Anywhere But Here

by Jenny Gardiner

  “You need a ride?” I duck my head down to be seen from the passenger window as I stop along the right-hand shoulder of the on-ramp. I look to my left and right and in my rear-view mirror, almost fearful Richard will be right there to stop me with what I’m about to do. All I see are trees buffering the highway and a few anonymous cars accelerating along my left side to get onto the highway.

  My heartbeat has quickened from its usual box step rhythm to something more like a lively merengue. I don’t know if it’s obvious to Him but I feel like I’m beginning to pant, like my old dog Hank used to do before a thunderstorm.

  Christ, I hope my hands don’t sweat like Hank’s paws did. That dog left a damp trail of prints on our linoleum kitchen floor most days during the summer months when the steamy July and August heat collided with cold in the upper atmosphere to create raucous storms that often left even me wanting to seek the safety of a dog house. I can feel a late summer kind of storm brewing inside of me now.

  The hitchhiker cocks one blond brow toward me as he sizes me up and down.

  “Yeah, I could use one,” he says slowly with a hint of a drawl. His gentle voice is a bath of tropical waters washing over me. If it had a flavor, I’d say it was key lime, or maybe pina colada. “You sure?”

  Am I sure? Hell, no, I could never be sure. But I am positive. That I am. I inhale deeply, a newborn taking the first breath of life, and exhale, savoring the bold new aroma of the unknown.

  “Sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Hop in.” I hit the power unlock button with a cross between trepidation and confidence not borne of any previous experience.

  Dear God, I hope the sun’s planning to rise for me tomorrow. I say a little prayer to my namesake Saint Mary—patron saint of, among other things, penitent sinners, glove makers, reformed prostitutes, pharmacists and (God help me) sexual temptation—for my safe transport. I don’t know that I fit into any of those categories, but I figure it can’t hurt. And it sure would stink if I went out on a limb for once in my damned life, only to find myself the gullible victim of some insane serial killer. If Mary Magdalene’s willing to lend me some moral support, I’ll take what I can get.

  For a minute I try to picture what Richard would say to me right now. The storm tide of his constant disapproval floods my bruised psyche despite his immediate absence from me. Those moods of his are a weather system all their own, and I’ve grown to anticipate them much like an imminent hurricane, battening down all my windows and doors so he can’t penetrate me.

  Jesus H. Christ, Mary Kate, he’d say, pounding his fist emphatically, maybe even putting a hole in the hollow door like he’s done twice before. What in blue blazes has gotten into your cotton-picking mind? I thought I’d seen the stupidest out of you already, but this? Hell, this one takes the goddamned cake.

  My hitchhiker opens the passenger door, tosses his backpack onto the seat between me and Him, and plunks himself down. The loud thunk of the door closing only serves to emphasize the magnitude of what’s just transpired.

  He looks over my way with a half grin, but still that suggestion of mistrust in his eyes. “You’re not plannin’ on choppin’ me to itty bits and runnin’ off with my money, are you?” He asks.

  Breathe deeply, Mary Kate. Breathe deeply. I take a few cleansing breaths—I think that’s what they called them on Oprah one time—and begin to clear my throat. Having never done something like this, and never even played out the possibility in my mind, I am unable to anticipate exactly what I should say to this, my very first hitchhiker. And a handsome one at that. Up close, He looks more and more like a god. Maybe I did mean Him in a religious sense after all, because certainly there are those women who would worship at this man’s feet.

  Not me, mind you. Richard has said for years that I’m as frigid as the North Pole. That has always been his excuse to me. If you’d only loosen up, Mary Kate, then maybe I wouldn’t have to look elsewhere, he’d say. Not that I was always that way. Time was, way back when, I could keep up with the rest of them in the sex department. You could say, in fact, that I was hot to trot. That’s what Richard used to say to me before we were married: “Who-hoo, honey, you are one hot-to-trot mama!”

