Blaze

by Laurie Boyle Crompton

  I turn to my right and kick open the emergency exit doors. The alarm blares in protest and begins echoing throughout the school as I march across the student lot toward Superturd.

  I need to put an end to this once and for all.

  Whoosh! I’m doing it. I’m taking flight!

  I drive well over the speed limit with a map printout lying face-up on the seat beside me. It has a thick yellow line tracing its way across Pennsylvania and into New York City. I’m going to see my dad.

  Superturd’s back cargo area is loaded with the boxes of comics. I’m headed to his apartment. Dad was a hero to Quentin, and now it’s time for him to be a hero to me. It’s my turn. I just know he’ll be able to help.

  I tried to call, but he didn’t pick up and I didn’t trust myself to leave a message without spilling my guts all over his voicemail. I went ahead and mapped out directions to the address I was supposed to ship the comics to. Now I’m zooming east along Route 80 and glad to be off the winding back roads that led to the interstate. According to Mapquest, the trip to New York will take about six and a half hours, but I really don’t want to get to my dad’s place in the middle of the night. Before I left, I grabbed my gas card plus all the money I’ve hoarded over soccer mom season. Of course, I’ve pretty much spent all my comic book store earnings using my employee discount on comics, but I should be covered if I get sleepy and need to stop at a hotel.

  I’m so sick of feeling beaten down, and I’m sure Dad knows exactly what I’m going through. After all, if Mom and Mema were at all tech-savvy, they’d have set up an anti-Dad website to get the whole Internet hating him years ago.

  I long to blast the radio, but each time I find a song that fits my mood it dissolves into static before it’s even half over. I keep a couple of mix CDs in the van, but I’ve listened to them each about a million times, and besides, I need an entirely new playlist to capture my dark mood.

  Finally, I turn the static-maker off and drive along in silence.

  Superturd has never felt so quiet and empty. The interstate’s exit signs are spaced miles apart and I find myself hypnotized by the long stretch of blacktop in front of me.

  Maybe I can just move in with Dad. He must be doing pretty well by now with all the acting jobs he’s been getting. I look down at the address. 162 West Sixty-Fourth Street. Apartment 4-F. I glance up, checking the boxes of comics in my rearview mirror. I’m really coming through for him, getting him his collection on time. That has to count for something, right?

  I promise myself I won’t have any expectations whatsoever. I’ll just show up and see where things lead. I take in the broad sky above the passing mountains and feel hopeful about what I’ll find in New York. Who says you can’t run away from your troubles?

  My phone buzzes, and I think it’s Mom calling yet again. She’s been leaving a series of messages that have gradually gone from angry to worried to officially freaked out. But a glance tells me it’s actually a helpful classmate texting to tell me I’m a stupid-ho-bag-slut for setting off the fire alarms.

  I reach over and turn the static-maker back on.

  • • •

  The carnage along Interstate 80 can get to be a bit much after a while. Amid the strips of discarded tire rubber, there’s a virtual zoo of dead creatures. I pass one dead skunk, three deer, a groundhog of some sort, four opossums, and a completely mangled raccoon. It’s like a morbid game of Cows. As I pass a graveyard visible from the highway, I can’t help but think, Ha, Blaze, everything’s dead.

  An ocean of striped cornfields flows by, and the hillsides grow increasingly more scarred by brown power-line paths. I near the half-way point, and the billboards grow more vivid and common.

  My stomach growls a complaint since I’ve eaten nothing but pretzels all day. I shove the empty pretzel bag under my seat, then exit at the next green sign displaying a grid of fast food logos.

  Pulling up to the pumps, I hold my breath as I swipe my gas card. I wait for alarms to sound, but the screen just asks me to “please select fuel grade.” Apparently Mema isn’t actually vindictive enough to mess with my gas card. After filling Superturd with gas, I hit a fast-food drive-through so I won’t have to talk to anyone other than the crazy-distorted voice-in-a-box that takes my order. I unpack my Arby’s Limited Time Offer BBQ Beef and Cheese and arrange it carefully on my lap before pulling back onto the interstate. Driving with one hand, I shove the sandwich into my mouth with the other. It feels good to be doing something so normal. Eating and driving. Anyone watching might mistake me for a regular girl.

