Cross Country Murder Song

by Cross Country Murder Song (retail) (epub)

  Must have been a long shift, said Mr Lee, smiling. Could someone wake him, please. The chef was prodded and came to coughing; he looked surprised to see everyone and then made himself busy with the folder in front of him. To avoid getting points on your licence you had to show the State that the rudimentaries of driving weren’t lost on you, you knew at what distance to indicate before a junction, not to chug beer at the wheel of your car, how many feet it took to stop if some crazy bastard in front of you suddenly stood on the brakes.

  You never know when a child might step out, Mr Lee said on more than one occasion, conjuring up a world where a child waited hidden on every corner for a racing car to crest the hill so that they could throw themselves bodily into the headlights. The State wasn’t worried about children in wait though, Lyle thought. It was like the church; all it wanted was an admission of guilt and penance paid. Driving drunk, speeding, letting parking fines pile up, they were all sins to be absolved, come prostrate yourself before the altar of California’s traffic laws, Lyle thought. Bow down before Mr Lee because Mr Lee was the conduit and, perhaps most importantly, he truly believed in the message he was sending.

  In the break, he went out to the yard among the smokers and took out his pack of cards and practised his finite array of tricks. He shuffled exaggeratedly and dragged the cards out in long curves on the concrete. He drew a small crowd as he always did; it was always good for finding dates, though this time they were mainly a group of people he already knew. They were, for the most part, drunk or dangerous drivers like him who wanted to avoid losing their licence.

  Where’d you learn to do that? asked the chef who’d fallen asleep in his hairnet.

  Just picked it up, he said casually, checking to see if any of the women standing around him were listening. By the end of the break he had a half dozen of them playing poker for matches.

  Poker’s fun, one of them said and by the end of the second session of driving school they were playing for dollar bills just to keep things interesting. He was flunking theory, he couldn’t believe how much of the highway code he’d forgotten, but was mopping up with each card game. He’d take the bus back home after class and count the wad of bills in his wallet. His fellow drivers provided his pin money and then he’d go out and parlay it into real winnings. At least that was his plan.

  It’s like you’re not trying to pass, Lyle, Mr Lee said to him one day. They were standing in a hallway that smelled and sounded like his old school, every school, he imagined; even the squeak of his sneakers on the vinyl floor could transport him back in time. The daylight coming through the windows was watery and he felt the anticipation of the ringing bell that would fill the corridor and take him to another class. His old friends weren’t here though, the only person mooching toward them was someone weighed down with kitchen utensils heading for an advanced cooking class.

  Do you need more help? asked Mr Lee. He couldn’t help but like Mr Lee. He really seemed to care about his class, he only wanted what was best for him. Mr Lee, he figured, would make a good dad.

  Do you have kids? he asked him, but Mr Lee blanched at the question. His brow tightened and he looked indignant and then curious.

  Is that meant to be funny? he replied peevishly and that’s when Jack’s dad realised that Mr Lee was gay.

  I didn’t mean anything by it, he said. I’ve got nothing against . . . he let the words go. Mr Lee was a dwindling, squeaking image striding towards the end of the hallway by then. It didn’t help matters later when Mr Lee caught their card school playing for money in their break; there was no way he was going to talk his way out of it then.

  You failed driving school? asked the judge. Who fails driving school? Lyle leant forward to respond but he was shushed with a raised finger.

  I was being rhetorical, he said. I think we all know that I was talking about you. The judge gave a sly smile. Did you win your card game, at least? he asked and then held up his palm. I really don’t want you to answer that.

  He took the points on his licence and swore to himself that he’d only celebrate victory once he’d got home from here on in. It wasn’t a difficult promise to keep. His winning streak began to wane shortly after and he’d often find himself driving home stone sober, his pockets and heart empty, his promising start as a card shark stilled. He didn’t know it, but his winning ways were already over. All the sadness and bitterness was ahead of him. He still believed that every next game was the elusive big win. Even at his lowest ebb he would console himself with the thought that he had the redemption of gambling to save him somehow. He didn’t realise that gambling had him.

