Living in Quiet Rage

by Michael English Bierwiler

  The new SUV was compact, but large enough to accommodate his expanding family. The old Honda was a quick sale in the free Savvy Shopper and provided cash for gasoline and fast food on the race to his first assignment at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. He was disappointed that the Donelsons insisted on flying Amelia down after he settled in.

  Doc allowed himself three full days to cover the 1800 miles from Spokane to Fort Worth. The weather was clear, but unpredictable on the New Year’s weekend. At the final farewell stop John and Anna generously supplied soft drinks, sandwiches and snacks since they suspected that Doc would only stop for gas. Doc made an excuse to wander around the house one last time before striking out to Texas. Nothing changed since earlier that summer, but he inspected the comfortable old home in detail uncovering nuances that he overlooked when he lived there.

  The cocoa colored carpeting suffered wear patterns from every repetitive activity over the years. The path from the front door to the kitchen was obvious, but he noticed a worn spot by the bay window looking out on the front sidewalk which may have traced back to an earlier Halloween or perhaps back to the expectation of Jack or Steve coming home to make amends. Doc would have guessed that being a real estate agent, John Scott would have replaced the telltale signs of wear with new carpeting. The painting of Rachel had migrated from John and Anna’s bedroom to the dining room.

  Anna rounded him up for a last show of affection. She held him close to her as if she might never see him again until he pried her away to make his exit. She didn’t cry because she would have plenty of time for that when he was on the road. Anna didn’t want him to leave in the midst of tears. John tucked $600 into Doc’s shirt pocket with the admonition to stop when he got tired. Doc thought of how far the leftover money would go toward getting into a new apartment in Fort Worth.

  Doc turned to wave at the bottom of the snowy front step. Then he jammed his icy hand into the right front pocket of his starched jeans for the truck keys and hustled into the driver’s seat of the new red SUV. John and Anna waited inside the glass storm door until he pulled out of the driveway and slid down the street. Doc knew they were sharing their worries with each other behind the glass. He felt inside the cooler perched on the passenger seat for a first round of soda and sandwiches as he turned the corner and headed south to Interstate 90.

  Memories of Grizzly Ranch came to mind that afternoon as he passed through Coeur d’Alene on the way to Lookout Pass west of Missoula. He was enjoying the clear roads and great weather. On other winter occasions Lookout Pass was a treacherous nerve-wracking experience on sheets of ice. Many crossings during severe winters required chains on the tires, and some nights the pass over the Continental Divide was closed to traffic. The road snaked down through the lower parts of the range to the university town. As he approached Butte, he picked up speed through the tiresome, flat scenery.

  Snow started falling in the darkness long before he reached Cheyenne. Sixteen hours of driving took its toll on his ability to concentrate on the superhighway. About an hour outside of Denver the truck began to fishtail on the ice until the back end was leading the vehicle off the road and down the gentle embankment. The left wheels dug into the snow and dirt at the side of the road while the wheels on the passenger side lifted off the ground just short of flipping the vehicle over.

  He had been asleep at the wheel for seconds and was not yet awake enough to appreciate the danger until the truck came to a jerking stop at the bottom of the shallow embankment. Since it was three or four o’clock in the morning on a snowy night, Doc reclined the driver’s seat and rested. At daylight the driver of an eighteen-wheeler pulled over to check on him.

  Doc was startled by the knock on his frosty windshield. “You all right in there?” The recollection of the wild spinning ride a few hours earlier rushed back. He could see the trucker’s face cupped in his hands looking at him through the glass. Doc pulled on the door handle, but the bottom edge caught on the ground six inches from the chassis. He crawled over the console and gearshift to the passenger door to escape.

  “I seen your truck leanin’ over in the ditch facin’ the wrong way and figgered you didn’t mean to park it that way. I see a lot of folks thinkin’ they can sail down these icy roads without crackin’ up and usually it’s a heck of a lot worse than your fix.”

