by Ricky Fry
The young girl who’d spent the night wet with her own piss put up no fight as she was escorted, on wobbly legs, from the van. No one bothered cleaning up the mess.
Travis took his turn at the wheel, and we were off again, a straight shot to Las Vegas, as the cool morning gave way to the hot afternoon sun that poured through the window and baked my skin.
This time it was Denise’s turn. She was pulled from the backseat with little ceremony, turning only at the last moment to speak over her shoulder before being shuffled away. “Don’t let them grind you down.”
When it was over, and we were packed back up in the van, Monica slapped her hands together with a kind of gleeful satisfaction. “Sin City. Home sweet home. It’s been quite the run, Travis. But this girl could really use a stiff drink and a good night’s sleep in my own bed.”
“Well, shoot, Monica. Your replacement ain’t even here yet, and already you’re trying to scramble away from me. Do I smell that bad?”
She sniffed her own armpit and laughed. I think it was the first time I’d seen her laugh during the whole trip from Kansas. “After three days in the van, we all start to get a bit smelly.”
The phone in the center console rang—the same phone that had rung when we’d made our unexpected stop for burgers and milkshakes. Travis answered and nodded along to what I imagined might be some higher up in a cushy corporate office somewhere.
“Bad news,” he said, hanging up the phone. “Your replacement called in sick. Corporate wants you to stay on until the next pickup in Salt Lake.”
Monica slammed a hand down on the dashboard. “Oh, come on! Don’t they know I haven’t been home for two weeks? Before this run, they had me crashed out in some dumpy motel in Little Rock. I want my bed. I want my family.”
“One more day,” he said. “They promised to get you some relief in Salt Lake and a flight back to Vegas tomorrow morning. It’s overtime, you know. I’m sure you could use the extra money, what with your brother being sick and all.”
“Fine. Let’s go then. The sooner we get to Salt Lake, the better.”
“That’s the spirit.” He dropped the van into reverse, and soon we were back on the highway, miles and miles of empty desert dotted only by the occasional cluster of tiny houses or mobile homes passing by outside the window.
I found myself glad Monica would be with us for one more day. I could hardly describe her as an uplifting presence, but she was professional, a check on Travis’ more impulsive urges. At least Salt Lake was closer to Portland than Vegas. I’d been in shackles for almost two days and wondered if I would ever be able to walk straight again. Maybe this was my life now, jumpsuits and bars and chains between my ankles. I tried to focus on what Denise had said, but remembering what she looked like as they shuffled her away only reminded me of what I must have looked like to anyone staring back at me—the girl in the pink scrubs.
My depressing thoughts were interrupted by Travis, who was smiling at me in the rear-view mirror. “Don’t you worry now, girls. Monica might be leaving us in Salt Lake, but you’ve got me all the way to the bitter end.”
Lucky us.
I hoped by “bitter end,” he meant the Multnomah County Jail. I should have known from the hungry sparkle in his eyes that Travis had other plans.
EIGHT
The road trip is a cultural institution as American as baseball and apple pie. Time is different out on the road. The scenery is always changing, reminding you of what a great big space we all live in. But no matter how far you go, how many miles disappear behind you with the meandering perception of time, you’re still in the same place—just a tiny dot moving across a map, dragging the weight of your past and your own thoughts along with you.
“Don’t you ever wonder about all those people?” Ruby’s voice was a welcome relief. Somehow she always knew when to speak, a life preserver in the sea of my darkest thoughts.
“What people?”
“It looks empty, doesn’t it? The countryside? But look closely, and you’ll see old white houses ringed with peeling picket fences—farms and barns and rows of crops planted by a pair of calloused hands. Sometimes even a few dozen houses clustered together around a Dairy Queen and a steepled church. Every one of them has a story. Life and death. Happiness and sadness. The same story told over and over, each time in a different way.”
Just then, I caught sight of an old rusty tractor, sitting alone and long-abandoned to the elements in the middle of an empty field.
“You ever wonder about those people? Where they came from? Where they’re going?”
“I don’t know, Ruby.” It was true. I’d never given much thought to anyone outside of my life in Portland. Maybe I was selfish, or maybe life had just been too hard to think about the world beyond myself.
“When I was a little girl, my grandparents had a farm.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Well, it wasn’t much of a farm really—just a few acres of rocky soil and a muddy pond with no fish. Anyway, one spring, my older brother and I each got a piglet to raise from the local 4H club. You should have seen them, Spencer. Such cute little things, tiny squeals as they fed from the bottle. I raised mine like a baby, even won a ribbon at the county fair.”
“That’s a nice story, Ruby.”
“But I’m not finished yet. You see, by winter, mine was the fatter of the two, and Grandpa decided it would make a nice Christmas dinner.”
“He killed it?”
“Oh, no. He said I’d raised a life, and it was time I learned what it meant to take one. Of course, I cried and cried and begged him not to make me do it. But when Christmas day finally came, he pinned my sweet little pig down on the cold, snowy ground as my trembling hand slit its squealing throat.”