  What’s wrong with you today? his father asked him as another of his picks lagged behind in the final straight. Once, the track had unified them, brought them together as father and son over a handful of yellow betting slips, but now they bickered and moaned as their stock dwindled and their horses limped home. The card games were no better. They’d argue on the journey home, his father criticising his son’s lack of game face.

  You’re kidding, Jack said, you’re an open fucking book when you’re at the table. It takes a certain kind of skill to lose that consistently and you’ve been doing it for years.

  Hey, said his father, I taught you how to play this game; you wouldn’t even have poker if it wasn’t for me. And he knew it was true; that his father had given him the means to fleeting elation, the tools to ruin his life and drive him slowly mad.

  Stop, he said, but his father ignored his cries as road signs now seemed to rise out of the street to confound Jack at every turn. At first he thought his son was faking it, using it as an excuse for his losses at the card table, but the obstacles were as real to his son as his failings were to him and they increased with every folded hand and every squandered stake. His highway was littered with signs, the detritus of loss made physical in his mind’s eye. The doctor had prescribed anti-depressants, but Jack had flushed them away when they had made him sluggish and dull. Even when he was taking them the figures and signs had still been stood at the roadside when he drove by. Now he’d cross junctions to the blaring of horns and the squealing, hastily turned wheels of other cars as he refused to believe his own eyes. He played his last hand in the smoky garage where he’d started out and when he misjudged what he thought was a bluff and lost the meagre pot in front of him he pushed back from the table and asked his father for the keys to the car, telling him that he needed the last of the money he had in his jacket pocket so that he could play another hand. He let himself out of the side door and watched the smoke follow him out into the night. He started the car and began to drive slowly away. Up ahead he spotted a stop sign and increased his speed and drove straight at it. It wavered, softened and disappeared. He passed his mother’s house and kept on going in the hope that the distance would stop the pulsing in his head. He clipped another road sign, a real one as it turned out, and laughed as it put a dent in the wing of his father’s car. By tomorrow it wouldn’t matter, he’d be gone.

  Chorus

  Why were you running? Jack said to the driver. You terrified me when you came bursting through the trees like that.

  Sorry about that, said the driver.

  Where you headed? he asked, ignoring the question.

  West, I guess, said Jack.

  What’s there? said the driver.

  I don’t know, Jack replied and tensed up as he saw a stop sign up ahead. Though he unstiffened when he saw the driver slow down to acknowledge it. The driver let the car idle at the junction and looked both ways down the quiet road. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sky was starting to change colour and the driver suddenly felt tired.

  Aren’t you curious? he asked Jack.

  About what? he said.

  The cop’s shirt I’m wearing, the stains on my clothes. He looked down at the black smears on his clothes.

  I figured you don’t want to talk about it, said Jack.

  The driver pulled the car out on to the road and pressed down on the
accelerator. He opened the window to let the wind play on his face.

  Do you know where your journey’s going to end? he said to Jack. He shrugged. He didn’t know what the driver was talking about.

  I’m coming to the end of mine, said the driver.

  The two patrolmen were studying the video footage captured from the camera set up on the dashboard of the wrecked patrol car.

  The crazy bastard, said one of the cops as he rewound the tape and pressed play. Images of the car backing quickly into the police car flashed up. They saw a figure running towards the car firing his gun and then the slow way he executed the officer trapped between the two cars. The cop’s head recoiled with the explosion of smoke from the gun, rising and falling as the bullet entered and exited his skull.

  That fucker, said the other cop quietly. We’ve got him now though, pressing play again, the figure running, screaming towards them firing his gun again and again.

  How long did you gamble for? the driver asked Jack. They’d fallen into a stilted kind of conversation as the day wore on, eating up mile after mile of the quiet roads they were travelling on.

  Two years maybe? said Jack, it made him uncomfortable to think about it let alone talk about it.

  Your dad a gambler too? said the driver. Jack nodded. That’s all he was.

