Portals

by Johnson, Dustin

  The sun was newly risen on the cool October morning, and its light bounced playfully from the morning frost that had gathered on the grass. "This is it," Chris said, smiling. "We're actually on our way."

  "We sure are," Brent said, returning the smile. "It's exciting, isn't it?"

  "Yea!" the kids answered from the back seat. They had brought along a small piece of board they'd found in the garage, which they laid across their laps to use as a card table. They started with Go Fish, but eventually moved to their favorite game, Slap Jack. Occasionally they'd get too loud, and Sarah or Chris would put a finger to their mouth to quiet them. All things considered, the kids were being quite good, especially given that it had been a long while since they had spent any significant amount of time in a vehicle.

  The first hour went smoothly, and the interstate remained clear except for their two vehicles forming an impromptu caravan. Their only company was the sun, making its slow journey to the peak of the sky on their right. Chris watched the plains and foothills roll past and wondered where the portals could take them. He didn't want to die; he was afraid of it even. He'd do it if he had to in defense of his family, but that was because the love for his family outweighed the fear of death. He imagined himself standing in front of one of the large blue portals, its interior circling ominously. In his mind he felt a gentle tug, similar to gravity, or that feeling you get when you hold opposite sides of magnets near each other. "Attraction," he remembered Ms. Phillips, his fifth grade teacher, saying. "The word you're looking for is attraction."

  POP, flop, flop, flop. The sound jerked Chris from his reverie, and the car pulled sharply to the left. The kids let out a quick scream in the back seat, but Sarah quickly calmed them.

  "It's just a flat tire kids; everything is fine. We'll get it fixed in no time," Brent called to the back seat. He slowed and forced the car to the shoulder. He and Chris both opened their doors and stepped into the sunny, yet cool, day. They met at the front of the vehicle on the driver's side and stared down at the vastly deflated tire, still hissing. "Crap."

  "You got that right," Chris said. He bent and looked at the tire, rubbing his hand over the treads looking for any obvious clue as to why it had gone flat. His hand rubbed over some exposed wire from the tire's tread. "Looks like the tires may have been too low on tread, and this one finally reached its breaking point. Do you have a spare?"

  "To be honest, I haven't checked. That should have probably been on the checklist."

  "Let's take a look. Pop the trunk, please."

  Mike parked on the shoulder a few car lengths behind them with his hazard lights on. He walked over to join Chris and Brent. "Got a flat?" he asked.

  "Yea, we're going to check for a spare in the trunk," Chris said. The trunk popped and opened an inch as the latch released. Chris and Mike removed the supplies, neatly arranging them on the shoulder, and exposed the floor of the trunk. Chris found the notch cutout, folded the floor in on itself, and handed it to Mike, who laid it with the supplies. The donut spare tire lay in its mount, with the jack shoved into protective foam on top. They disassembled the gear and extracted the spare tire. Chris dropped it to the ground to test its bounce, but it remained on the ground and fell lazily against his leg.

  "No air," Mike declared.

  "Double crap," Brent said, putting his hand to his forehead and turning from the group. "I'm sorry everyone, I should have thought to check the spare."

  “Mike, do you have a donut he could borrow?” Chris asked.

  “I'm not sure, we can look. Let's check the lug pattern first, to see if it's even worth looking at.” Mike walked over to his vehicle and counted the lugs nuts. “I've got five in a star pattern, what does he have?”

  “Four. That won't work.” Chris sighed, holding the donut in a standing position. “So what are our options? We won't fit in one vehicle, so we're going to have to find a place to fill up the donut and hope it holds air, or get a new tire.” He used his left hand to shade his eyes from the sun and scanned the area. The green canopy of a gas station stood off in the distance, but it was probably abandoned. They could have air though, he thought. “Two of us should check that gas station,” he pointed, “and try to fill the spare. We could get lucky and find some extra cases of water or something too.”

  “I can go,” Mike said. “Steve, do you mind coming too?”

