Damascus Road

by Charlie Cole

  DAMASCUS ROAD

  a Charlie Cole print

  Damascus Road

  Copyright © 2012 Charlie Cole

  All Rights Reserved.

  Kindle Edition

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  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Sarah Spann

  Editing by C.J. Jones

  I WAS LYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, wondering how I got there. The side of my face was pressed against the centerline, the yellow stripe smeared with blood. I considered if it was mine.

  The asphalt was cold under my body, and I wanted to get up--to move. I tried to lift my arms but could only summon my fingers to twitch. Move my arms? That was asking too much. I wondered how badly I was hurt.

  The taste of blood was in my mouth. My lip was split and raw. I seemed capable of coherent thought, but how much could that possibly mean? Does a man know that he’s incoherent, scatter-brained, brain dead when it happens? Or does he just think, “Nah, I’m fine. I’ll be alright”? And that the flatline of the heart monitor shakes him out of that reality just in time for the big closing of the curtain? Thank you very much; don’t forget to tip your waitress.

  I had no idea. My foot moved. I smiled at that. Maybe it was only a facial twitch to anyone who was looking, but it was a smile anyway. I was spread-eagled on the road, the left side of my face pressed to the blacktop, pebbles embedded in the flesh. My legs were sprawled out behind me, and one foot had somehow balanced on the toe of my boot. The weight of my leg shifted this way and that, and I felt it fall so that the boot pointed the way to shoulder of the road. It seemed to want to say: “You should be over there.”

  I helped myself even in times like those. How thoughtful of me.

  I pulled my hands to my sides, dragging them through road grit and auto glass shards. I tried to push myself up off the pavement and felt something low and vital in my back pop. Needles of pain ripped through my legs like a rabid porcupine. I screamed in agony and had to spit blood to avoid choking on it.

  My legs were wobbly, unstable. I couldn’t get them beneath me. Had my balance, lost it and got it back. I stood slowly, straightening. My back pulsed in a throbbing, wailing trumpet of ache.

  I ran a hand through my hair and felt glass fragments and blood. My head was cut. I was bleeding. It was running down my face, into my eye. I wiped at it with my sleeve and the streak it left behind was crimson and dirty. Life escaped me on my shirt sleeve.

  My legs worked, but there was something vitally wrong. It hurt when I inhaled. I tried to lift my arms and I felt something stab me in the side. I had broken or cracked a rib. No two ways about it. I cursed under my breath and tried to find where I was.

  It was an intersection, it seemed. I was lying in the southbound lanes away from where the roads crossed.

  Abbott. The word floated into my memory. It was the town I had been in. Abbott… somewhere to the north, left on Hwy 47. But how did I get--?

  I turned slowly to look behind me. Thirty feet away was a twisted wreck of sheet metal and rubber. I saw the frame twisted as if by a giant’s hands. I recognized a tire. Firestone. The rim was polished steel. Oddly familiar.

  There was a fender, midnight black. An exhaust system twisted away from the frame as if it were trying to escape and save itself. I tried to make my brain work, to process, to sort out what had happened to this thing that perhaps once had been a vehicle and now looked like nothing more than some artist’s idea of modern sculpture.

  I could feel heat. I realized that in a growing realization. The cuts on my hands, the road rash scrape that had peeled away the fabric of my jeans at the knee to reveal flesh and blood, both evident, both mingled together, while they ached by themselves, felt raw under a startling heat. It was the heat that would broil your skin when you lean too close to the grill during a 4th of July cookout. The heat so hot you can’t breathe, can’t suck air into your lungs.

  Further I turned and saw the fire. It was a semi-tractor trailer rig. Massive in its size, the proud bulldog symbol of the Mack truck still evident above the grill, although it looked as if some joker had broken off the head of the dog. Who would do that? I thought.

  The semi was candy apple red, its trailer white and emblazoned with the name of the hauling company. The vehicle had capsized, fallen to its side in the ditch. There was no driver that I could see. None that I could remember for the life of me.

  The fuel tank had ruptured; I guessed because there were flames from the ditch to the car, in some maniacal dot-to-dot of an arsonist trying to put the pieces together for me.

  I looked between them again and again. The truck. The…car. The truck. The car. The truck. My… car.

  It was my car. My car. The realization hit me in the gut like a heavyweight boxer’s uppercut. My 1970 Chevelle. My car… the one I had bought when I was 17 years old with my own money. Worked two jobs just to afford her. Days and nights of summer vacation in the mechanics shop, working for free just to learn about cars, how to fix them how to rebuild them. Anything to get a car to drive. Anything to be mobile and able to get away.

  My car was on fire. I hobbled toward the flame and tried to stamp it out. It resisted, refused to be extinguished; and my only accomplishment was to jangle my bones as I stomped my boot on the determined fire. That’s when my pants leg caught ablaze.

