by JJ Zep
I slid back behind the wheel and said to Kelly, “Get me that first aid kit under your seat, and a bottle of water.”
“She was feverish,” the woman sobbed, “And then she just stopped breathing.”
I drove the Audi the short distance towards the deserted diner, a grimy old building with a dead neon sign that said, “Sal’s”. The woman was out of the car before it had even stopped and was now indicating for me to follow. “Through here, through here,” she said.
I took the medical kit and water from Kelly and told her to stay in the car, and then I followed the woman inside.
The diner was small and grubby, with a counter to one side and a few booths to the other. Even after all this time it still smelled of greasy fries and burgers. The woman led me to the last booth in the row where a blond haired girl of about three was laid-out on the red vinyl. I knew right away that the child was dead, her lips tinged blue, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
“Do you know CPR?” the woman said. “Maybe if we gave her some aspirin? Maybe if…”
I kneeled and placed my head on the child’s chest, felt for a pulse at her wrist and at her throat, held my hand close to her mouth and tried to detect a breath. There was none.
I got to my feet, looked at the woman and slowly shook my head.
“No!” the woman shrieked, “No, she can’t be! You’re lying!” She picked up the tiny corpse and cradled it to her. “You’re lying,” she said again and staggered towards the door, sobbing.
“If there’s anything I can do,” I said after her. “Can we give you a ride somewhere?” I followed her to the door and pushed through the dirty fly screen and my eyes took a second to adjust to the brightness.
As they did, I saw Kelly, standing off to the side of the Audi. There was a man standing behind her, his arm around her waist, a blade pressed to her throat.
“That’ll do, mister,” the man said, then to the woman, “Thelma, check him for a weapon.”
The woman laid the dead child gently down in the dust, and walked towards me. “Mighty Christian of you to stop for us like you did,” she smiled through a mouth full of rotten teeth. “Only been two cars through here this whole week, and the last one damn near run me over.”
Thelma pulled the .38 from my waistband. “We’ll looky here,” she said, waving the gun in the air.
“Quit fucking around with that thing,” the man said, “Hold it on him.”
Thelma stepped back and leveled the gun at me, sighting over the barrel and making firing sounds, “Bang, you’re dead!” she giggled.
“I told ya to quit fucking around with that thing,” the man said. He was tall and gaunt with long, greasy black hair, and blackened teeth to match Thelma’s. He had a scar across his cheek, and one of his eyes was milked over.
“Listen,” I said, addressing the man. “We don’t want any trouble. We’ve got food and water in the car that we’re happy to share with you. We’ll give you a ride if you want, wherever you want to go. Just…”
“Oh. I’ll be riding alright,” the man laughed, “I’ll be riding this pretty little thang like a hog.” He ran his tongue along Kelly’s neck and when she struggled he tightened his grip on the blade. “Try me bitch, and I’ll cut ya!” he spat.
I sized up my options and they weren’t great. If I made a move, it had to be for Thelma, but even if I managed to overpower her without getting shot, the man had a knife on Kelly and could slice through her throat in an instant if he wanted to.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” the man said. “We’re going to get into this krautmobile of yours and we’re going to ride away. Worst that can happen to you is you’re stranded at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you can charm the next sucker to come along.”
“Okay,” I said, “Take the car, just leave the girl alone, she’s only a child.”
“Don’t look like no child to me,” the man said, “Not with these pert little titties. No sir, this little lady’s coming with us. But don’t you worry none, me and Thelma’s gonna show her a time.”
Thelma sniggered, and then the man said, “Now, we’re going to mosey on out of here. If you’re going to make your move, now’s the time, although I’d advise against it. You try anything, and your girl dies, plain and simple.”
I looked at Kelly and I could see where his knife had drawn a faint line of blood across her throat. Her eyes looked frantic, disbelieving.
“Thelma,” the man said, “Scoot over here and open this door. Keep that gun on him just the same, you hear.” Thelma backed over to the rear passenger side and worked the door open.