  Steve was leaning against Mike's car with his hands in his pockets. “Sure, let's get this show back on the road.” He stood, walked around the car, and climbed into the passenger's seat.

  Tammy kissed Mike briefly, her hands on his chest. “Be careful.”

  Mike smiled. “Always.” Chris handed him the donut, and he placed it in the floorboard of the backseat. He took the driver's position, started the engine, and they pulled out in the direction of the gas station.

  “Okay,” Chris said. “I'm going to get this tire off so we're ready for the donut when they get back.” A knock came from the rear window of the car, and he saw the kids were making faces at him. He smiled and waved them away.

  “I'm going to go for a walk in the field, to loosen my legs. Care to join me?” Tammy asked Sarah.

  “Sure,” she said and turned to Chris. “Will the kids be okay in the car?”

  “They should be fine, go ahead,” he said. He leaned his head in through the open driver's side window, “I'm going to raise the car, just don't jump around or anything, all right?”

  “Okay,” they chorused.

  He grabbed the metal bar, used as a handle with the jack, from the pile of items in the trunk and used its socketed end to loosen the lug nuts on the tire. Each lug nut groaned as he leaned his bodyweight on it, finally relenting and turning. When he had all four loosened, he grabbed the jack, and slid it under the jack point located right behind the driver's side front tire. He twisted the knob on the jack with his hand until it bit into the bottom of the car frame and became too difficult to turn by hand. He grabbed the metal bar again, and slid its hooked end into the knob. He cranked clockwise, slowly raising the front end of the car.

  “Do you want to take a break?” Brent asked. “I feel like I should be doing it. I feel bad watching you work, especially since this is my fault.”

  “No,” Chris said. “I like it, actually. I was getting cramped up just sitting in the car. This gives me an excuse to get the blood flowing.” He used his arm to wipe the beads of sweat that formed on his forehead and gave it a few more cranks. “It's funny. I always dreaded getting a flat tire, but when you think about it, it's not really that big of a deal. It's more of an inconvenience, all things considered, and not really that much of a problem.” Chris kicked the tire, and it wobbled on the bolts, signifying its release from the hard concrete. “Looks like it's ready. Want to do the honors?”

  “Sure,” Brent said. He removed the metal bar from the jack and finished loosening each of the lug nuts, pulling them off and placing them in his pocket. He pulled the tire off and placed it in the trunk where the spare had been. It didn't fit, since it was larger than the donut, but it would have to do. He wiped his hands together in an attempt to remove the black smudges and dirt, but they remained all the same.

  “Here,” Chris said. He reached through the driver's side window, uncorked a thermos of water and brought it out. “Cup your hands.” He poured a little of the water, and Brent rubbed his hands together vigorously, splashing dirty water into a puddle on the road.

  “Thanks. Man, I'm really sorry about this.”

  “It's not a problem, things happen.” Chris took a swig from the thermos, leaned against the vehicle, and sank to the road. “Hopefully they can fill the spare, and we'll be back on the road in no time.”

  Brent sat down on the road to join Chris. He dried his hands on his jeans, forming black war paint streaks down the front.

  The faraway growl of a vehicle caught their attention, and they turned their heads southbound to find the sound's owner. A star of light danced from the windshield of the vehic
le, where the sun met its approach, but neither of them could make out any defining characteristics. “I wonder who this is,” Chris said.

  “Maybe it's a pizza delivery man,” Brent replied. Chris turned to look at him, and the serious look they both held made them break out in laughter.

  “Wouldn't that be nice? That'd be a hell of a delivery charge,” Chris said, causing another round of laughter. “That can't be Mike because they went north to the gas station. Unless they took a weird route back, that is.” The vehicle continued its approach, and Chris could see now that it was a car and not a larger vehicle, like a truck or van. It was coming up fast; it had to be going at least seventy miles an hour. Chris felt a sense of dread in his stomach. Something didn't feel right, but he couldn't determine why he felt uneasy. The car just seemed out of place on the lonely interstate.

