Blacktop Wasteland

by S. A. Cosby

  Beauregard pressed send.

  The explosion didn’t look like a mushroom cloud, but it was still impressive nonetheless. One minute the van was there, the next it was an exponentially expanding ball of fire. Despite the van being a good eighty feet away, the concussive force hit Beauregard like a sledgehammer. His ear popped so hard he thought he might have ruptured his eardrums. He saw the van explode a split second before he heard it. The shotgun was knocked from his hands as he landed on his ass. Luckily it didn’t discharge. The world was a twisting piñata that made him nauseous. He closed his eyes and tried to find his equilibrium. Transitioning from his behind to his hands and knees, he heard the sounds of suffering over the roaring of the fire.

  They weren’t dead. They might be fucked up, but they weren’t dead.

  An overabundance of saliva was filling his mouth, but he didn’t throw up. He took a deep breath and pushed himself off the ground. He shielded his eyes with his hand as he peered through the fire. The back window of the Caddy was gone. The lid of the trunk was bouncing up and down like a stripper on the pole. The bumper was missing in action. It was a testament to American engineering that the car was still moving. It paused for a moment as the driver’s door opened and a body was pushed out onto the ground. The door closed and seconds later Beauregard watched as the back wheels kicked up clods of dirt and dead grass as the Caddy sped down Crab Thicket Road.

  “Shit,” he mumbled. For his first foray into bomb building, the complete annihilation of the van was impressive. However, the van was only half the equation. He’d intended to get the Caddy too. Whatever his intentions had been didn’t matter now. He couldn’t let them get away.

  He scooped up the shotgun and headed to the barn. It sat in the middle of the heather and goldenrod like it had dropped out of the stratosphere. The paint on the doors had faded long ago. There was only the suggestion of crimson on their surface now. Beauregard wrenched the doors apart.

  The Duster sat in the shadows of the old barn like a dire wolf in the recesses of a cave. Beauregard tossed the shotgun in the passenger seat. He climbed in and fired up the engine. It roared to life, stirring up the decades of dust in the barn. The duals played a concerto as he shifted it into gear and burst out of the barn. He skirted around the remains of the van, rolled over the body in the grass and hit the blacktop doing 40 mph.

  * * *

  “Get us the fuck out of here!” Lazy screamed. Glass and blood littered the back seat. The lid of the trunk bounced up and down like the mouth of a huge puppet. The car swerved from one side of the road to the other but it never slowed down.

  “He can’t catch us!” Billy screamed back.

  Lazy took a look out what was left of the back window.

  The Duster was bearing down on them like 2,000 pounds of thunder and steel.

  * * *

  Beauregard closed in on the Caddy, a shark zeroing in on a seal. He shifted into fourth. The front bumper of the Duster kissed the empty space where the bumper used to reside. The Caddy lurched out of his reach. The Caddy’s one remaining tail light glowed like the eye of a demon as it braked for an upcoming hairpin curve. Beauregard crushed the brake and the clutch and drifted through the curve right behind the Caddy. As he drifted, he leaned to his left.

  The rear window of the Duster shattered. Shards of glass rained down on his back and shoulders. He held onto the steering wheel, but the Duster tried to get away from him. The rear end fishtailed like it was salsa dancing. Beauregard downshifted, regained control, then hit the gas again. He gave the rearview mirror a quick glance. There was a baby blue Mazda chasing him. A man was leaning out the passenger window with a pistol. The three-vehicle car chase turned onto Route 603. An eight-mile straight stretch that bisected Red Hill County. The man in the blue car fired at the Duster again. The passenger-side mirror disappeared.

  Beauregard slammed the clutch, hit the brake and shifted into reverse. He then immediately released the clutch, hit the brake again with his left foot, and floored the gas pedal with his right while twisting the steering wheel to the left. All this fancy footwork resulted in the Duster spinning 180 degrees. He was now going backwards at 50 miles per hour facing the Mazda. The driver of the Mazda hit his brakes as he braced for an imminent collision. The passenger was thrown forward, then he fell backwards.

  Beauregard grabbed the shotgun with his right hand, transferred it to his left, and wedged the barrels between the side mirror and the door frame. He adjusted his aim to the left and fired both barrels at the blue car. The recoil made the gun jump from his hand. It fell out the window and clattered onto the road.