“Now the driver’s door, you’ll be doin’ the driving sweetheart, so get her started.” Thelma opened the driver’s door while the man backed into the vehicle pulling Kelly with him. I heard the ignition turn over.
“Now shoot the son of a bitch!” the man suddenly screamed.
I’d been poised, wound up like a spring, ready to move if a chance presented itself, so when Thelma fired I threw myself left and to the ground. She fired twice more and I felt a tug on my shirt, then a stinging sensation in my bicep. I rolled and she fired once again and this time the bullet creased my forehead dazing me.
In the next moment, I heard the Audi burn rubber and I was on my feet and running. The vehicle kicked up dust and did a shimmy and I almost caught it before it hit the tarmac. But then Thelma floored her and the Audi accelerated and headed west.
I stood in the middle of interstate 40 and screamed after it like a soul in hell.
two
I watched the Audi accelerate into the distance and I screamed until my throat was hoarse. Other than Ruby, everything that still mattered to me was in that car and I felt a sense of powerlessness that bordered on insanity. I actually started sprinting along the blacktop, as though I’d somehow find the strength to catch the fleeing car. But there it was now, racing away from me, taking Kelly towards a fate I couldn’t even bear to contemplate.
Then suddenly, I saw the car veer left, correct right and leave the road. It plowed into the brush and crossed maybe thirty yards, bucking like a bronco, then came to a halt in a fog of red dust. And then I was running, sprinting faster than I’d even run before, oblivious to the burning in my lungs and the blood running into my eyes from the wound on my forehead.
I ran until I was maybe twenty yards from the Audi, now a dust-covered wreck sitting askew on its chassis, its windscreen cracked and blood-spattered. I forced myself to slow and take in a few deep breaths to steady myself. Despite my concern for Kelly, I knew they were armed and I wasn’t.
I skirted around the side of the vehicle towards the driver’s door. Thelma was behind the wheel with the airbag deployed pushing her back in her seat. She wasn’t breathing though and I could see why, the side of her head was a bloody mess, where a bullet had torn into it.
The back seat was empty, so I skirted quickly around to the other side where I found Kelly. She was sitting with her back against the side of the car, looking dazed but seemingly unhurt.
“Jesus, Kelly,” I said, rushing to her.
I hugged her and she started crying, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she assured me, “But you, you’ve been shot.”
“Just a scratch,” I said. “But how? What happened?”
“Giuseppe,” Kelly said and started to cry again.
“Giuseppe?” With all that had happened, I’d forgotten about Giuseppe, asleep in his den at the back of the vehicle. “Where…”
Kelly pointed towards the brush and following her finger, I now saw Giuseppe lying just a few yards away. I ran towards him and found the dog lying on his side, taking in quick, shallow breaths. I could see blood on his muzzle and as he breathed a pinkish bubble formed on his mouth.
Giuseppe looked at me and whined and tried to lick my hand. “What have you done to yourself this time, big guy,” I said and suddenly all of the emotion of the day overwhelmed me and I was sobbing like a kid with a spilled i
ce cream cone.
I felt Kelly’s hand on my shoulder. “Water,” she said and I took the bottle from her and washed the blood from Giuseppe’s mouth. Then I asked Kelly to pour some water into my cupped hands and the dog made a few half-hearted laps at it.
It was then that I noticed the drag marks through the brush. “Stay with G,” I said to Kelly. I ran back to the car and found the .38 in the passenger foot well. I followed the tracks and found the man lying on his belly in the brush, thirty yards away. He was breathing heavily and it was a miracle he’d made it this far. I flipped him over and I could see that Giuseppe had ripped a sizable chunk out of his cheek, and left deep bite marks across his face. His milky eye had been punctured and now oozed colorless pus. The man had obviously suffered injuries in the crash too, and he now coughed up a mouthful of frothy blood.