  The flame grabbed the hem of my jeans, whether it had soaked in the spilled gasoline or not, I did not know - only that it caught in a sudden wump noise . Feeling my leg on fire, I flinched back, screamed and fell backwards, slapping at the flames. It was stupid and ludicrous but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

  The pain cleared my head, and the memories of the night came back in a rush, like a slap in the back of the head from my father. Sudden and painful and completely unforeseen.

  I had been driving my car on my way out of Abbott. That was when the truck hit me. But I had not been alone. I wasn’t a bad driver. Why had I missed the stop sign?

  I had not been alone. I was talking… no, arguing with someone. The alcohol-induced fog in my mind was lifted, and I remembered it all in one stomach twisting moment. I swallowed hard and tasted tequila and lime and blood.

  Christopher Beck had been in the car with me. My best friend.

  I looked back at the car, around it. I didn’t see him. I ran to the car, my legs moving under me without conscious thought. The car had flipped on its side and was resting against a telephone pole. The windshield had spider-webbed, a mess of glass and metal. I couldn’t see anything. I grabbed at the top of the car and found a grip, a hand hold and pulled myself up, a foot here on the undercarriage, a hand there on the transmission.

  On top of the car, I tried to look in through the window. The glass was broken here as well, but I was beyond caring. I slammed my fist into the glass, breaking both the pane and a bone in my hand. Pain rushed up my arm and my stomach turned over, but they were both lost to me.

  I saw Chris then. He looked peaceful. His eyes were closed. His hands lay across his stoma
ch. He lay against the door of the car, not moving. Not breathing. The realization came to me that it was already done. I lowered myself down into the car, crazily turned on its side. I struggled to free Chris from his seatbelt. I pulled, and it was jammed. I reached for my knife and opened it one-handed with a sharp snikt of razor-edged metal. The belt fell away, leaving Chris limp in my arms.

  It took time to get Chris out of the car. My back strained. My legs ached, yet I didn’t care. Sweat poured from my brow, down my spine, but I couldn’t stop. If I stopped I would have to accept the unacceptable. So I continued on.

  I got Chris out of the car and down to the ground. I checked for a pulse the way I had seen it done in TV shows and movies. I thought I was doing it wrong, struggled, tried again, and still found nothing.

  “Come on, Chris!” I said through clenched teeth. “Breathe, man…”

  The thought of performing CPR occurred to me. I had taken the class years ago when I wanted the job as the lifeguard to meet girls and hang out at the beach. I laid him flat, tipped his head back and checked his airway.

  He wasn’t breathing. No breath. No pulse.

  I blew air into his lungs. I performed compressions. I repeated the process, the counting, the breaths, the compressions over and over again. I lost track of time. I was hyperventilating, unable to catch my own breath, gasping for air. My gasps turned to sobs, and the tears began to flow down my cheeks.

  “Chris, what the hell…?”

  He couldn’t answer me, and what made it worse was that I couldn’t ask him what had happened. I didn’t remember the crash. I didn’t remember how my friend had died.

  I stood to my feet. Chris was unmoved. His face was impassive, calm. Wherever he was at that moment, he didn’t have a care in the world. Not about me. Not about how I felt about his passing.

  “Son of a bitch!” I screamed into the night air.

  No response came back. Not even the courtesy of an echo. I kicked at the ground and rubbed my face, slick with blood and tears. I groaned and cried. I was a kid having a tantrum, absolutely lost and at the end of myself. I was angry and devastated.

  I stared into the fire, watching it burn, remembering the way my pant leg had caught on fire. The trail of gas was still burning. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I hoped the gas tank would catch and explode and it would all be over in one catastrophic explosion.

  I watched the flames lick and twist and writhe in the air. If there was one thing I couldn’t escape, it was that little sensible voice in my head. The one that had heard or read somewhere that gas tanks don’t just blow up like in the movies. It takes a precise mixture of air and fuel for the tank to ignite, even if it was punctured.

  My life meant nothing to me. Not to family, that was for sure. Chris had been my only friend. He was dead because of me, I had no doubt of it. What was I living for?

  My knife was in my hand again. I flipped the blade open and stalked toward the gas tank, ready to plunge the blade in, to rip the tank open, let the flames in and pray for death. Swift or not, it was what I deserved. What I always knew was waiting for me.

  I heard the squeal of tires behind me and turned, more annoyed at the delay than anything else. It was another car, its headlights catching me dead in its path as the driver tried to steer around the semi rig. He was traveling too fast, braking too late. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I thought he was an idiot.

  I held up my hand to flag him down, but he wasn’t stopping. The car was skidding from steering around the trailer rig. He couldn’t slow down.

  The car struck me, and I could feel myself hurled into the air. Floating, I imagined. No pain. No reaction to the circumstance. I was going to heaven or hell. Either way, I was dead and everything was behind me.

  That was when I slammed back into the pavement on the centerline. I was back to where I started. I didn’t have the strength to raise my broken bones from the pavement this time. I was done. The pain rolled over me, and I let myself blackout, wondering if this is how it had been for Chris before he died.

  I awoke in the hospital, more than a little disappointed that I was still alive. It was the light I saw first, blinding and white, piercing my eyes. I blinked hard, squinted, still couldn’t see and finally gave up and closed my eyes again. What was the point of heaven, if it’s so bright I can’t see it? I thought.

