Laura swallowed. She fastened her chest restraint.
“The hell I can’t. Hand it over.” Verch injected himself below his chest, “Ah! Yes!”—He grew pale as sweat beaded over his locked expression, “Yes! That’s it. That’s all I want!” He turned up the radio. The car speakers hummed techno with a berserk, Spanish flow. The two men snickered. “Do you feel that base? Can you feel it in your chest?” Verch swerved in and out of lanes “How about this?” He sped, “I know you can feel this.” They sunk back, streaking between cars and hovertrucks.
“It’s crazy!”
The speedometer passed four-hundred miles per hour.
Laura clenched the hand-rest. Her stomach fell as the two men smiled and laughed with eyes brimming.
“This is it,” Verch’s face reddened. He shook his head, “This is what it’s like! This is what life should be. Every second!”
Murphy slapped his hand rest and shook his head, “Incredible!”
“Watch this,” Verch bumped a car on the right.
Inside, a man and woman looked back in fear while a young boy and girl appeared confused.
Murphy laughed, “Do it again.”
Verch sideswiped them harder.
The man slowed and tried to switch lanes, but became blocked-in on three sides.
“Wait,” Murphy laughed, “Watch this.” He raised the pistol and attempted to sight the little boy through the windshields. “The glass is messing it up.”
“I think there’s a mode for that.” Verch looked over, “Look at them all. Like mindless schools of fish,” he shook his fist, “Get to work on time!”
The boy’s face turned from confusion to fear as he watched his mother break down and cry.
“The mom’s crying,” Murphy said. He looked up, “Shit!”—he lowered his pistol as a black craft hovered above, dangling a trunk-like camera below a huge gyroscopic ring. The ring spun as fiery blue nozzles angled in disjointed directions. Spotlights on either side lighted up their coupe—“The Cali Patrol!”
“So?” Verch asked.
“I think they saw the pistol. They’ve got me on flash holding the pistol.”
Verch swiped down the stereo. “Those traffic controllers are directed by computers. They only report major problems like multi-car pileups.”
“Seriously?”
“Murphy. In Washington, controllers are backed-up by police dispatchers. But in Cali, there’s just too much volume. They can’t do shit.”
Their car-lanes merged with a highway branch as they banked left. Verch laughed with highway lights whizzing.
“You’re still worried about that flying robot,” Verch said, “The Cali patrol is worthless. Say it! Say, ‘it’s worthless!’ You’ll feel better.”
“The Cali patrol is worthless!” A stupid look grew on his face.
“Again!”
“THE CALIFORNIA POLICE AIN’T SHIT!”
They came down from the overpasses onto a ridge in a hill with the cross traffic below an embankment. Laura wondered if the softening of the lavender sky at the horizon was the Pacific. Everything was too big, without trees and houses. In Medina, the trees and houses had held things close together so that she could feel safe outside.
“Are you going to take NI-440, again?” Murphy asked.
“Yes. Less traffic.”
“Verch. How much do you owe Jason?”
Verch turned. “Hard to say. It’s a lot. I guess, somewhere along the line, I lost track.” He swiped off the radio. “You hear something?”
“What?”
“Something shrill… behind us… somewhere.”
“You can’t hear anything outside the car.”
“It seemed like it was behind us.”
“Wait,” Murphy said. “I hear it.” He turned around. “There’s something back there.”
“What is it?”
“A funny looking car or—or something. Can’t tell. It’s too far back. I thought this car was sound-proof?” Murphy leaned to the right. “Lost it.” He turned forward. “That was weird. So you don’t know how much you owe Jason. Partying ain’t cheap, huh? Especially with the drugs. And your family’s loaded, right? I mean, you’re a Transpurton. They won’t bail you out of all that debt?”
“Drop it, Murphy,” Verch took a left onto NI-440.
“It’s just, the debt, you know. It’s probably important, right.”
“When’s the last time you had sex with a woman? You know? the kind without diapers.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. Explain it.”
“You’re sick.”
Murphy scratched the back of his head.