He looked at me with his one good eye and tried to say something and I fired a round from the .38 into his brain, then kept pulling the trigger even though the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Later, Kelly would tell me what had happened. After they’d driven away from the diner, the man had demanded the .38 from Thelma. He’d held the .38 on Kelly and unzipped his fly. “He said he wanted me to…do something to him,” Kelly said.
But then Giuseppe had risen from his den and the man had found himself face-to-face with an angry 120 pound Akita. Giuseppe had bitten the man in the face and the man had fired off a shot, hitting Thelma in the side of the head. The car had veered off the road and the man had been thrown into the front seats. Ironically, his body had broken Kelly’s forward plunge, saving her from serious internal injuries.
“Giuseppe saved my life,” Kelly sobbed, “If it wasn’t for him…oh, my God, I don’t even want to think about it.” I held her while she cried and as I did I ran my hand through Giuseppe’s fur, this dog who had so often been my savior.
three
Kelly had some bruising to her ribs but she was otherwise okay, in spite of the trauma she’d been through. She was a tough kid, Kelly, despite her slight frame she was a stayer.
The more serious problem was Giuseppe. He’d been thrown forward when the car had left the road, crashing into the front seat. I’m no expert but it looked like he’d broken a few ribs and maybe one of his front legs. I wished that Yonder could have been there to take care of him.
The Audi of course, was a write-off and we had no choice but to head back to the diner. We were hundreds of miles from the nearest town and, what had Thelma said, they’d seen only two cars in a week along this stretch of road. All we could hope was that there’d be someone along some time soon and if there was, that they’d stop for us.
On my first trip back to the diner, I carried Giuseppe, trying my best to be as gentle as possible, which was not easy lugging a 120-pound weight across uneven ground. The big guy had to be hurting, but he only whimpered once or twice. I made a comfortable bed for him and salvaged a strip of metal from one of the chairs and splinted his injured leg.
Then Kelly and I ferried back and forth between the wrecked vehicle and the diner and moved our supplies across. I was glad now that I’d allowed Hooley to oversupply us. I didn’t know how long we were going to be stuck at Sal’s Diner, but we had enough food for a couple of weeks. The more pressing problem was water. Even if we rationed we’d maybe have four or five day’s worth.
I buried the corpse of the child that Thelma had left behind and I set up a barricade in the road out front to stop any traffic. Kelly patched up the flesh wounds I’d sustained and we waited.
On day two, Kelly asked me about Rosie and I told her how I’d met Rosita Morales Collins and how I’d fallen in love with her on our first date. I told her about Rosie’s pregnancy and about how we’d planned to name our daughter Ruby and about the terrible events in New York. I told her how Ruby had been taken from me and how I’d spent three years trying to find her and how I was determined to find her still.
“Do you miss her? Rosie, I mean?” Kelly asked when I was done.
“Yes” I said. “Yes, I do.” And although that was true, the Chris Collins that still missed Rosie was a different man to who I was now. He was someone who seemed to me more like a casual acquaintance than a past version of myself.
“I’ve got something I want to tell you, Chris.” Kelly said suddenly. “Something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time now.”
She paused, and I raised my eyebrows prompting her to continue.
“I love you, Chris,” she suddenly blurted.
I didn’t mean to laugh, but this sudden admission caught me totally unawares and I couldn’t stop myself.
“Well, I’m glad you find it funny,” Kelly said crossly.
“No, wait, Kel,” I said still giggling, “I didn’t mean it like that, you caught me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Well, I do,” Kelly said adamantly, “So you can take it any way you like.”
“Listen kid,” I said, “It’s just a crush, you’ll get over it, once you’re in Flagstaff you’ll meet someone your own age and…”
“First off,” Kelly said, “Stop calling me kid, second, don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel.”
“Okay, I apologize. I didn’t mean to patronize you, but seriously, I’m old enough to be your father.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Because it’s normal to father a child at ten years of age.”
“I mean, have you ever even had a boyfriend?”
“Is that important?”