  Doc surveyed the damage. The bright red SUV sat at a forty-five degree angle at the side of the road. Grooves in the snow marked the path of the skid to where the left wheels dug into a shallow ditch.

  “You want a wrecker or shall we hook up a chain and see if we can get you moving again? If you didn’t mess up the wheels or the axle, you might be roadworthy again. Maybe a couple small dents and scratches, but nothin’ serious…maybe,” he said encouragingly.

  The old trucker was reminiscent of Captain Kangaroo with lengthy shocks of white hair which curled up as the strands ended and a matching mustache on his beefy red grandfatherly face. He huffed back to his rig and walked back with a rusty chain dragging behind him. “Just need somethin’ solid to hook up to,” he narrated as he slid his head and chest under the front bumper on the raised side on the vehicle. Just as quickly he was back on his feet in the slush.

  “Put her in neutral and we’ll gently yank her out…hopefully.” When the old truck driver was secure in his form-fitting old seat, he hit the air horn and let the clutch out. The big diesel engine changed pitch as the SUV was yanked forward from the ditch and onto the shoulder of the interstate. The old man climbed out, unhooked the chain and replaced it on the back of his rig. Doc started the engine of the SUV, slid the transmission into drive and turned it around to face the other direction. It didn’t seem to be that much worse for the wear.

  The old trucker caught up to the driver’s window of the SUV after running his rough, cold hand down the dirty fender. “Yeah, buff out some of those scratches, don‘t worry about a couple little dents, and you got her made, son.”

  Doc fumbled in his pocket for a twenty dollar bill and handed it out the open driver’s window without looking the driver in the face, “Thanks for the help.”

  “People like us don’t take no handouts for being a decent human bein’, buckaroo,” he replied gruffly and stomped back to his truck. He would have appreciated an offer of a cup of coffee at the next truck stop and perhaps some breakfast conversation, but cold, hard cash did not equate to gratitude in his book.

  Doc found a small diner advertising breakfast at the next exit. The waiter, cook, and dishwasher were the same person in the small rundown building. “What’ll ya have?”

  Doc ordered pancakes because the price was right. He began to doze off in the booth after half of his meal. After twenty minutes the young man behind the counter woke him up.

  “Military?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Four years Army myself. How long you been on the road without stopping?”

  “I left Spokane about nine yesterday.”

  “Cripes that’s a long drive. What’s your hurry?”

  “I don’t have to be in Texas until Tuesday morning for work, but I’m trying to keep expenses down by only staying one night at a motel on the way.”

  “That’s crazy. That’s so stupid. You’re going to get yourself killed and take some poor family or trucker with you. Here’s the deal. I have a camper for hunting on my pickup out back. It’s unlocked. Go crawl in there for a few hours and I’ll wake you up when I get off shift at two. No discussion. Now get the heck out of my diner and go get some sleep.”

  “I can’t do that. You don’t even know me.”

  “You’re military, I was Army. I trust ya. Besides, there’s nothing of value in that camper anyway or I woulda locked it up. Go. Now.”

  Doc sauntered out the front door and around to the back of the diner. The only vehicle back there was a bedraggled green and rust Dodge pickup with an ancient white camper resting on the bed and encroaching over the cab. He twisted the knob and leveraged himself into the musty
confines of the fiberglass shell. The remnant of shag carpeting was rife with mud while the sink and propane stove bore earmarks of shoddy meals from long ago. An old single mattress lay across the raised platform above the cab with a down sleeping bag stuffed at one end. Doc had second thoughts about the stranger’s invitation, but relented and crawled up on the mattress pulling the sleeping bag over him to ward off the cold.

  Doc felt a tug on his calf and sprang up sharply hitting his head on the roof. “Hey, didn’t mean to scare ya. I bet that hurts. Ya feelin’ better this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, better,” Doc yawned crawling down. “What time is it?”

  “A few minutes after two. I’m going home and you’re headed south.”

  Doc offered his right hand. “I really appreciate the rest.”

  “No problem. Have a safe trip…and stop to rest once in a while along the way, why don’t cha?”

