Damaged

by Amy Reed

  Hunter’s cleaned up and looks close enough to healthy. He sucks on a Styrofoam cup of coffee as I approach, eyeing me through his sunglasses. I stand before them, waiting for an introduction. The guy looks at me with a dopey grin, then at Hunter, shifting from foot to foot as if it’s impossible for him to stand still. Hunter says nothing. He’s enjoying watching me squirm. He enjoys knowing something I don’t.

  The guy finally thrusts out his hand and says with a high, squeaky voice, “Hi, I’m Terry. Pleased to meet you.”

  I reach my hand out tentatively to meet his; he grabs it and shakes way too enthusiastically.

  “There’s nothing more important than a firm handshake,” he says. “Especially if you’re a man. Especially if you’re kind of a sissy like me.” He blows a thin wisp of black hair from his eyes and cocks his head to the side. “It’s essential if you want to be taken seriously. Do you take me seriously?” His thick glasses magnify his eyes so they look like they’re bulging out of his face, giving him an owl-like appearance. The scarf around his neck is hideous, old, and poorly made with a hodgepodge of unmatching yarn fragments. His clothes are dirty with the road.

  I look at Hunter for an explanation. With a blank face, he says, “This is Terry. He’s coming with us.”

  I am speechless.

  “I found your pal Hunter by the vending machines,” Terry says cheerfully. “He appeared to be having a rather hostile and spirited discussion with a small black electronic device. Something told me I should talk to him. Do you believe in fate? I do. I think we’re meant to be great friends, you and me.”

  “Let’s go,” Hunter says, moving to get into the driver’s seat, as if the matter’s already settled, as if this is not one of the stupidest and craziest things he’s ever done.

  “Shotgun!” Terry squeals, clapping his hands.

  “Wait a minute!” I finally manage to say. Terry is already in the front seat, fastening his seat belt, pushing buttons, opening and closing the glove compartment like a hyperactive kid. “Hunter, what is this?” I say. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He lifts his sunglasses from his eyes and stares me down defiantly. “My friend Terry here needs a ride. We’re giving him a ride.”

  “Are you crazy? This guy? A fucking hitchhiker you met at a rest stop?”

  Hunter shrugs.

  “Don’t I get a say in the matter? Were you going to consult me?”

  “He’s going to chip in some cash.”

  “I’m rich!” Terry exclaims from inside the car.

  “Since when do you need Terry to chip in some cash?”

  “Yeah, about that,” Hunter says, scratching his nose. “I just got off the phone with His Majesty. He canceled my credit card.”

  For a few moments, I can only stare at him. “What does this mean?” I finally say. “Don’t you have any cash? A debit card?”

  “I have a little money in a checking account he can’t touch,” Hunter says. “But that has to last me until I get settled in San Francisco. It’s an expensive city, you know. More expensive than New York, some say.”

  Why is he being so calm about this? “But we don’t even know this guy. He could be an ax murderer.” We simultaneously turn our heads to watch Terry tying his mop of black hair into a bun, trying out several pursed-lip poses in the rearview mirror as if for a photo shoot.

  “I really doubt that,” Hunter says. “I think he’d have a hard time even lifting an ax, never mind swinging it hard enough to hurt us.”

  “No,” I say. “Hunter, this is ridiculous. You can’t do this.”

  He opens the driver’s side door and sits down. “Well, guess what? This is my car. And I want to do it. And quite frankly, I’m looking forward to having some company besides you.”

  I’m too mad for that to even hurt.

  “You can stay here if you want,” he says. “Catch a ride with a nice trucker.”

  “I would not recommend that,” Terry yells from the front seat. “I’m a recent escapee from a truck driver. He was not a polite man. All hands. And I’m not nearly as pretty as you are.”

  Hunter turns the car on. Terry keeps babbling, “Which way are we going? Staying on the eighty? Going to Wyoming? Are we going to meet cowboys? I love cowboys!” I can’t believe Hunter would rather spend hours in a car with this person instead of me.

  Hunter pulls his door shut and the car starts moving. I run after it and pound on the side until he stops. I get in the back and slam the door, and Hunter starts driving again.

  “Road trip!” Terry squeals.

  “One more thing,” Hunter says, merging onto the freeway. “We’re taking a detour to South Dakota.”

  “What? No. That’s going backward. That’s not the plan.”

  “Change of plans.” Hunter drifts into the left lane and starts driving fast, too fast.

  “We didn’t talk about this. You can’t just decide that.”

  “My car. My decision. What do you think, Terry?”

  “South Dakota! I bet there’s cowboys in South Dakota. There were some in Nebraska where I’m from, but they didn’t like me very much.”

  “See, Terry’s on board.”

  “Just tell me why.”

  Hunter guns the engine and passes a car on the right. “If His Majesty canceled my credit card, it probably means he thought to look at how I’ve been using it, which means he can trace our whole trip along the eighty.”

  “So?”

  “So he can pretty easily figure out where we are if we stay on it.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Oh, did I forget to tell you that part? He reported the car as stolen. Got his friends in the police department to send out an APB or something. Or so he claims. He could totally be bluffing. But better not to take any chances.”

