Saints+Sinners

by Saints

  This was far from the truth, as neither boy was interested in maturing. They wanted to be dangerous, as if they languished in the idea of self-destruction. The previous semester was defined by their competing for the affections of Vince, a self-proclaimed entrepreneur who had a series of vague businesses, a mysterious host of hotel parties, a dark figure who slinked in and out of night clubs. He never seemed to work, yet always had money. He was like an ethereal object unraveling in all directions, messy and fabulous and nearly impossible to contain.

  It was Kyle who first learned about the vacation cabin in Proctor, a hazy five hour drive through mountains. It was Kyle who agreed to collect some party favors from Vince’s condo and then transport them there. And it was Kyle who convinced Danny to take them in exchange for a weekend in Vince’s hideaway.

  Thankfully, the state trooper had no interest in opening the Beetle’s trunk. Instead, he was cordial and concerned, eyeing the flashy little car with a raised eyebrow, before calling a tow truck for them. The tow was a massive rusted thing, similar to its driver, a weathered old fart with a limp and a habit of chewing on dry air. He gave a single nod to the trooper before inspecting the bright yellow car with a grimace.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Danny said, extending his hand. The man ignored it, again glancing back at the trooper who merely shrugged.

  “That tires not just flat. It’s dead.”

  “Can you fix it?” Kyle asked in an annoyed tone.

  “Nope. Don’t do that. I’m just here to take you back to town. That’s all.” The man wandered around the car in slow painful movements reminiscent of a door creaking shut. “Pop open the trunk.” His tone was full of authority.

  The boys looked at each other as Danny’s chest inflated with a wild panic, so much so that he felt on the verge of floating away. But the drugs were concealed in Kyle’s bag and no one seemed remotely interested in searching for what they didn’t know existed. A click from his key chain and the Beetle’s trunk opened, where the tower retrieved a metal prong and inserted it into the front bumper. He connected it to the hook of the truck’s crane and within a few minutes the Beetle was pulled upward onto the truck’s bed.

  “You boys ride up front with me,” he said. “And put that out. I ain’t breathing in your cancer.” Kyle grimaced and snubbed his Parliament under his sneaker. As they entered the truck’s cab, Danny was pushed into the middle of the bench as Kyle hugged the side door. Outside, the trooper was still standing there, smiling even, and watched them drive away.

  “We’re gonna backtrack a bit. You boys sure picked a bad spot to break down.” Within moments, they passed the welcome sign into West Virginia only to immediately make a U-turn in a service lane. “Technically, I’m not supposed to cross state lines, but it can’t be helped.” The tower spoke as if measuring out every syllable. He asked where they were going. Danny told him Proctor and the man huffed. A few moments later, he added, “It’s a fancy little car you got back there,” a certain sense of skepticism building in his voice.

  “It’s the purse dog of the automobile industry,” Kyle said and Danny nudged him lightly.

  The driver ignored him. “Shame to see it misused. You had no business driving on that as long as you did. Luck will have it there’s no damage to the wheel.”

  “Well we didn’t know it was flat,” Kyle snapped.

  “Not sure how you didn’t.” He flipped on the radio to a gospel station, volume low enough to create an unintelligible chorus over a pipe organ. “A car like that ain’t meant for traveling out here. Sits too low to the ground. Drive that over anything and it’ll likely scrape up the underbelly and throw your alignment out.”

  Kyle grumbled under his breath. Beyond them, the trees meshed into a continuous blur of reds and oranges and browns. When he finally asked to change the music, the tower gave a sorry look and Kyle added, “I’m Jewish.” A white lie; both boys binged and purged on them. The radio flicked to a country station as penance and then it was turned off altogether.

  They sat in silence the remainder of the drive.

  The exit lane cut into the hills and revealed a small depression of open fields and a two-street town, the kind Danny understood existed but had never actually seen. A no-brand gas station, perhaps the largest building, greeted them at the end of the ramp. There the road split into parallel streets, each aligned with a dozen small houses that looked pasted together: low chain linked fences surrounded by overgrown lawns and homey porches. On one of them, a plump woman sat with an elderly man, watching two children chase each other around the yard. She may have instinctively waved.