  I mentally chuckle at that notion. I don’t know if I really was that way. I hadn’t had any experience to speak of when Richard came along. I just thought that I loved him and I wanted to be sure he would keep his eyes only on me, so I made sure he had a reason to, that’s all. And it was fine enough. I seem to remember liking it back then. Back when things were good with us.

  I look over at my passenger and my pulse quickens to an anaerobic salsa beat. I haven’t felt this wound up since I took a step class at the Y a few years ago. For a moment I think I might pass out, whether from elevated blood pressure, sheer terror, holding my breath, or heart-stopping and long-lost horniness.

  Why would a man like this be hitchhiking? Someone who looks like this should be, oh, I don’t know, surfing, maybe, or anchoring the nightly news in Malibu, or even just sitting around looking good for everyone else’s viewing pleasure. But standing alongside a major interstate junction hoping someone will pick you up and not harbor subsequent plans to meat cleaver you into little teeny bits of flesh and bone and feed you into a mulching machine? It makes no sense whatsoever.

  “Uh, no,” I splutter an answer to his crazy question. To think he’d be afraid of me! “Where ya heading to?” I force the words out. Normally talking just flows naturally, like breathing or hearing or smelling. But I have to work to grasp the right thing to say and then to make sure it comes out of my mouth, rather than lapsing like a mental stutter somewhere between my brain and my lips.

  #

  Now I should mention that I have this quirky habit when I get nervous. I can tell you the exact day it began: November 7, 1979. I was in typing class, second period with Mr. Marzetti. Mr. Marzetti occupied a special pedestal in the fantasy world of many a girl at my high school. We all ogled him. In fact, it’s the only reason I signed up for typing, because it gave me a good long chance to stare at him three times a week under the pretense of paying attention in class while learning a vocational skill.

  So there I sat that morning poised behind my IBM Selectric II, a shy freshman with a pretty impressive set of breasts, I must say. I was one of the more endowed girls at school, with a cross-my-heart bra whose cups actually contained something more than just silent prayers for fulfillment. This was something that did not go unnoticed in my small high school, and I’d had my share of unsolicited comments from what I now know were merely permanently tumescent puberty-compromised boys who could probably have worked up a hard-on staring at a Barbie doll, so you can imagine their reaction to a daily visual diet of the real McCoy.

  Anyhow, I spent a lot of time staring at Mr. Marzetti, fantasizing about life as Mrs. Marzetti. Imagining combing my fingers through his dirty blond helmet of hair (a haircut of authority). Picturing Mr. Marzetti and me, his bride, dressing the little Marzetti brood for Sunday church. Me serving three square meals a day to an appreciative Mr. Marzetti. Me and Mr. Marzetti doing the nasty on the typing desk.

  We were learning the V’s on the keyboard. Vigorous Victor and vigilant Virginia were very full of vim and vigor. The idea was that we typed the same sentence over and over again until we knew exactly where that V finger placement was, so that no V mistakes would be made. This would be especially important to those of us who aspired to a career as an administrative assistant, he noted. The problem was that I was too busy mooning over Mr. Marzetti and found it far easier just to glance down at the keyboard when finger placement came into question, rather than committing it to digit memory.

  Vigorous Victor and vigilant Birg—I began to the clatter of twenty Selectric typewriter balls hammering into our typing paper, clackety-clacking in rhythm. I saw on my paper that I’d hit the B instead of the V and stole a glance down at the keyboard to repositio
n my left hand properly.

  “Miss Morris,” Mr. Marzetti boomed at me from across the room. The clacking ceased immediately, supplanted by only the subtle hum of the ventilation system and the lonely chorus of buzzing from the idle electric typewriters.

  “Yes Mr. Marzetti?” I whispered. You have to know that no teenage girl with any bosom to speak of likes to be singled out for anything. Certainly not in a class of twenty people whose sole focus was now on me.

  “No more warnings for you, young lady. You cannot cheat in typing and get away with it,” he said in a deep Virginia drawl that could only remind me of a stern paternal reprimand. With that, he went to his desk and pulled out a sheet of mimeograph paper and a roll of masking tape. He strode with authority to where I was sitting in the last row—where I was trying so hard to be invisible—and stood behind me, leaning over my head and taking in an expansive bird’s-eye view of my cornucopia of mammary-laden flesh.