  I pass a long car with a back window filled with sun-bleached stuffed animals that I find oddly depressing. The elderly couple driving the car looks somber, although I imagine they must be headed someplace enjoyable. Even if it’s only to go bore their grandchildren with a complete history of Christian saints.

  For a while I follow close behind a Winnebago, reading the mess of bumper stickers papering the back. There’s a large map of the United States covered with colored-in state-stickers, presumably marking all the states they’ve been to. So far, they’ve been everywhere except North Dakota and Mississippi. Before today, my map would have only had Pennsylvania and Ohio colored in. And, well, it would still only have Pennsylvania and Ohio colored in, but at least I’m way over to the right-hand side of Pennsylvania for the first time. And if things go as planned, I’ll be adding New Jersey and New York to my ‘been to’ states by tomorrow. It might still look pretty lame on a big ol’ chart with only four states colored in, but who the heck needs a stupid braggy map like that anyway?

  Annoyed, I speed by the Winnebago and continue on, passing more trucks in the left-hand lane. My mind wanders with the open road, and I wonder if truckers have some sort of social hierarchy. Like, does a guy hauling a pile of logs mock a fellow who drives a truck for Bunce’s Bakery? I picture some big, burly guy taunting the poor baked-goods driver, saying, “What’cha hauling there buddy?” The burly guys shifts to a high-pitched girlie voice and mocks, “Cookies?” And the cookie driver hangs his head in shame. Maybe real life is actually like one giant high school experience.

  As I contemplate that depressing thought, I slowly overtake a silver truck with purple mud-flaps. The mud-flaps have a silver horseshoe on each side, hanging luck side up. The sides of the truck are so reflective, it’s like a giant, rolling mirror-cube. As I pass it going uphill I look over and see the reflection of my minivan, with its faded pink flamejob and the bright pink spot covering up the word SLUT!

  And reflected from the driver’s window, I see myself. Unwashed pinkish hair thrown back into a ponytail. I swipe at what must be a glop of BBQ sauce on my chin and look again. My face is bare and exposed and innocent.

  I look so much younger than I feel.

  And I am sad for the beaten-down girl reflected back at me.

  The marble of regret lodged deep under my ribs shifts with the first sob that comes out. I cry with restraint at first, but the sound of my own sobs is so pathetic that before long, I just break down and go with it—driving and crying as loud as I can. I cry for the humiliating picture and all the shame it has caused me. I cry for all the dirty looks and words flung at me by my classmates. And worse, the faceless mob online with their pitchfork comments. People who don’t even know me. Who couldn’t hope to know me.

  I wail, not caring who can see me or possibly even hear me if their radios are off. I’m almost sound-barrier loud. As I cry, that painful marble dislodges and floats free in my chest for a few moments before it catches again and hangs on until another sob dislodges it.

  My face gets numb from my crying, and yet I keep right on going.

  I weep for literally miles and miles.

  Finally, I’m spent and striving to push more tears out. I let out a wail and then wait for the silence to build again. Wail and wait. Wail and wait. Until a wide-mouthed wail morphs itself into a yawn and I drive in peace for a time.

  The calm after all the crying feels good.
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br />   I just want to erase everything, like Galactus erasing a planet. I want to erase giving Mark a ride home and going out on our pathetic “dates,” and I want to erase ever wondering about what lay under his soccer shorts. Turns out, my fear of penises/peni is not completely unfounded. It starts seeming slightly hilarious that I managed to go from Su-per Virgin Girl! to Su-per Slut! in under three minutes. All I’d wanted was for Mark to keep playing with my tatas.

  I give an involuntary nose-laugh. Who the hell gives it up in the back of a smelly minivan for a little tata tickling? I say “tata tickling,” out loud and then giggle at how funny that sounds. I say it again, “tata tickling.” I start laughing so hard I switch back to sobbing.

  This goes on, back and forth, tears and laughter, until finally, I’m so light-headed I decide I should probably pull over and take a break from driving. I pull into the next rest stop and park behind the squat, tan building, far removed from the other cars.

