“So, where are we headed?” She puts her bare feet up on the dashboard in front of her and blinks groggily.
“Philadelphia.”
“Yeah? Good. That’s where I came from.”
“Originally?”
“Naah,” she snorts, finding the question funny. “Originally I’m from a little hovel outside of Pittsburgh that you’ve never heard of. Recently, I’m from Philly.”
“That’s where you . . . work?”
She snorts again, not at all self-conscious about the way it makes her sound like a sow. “Yeah, work. Working girl.” She pauses thoughtfully, and then, as though she’s struggling with the weight of her question, “What do you think about that?”
“About what you do?”
“Yeah. I’m curious. You seem like a normal dude.
What’s a normal dude think about a working girl?”
“I think it can’t be too good of a way to make a living.”
“You got that right, buddy. You certainly got that right.”
“So, why do it, then?”
“I don’t know. I can tell you one thing, I’m rarely lucid enough to sit and think about it. You got any liquor in here?” She tries to swivel in her seat to look in the back, but when she reaches for my duffel, I grab her with my free hand and spin her around hard.
“Owww. Shit, man! I’m just looking to see if you got anything to drink!”
“I don’t.”
“Well you don’t have to be a cocksucker about it.” She’s showing me the same mouth that can use words like “hovel” and “lucid” can spew vitriol as well. And she’s testing the envelope to see how far she can push it. Was the way I spun her around portentous of a beating to come? Did she get a rise out of me with the severity of the way she pronounced “cocksucker,” the way she paused right before the word, collecting her breath and then pounding that first syllable like she hit it with a hammer?
After two minutes, she gives up. “I was just looking to see if you had something to drink.”
“I don’t.”
She decides to get off the subject. “You like music?” “I like silence.”
This seems to do the trick, and for a few minutes more, the only sound in the car is her nasal breathing, in and out, in and out, like wind through a cracked window.
“I need to pee,” she says suddenly, nodding at the approaching exit where a Texaco sign pokes just above the tree line.
I throw up my blinker and guide the car toward the exit. As we approach, I can’t help but notice a farm road running directly behind the service station, leading off into obscurity. Maybe I can get away with it, with a little extra time. If I can find some soft earth, I can dig a little hole to hide her body, and it’ll be months, maybe years before anyone finds the remains. But it’s broad daylight and I don’t know this road and any dumb farmer could happen along at just the right time.
By the time I’ve rejected the temptation, she’s opened the door. I watch her ask the attendant where the rest-rooms are and he hands her a giant block of wood with a key attached and points around to the back of the building. I watch him watch her all the way out the door, and when he catches me observing him, he quickly looks back down at the binder he had splayed on the counter.
What am I doing here? I should just gun the car and forget I ever saw this girl, but for some reason, I’m paralyzed. What is it about those teeth and that mouth? What do I see in them?
I turn off the ignition and head into the convenience store portion of the station where the clerk gives me a once-over and shuffles his binder down below the counter. I move to the drinks stacked like bricks up to the ceiling in the back of the store and withdraw a six-pack of Budweiser. For someone whose every move is performed to draw the least amount of attention—domestic over import in rural Pennsylvania—I realize I’ve already attracted notice just by parking the car and having this girl ask for the bathroom key. The clerk’s once-over wasn’t because he was worried I’d shoplift something from the store; he wanted to know what kind of man would pick up a girl like that. And he is going to remember who it was and what the man looked like when and if he is asked.
This is how it happens. In the game I play, you cannot give in to temptation, even if temptation is merely to hold a conversation with someone, to connect with another human being on a superficial level. And once you give in to temptation, even if you only do it one time, then the dominos start to topple until the entire floor is covered with a dark blanket.
I pay for the beer and the clerk only grunts at me without meeting my eyes when he hands over the change. Maybe this isn’t so bad. I’ve done a thoughtful thing for this girl, and the clerk is back looking at his binder before I even leave the store. Maybe I can pull this off, talk to this girl, gain some insight into her world and what she imagined she would be doing with her life. Find out where her life took the left turn instead of the right, where she missed the exit and eventually got lost and discovered that her map was terribly inaccurate. Maybe I can learn about someone for once, someone whose life had been like my mother’s, with no hidden motives.
In the car, I slide back behind the wheel and put the six-pack on the seat so the girl will see it when she returns. It’s as simple as that, buying her breakfast, giving her this six-pack of beer, and that smile will come to her lips again, and she will lean back in her seat, and she will be warm and rosy, and she won’t have to say things like cocksucker and pee and we can have a normal conversation like normal people.
A moment exists in time—a flash of a moment—right before you realize how fucked you are. You can’t explain it scientifically, but a shiver settles on the back of your neck as though someone placed an ice cube there. The fine hairs on your neck stand erect like they’ve been jolted with electricity. A rush of heat flashes through your body and your muscles all contract in unison. This happens instantaneously, when your mind hasn’t quite caught up to your body’s impulse. It is what I felt when I happened to glance in the back seat.
My duffel. She had reached for my duffel and I had immediately seized her arm and jerked her around hard. Therefore, there must be something valuable in the duffel. She must have taken it while I was in the store.
I bolt from the car and around to the bathroom, knowing instinctively the clerk’s eyes are riveted on me. Nothing. Just a key stuck in the open door of a filthy bathroom and no trace of the girl or my bag. Behind the Texaco, a thick growth of trees, a country road leading to oblivion, and no sign of the fucking girl. Pandora has climbed out of her box.
My breath escapes quickly, four quick bursts, and then I’m off into the woods. I don’t even know what goddamn name to call her, to call out, so I just stay quiet, a determined expression now blanching my face. I have to improvise, to hunt her quickly. How long will the clerk look at that rental car parked in front of the store before he calls the police with a declaration that something a little strange is going on down at the Texaco? He saw the girl. He saw me. He saw her go around to the back and then he saw me spring from the car after her. Had I even shut the door of the car? I’m not sure. Son-of-a-bitch, how had I let this get so out of hand?
I have five minutes, maybe ten to find her before the clerk ventures out to see if we’re in the bathroom together. After that, who knows? Another five minutes to call the police? I’m fucked. That’s all there is to it.
Trees everywhere, and then, a clearing, and I catch a glimpse of her just as she crosses into the growth about a tenth of a mile from where I stand. She caught sight of me, too, and I spot a panic in her face usually reserved for wild prey. Maybe she’s seen what’s in the bag and she’s spooked. But she hasn’t dropped the duffel either; I can see its yellow flash caught against her dark skirt.
I close the distance in no time. She’s skittish, and she makes a mistake, turns and trips over a dead oak stump. Her hands go up as my footsteps crunch through the dead leaves, on her back, arms bent, scrambling, scratching the air, trying to get me off before I’m even there.
And then my foot comes down on her neck, twisting her face into the dirt so that those pretty teeth are smeared with earth.
“No, mister. Please. I don’t want it. I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
Fighting with everything she has, every inch of strength she can muster, her arms wailing at my shin, beating my pants leg, her eyes desperate with fear.
And then I step down harder until I hear the bones in her neck crack like wood.
