The Night is Long and Cold and Deep

by Terry M. West

  The downed vehicle crossed the center lanes. It would take forever to clear the debris. A fire truck drove the shoulder of the highway past Calvin. It was maneuvering slowly but steadily to the accident site.

  Calvin looked in his rearview and noticed the PT Cruiser sat behind him; it had all been for naught. Expecting an angry glance from the driver, Calvin saw an elderly woman in the PT Cruiser gripping at the steering wheel and staring toward the accident. The highway was suddenly a parking lot, meaning one hell of a mess lay mangled up ahead.

  Calvin glanced at his wristwatch. 11:42 PM

  "No, no, no," Calvin hissed, punctuating each word with a slap to the steering wheel. There was an exit for Route 63 before the rise in the Interstate 290. Calvin decided to try a roundabout way home. It took him several minutes and he had to force himself over the lanes as no one was giving him an inch. They complained with their horns and he waved them off, navigating to the exit that no one else was taking.

  He left the 290 and sputtered in his Lexus down the deserted feeder of Route 63. The vehicle was long overdue for a tune-up, and it hummed an odd melody. He would have to take it in to the garage and soon.

  He felt more at ease, now; like a Siamese fighting fish in solitary water. Calvin grimaced, and then clutched his empty, knotted stomach. He pictured beef hash, lumpy mashed potatoes and canned green beans sitting on a plate next to the microwave when he walked into his home. His stomach churned, not appreciating the vivid image one bit. His wife, Carol, was some catch, he thought, a sarcastic chuckle behind his lips.

  Most days, he was broken and unhappy. This day, he was those things and starving to death on top of it all. This travel of his gave him the opportunity to reflect on his life and the mistakes he had made, and he never failed to run through it all over and over again. He could have occupied this time with music or audio books. It could have been turned into a positive chore, with very little effort; just the twist of a knob. But there was no one else in his life to commiserate with, as he had no real friends. So he swam in it once more, the self-pity and condemnation in attendance. This was the show that played in his mind during every commute and he was its most passionate spectator and worst critic.

  Calvin’s mind drifted back to where his downfall had begun. He had met Carol at a local singles get together; it was something he had been reluctant to attend, but desperate times and all.

  Carol had stuck to Calvin as soon as he had entered the circus. It was one of those table hopping things where you had thirty second intervals to try and impress. They spent most of their seconds appraising the other attendees and having a good laugh at them. A dinner date came out of the evening, and soon they were an item. Before Calvin knew it, Carol’s pantyhose were hanging from his shower rod and his answering machine played a duo.

  Carol was much younger than him and still held onto a fair amount of her beauty. She was a little on the large side, but Calvin had always liked his women thick. Calvin had found the relationship to be a fine and causal arrangement. The two got along and the sex was fantastic. Carol wanted more from him, and being the pushover for pussy that he was, he had relented to her but only in little pieces at a time. He was still a man after all. Carol had to pull the relationship out of him, but she had done this merrily, shaping it to her liking as she went.

  Carol had appealed to him in very base ways, and he was ashamed that these carnal shenanigans worked on him. But seeing her standing in lingerie at the foot of his bed could prompt just about anything from him; be it a visit to her parents or an emasculating floral arrangement to the décor of his living room. His penis made deals on his behalf all of the time.

  This was okay, however, because Carol had spoken of partnership and team effort, before their marriage. They were both going to work at it. So he had walked the aisle with her. It made sense at the time. He wasn’t getting any younger and Carol loved him. He had never been one for commitment and responsibility to others, but this could work. Calvin had ignored every instinct inside that was against this union.

  The downside had never presented itself to him. It had looked like a no-brainer. He was a draftsman and she was an interior decorator. They were both ambitious and driven in their careers. The two would be able to squirrel away a lot of money and retire at a fairly young age. It was an advantageous deal all around; sex, better tax breaks and financial security. Carol couldn’t cook worth a shit, but every cloud had a shadow on it somewhere.

