FURNACE

by Muriel Gray

  The fingers were slender and warm, and as they curled into Josh’s palm he frowned, shamed by the heat her hand was generating in another unrelated part of his body.

  She grinned at him as she withdrew her hand, wrestled the knapsack behind the chair into the darkened cabin and sat down with a bounce. The petulant feminist had been replaced by an excited child.

  “Wow. This is amazing. You sleep back there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.”

  She ran her hands over the sides of her chair and bounced up and down on it a couple of times. “Hey. This moves around.”

  “Counteracts the rough ride you get when we’re all loaded up. You can make it stop if you want. There’s a lever under there.”

  “Naw. I think it’s cool.” She bounced again and then looked across at him. “I’m Griffin.”

  Josh raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Griffin?”

  “Yes. Griffin.”

  “Yeah? See now why you’re kinda angry with the world.”

  “Get me a doctor, I’m busting my guts laughing. You got a name or will I just call you sir?”

  “What happened to sad old cocksucker?”

  She held his gaze unflinchingly, still waiting for a reply. He gave in.

  “Josh. It’s written on the door. Put your seat belt on.”

  Josh watched until she had clicked it home before moving off. As they drove without speaking, he watched Griffin from the corner of his eye as she hugged her knees in delight, occasionally fingering the dash or the door as though the truck were some clever illusion to be exposed. He leant forward and turned up the CB. Griffin slapped her thighs with glee.

  “Aw, too much. CB radio!”

  Josh swiftly searched her face for irony, and when he saw none he shook his head and gave a small laugh. He lifted the handset and pressed “talk.”

  “Hey, northbounds, what’s it lookin’ like down south there?”

  He waited a moment and then there was a reply.

  “Eh, it’s lookin’ good southbound. There’s a state bear ‘bout a mile before exit 27. Reckon he’s only huntin’ four-wheelers, though.”

  “Ten-four to that, driver. Have a good one.”

  “Goin’ good so far.”

  Griffin was staring at Josh as though he had just spoken in tongues. “Shit. You really say all that seventies stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “ ‘Ten-four, good buddy,’ ‘smoky bear’ and everything. You know. ‘Looks like we got a convoy.’”

  “Aw, come on, gimme a break.”

  “Cool.”

  The road was straightening up, getting ready to merge with the now visible interstate, and Josh let himself look at his passenger for a little longer this time. She was still twitching with some inner delight as she gazed out her window, and Josh let himself take in her long legs encased in baggy jeans, both knees ripped open to reveal honey-coloured flesh, brown feet in Teva sandals and a thick hooded sweatshirt that, although it was pulled over an equally shapeless long T-shirt, did little to hide the fullness of her breasts. She had short dark hair like Elizabeth, but was probably ten years Elizabeth’s junior, a fact that was obvious from the inner glow and elasticity of her golden skin. She turned back to him suddenly, catching his look. Josh felt obliged to speak.

  “How old are you, Griffin?”

  “Why?”

  “In case I’m drivin’ a runaway, that’s why.”

  “I look that young?”

  “I can’t tell. Kids all look the same age and sex.”

  She laughed. “Old, old, old. You talk like you’re fifty.”

  “I’m thirty-two.”

  “Yeah, that’s old.”

  “Come on, smartass. I’m not going to guess.”

  “I’m twenty-one.”

  “Sure.”

  “I got ID says so.”

  Josh smiled. “I got a bumper sticker says my other car’s a Porsche.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  “Maybe if I started haulin’ smack instead of steel.”

  She shrugged and looked back out the window again. Up ahead there was a parking lot just before the merge to the interstate. Maybe it was the talk of lies that did it, but Josh suddenly remembered that despite everything, his speedy departure from Furnace still hadn’t included completing his errant log. He started to pull over.

  “Christ. Where’s my head at?”

  They rolled to a stop and Josh pulled on the brakes, whose ear-splitting hiss made Griffin jump.

  “Shit, that’s loud.”