It was hard to picture the soft-spoken, nerdy girl on the seat beside taking a knife to an animal’s throat.
A single tear rolled down her cheek. “When it was over, and the blood had been washed from my still-trembling hands, Grandpa sat me down on his lap in the living room while Grandma got to work in the kitchen. And you know what? I’ll never forget what he said to me that day.”
“What?”
“He said that sadness isn’t the hard part of life. Sadness comes easily. He said the hard part, and the only thing in this life really worth doing, is finding a way to be happy with all that sadness around you.”
“Your grandfather sounds like a wise man, but I still think he shouldn’t have made you kill the pig.”
Ruby’s mouth curled into a little smile. “Yeah, maybe not. But Spencer, try to find a way to be happy, even with so much madness in the world.”
“Okay,” I said, not knowing whether or not I was telling her the truth. “I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
I read somewhere once that prisoners in solitary confinement sleep sixteen or more hours a day. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can’t imagine there’s much else to do when you spend twenty-three hours a day locked in a concrete cage.
The van had become our cage, and like the prisoners in solitary confinement, we didn’t have much to do besides sleep away the long hours on the road.
I was endlessly glad they’d left me beside Ruby. I hoped she and I would keep in touch when this was all over and that maybe I’d even visit her someday in Denver liked I’d promised. Maybe I’d even keep my promise about trying to be happy.
We passed the I-70 interchange, the same place we’d turned and headed south to St. George, as the afternoon faded into evening. Only this time, we kept straight north on I-15, in the direction of a big sign that read: SALT LAKE CITY, 176 MILES.
Travis pulled off the at a little town called Fillmore and gassed up the van. Monica shuffled us off to the bathroom, and sack lunches were passed around.
Then it was her turn behind the wheel, as we closed the final stretch through the Utah Valley toward the distant glowing lights of the city.
“I’m going to call ahead,�
� she said, reaching for the company-issued phone.
“You’re driving.” Travis made a clicking sound with his mouth. “Safety first, remember. I’ll make the call.”
“Fine.” She handed him the phone. “Tell ‘em to make sure the pickup is ready, and my replacement is waiting.”
I watched from the second-row bench seat as he punched some numbers into the phone. Then the screen went dark as if he’d turned it off rather than pressing send.
“It’s Vogel and Lujan, just checking in. Oh, I see … yes, ma’am … there must be another option … okay, I’ll pass that along. Canceled? So it’s straight through to Oregon? Right … we’ll do our best.”
“What did they say?” Monica’s hands twisted around the steering wheel. It was clear from Travis’ somber tone on the phone she was expecting the worst.
“Do you want the bad news first? Or the really bad news?”
“Just tell me, Travis.”
“Okay, okay. But don’t shoot the messenger. Seems our prisoner pickup in Salt Lake has been canceled.”
“And?”
“And the relief driver canceled too.”
“God da—” Monica stopped herself and took a deep breath. “They promised me they would have someone waiting there. You said it yourself.”
“What can I say?” Travis laughed—a nervous little chuckle that barely escaped his lips. “I’m sorry, Monica. You know how bad corporate is.”
“No, Travis. I won’t do it. You need to call them back.”
“They were pretty insistent, even pulled out the old line from the corporate handbook about ‘mandatory duties’ and ‘failure to comply could result in termination.’ I wouldn’t push it if I were you. I know how badly you need this job.”
“What am I gonna my mother, my brother?”
“Look, we gotta straight shot all the way through to Portland. No more pickups or drop-offs until we get there. Corporate said they’ll book you on the first flight out back to Vegas.”
“Yeah, like I’m supposed to trust them after my last two relief drivers didn’t show up?”
It was the second time in two days I’d felt sorry for her. I’d worked enough crappy jobs to know management has little sympathy for front line workers. The only thing they care about is the bottom line.
Travis appeared to be doing his best to console her. He even offered to drive back-to-back shifts through the night so she could get some extra rest. But still, I couldn’t help thinking about what I’d seen. Had he really turned off the phone, or had the screen just gone dark at the exact moment he’d placed the call? Why would he fake a call like that? Surely, the GPS on the van would alert the corporate office if we failed to stop in Salt Lake City as planned.
I’d look back on that moment many times in the coming weeks. Had I known then what was going to happen, I would have warned her. I would have screamed and kicked and bit through the chains with cracked teeth. I would have broken every bone in my hands and torn the skin from my fingers to escape the cuffs around my wrists. No price, no pain, would have been too great.
But doubt is a funny thing, and hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20. Like those people who go through life believing nothing bad could ever really happen to them, I told myself that everything would be okay. I couldn’t be sure of what I’d seen. Who was I to accuse him of lying to Monica? Or perhaps it was something more that kept me from speaking up—the hint of fear I felt whenever he winked at me or whenever I caught him staring back at me in the rear-view mirror with hunger in his eyes.
Instead, I did the one thing so many of us do when we’re faced with uncertainty. Nothing.
Besides, I was still so very tired, and Ruby felt so warm beside me. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. It was all just a silly misunderstanding.