  ###

  Mike wrung the wheel beneath his hands. “So, how do you like working at the hospital?”

  Steve continued staring out the passenger side window. “It's a job. That's about it.”

  Mike took the hint that he wasn't going to earn much conversation on their little adventure and let the brief response suffice. They continued driving in silence, Mike tapping lightly on the steering wheel, and Steve watching the land pass by in blurs of green and brown.

  A tattered picture of a green dinosaur hung from the large sign announcing the gas station. It folded and waved in the air, looking like the next gust of wind could force it from its mount and drive it to extinction, just like the creature it portrayed.

  Mike turned the car into the gas station. He peered around the parking area in front of the store and around the pumps. “I don't see an air hose, do you?”

  “No. Try around the other side.” They pulled around the gas station, passing a boarded up car wash on their right. Graffiti had been sprayed over the plywood used to cover the broken windows, informing them of just the sort of women their mothers were, and what they could do if they had a problem with it. “Over there,” Steve pointed.

  The car groaned its way over to where a sign declared FREE AIR. The hose lay slithered out on the pavement, left unrolled by the last person to use it or just pulled to its full length for fun. Mike shifted the car into park, opened his door, and stepped out. He picked up the hose and let out a sigh. “The air pressure gauge and handle from the end are gone.”

  Steve looked over the hood and frowned. “There was a mechanic's garage next to the store in the front, maybe they have a spare. Do you want to look there?”

  “Sure.” They climbed back into the vehicle and pulled around the left-side to the front again. He drove through the parking lanes and parked in front of the first of two bay doors on the left. Mike was sure that, in a different time, an older man named something along the lines of Lou, with tobacco stained teeth, would have plugged the flat or filled the donut with air for them, charging a solid thirty dollars. Nowadays though, the garage stood silent, just like the rest of the land. No kind soul emerged to offer help and none was expected.

  Steve pulled up on the handle of the garage, and his shoulder fell back in defeat at the locked door. Mike tried the other garage to the same effect. They walked side by side to a lone door set a little further off to the right from the bay doors. Steve wiggled the knob, “Locked”.

  Mike peered in through the door's small window and saw a desk with papers, a floor jack, and a large red toolbox in the corner. He turned and looked around, searching for an idea, when the sound of smashing glass rang out and slivers bounced from his jeans. “What did you do?” Mike asked.

  “I broke the window,” Steve said. “Wasn't that obvious?” He picked up a stick and ran it along the sides of the window, clearing the jagged crags of glass that remained. He reached his left arm in and dropped it down until his armpit caught on the window frame. He groaned, reaching for the inner door knob. “Got it,” he said, and removed his arm. The door opened smoothly with a turn of the knob, and Steve entered.

  “I'm just saying, do we really want to be breaking windows all over the place?” Mike asked. He followed Steve inside, glass crunching underfoot, and closed the door.

  “Look,” Steve said. “If you have any brilliant ideas, then let me know. All I know is that we have to find some air or another spare tire. End of story. Some off-in-the-boonies gas station can take a broken window.”

  “Sure, fine,” Mike said. He rummaged through the drawers of the desk but didn't find another end to the hose.

  “I'll look on these shelves, and you look in that car for a spare, okay?” Steve asked. Without waiting for acknowledgment, he moved to a line of large metal shelves spread on either side of a door with cracking and peeling gray paint, propped open with a cinder block. Mike figured it must lead to the convenience mart section of the building, and his stomach grumbled in anxious curiosity at what kinds of food could still be inside.

  Mike pulled the small black lever inside the car, and an audible POP sounded as the trunk latch released. The trunk was bare, but he knew the spare would be concealed, so he ran his hand along the perimeter searching for the notch to remove the floor.

  Click. Mike's heart dropped, but he held a small hope that it hadn't been what he thought it was. It was hard to confuse the sound of a gun cocking for anything else. He slowly rose from his bent position, careful not to spook the gun bearer. A part of him was surprised to find that it wasn't Steve.

