by Marlin Grail
But for how much longer?
Finally, I pour the gas one last time. There’s still more fuel in the car, but too much time has already passed. My gut tells me Will doesn’t have much longer before the haze gets aggressive…
Our main objective fulfilled, I disregard the equipment by tossing both the tube and vase in the truck’s bed. I want to blaze over to my passenger door and wait for Will’s return, but it’s a temptation I’m not willing to fulfill.
Standing outside, I’m trying to concentrate on the sounds he’s making, but, if there’s any it’s no longer audible over here.
“Shit! Hold on Will!” I say under my breath while hurrying back over to the building.
This isn’t where we say goodbye. No, not by a longshot it’s not.
Rather than tiptoe my way behind the side wall, I flat out gallop past, ready to absorb whatever I see—even if it’s Will’s being absorbed into the haze.
A drop in my stomach has me wishing there’s an optical illusion going on.
All I see is the haze, static in place, fitting its intangible solid black form along the ground’s surface. I cannot know what emotion to portray. A feeling of loss, or a feeling of loss of words?
Will can’t be dead. But, why else would this haze be so still?
My shoulders drop low, my head painfully swerving in all angles from the throbbing of my heart. The words press out of me, strangled. “It’s not fair.”
Life today isn’t fair, but it never was to begin with. I don’t know what to make of this. Will was a reliable friend, a brother—
“What are you doing?” Will jumps up on me from behind.
I’m about to punch him in the shoulder, then I find myself giving him a tight hug instead. Will accepts for a moment before he politely forces me off.
“Come on, Ashton! I wouldn’t die from this. That is not the way I’m letting Fate take me out.”
You had better hope so, Will. I’ll be holding your words as a promise. The way we all go out is from old age. Maybe it won’t be for everyone else, but our people won’t be dying from unnatural deaths.
As if he heard my thoughts, Will then shows me just how spry he still is. He takes off like a shot for the truck, and I follow suit.
A sudden urge to laugh hits me.
We survived again.
Once safely inside the vehicle, everyone’s mutual interest is what the fuel meter reads when Will starts us back on the road again.
That gas station has become nothing more than a memory in our mind vaults. Just like that haze. Truth is, we’re still able to bring with us memory souvenirs which will keep us going, both emotionally and literally.
“Did you get touched by that haze?” I ask him in concern.
Will, keeping his eyes on the fuel meter, pops out cheerfully, “Not at all. You know, we make a great team.”
I lean over to see the tank shows a little over ½ full. I collapse down into my seat. Gluing my vision back to the map, I let out a chuckle.
“Yeah, maybe you being able to say that proves the haze did affect you after all.”
Chapter XXXIX
(Gary)
We’re on route to Utah. There’s only a few minutes left until we move out of Wyoming, and get one step closer to moving on.
Will speaks the first question related to where we’re headed. “Anybody been here before?”
Lissie scoffs, breathing out loudly. “I once came here a child, then left it an adult.”
I’ve caught onto her insinuations about the sadness she suffered growing up. As a result, it’s become my obsession to show her affection. “We’ll be coming here for a new life, love. Times are different.”
Ashton teases us over the continuous love-sick signs we’ve shown everyone throughout today. I take it with goodwill. Besides, we’re just love birds that can’t stop our endearments. Ashton then shares, “Well, Gary and I originally headed here, for basically the same reasons we’re going now.”
Janice, curious to this turn of the discussion, asks us why we didn’t make it.
Ashton proceeds with “Well, Gary thought he needed to go to where his bandmates were doing performances that week—certain they’d help us in our survival planning.”
He’s still cynical and still mocks them. They had their self-interests, but I still felt obligated at the time. I didn’t fully understand they were, at that point, far from being able to help.
I learned it when we wasted all of that fuel to get to them, only so they would turn their backs on me. Ashton thought they were leagues away from help before it was apparent to me.
My more laid-back attitude comes in on the conversation. “Ashton, man, you can have the rest of our lives to bring it up, but they weren’t as bad as you’re making them sound.”
Ashton only spits out a quick laugh. “Keep telling yourself they weren’t, brother.”
“How you may see every other part of Flock of Glam, Ashton, Gabe wasn’t with them. He possibly would’ve identified more with us than he would them. If he’s still alive, then he must be doing great.”
Regardless of dividing person from person, all of them were equally helpful and committed in moving our band up in the world. I suppose just like it can’t be understood why Ashton and I have an inseparable bond, the same could be said about my connection with them.
I still feel I owe them my compassion. Especially since I know others didn’t.
Will riles the volume up between him and Ashton when he asks if they knew about our destination. “Only Kari did, man, unless she and the rest went to it. But if they’re at it, let’s say they won’t be getting a happy warm welcome from me,” Ashton states firmly.
Lissie tosses me a teasing grin. “You must’ve been a bad boy.”
My response is to smirk, and rub her back.
I don’t know what we were really. I was bad for pop media, but it was by career decision. Really a lot of it was stage personification I manufactured, but maybe not so much for them.
The sign to Utah appears.