  That was when I realized it was the nurse, changing my bedpan. Not exactly eternal bliss, but I’d take it. Happiness came in small packages.

  “How are we doing today, Mr. Marlowe?” asked the nurse.

  I tried to reply. Say something witty and sly. I mumbled something unintelligible. I wanted to point to the shade but could only move my thumb. It was turning out to be a banner day.

  “It’s okay, just take your time,” the nurse said with a smile. “I’ll be back before the end of my shift.”

  She wasn’t though-at least not when I was awake. I watched the sun set, and felt the warmth from the window slowly dissipate to the cool antiseptic hospital air. The darkness enveloped me in a black embrace, and I naively gave myself over to my dreams.

  I remembered getting the call from Chris. My phone rang and I picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Jim?” said the voice. “It’s Chris Beck.”

  “Hey man, how you been?”

  “Good, good. I’m in town, kind of passing through. Thought I’d call you and see if you wanted to get together. Maybe grab a slice.”

  Pizza sounded good actually. Times were tough, and I was between jobs. The family was scattered to the wind, so I had no obligations, no appointments, nothing holding me back. There would be no one at home to call and ask where I was and when I’d be back. That made me smile to myself, then feel a little stupid that I was grinning to myself on the phone.

  “Sure, thing, brother,” I said. “Meet you at Callahan’s in an hour?”

  “Sounds right. I’ll buy.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  Chris was laughing even as he hung up. Funny guy. I knew he had a family, at least he did the last time I’d talked with him. Maybe he could stay out late with the big boys.

  I clicked off the TV and dropped the remote in the chair. I walked into the bedroom and peeled off my shirt, throwing it toward the laundry basket, fairly certain it never made it. I found a fresh one and pulled it on. My boots were at the door, keys hanging from the hook. I took them both and walked out to the Chevelle.

  Settling into the seat, I fired up the engine. I loved the sound of it, the deep-throated thrum that rumbled low in the gut, vibrating out some secret ancient morse code that could only be interpreted as “Give me more gas.” I did, and the Chevelle peeled out of the parking space, kicking up gravel onto the side of the house. The wife would have hated that-if she still lived with me.

  The roads between home and Callahan’s were easy to follow, easier still to speed along. I steered into each curve, enjoying the methodic rise and drop of the tachometer, the speedometer's meteoric rise that made my stomach drop. The feeling of driving was soothing to me, better than anything I had ever experienced.

  I pulled into Callahan’s and wondered at the near empty lot. Why were there so few people? I checked my watch and realized that most folks were still at work. Another shot of guilt. I lost my job; what was there to do about it?

  I parked the car and strolled inside. The place had either been a bar that served food or a diner that started mixing drinks. I didn’t know which and couldn’t be bothered to care. I grabbed a booth and decided to kill time by perusing the menu.

  A waitress arrived and asked me if I was ready to order. Despite my plan to wait for Chris, I realized that I was hungry. I ordered a plate of nachos with cheese and meat and salsa. Cold beer to start. The food came, and I started to feast before the waitress retreated. Like any good bar cuisine, it was the perfect amalgam of salt and sweet. Chips and salsa and beer. It was hard to beat.

  My watch gave me another forty minutes before
Chris would arrive. I didn’t know what prompted me to arrive at Callahan’s so early. To get out of the house? Find company? What did it matter? I ordered a patty melt and ate while reading the paper, doing the crossword.

  The waitress cleared the plates and I ordered a tequila. Just one. It came, and I drank and ordered another. I was finishing my third when Chris arrived. I needed to tighten up.

  “Hey buddy!” I said and shook his hand firmly. “Coffee?”

  He nodded and I gestured to the waitress. She disappeared then returned with both pots, regular and decaf, filling our mugs to the top.

  “How’s it been?” Chris asked. “You know, with the family.”

  I chuckled and smiled but didn’t really have a cause or motive. It just seemed like the thing to do. Chris didn’t break eye contact or laugh it off. He was serious and waiting for an answer.

  “Oh, well, you know…” He didn’t. Just waited. “Grace left me, man.”

  He nodded, smiled and listened.

  “We just couldn’t make it work,” I said.

  “What’s she doing now?” Chris asked and sipped his coffee.

  “She’s working with some consulting company,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound so perturbed when I said it. She had always been a brain. Two college degrees and cover girl looks. I had been a lucky man. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I sipped my coffee and wished it were Irish.

  Chris only nodded at that, mulling it over, savoring his coffee.

  “And Robert?” he asked.

  Robert Marlowe was my son. Grace and I had fallen apart, but not before we raised Bobby Marlowe. He was a good kid. Probably had heard his old man yell too often, but what kid hadn’t, I thought.

  “Bobby’s good,” I said. It was a lie. Well, not completely. I didn’t know it was a lie. For all I knew, he was doing okay. “He’s off at the university. Taking after his momma. About what you’d expect.”