  He’d aimed for the driver, but his shot had gone low and punched a hole in the grill. Steam began to billow from beneath the hood. Moments later the hood popped up like a jack in the box. Beauregard repeated his previous machinations and spun the Duster another 180 degrees. As he was completing his revolution, a trash truck blew past him in the opposite lane, nearly clipping the front of his car. The trash truck swerved to its right just as the blue car drifted into its lane.

  Beauregard barely heard the crash in the rapidly receding distance. The ringing in his ears was relentless. He shifted into fifth gear. The Duster’s tires clawed at the asphalt. He pulled into the passing lane and pulled alongside the Caddy. He caught a brief glance of Burning Man’s ruined face before a minivan forced him to slow down and drift back into the northbound lane. Burning Man’s reflexes must have been dulled by the explosion. He fired his gun out the window of the Caddy, missing the Duster entirely and shattering the window of the minivan. The van ran off the side of the road and into the ditch. The landscape changed from dense undeveloped woodlands to wide open fields. Beauregard shifted back up into fifth. He pulled alongside the rear quarter panel. He swung the Duster into the Caddy at over 90 mph.

  Billy saw him coming in the rearview mirror. When the Duster slammed into them, it felt as inevitable as the setting of the sun.

  That motherfucker sure can drive, he thought.

  Beauregard watched as the Caddy fishtailed across the highway. Burning Man tried to maintain but he wasn’t a wheelman. He overcorrected, and the Caddy ran off the road, hit the ditch and somersaulted through the air. The Caddy crashed into a fence surrounding a pasture. It rolled a few more times, sending a few cows scampering for cover. It came to rest upside down with the wheels still spinning. Oil and gas were pouring from the hood and spilling across the ground. Beauregard skidded to a stop, backed up and drove down the service driveway next to the pasture. He guided the Duster through the ruined fence.

  He stopped a few feet away from the Caddy. He didn’t shut it off, just put it in neutral and hit the parking brake. He pulled his .45 from the glove compartment and got out of the car. The cloying scent of engine coolant mixed with the raw, mean aroma that surrounded bovines in the middle of summer. Beauregard trained his .45 on the upside-down driver’s door. He took quick shallow breaths as he inched his way to the door. A tanned arm stretched out the window. The hand was lying on top of a cow patty. Beauregard kicked the arm. The rest of the body slipped out of the driver’s seat and collapsed in a loose tangle of limbs against the headliner. Burning Man was extinguished.

  Beauregard moved to the back seat.

  A fusillade of bullets ripped through the rear door. Beauregard felt two sharp scorching pains to his forearm and the lower section of his thigh. It felt like someone had hit him with an incredibly hard, incredibly tiny hammer. A red-hot hammer that burned him to his bones. He stumbled and fell to the ground. He landed on his side. His head and neck were slathered in cow shit. Where was his gun? He must have dropped it. The rear door started to creak open. Beauregard pushed himself off the ground and dragged himself back to the Duster.

  Lazy fell out of the back seat. His left arm was twisted like a bread tie. He scrambled to his feet and leaned against the Caddy. He raised a Desert Eagle .380 and scanned the field.

  “Where you at, boy? You hiding behind that car? I got yo
u, I think. I heard you squeal, boy. Give me a minute, I’m coming to finish you off. I told you God himself couldn’t kill me, how the fuck you thought you was gonna do it?” Lazy screamed. He blinked his eyes. Lights were flashing around his head like fireworks. The .380 was so heavy in his hand. If he wasn’t leaning against the car, he felt he might topple over. His adrenaline was beginning to wear off. Pain gnawed at the edge of his perception. Racing up his arm and across his back. That was alright. He could handle pain. Just like he’d handled Beauregard.

  He heard the engine of the red car rev up like God screaming at Moses on Mount Sinai. His damaged ears felt like they were bleeding. He saw Bug pop up in the driver’s seat. Lazy brought his gun up and started pulling the trigger.

  Beauregard ducked down until his chin was on the steering wheel. One bullet punched a hole in his windshield and sailed over his head.