  He ignored her. “Pass me that book under your seat.”

  She fumbled beneath the seat and found the black plastic folder that with the help of three rubber bands contained his paperwork, and held it slightly away from him with a coquettish grin.

  “Say please.”

  Josh rubbed at an eye. “You best listen, kid, ‘cos I’m only goin’ to say this once. I already bailed you out by pickin’ up your tab after you did a runner, though Christ knows why. I ain’t doin’ it again, and I sure as hell ain’t takin’ any more smartassed shit from that big mouth of yours. I mean it.”

  Her face fell, and for a moment a look of alarm flitted across her reddening cheeks. Then she passed him the book silently and looked out the windshield.

  Josh smoothed out the blue log sheet with his hand, gazing at the week stretching out on it day by day, and his eye wandered unasked to Wednesday May seventh. Knots of muscle at the back of his jaw tightened. The logbook had the hours of the day neatly divided in black ink. He looked at three o’clock.

  What would he be writing in the space marked “remarks” while his child was being killed? “Stopped for a burger?” “Pulled over for gas?”

  He breathed sharply in through his nose and rubbed his forehead. Griffin was still staring ahead quietly, smarting from her rebuke. He spoke to her without looking up.

  “If you want a leak, better take it now. Ain’t stopping till Nashville.”

  She shook her head and said nothing.

  Josh filled in all the blanks, fabricating the times and places he’d stopped to suit the trip like every other truck driver in America, although this time he had no choice but to state the reason for his stop in Furnace. Any state bear with half a brain could catch him out on that one if they took his timetable apart. He wrote “accident” shakily in the space, wrote out the rest about weight and mileage, then slapped the folder shut.

  “How much was it?”

  Josh looked across at the girl, puzzled. “How much was what?”

  “The check. For my sandwich.”

  “Don’t matter. Here. Put this back.”

  She took the folder obediently this time and carefully stashed it where it came from.

  “It does matter. I owe you.”

  Josh threw the truck into gear and pulled out. “Couldn’t say. Your buddy overcharged me.”

  Griffin arched her back and fished around in a back pocket. She took out a tightly folded five-dollar bill and held it out to him. “Here. It was more, but this is all I can manage right now.”

  Josh waved a limp hand. “Keep it. I don’t need it.”

  “You have to take it. I don’t like being in debt.”

  “What about bein’ in debt to the restaurant? You’re a thief, remember?”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “They’re scumbags in there. Deserve to be ripped off.”

  Josh laughed out loud and slapped the wheel. “Jesus, you change your goddamn mind by the minute, girlie. I thought the waitress was a noble slave needin’ her fuckin’ chains broken. She become a scumbag the moment she asks you to pay for what you ate?”

  Griffin was unmoved, the little square of five dollars still held out. “Take it.”

  Josh glanced sideways at her and his smile increased at the childishly indignant rage he saw on her face.

  He put out his hand and took the folded bill. As his fingers closed on
the greasy paper Josh experienced a faint but hot wave of nausea. He pushed the money into a pocket already crammed with his wallet and the various envelopes and paper he’d gathered from the sheriff’s office, and then rubbed at his forehead. It passed as quickly as it had come.

  “There,” she said with great solemnity. “We’re even now.”

  “If you say so.”

  The road finally joined the interstate, and as if to celebrate Josh turned up the CB, switched on the radio above his head and pushed a cassette into the tape deck.

  Jezebel took her place at a steady fifty in the line of trucks on the nearside lane and her two occupants sat passively, cocooned by the kind of noise that would drive the fainthearted insane.

  12

  Dividing. Dividing again and growing.

  There is heat in the darkness, and as it grows the darkness is its delight. It is deep and black and hot. It remains unseen but growing, and the growth is unstoppable. It stretches and moves. It is unaware of who has summoned it into being, but it knows instinctively now who carries it, understands their essence, recognizes who will bring it through from this dark hot place into the world of light and coolness. To lose the carrier would be death. Nothing must touch the carrier until it rips and bloodies its host as it moves from this world to the next. The carrier is its gateway. The carrier is everything. And the carrier must be made aware that it is there. It moves again. Kicks and struggles. Turns and flexes what limbs are formed. Then it sleeps again and dreams of heat and blackness.

