Hard Trauma

by Franklin Horton

  Tia could tell he wanted to say more but was biting his tongue. She was aware he saw her as a washed-up old lady. He forgot who she’d been. Sometimes she had to remind him but right now she was just sick of him. They’d spent too much time in tight quarters over the last couple of days.

  “You could at least pay for a tank of gas,” Barger mumbled. “I’ve paid for everything.”

  Tia waved him off. “You put it on your card.”

  “I get a bill for that card!”

  “I’m an old lady on a fixed income. I have to watch my expenses.”

  Barger snorted. “Yeah right.”

  “How about you just hush and let me keep working on this. I’ll see if I can move one of the other prospects along.”

  “I’m not going out of my way unless it’s a sure thing. I’ve got shit to do at home. Jobs that pays the bills.”

  “Grumble, grumble, grumble,” Tia mocked, tapping at the screen of her phone.

  Barger shut up and stewed in silence. Tia sent a few messages and scrolled through updates. When they were rolling down Broad Street, she got up from her seat and went to the back of the RV. She shut herself into the tiny bathroom with a purse the size of a shopping bag. She lowered the lid of the petite plastic toilet and dropped heavily onto it. She lit another cigarette and fished an embroidered silk pouch from the depths of her bag.

  From the pouch, she removed a statue around four inches tall and reverently stood it on the edge of the sink. It was a skeleton dressed in a robe like the grim reaper, complete with scythe. The skeleton held a globe in its outstretched, bony hand. Tia removed a bottle of perfume from her purse and sprayed some at the base of the statue as she prayed. The Bony Lady liked nice things.

  Tia took out a tiny bottle of tequila from her purse. She splashed an offering at the base of the statue, then tipped the bottle up and finished it off. She had a better altar at home but sometimes she needed to speak to Holy Death when she was away. She carried the statue with her everywhere she went, along with some of the things Santa Muerte liked. She was fond of apples, but Tia was out. She would buy another the next time they stopped.

  The RV swayed as Barger negotiated the onramp, pulling onto the interstate. Tia pinched the statue between long green nails, making sure it didn’t fall over. “You have always blessed me, Holy Death. You have protected me against all enemies. Have I earned your displeasure? Have I failed you somehow?”

  Tia stared at the blank orbital sockets and the impassive expression on the little resin statue. It wasn’t that she expected a verbal response, though it would have been nice. It would make things so much easier. Tia began to pray in earnest, two splayed fingers locking the statue to the edge of the sink. She bowed her head in deference and spoke low, a whispered supplication. When the cigarette burned down to her fingers, she tossed it into the shower where it scorched the plastic base. Barger would be angry but he was a cabron, a bastard. To hell with him.

  She resumed her prayer and it was an hour before the words stopped coming. When she was done, she was drained, lightheaded. She kissed the top of the statue and replaced it in the pouch. She tried to stand but found it difficult to gain the necessary momentum in the narrow space. She locked a hand over the lip of the sink and finally managed to heave herself upward.

  She checked herself in the mirror but wished she hadn’t. It was an old habit and she was certain she was less to look at than she’d once been. She was fat and wrinkled. She wore too much makeup, but there was not enough in the world to hide what time was doing to her. She wore cheap stretchy clothes that were comfortable but not particularly flattering due to the egg-shaped body she’d developed in middle-age. It was the body of her mother and grandmother. There was no escaping it. On top of it all, she added lots of gold jewelry so people would know she was someone.

  Santa Muerte had brought her so much but she knew that restoring her youth, her beauty, was even beyond what The Bony Lady could do.

  4

  Ty had his normal lousy night of sleep, plagued by nightmares. Nothing helped that. They were always something disturbing, dreams in which he saw the faces of the dead, either recalled from memory or imagined. Sometimes he dreamed he was in a fight for his life and didn’t have the gear he needed. Other times it was confined spaces with the sensation that he was suffocating. This time he’d been trying his best to run away from a threat while his feet felt like they were mired in quicksand. No amount of running gained him any ground.