  And what was the first bomb that dearer than life Carol dropped, mere months after their nuptials?

  "You're going to be a father," she had exclaimed, with ritualistic glee. Job? Work? No, no, my friend. At 36 years-old, Carol was tap-dancing in miscarriage land as it was. She was told by her doctor to take it easy for the entire pregnancy, especially the first three months. And Calvin knew that Carol would never go back to a job once the baby was born. She would be a professional mommy. It was what she had always desired and she hadn’t told her husband until it was too late for him to lobby against it.

  Calvin shook his head in the darkness of his car; how could he have let it happen? He loved Carol, he supposed, in his own way. But, as fifty years of being single had proven, he fell in love like most people changed socks. Was Carol that special? Or was she a convenience that had decayed to a burden? Was she really the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with? Or was she a gambit born out of desperation? Now, there was a baby involved. After finding out that Carol was pregnant, he had scheduled a vasectomy that same afternoon. No more of that, he had thought, cursing the member that had always gotten him into more jams than it was worth.

  So at this point in the story he was married and a baby was on the way and he was petrified and angry and too old to be a father and things could not have gotten much worse, in his review of it all. But once the baby had been born, that’s really when Calvin noticed things were changing quickly and in a sinister way. The first sign of dark times had struck him in that treacherous penis of his.

  The sex that Calvin found so vital and the only saving grace left in this horrible pact had disappeared. Carol did nothing to please him in the sack anymore. He had understood the time it took her to heal after giving birth to their son. But it had been three months now and he had hardly touched her at all during her rough pregnancy.

  Carol never initiated it with him these days. If he fussed about it, she would get annoyed enough to grant him a quickie to be performed silently and without the usual loud dirty talk that made him come like a drunken sailor. And God help him if there was a wet spot left behind in his wake. He understood not wanting to sleep on a cum stain, but the silence thing; that got to him sometimes. He didn’t like having to tip toe in his own castle.

  Calvin’s home had suddenly become a public library; everything had to be done quietly these days, with an infant in the house. He watched late night television with the captioning on and it made him feel much older than he was. Still, he observed these rules for the kid’s sake.

  Three-month old Calvin Jr. was a beautiful baby. Calvin did not blame his son. No sir. The boy was looking to be Calvin’s only mark on this shitty planet. But, no, that didn’t necessarily have to be the case. Even with the responsibility of raising a child, he could still change the course of his destiny, if he needed.

  The real drag on him was Carol. A child could be shaped and dreams were things that were innately understood by them. A spouse, especially a strong-willed one like Carol, tried to redesign everything you had thought was non-negotiable in your structure. She had changed him so much already, and he had allowed it to happen; mostly because it was stupid shit to fight over. It was petty, really, and he didn’t know why it all irked him so much, sometimes.

  One example was his work briefcase. Where he put it when he came in had been an issue with Carol. So much so, that Carol had made a home for it; and he paid dearly if that briefcase ever missed its mark. There were other tiny lessons she had decided a fifty year old man had needed t
o be taught. How to fold laundry. Where the thermostat always needed to be set. Where the spatulas and big knives went. How to hang his own damn suit jacket, for Christ’s sake. Carol had hell to shell out for any violation of these demands. And that’s what they were. He had never been asked kindly to perform these jobs. Carol was in charge and he hadn’t even voted for the bitch. He wondered how a slow knuckle-dragger like himself had ever made it fifty years without someone like Carol to show him the glow of things.

  It was little shit, to be sure. But many fortunes had started with pennies. And the rules would not have gotten to him so much if there was still a shred of civility left in the house. They bickered constantly. Carol had no patience or sympathy for him anymore. The great friendship and romance between the two of them had evaporated. Maybe it was the compromises he had made. Maybe she thought he was less of a man, constantly being led around on a cock chain. Calvin wanted to just end the marriage, most days. But he knew Carol would not just go quietly into the night. She would take him for all he was worth and a bucket of chicken. He wouldn’t have a prayer of ever attracting someone worthwhile again with an alimony and child support payments sticking out of his ass. He would end up a lonely old man entertaining a child on weekends while Carol would be free to fuck anything that caught her eye.