  He extended his arms in front of me in order to tape that glaring white paper atop my hands, thus obscuring my view of the keyboard and branding me with the scarlet letter of the typing world. In the process, just beneath the typing table, over which I was despondently slumped, he copped himself a healthy little feel of my theretofore virgin breasts.

  I’ll never know if anyone saw that part of things. But I do know that I was the laughingstock of the classroom, having been exposed as a fool and a cheat. From then on out, I could no longer peek at the keyboard when need be. Instead, I honestly had to commit the damn thing to memory. After all, while I was more than happy to have a near-naked Mr. Marzetti swirling in the vortex of my girlish fantasies, I certainly did not want his meaty man-hands fondling my actual person, at least not under those circumstances, so I had to avoid any more proximity with the man.

  Thus began my nervous habit of typing my thoughts out my fingers.

  There have been times—when Richard has been yelling his loudest—that I probably get to typing about a hundred and fifty words a minute. Now I don’t know my margin of error, because there is no visible proof of my typing prowess. I can’t correct for errors. Instead, it’s all in my head. And my hands. I remember one particular time when Richard was reprimanding me for not vacuuming the carpet to the nap adequately, I typed the words “Fuck you, asshole” probably forty times in a row, non-stop. A modest little passive-aggressive outlet for my angst, I suppose. And a most impressive word count, no doubt.

  #

  Thus I find myself with my hands at ten and two o’clock on my steering wheel, my fingers going a mile a minute typing out my thoughts which are in such a jumble that I don’t know exactly what they are. But I can tell you one thing that I keep typing over and over again onto the vinyl-covered steering wheel. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Including capitals and punctuation, thank you.

  “Do you do this often?” He asks me.

  For a minute, I honestly think he’s caught me typing. I can’t believe it, because no one has ever caught me typing. It’s my little secret.

  “This?” I ask, cocking my head toward the steering wheel with a vague nod.

  “Yeah, this. Picking up hitchhikers.”

  Phew. He hadn’t noticed my typing. I suppose his question could be construed as just the icebreaker I need. Being that I don’t have a tall gin and tonic nearby to help loosen me up (this being the only way that I can muster up the ability for much interaction with Tricky Dick any more), some witty repartee will have to do.

  “Uh, no, actually. N-n-never, in fact,” I stammer as my fingers type fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. It may surprise you that my typing does not confuse my talking at all and I can be typing something other than what I am speaking. Thank God, as this would not forge a very good first impression were I to spout off the f-bomb ten times in a row to him. “How about you?”

  He frowns for a minute then shakes his head. His gentle curls follow politely along the trail of his shoulders like an obedient pet. “Never even crossed my mind. My mama always told me never to pick up strangers.”

  I roll my eyes. “There’s a lot my mama told me I shouldn’t do. Turns out my mama wasn’t the expert on life she claimed to be.”

  “Sounds like there’s a story behind that,” he says.

  “You got a couple of days?”

  He half-laughs and looks at his watch. “Like it or not I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “I’ll spare you the gory details. I’m saving up all my mama stories for a shrink’s couch some day. I’d rather pay someone the big bucks when I spill my guts. But I am curious—did your mama forget to tell you not to take rides with strangers?”

  He squints his eyes, almost like he’s trying to shut out something he’s watching. “Let’s just say my mama’s not one to talk.”

  “We’ve got that in common, then,” I say. “You want to elaborate?”

  He shakes his head in an exaggerated fashion. “Looks like we’ll both be pleading the Fifth.”

  “Okay, then,” I say. “Mind if I ask where you’re headed?”

  “I’ve got nothing in mind. You?”

  Well, considering two minutes ago I was headed to the dry cleaners, who the hell knows?

  “No place special. You want me to drop you somewhere?”

  He looks around the car like he’s checking for cops or something. It unsettles me a bit. Is he up to something? Or maybe he doesn’t know what else to do, under the circumstances.