  Doc felt his pockets for his keys and wallet before stepping out. The warm winter Colorado sun was melting the accumulated snow. He waved as the pickup and camper wandered around the building and onto the access road heading home. Doc was amazed that he had not even asked the man’s name, yet he had been entrusted with the man’s camper all day. Doc wrestled with reason as he decided whether either man was foolish for trusting a total stranger.

  Doc set off southbound on Interstate 25 at seventy-five miles an hour. At that speed he could beat the rush hour traffic through Denver and still be at the speed limit. The road ahead was as flat as West Texas, but the views of the Rocky Mountains to the right were inspiring. He knew that Estes Park was a short detour across the mountains with its alpine meadows and crisp, clean air.

  If Amelia was with him, they could make a side trip to enjoy the day together before he reported to work on Tuesday. He promised himself that one of these days they would have a first getaway to make up for the first short days in the Donelson’s basement bedroom before boot camp. The rush from an unattached student to a married soldier occurred too quickly. Too many interim changes were side-stepped to make the master plan fall into place. Things would be different for them in Texas, he promised himself. The giant republic held more dreams and adventures than anyone could imagine.

  Just before midnight Doc pulled into an inexpensive motel beyond Childress on the far side of Amarillo. The landscape had been flat for hours again and he eyes were beginning to droop. The drinks, food and snacks that Anna sent were exhausted and so was Doc. Once inside the motel room he had no time to think before he was asleep in his underwear on top of the frayed beige-flowered bedspread covering the sagging mattress and box springs. His starched jeans, wrinkled t-shirt and sweaty white crew socks lay in a careless pile at the side of the bed exactly where he shed them.

  About four in the morning he was awakened by three sharp slams on the other side of the wall from his headboard. He heard a woman crying and a man yelling drunken slurs from the next room. Doc kept his eyes closed in an effort to stay uninvolved. He considered calling 911 on the room telephone, but resisted to see if it would blow over quickly. The voices continued although there were no further blows to the wall.

  He debated as to whether a righteous man was obligated to step into such matters or whether a prudent man would mind his own business. A door slammed on the other side of the wall and a truck engine started in the parking lot and roared away. The subdued crying continued on the other side of the wall for the next half hour.

  After a few minutes of silence, the knob of the common door to the adjoining motel room turned and a drunk young woman crawled through the doorway on all fours. Doc opened his eyes at the sound of the knob turning and lay still in unbelief that the maid had not locked the adjoining door.

  It was hard to pin an age on the woman. She could have been in her mid-twenties with twelve miles of bad road or she could have been well on the road to forty. Her medium length dark hair was damp and matted about her face, and her rough complexion was devoid of makeup. Her bruised and vacant eyes met Doc’s as if they were simply passing each other in the grocery aisle.

  “Thought it was the bathroom,” she said, heavy with impending vomit. She began to gag. Doc leaped up and helped her to his bathroom for the inevitable rush of recycled cheap wine. He held her hair back out of the way of the flood even though it felt repulsively damp and greasy from earlier recycled alcohol.

  “Where’d he go?” she blabbered looking around the unfamiliar bathroom. “He was a low-life anyway. Didn’t deserve me. I was too good for him.”

  “Do you need an ambulance?” Doc asked.

  “Did I call you an ambulance? OK, you’re an ambulance. No that’s not the way the joke goes. Give me a minute and I’ll get it. Hey, who are you and what are you doing in my room?” Her mind cleared for a split second, then relapsed into its prior blur. She was not concerned that she was in a stranger’s bathroom.

  “Maybe I should help you back to your room now, ma’am.”

  “Aren’t you just the little gentleman, now. What’s your name? I have to know your name if you’re taking me back to my room.”

  Doc was extremely panicked in the unfamiliar situation. He feared that the boyfriend might return and escalate the existing crisis. The woman seen unfazed due to the alcoholic haze and decided to small talk.