  Nope. He wasn’t going to give her that. She was as stuck as he was and unless one of them fucked up on a monumental scale, they would continue their sad lives together. Calvin just hoped their son could grow up to be a productive member of society; because having two parents who had little to no love between them might mess with a child.

  Calvin remembered when there was still promise in his life. He was once a very brilliant writer. He had over twenty local writing awards, aged and brown, pressed in a memory book somewhere in the attic.

  The weight of responsibility began to steal the most precious thing a writer requires: time. The young genius who people were finally beginning to whisper about disappeared in an ongoing fit of writer's block. A middle-aged businessman, with nothing but regrets, surfaced in his place.

  One of the few things he gave Carol credit for; she understood that this part of Calvin’s soul still needed to be fed. He was allowed two hours on Sunday to write. He usually wasted this time on online poker and Internet porn. He wondered what he was going to show Carol when she eventually wanted to see that book he was writing. Calvin just wasn’t that inspired anymore. His home life had drained him of his precious creativity and his job nibbled hungrily at it, as well.

  Calvin had worked for the Polarfield Designer Company for ten years and he had earned the title of vice-president. In reality, he was just a glorified draftsman and the promotion meant more responsibility than money. He made a good living, even though the very late hours he put in were never acknowledged on his paycheck.

  Still, he just couldn't seem to cover everything with his salary. On paper, in theory, everything worked out fine. But, between hypothesis and application, something was getting lost in the translation. He had a feeling Carol was squandering his money in some style. He would start looking at their joint checking account a little closer.

  There was a dead end sign detouring him to the right. Calvin was no longer on the 63. He had no idea where he was; he had been lost in so much reflection that he hadn’t been paying attention to his route. It was nothing to get pissed about. He liked being alone with his thoughts, which he seldom heard at home. He decided to simply go with the flow. Calvin didn't want to wager on what time he would get home. He would catch his bearings soon, and dig out his cell and GPS, if he needed them.

  A small overpass ahead was lit up by his headlights. He noticed the word infierno spray painted on the concrete wall above his head. He was going to have to take this dark little street and turn around somewhere. Calvin cruised under the overpass. Suddenly, strange colored lights lit up in front of his windshield. They were so bright that he covered his eyes with his forearm. He shook his head and brought his eyes back out. He was traveling down a dark stretch of road. The landscape was level and looked darkly desolate and the sky, which had been liberally sprinkled with stars on the other side of the overpass, was pitch black now. Calvin slowed his car and slid to the shoulder of the road. He put the car in park and rubbed his eyes. Did he just have a stroke? He was a little young for that and he still had a good handle on his health.

  Calvin opened his car door and stepped outside. The air was humid as hell and he broke out in an immediate and heavy sweat. He looked at the dark road behind him. Oblivion stared back. He couldn’t see the overpass which should have been right there.

  Had he lost time after those strange lights, and driven a distance in some kind of trance? He jogged in place for a second and then shook his limbs, testing himself and looking for a sign of a medical woe. He felt fine, mentally and physically.

  He glanced in the other direction. He could see the faint red glow of civilization. Calvin was lost, so he brought out his cell. There was no signal, which didn’t surprise him. He had the shittiest plan you could buy. His GPS on the phone could not stick a pin in his location. Frustrated, he put the phone away and looked around.

  He heard animal sounds though there was no foliage for them to dwell in. The land was naked, devoid of brush, like a desert, from what Calvin could tell. He suddenly felt very lonely and vulnerable standing out there in the darkest of nights. He climbed back into his car and got moving again. He went toward the far-away lights.

