘Hello?’ He yells loudly. The figure does not respond, but continues walking towards him. As the figure approaches, Dave can see that it’s a woman. She has long, brown hair that reaches down the middle of her back. A large, pink ribbon ties her hair into a ponytail. Her eyes are a startling green, and she smiles at Dave knowingly.
“Hello?” Dave asks warily, craning his neck to get a better view. She beams at him. The lady is suddenly much closer than she was.
“Hello, Dave,” she says seductively, raising her eyebrows. “I’m Erica.”
The semi driver has a load of grapes that he’s trying to get to San Diego. It’s already late. He justifies leaving the driver of the Bentley in the interest of saving his own ass, and drives away. All the other cars on the highway that see Dave’s wreck are able to justify leaving him where he is.
Maria Juanita Lopez is driving down the highway. The furthest thing from her mind is picking up people who are ditched at the side of the road. She’s thinking about her youngest son, Ferrard, and her husband, who she knows is drinking. She’s hardly paying attention to the road.
Maria, however, is a good person in a sea of bad. When she drives past where Dave’s wife’s Bentley has turned over in the ditch, she cannot help but pull over.
When she reaches the overturned Bentley, she isn’t surprised to see a dead man. He’s bleeding roughly from the temple.
Dead people don’t bleed, she thinks.
Sure enough, when she reaches in to check his pulse, she has no trouble finding one. Maria reaches into her pocket, trying for her phone. When she checks it, the battery is dead.
She unbuckles Dave’s seatbelt. Gravity takes hold, and Dave falls onto the roof of the car, crumpling.
“Damn it,” exclaims Maria. She rudely hauls Dave’s body out of the Bentley. His eyes flutter gently, and close again, exposing slivers of white. Maria pulls his body by the wrists up out of the ditch to where her Corolla is idling. She opens the passenger door, and heaps Dave’s limp body into the seat. She does up his seat for good measure, then hops into the driver’s chair and floors the accelerator.
Maria looks Dave over. He’s well dressed, and handsome. Probably, she thought, a married, successful middle-age man. She remembers the Bentley.
Maybe a lawyer, she thinks.
Dave coughs a gurgled breath, opening his eyes slowly. His chest rises and falls fast, and hard.
“Are you alright?” asks Maria, putting a hand to Dave’s forehead out of habit. Dave touches his hand to his temple. He brings his hand to his mouth, and tastes copper. He shrugs weakly.
“I’m bleeding,” he says pointedly. Maria smiles in spite of herself.
“I noticed,” she says, nodding.
“I had a weird dream too…” he says vaguely, trailing off.
“I’m Maria,” says Maria.
“Dave,” says Dave, and tries to shake her hand. An excruciating pain rips across his temple. He moans quietly.
“Are you alright?” asks Maria sharply.
“Just fine,” he lies. A tear crawls down his cheek. “Actually, I’m not. I just divorced my wife.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright,” says Dave calmly, “It’s not your fault.” He turns away as tears steak down his face.
There is silence.
“Do you mind…If I ask you… Why you divorced?” Asks Maria carefully.
“Long story.” Says Dave simply.
Maria nods and is silent.
“I’ll tell you if you like.”
“Only if you want,” she agrees uneasily.
Dave begins to recite his story, purposely leaving out the part with the Modern Cowboy. Dave hasn’t even decided if he exists or not.
He does, assures Erica.
October 1, 2001: 11:45 AM
Once Dave has finished, it’s almost noon, and he is superbly tired.
“Where do you live, Maria?’ he asks suddenly.
“Topeka,” she says wearily, “It’s a long drive.”
“Is it alright if I take a nap?”
“Of course,” she responds. Dave is already asleep.
When Dave awakes, he sees Erica standing over him. She’s wearing new clothes-a green kimono. It makes her eyes pop and sparkle.
“Wake up,” she says disdainfully. Dave rolls over, sits, braces his hands on the ground, and stands up. He brushes the dust off his pants. The river beside him is black as ever, and-
”There’s still no bridge, Dave.” Dave sighs disappointedly.
“I don’t suppose you know why,” he suggests.
“I don’t,” she says, “But I think I know how we can find out.” Dave looks at her quizzically.
“How?”
Erica points to the desert.
“No,” says Dave firmly, “There’s nothing out there. “
“Have you seen for yourself? Have you left this river, even once in your life?” Dave kicks up a cloud of dust. He shakes his head.
“Then we go,” she says stubbornly. She walks towards the sun, out to the desert. Her green kimono billows like a flag in the wind. She turns her head to the side, looking back at Dave.
“Coming?” she asks.
Dave hurries to catch up.
They walk for three hours. Erica stops suddenly, beside a large boulder, and falls to her knees. The green kimono has been covered in the grayish dust of the desert.
“I’m exhausted.” She says, and falls onto her back. Dave coughs loudly, and also falls to his back.
“So am I. We rest here.” Erica nods her head in agreement. They both fall into sleep at the same time.
Dave flutters to consciousness. His first thoughts are of the blue-eyed man.
Dave, we have something for you, chant Erica and The Father in unison. Dave jerks awake suddenly.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” says Maria teasingly. Dave doesn’t answer.
Hello, Dave. A voice he’s never heard before.
Who is this? Asks Dave viciously. Get them out; it’s a handful with you two already.
A mental picture snaps across Dave’s field of vision. Now he knows the voice.
It is the Modern Cowboy.
“Dave, are you alright?” asks Maria cautiously.
“Yes,” says Dave, sounding panicked.
“Do you need me to pull over?”
No, says the Father.
Yes, says Erica.
You have to throw up anyways, says the Modern Cowboy.