“Look Kelly,” I said, “I’m flattered, I really am. You’re beautiful, and you’ll make some man very happy some day.”
“Just not you,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes.
One our fourth day in the diner, Giuseppe got up and took a few tentative steps, struggling as much with the awkward splint I’d fashioned for him as with his damaged leg. That night a dust storm kicked up and threw itself at the diner with the fury of a Z attack.
Somewhere during the night, Kelly crept over and cuddled up to me. She started kissing me, and after a while I kissed back and we made love for the first time on the floor of that greasy diner, in the New Mexico badlands, with a storm blowing like the furies of hell outside.
four
I’ve heard it said that there is plenty of water in the desert if you know where to look. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that knowledge available to me and we ran out of water on day five. By day seven we’d drained the juice from all the canned fruit Hooley had packed us and I was seriously concerned about Giuseppe who lay on his bed and seemed to be barely breathing.
“I’m going to have to set out in the morning, see if I can find help,” I told Kelly that night before we went to bed.
“And how far do you think you’re going to make it, in this heat, without water?”
“What’s the alternative? Stay here and wait to die?”
“Well if you’re going, I’m going too.”
“And what about G, I’m not leaving him behind.”
“Of course not,” Kelly said. “Never. So we all stay and wait, someone’s bound to come by sooner or later.”
“You’re right,” I said, but I didn’t share her optimism and I fell asleep thinking I had to go in the morning.
Sometime during the night I woke. The diner was in pitch darkness, and I could hear Kelly’s steady breathing beside me, and Giuseppe’s raspy breath a bit further away. Something had woken me and after a while I heard it again, the spluttering sound of an engine.
At first, I thought it was a Harley, and I was briefly terrified that the Dead Men had found us. But then the sound came again and it definitely lacked the deep-throated Harley rumble. I hoisted myself up using the side of one of the booths and now I could see lights out there. I took the AK and walked to the window, drew the blinds aside and looked out. There were two men standing on the road in the lights of their vehicle, clearing the barricade.
“What’s happening?” Kelly said from behind me.
“
Stay there,” I said, “Someone’s outside.”
I slipped through the door and skirted around the building in the dark, coming up behind the vehicle, an ancient VW Camper with something attached to the roof.
I crept forward, keeping close to the vehicle, and now I could hear the men talking.
“This is like totally, bogus,” one of them was saying.
“Totally,” the other agreed.
I stepped forward, breaking cover with the AK in a firing position. One of the men was pulling a rusted old fender towards the side of the road. He dropped it instantly and threw up his hands. “Whoa, dude, watch where you’re pointing that thing,” the other man said.
“We need a ride,” I said
“Totally dude, no problem. Just don’t shoot us okay.”
“I’m not going to shoot you, unless you make me. Where you headed?”
“San Clemente, dude. Catch some waves.”
“You got any water?”
“Totally. Perry, give the man some aqua.”
One of the men climbed into the camper and came back with a bottle. “Wait here,” I said. “You drive off and leave us and we’ll die out here.”
I ran back to the diner cradling that bottle like it was precious cargo. Kelly met me at the door. “What’s happening?” she said.
“I got us a ride. Here, drink some water.”
She shook her head. “G needs it more.”
I poured some water into Giuseppe’s bowl, then had a sip myself and passed the bottle back to Kelly. The dog’s breathing was barely perceptible. I scooped some water from the bowl and wet his muzzle. Then I took some in my hands and held it for him and he lapped it up.
There was a knock on the door and when I opened it, one of the men was standing there, “Dude we’re ready to roll, whenever.”
Between Kelly and I, we got Giuseppe to the camper and we pulled away from Sal’s Diner forever. We stopped at the Audi to pick up the rest of the gas cans, and then we drove off into the darkness. I sat on the bench with Kelly cuddled into me and Giuseppe’s head in my lap and I fell asleep marveling at how little it actually takes to make a person happy, and how fragile that happiness is.