  “I really thought he was a nice guy. Known him for a couple months since we left Odessa. Said he works in the oil field up in the Panhandle and that’s where we were headed. Where is he? Is he coming back? Who are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Let me help you up and we’ll get you back to your room.” Doc tried to lift her, but she was dead weight.

  “Naw. I don’t feel so good. I’m just gonna rest here for a little while.” Doc rushed back into the main room to shut and lock the adjoining door in case the boyfriend returned.

  “Hey, cowboy, where’d you go?” she called from the bathroom floor. Doc approached cautiously and sat down on the drab carpeting outside the bathroom doorway leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed.

  “I wasn’t always a drunk, ya know. Used to have a nice house and a nice life down in Odessa with three little kids. I was a good person, ya now? I was a good person, but I just got bored taking care of that house and those kids, fixing dinner every night, same deal day after blessed day, and I just wanted more. I wanted my life to be exciting like in high school when anything seemed possible. I was popular back then, let me tell you, I was popular. I had friends and we would party and go to the lake and go to the movies and really live, do you know what I mean?”

  Doc had an idea of what she was talking about. Although life-changing events were occurring in his life, he had been geographically distanced from feeling like a participant.

  “All I wanted was just a little bit of excitement in my life, so when us girls were out at the roadhouse one night, I tried one little bitty snort of coke because it was supposed to make you feel so good. And it was good that first time, but the second time, it wasn’t so good and I could never get to that high again no matter how many times I tried. Once you’ve been there you can’t handle everyday life anymore. You’re always craving that feeling of the first hit. Then the money started running out. My husband was angry because I couldn’t explain the ATM overdraws and then the charge card advances started coming in and we couldn’t make the mortgage payments and they started calling and threatening to repossess the cars, and then he took the kids and left.” She paused and gagged a couple times before starting back up.

  “I coulda fixed it if he had given me a little more time. It wasn’t my fault. I just needed to feel good again. Just needed another hit so I could cope and make it through the day. I haven’t seen my kids in a year now. I’m having trouble remembering their faces. But it’s not my fault. I didn’t choose for this to happen. It just did. You believe I’m a good person, don’t you?” She reached over with her right hand and laid it awkwardly on his bare thigh. Doc scooted out of her reach.

  Doc agreed with her ramblin
gs in hope that she would shut up and leave. Instead, she sprawled out on the tile and began to drift off into unconsciousness. Doc suddenly felt self-conscious wearing just his shorts and scrambled to the bedside. He patted his starched jeans to feel for his wallet and truck keys, then slipped on his jeans along with his crew socks and t-shirt. She began to snore the loud drunken snore he was familiar with from hearing barracks mates late at night on long dreary weekends in tech school. He figured he had time for a few more hours of rest before she woke up. He sunk down on the mattress and pulled the bedspread over him.

  At dawn he awoke to discover that she was still lying silently on the bathroom floor. Although the thunderous snoring had subsided, she was alive and out cold. Doc decided to use the gas station across the street instead of disturbing her and slipped out the door without waking her.

  “She in there?” boomed a male voice from the dusty blue pickup parked next to his red SUV. Doc flinched, but didn’t answer. The boyfriend threw his beer bottle at Doc’s feet where it shattered shards of glass over the cement sidewalk.

  “You can have her for all I care,” the man bellowed and jerked the blue pickup into reverse. A spray of gravel pinged the cars as he sped out of the parking lot. Doc was relieved that the confrontation was short and non-physical. He hustled into the driver’s seat of his own truck and headed across the street for a quick stop before heading south, leaving the remaining players behind in their own levels of the inferno.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The plains transformed into a metropolis after a few hours. Gradually the tall downtown buildings of Fort Worth grew to full size and the metropolitan sprawl conquered the prairie. Fort Worth was a great city. It had rodeo, free classic art museums, giant wooded parks and any activity under the sun short of surfing and mountain climbing. Carswell Air Force Base was adjacent to a large man-made lake at the western edge of town. The base had all the accoutrements of a small town in those days including a recreation area and a boat dock on the lake.