Verch hit the brakes to turn through a cloverleaf. “These interstates are so screwed up—I hear it! It’s louder. Like a siren.” He glanced up at his rearview, “What!”
Murphy spun, “It’s… It’s a wheel-car, man! They don’t let wheel-cars on the interstates anymore. That’s what was behind us before?”
Laura looked out the rear window and jerked forward to the speedometer which read 375 as Verch turned out of the cloverleaf.
“It’s following us,” Murphy turned to Verch, “Maybe a Dodge from the 1960’s or 70’s. You can tell by the grill and the headlights. Look!” Murphy pointed. “I think it’s a patrol car. It’s got those lights up top.” Murphy snickered. “Maybe it wants to pull us over?”
Verch sighed. “We’re being pulled over by a wheel-car from the 1970s.” He swerved between lanes and sped around cars. “Is it still with us?”
The wheel-car pulled closer with the wind sucking fragments of its cracked windshield inside its black cabin.
Verch hit the brakes and pulled into the slowest lane. Red and blue lights flooded their car and Verch rolled down the passenger window.
“Maybe it’s a ghost.” Murphy snickered.
“Shoot the tires.”
Murphy swung his torso out, bracing himself on the roof.
The wheel-car closed in behind them with its floodlights flickering inside their coupe—red-blue, red-blue. Its headlights burned into Laura’s eyes with streetlight reflecting off its chrome grill. A spinning glare from the patrol lights blinded her.
Flashes from Murphy’s pistol exploded beneath the wheel car’s chassis in blooms. The wheel-car neared, undisturbed. Murphy shot again and then swung back inside the cabin. “Damn! I should have hit something.”
“Never mind.” Verch crossed into faster traffic.
“HOLY SHIT!”
The wheel-car passed through a red coupe. Light played over seams and curves and the two cars’ shadows merged, the wheel-car inside the coupe before emerging out its left panel.
Verch glared at him.
“I know what I saw, Verch. That thing just passed through three cars!”
Verch sped. He rolled up the window, silencing the wind. “I can’t stand it! The siren!”
Within the wheel-car’s dark cabin, the outline of a head and shoulders moved closer. Calm eyes glowed before a male face hid behind the windshield’s branching cracks.
The speedometer passed five-hundred as they moved into the fastest lane with Verch’s tight fists clenched over the handle-wheel.
“It’s lost in cars,” Murphy said.
Verch shook his head. “We’re imagining it. We’re not being followed by a wheel-car from the 1970’s.”
“I know what I saw!”
“It’s psychosomatic.”
“This ain’t no disease.”
“It’s the same idea. I say something, you say something. When we first thought it was following us, I took that cloverleaf at over three-hundred. There’s no way a wheel-car could take that turn at that speed without melting its tires and flying off the road.”
Murphy was quiet. “We ask the girl.” He turned, then slapped at his ear, “Ah! It’s… louder. That siren. Drilling—drilling into my skull.”
Edges of
the black hood shimmered. She wondered why she couldn’t hear whatever siren they talked about.
“It’s in your head,” Verch said. “Block it.”
“No. It’s the wheel-car. From inside the car.” Murphy leaned toward Laura, “Did you see it? Did you see the wheel-car?”
Laura opened her mouth and froze. Tears rolled over her freckles.
He swung the pistol, sighting crosshairs on her throat, “DID YOU SEE IT, BITCH!”
“Yes,” she rasped, “I saw it.”
Their car lurched.
The broad grill backed away, rattling an impacted headlight.
“IT’S HIM!” Murphy’s voice hoarsened, “I saw him. His eyes. In there! I’m gonna shoot that bastard! Gonna bag him.”
“We can outrun it,” Verch said.
“No. Gotta shoot. He’s crazy. I saw him. With coldness—somehow—with coldness.” Murphy turned back. “Look. Look inside!”
“I can’t see anything inside!”
“Yes you can. Pull to the slow lane,” Murphy said, “I can bag this bastard. I can bag him right between those cold eyes.”