  They had passed Lexington by the time Josh spoke again, and when he did it was to himself rather than to the passenger he had all but forgotten.

  “Jesus. I don’t believe it.”

  He turned the CB’s volume up and Griffin, who had nearly been asleep, looked across at him with heavy eyes.

  They were in the right lane, sitting close behind a gleaming refrigerated trailer that blocked out any view except a reflection of themselves in the fading light.

  Josh was grinning, staring ahead and listening intently to the crackling babble on the radio that Griffin had blocked out hours ago, unable to decipher the accents or the jargon. She sat up and tried to listen to what was exciting her driver. It sounded the same as it had been all the way, a collection of anonymous guys insulting one another from the privacy of their cabs. But Josh, unusually, was now listening intently.

  “How do I know your wife’s a cheap whore? ‘Cos she don’t take American Express, that’s how. I got to pay that bitch in cash every fuckin’ time.”

  “Hardy har.”

  “Get off the radio, asshole.”

  “Yeah? Well, that ain’t the worst of it. Your daughter won’t give no local tax receipts. Not even for a blow job.”

  Josh snatched up his handset, and Griffin raised an eyebrow as he affected a corny southern drawl.

  “Well, I ain’t surprised you got to pay for it, driver, if your face is as ugly as your rig.”

  There was a succession of whooping from at least two other disembodied voices, but Josh stared ahead, still holding the handset, waiting. There was a pause and then the voice that had been cheerful came back irritated.

  “Now that must’s came from one of you asswipes at my tail, and unless my mirror is tellin’ lies, you are one bunch of hog-ugly motherfuckers to be handin’ out insults to a workin’ man’s truck.”

  Josh punched the air in triumph with his fist full of the handset. He pressed talk again, and moulded his face into the shape he seemed to require to fake his ridiculous southern accent.

  “That right? Well, maybe I’ll just bring this baby on around and let you eat my dust with that shit-caked rust bucket you’re draggin’ down the highway.”

  “Uh huh, driver? What you got there, then?”

  “Some of us calls it a truck. But then, you wouldn’t know much about that, would you, Eddie?”

  “Sheeeit!”

  The voice on the radio guffawed with laughter, and Josh’s face seemed lit from within as he beamed ahead listening to it.

  Griffin watched him, puzzled.

  The voice calmed itself and managed some words.

  “If it ain’t Sperm Spiller! What the fuck are you drivin’, man?”

  Another voice cut in before Josh could press talk again.

  “If you faggots are goin’ to start kissin’, why don’t you get off the fuckin’ radio an’ do it someplace else?”

  Josh looked ahead expectantly, mouth slightly open, waiting for Eddie to come back on. He did.

  “Surely, driver. Thank you kindly for the invite. Just tell us where you’re at an’ me an’ my good buddy be right around there to add another lane to your ol’ Hershey highway.”

  Josh was sniggering like a teenager. He got to the talk button before the irate driver could get back.

  “Come on, Eddie. Alzheimer’s set in or you still remember the channel?”

  “Sure.”

  “See you there.”

  Josh put out his hand and retuned the CB. He waited, still apparently oblivious to Griffin’s presence, and just as she was about to break the silence and ask him a question, the radio burst back into life.

  “Yoo-hoo! I’m home, honey!”

  Josh smiled. “So. Sneaking back towards the east without givin’ us a call. What happened to our marriage?”

  “Shit, Josh, you went to bed too many times without a strict facial cleansing and moisturizing routine, that’s what. I’ll tell you about it. Where you at?”

  “Just cruisin’ past that big fireworks factory on the right. Don’t know what exit.”

  “Man, you’re further back there than I thought. I’m about eight miles up front.”

