Hitchers

by Will McIntosh

  “I’m an illustrator.” Illustrator sounded less juvenile than cartoonist. It had been in my profile, but evidently she hadn’t read the whole thing, or had forgotten.

  “What do you illustrate?”

  A surge of anticipatory pleasure rushed through me. Here was my chance to crumble Lyndsay’s snap judgment that I was a loser who wasn’t worth knowing.

  “I draw a newspaper comic strip.”

  In the brief time I’d been back in the dating world, I’d discovered that a lot of women were impressed by even the most marginal fame.

  Lyndsay squinted. It was the first facial expression that crossed her face that seemed unplanned, and I couldn’t help but enjoy the moment. “Really? Which one?”

  “Toy Shop.”

  Her mouth opened in surprise, then she smiled brightly, her eyes suddenly alive with interest. “No kidding?”

  I smiled. The smile felt a little tight. It was a cheap way to prove you were someone worth knowing. “No kidding.”

  Lyndsay sat up in her chair, flipped her hair back over one shoulder. She paused, looked up at the white ceiling tiles. “Wait a minute.” The hair slid off her shoulder and brushed the white tablecloth. “Hasn’t Toy Shop been around forever? Since, like, the fifties?”

  I’d grown used to explaining this discrepancy, and had honed it down to two efficient sentences. “My grandfather created the strip in 1957. He died in 2008, and I resurrected the strip in 2010.” I didn’t mention that Grandpa hadn’t wanted me to carry on the strip, that I had convinced Grandma to let me resurrect it when Grandpa was only four months in the grave and she was struggling financially. “I gave the strip a new look, though. I created Wolfie.” And tripled the strip’s revenue, much to Grandma’s pleasure.

  “That’s right, Wolfie is in Toy Shop! I have a Wolfie coffee mug.” She looked at me expectantly, eyebrows raised, I guess to convey the kismet inherent in her owning a Wolfie mug.

  “That’s terrific,” I said.

  Lyndsay stirred her margarita, forming a little whirlpool. “So why didn’t you mention that you draw Toy Shop in your profile?”

  I took a swig of Jack and Coke. “I guess I don’t want to take a lot of credit for Toy Shop, because I didn’t create it.”

  “You create it new every day,” Lyndsay said, her tone overly earnest.

  “I guess.”

  She patted my hand, gave me her best empathetic look. “Sure you do.”

  It was an incredibly complex issue to me, one that a “Sure you do” didn’t begin to resolve. “Well, thanks,” I said, hoping that would close out this particular topic.

  The strip was more successful than it had ever been, but somehow the better it did, the more I felt like a fraud. My success came by standing on the shoulders of someone I hadn’t even liked, who had expressly forbidden me from doing what I did. On his death bed. None of the ideas for a strip I’d tried on my own before taking over Toy Shop had generated the least bit of interest from the syndicates. I hadn’t even been able to land an agent until I acquired the rights to Toy Shop.

  I pushed back in my chair. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

  I called my friend Annie from the bathroom.

  “Help.”

  “That bad?” Annie asked. “Is she ugly?” Her voice was raspy and drained.

  “You don’t sound good.”

  “I have the flu. I feel awful.”

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Duh. Have you been watching the news? Doctors’ offices are packed. So’s the emergency room. Half the city’s got it.”

  “Yeah, I forgot.” I’d been too nervous about my date to pay much attention to the news. All they were covering, even on the big national networks, was the flu outbreak. I was probably an idiot for being out.

  “I’ll let you get some rest. Why don’t I stop by after?” I could surprise her with some soup from Stone Soup Kitchen.

  “It’s okay. What else am I going to do? Is she ugly?”

  A tall guy in cowboy boots came into the bathroom. He nodded a pointless greeting and bellied up to a urinal. “No,” I said, talking lower, “she’s really good looking—better looking than her photo. She’s just...I don’t know.” I felt self-conscious with the cowboy guy in the room. I also felt strangely emasculated—guys don’t stand around in bathrooms talking on the phone. Women probably don’t either.