Laura looked to the rearview. They had distance between them, but it was back there. Verch crossed lanes.
The window rolled down. Murphy gripped the door. The wheel-car neared, narrowing the gap, pulling to the right.
Verch slowed to bring them closer.
Murphy’s eyes grew. “I figured out what he is—”
“Shut up and shoot.”
Murphy grinned. “He’s judgment. To judge for what I did. It’s followed me. Always. From farther back there. Way back, behind the cars we try to drive away from. Now it thinks it’s over.” Murphy looked at the pistol, “But I still got something…” He jerked outside.
Verch looked up, “Murphy! Wait!”
A pistol held outside the wheel-car’s window flashed red, recoiling, and Murphy’s shoulders and chest fell along the window’s edge.
“Murphy!” Verch looked over, “Murphy.” He unfastened his chest restraint to reach him and pull him inside, turning him over. Blood poured out between his eyes where the slug had crushed his skull.
“Ahhh!” Laura shrieked. She shrunk into a ball.
Murphy’s dead hand clenched the pistol. Verch looked up to the gray concrete of an overpass as it neared, “NO!”
Concrete pulverized. Fragments cracked the windshield as their side struck, sending their tail spinning, tottering, flipping; gray walls whirling like nightmares. They jolted up and down with metallic shrieks, sliding on the driver side with spark showers pelting their windows. They hit near the end of the containment wall on the far side of the overpass. Dust billowed. Thinned.
Verch coughed and unfastened his waist. He bled along his forehead and chest as the wheel-car slowed behind them. He snatched the pistol from Murphy’s hand and punched buttons on the gun’s panel. “Get out!” he called to Laura, “We’re getting out.” He unfastened Murphy and shoved him, retracting the passenger door.
Traffic screams of cars struck with machine gun cadence. Laura groaned. He yanked her arm. She found the embankment a split-second before him. It was up ahead on the right. Cars flashed by below. Further down, the Pacific lapped a rocky beach. He headed toward it.
Laura staggered in the opposite direction.
“Come here!”
She was grabbed and pulled close with the pistol pointed at her stomach. Their shadows stretched toward the Pacific as she wiped dust from her sweaty face and touched a cut on her forehead.
He pulled her down and along the embankment toward a retainment sheet of gravel. Streetlight from the highway hit sharp facets and she watched her footing as she stepped.
He pulled her. “Get the fuck over!”
A rustling came from the highway shoulder. Boots crushed grass. He stood over six feet in blue pants and tan short-sleeves. Blood trickled through runlets from his chest to his boots as the .357 swung loose from his arm and gusts fluttered his raven hair.
Verch sighted the crosshairs on the man’s face.
Laura’s stomach plummeted. She met the officer’s stoic eyes—archetypical eyes, like the angel Gabriel.
The officer raised a walky-talky to his mouth, “There’s four of them.”
“What?” Verch asked.
Laura looked behind them, but there were only the two of them on the embankment. She noticed the man looking off at something slightly over their heads.
“You don’t look good, man,” Verch sputtered. “Why don’t we call it a night? That’s fair. Fair… right?”
The walky-talky issued a garbled message. The man responded, “White van. New Mexico plates. I’ll check it out.”
Verch glanced over his shoulder again. “New Mexico?”
The gun swayed as the officer walked. He polished blood from his badge with the bronze points spinning out the streetlights in star-gleams.
Laura winced and blinked away the spots in her vision.
“Ah,” Verch yelled and grimaced from the light as crimson pulses spun and launched from his gun.
The grass behind the man ignited.
“What?” Verch staggered over the rocks.
She was pulled into his side with the pistol against her neck.
Behind them, hordes of cars flashed in cross-traffic with the tide crashing over and through boulders. Verch laughed and grew pale, “Do you know who I am?” he staggered, sliding through gravel, “I’m a Transpurton. I’m, I’m Verch—Verch—Transpurton!”
The boots stopped.
“My family owns four corporations!”
Her hair was clenched and pulled. She shrieked.