  The nights could be so exhausting that sometimes he didn’t know why he bothered to go to bed at all. Not sleeping brought its own problems, though. After a day or two he started hallucinating. If he didn’t find the nightmares in his sleep, they would seek him out in his daily life.

  He took a quick shower and threw on his security guard uniform. By 0730 hours he’d sucked down an energy drink and was starting his first patrol around the Petro Panda Travel Plaza. The facility was a fancy truck stop about twenty minutes north of Abingdon, Virginia, on the interstate. It was the only job he’d held since his discharge, a little over a year ago. It wasn’t a great job, not even a good one, but the duties were manageable. It was something he could do without having to think a whole lot.

  He hoped that one day he could get into law enforcement but figured he needed to deal with some of his issues first. He didn’t want to go to the effort of becoming a cop and then screw it up because he lost his temper. If anything, the experience at the movies with Aiden stood as a further reminder that he had things he needed to deal with.

  It was late spring, the day already hot and humid. Ty could tell by the sun pounding on his face that it was going to be a hot one. Truckers who spent the night there wandered inside for showers and breakfast. Every few minutes the drone of idling trucks was broken by the intercom announcing that the next shower was available.

  The smell of exhaust was so heavy that Ty wondered if he could inhale enough of it to kill himself. How much would it take? He’d known people who ended it that way and it seemed like a peaceful way to go. Just go to sleep and never wake up. It was less traumatic than a gunshot or hanging. It also left the body more presentable for the funeral, assuming he hadn’t already alienated anyone who might attend.

  While Ty didn’t consider himself to be suicidal, there were times he found himself dwelling on it. He wasn’t adjusting well and there didn’t appear to be any route between where he was now and where he wanted to be. He let that morbid thought-bubble wither on the vine and tried to concentrate on his surroundings.

  Very little went on at the Petro Panda at this time of day. When he worked the night shift he had to watch for the lot lizards, prostitutes who made a living selling their services truck to truck. He also had to watch for local drug dealers intent on making a little money off bored truckers stuck there for the night. On the day shift he might have the odd fender bender or a shoplifter to deal with. Most days, though, it was just a matter of walking in circles and being visible.

  Visible yet invisible.

  Lately he’d come to wonder if this was the wrong type of job for him. There was nothing to do but walk around and think. It gave him too much time to dwell on his situation, too much time for the darkness to fill his head. Perhaps he’d be better off with some thoughtless factory job where he’d hopefully stay busy with some inane task that required just enough of his mental faculties to prevent him from getting carried away by his thoughts. There were a few factories around that might fit the bill but he hadn’t gone as far as filling out any applications yet. He wasn’t sure he could sit in one place all day. At least being a security guard allowed you to move around.

  Over the next few hours, things perked up considerably. On a beautiful Saturday, this time of year there were lots of people on the road. At some point the Petro Panda was overrun by a girls’ softball team rolling in on an activity bus covered in banners. They must have been on their way to a tournament. Multiple carloads of parents and grandparents accompanied them with
more slogans scrawled on their windows in wide, white letters.

  Ty recognized the name on the bus as being from a local middle school. A group that size would congest things for a while. They would cause long lines at the bathrooms as everyone took care of business, and long lines at the cash registers as everyone stocked up on drinks, chips, ring pops, and gummy bears for the road. Even without this group, the pumps were active with a steady stream of weekend travelers. In the truck section, semis and RVs were fueling up at the diesel pumps. He hoped all the activity would provide a distraction and make the day go faster.

  Around 1000 hours he took his morning break, wandering to the far edge of the parking lot and taking a seat at one of the metal picnic tables. He’d been thinking about taking up smoking because it would be the perfect activity for filling his break time. He’d tried smoking before but it impaired him physically, and in the military his life had been about training. He wasn’t certain that mattered anymore. He continued to hit the gym obsessively but it wasn’t like he was training for missions. A little drop in his cardio functioning wasn’t likely to get him killed these days.