“Any last words for here?” Will asks us all.
Janice speaks out, less refined in her normal attitude, “Merry Shitmas.”
Had Ashton, Will, or Lissie said that, we’d all find it funny. But the fact this dejected statement comes from the usually-poised Janice concerns the rest of us.
We understand the same emotions, but it’s unusual to hear Janice let out pent-up frustration. Our collective shock is vocalized first by Ashton. “I’m surprised to hear you talk like that, Janice!”
She projects an impenitent laugh that fills the cab. “Well, I’m not required to behave a certain way to you all, am I?”
We haven’t considered it a requirement for us. Personally, I’ve assumed you require it of yourself.
She then props her book down, spine open, to convey more of what’s been coursing through her mind. “I’m no saint, guys, and I’m starting to become tired I have to behave like one.” There’s no pursuing peep of a word until a comment she spills out draws Lissie in.
“Excuse me if I’m incorrect, Janice, but who’s the boy you just called a bastard?”
Will assumes Janice was referring to his young friend Alex. “Don’t you dare call him that! He was a great—”
“Dammit, Will!” Janice fights sharply. “That’s not who I’m talking about!”
Everyone seems to unwelcome the cold silence intruding the closed interior. I can tell it wasn’t the result Janice wanted, especially when she leans over her seat, landing in grief.
“Janice, what’s going on?” Lissie comforts, while kindly prodding for peace to be restored.
I await, like the rest of us, for her to vocalize her pain. Even though the hyperventilating and massive sniffling causes her to have mostly inaudible words, certain phrases reassure my thoughts about a different boy from the one Will thought of…
Her boy.
She’s never shared anything about connection to him before. Last night, she must’ve b
een thinking deeply about him.
I stretch my arm over Lissie to soothe Janice. I believe I know the cause of the sadness hovering over her seat.
“Gary…you already know, don’t you?”
I spin for words to excuse my intuitive guess. I don’t want to sound rude, but what comes out is simply what I know for certain. “We’re here for you, Janice. Now’s the perfect time to share what you need to.”
She regains self-control, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. “You don’t need to know my life story, but know I once was a devoted housewife and mother. No one else in this world mattered to me as much as they did. I powered through the strain of our fragmenting family, many more years than I feel others my age would’ve been okay enduring. What did life reward me with for going through all of that?
“My husband left me for another woman, and my son went to prison. It was as if the legal system was just waiting to snatch him at 18. Once convicted he…didn’t…make it.”
It is her wailing that I find the hardest to be immune to. I find my lower lip shivering, my throat swallowing, because, to me, Janice has never shown she still has any turmoil buried deep.
Her crying, her being lost in emotional suffering, all of it has the power to trickle down me too.
“It’s okay, Janice,” I choke up, “we like seeing you calm, but we also like seeing you free from repressed pain.”
It advances her forward.
What started as lighthearted questions has turned into a healing process for her. She wouldn’t pass up a time to help any of us through our troubles. We can and do the same for her at this moment.
“My son took a life, and another took his. I can’t imagine people would feel bad for me, but all I know is he was my son. I have to stand by him, no matter what actions he took.”
Her tone grows dispirited and ashamed.
“We feel for you, Janice,” Lissie says softly, in essence speaking for the rest of us. “We never knew your son, but we respect your wonderful motherly spirit. I wish I had a mother like you.”
That’s an excellent way of putting it, Lissie. She looks out for us, worries for us, and does everything in her power to make it better. This revelation explains why it’s been in her traits. She’s historically, but also naturally, a mother to all who she can help and open up to.
“You all know I try my best, right? How hard I work to be there for you every day?” she asks, with the most vulnerable eyes she’s ever been able to show us.
It’s without question that me, Lissie, Will, and Ashton appreciate her even more than we already do.
“Janice,” Will says in a deep, gruff voice, “owning this shit’s a start to helping you break your strict way of acting that you’ve crowned on your head. You’ve chosen the best time to change yourself. Utah’s a new start for us. So, yeah, Merry Shitmas to you too.”
The statement feels rightfully placed, and it means more to me to know we’re mending. Setting us free from our self-punishment will give us the greatest gift of gratefulness for where we currently are, thankful for who and what we have. The Christmas spirit remains intact.
This catharsis period made my vision hypersensitive to everything. Janice’s finger wrinkles, the violet on Lissie’s flannel shirt, the carpet particles of the front seats, and then something else.
Something not trivial.
Chapter XL
Will catches onto it as well when he slows us down.
There’s overcast ahead of us. It’s one of the largest, blackest haze clouds I’ve ever laid witness to. Apparently, the others couldn’t agree more.
“Whoa!” Will breathes.
The shading is phenomenal. The size immeasurable.
I couldn’t fathom the time it would’ve taken to cluster together as numerous hazes. It’s of concern that it would spot us, but, like I said, the size is not truly scaled properly. We think it’s relatively close, but I begin to fully believe it’s father than assumed.
As long as we stay parked here, until it passes, we shouldn’t overly stress. I’ve only seen a sky-bound haze drop down to the ground for prey once. I can’t say I’d prefer to see it again.
