The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

  “Hey, Cole,” Lexi, the goth girl, said. “You gonna let this ratchet old hipster talk that way to your girl?”

  Cole pulled his arm out from around Ava and fished a cold bottle of Heineken out of the cooler at his feet. “Shit,” he said, grinning as he popped the cap off the beer with the church key on his key chain. “I’m staying out of this. I open my mouth, I either lose my girl or I lose my beer and I’m suddenly bankrupt. This is a definite fourth-down scenario, baby.”

  “My fucking hero.” Ava smacked Cole’s arm and claimed his beer as her own. “I skipped on coding for my midterm programming exam in Python this weekend to go watch Cole get drunk and piss on a cornfield, then pass out.”

  “Baby, anything you want to know about the python,” Cole said, pulling Ava and his beer close to him, “ole Cole here can teach you with some hands-on experience.”

  “I know we’re doing, like, sixty,” Alana said, grimacing at Ava and Cole as the couple began to kiss. “But I think I’ll take my chances with the asphalt; I’m bailing.”

  “Me, too,” Lexi said, but her eyes were fixed on Cole and, for an instant Cole’s eyes flicked to hers and they locked, holding the look a second too long. Lexi looked away quickly, and a thin smile came to Cole’s lips. He kissed Ava deeply and took a furtive glance at Alana’s chest as he did it. “How much longer till we’re at your buddy’s place, he of the shitty indie music?” Lexi said a little too quickly to Gerry.

  “I can’t get the damn GPS to work out here,” Gerry said. “Like being on the moon. Look, Evan told me his folks’ place was on thirty-six, about forty miles after you get off eighty-one. He said look for a bunch of mailboxes—one of them with a little windmill on it—”

  “Fabulous,” Lexi said.

  “—and then a dark green grain silo on the left,” Gerry continued, undaunted. “The gate for the access road is about five miles past the silo on the same side of the road.”

  “We are going to end up eating each other,” Ava said, taking a long draw on Cole’s beer. “I’ve seen this movie.”

  “That don’t sound so bad,” Cole said, giving Lexi a quick glance. Ava, not noticing the exchange, smacked him on principle. They both laughed and resumed kissing.

  “No worries.” Gerry fished a plastic baggie of pot out from under his seat. “Don’t need technology to do everything for you.”

  “This coming from the man who once had a nervous breakdown because his Keurig machine broke,” Alana said. “Don’t be trying to roll and drive, Gerry.”

  Gerry tossed the baggie to Lexi. “Okay, co-pilot, do the honors,” he said to her.

  There was the hollow rattle of an empty bottle on the floor, and Cole was pulling another beer out of the cooler. He belched as he spoke. “It’s going to be dark soon, man. How we going to see a fucking dark green silo in the dark, Gerr?” Ava checked her cell phone and frowned.

  “No fucking signal!” she said. “I swear to God, Gerry, you get us lost out here…”

  “Will everyone chill the hell out,” Gerry said. “We’ll pass this blunt, and by the time it’s dead we’ll be there. Be cool.”

  * * *

  Alana slipped in her earbuds and music swallowed up the world, Shawn Mullins’s “The Ghost of Johnny Cash.” She looked away from Cole and Ava and all the bullshit and looked out the window at the beautiful emptiness, the farmland, the swaying grass, the endless sky, painfully blue, now turning to ash. The world would be a really beautiful place if it wasn’t for all the fucking people, she sometimes mused. That was a terrible way for a person who was studying to become a doctor to think, but she couldn’t help it. She had chosen to come to the University of Kansas School of Medicine because she wanted to be somewhere where she could drive a little ways and be alone for miles in every direction. She hated cities, hated the mass mind that seemed to take over human beings when you stuffed enough of them together in a glass steel-and-concrete rat cage. She enjoyed and liked, and even loved, individual human beings very much. But the human race as a mob she had no love for.

  She looked away from the increasingly mauve sky to Gerry. He was yapping away about something. He and Lexi were arguing, hands gesturing, heads shaking. Before the night was over, they would most likely be fucking. Gerry had already slept with Ava and Lexi; he wanted very much to sleep with Alana now. Not because he cared for her at all—she actually thought he disliked her quite a bit—but because she was a new conquest; he wanted the trifecta.

