Driving into the Night
Fred had no idea that he could wind up his old orange Super Beetle to nearly seventy miles an hour, but the state highway was flat and they hadn’t seen a sign of another human for miles.
The setting sun blasted through the rear window to throw the silhouettes of the couple squabbling in whispers in the back seat onto the windshield like Indonesian shadow puppets. The rosary Father Edgar had given him swung from the rearview mirror like a metronome, ticking off the miles until he could dump the cantankerous pair. “This is the last time I play Good Samaritan,” he said through gritted teeth to Bobby in the passenger seat.
Bobby’s hand slid over to squeeze Fred’s thigh. “It’s okay, Freddy. You couldn’t leave them in the desert without a phone or water or anything. It’ll be okay.”
The woman’s face suddenly appeared between their shoulders. “So, you guys drive this way often?” Her arm snaked between the seats, hand outstretched. “I’m Darlene. Are you fellas married?”
Bobby touched her fingers with the tips of his. “No, we’re not married, honey. It’s against the law. Sodomy, you know.”
She giggled and her gardenia perfume mixed with the aroma of the Hall’s Mentholyptus throat drop in her mouth flooded the front seat. Bobby checked to make sure the bunch of daisies he had put in the dashboard vase weren’t drooping from the toxic mix of smells. “No, silly,” she said, “I mean married, you know, to wives.”
Fred turned his head without taking his eyes off the road. “No, ma’am, we’re not married.”
“Well, you’re both cute enough you should be.” She settled her chin on the cradle of her arms that she had draped over the back of the front seats. “So, whattaya do in the city? I’m a dancer.”
Bobby rubbed a hand through his sun-bleached blond hair and flexed his left bicep. “I’m a county lifeguard. Freddy here teaches Sunday School, if you can believe it.”
The throat drop clicked against her teeth. “Groovy.”
Her boyfriend reached out, grabbed a handful of her teased and sprayed carrot red hair and yanked her back. “Jesus, Darlene, you’re not hustling drinks here. Can’t you shut it off?”
Bobby hated to see anyone abused, so he turned in his seat and said, “Hey, Lothar, chill. She was just trying to be friendly.”
Darlene piped up. “His name’s not Lothar, silly. It’s Ed.” She turned to the sullen figure slumped in the corner. “Him’s just a big ol’ teddy bear, isn’t him?”
The sound of flesh hitting flesh reverberated in the small speeding car.
There was a minute of shocked silence, then Darlene, a fiery handprint on her cheek, began to softly weep, Bobby cursed under his breath as he shifted to face the front, and Fred pushed harder on the accelerator trying to wring a little more from the screaming four-banger.
You can find my novels online and in select independent bookstores in print, ebook, and audiobook versions.