  The tire shop capped the end where both streets rejoined. It was a large structure, perhaps a barn in a previous life, now with faded red siding and a sloped roof of fitted sheet metal. Broken down cars lurched in the back and a duo of broad-faced mechanics lurked out front. The gravel was still soft from rain and caked into several mud pools. The tower signed as one of the mechanics pointed at the Beetle with mild amusement. But both mechanics went stern as they watched the boys exit the truck.

  The Beetle was lowered into place, the fourth car waiting entry to the garage. As Danny stood there, a flash of wind turned the air bitterly cold, the ache of it seeping in through his pea coat. Kyle retrieved his bag from the trunk before wandering off. The driver had also disappeared, presumably inside the garage. Danny, however, could not bring himself to move away from the tow truck. There was something about the shop and the town that unnerved him. The whole place didn’t make sense to him. How could people actually live here? There was no grocery store, no businesses, not even a local bar. It felt like a sort of Purgatory, a place of waiting for final judgement. And though Danny felt like he was in no immediate danger, there was the inherent need to get back to the road and to the eventual safety of Vince’s cottage. Then, his thoughts were interrupted. The tow driver returned with a clipboard, squinting at it with a methodical stare. He didn’t accept credit cards and Kyle hadn’t returned.

  “Yup. When it’s time to pay, people make themselves scarce,” the old man grunted. “Happens all the time.”

  Danny fished out several twenties from his wallet and signed on the dotted line. At least he had the foresight to bring cash. He stuffed the carbon copy of the receipt into his pocket. “What happens now?”

  “Go talk with the people inside,” he said and crawled back into the truck.

  “But you can’t go yet! You’re going to stay until my car’s fixed, right?” The words fell out of Danny’s mouth and left behind a perturbed hollow feeling. Why had he said that? The tower squinted at him, a cringe really, and Danny humbled himself. “Thank you for everything. If it weren’t for you, we’d probably still be stranded out there.”

  “Sure thing, kid,” he replied. “But one bit of advice. Your friend. A guy like that will get you into trouble. But you knew that already. Take care now.”

  And then he drove off.

  Danny found Kyle inside, sitting cross-legged with his backpack propped up on his lap. The room was surprising warm and overpopulated. The receptionist sat behind the counter, head bowed into a paperback. Metal fold-up chairs held other stranded travelers: a middle-aged couple, a humming elderly woman, a nervous twitching man dressed up like a lumberjack. Sitting next to Kyle was a petite teenage girl wearing a bright yellow fleece whose fingers seem to dance over her cell phone. When Danny sat down, she smiled brightly at him, mouth full of braces, and said “Hi,” stretching out the word much longer than necessary. Danny nodded, but his attention was focused on the backpack with Vince’s party favors inside.

  “Have you been outside the entire time?” Kyle asked.

  “I feel sad and lost,” Danny muttered. “I just spent all my cash paying for the tow.”

  Kyle pulled him into a shoulder hug. “Poor baby. I promise I’ll make it up to you.” The girl next to him giggled. “I spoke with the mechanics. We had a nail in the tire. It needs to be replaced and there’s a little damage t
o the wheel.”

  Danny gasped. He thought of his father shaking his head in disappointment.

  “Relax. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The damage is minor. They said you might feel a little bump from time to time, that’s all.”

  “Tell me you’re sorry,” Danny said. He kept his voice low but the entire room noticed.

  “For the tire?”

  “You bullied me into taking this trip and then you left me to pay for the tow by myself.”