At first, I feel we are still rolling, thinking Will might have put us in neutral, then, it dawns on me that cloud is moving rapidly and closing distance between us and it. This is a tsunami in the sky that won’t impact us, but the sight is intimidating nonetheless.
“Holy hell!” Will’s tone is shocked and astounded. “That’s fast! For how high in the air it is, it may look slow, but the MPH is really quick!”
The haze cluster swooshes high overhead, the low-tones of its wind droning through the atmosphere by every passing second, until our heads naturally have to turn to watch it speed through where we came from.
“It’s on a mission.” Ashton remarks in dismay, ducking his neck and clenching his seat.
Whatever it’s doing, we’re not a part of it.
“Will, it should be safe to start up again,” I hint as order.
Startled in his own right, he has to have me re-tell him what I said. “Yeah, you know what? You’re right. We’re, say, 20,000ft away from it.”
The numerical value has us chuckle nervously. He keeps a stern face, almost oblivious why we found that humorous. “What? Clouds are known to go that high off the ground.”
His educative information somehow manages to calm everyone down, enough so to where even Janice comes back up to her cheery ways. The storm has passed, with gales of her laughter appearing from more oddball comments from up front.
Exactly, Janice. All of us are here for you—for each other. We give what we can with the various qualities we can offer. The quality of laughter isn’t in me, but the quality to plaque pain onto my shoulders may not be in Will or Ashton. We’re stronger together than apart. That’s as factual as the 20,000ft fact about clouds—hazes.
Chapter XLI
On and off, the truck has to be stopped, so to keep us from clashing with recurring danger in the sky.
“What the hell?” Ashton exclaims, perplexed. “This is unusual. We’ve seen—I think—three of those sized hazes total now?”
They are the same questions we all have written on our expressions. Unnerved, I still encourage us not to be overwhelmed. “What highway are we on, Will?” I question, using it as a method to keep his mind focused.
“Highway 189.”
“Good. We can be in Perry by late afternoon.”
“Man, not with constant stop and go we won’t. Funny, it’s like traffic.”
That remark he’s made has me re-observe our surroundings. The highway is expanded with standard two-lanes going in both directions. Loosely stuck poles divide the patch of land, once obstructions for cars too eager to drive with patience, and follow the rules of the road.
Our left view is blocked by a rising hill, presumably where I assume more of the highway resides. An old cab of a dead truck peeks its roof above at us child-like, partially blocking our viewpoint. On our right is land that stretches with no guidance system.
Wherever one goes is their choice.
How many of those abandoned cars are truly abandoned? Are there drivers and passengers which met untimely demises still in there? Thankfully, tinted windows make us all anonymous, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Then, moments later, after our truck was free to move again, the road makes the need to deviate, because numerous stopped cars are slanted inconsiderately in our way.
“Man’s been known to make their own problems, haven’t we?” Ashton says, with contempt in his tone.
“At least no railing system was built to keep us from going off-roading. We gave ourselves possibilities,” Will comments.
We can premeditate outings for when we naturally put ourselves, or others, in predicaments that could’ve been avoided.
The rocky vibration within the truck commences the moment Will veers us onto the tanned aggregate. Off in the distance, not in the negative of this landscape portra
it of faraway mountains, but much closer, are elevated shapes.
They lack the capability of looking strong, or standing strong. Only a handful stand with the jagged edges of their peaks, upside-down and crooked alphabetical “V” shapes. They appear like tiny shacks, or tiny buildings.
No one around is bound to say those structures, once dens for humans, were clean. I think of it as a ghost town, a town too washed and faded from light that it was chosen to stop colonizing. Now and today, would many of the once-populated cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Miami be looked as ghost towns? Not only because few reside there anymore, but the fact they were being washed out by hate, greed, and suffering?
As I think the mystic musings of choice and free-will, it’s no doubt to me as to why we’re choosing to move elsewhere. It’s because life over in Wyoming was draining us day by day.
“This is a new start,” I spill out into the silence.
By sudden coincidence, a twinge to our truck’s right shoulder raises that side to a magnitude that’s not from just a few rocks.
“Shit!” Will yells.
It’s apparent, through his jolt of energy, we don’t have entire control over the truck at this point. Still, under the firm feathering of the braking—and his self-motivating phrases muttered behind his mostly closed mouth—we are not defeated.
We are bruised though. I announce to everyone at least one, or more, of the tires on the right side have blown. As Will strains his inward yell against the squealing from the wheels’ axles, rubbing against airless rubber and grassless terrain, I’m already straining my mind to stay collected.
The moment we get everything out of the truck with us, we’re moving back to the highway. We’re bound to find a car that’s still operable, or, if not, a trunk with a jack to replace the tires.
Eventually, the wheels eventually stop turning. We’re now freed from the fear of injury.
“Everyone okay?” I ask, alarmed.
As though Ashton didn’t hear me, he directly smacks Will on his shoulder. “What the hell, man? I saw you continuously looking up at the sky!”