Desperation Road(7)
“It’s off already. Like you told me.”
“Then come on.”
She scooted across toward the open door, her skin sticking to the seat. He got out from behind the wheel and led her around to the front of the cruiser. She sat down on the hood and it was hot on her bare ass and she hopped up. She asked if she could get her shirt to sit on and he said okay and he turned and looked up the road and waited on their headlights. She noticed him looking away and she leaned across the front seat and unlatched the pistol from the belt and when he turned around she was standing there. Her naked body illuminated in the orange glow of the parking lights. Pointing his pistol at him.
“You gotta be kidding me,” he said and he was getting ready to laugh again but he didn’t have the chance as she blew a hole in his throat. He went to his knees and she walked around to him and he squeezed his throat with both hands and the blood flowed black in the strange light and he lunged for her and she stepped back and he fell facedown. He rolled over, clutching at his throat. Tried to get back to his knees and she shot him twice more and he fell flat and still.
She lowered the pistol and then dropped the pistol and put her suddenly shaking hands on top of her head but she didn’t have time for that so she grabbed her clothes and shoes from the backseat and hurried to get dressed, starting to cry in heaves but she stopped herself. You can’t start that now and she went back to the front of the cruiser and he hadn’t moved and wasn’t going to and she picked up the pistol. His phone rang in the cruiser and she knew it was them and she looked into the backseat once more to see if there was anything of hers and then she started running down the road. Away from the cruiser she could hardly see her next step but it didn’t slow her and she ran to the end of the road and she hoped she was turning the right way and she kept running as hard as she could run.
A curve lay ahead and she noticed the headlights shining from around the bend and she dived off the side of the road into the high grass, lying flat and wishing she could lie flatter. The car passed without noticing and she waited until the taillights were specks and then she began running again. She didn’t know how far she had to go but she knew it was far. Her legs burned, the muscles already tired from walking in the heat for three days. But she ignored the pain and pushed and pushed. She ran with flailing arms and legs and she gasped for breath as the fear rose and came out of her in stuttered cries. Sweating and gasping and switching the pistol from hand to hand as if expecting one of them to know what to do with it. Her knee rose and knocked it from her grasp and the pistol bounced away in the dark. She screamed shit motherfucker and then dropped to her hands and knees. Feeling for it in the roadside gravel and calling out to it and then begging God to show it to her. The dust stirred and the rocks shuffled from her hurried hands and then she found it and she was up and running again. It was then that she heard the sirens.
She ran on until she could see the lights from the truck stop and as she ran closer she tried to think if anyone had seen her in the parking lot. If anyone had seen her get in the car with the deputy. He hadn’t called it in. Hadn’t talked to anyone when he picked her up. Had only used his phone to call his buddies to tell them to come on out and have at her. The first siren was joined by more sirens and she imagined the lights flashing around the dead man because she had seen them before. She imagined his open and dead eyes and the blood draining into the bends of the rough road and the crimson streams that the men in uniform would be careful to step around. The body slumped and folded as if it did not have bones and the open sky that gave no answers.
She stopped when she reached the edge of the truck stop parking lot. She didn’t know how long she had been gone. All she knew was that she had made it back and that no one had seen her on the road. She paused before she walked into the lot. Fought to catch her breath and then she stuck the pistol in the back of her pants and tugged her shirt down over it. She stopped at the end of the motel rooms and leaned against the brick wall. Looked for anyone moving around. Looked for anyone in the café staring out the window. Across the lot a man stood at the front of his rig smoking a cigarette. When he was done he walked over to the café and went inside and she watched him sit down at a bar stool with his back to the window.
She waited until the man with glasses on his nose came over and handed him a menu and when the man walked away and into the kitchen Maben crossed hurriedly in front of the motel rooms. Room key in her hand. And when she got to number 6 she found Annalee standing in the window. Her eyes red and her hair tousled as if she had been trying to pull it out with her small hands. Maben unlocked the door and didn’t speak but only knelt and hugged the child who was sweating and panting and crazyeyed. As she hugged her, out the window Maben saw the black girl and the white girl across the way. Standing next to the garbage bin behind the café and counting their money.
7
IN THE SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI SWAMP YOU CAN WATCH THE WORLD awaken as the pale yellow sun edges itself between the trees and moss and widewinged cranes. Dragonflies buzz and raccoons come out of their dens and crawl along fallen trees. Turtles situate themselves onto stumps that will later become sunsoaked and hidden things slide beneath black water with murderous patience and skill. Limbs too old to hold themselves up any longer bend and break like old men accepting their marshy graves. Reptiles slither and blackbirds cry as the early light slashes and relieves the deep and quiet night.