The Speed Queen

by Stewart O'Nan

  I’d like to call my mom.

  Mr. Jefferies was funny. He said, “I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news.”

  And I said, “What’s the good news?”

  And he said, “I was just kidding, there is no good news.”

  Here’s a good one: when the firing squad shoots you, blood flies out of your mouth.

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  That same night.

  I was still flying but Natalie had to crash. We left Lamont where he was. I said I’d sleep on the floor and she was so tired that she believed me. I watched the TV without sound for a while—something dumb, you can make something up. Around midnight I went into the bathroom and did another three lines off the edge of the sink. The light from the TV made the pattern of the wallpaper jump out like a test pattern. I looked in a mirror for a little until I couldn’t stand it. I went outside to the car and got the .45 and a box of shells. It was cool out, and the neon turned my skin a pretty blue. I went back into the bathroom and loaded the gun and snorted another four lines and washed my face. I took a big breath in the mirror.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I took the pillow from Lamont’s bed and walked over to Natalie. The lights were out and the TV was running all over the walls. I stood there and looked down at her for a while—at her hair and her arms, her perfect nails. I thought of our mornings with her toys and how I’d never felt so desirable, so alive inside my skin. I looked over at Lamont and thought about them being found together; I didn’t want that.

  Just then the show cut to a commercial and the screen went black, leaving me in the dark. When it came back, Natalie was looking straight at me.

  I shoved the gun against her chest and fired. I completely forgot about the pillow; the sound made Gainey scream. Natalie rolled off the bed, knocking the bucket off the night table. The water splashed over her back. You could see the hole the bullet made where it came out. I didn’t think I had to check.

  “Liar,” I said.

  I threw the covers over her and started packing.

  When I had everything together, I went out and unlocked the car. We were the only car in the lot. The road was empty. I went back in and wrapped Lamont in the bedspread and grabbed him under the arms and hauled him across the carpet and through the door and pushed him halfway into the backseat. I had to go around the other side and drag the rest of him in, and by then I was sweating.

  I dragged Natalie out the same way and muscled her up and into the trunk. Then I got the bags and buckled Gainey’s car seat in beside me. He was still squealing. I kept my lights off until I was a quarter mile or so down the road. When I flicked them on, the white lines shot off in front of me like a runway, but I knew I really wasn’t going anywhere.

  Remember The Great Escape, with Steve McQueen jumping the barbed wire on his motorcycle? Any of those movies where they tunnel out using spoons and homemade sleds you have to lie down on. They never know where to put the dirt. You’re always rooting for them to get out, even when they’re somewhere like Alcatraz. You don’t really worry about what they did to get in because they’re always innocent. But I was driving along then, through the desert, and I passed this sign that said, Hitchhikers may be escaped prisoners, and the first thing I did was lock Gainey’s door.

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  I have no idea where it was, I just knew I had to get rid of her. It was dark, so I slowed down until I found some tire tracks going off into the desert. I turned on my high beams and the Roadrunner bumped over the ruts. The tracks went on for miles, but I figured they were Jeeps, and I didn’t want to get the back end hung up on something. I watched the odometer. When I was five miles from the road, I stopped and killed the lights.

  The thing about the desert is you can hear for miles. I stepped out into the darkness and I could hear a train clanking way off in the distance. I opened the trunk and the little bulb on the inside of the lid blinded me.

  Natalie had shifted; her face rested on a yellow jug of antifreeze like it was a pillow. There was blood on the rug and the spare. I wrestled her out, but she hung up on the lip. Her shirt was caught in the lock. I had to let go and it ripped and she rolled into my legs and almost knocked me over. I closed the lid so no one would see us. I dragged her off the road a ways, thinking I’d throw some sand over her, but it was dirt and hurt my fingers.

  So the whole buried-alive thing is a joke. Left for dead I can buy, even if it was only one shot, but calling it a miracle makes me angry. It’s a miracle I didn’t try to kill her before that for what she did to me.

  And then the whole thing gets stupid because I try to do a three-point turn and get stuck and when I finally rock myself out, I follow the wrong tracks and get lost. Cattle are wandering through my headlights. This could be funny or sad or me just getting what I deserve. It’s your choice.