  Josh has sent me a text letting me know he knows about the photo and asking how I’m doing. I think of calling him, but I don’t have anything comforting I can tell him at the moment. Instead, I send a text to Mom saying I’m staying at Amanda’s for a few days and I’m really sorry. Mom calls immediately. Does she not understand the purpose of a text is to avoid a phone call?

  “Hello?” I say cautiously.

  “Oh my god, Blaze, I’ve been so worried about you!” From the sound of her voice, she’s telling the truth.

  “I’m fine,” I lie. “Just having a sleepover at Amanda’s”

  “Good for you, sweetheart. You should do more fun things with your friends.” I look at my phone, wondering if there’s a tracer on it of some sort.

  “Um, okay? I will?”

  In one big rush, Mom explains how she and my principal talked about what I’ve been going through. Mr. Hoovlen helped Mom see that I’ve been really hurting and need her support. Apparently those NASCAR-types run deep, because Mom sounds as if she’s been handed a clue. “We’ll have a long talk when you get home,” she says, and I can’t help but feel a little hopeful by the time we get off the phone. But still think, if I come home, as I hang up. It may be best for everyone if I just start a fresh life with Dad.

  I can imagine the Blazing Goddess taking on the world with her base of operations in Manhattan. If it’s good enough for Spider-Man, it’s good enough for me.

  Reclining my seat, I suddenly feel like I’ve been hit with a ray-gun and am nearly paralyzed with exhaustion. Driving for such a long time is tiring, but it’s the complete emotional meltdown that really took it out of me.

  • • •

  Tap!

  Tap!

  Tap!

  At the sound of keys tapping on my front windshield, I nearly pee all over the front seat of the minivan. I’m having an awful nightmare, and I go from sleeping to wide awake and terrified in about zero-point-two seconds.

  Tap!

  Tap!

  Tap!

  When I see it isn’t the giant mob of pixilated protestors with chainsaws from my nightmare, I still don’t relax all that much.

  It’s morning, and a middle-aged man peers through my windshield. His graying goatee widens into a smile as he sees I’m awake. He tips his John Deere baseball cap up and calls, “Hello!” as if he knows me or something. I instinctively cover my neck with my hands and shake my head no.

  “It’s okay!” his voice is muffled through the glass. “Everyone’s been looking for you!”

  I try to gauge just how crazy he is.

  He calls over to his far left, “I found her, sweetie, she’s okay!”

  Great, and he has a friend. I squint to see if his friend is real or imaginary.

  “Oh, thank goodness.” A shrill voice floats through the closed windows. Oh goodie. The friend’s real. I sit up to take a peek at who’s been looking for me. A woman joins the man standing in front of my minivan, and she looks so happy to see me I wonder if I actually made friends with these people in my sleep. She wears her hair in a bun and has a big butterfly tattoo on the side of her neck, but in a classy way. She waves to me with long fingers that each sport huge silver rings. The couple’s genuine happiness at seeing me finally convinces me to turn the key partway in the ignition so I can roll my window down just a crack.

  Together, they scurry over to peer through the opening, like I’m a zoo animal they’re admiring. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?” I croak. My face feels like I’m wearing a too-small mask from all my vigorous crying last night.

  They look at each other and laugh. “Well, of course not, darlin’,” says the woman, prompting me to open the window more, since anyone who calls me “darlin’” can’t possibly be life-threatening.

  The guy announces, “We-all been keepin’ an eye on you since we saw you having such a rough time back there around mile-marker 225 or so.”

  I blink at the two of them, thinking who the hell’s “we-all”? but just ask politely, “Who’s been watching me?” I glance in my rearview mirror, picturing Uatu the Watcher tucked in one of those boxes.

  “Oh, don’t you worry none.” The man chuckles. “We keep an eye out for four-wheelers who might need a hand. Boy, when we saw the way you was crying yesterday, we kept close tabs on you all the way, well, to here, I suppose. You disappeared around seven last night and channel nineteen’s been buzzing ever since with everybody working to get an eyeball on you.”