  Gerry was a pig. He owned a little bistro back in Salina, called Kerouac’s, which had become a haven for people who enjoyed paying too much for coffee and listening to open-mike poetry about how some fine-arts major’s menstrual flow was a metaphor for getting over her breakup with her emo ex-boyfriend. Alana hung at Kerouac’s because it was Ava’s preferred hangout joint. Gerry had tried several times to move on Alana, and each time he got a very cutting critique of Kerouac’s, his taste in clothing, and his general creepiness. Still, like any true horndog, Gerry was undaunted. In Alana’s mind, Gerry figured he was one too many gin and tonics away from getting into her pants. She looked back out the window, listening to her music—now it was ACDC’s “Back in Black.” She wished silently for a world all to herself.

  “What the hell?” Gerry said. On the road ahead, a dark shape had appeared at the edge of vision, straddling both lanes. It was a motorcycle with a lone rider barreling down on the Honda at dangerous speed.

  “Is this guy out of his fucking mind?” Cole said, leaning forward. “He’s playing chicken with us?”

  “Slow down, Gerry!” Lexi shouted, covering her eyes and drawing her knees up to her chest.

  “Shit!” was all Gerry had time to say. The rider was upon them. Gerry jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and jammed the screeching brakes to the floor. The SUV lurched off the road. Bags, coolers, everything loose in the car, was suddenly in midair in one horrifying, frozen instant of stretched time. Alana grabbed the passenger handle above the door. The image of her cat, Mr. Pointy, flashed into her mind, and she wondered who would feed him, take care of him? There was the sound—the sound of all the things in the world breaking, smashing at once. Then it was over.

  The moment after a crash is surreal. As elongated and static as the instant before impact, the moment after is oddly peaceful and silent, like space. Alana looked around. She touched herself gingerly, ran a hand softly through her hair. She was okay. Cole had been thrown back into the rear of the SUV. He touched a jagged cut along his scalp. His palm was dark with fresh blood. Ava looked around as if she was coming out of a trance. Her glasses had been knocked off her face from the impact, and she bent forward and retrieved them. Gerry’s and Lexi’s airbags engulfed them, and both seemed okay. It was Gerry who finally broke the spell and spoke.

  “Everyone … everybody okay?” he asked.

  A general murmur of confirmation, then Cole’s voice—angry, almost incredulous. “You have got to be shitting me! Motherrrrfucker!” There was a click as Cole opened the rear door of the SUV and began to climb out.

  “Cole, no!” Alana shouted. “I need to look at that scalp wound! You’re losing blood!”

  “Cole, damn it!” Ava said, turning to try to stop him, but he was already out.

  The others all struggled out of the Honda. The SUV’s nose was buried in a deep irrigation ditch on the side of the highway. The front axle was bent, and one of the wheels was twisted at an angle that would barely allow the tire to touch the road even if they did get it out of the trench. It was darker now. Everything was covered in a dusty haze. The sky had lost most of its color, except for the brilliant crimson wound in the west. No stars had dared to venture out yet.

  Cole was standing in the middle of the two-lane road. His breathing was shallow, almost panting. His hair and face were black with his own blood. His fists clenched and unclenched. About twenty feet away, the motorcycle rider stood, straddling his all-black antique motorcycle, which was idling, growling like a hungry hound. Ala
na thought it looked like one of those bikes that army couriers rode in World War II.

  “Hey, you fucking asshole!” Cole shouted at the rider. “What the hell is your problem, man! You nearly fucking killed us, you psycho!”

  The rider was tall, well over six feet, and gaunt. He was dressed head to toe in heavy black riding leathers. His full-face helmet and visor were black as well; so were his heavy leather gloves and thick, steel-toed boots. He regarded Cole silently, unmoving.

  “Hey, dickhead!” Cole said, moving toward the rider. “I’m talking to you! See what you did to me? Did to our fucking car?”

  “Cole,” Ava said, running to his side. “Baby, please don’t! He looks crazy.”

  Gerry, Lexi, and Alana joined the couple. The rider’s helmeted head turned to regard each of the five silently. When the dark visor turned to Alana, it felt as if ice water were filling her intestines. She looked down. The rider held Cole’s gaze the longest. Cole glared back.

