by Heather Gray
“What makes you say it’s abandoned?” Gavin asked. “Maybe the people are sleeping.” He nodded his head over toward a mobile home that sat on the other side of the general store, its windows black as the night sky.
“The sign on the door says they’re closed till after the new year,” Avery answered. “My guess is they’re visiting family elsewhere. Looks like that trucker back in Hollis was right.”
Gavin sat down next to her on the steps. Eli got up and moved his chair closer but managed to keep himself upwind of the luggage, which smelled putrid.
“I’ll bet all our clothes are ruined,” Avery offered. “I don’t know if I can get back in that car. The smell is so awful.”
Eli held up his phone and said, “I’ve got the Bible on here, Mom. Do you want me to read the chapter?”
It was their family tradition. She and Eli always started Christmas morning with the second chapter of Luke. Avery would have preferred to say she’d instituted the tradition because she was some sort of super-Christian who always knew what to do and say, and who had been raising her son to be a mighty evangelist since he’d been in diapers. In truth, she’d seen it on a cartoon and had liked the idea. That was when Eli was four. They’d been doing it ever since. Over the years it had become more meaningful to her, and to Eli, too, she hoped. She cast a quick glance at Gavin, wondering what he would think if he knew their Christmas morning tradition had been inspired by a cartoon. Would he laugh with them, or would he judge? I don’t think he has a judgmental bone in his body. He’s almost too good to be true.
Reining her wandering sleepy thoughts in, Avery asked, “Bible on your phone? Why didn’t I know about that?”
Eli shrugged, “I always forget my Bible, but I never forget my phone. It’s what I use at church, too.”
“You mean… All those times I thought you were texting during church you were reading your Bible?”
Eli ducked his head before answering. “Maybe not all of them, but usually.”
Avery gaped at her son a moment. Gavin had been right when he’d told her not to jump to conclusions about her son’s faith. Then, raising her brow in confusion, she said, “I thought your phone was dead.”
That’s when she saw it. Eli hadn’t moved any closer to them because he was tethered by an electrical cord. He’d found a place to plug in his phone! She needed to get hers plugged in, too, and see if they could call for help. First, though, she wanted to hear her son read. Giving him a nod, she closed her eyes and waited for him to begin.
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”
Avery sighed, content with the journey. They might be in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma, in below freezing temperatures. They may even have endured the most horribly eventful journey in the history of road trips, but they were together, and aside from the stench clinging to each of them, they were well. It was Christmas, and her son had volunteered to read the Christmas story from the Bible he had stored on his phone. She peeked at Gavin and saw him listening with rapt attention as her son’s words told of the Savior’s birth. I might be better off for having gotten stranded in the middle of Nowhere.
She scooted closer to Gavin and leaned her head against his shoulder. Sighing with contentment, she listened to Eli.
“…but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart…”
When it was all said and done, Avery had a lot to be thankful for. She hadn’t given much thought to the past in a long time. Gavin asking about Eli’s father had brought up some of those memories, and for today, that was a good thing.
Remembering, she thought back to when she’d struggled working two jobs, trying to provide for Eli. She’d hated that he’d spent more time in daycare than with her. Each step of the way, however, God had put people into her path and Eli’s life who had helped guide and love him, and that had supported and encouraged her. Without God’s help and guidance, she never would have gotten where she was. She owned a home. It was old and small, but it was theirs. Eli was doing well and finding his own way. Her job was secure, and she felt valued in her work. Life wasn’t perfect, but she was blessed.
“…And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”
“That was great, Eli. Thank you for reading it.” Gavin’s voice rumbled next to her ear.
Avery took a moment to say something in her heart to the God who sent His son to earth all those centuries ago and who, in all the years since, hadn’t given up caring for His people. First, I whined because we didn’t have a Bible. Then I let my mind wander through the entire Christmas story. I am certainly not a super-Christian. Thank You for loving me anyway and for seeing us all through the things we’ve had to deal with in life. I might not be a rock star of the faith, but my faith in You is rock solid. Wincing, she added, Sorry for the bad pun. It was an accident.