  Won’t he be missing his car? asked the driver. Jack nodded, he guessed so. What did your dad do? he asked.

  Spread his pain around, said the driver. He really did, we were all tainted by it.

  He looked at the blood. Still am, I guess, he said.

  Were you ever a winner? he asked Jack.

  Sometimes, at first. I was good at it, I guess. I liked the affirmation, you know, and it came pretty easily to me, and then one day I just stopped winning and that’s when I started seeing things, stuff . . . He tailed off, feeling self-conscious and stupid.

  What stuff? asked the driver, looking across at him.

  Road signs, stop signs, he said, staring down at his hands.

  Stop signs, no fucking way, said the driver and let out a low whistle. Is that why you seize up every time we’re near a junction? he asked.

  I guess, said Jack. They drove in silence for a moment.

  I used to keep people in boxes to stop from getting lonely, so I’d always have someone to talk to, said the driver. Kept them down in the basement as if that old fucking house wasn’t already filled with enough ghosts.

  You’re kidding, right? said Jack and he looked at the driver for a change in his expression.

  Yeah, said the driver and he laughed. What do you think I am, nuts? And for a moment as he felt the day fading, he missed his friends in the boxes and he wondered what Mona must have thought when she went down into the cellar and let them back into the world. He hoped that they could forgive him.

  I’m sorry about the stop signs thing. That’s messed up, said the driver.

  I ended up going through intersections because I didn’t think the stop signs were real, he said. Man, other drivers got really pissed at me. That’s why I’m glad you showed up. I don’t know how long I could have kept going. I thought it might have stopped when I left home and gave up on the cards, but I still see them, just out of the corner of my eye sometimes, but they’re still there, rows and rows of them lining the road, waiting for me.

  The driver looked across at him. Are you seeing them now? he asked. Jack nodded and kept his eyes down. The driver patted him on the leg. It was the first time he’d touched another human being in what seemed like an age.

  Do you see them on the highway? asked the driver.

  Not so much, said Jack. It’s like I’m going too fast for them, you know. The driver didn’t but he agreed with a nod anyway.

  Then let’s get on the fucking highway, the driver said. No point putting this off any longer. Let’s head home.

  The patrol car idled on the highway, the engine’s deep thrum the only constant as cars slowed to a halt. He’d spotted it first and then called it in.

  We’ve got a jumper on an overpass on the highway, he’d told dispatch. He looked up at the man clinging to the bridge above him. There was another patrol car on the bridge itself as someone stood close to the edge trying to talk the man down. The traffic had come to a halt, a bottleneck of cars creating a multi-coloured trail along the grey and black of the road. The radio murmured constantly as the patrolman sat there with one door open and his legs stretched out on the road. He wasn’t even sure the jump would kill the guy, break his back maybe, but he would have needed speeding cars to get the job done properly. But then imagine the mess they would have to clear up. He’d been working when some lunatic had shot up the highway, but had got there long after he disappeared and the highway had been quiet and empty as the ambulances stood around on the tarmac and people were cut out of their cars with the jaws of life pulling back the bodywork like someone unwrapping a gift. The machine looked prehistoric and dangerous to him. He imagined it running wild, suddenly throwing cars around the freeway.

  The voice on the radio cautioned him about a possible suspect, provided him with a description and told him to remain alert. He barely took the information in. He couldn’t imagine the guy would be stupid enough to be out here on the highway. They didn’t even know if he was on foot or in a car any more anyway.

  What the fuck, said the driver as the traffic slowed to a standstill in front of him. They’d only been on the highway a matter of minutes before they’d come to a complete stop. He leant on his horn, but stopped when he saw that Jack was staring at him.

  Sorry, he said, old habit, it’s one of my favourite sounds. He realised how strange that sounded once he’d said it.

  And we came on here to avoid the stop signs, said Jack and he smiled.

  The driver’s shirt was starting to stink and he debated taking it off and tossing it away when he noticed the patrol car behind them and off to one side. He couldn’t be sure, but he felt like the cop knew who he was.