  Kyle’s face turned very pious. He looked ready for an argument, but feeling all eyes on him, he simply stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  The girl flashed a little grin, as if she’d witnessed something remarkable, but then was quite happy to talk about herself. She was in for an oil change and on to visit her boyfriend in Morgantown. His roommate was gone for the weekend, so they’d finally have some private time together. She said she didn’t even know how to check her own oil and when the little warning light started flashing, she had no idea what it meant. She was like a doll with a chord that when pulled made her say something flimsy. “This kind of thing always happens to me,” she said. “If I hadn’t pulled over when I did, my engine would’ve fried up and I’d be in so much trouble!” Danny nodded with sickening recognition that they were a lot alike.

  The conversation drifted on until she returned to her phone. There was no one else to speak with, the other customers guarded in their own minds. They would all be stuck here for hours. When Danny stepped outside, it was freezing and he pulled the pea coat tighter around him. He found Kyle out on the side of the building, speaking with one of the garage workers, both looking discreet and failing miserably. The man was tall and lanky, hair pulled back into a dirty ponytail and wore an army surplus jacket. As Danny approached, the mechanic moved back behind the garage and out of sight.

  “So, I’ll be back in about twenty minutes,” Kyle said.

  “Wait. What’s going on? What was that all about?”

  “Look, I’ll take care of everything. You just wait inside.”

  Danny openly stared. “What do you mean? What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kyle said. It was strange how Kyle often fancied himself an actor in a sitcom, one of the side characters who was often rewarded for outlandish behavior.

  Danny looked back at the backpack. “You’re not going to try and sell him Vince’s stash are you? He’ll kill us!”

  “Oh, shut up!” Kyle rolled his eyes.

  “Then, what are you going to do? Suck him off for a twenty?”

  Kyle gave him an indignant glare, while glancing behind him. “Will you please just relax. I’ll be back.”

  “Look, if this is about money, I’m going to walk down to the gas station. They must have an ATM. Let’s go together.”

  “Why don’t you trust me?”

  “Because you’re out here less than ten minutes and you suddenly are going to wander off with that man and I have no idea why.” Danny kept his voice low. He was feeling desperate. “Don’t go with him. You are not as good at these types of things as you think you are.”

  They were both silent for several seconds before Kyle turned around and walked towards the back of the building.

  “Fine! Just call me when you’re done!” Danny yelled after him as Kyle lifted up a middle finger without turning around.

  * * *

  It was not a long walk down to the other side of town. The sky turned to a mix of purple and gray and he felt the pressure building in his sinuses—another storm was approaching. He started to jog past house after house: a withered garden, a rusted truck, an abandoned tricycle. It was a desolate town, not even a fire hydrant in sight. The whole place could burn down without even a siren.

  The gas station housed a small diner with a handful of booths and cheap vinyl padding. The short order cook drearily swayed over the flat burner. He must have startled the old woman because she yelped as he took a seat in one of the booths. Her mouth was missing a few teeth and her chin sagged, but otherwise she looked perfectly harmless. “There’s no smoking inside!” she bellowed without cause.

  The gas station attendant came out from behind the register and dropped off a black plastic ashtray. “It’s not like she doesn’t have one every hour. Nobody checks on that kind of thing here.” The attendant was a matronly woman with long hair that ran down her back. “My name’s Vera and you tell me what you want and Betty over there will fix it up for you.” He smiled sweetly, a smile used to charm people his parent’s age, and asked for coffee. Vera yelled, “You got that, Betty? Coffee!” Betty grumbled “coffee” and slammed a filled tea cup and saucer on the counter. Then, a van pulled off the highway to the pumps and Vera wobbled back towards the register.

  The coffee was burnt with floating grounds, but it warmed him. An old jukebox collected dust in the corner, mostly oldies and country music. But deep in he found an old Sheryl Crow album nestled with Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti” and dropped in a dollar’s worth of songs. A great relief yawned within him, like the whole maelstrom of bad luck had finally depleted itself. The songs played and ended. Then Vera took his order and repeated it in a booming voice: “Betty, grilled cheese and tomato! Side of green beans!”

  “I’m not deaf,” Betty snarled back.