  Calvin switched on his radio, deciding that a little noise would make him more comfortable. His favorite station was lost in static. He twisted the dial around, snippets of music popping through the speakers now and again. But he couldn’t get something concrete to play for more than a few seconds.

  He finally managed to dial in what must have been a religious program. The booming and measured male voice had the tone of an evangelist to it. Calvin listened, appreciating the company.

  “And he was cast out,” the voice proclaimed theatrically. “His sin had been vanity. But the Almighty had given him this beauty. And he was truly the most beautiful angel of them all. But the creator of things did not like the light that shone on this design of his. And so the angel was thrown to the pits. There, the ultimate punishment was handed out; for the most beautiful and favored of the angels was given to suffering. And, yea, that angel was called Lucifer and damnation was now his curse and his cause …”

  The reception collapsed. Calvin desperately tried to get a grip on it again, but it was lost. Maybe it was a tiny station somewhere close that he had passed in the darkness and the range was gone on it. It must have been a crackpot with a homemade transmitter of some sort who was preaching his dark and fevered gospel to the shadows. Calvin wasn’t a religious man, but he was a fan of the dramatic. And there wasn’t much else to occupy his thoughts, as he was done evaluating his mistakes and failures for the night.

  Calvin took his attention away from the radio and focused on the road once more. He screamed and stomped his brake pedal with both feet. An enormous and hulking shadow crossed the lanes in front of him. The beast looked like a silhouette of an animal; not the actual thing. Its eyes shimmered briefly in the headlights of Calvin’s car.

  His car jerked to a stop. Calvin didn’t know how, but he had missed the beast. It was gone, blinking into the darkness. He caught his breath and felt his heart pound. It had been a cow or buffalo. It was too big to have been anything else.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, and then he chuckled and started moving again. “Well, I could use a hamburger, but not that badly,” he recited in his Groucho voice while flicking an invisible cigar.

  He drove, looking for the resurrection of his cell signal or a place to ask for directions. Calvin was trying his best to laugh at it all, but there was a weird suspicion forming in his mind. Things weren’t quite right here. Reality felt slightly askew. Ever since he had gone under that overpass, things had gotten darker, and it wasn’t just the night sky which had thick
ened. First it was those strange lights that had gone off like fireworks in his brain. Then there was that evangelist on the radio; the night preacher’s words had seemed purposefully ambiguous. And that shadow animal on the road.

  Calvin whistled cheerfully, but this act was for show. He felt as if he were being watched and he didn’t want whatever was inspecting him to know that he was aware of the sudden shift in reality or that he felt threatened in the least by it. He would follow this road back into the safe boundaries of civilization and the events would be a strange tale to tell his son one day.

  Calvin was relieved when he saw a darkened vehicle pulled onto the shoulder and the figure of a man leaning against the quiet vehicle.

  “Thank Christ,” he muttered, betraying his happy masquerade.

  Calvin wasn’t alone out here anymore. He pulled behind the car and turned his hazards on. He left on his headlights and got out, boiling in the humidity once again. He ran a hand over his smooth, bald head, and felt perspiration there already.

  Calvin approached the man. He was Hispanic. Calvin put the man’s age in the late thirties. He had a thin mustache and a slick mop of black hair. He wore a sticky tee shirt and jeans cut at the knees. His car was an old brown Pinto. Calvin hadn’t seen one of these in years.

  “You okay?” Calvin asked.

  The man nodded, regarding Calvin with a drunken smile. “Yeah, battery died,” he reported, tapping the hood fondly. The man’s gaze had a gloomy air about it, despite the smile on his face. The booze must have been stirring up bad times in him. He had been brooding in the darkness for awhile, Calvin guessed, seeing a pile of cigarette butts near the man’s flip flops.

  “I’m Calvin,” he said, extending his hand.

  The man took it firmly, and shook Calvin’s arm vigorously. “My name is Inocente, but I am not very,” he joked, and Calvin could tell it was one Inocente told often.