  From the corner of his eye he caught an irregularity at the gasoline pumps. It was something he learned watching crowds when he was patrolling in the war. Places and activities had a certain rhythm to them and when that rhythm changed it could mean something was going on, something he might need to be concerned with. In Iraq and Afghanistan it could mean insurgents were infiltrating a crowd and something bad was about to happen. It could mean he’d interrupted something shady and villagers were attempting to hide it from him.

  At the Petro Panda, the rhythms were different. Fueling vehicles had a particular rhythm. People filled their tanks and leaned against their cars. They cleaned trash from their vehicle and shoved it into the truck stop’s big red cans. Sometimes they went inside the store and sometimes they didn't. What they did not normally do was run around frantically from vehicle to vehicle in a state of panic.

  Ty jogged toward the distressed woman. She was in her mid-thirties and well-dressed in casual clothing. Her hands were shaking and she was on the verge of utter hysterical panic.

  "Excuse me, ma’am, is something wrong?

  She spun toward Ty, her eyes taking in his uniform and recognizing him as someone who might be able to help. "I can't find my daughter." Her speech faltered, like she was embarrassed at the turn of events, like it was somehow her mistake.

  Ty smiled at her reassuringly. "Don’t worry, ma’am. This is a big place and kids get lost here all the time. We’ll find her. What’s her name?”

  “Gretchen,” the woman said, wringing her hands together.

  Ty pulled the radio from his belt and relayed that information to the manager on duty.

  In a matter of seconds, there was an announcement over the intercom, the sound blaring over the entire property. “Gretchen, could you come to the register at the front of the store, please? Your mother is looking for you.”

  “What’s your name, ma’am?” Ty asked.

  “Heather Wells.”

  “Heather, I’m Tyler. Gretchen will probably show up at the register any minute. You give me a description and they’ll be on the lookout for her."

  "She's ten years old. She’s wearing a blue shirt with a yellow frog on the front. She’s got on white shorts and flip-flops. Green flip-flops with sparkles. I hate them because they don’t match anything but she loves them."

  Ty nodded, passing on that information to the manager. Heather hurried off, calling her daughter’s name and asking other patrons if anyone had seen her. Heather’s manner was polite but continued to verge on the fringe of panic. Ty empathized but was certain Gretchen would pop up at any moment. This happened at least once a week during the summer. The missing kids were always in a bathroom stall, playing a video game, or had slipped back to the car when their parents weren’t looking. Ty had witnessed quite a few spankings from embarrassed and relieved parents intent on teaching their children a lesson about running off without permission.

  Heather rushed back to Tyler’s side. “I don’t see her!” There were tears in her eyes this time. “There’s so many kids around here that no one’s sure if they’ve seen her or not. All these kids are wearing blue shirts.”

  Ty nodded thoughtfully. She was right. The softball team had on blue shirts. Their supporters and siblings were wearing matching blue t-shirts. It was a sea of blue everywhere you looked. A ten-year-old girl in a blue shirt was not going to stick out at all in this crowd.

  He raised his radio. “Has Gretchen shown up at the register yet?”

  “Not yet,” replied the manager. “We’re on the lookout. I just sent someone around to check the bathrooms.”

  Ty was beginning to get concerned. Usually it didn’t take this long. Most of the time the announcement over the intercom was all it took for the kid to come running. Gretchen had probably been missing for about five minutes at this point.

  "Heather, lock your car so nobody steals your stuff. Does your daughter have a phone?”

  Heather indicated the child didn’t. Regardless of Ty’s opinion on whether a ten-year-old needed a cell phone or not, it certainly would have made things easier if she had one. They could call her and, if worse came to worst, use it to track her location.

  “Okay, then I want you to get your phone and text me a picture of Gretchen.”