  108

  Four or five hours, because it wasn’t until daylight that I found a road. If you look on the map you’ll see it south of Farmington, a dotted gray line headed west off of 371. It’s dirt and breaks down when it hits the littlest wash. It takes you into the big Navajo reservation about forty miles north of Window Rock and finally hooks up with Route 666. I thought you’d like that.

  I was low on gas and Gainey needed breakfast so I made sure the covers were on Lamont and stopped at a Love’s Country Store. Big ristras of chiles hung by the pumps. The Roadrunner was red with dust; Lamont would of had a heart attack. A couple of snowbirds were filling up their RVs and there were Christmas decorations in the windows. The diet Pepsis I bought had penguins on them, and all the beer cartons said Seasons Greetings. On the counter was a rack you could turn with different postcards of Shiprock. I read the back of some while I waited in line.

  The Navajos believed the rock was a magic ship that would help them escape their enemies when they were in danger. According to the legend, it had brought the entire tribe here from a far-off land, kind of like Battlestar Galactica. Another one said the mountain was a sacred burial site, like a stairway to heaven, and that warriors buried on the rock were raised into the spirit world. They had keychains too, and wallet kits with the picture of the silhouette embossed on leather.

  The attendant had long hair and a Joy Division T-shirt. He gave me too much change and I told him so.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Nice car.”

  After they caught me, I wondered if he’d turned me in. I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it was the girl at the park.

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  Not much, it’s pretty empty. Mountains on both sides. Cliffs, arroyos, the tailings from abandoned mines. Some old trading posts falling in on themselves, maybe an RV park. The Navajos had their own roads coming off 666, but most of them were gravel and on the map they didn’t meet up with anything.

  I pulled off at a historical marker to feed Gainey his peaches and do two quick lines. There was still a good corner of the bag left. While I was laying out the second one, I saw Shiprock across the desert, the sun hitting the top part.

  I forgot what I was doing for a minute. It did look like a ship, way up above everything, the way you think of Noah’s Ark after it runs aground. You could see why they hoped it would float away and take them back where they came from. There was nothing to stick around here for; it was dead land—just rocks and scrub, hawks and lizards. No water at all.

  110

  I didn’t have a plan, I just got the idea of Shiprock in my head. I knew I couldn’t drive around with Lamont in the backseat forever, so when I saw the state park sign, I slowed down and turned off.

  I don’t know what you’d call it—Indian 33? In my atlas the number’s inside an arrowhead, so I don’t know.

  My plan right then was to take Lamont to Shiprock and bury him somewhere. For being awake five straight days, it wasn’t that bad a decision.

  After that, I have no idea. Arizona? California? If I’d of been thinking, I would of made a run for Mexico. But I wasn’t. I didn’t know what I was doing. Just driving.

  111r />
  It was off of 33, inside the park entrance. You had to pay two dollars at a log cabin booth. The girl there gave me a foldout brochure with a map on it. I figure she’s the one who called because I stopped in the parking lot to see where I was going. The place was deserted except for a guy fitting bags into the trash cans. She must of heard about Lloyd Red Deer over the radio. On the map you could go two ways. I just sat there like a dummy trying to decide while she wrote down my license plate.

  I went right. The road switchbacked up the side of the mountain. You were supposed to go ten miles an hour around the turns. I went as far as I could go. The road stopped at an overlook with a low stone wall and a laminated map of what you were looking at. The drop was about a thousand feet and it was all red rock. We were still a half mile from Shiprock itself, but I figured it was close enough.

  I flipped my seat up and grabbed Lamont under the arms. You’d think he’d smell but he didn’t, just the blood did. I hauled him across the lot and leaned him against the wall. It was a clear morning and I could see my breath coming quick. I took the covers away from his face. The brushburn was just healing. I closed my eyes and put my forehead against his, the way we did when we needed to talk. Birds were chirping, and chipmunks in the rocks. I told him I’d miss him and I’d always be his. I’d take care of Gainey and his car. Then I rolled him over the edge and walked away.

  When I got back in, Gainey was clapping his hands.

  “What are you doing?” I said, and poked him in the tummy. “What do you think you’re doing, huh?”

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  They were waiting for me inside the park entrance, four of them parked sideways across the road in pairs so I couldn’t ram them. I didn’t see the helicopter until later. I slowed down and then stopped in the lot.

  “Driver,” one of them said over a speaker. “Put your hands where we can see them.

  “Driver. Roll down your window and hold out your hands.”