  Outside, rain started in a light drizzle. Soon, the storm was upon them, pelting the large windows. Danny checked his phone; the day was eating itself up and Kyle still hadn’t called. It was a shame actually. Kyle would have been an ideal companion now, happily smoking and talking whatever crude nonsense that usually spewed from his mouth. He called Kyle’s phone. It rang impotently until it reached voicemail.

  “Do people come here often?” he asked but Betty had drifted off into her own mental space again.

  Vera came by and plopped down, drinking from a bottled iced tea she had liberated from the gas station’s cooler. “Not often. As you can tell, we’re not a major destination.” He nodded and they sat quietly for several moments. “Where you from, honey?”

  He mentioned the university, his weekend jaunts into D.C. They compared notes about small towns and big cities, emphasizing crime and racial injustice. Vera kept fiddling with her pack of Marlboros, hesitant at first to smoke one. “I should have quit years ago. If I keep up this habit, I’ll end up like haggard old Betty there.”

  “You know I can hear you,” Betty grunted.

  Vera just smiled at her and turned back to the boy. “So, tell me. What are you doing here all by yourself?”

  “I popped a tire earlier. It’s down at the shop.”

  “Well I figured that,” she said. “But it shouldn’t take this long to change a flat.”

  “There was a long line,” he replied and then, because it felt appropriate to do so, he mentioned Kyle was still down at the garage, that it was his turn to pay. “He’s going to call me when the car is ready.” When Vera asked where they were going, he mentioned Proctor, that they were going to visit a friend.

  “Proctor? That’s a very strange place for a vacation home.” She snuffed out her cigarette, pale lipstick visible on the filter. Then, she gathered the dishes and walked off.

  Now alone, he sat at the table feeling very tense, casually playing on his phone. Betty leaned against the counter and smoked a long slim cigarette and made a distressed hacking noise before fading off again. An hour passed and Kyle hadn’t called. He sent over a text message asking about the car. “I’m at the diner by the gas station,” he typed and added an emoji of a little coffee cup. Outside, the rain continued beating the windows in a hypnotic rhythm. Another hour passed as his anxiety grew. It was getting late and Vince was expecting them. Surprisingly, he didn’t even have Vince’s number stored in his phone. Kyle did. He was always texting with Vince. Perhaps he had already sent a message about their little breakdown. Maybe, just maybe, Vince was on his way to pick them up.

  Suddenly, he heard a strange noise out
in the distance, a mournful wail somewhere beyond the diner. The pitch was feminine and painful sounding and fatally brief. At first, Danny had thought he had imagined it. He was peering out through the window, the storm having just passed, but saw nothing but empty space and the roads stretching down towards the mechanic’s garage. Then, he heard it again, this time closer. It was a scream, a brief terrible scream almost instantly silenced.

  “What are you freaking out about?” Vera said. She was giving him a queer look.

  “You heard it, too,” he said with a gasp. “I think someone’s in trouble.”

  Vera laughed. “It’s a fox. That’s the sound they make when they’re in heat.”

  The countryside was a strange place. He stared back out through the window, thinking of the vixen they had stumbled upon earlier that day. She had babies with her. It couldn’t be the same fox.

  Half an hour passed. He did not hear the noise again. He sent another text message to Kyle, this one just a series of question marks.

  Suddenly, Betty’s hand slapped against the counter top like thunder. “We’re closing soon,” she said and dropped off the hand-written check. “Station stays open all night, but I’m closing. You need to pay up.” Her face was a cruel creased map, and then he noticed the twitch in her right eye. A small layer of film coated it, the pupil slightly discolored.

  “Of course. I’m sorry,” he said. It was only six dollars and some change for all the borrowed time. He went to the ATM and tried Kyle’s phone again. This time it rang twice before hanging up.

  “What a bitch,” he mumbled.

  “Uh-oh, trouble brewing?” Vera called out.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped and the late afternoon had set in. With each step forward, the town got darker. A few porch lights were illuminated, but there were no street lamps. Somewhere ahead, he was certain he had seen a small animal, perhaps a cat or a small dog, dash across the road.