  The sound of urine on porcelain filled the small bathroom. “She’s kind of slick. I just don’t get a good vibe.” Cowboy guy stared at the wall.

  “Mm. It’s always best to trust your gut. Want me to do a phone call rescue?” She coughed harshly. “Sorry.”

  I considered as cowboy guy brushed past me without washing his hands. Usually I was the one rescuing Annie from bad dates by calling so she could pretend an emergency had come up, because there were far more men than women who were nightmare dates, and somehow the worst of them always found Annie. That was true of Annie’s life in general, really.

  This wasn’t really a nightmare date, though. “No, I’ll stick it out. Just needed some emotional support.”

  “Big hug,” Annie said. “Call me as soon as you’re done. Hey, what if she offers to sleep with you?”

  “She’s not going to.”

  “She might.”

  “She won’t.”

  “But what if she does? You said she was good looking.”

  An image of Lyndsay unbuttoning her silk blouse flashed through my mind. I banished it.

  “Are you going to kiss her goodnight?” Annie persisted.

  “No!”

  “Then what are you going to do? Are you going to shake her hand?” Her tone was teasing now.

  An old guy pushed open the door, nodded curtly and squeezed past me.

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Call me as soon as you leave the restaurant.”

  I closed my phone, grateful for Annie. It was amazing how close Lorena’s death had drawn us. Before, she’d mostly been Lorena’s friend.

  I needed to pee, but the old guy was standing pushed up to the urinal, clearly finding it difficult to get a flow going with me three feet away. It would be cruel, and awkward, to wait.

  Lyndsay had brushed her hair and put on fresh lipstick. She opened her mouth, likely to say something clever she’d been rehearsing while I was in the bathroom, but I jumped in.

  “So tell me about the publishing business.”

  Lyndsay leaned back in her chair, draped her arms over the armrests. “What I was going to say is more interesting.” Her smile was brimming with promises that both scared me and made my head spin. It had been more than two years since I’d been with a woman.

  Since I’d been with my wife.

  I felt a dizzy sinking in my stomach, like I’d just dropped twenty floors in an elevator. This all felt wrong—wrong place, wrong time, wrong woman. I wanted to be home, in front of the TV watching Lost reruns and drinking decaffeinated Earl Grey tea.

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to Lyndsay’s leading comment. The only appropriate response would be “What were you going to say?” Part of me was curious about what she was going to say, but most of me wanted to go home. Most of me felt like I was cheating on Lorena.

  There was a cup of coffee in front of me, so I took a sip in lieu of a reply, and burned my mouth. It was a big sip, so I got caught in that moment where you have something hot in your mouth and you don’t know whether to spit it out, which would mean passing it back over the tender parts at the front of your mouth, or roll it around in the back of your mouth and tolerate the pain until it cools. I tolerated the pain until it cooled. It seemed to take a long time.

  “I guess I’ve left you speechless,” Lyndsay said, raising an eyebrow.

  I set my coffee down. “I’m really sorry. I think I made a mistake. I thought I was ready to date, but I’m not.” My tongue felt thick and cottony, maybe from the burn.

  Lyndsay regarded me, then fished the strap of her purse from
the back of her chair. “If you’re not interested in me, just say so.” She pulled two twenties from her purse and dropped them on the table. “The least you could do is be honest if you’re going to waste my Friday night.”

  “It’s not an excuse, it’s the truth,” I insisted, although it was only partially true. I wasn’t ready to date, but I also was not interested in her.

  “Mm hm.” She pulled on her coat.

  I picked up her twenties, offered them back to her. “I can get this.”

  She looked at my hand like I was offering her a dead rat. “I’m not sure you’re ready.”

  I dropped the bills back on the table. “Look, my wife died, okay?” Even as I said it, I regretted it. I was using Lorena’s death to win an argument. “I left that out of my profile as well. I’m sorry if I wasted your valuable time, but this is hard for me.”