  An old man stood pointing a handgun at him, wearing overalls and a weathered green John Deere hat. By the look of it, both the hat and its wearer had long since passed the prime of their lives, but Mike had no doubt that they both got the job done when they needed to.

  “Freeze, you thieving son of a bitch!” the old man barked. He stood several feet in front of the propped open door, the gun wobbling a little but pointing at Mike all the same. He had walked right past Steve, who had been browsing the shelves, and the old man hadn't even noticed him since he'd been so focused on Mike.

  “No problem, sir,” Mike said, raising his hands even though no such request had been made. “I'm just trying to fill a spare tire with air or find a new one. I'd be happy to pay.”

  Steve placed a finger to his lips in a signal of silence, and Mike volunteered no visual cue of having seen the gesture. Steve knelt and carefully picked up a bolt that lay on the floor. He moved slowly to the right, taking a mirror image position in relation to Mike.

  “You know very well money doesn't buy much these days. Plus, the way I see it, you're trespassing on my property. I have a right to protect myself with any force necessary.”

  Steve tossed the bolt in the air toward the back of the garage. It hit the ground and metallic clangs echoed through the garage.

  The old man pivoted on his left foot and released a shot directly into the wall of the garage. The shot echoed several times in the confined space, and with ringing ears Steve viciously snatched the old man in a bear hug. The gun fell. Steve threw the old man to the floor and quickly picked up the weapon. The old man lay pitifully, his sweaty gray hair falling over his forehead. Steve pointed the gun at him, and the old man slowly snatched his fallen hat, clutching it to his stomach. “Don't move, old timer. Do what I say, and you'll be able to go home to Mrs. Old Timer.”

  “I'll just sit right here, young man.” The old man's eyes gleamed with anger, but his voice remained in an even timber. “You take what you need.”

  Mike lowered his hands, watching Steve to make sure he wasn't about to do something stupid, and continued his search in the trunk. An empty black hole sat where the spare should have been. It was missing, so he slammed the trunk closed and looked around the garage again. Nothing of use. He stood with his hands on his hips and breathed a sigh of frustration; he didn't see anything that could help.

  “If you need a tire,” the old man said, “why don't you take one of them from the car?”

  “That's not a bad idea,” Mike said. “Let's see if the lug nut pattern matches. It had four, right?”
He pointed at each one in turn while he counted under his breath. Four. That could work. “Hey all right, that'll do the trick, as long as the rim size is comparable.” Using the floor jack he had noticed in the corner of the garage, Mike had the tire off in less than five minutes.

  “To be safe, we should grab the other front tire as well.” Steve said. “You're supposed to keep tires of the same size and wear on the same axle.”

  “Right,” Mike agreed. After another five minutes, both tires filled the back seat of Mike's car, sitting on a pile of rags. He walked back into the garage and told Steve, “We're ready to go.”

  “Here's the plan, old timer. We're going to leave right out that door. You're going to sit here until you've heard us pull away, and then you're going to carry on with whatever it is you do out here. Just pretend we were never here and none of this ever happened,” Steve said.

  “What about my gun?” the old man asked.

  “I think it best if I hang on to it,” Steve replied. “You probably have another one or two that'll keep you nice and safe, am I right?”

  “I reckon,” he replied.

  “All right then. You have yourself a good day. By the way, do you have any candy in there?” he asked, waving the gun toward the door leading to the convenience mart.

  “Yes.”

  “I'm going to grab some, I hope you don't mind.” He backed toward the door and disappeared inside. Mike stood, the old man sat, and they looked at each other nervously in the silence.

  “We really do need a tire,” Mike tried to justify, but the old man remained silent. A minute later Steve returned, chewing.

  “Let's go,” Steve said.

  They made their way back out the garage's door through the broken glass and into the car. The engine turned over, they pulled forward and down the small curb leading to the frontage road. Mike felt like they should talk about what happened at the garage, but he didn't know what he should say, so they sat in silence.