She sat up straight, pulled away from Gavin, and said to her son, “So, Eli, do you think we can make a call out on that phone you’ve got there? You know, since you have power now and all?”
As Eli nodded and began tapping the screen of his phone, a police cruiser pulled into the dirt parking lot.
Gavin jumped up from his seat but didn’t move toward the newcomer. The officer climbed out and, from a distance, inspected their sad little white hatchback with the scraped-up and banged-in driver’s side, the plastic passenger window, and all the doors and trunk flung open with the unmistakable smell of skunk rolling off it in waves. Then he studied the three forlorn people stranded in Nowhere and asked, “Where you folks from?”
“Albuquerque,” Gavin answered. “We were sent to Nowhere to do a story for a newspaper, but it appears the higher-ups who ordered the story didn’t realize there wasn’t much here.”
The officer had his headlights directed at them so he could see them clearly. He, however, was at best a fuzzy apparition to them. As he stepped closer, he blocked some of the light from his car and said, “I’m under orders to find y’all and deliver you down the road to Lawton. Seems as if you got some folks mighty worried about you.”
“Who sent you to find us?” Gavin asked.
“Uh, well,” the officer said. “Who didn’t send me? Seems you met a trucker back in Hollis who was fit to be tied that you insisted on driving this way, so he put the call out on his radio, and every trucker what’s spotted you between Hollis and here has reported your location to the highway patrol.”
Making a sound like an exasperated Chihuahua, he added, “You don’t realize how busy the roads are until every trucker on them starts calling in to dispatch. Then you’ve got somebody in New Mexico who called in a favor with one of our senators. Nearly every highway patrolman in this half of the state of Oklahoma has been tasked with locating y’all. I got the job of keeping an eye on Nowhere. I’ve been driving by here every hour for the past six.”
Gavin gazed back at Avery who said, “Mitchell. He’s got interesting friends all over the place.”
“So, anybody want to tell me what happened to the car?”
Eli jumped up, his phone slipping from his grasp and landing with a soft kwang against his abandoned seat. “The car rental company went to the wrong place and didn’t pick us up. By the time they figured out the problem, they’d already given our rental SUV away to somebody else. They offered us a Zeon, but my mom here,” he said, indicating Avery with the tilt of a thumb, “wouldn’t hear of it.”
The officer ogled them and their pile of luggage and said, “Uh-huh.”
“So they stuck us with this little hatchback. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but no sooner had we left Albuquerque, than we got food poisoning and a flat tire. When the tow truck fixed the flat, the back bumper fell off. That’s when we realized the car was being held together by sturdy paperclips and a whole roll of duct tape.”
“Uh-huh.” The officer’s eyebrows were climbing.
“The guy back in Moriarty is keeping the bumper for us.”
“Mo
riarty?” The eyebrows lifted a bit further.
“Not too long after that, it started snowing. Then the radiator blew. Well, not really, but that’s what we first thought. We called someone to come take a look at it, but we ended up with the guy who runs the bait shop because everyone else was gone. Only, he couldn’t fix it. But at least we knew the radiator hadn’t blown. So we had to keep the heater off and stop often to let the engine cool back down. The problem was, the snow was getting worse, and we couldn’t turn the heater on. And it was the middle of the night.”
Giving her son a soft elbow in his side, Avery whispered, “You are having way too much fun with this.”
An unrepentant grin on his face, Eli said, “For the first time ever, I’m hoping my English teacher makes us write a What I Did Over Christmas Break paper when school starts back up. And that she makes us present it orally.”
Avery tried to fight the grin and match the patrolman’s somber expression, but it was hard. If Eli did have to give a report about his Christmas break, she would need to find an excuse to be in his class that day. With his flair for the dramatic, it would be a fantastic presentation.