  Lyndsay froze, her hand buried in her purse. “I’m sorry. Your profile said you were divorced.”

  “I know.” I didn’t want her to be sorry; I resented her even knowing.

  Lyndsay nodded understanding. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll wait for the bill.”

  Relieved, I thanked her, pushed two twenties of my own into her hand and rushed for the exit.

  The wind dug into me as I opened the door—a wind more appropriate for Detroit than Atlanta. I ducked my head, clamped a fist over my collar and trotted through a haze of snow flurries to my car.

  I didn’t understand how Lyndsay could be the same woman who wrote the profile I’d responded to. Quirky, easygoing bookworm who loves organic gardening and wandering Little Five Points. I felt guilty about running out; it was clear from Lyndsay’s reaction that she had a good heart.

  As soon as I was out of the parking lot I called Annie.

  “I lost it. Completely melted down. Something made me think of Lorena, and that was it.”

  “Aw,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She coughed thickly.

  “You sound worse.”

  “I’ve never felt so terrible.”

  “I’m coming over. Is there anything I can get you?” Up ahead, a police officer was diverting traffic. Barricades were set up across Piedmont Avenue.

  “That’s okay. I’m way out of your way.”

  “I’m coming,” I said. “It’d be nice to see a friendly face right now. What can I bring you?”

  I hung a right onto Baker, then tried to go left on Courtland, but it was blocked off as well. Red lights flashed languidly on three or four parked cruisers. I craned my neck as I drove past, peering down the blocked-off street. A dozen police officers and people in blue windbreakers conferred in the middle of the street.

  “Wow, something’s going on downtown. Everything’s blocked off.”

  Further down I spotted another half-dozen officers. One of them was running—not trotting, running—toward the huddled group.

  “There are police everywhere,” I added.

  “Can you see smoke or anything?” Annie asked.

  “No.”

  I drove on. I despised onlookers who lined up at barricades, nosing to find out what was going on even though it had nothing to do with them, and I didn’t want to be one.

  Annie was quiet—either waiting for an update or feeling too sick to talk.

  Peachtree was blocked as well.

  “Damn. It’s all blocked off.”

  An ambulance was parked halfway on the sidewalk. Nearby, a guy was handing out medical masks from a red plastic crate. Some of the police were already wearing them, their mouths and noses hidden under a white swatch.

  “You okay?” I asked Annie. She sounded wheezy.

  “Yeah.”

  “I was going to stop and get you soup, but I’m thinking I should come straight there.”

  “Thanks, I don’t feel like soup anyway. You get full credit for the thought, though.”

  A big, unmarked black truck rumbled past, swerved to a stop at the next corner. The back door flew open and seven or eight men in military uniforms jumped out carrying assault rifles.

  “Oh, shit,” I said.

  A news van pulled up beside the truck.

  “What?” Annie asked.

  “There are soldiers running around. Is this on the news?”

  I clicked on the radio, turned to WSB. They were covering the flu outbreak at the moment—no mention of blocked-off streets and soldiers with guns.

  The air was filled with the whine of sirens. I cracked the window: it sounded like a pack of coyotes howling.

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “It’s on TV,” Annie said. I heard a news anchor’s voice in the background, waited while Annie listened. “They don’t know what’s going on. They think it’s about the flu outbreak. People are being rushed to hospitals.”

  The door to an apartment building flew open. Two paramedics rushed out carrying a stretcher. Two more followed close behind with a second stretcher. I pulled over, rolled down my window.

  “What’s going on?”

  One guy looked up at me and shook his head. It might have meant he didn’t know, or that he wasn’t saying, if it wasn’t for the warning in his eyes. He was saying I should get out of there.

  The problem was, Annie lived fifteen blocks into that sealed-off area.

  I got out of my car. “Excuse me, I need to get to Auburn Avenue. Is there a way around this?” There was a young blonde woman in the stretcher, her eyes glassy and scared. Every strained breath she managed was accompanied by an awful rattling.