  “Ooh, we’re on the run!” Terry exclaims. “Like Bonnie and Clyde! And their sidekick Terry!”

  “Jesus, Hunter! Now we’re fugitives?”

  “Not you, just me.”

  “But I’m like an accessory or something.”

  Terry claps appreciatively. “You guys should have your own reality show.” He tears open a bag of Skittles and pops one in his mouth. “I would totally watch it like every week, even the commercials.”

  “I can’t believe this.” I lean back in the seat and close my eyes. I feel the beginning of a headache.

  “You’re free to leave any time,” Hunter reminds me. But what does that even mean? Where would I go? Back to Wellspring? How would I even get there? What choice do I have but to stay with these crazy people?

  “This is going to be such a fun trip, you guys,” Terry says, then reaches back and shoves his bag of candy in my face. “Skittle?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Tell me about yourself, Kinsey. What are your hopes and dreams? What are your biggest fears and regrets?”

  “Those are big questions, Terry,” Hunter says.

  “Small talk is for small people, Hunter. That’s what my granny used to say.”

  “She sounds like a wise woman.”

  “She was. Until her brain got all chewed up.” Terry buries his face in the bulky scarf, closes his eyes and mutters something, then comes back up for air. His big blue eyes bore into me. “Kinsey, why are you so sad?”

  “Who said I was sad?”

  “I got the sense that—”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I snap. “And I don’t want to talk about my hopes and dreams with you. I don’t want to talk to you at all. I don’t even know why you’re in this car.”

  Terry just blinks. Did I break through his crazy cheerfulness? Did that really shut him up?

  “I think you need some candy,” he finally says, presenting me with a bag of M&M’s. In that short time, he already inhaled the Skittles. “They’re kind of
melty, but you can stick your finger in and get a good scoop and lick it off. Here.”

  I swat his hand away harder than I mean to.

  “Ouch,” he says. Is his bottom lip trembling? Will I get that satisfaction?

  “Jesus, Kinsey,” Hunter says. “Stop being such a bitch. He’s just trying to be friendly.”

  “I don’t want to be his friend. I don’t need any friends.”

  “Everyone needs friends,” Terry says, bubbly once again. What is his problem? Why can’t he stay hurt like a normal person? “Friends are the most important—”

  “Terry, shut up!” Hunter and I say in unison.

  “Sorry,” he says, then makes a motion like zipping up his lips. Why is he so resilient? Can’t he feel pain? Why do I want to hurt him so much?

  “Kinsey, what is wrong with you?” Hunter says. “I think I like the sad you better than whoever this is.”

  “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? You’re the one who picked up some crazy hitchhiker at a rest stop.” I don’t care that Terry’s here. I don’t care about hurting his feelings. “What’s that about? What, I turned you down, so you like boys now?”

  “Whoa, Kinsey, you are fucking out of line.”

  “Can you please stop fighting?” Terry pleads, wrapping the hideous scarf tighter around his neck.

  “You’re upsetting the kid, dear,” Hunter snarls.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you, too.”

  “You must really mean a lot to each other if you have to fight so much,” Terry says, sticking his finger in his bag of melted chocolate. “Otherwise, why would you bother? Right?” He inspects his chocolate-covered finger. “You have a very passionate relationship.” He sticks the slimy thing in his mouth. “So that’s a positive way to look at things.” I can hear the fragments of candy coating crunching between his teeth. “You guys are great,” Terry says, grinning a rainbow-speckled, brown-toothed grin. “I’m having so much fun already, and we’ve only gone, like, six miles.”

  * * *

  Hunter drives in silence and I continue to sulk in the back­seat. Luckily, Terry fell asleep after finishing his fourth bag of candy, which is good for him because I think I might have really hurt him if he kept talking for much longer. With his silence, I feel a little less on edge. But I am slightly nauseous with Hunter’s fast driving, the vending machine breakfast, and the alternating waves of anger and sadness rushing through me.

  The monotony of Nebraska gives way to the grassy, flat nothingness of South Dakota and I realize I haven’t talked to my mother in several days. Never in my life did I think I would want to talk to her. But now, I’d settle for anything familiar. “Can I use your phone?” I ask Hunter when we stop at a gas station, breaking nearly three hours of silence.

  “Be quick,” he says. “We’re just stopping for gas.”

  I disconnect his phone from the stereo and switch it off airplane mode. It pings with new voice mails and text messages.

  I don’t know who I was expecting to find on the other end. Maybe the tired, sad Mom who told me she was proud of me. But that woman didn’t last long. She has already been replaced by her more familiar evil twin.

  “I hope you’re using protection,” is the first thing she says when I tell her it’s me.

  “No, Mom. It’s not like that.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Don’t try to pull your little prissy ­Puritan act. Watch, you’re going to end up getting knocked up too young just like me and ruin your life. Stupidest thing I ever did.”

  I try to ignore the blades tearing into my heart.

  “We’re in Wyoming,” I lie. “It’s pretty.”

  “Don’t bother coming back,” she says. “I won’t be here. I’m going to Italy.”

  “With who?”

  “Steve.”

  “Who’s Steve?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “I’ll leave your stuff in the house if you want it.”