“Maybe we should get you loaded up into my car, and you can tell me the rest of the story along the way.” He didn’t look as if really wanted to hear the rest of the tale. “By the way, my name’s Sterling. Officer Sterling.”
Gavin reached out a hand to shake and asked, “So do we call you Officer or Sterling?”
When the highway patrolman made no move to answer, Avery said, “Our stuff smells pretty bad. Are you sure you want it in your car?”
Officer Sterling frowned and said, “I’m pretty sure you smell just as bad as your luggage, but there’s nothing I can do about that. We should be able to get most of the luggage into the trunk. The three of you will have to cram into the rear seat. Any luggage that don’t fit in the trunk I might be able to put up front with me.”
Avery, who again needed to use the facilities, smiled weakly as she took the toilet paper and headed out behind the little store. She heard Eli say, “Don’t ask,” as she slipped around the side of the building. With any luck, they’d have the luggage all loaded up before she returned.
****
“Sorry about the wind,” Officer Sterling said to them as he pushed the button to lower both front windows. “I’ve got to do something to try to keep the stink out of my face, or I won’t be able to see to get us back to Lawton. Man, oh man, it’s been a long time since I smelled anything as fierce as this. It’s a tenacious smell, too, ain’t it? The folks in the garage are going to spend weeks trying to get the smell out of this car, and I ain’t even the one who hit the little varmint.”
“Uh, yeah, it’s a strong smell alright,” Avery said, not entirely sure if the officer even wanted a reply.
“It burns, too,” Officer Sterling added. “Burns something fierce. I think my nose hairs might have been singed off. And my eyes feel all dry and crackly like firewood that’s about to explode. Except for when the tears start pouring out, I guess. And don’t even get me started on the nausea. How it is y’all aren’t back there puking your guts out from having to smell yourselves is beyond me.”
How do you think it feels to be back here next to two other people who suffered the same malodorous fate? You’ve got it easy up there, mister!
“Whoo-whee, that sure is one awful stench!”
“Okay,” Gavin cut in. “We get it. The smell is dreadful, and it’s not going away. What’s supposed to happen to us when we get to Lawton?”
“Well,” said Officer Sterling, “I suppose you can book a flight and head on back to Albuquerque.”
“Peachy,” Eli commented. “If you can’t stand to have us in your car without the windows open, how are we supposed to fly back? The folks on the airplane won’t be able to open their windows and blow the smell out of their faces.”
“Hmm, you got a good point there,” he answered. “Let me see what I can do.”
Officer Sterling then proceeded to pick up his radio and call dispatch, “Hey there, Norma Sue, you read me?”
“That you, Joe?” came the disembodied high-pitched voice over the radio.
Aha! So his first name isn’t Officer after all! A little giggle escaped, causing Avery’s seat companions to look at her oddly.
“Yeah, it’s me. I found those three travelers out at Nowhere, but we got us a problem.”
“They look as scary as a bunch of serial killers? Maybe cannibals? Should I call SWAT?”
Officer Sterling glanced over his shoulder at them and blushed. In a loud whisper he said, “Hush, Norma Sue. They’re in the car with me.”
The equally loud whisper came back over the speaker, “Oh, sorry about that. They’re not threatening to eat you, are they?”
Avery, who was stuck in the middle between Eli and Gavin, could feel both men shaking with laughter. Even she had to admit the conversation was a short distance from absurd. “Who needs Vaudeville?” she asked in a whisper soft enough that her voice wouldn’t travel beyond the back seat. The shaking beside her increased.
“So, uh, here’s the deal,” Officer Sterling said into the radio, now back up to his regular volume. “Their car’s dead. I left it at Nowhere. They hit a skunk, though. The young’un’s worried they won’t be allowed on an airplane smelling as bad as they do.”