  I had a full tank of gas and they were in Crown Vics. I punched the clutch in and swung around. In the mirror I could see them scrambling and slamming their doors.

  I didn’t want to deal with the hairpins again, and took the other fork, hoping it might go somewhere. I flapped the map open. It was another overlook. Through the pines I could see them coming after me.

  The view was the same here—Shiprock with the orange morning sun on it. I pulled into a space by the wall like it was a drive-in movie. I unbuckled Gainey and held him on my lap, smelling his hair and his skin, and we sat there waiting for them.

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  No, but I could have. I still had the .45 in the glove compartment. I couldn’t with Gainey there. I didn’t want to anyway.

  They pulled up short of us and blocked the road again. The same guy did the thing over the speaker. I could barely hear with the helicopter.

  I kissed Gainey on the top of the head and buckled him into his car seat, then I turned off the car and rolled down the window and put out my hands.

  “Now open the door from the outside,” he said, and I did.

  “Now step out. Let me see your hands.”

  I got out and looked at them, seven or eight all hiding behind their cars.

  “Turn around,” he said. “Now lift your shirt.”

  I did and the air was chilly on my skin.

  “Now put your hands in the air.”

  Hold on. Sorry.

  Five?

  Okay, I’m on the next-to-last one.

  That’s Janille, she thought we might have one last bag of Funyuns. I still have to call my mom. I’d like to pray too, if you don’t mind.

  I bet they’re cheering outside. Fine, I forgive them.

  Do you want all that stuff? I don’t think it’s that interesting. They basically made me lie down on the cold road with my hands spread wide over my head, then they came and this tall guy kneeled on my neck. They thought someone else might be in the car even though I told them it was just a baby. They snuck up on it with their guns drawn. While they had me down, they took Gainey away to another car. He was screaming, and the cop wasn’t even holding him right. I got upset and someone grabbed my hair. Someone else hit me in the kidney and I thought I’d barf. They thought it was funny how much I was struggling. They were laughing.

  “Where’s your friends?” they said. “Your friends take off on you?”

  When they threw me against the hood they split my chin open. The woman who patted me down bent my arm so high behind my back she separated my shoulder.

  The pain made me dizzy and I began to cry.

  “Does that hurt?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Too bad.”

  In the car, the two officers told me what they’d do to me if it was up to them. Looking back, it would have been quicker.

  That’s it, that’s the end. It’s not as good as Natalie wandering along the road with her shirt all bloody and the Indian family coming by in their beat-up pickup, I know that. I don’t know what you can do about it though.

  In the movies the death scene’s always a big ending, so you could do that. It’s not that dramatic in real life, but that’s okay. People don’t want real life anyway, it’s boring.

  Did you see that Sharon Stone movie last year where she gets executed? It was stupid but she was good. I like her a lot, but she’s too perfect to be me. I don’t know who you’ll have to get—someone young. And if it’s possible I’d like Keanu Reeves to be Lamont.

  114

  Last one. Finally.

  Do I have any last words?

  I don’t believe anything is the last because I believe in eternity. I believe I’ll be saved and that I’ll live in Jesus Christ forever. Amen.

  That’s a pretty good last word—amen.

  Before I go I’d just like to thank Mr. Jefferies again for believing in me, and Janille and Sister Perpetua for helping me on my personal journey.

  I’d like to say to Gainey, when you hear this, try not to judge us. Take your mom’s mistakes to heart and learn from them. I love you and so does your daddy. I’m kissing your picture right now. I’ll have it with me always.

  As for you, I’d like to thank you again for all the money and for being interested in my story in the first place. Good luck with the book. I hope it’s a good one. I’m sure it’ll put Natalie’s to shame. I’m counting on it.

  Wait a sec.

  I hear you.

  Okay, I’ve got to go. Janille’s got her keys out and the execution team’s ready. The witnesses are inside. It’s time.

  I wish Mr. Jefferies was here.

  I wonder what it’s like outside, if they’ve started honking their horns and flashing their lights yet. They’ll be happy at least. Give them what they want, right?

  I’m sure my mom’s got the radio on. I love you, Mom.

  I’m coming.

  When you come out, talk to Darcy and Etta Mae, and don’t listen to Lucinda. Garlyn and Joy can help you out with the early stuff.

  Just remember, everything I’ve told you is true. I’m completely innocent.

  Try to be nice to me, okay?

  Just tell a good story.