I dreamed of the lake again, of hands pulling me down and down and down into its bottomless abyss.
When I woke, we were alone on a dark stretch of highway, not a single house or light from another vehicle anywhere in sight.
Travis was behind the wheel, humming along quietly to a Steely Dan song on the radio.
And Monica? Monica was gone.
NINE
Where’s Monica? It was all I could think about as I sat frozen, my thoughts spinning faster than the wheels on the road as the dark interior of the van closed in around me. It was like the recurring nightmare I’d had as a child, buried alive in a tiny wooden box. Only this wasn’t a nightmare. There would be no waking up in my bed.
Breathe. Surely, I imagined, there must have been some explanation. Maybe Monica was just lying down on the bench seat behind me, catching up on some must needed sleep. I wanted to twist around, peer over my shoulder, and confirm my desperate hope that we weren’t really alone on some desolate road in the middle of nowhere with Travis. But if I moved, he’d know I was awake.
Too late. Our eyes met in the rear-view mirror, his face glowing a dull green from the lights on the dashboard.
“Shhh,” he said, bringing a finger up to his lips. “Don’t want to wake Ruby. It’s been a long day for everyone. Go back to sleep.”
I was surprised when I found myself wanting to do exactly what he’d said. Maybe if I closed my eyes and went back to sleep, it would be morning when I woke, and there’d be some perfectly good explanation for what had happened as we slept.
Maybe it was hope, or denial, like when people tell themselves the plane they’re on could never crash. Oh no, they say, that could never happen to me. Until it does.
“Where is she, Travis?”
Ruby stirred beside me, her tiny body shifting around in place beneath the chains.
“Look,” he said, “I didn’t want to worry you. I’ll explain everything when we stop for breakfast in the morning.”
Ruby yawned. “What’s the matter? What’s happening?”
“It’s Monica,” I said. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“I don’t know, and Travis won’t tell me where she is.”
“Now hold on,” he said. “I’m not in the business of keeping secrets. Monica quit.”
“Quit?”
“Yep, about a hundred miles outside of Salt Lake. One minute she was talking about how much she missed her family, and the next minute she was telling me to stop the van at some one-horse town alongside the road. Said something about hitching a ride back to the city, and then she just walked away.”
You expect me to believe that?
“It’s this job,” he said. “It gets to you after a while, all the miles zigzagging back and forth, the lack of sleep. Hell, I’ve thought about quitting myself. I guess she just—snapped.”
I knew Monica had been under a lot of pressure. She had a sick brother back home, and her corporate overlords weren’t doing her any favors. But still, it seemed unlike her to quit so suddenly.
“I hope she’s okay,” said Ruby. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”
Travis raised his hands off the wheel and shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, it’s a free country. It’s not like I could have done anything to stop her.”
Kind of an ironic thing to say to two girls in matching sets of shackles.
“But don’t you worry.” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “I’ve already called it in. Not much we can do now but keep going. Got a new pickup in Boise, and another female guard will meet us there, ride with us the rest of the way into Portland.”
I thought about what he’d said. It kind of made sense. Everything except for the part about Monica walking away in the dead of night. I found some comfort when I remembered the van had a GPS tracker, and any deviation from our route would alert the corporate office. Besides, what could I do? I was a prisoner, his prisoner. The only thing I had to cling to was some small hope that what he’d said was true.
Ruby leaned toward me and rested her head on my shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”
I spent the night wide awake, replaying his st
ory over and over again in my head, trying to find something that would put my mind at ease. Minutes stretched into long hours until finally, the first hint of dawn fought back the night sky. Everything would feel better, safer, in the bright light of day.
But something wasn’t right. We were driving toward the sun, whose rays had just begun to pour in through the windshield. I’d hardly been a good geography student, but I knew beyond any doubt that Boise and Portland were west of Salt Lake City. That’s when it hit me.
East. We’re driving east.
I screamed.
Ruby jolted awake and looked at me with wide eyes.
I didn’t wait for her to ask me what was wrong. “He lied,” I said, hands jerking against the cuffs and the chain secured tightly around my waist. “Travis lied. We’re not going to Boise. We’re driving east.”
Her still-wide eyes shifted forward, anticipating some kind of response from the man behind the wheel.
“Did I say Boise?” He looked back at us in the rear-view mirror. “I meant Idaho Falls. Guess I’ve been on the road for too long. All these towns start to become the same.”
“Stop the van.” My breath quickened. The all-too-familiar feeling of claustrophobia gripped my chest, and I fought harder against the chains.
“No can do,” he said. “You know the drill. All stops must be approved in advance.”
“Please, I can’t breathe.” Two invisible hands had wrapped themselves around my throat. Even the seatbelt had become an unbearable weight, holding me down with some unimaginable pressure.
“Relax. Everything’s fine. We’ll stop for breakfast soon, and you’ll feel better.”
“Please,” said Ruby. “She needs help. I think she’s having a panic attack.”
She turned back to me and tried to soothe me with a calm voice. “Count to ten. That’s it. Just breathe, Spencer. You can do it. Just breathe.”