Where the hell do I go?
“Where am I going?” the woman asked without looking away from the road. It sounded as if there was a roach in her throat and she was trying to talk around it. “I saw your buddies leaving without you. They sure were in a hurry, weren’t they? Where should I drop you off?”
“You ain’t dropping me off anywhere.”
The woman’s jaw tightened, though her eyes twitched at the corners. She was going to try to be brave, in control. What a foolish, ridiculous female! “Then what…?” the woman began.
Tony slammed the gun into the woman’s ear; her head snapped to the side and she grabbed her face, groaning in surprise. The car swerved madly on the ice.
“Drive!” yelled Tony.
The woman took the steering wheel with her left hand, holding her ear with her right.
“Now you know what ‘right’ is, don’t you?” said Tony.
The woman gasped, heaved, and looked like she was going to pass out.
“Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Her voice was tiny.
On the radio, some oldies shit that Tony’s mother sometimes listened to. Something about everybody smiling on their brother. Tony pounded the power switch with her fist. The song died in the air.
“Turn right on Route 35 before you get to Courtland.”
The woman licked her lips. She flinched as if the jaw on the right side of her head had cracked. She swallowed noisily. “Where are we going?” she managed.
“Don’t ask,” said Tony.
I have no idea, maybe to the ocean, let’s go to the ocean and catch a boat to China, my little nitty sister is probably there already, she was digging in the sinkhole, we all can go to China and make fireworks!
The woman’s jaw was working slightly; she was trying to think of what to say next. Tony rubbed her nose with her free hand and a smear of lipstick came away with it. She thought of the blood on the gasoline man’s shirt, of the blood on his crucified hand.
They came up behind an empty flatbed truck bearing the obligatory orange triangle in the rear.
“Pass it,” said Tony.
“All right,” said the woman.
The car pulled around the truck. As they came even with the driver of the truck, Tony said, “Don’t even move funny when he looks over here or I’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”
The woman’s gaze flickered in Tony’s direction, then back to the road. Tony lowered the gun to the woman’s waist and noticed her own hand shaking. She took the gun in both hands to steady it. Her head itched, her neck itched, her stomach reeled against the waistband of Granddad’s trousers. In the back of her throat, a stinging like needles.
They eased over in front of the truck. The woman looked up at the rearview as if she could blink the truck driver a warning, a plea.
The stinging in Tony’s throat, flaming hot. Her stomach pitching madly. Sweat breaking out on her lip, her arms, the bridge of her nose. She took long breaths through her teeth.
“Drive faster,” Tony said. She rolled down the window. The freezing air caught her hat and blew it into the back seat. She gulped icy breaths.
There were no bullets in that gun, and now we’ve got some asshole murdered.
“It’s slick on the road,” said the woman. “If I drive any faster we might slide off the road.”
Tony counted her breaths. There were stars swimming just behind her eyeballs. Shut up, bitch.
“Could you please close the window? The windshield is fogging up.”
Shut up, bitch!
It rushed forward, the smell of smoke, the taste of blood, the sight of the fat crabby hand blown apart, and Tony leaned over and heaved it out on a loaf of crush Sunbeam bread on the passenger’s side floor.
19
The moment the girl leaned over and vomited on the floor, Kate thought, I can get the gun! I can knock it away and grab it!
The girl held her stomach with her left hand and kept the gun pointed across her chest with her right.
Snatch it!
Kate saw herself shoving at the gun with the palm of her hand, and letting go of the steering wheel to take hold of it as it hovered for a second, pointing at the radio. She saw the gun in her own hand, turning around to aim at the girl then forcing her out of the car.
Good-bye! Run, girl, run!
The jagged pain in her head made the world wobble; the smell of fresh vomit made her stomach turn and constrict.
God help me!
Kate shoved at the gun. The girl sat up abruptly, face spattered in puke, and grabbed the handle with both hands, swinging it back around and shoving the barrel against Kate’s cheekbone.
“Don’t hit me again!” Kate cried. “Please!” Her molar, loosened from the first blow, creaked in the socket and flared hot in her head.
“Get the hell off this road, bitch!”
There were no roads on which to turn, just another stretch of pine. Kate looked at the girl and then the road, afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid of more pain. No more pain, please!
“There! Go through the trees!”
Kate steered to the graveled shoulder, then down a slight embankment and up again. She had read that if a kidnapper gets you in the car you are in serious trouble. If the kidnapper gets you into a private place, you are as good as dead. The guy on Oprah had said that. He knew the statistics. He had been a police officer. He’d seen dead women in the woods.
Kate’s jaw chattered furiously. Her calves twitched.
“Get in there!”
Kate glanced at her door. If she popped the handle and rolled out she could run. The girl would have to get out her side and run around the car.
But she had the gun. She said she would kill her.
The guy on Oprah said if you run in a back-and-forth pattern you are less likely to be shot and killed, just maybe shot and wounded.
But the girl had the gun.
Kate’s legs were so weak she could barely press the gas. She steered the Volvo through the rash of pine trees. Branches scraped the sides as if trying to open the doors themselves. The underside of the car thwapped over ruts and downed limbs. The world grew darker as the trees grew denser and taller.
Let her have the car, that’s it, just give her the car!
But Mistie’s in the back seat. What would she do to Mistie?
Oh my God this is wrong this is not what is supposed to happen. I was doing the right thing for the first time in years and what are You doing to me, God?
A sharp, pointed branch drove itself into the front windshield, cracking it like a hammer. Kate stifled a cry. She yanked the wheel to the left and the branch gouged the passenger’s side window with a banshee’s wail.
“Stop here!” said the girl.
Kate let up on the gas. The car rolled a few more feet and then settled at a tilt in a soft patch of humus. A startled pair of cardinals took to the air in a blur of red. Kate touched her molar with her tongue. It wobbled. It tasted raw and bitter.
Slowly, Kate unlocked her fingers from around the steering wheel. She was a teacher, damn it all. This was a child to her right. A child. A little girl who was likely as scared as Kate was. This was not out of control, not yet. There was time now to set this right.
I’m a teacher. I can do this.