  Beauregard slammed the gas pedeal to the floor.

  The Duster plowed into Lazy, trapping him between its grill and the rear of the Caddy. The Caddy spun like a merry-go-round as the Duster rammed into it. Lazy disappeared under the front tires. Beauregard felt the car bounce once, then twice. He moved his foot off the gas. He pushed in the clutch, put the car in reverse and backed up. The car bounced once, then twice. Beauregard hit the brake and the Duster stalled.

  Beauregard fell back against the headrest. There was numbness in his right leg that was now spreading to his right side. His left forearm was missing a chunk of flesh the size of a quarter. Blood raced down his arm and entwined his fingers. There was a hole in the right leg of his jeans that was weeping red tears. He took a deep breath. The world seemed to be contracting and expanding at the same time. He closed his eyes. He let his hands run over the polished wood grain steering wheel. Along the leather seats. He caressed the 8-ball shifter.

  “You ready, Bug?”

  Beauregard rolled his head to the right. His father was sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing the exact same clothes he had been wearing the last time Beauregard saw him. White ribbed tank top under a short-sleeved black button-up shirt. A pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket. He grinned at him.

  “Come on, boy. You ready to fly?” his father asked.

  “You’re not real.”

  His father blanched. “Boy, what the hell you talking about? Shut up that fool mess and let’s go.”

  Beauregard turned his head and looked straight ahead. He heard sirens coming from the northern end of the county.

  “You’re not real. You’re dead. Probably been that way for a while now. I never stopped loving you, though,” he croaked. He closed his eyes again and started the Duster. When he put the car in gear, he opened his eyes and glanced toward his right. The passenger seat was empty. Pushing the gas pedal was agony, but he bore it. Beauregard drove across the pasture. A few cows stared at him as he passed. The Duster turned left onto a dirt lane at the back end of the field. The lane went from red clay to gravel. Beauregard got to the end and turned left onto a narrow blacktop back road. Soon the sirens were just faint horns playing a mournful tune to an audience of beasts.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Kia entered Darren’s room carrying a teddy bear with a GET WELL balloon tied to its arm. The machines that monitored his vitals beeped and hummed as she sat down in the chair near his bed. She placed the teddy bear next to his slight form and took his tiny hand in hers.

  “He’s gonna make it,” Beauregard said.

  Kia didn’t turn her head to look at him. She didn’t even acknowledge him. Beauregard was standing in the far corner of the room. The glare from the fluorescent light over Darren’s bed gave his son a ghostly countenance. He moved from the shadows and pulled up a chair to the opposite side of Darren’s bed. The steady pulse of the EKG was comforting to him. It meant his son’s heart was still beating. Seconds turned to minutes and neither of them made a sound.

  “You were right. I should have sold the car,” Beauregard said finally. Kia swallowed hard and wiped her eyes.

  “You ain’t never gonna sell that car,” she said.

  “You’re right. I told Boonie to crush it,” he said. Kia looked at him then.

  “What do you mean, ‘crush it’?”

  “I told him to get rid of it,” Beauregard said. Darren’s eyes were closed but his lids twitched. Quick spasmodic movements that teased Beauregard’s heart with the possibility of seeing his son open his eyes.

  “I don’t believe that,” Kia said.

  “You don’t have to. It’s getting done though. Probably happening right now,” Beauregard said.

  “Why would you do that to the Duster? You love that car,” Kia said. Beauregard interlaced his fingers and stared at the dull linoleum floor.

  “The men that came by the house, they won’t be coming back,” Beauregard said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Kia looked at him then. She made a noise that was halfway between a sob and a laugh.

  “So, you took care of it,” she said. Beauregard rose from the chair. He went to the window and stared out across the hospital parking lot. The setting sun was an orange beacon in the hazy sky.

  “A man can’t be two types of beast,” Beauregard said.

  “What the hell do that mean, Bug?” Kia asked. Beauregard let his head hang.

  “When my Daddy ran off, I felt like somebody had put my heart in a vise and kept tightening that motherfucker till they arm got tired. It ruined me. And my Mama, she couldn’t help because she felt like him leaving her was worse than him leaving us. I can’t say I blame her really. My Daddy was the kind of man who left a big hole behind. It was easy for her to fill that hole with hurt,” Beauregard said. He turned and faced Kia. She saw his eyes were rimmed in red.