  “I’ll let you know,” he says. “Clean car, by the way.”

  I puff out a laugh.

  “Clean. That’s me, all right. Cleanliness is my birthright. Hell, it’s practically my middle name.” Fact is, no wife of the exacting Richard Dupree could get away with anything but a spotless sedan. I think a forensics specialist would be hard-pressed to find evidence of a crime with the cleanliness of my car. The only thing to indicate it hasn’t just been driven right off the lot is the lack of new-car aroma.

  “So what’s your name?” The hitchhiker asks me.

  This question takes me aback. I think I was expecting relative anonymity in this venture. I didn’t think he’d want to know a thing about me. And I certainly don’t want to get into why my husband makes me keep my car immaculate.

  “Mary Kate.” I hesitate. “Mary Kate Dupree.”

  “Mary Kate Doooo-preee,” he says in an exaggerated drawl, which puts me a little more at ease. His laugh resonates with comfort, like Santa Claus’. It makes me feel very secure, oddly enough. I wonder for a minute if Ted Bundy had a nice laugh.

  “So, Mary Kate Doooo-preeee, what’s a nice girl like you doing picking up a strange hitchhiker like me?”

  I feel oddly emboldened by his light manner, not at all intimidated into silence, which is how I spend a lot of my time with Richard.

  “Before I answer that, you need to tell me who you are.”

  “Who I am…Who I am…” He stretches his arms, revealing a lovely definition to his biceps. I don’t think I’ve noticed a man’s biceps in, well, ever. “Well, Mary Kate Doooo-preeee. My name is Randy. Randy Cunningham. But I’m mostly known as Smoothie.” He grins like a dishonest blackjack dealer about to trump the table.

  My fingers go to work typing Smoothie Smoothie Smoothie Smoothie.

  I can honestly say I never met a man named Smoothie in my life. I’ve drank a few smoothies in my day, for sure. But I couldn’t imagine why someone would be called Smoothie.

  “Smoothie? Any reason for that?”

  He looks at me, arches his brow and smiles the type of smile that naïve girls like me can’t read. Truth is, I’ve never been one to pick up on innuendo of a sexual type, so I completely bypass any subtext that might be there.

  “Just a crazy nickname,” he says, and I leave it at that.

  Silence ensues for a minute but he keeps staring
at me the entire time. Just staring at me.

  “Well?” he finally says.

  “Well what?”

  “You gonna answer my question or not?”

  I guess I selectively forgot his question but it comes back to me with this prompt.

  “Well, Mister, uh, Smoothie,” I begin.

  “You can drop the mister.”

  “Right. Smoothie.” I pause to wipe my hands, which actually have become damp, on my thighs. “I’m sorry, but do you mind if I call you Randy?”

  He shrugs. “You can, I guess. But only my grandmother calls me that. And I don’t particularly like my grandmother.”

  Shit. What am I doing here? “No problem. I can call you Smoothie,” I say. “Here’s the deal. The reason I picked you up has to do with Niagara Falls.”

  I notice that I’ve already missed my exit to get to the dry cleaners. In fact, in a few short miles, I’ll be out of town altogether.

  Smoothie looks intrigued, so I continue.

  “You see, Richard—that’s my husband. But I call him Dick. But not to his face. Well, Richard and I went to Niagara Falls when we got married—this was back when I didn’t actually hate him. And I saw this tourist brochure—” I stop for a minute to gather my thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling this stranger that I hate my husband.

  Meanwhile, my fingers are furiously trying to catch up to me, typing Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls and then lip of the falls, lip of the falls, lip of the falls. Vigorous Victor and vigilant Virginia were very full of vim and vigor. Oh, my God, I am losing it.

  “Go on,” he urges me. He looks right at me, like he’s actually interested in what I have to say. This is a departure from my normal interactions with most men.

  “Have you ever been to Niagara Falls, Mr. Cunningham?”

  “I didn’t know my father was in the car.”

  “Excuse me?” Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Cunningham (which, by the way, is pretty tough to type repeatedly).