  “Come on!” Cole shouted, Ava grabbing at his arm, trying to pull him back. “Fucking puss!”

  “Someone call the PoPo,” Lexi said softly.

  “Can’t,” Gerry said, looking at his smartphone. “No service.”

  Alana quickly looked to see if she could spot some kind of identification on the rider’s antique bike. She didn’t see a license plate, no stickers or adornments.

  The rider turned his gaze from the group, twisted the throttle on the handlebar, and the bike’s engine went from a low growl to a thunderous snarl. The rear tire squealed as it bit into the highway. The stench of burning rubber was everywhere as the rider aimed the bike in the direction he had been riding and lifted his foot off the road. The bike lifted him and he tore off down U.S. 36 into the deepening night. In seconds, his diminishing silhouette merged with the darkness and was gone from sight.

  “Well … shit,” Lexi said. “I didn’t know Charles Manson rode a bike.”

  “Fucking wimp,” Cole said, still staring off into the growing night. “Kick his ass.”

  “You’re lucky that psycho didn’t shoot you,” Alana said, moving Cole’s hair aside and looking at the scalp wound. “Be still.”

  “Anybody got service?” Gerry asked, tapping his phone and shaking his head, “because we are going nowhere in my car. We are currently a three-wheeler. Shit, my parents are going to freak! This will make their insurance go up. They will fucking kill me!”

  “Your parents?” Ava said, frowning, “Seriously, Gerr?”

  “Okay,” Alana said to Cole. “It’s ugly, but it’s not deep. Maybe a stitch or two. Get a shirt or something to hold over it until the bleeding eases up. When we get to a hospital, they may want to check to make sure you don’t have a concussion. You’re going to be fine, Cole.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Cole said. “Okay, anyone’s phone working?”

  “No,” Lexi said. “This sucks.”

  It was almost dark. Everyone went back to the SUV. Cole used a bottle of water to clean his wound and wash his face and hair. He removed and wrapped his T-shirt around his head to stanch the blood. Lexi watched him covertly as he pulled his shirt over his head. He was beautiful, perfect. His muscles rippled under his tattooed skin.

  “Do we have any road flares?” Alana asked Gerry, who was sitting behind the wheel, the driver’s-side door open, busy drinking another of the rapidly dwindling supply of beers. He shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” he muttered. “All I know is this whole day has sucked and I’m out of smokes.”

  “And,” Alana added, as she headed to the rear compartment of the Honda, “you’re getting drunk and being useless. Stick to your strengths, Gerr.” Alana lifted up the compartment that held the spare tire. There was a canvas bag with a funnel, some oily tools, and a couple of flares. Alana wrapped the greasy flares in part of a roll of paper towels and dropped them into her tote bag. She also snagged a small plastic case that was a simple first-aid kit, hoping to find something to dress Cole’s head wound.

  Cole and Lexi passed a joint back and forth in the backseat and drank beer. Ava sat in front, next to Gerry, and played some game on her phone. The radio had produced nothing but static, so the CD player was softly playing “Interstate Love Song,” by Stone Temple Pilots. Alana walked out onto the road where the rider had stood and looked down U.S. 36 in both directions. Nothing. Night had come, and this was the deep country. No lights, no sounds save the hum of the nocturnal insects arising with the death of the sun. Alana sighed. She took one of the flares out and read the instructions by the light of her cell-phone screen. She twisted the plastic cap on the flare and removed it, then struck the end of the flare to the coarse side of the cap, like a huge match. The flare hissed to brilliant life. She gingerly placed it squarely in the middle of the highway. Anyone who came by this godforsaken stretch of highway would have to stop now, she thought. They might be pissed, but at least they wouldn’t just drive on without helping.

  “Hey,” Gerry said. “Did you know we aren’t too far from the center of the lower forty-eight?”

  “What?” Ava asked, looking up from her phone.

  “Yeah, up the road is Lebanon,” Gerry said, slurring slightly. He paused to drain his PBR and then crush the can. “It’s the geographical center of the contig … con-tig-uous United States … kinda like ground zero. They got a little pyramid shrine with a plaque there and everything.”