  “You can’t go there,” said a big, muscular guy in a surgical mask carrying one end of a stretcher. “Go home now.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked in a tone that made me sound like a lost child. The woman in the stretcher looked more than very sick—she looked like she was dying.

  “Go home.” He gestured toward my car with his head.

  They hurried the stretchers into the ambulance and turned on the red bubble. The big guy rolled his window halfway. His voice was half-drowned by the scream of the siren, his lips hidden by the mask and unreadable, but I was almost certain he shouted “anthrax.”

  They raced off, giving me no time to ask if I’d heard right, if they were sure, if they were shitting me, if they were high.

  Anthrax? Had he said anthrax?

  I got in my car, and drove off, afraid to call Annie back. Could she have anthrax? No, she didn’t seem nearly as sick as the woman in the stretcher. Unless Annie was just earlier along. I didn’t know anything about anthrax, except that it killed people.

  I passed two Latina women straining with a big man, trying to push him into the back seat of a sedan. I slowed as I passed, peered through the window at the man. His eyes were open but blank, as if he was in shock. His chest was hitching, spasming.

  “Oh God,” I whispered. I wanted to get out of there, but it would be cowardly to leave Annie. I called her.

  “It’s on CNN,” Annie said immediately. “They’re saying it’s the flu epidemic. They’re saying it gets much worse after the first forty-eight hours, that people are dying.”

  “Oh, God.” It came out before I could stop it.

  “What?”

  I didn’t want to tell her. Annie was a painfully anxious person; this would terrify her, probably needlessly.

  “What?” she repeated. “Tell me.”

  I couldn’t lie to her. “I heard something. From someone on the street.”

  “What did you hear?” Annie sounded like she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know.

  “It was one person, in the street.” I didn’t add that it was a paramedic. I wanted to water it down if I was going to say it.

  “Just tell me.” She sounded annoyed.

  “Someone said it could be anthrax.”

  Annie whimpered.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sure it’s not true.”

  A man in a business suit was half-lying on the bottom step of a walk-up. He raised a weak hand to a couple hurrying past. They picked up
their pace.

  Annie stopped crying; there was silence on the line. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m Googling anthrax,” she said.

  I waited, listening to the wet hiss of her breathing. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the woman on the stretcher.

  “Causes muscle aches, fever, sore throat. Often mistaken for the flu. After twenty-four to forty-eight hours, severe breathing problems, shock, meningitis.” She sobbed. “Almost always fatal.”

  “There are a million things that give people flulike symptoms. We don’t know that’s what it is.”

  “What are all those sirens? Are they ambulances?”

  “Some are.” Up ahead the street was blocked off, forcing me to turn left, away from Annie. “I’m coming to get you.”

  “You said it’s blocked off.”

  “I’ll find a way in.”

  Annie coughed. The next right was blocked off as well, pushing me another block out of my way.

  “Don’t you dare come,” Annie said. “If it’s the flu, I don’t need you. If it’s anthrax, you can’t help me. Go home and lock your door.”

  “I can’t leave you there alone. I’m coming,” I said. I ran away and left Lorena to die, was what I was thinking. I’m not doing the same to her best friend.

  “Finn, there’s no point. I don’t feel that sick. I probably have the flu; I visited my sister last weekend and my little nephew was sick. I probably caught what he had.”

  “Should I call 911? Just to be safe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m calling,” I said. “I’ll call you right back.”

  I punched 911 and got a recording. All lines were in use. I waited thirty seconds, called again, and got the same recording. I called Annie back.

  “How do you feel?”

  “About the same, I guess.”

  I wondered if I could circle around, try to get in on the minor roads coming from the west.

  “Listen.” Annie’s voice got low, to almost a whisper. “I was thinking. If I’ve got it, it’s okay. Living is so hard for me that I wouldn’t be that disappointed if it stopped. You know?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Annie suffered from such terrible anxiety and depression that it seeped from her pores. She was on tremendous doses of SSRIs and other anti-depression meds. Was it really so bad she wanted to die? “I didn’t know it was that bad.”