  They walked to Heather’s car and Ty gave her his number. When he had the picture, he instructed Heather to go wait by the cash register while he made another pass of the parking lot. He wanted to show the picture around and see if it jarred anyone’s memory since the description of her appearance was so vague.

  "Fuck that," Heather spat. "I'm looking for my daughter." With that she tore off, peering inside every car she passed. She made a tearful appeal to people along the way, showing them the picture she’d just sent Ty. “Have you seen my daughter?”

  So much for being on the verge of panic. She’d crossed over to full-blown terror. Ty radioed in to the manager again. “She show up?”

  “Not yet. Usually it doesn’t take this long. We’ve checked the bathrooms, the shower facilities, and even the stock room.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and call the police. It shouldn’t take this long. A little girl would have responded to the intercom and there’s nowhere here you can’t hear it.” Ty was concerned something else might be going on but he didn’t want to guess what. None of the options were anything he wanted to put into words.

  “Are you sure?” the manager asked. “Maybe we should give it a little longer.”

  “No, this feels wrong,” Ty said. “Call them now.”

  “Okay, but it’s on you.”

  He stared at his radio like he wanted to reach through it and throttle the manager. “I don’t care. Just do it! Also, announce that description I gave you and ask if anyone has seen her.”

  “I don’t know about that, Ty. It might scare the other customers,” the manager replied. “We don’t want to make them think something bad is going on.”

  “Something bad is going on. Do it or I will.”

  “Dude, I’m not sure if we’re supposed to do something like that. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “What if this was your kid?” Ty asked. “What would you want?”

  “Fine,” she replied.

  “Jesus,” Ty mumbled, shoving the radio in its pouch. What was it with people?

  Heather passed him again, shouting her daughter’s name as she rushed by. She must have made a full circuit of the store. The line of vehicles continued to exit the parking lot as more were coming in.

  Seeing Heather in such a state of panic made Ty realize that, despite his frequent anxiety, he felt nothing but focus at the moment. A calm had settled over him. It had to be his training kicking in. As it did, he understood he needed to control this scene. He needed to lock the Petro Panda down.

  His mind raced. He ran toward the diesel pumps and stepped in fro
nt of a semi headed toward the exit. Ty waved his arms to flag the driver down. When he rolled his window down, Ty jumped onto the running board. “Hey, I’ve got an emergency. I’ve got a missing kid and I need to shut this place down until we find her. Can you block the main entrance with your rig? I don’t want anyone going in or out.”

  The driver looked doubtful. “Buddy, I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  “It’s a fucking kid,” Ty barked. “Can you help or not?”

  Deciding Ty was not a man who took “no” very well, the driver waved his hand and nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. The main entrance?”

  “Yes,” Ty said, hopping down. “I’ll get someone else to block the truck entrance once you’ve pulled out.”

  The driver headed off to get his truck into position. Customers would not be happy about this. Ty rushed off and found a second driver willing to block the heavy truck entrance. Although no one wanted to be delayed this was an emergency. People would have to show a little understanding. Just as Ty got every entrance secured, his radio crackled.

  “Ty, I need you to get out front,” the manager said. “There’s a truck stuck across the entrance. People can’t get in or out.”

  Ty whipped out his own radio. “He’s not stuck. I put him there. He’s blocking it until the police get here.”

  The manager grew irate. “You can’t do that! I’m pretty sure it’s against policy and probably against the law. You can’t just hold people prisoner against their will. You’re not a cop!”

  Ty ran back toward the store. He hadn’t heard the manager broadcast the description of Gretchen over the intercom like he’d asked. He was starting to get pissed at the lack of cooperation. He also needed to make an announcement about the reason for the blocked entrances to quell any panic. He pushed through the glass doors on the back side of the truck stop and found a crowd of angry people demanding answers. They were surrounding the cash registers and the manager, an overweight woman with curly 1980s hair, looked scared. She caught Ty’s eye as he burst through the door and her fear turned to anger. Her look made it clear this was all his fault.