Dave nods hurriedly. Maria jerks the Corolla over to the shoulder, and Dave opens the door before the car has even stopped. He throws up violently in the ditch, blood and cheerios, and a mineral taste fills his mouth. Dave falls to his knees painfully on the concrete, gravel digging into his skin. He brings up a mouthful of bile, and spits it out into the ditch. It leaves a foul taste in his mouth. Maria rushes out of the car and rubs his back. Dave is shaking wildly, his legs turned to jelly.
Dave gets back into the car with Maria’s help. The foul taste is changing and fermenting in his mouth.
Doesn’t that feel better? Comments the Father.
No, says Dave.
Don’t be so cynical, says the Father.
He can be as cynical as he *censored*ing wants, Erica throws in. Thankfully, the Modern Cowboy is silent. Dave is crying and coughing and his head his beginning to ache as the folks in his head argue. Maria is silent, but keeps snatching worried glances at Dave as he keels over in the seat. He’s paler than the moon on a clear night.
The cowboy is in my head, He thinks dejectedly.
Hello Dave, says the Cowboy.
Get away from here, says Dave.
I’ve always been here, Dave, says the Cowboy calmly, as if speaking to a first-grader.
What? Asks Dave suspiciously.
Remember the Small Voices? I am them. They are me.
How do I know what your voice sounds like?
Please, Dave. We are all in your head, after all.
Dave shakes his head. The voices are silent once again. Relief. His stomach even seems to be better, and the thin bile-like taste in his mouth is clearing away.
Dave and Maria say nothing but greeting words to each other for the remainder of the trip. There is nothing to be said, it seems.
October 2, 2001: 10:00 PM
The silvery-blue Corolla pulls up into the driveway of the Lopez residence. It’s a quaint brick home, with lawn ornaments scattered helter-skelter across the overgrown grass. A pink flamingo is standing just to the right, and it seems to be glaring at Dave when he looks at it. The front wall is brick, but the adjacent walls are yellowish stucco. In front of the living room window, there is a small garden. Dave identifies beets, squash, and some dragon lilies. The driveway is cracking, and some needled weeds are growing in the fissures.
“This is my house,” comments Maria sullenly.
“It’s nice,” says Dave automatically.
“My husband is home. Brace yourself, okay? It might be best if you stay out here while I talk to him.”
“As you wish,” agrees Dave.
Maria walks up to the front door, steeling herself, and walking into the house.
Ferrard greets Maria’s entrance as she screams. His cold dead eyes accuse her of negligence.
Her husband walks in, holding a bloody knife in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.
“Mah-ree-uh…” he slurs, “Wehlcum back.”
“What have you done…?” asks Maria in a quiet voice. Paul gestures the knife at Ferrard.
“Oh… This?” he says, dragging out the ‘I’ sound in some absurd French accent, “He just…just…woun’t shaddup. L’il bugger, that… that’ll *hic* show him.” Maria slaps his face just as hard as she can.
“Hun… what… I dot you’d like thiiiis.”
“You killed Ferrard, you bastard. You got drunk and killed him with a *censored*ing kitchen knife.” She points at the door. “Get out.” Her blinding rage is stopping the grief from coming, holding it back like the Hoover Dam holds back lakes of water.
The Hoover Dam won’t break tomorrow, though.
Paul bellows in drunken rage, and slashes out at Maria with the knife. It slices her face from the eye to the cheek. Blood pours onto her face. Paul takes another swing, but Maria skillfully dodges it. It lands in the wooden door, getting stuck in to the hilt.
The door bursts open. Dave has heard the scream and has come to investigate. He sees a large man pulling at a knife that is stuck in the door. He finally yanks it free, screaming in rage, and swings the knife over Dave’s head. Deftly, Dave ducks the blow and runs into the kitchen, pulling Maria along with him. Maria is sobbing, tears mixing with blood and stinging her cut. Dave grabs a chair form the table, and when Paul runs in, waving the knife like a crazed lunatic, Dave hurls the chair at his head. The seat catches his head, and the knife tumbles from his hands. Paul tumbles also, and falls on the blade of his own knife. It is buried in his flesh, up to the hilt, and he yells an inhuman scream of pain and shock. Maria, disgusted but at the same time not willing to look away, stares on. The screams turn to gurgles, and blood rises out of his mouth like a fountain. His eyes roll back into his skull. Maria can finally look away, and she turns, retching. It’s not a calm death. Paul’s fingers dig into the linoleum, trying to cling to life. He bites into the plastic, muscles flexing, nails breaking. The blood is soaking his clean, white shirt.
Dave can finally look away. It’s not much help-the blood is trickling past his shoes-but he manages to catch Maria as she faints. He takes her unconscious body careful over the dying drunk, and places her on a silken pink couch. It looks vaguely Asian in manufacture, although Dave can’t quite say why.
Dave leaves Maria on the couch, and steps towards Paul. He’s fully dead now, but the blood still flows from his back and mouth. Dave tries to gingerly grab his shirt, but Paul was a heavy drinker. It shows now, his belly protruding from his once-white shirt like a mountain on a plain. Dave can’t budge his huge body.
He bites the bullet and grabs Paul under the armpits, feeling the warm blood squish against his fingertips. Dave musters all the bicep strength in his arms (not much, unfortunately) and pulls. There is a slight resistance, and then the drunkard’s corpse slides smoothly over the fake tile, towards the basement door. In a single fluid motion, Dave tosses the limp body down the stairs. His head makes empty noises as it hits four of the steps
We’ve heard that before, right Dave? Says Erica.
No. No. NO. Says the Father.
We haven’t heard that sound before. Dave tells Erica. She and the Father and the Modern Cowboy are all silent.
Thankfully.