  “I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t let myself hate him. So, I made him into my hero. I pretended that he wasn’t a gangsta or a drunk or a bad husband or a bad father. I got out and I fixed that Duster up. I’d ride around and I’d tell myself that even if he was all those things it didn’t matter because he loved me. But it does matter. It matters a lot. If your Daddy is the kind of man that can run people down with a car or shoot ’em in the face, it matters a whole hell of a lot. And there’s not enough love in the world to change that,” Beauregard said.

  “Bug, you ain’t your Daddy,” Kia said. Tears danced on the edges of her eyes.

  “You’re right. I’m worse. My Daddy never lied about who or what he was. He owned it. I was the one who put him on a pedestal. He never climbed up there. But me? I lied all the time. I lied to you. I lied to myself. I thought I could be an outlaw part of the time and the rest of the time be a daddy and a husband. That was the lie. Truth is I’m an outlaw all the time. I was playing at being a good man,” Beauregard said.

  “What am I supposed to do with that, Bug, huh? You want to me to make you feel better? Tell you never mind what’s happened, you are a good father and a good husband? Because I can’t do that,” Kia said. She squeezed Darren’s hand. Beauregard moved to Darren’s bedside and touched his other hand.

  “No. No more lies. All I gotta do is look around and see what kind of man I really am. Ariel is dating some fucked-up gangster wannabe. Javon had to kill a man on his own front step. Darren laying here fighting for his life. You’ve had to watch it all go down. Kelvin is…” Beauregard’s voice cracked.

  “What about Kelvin?” Kia asked. Beauregard didn’t answer.

  “I can’t keep doing this to y’all,” he said. He walked over to Kia’s chair and put his hands on the backrest. He watched the muscles in her back roil under her shirt. He could feel her body stiffen even though he wasn’t touching her.

  “Boonie’s sitting on ten rolls of platinum for you. He gonna sell them and split it between you and Ariel. He gonna take over the note on the garage too. When I get settled I’ll send you some more money,” Beauregard said.

  He moved to the door. His hand had fallen on the handle when he heard Kia�
��s voice.

  “So, you just running, is that it?”

  Beauregard stopped in his tracks. The handle in his hand felt as heavy as a bag of bricks. He licked his lips. He spoke to her without turning around.

  “You told me to go.”

  “I know what I said. You ain’t gotta tell me what I said.”

  “What do you want from me, then? Tell me what you want, Kia.”

  “It ain’t just about me or you, Bug,” Kia said.

  Beauregard laid his head against the door. Its polished wood surface was cool against his skin. He turned the handle a quarter inch. The door opened a crack.

  “I know you telling yourself what you doing is for the best, but is it? Or are you just taking the easy way out?” Kia asked.

  “You think this is easy for me? You think walking away from you and the boys is easy for me?” Beauregard asked.

  “Look, I can’t make no promises about you and me. But if you stopped doing gangsta shit I’d never keep you from the boys. You walk out that door and I won’t have to. They’ll hate you all on their own. I can promise you that,” Kia said.

  “I can live with them hating me if I know they’re safe. If they around me they won’t be,” Beauregard said.

  “You really believe that? Then do what your Daddy couldn’t. Stay. Change,” Kia said. Beauregard opened the door. The hallway was full of doctors and nurses hovering around all kinds of equipment. A few patients tethered to IVs were moving past the staff like forlorn zombies.

  “I love you, Kia,” Beauregard said. He stepped out into the hallway.

  “Bug!” Kia shouted. He whirled around, afraid something had happened to Darren. Kia was standing near the bed with her arms crossed across her chest.

  “If you’re gonna go … do you have to go right now? Like, right this minute? Jean’s bringing Javon up here in a little while. They let him go. I don’t think they gonna charge him. He’s been asking for you,” she said. Beauregard stepped back into the room. Kia stared at him hard. Her eyes shined with a light born of fury and despair. He didn’t know what to say. He waited for his father’s voice to share some pithy words of wisdom but that wraith no longer spoke to him. He was on his own.