  “Channel nineteen?”

  “On the CB.” The woman smiles. “My handle’s Butterfly, and this here’s Maniac. The two of us wanted to make sure you were safe. Seemed to us you were extremely upset.”

  “Yeah, well… I’m, uh, dealing with some stuff?” I don’t know what to tell my self-appointed guardians, and it’s a little overwhelming to think of channel nineteen “buzzing” over me. I’ve been getting enough unwanted attention on the World Wide Web and don’t really need my own radio channel.

  “We circled around a few times, then spent the night over by the truck stop in Hazleton off exit 262,” says Maniac. “We got a tip early this morning from a fellow on his way to New Jersey. He’d spotted your flamin’ four-wheeler at this here rest stop. And sure enough, here you are.” He grins as if finding me is incredibly meaningful.

  “Sure is an interesting paint job for a minivan,” says Butterfly. “Did you do it yourself?”

  I nod, trying to get my bearings. The fury that prompted my current pilgrimage has been dampened considerably by all the crying. I wonder if Josh is on the bus to school right now and how he and the boys are reacting to my mortifying photo and fall from grace.

  “So, where you headed, darlin’?”

  “Oh, God,” I start, and that’s all it takes for me to unload my whole story on the both of them. As I talk, they lean their faces to my window and listen quietly. A few times Maniac starts saying something, but Butterfly bumps his shoulder with hers and he stops. I keep going. I show them the copy of The Blazing Goddess vs. Mark the Shark I have tucked in my messenger bag and it makes them ooh and ahh appreciatively.

  When I tell them about getting harassed by my schoolmates, my voice falters and their eyes gloss with tears. Then I explain what comment threads are, and they look perplexed but shake their heads with pity. I finish by putting my head on the steering wheel in despair, but Superturd rejects my self-pity by sounding the horn loudly. My head shoots back up, and the two of them leap back, with Maniac’s arm instinctively shielding Butterfly.

  “Sorry,” I say meekly, and the three of us laugh together.

  Butterfly suggests we move our little discussion on to the next exit so we can eat breakfast. “You’ve got a lot more driving to do,” she says.

  “We’ll jump in the rig, and you can follow us,” says Maniac. “There’s a real good truck stop up ahead.” He looks at Butterfly. “Tuggy’s okay with you?”

  At her nod, the two of them leave to get their truck, and it isn’t until they drive past, sounding the air horn for me to follow, that
I realize they’re driving the shiny mirrored truck. The one that started me crying. As I follow my own reflection to Tuggy’s, I stare at the purple horseshoe mud-flaps and hope I’m a better judge of middle-aged trucker couples than I am of boyfriends. They could be nuts, I think as I get off the exit behind them, and I could be about to disappear.

  I feel oddly okay with that.

  • • •

  “I called off the search party,” Maniac says as we sit down at a chunky wooden table in Tuggy’s. “We had lots of folks lookin’ for ya.”

  “Sorry.” I’ve decided they’re not planning to kidnap me.

  “No worries,” says Butterfly. “We can be a little over-protective I know.”

  “We like to think of ourselves as highway guardians,” says Maniac. “Channel nineteen is blowing up with fellas glad to hear you’re okay.”

  As I eat “the best egg and pancake breakfast in the northeast” the two of them tell me all about themselves and their mission as sentinel truckers.

  “My younger sister disappeared off this highway sixteen years ago.” Butterfly gently strokes her neck tattoo as she explains how they may never know whether her sister ran into foul play or disappeared on purpose to get a fresh start. Butterfly has dedicated the past sixteen years first to looking for her sister and then to keeping an eye on women traveling alone. Of course, this had meant she, herself, was oftentimes a woman traveling alone, until she and Maniac met on the CB.

  “Channel nineteen,” Maniac smiles.

  “At first I didn’t trust him at all,” she says. “Still not sure I do, and we’ve been married going on nine years now.” He gives her a quick rib-tickle and she squirms and laughs in a way that makes her seem young.

  “We met by accident, talking while driving side-by-side one night, until he looked over and saw my lips moving.”