  “When are you going to Italy?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Do you already have tickets?”

  “The mosquitoes are homicidal this summer. Fucking bastards.”

  “Mom, when are you leaving?”

  “God, I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “When?”

  “I’m never looking back.”

  “Mom, when?”

  “Jesus, you’re annoying. Like a mosquito going ‘buzz buzz buzz’ in my ear when I’m trying to sleep.”

  “I just want to know when you’re leaving.”

  “I swat and swat at you but you never go away.”

  Something small and round hits me in the shoulder. Terry is standing by the car with a new bag of candy. “I got snacks!” he says. He throws another piece and it hits me in the heart. Such a stupid little gesture, but he has no idea how much it hurts.

  “Mom?” I say, but the line is dead. She is not there. She hung up.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and walk to the car. My only choice right now is to be numb, to push this feeling down so deep I won’t feel it. I don’t know if I can survive anything else. My only choice is to just let go of any foolish hope I’m still hanging on to, any expectation that she could be someone different. This is the mother I have. This is the mother I will always have.

  “I’ll keep driving, but we’re switching at the next stop,” Hunter says as I walk toward the car. He does not know my heart is broken. He does not know I have finally accepted that I am an orphan, that I am truly on my own. When we get to San Francisco, I won’t even have him. We will part ways and I will be a lost country girl in a big city and no one will even know when it eats me alive.

  As we drive through the endless grasslands of South Dakota, I feel more and more disgusted with myself. Every thought that goes through my head is some version of “Poor me,” and I’m so sick of it, but I can’t stop the litany of self-pity. Hunter’s sitting next to me, yet he’s so far away, locked into his own prison of self-loathing. Terry’s in the backseat, looking out the window and dreaming his strange dreams. What a bunch of miserable, lonely creatures we are.

  * * *

  “Fuck!”

  I wake to the sound of Hunter cursing and kicking the car. We are on the side of the freeway. I have never been hotter in my entire life. I slip in my own sweat on the leather seats as I crawl to the door. I can’t get out of the car fast enough. But it’s even worse outside with the sun beating down on my skin.

  “I can see why these are called the Badlands,” Terry says. He has his scarf wrapped loosely around his head now, like some desert nomad.

  “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Hunter screams.

  “What? What happened?”

  “The air conditioner died,” he says. “It’s a hundred and seven degrees outside and the air conditioner just fucking died.”

  “Can you fix it?” I say, already feeling faint from the heat.

  “No, I can’t fix it. I’m not a mechanic. Are you? Terry, are you a mechanic?”

  “No, but I worked on a farm last summer. I know how to pick tomatoes really fast. ”

  “We have to get out of here,” I say. There’s nothing but brown-red rock as far as the eye can see. Nothing living except us. Not even a cactus. Not even dead grass. This could be hell. This is hell.

  “Hunter, we have to move. I’ll drive. We’ll roll the windows down. That’s all we can do. The sun will set soon and it’ll cool off. We can stop at the first town we get to.”

  “Wall!” Terry exclaims. How he manages to stay so enthusiastic in this heat is beyond me. “That’s the first town after the Badlands. That’s where Wall Drug is. America’s Favorite Roadside Attraction! Seventy-six thousand square feet of retail wonderland. They give you a free bumper sticker ev
en if you don’t buy anything. I looked it up.”

  I get in the driver’s seat and drive as fast as I can, but we keep getting stuck behind tourists going slow, taking pictures of the desolate scenery out of their rolled-up windows, comfortable inside with their AC blaring. Terry’s panting out the window like a dog and Hunter’s groaning in the backseat. We’re in purgatory. Our sins are getting sweated from us. Hell is driving through the Badlands in the middle of summer with a broken air conditioner, stuck behind slow vehicles, too weak to speak, too sick to protest Terry’s ongoing commentary. His voice adds to the surreal landscape, the unearthly heat, the smell of dust and creosote caking my nostrils.

  “Do you think there’s cowboys out here?” Terry says.

  “Do you see any cows, Terry?” Hunter says. “There’s no grass or water or cows or cowboys. There’s nothing. This whole place is dead.”

  “But I bet cowboys could survive out here. They’d know how. Cowboys can survive just about anywhere. They’re really quite versatile.”

  “Will you both please stop talking?” I say. “I have a really bad headache.”

  “You two sure are negative,” Terry says. “The negative vibes in the car are suffocating. I know a lot about vibes, which may surprise you since I’m from Hazeldon, Nebraska, population eight hundred and seventy-three, which is not really a hotbed of alternative thinking. But there was this girl at my school, Sadie, and she was from Seattle, like the city Seattle in Washington State, where grunge music and coffee were invented, and she lived on this farm outside of town—in Hazeldon, not Seattle—with all these people with long hair who taught me all about chakras and auras and stuff, and also how to pick tomatoes really fast, and that’s where I’m going, Seattle. Have you ever been there? Sadie says there’s a market where they throw fish at you.”

  Neither Hunter nor I answer. I am light-headed from the heat. I am too weak to even say something mean.

  “Hey, cheer up!” Terry says. “Your best friend may have just died but at least you still have each other.”