  Griffin was watching sullenly from the corner of the cab. Her body language spoke volumes about her exclusion from this conversation.

  “You stoppin’?”

  “Naw. I’m late on this one. I gotta lose this garbage in Arkansas by morning. Time penalty.”

  “Shit, Eddie. Ten minutes for a coffee.”

  “Christ, I’m here, Spiller. What a piece of pussy you turned into. Buy yourself a speedin’ ticket and come on in behind me. Where you headin’, anyway?”

  “Callin’ it quits in Music City tonight. Then Alabama.”

  “Well, we got nearly five hours till then. That ain’t long enough for you? What you done with your life in the last two years that’s gonna take that long to tell, huh?”

  Josh looked sideways at Griffin, then ahead into the darkening evening.

  “I got a passenger.”

  A small silence, then Eddie came back. “Elizabeth ridin’ with you?”

  Josh clenched his back teeth.

  “Nope. Hitcher. A girl.”

  “And she’s from the fuckin’ CIA?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Griffin noticed that Josh’s fist was clenching and unclenching around the radio handset. He thought for a moment. “Let me catch up with you. I’ll talk to you when I’m up your ass.”

  “Sure. I’ll stay on this channel. I’m kinda tired of being the cabaret on 19.”

  “Yeah. They’ll miss you like I miss shittin’ my diaper.”

  “You miss that too? Thought it was just me.”

  “ ‘Bye, Eddie.”

  Josh hung up the handset and stared ahead. Griffin looked quizzically at the side of his face, until her steady gaze made him turn to her for a second. “I drove team with him for three years.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you spend your whole life with someone in a cab like this. You drive, they sleep. They drive, you sleep. The truck never stops. You can make a lot of money.”

  “Did you?”

  Josh laughed again. It was a nice sound.

  “Naw. We were kids. We messed around too much.”

  Griffin sat upright and ran her hands over imaginary creases in her jeans. “Look, I know you want to talk to your buddy in private and everything. You can
drop me anywhere here. I’ll hitch another ride.”

  Josh shook his head. “I’ll take you to Nashville. That was the deal.”

  “So what you want me to do?”

  “You got a Walkman?”

  “Sure.”

  “You can go back there and lie down if you want and listen to it. That’ll give me plenty enough privacy.”

  Griffin nodded, but kept looking at Josh. He looked like he wanted to say something else. She waited, and her stillness made him clear his throat.

  “I had a pretty bad day today. I need to talk to someone.”

  Griffin smiled like a sitcom wife confronted with her office-weary husband. “Yeah? How bad could that be?”

  Josh looked across at her briefly, then back out at the road, and her smile faded as she caught the thunder behind his eyes.

  “I killed a child. This morning.”

  Griffin kept her widened eyes on the side of his face. She could see his jaw clenching under his ears. He stared ahead for a moment, then spoke again.

  “A baby. It was… it rolled under the truck from the sidewalk.”

  Griffin’s body stiffened.

  “Jesus Christ. Where?”

  “Furnace.”

  There was a pause.

  “My town?”

  Josh looked back at her. “You came from Furnace?”

  She was nodding, mouth open, a cocktail of fright and uncertainty in her green eyes.

  Josh shifted in his seat, then ran a hand over the bristles of his head. “Baby’s name was Amy Nevin. You know them?”

  Without looking directly at her, he could see her nodding. He could also see her hands going to her face, covering her open mouth in horror.

  “Jesus Christ,” she repeated from behind a shield of fingers.

  They drove on in silence for an uncomfortably long time.

  Griffin stared ahead and her hands dropped back in her lap, writhing together now as though washing with invisible soap. “I always knew I had to leave that place. It was only ever a question of when.”

  Josh frowned, unsure as to why his dark admission had caused this unsolicited confession. His reply, partly prompted by a relief that she seemed to be taking his story no further, sounded fatuous and shallow.

  “It’s a comfortable town. You could do worse.”