  Relax, he said, as he looked in the rearview mirror. Jack turned and looked behind him.

  Did they make us? asked the driver. He felt sick and the smell of blood was making him nauseous.

  I don’t think so. The police after you? he asked.

  Yep, said the driver. I’d give you the option of getting out, but it’s your car and you’d only ended up stranded on the highway. The cars inched forwards and the driver watched the police car moved closer. The cop kept his sunglasses on and stared across at the car and its passengers.

  Think he’s clocked the blood? The driver sounded quiet and frantic like a cornered animal. I’m wearing a dead cop’s shirt.

  Jack looked at him. A dead cop’s shirt? he said and the words were thick and repulsive in his mouth.

  The driver suddenly pulled up onto the hard shoulder of the road and opened up the engine, cars honking their horns at him as he passed. The police siren started up behind him. For a second he was back in the kidnapper’s car, locked away in a box, but then he realised that the cops had never come that day, not when he’d needed them. His father had been his saviour, strong-arming his way to his son’s salvation; redemption had come in a bullet and at the end of a blade.

  The cop car was coming up behind him and then someone trying to make up time pulled out on to the hard shoulder and followed in the driver’s wake. But as he pulled to one side the police went careering into him, causing one of his side windows to explode on impact. It made a booming sound and Jack jumped and turned in his seat to see the patrol car pulling wildly to one side like a steer trying to unseat a rider and scale the banking that bordered the road.

  The would-be jumper was slowly being helped back over onto the overpass, someone was holding him and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.

  It’s not like it’s fucking cold, thought the cop as he waved to the patrol car pulling away above him. He moved onto the highway and had just got the traffic moving again when the voice on his radio told him that the suspect was approaching
him at speed. He moved to bring his car across the road and flipped the seal on his holster. He was just about to back up when he saw a car approaching. He jumped behind the open door and steadied his revolver on the roof and took aim. Traffic was moving slowly around him, and drivers and passengers were craning their heads to stare. He did his best to ignore them and drew a bead on the car which suddenly swerved up the grass verge and then back down again, its horn sounding a long note. The sudden noise and movement unnerved him and his gun went off with a sharp snap. He looked at his own hand in shock and then the driver’s car collided with the end of his car and caused it to spin violently around, knocking him sideways into the slowly moving traffic.

  The driver cheered when the patrol car spun and flipped the cop into the air. He folded awkwardly and then disappeared out of sight.

  Ha, you see that? he said to the man. He was exhilarated. I fucking hate cops, he said.

  His windshield was cracked and it was then that he realised that Jack was covered in blood. It was only his seat belt that was keeping him upright, the cop’s bullet had hit him in the neck. The driver grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

  Fuck it, fuck, he said and he pulled the car to an abrupt halt. He got out and ran into the traffic around him and took his gun out. He went over to an SUV just ahead of him that was stuck in the traffic. He waved the gun in the driver’s face and pulled him out of his seat and threw him on to the road.

  Fucking out! he screamed and he pointed his gun at the cowering man on the ground was almost foetal, his eyes closed and his hands held up to protect his face. It was quiet then as cars came to a halt waiting to see if he’d fire a bullet into the man on the floor. He kicked hard at the man’s legs, lashing out at him wildly, throwing his arms out to maintain his balance.

  He climbed into the SUV and pulled back onto the hard shoulder, finding a speech radio station, hoping that the words would soothe him. He urged the car forward, the engine straining noisily as he clipped the wings of cars that stood in line bordering the hard shoulder. He felt light-headed and free as he raced towards the first off ramp he saw. On the radio someone was talking about the Pacific tides and he suddenly had the urge to smell the sea and watch the light playing on the water. He used to go to the beach with his family in the summer, his father would wake him early and sometimes he’d be so sleepy that his dad would load him into the car while he was still in his pajamas. He’d wake and the air would have changed. His mouth would taste salty and the car would be filled with the sound of gulls as they rode the currents overhead.