  “Great,” Lexi said, taking the joint, now a roach, from Cole. “So we really are in the middle of nowhere.”

  From the west, the direction the motorcycle had come, a pair of high beams stabbed out of the night. “Guys!” Alana shouted. “Car!” Everyone climbed out of the SUV, crowding near the white line at the edge of the road. Alana stood by the flare, watching the headlights get closer.

  “Alana, get over here!” Ava said. “You could get hit!”

  “They’re going to stop, damn it,” Alana said and held her ground. They could hear the engine now, a wheezing, coughing clatter. It was almost comical. The vehicle came into view, a hulking shadow behind the bright lights. It slowed, the brakes making a horrid metallic scraping sound. It stopped a few feet from the crimson, hissing road flare with a shudder and a gasp. It was an old Ford pickup from the fifties, maybe even older than that, with a tow winch mounted in the bed. On the side of the doors, in faded and scraped paint, it said SCODE’S GARAGE, EST. 1932 FOUR HOUSES, KS; beneath that was JEREMIAH 12:14. Two men climbed out of the truck. One looked late thirties and was broad and muscular, dressed in a greasy undershirt and a torn flannel button-down. His jeans were covered in rips and grease stains, and his work boots were dirty. He had an unruly mop of curly black hair and about a week’s growth of beard. His eyes were dark and sullen. One of his eyelids drooped. He had a buck knife sheathed on his belt. The other one, who exited the passenger door, was younger, maybe in his twenties, skinny and shorter. His dark hair was greasy and slicked back from his face. His ears and nose were prominent, and he wore a dirty blue mechanic’s shirt with a white oval patch over the left breast that said TOBY in red embroidery. A tire-pressure gauge poked out of his shirt pocket, and his jeans were baggy, held up by a fiercely tightened belt, and as dirty as the driver’s.

  “Your car,” the driver said. His voice was harsh, almost snarling. “We can tow you to the garage. Fix it up.”

  “Really? Gerry said, smiling. “Aw that’s great, man! Great!” The tow-truck driver looked at him as if he were an insect from another planet. Gerry’s smile began to fall from his face. “Um … How far is the garage? I can’t afford a lot for the tow. Sorry.”

  “Four Houses,” the skinny one said. His voice was higher in pitch but equally aggressive. “We’ll tow you. No charge as long as we do the work on the car? Sound square to you?”

  “I … I guess.” Gerry looked over at the others for guidance.

  “Yes or no,” the large driver grunted. “It’s got to be a yes or a no. So what is it?”

  “Y … yes,” Gerry said. “Sure
, man. Thanks!”

  “Hey, isn’t Four Houses, like, that old historical place?” Ava said. “Over in Wyandotte County, near Kansas City? It used to be an outpost or something a long time ago.”

  “Nowhere near here,” Alana said.

  “Nah,” Toby, the skinny tow-truck mechanic said. “That’s just an old story. The real Four—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Toby,” the burly driver rumbled.

  “Sorry, Wald,” Toby muttered, looking down.

  “Let’s get them hooked up,” Wald said. He turned to the group. “Girls can ride in the cab, boys in the bed. Grab your shit out of the car.”

  Everyone grabbed the bags from the back of the SUV while Wald and Toby hooked the Honda up and hoisted it out of the ditch.

  “Yeah,” Gerry said, standing next to Wald as he worked the winch levers, “some asshole on a bike ran us off the road, man.” Wald looked at him with his one hooded eye, twitching slightly, but said nothing.

  Alana checked Cole’s wound. She applied a thick square gauze bandage to the cut. “These guys are creeping me out,” she said softly as he put his bloody shirt back on. “I don’t think we should go, Cole.”

  “Gerry may be scared of the Deliverance boys, but I’m not,” Cole said. “I’ll keep you guys safe, no worries, Doc. I got a gun. It’s in my bag.”

  “What the hell, Cole?” she whispered. “Are you really that drunk, or did you crack your skull harder than I thought, you idiot?”

  “Relax,” Cole said, picking up his gym bag. “It’s a little .380. I always carry a piece on trips, in case shit like this happens. My dad hunts; I know my way around a gun.”