“We can negotiate this out like men. Like men!” He stumbled and gathered.
“Two suspects armed with shotguns. She’s pregnant.”
“You crazy man?” Verch asked. “Ain’t nobody pregnant over here?”
“No,” the man told his walky-talky. “I can help her.”
“You can’t help her. You can’t help anyone in this world, man, you know that. But we can make a deal!”
The officer discovered him. He locked onto Verch with his stoic eyes, “No deals!” He swung the .357 up and grasped it two-handed as he drew in a low stance.
Verch’s eyes widened, “Wait—wait—no—I—!”
The barrel flashed red-yellow. Gray tendrils rose up fast in a fickle breeze. Verch jerked and rolled down the hill as his arms and legs bounced against the rocks. And for precious seconds his death snarl was still straddling the mountains of a lusty madman and a baby reborn.
The officer holstered his gun. His voice was tired: “You’re safe,” he said. “You’ll be alright. I promise.” He turned from her and began to walk away.
She balanced herself; her stomach grumbled and her knees were weak. She looked up, “Why?”
He stopped, “It’s my job.” Then he continued up the hill. He fell to his knees and then onto his side.
A traffic controller rumbled overhead; its spotlights blinded her as it swooped toward the highway.
She looked along the embankment, again. The impression of a body had pressed the grass flat with the bloody blades now gleaming and flittering in the rising wind and white light.
Her stomach churned. She swooned, falling backward into a soft bed of powdery gravel.
As the traffic controller was landing, a huge lavender sky loomed above her. She felt peaceful as she imagined the officer’s promise for the rest of her young life.
Soulmate Divorce
Harold and Patty were high school sweethearts. They rushed from their senior prom to a damp log cabin lit with a few candles and lost their virginity. And they stayed a couple throughout college with only one minor spat, which, though conducted in public at a local tavern, was also nauseatingly romantic (something about growing pains), then they got married and had three kids: a sharp-witted boy and two beautiful girls. They prospered across forty years of passion and tende
rness, raising their family and their enviously adorable grandchildren, thereby solidifying their claim as quintessential soulmates. Everything carried out perfectly—almost too perfect. So it was no surprise to their friends that not some fifty years after Patty reunited with Harold in Heaven they opted to file jointly for divorce, listing irreconcilable differences.
They had become different people during the years they spent separated by The Great Divide and Harold had started to need his space. He’d look at his wife and think: who is this person? she’s like a stranger. They’d always liked different things but there were fewer distractions now. When they were alive it was hard to keep things fresh, but at least they had the physicality. Physicality is a good thing. It limits you and confines you in the moment. There’s nothing worse than making love to your wife and being caught drifting off to marvel the battle of Gettysburg. “Yes! Yes… Honey?” she’d say and cringe, “Are you in Gettysburg, again. Goddamnit!” And he knew she was pissed, taking His name in vain with Him so close by.
And there were other things, of course. Like the argument over the house, that’s when it really came to a head. Harold said, “Why do we have to spend all our time in the Third Street House. Why do you always resist my attempts to conjure the house from Georgia? Now that was a house.”
“You like this house,” Patty said, rifling through junk mail with her back to him and eating a perfect peach. “It’s your favorite.”
“Yah, but it can’t be my favorite forever.”
She stopped eating and lowered the mail. “Harold, I’m cheating on you.” She turned to face him.
“What?” Harold walked to her; he felt his heartbeat, again, and that old sensation of blood rushing to his face as he looked deep into those pretty green eyes that held perfectly still. “That doesn’t make any sense. This is Heaven. There’s no cheating in Heaven.”
Patty sneered, flinging the mail across the black granite island and turning away. “That’s what you always do. You always tell me the rules. Use doorknobs. Don’t walk through doors at dinner parties. Haunt the granddaughter in her dreams, not when she’s screwing that wannabe musician and it would do her the most good.”
“There’s no cheating in Heaven!”
She turned back to him, “Harold, I want a divorce.”
With and Without Class Page 7