“Whoo-whee,” Norma Sue sang out in her whistling nasal voice. “That’s the worst stink there is. And you got them in the car with you? All three o’ them? Ain’t no way the folks at the garage are gonna smile at you when you bring that car in. They’ll stick you with that twenty year old clunker of a patrol car for at least the next month if you make them clean out skunk smell.”
“Well, what did you expect me to do? Leave them out there to freeze to death?”
“Nah, you can’t do that,” Norma Sue answered. “Some big, high monkey-monk from the state has been breathing down Cap’n’s neck.” If the woman had paused even once to breathe, Avery couldn’t tell. “Oh! I should let Cap’n know you’ve found them!”
“Wait!” Officer Sterling called, but it was too late. Norma Sue was gone.
“Wow,” Eli said. “I didn’t know they could put their own officers on hold.”
If the glare burning its way through the rearview mirror was any indication, Officer Sterling did not appreciate the observation.
Changing the subject, Gavin asked, “You have any idea why I haven’t been able to get a signal for my phone? My cell service has been on the fritz almost this whole trip.”
Officer Sterling let out a low whistle. “You know how college kids go home during Christmas break?”
When they all nodded, he continued. “Seems like a buncha kids at some college back east didn’t have family to go visit, or couldn’t afford it, or something. They stayed on campus over break and decided to prank a cell company by hacking it and doing something or other.”
Avery winced, sure this tale wasn’t going anywhere good.
“While they were in there poking around, they triggered some sort of worm that was in there from a long time ago. Seems like real bad security if you ask me.” A brisk tap to the steering wheel emphasized his point. “Anyway, the news has been calling it a ‘catastrophic failure’. People who have their phones through that company have mostly been without service since day before yesterday.”
“Any idea when they’ll have it back up and running?” Gavin ran a hand over his face as soon as he’d asked the question. He didn’t appear too optimistic about the answer.
Officer Sterling shrugged. “They said forty-eight hours, but that was about two days ago. Not sure what they’re saying now. My phone’s through a different company, so I haven’t been following. All I know is we increased patrols in the rural areas in case people got stranded and couldn’t call for help.”
Several minutes later, Norma Sue’s voice came back over the radio, “You still there, Joe?”
The man in question expelled a heavy sig
h before picking up the mouthpiece and replying, “Where else would I be?”
“Cap’n says you won’t find an airline willing to sell ‘em tickets if they’re rank with skunk, plus the airlines are all backed up because of closures. He’s got me calling around to hotels to see if I can find one willing to take them long enough so they can get cleaned up. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“A’right Norma Sue. I sure do appreciate the help.”
After a couple moments of silence, Gavin asked, “So, is it true tomato juice is the way to get rid of skunk smell? I imagine it would stain the clothes.”
Officer Sterling laughed. “My wife swears by tomato juice, but my mama, she has another solution. Mama used to take a whole bunch of hydrogen peroxide and mix in some baking soda and dish soap and make us wash down with that outside before we could come in whenever we ran into a skunk. Stuff worked like a charm,” he said. Then, with a chuckle, “But don’t you ever tell my wife I said so. She’d be madder’n a hornet if she ever thought my mama was better at something than she was.”
“What about clothes?” Avery asked, thinking of all the bulging suitcases that were no doubt permeated with the same horrible smell.
“I don’t rightly know, but I can call and ask Mama when we get back to the station. We want to make sure we don’t mess it up. Wouldn’t do no good to blow something up on accident, would it? Course that would probably get rid of the skunk smell just as well.”
Avery laid her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. Her head was pounding from the smell and the constant droning of the wind through the windows. She thought about reaching for her purse to get some acetaminophen but rejected the idea. What if the pills taste of skunk?
Officer Sterling said, “You know, I’ve had people puke in my car before. I’ve had people bleedin’ all over in the back seat. Had people urinate in the cruiser. Even had one man, you know, do the other, one time. But ain’t none of that ever come close to smellin’ as bad as the three o’ you.”