by R.M. Haig
September 15th, 2016. 6:45PM
Burlwood, Indiana
A torrent of September rain beat down on the windshield of the Malibu like thousands of tiny hammers as Jake found himself charging along the interstate, nearly blind between sweeps of his wipers. The sky was dark with storm clouds, save for the moments when brilliant flashes of lightning cracked the evening air and sent loud reports of thunder chasing behind them. Traffic was light, probably due to the storm, so he was able to maintain a minimum of seventy miles per hour despite the inclement weather.
Other cars, their drivers lacking his lead foot, fell behind him with whooshes on his right side as he cruised at speeds beyond what was safe and reasonable for the conditions. His mind was running as fast as the vehicle, spewing plumes of whitewater up in trails like the breath of dragons howling in his wake. His heart was as heavy as an anvil in his chest as he felt the moment creeping closer by the second. That space in time when the fine arm of the watch would, for him, stop spinning forever. That immortal moment when his life would end, insignificant to most but of capital importance to him and all he was.
He'd known it would be soon, he'd known it would come without warning, but he hadn't a clue that everything would be just right on this particular evening, at this moment, in this place. Feeling it coming, sensing it so close to him, it was more difficult to bare than he ever could've imagined. It was more terrifying than he'd ever considered it could be.
Double indemnity, by God, it was time for the die to be cast. It was time for the plans to come to fruition, it was time for it all to fall down like the house of cards his life had become. If ever there was an opportunity, if ever there was a chance to make it look good, the time to make his move was now. There was nothing for him to hold on to at this moment anyway, why shouldn't it be now?
One million dollars, that would be the payout to Tracy and Garrett when all was said and done. The redemption of his five-hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy times two, thanks to double indemnity in the event of accidental death, which is what it would appear to be. That gift he would give them... that opportunity to better themselves he would bestow upon them.
That or nothing, if he didn't work it just right... if it was obvious that he committed suicide instead of meeting death by misadventure, there would be no payout to the surviving members of the Gigu?re family household. If he executed his plan as designed, if he managed to not fuck it up like he had so many other things in his life, those he left behind would get along comfortably for the rest of their natural lives with nary a worry about how they would keep the lights on or buy food to stock the refrigerator. If he did it all right, he would give them something that he and his mother had been denied when his father tightened that noose around his neck on that frigid Christmas morning. He would give them a fighting chance, an opportunity to lift themselves up from the rut he'd put them in and carve out something that resembled a decent life, despite all of the influence he weighed them down with in the days that he drew breath.
Speeding along in the rain, feeling the rear end of the car wanting to come around as the tires hydroplaned on particularly wet patches of freeway, he knew this was a prime opportunity to wreck and make it look real. To make it look like an accident, which is what he needed to do in order to succeed. He would race towards an overpass support and tap the brakes to get the car squirrely, then he would steer the front end towards a protruding concrete divider in such a manner that he would hit it with just the left half of his front end.
A small overlap crash... that's what they call it when a vehicle strikes an object with only a portion of the front end, and there isn't a car on the market that fares well when tested in such a manner. Crumple zones fail because they're designed for full frontal collisions, and there's almost always an unsurvivable intrusion of the obstacle and the wreckage into the passenger compartment.
That's what he needed... that was the only way to be sure that he didn't survive and end up as some sort of paralyzed disgrace or vegetative waste of space. He needed this crash to be bad, he needed this crash to be terrible, he needed this wreck to be fatal, and anything less was failure. He also needed it to be an accident, so he had to remember to brake so that he would skid into the wreck. Witnesses or forensic reconstruction would rat him out if it looked like he did it all on purpose. The insurance company would balk, and everything would've been for nothing. His death would be a waste, just like his life, and it would be just as empty as his father's had been. It would mean absolutely nothing to anyone. Maybe a long night for a cop or forensic examiner, nothing more.
His chest was pounding as he closed in on the bridge at Cambridge Parkway, where he saw a perfect target on the left as the base of the overpass protruded onto the shoulder. There were yellow and black arrows mounted to it, their reflective nature catching burning headlights upon them and sending a warning to signify a hazard to those who didn't wish to die in a terrible crack-up. To him they were a beacon, though, a magnet that drew him in and dared him to finally see it through. He'd never refused a dare in his life, and this wasn't going to be the first.
Preparing himself as he sped towards it, he tapped the break and let the rear end of the car swing out to the right just a bit. For show, he tried to correct by turning the wheel in that direction. This action made the back end swing wildly to the left, which was his cue to act and finalize the deal. Cutting the wheel hard toward the black and yellow signs, he stomped the wide pedal and wrenched the steering so that there could be no recovery. The nose of the car seemed drawn to the hazard signs, and Jake smiled when he realized that it was going to work.
Time slowed to a crawl as he watched the barrier approach, knowing that he was set up perfectly to catch the concrete with the space from his left headlight all the way over to the Chevrolet logo, a perfect offset wreck. It seemed that an eternity passed before him as he slid along the roadway, feeling a complete loss of control over the Malibu in its collision course despite the fact that he had finally taken command of his life and his destiny. He waited for his life to flash before his eyes like the old cliche, waited for the horror that would play out, waited to suffer all of the injuries for a second time before he met his end.
To his relief, the projection never came to be. Instead, he just watched the barrier slowly approaching, watched the hazard signs growing larger as the anti-lock brakes clicked and clacked in a futile effort to stop his careening vehicle. Eventually, he was on top of it. As he heard the crunch of first impact, he wondered for a moment if there would be time for it to hurt. Would he be conscious long enough to feel the concrete and steel closing in on him? Would he be aware of being pressed into his seat like an orange in a juicer? Would he know it when he was bent or wrenched in a way that the human body is not designed to twist? Would he feel the flesh tearing and the bones breaking as he became hopelessly intertwined with the folding structure of the Malibu? Would his departure from this life be painful, or would it be over in a flash as timeless as the bolts of lightning popping overhead.
With the cracking and smashing and shattering that followed, his essence was ejected from the vehicle and he was once again looking down upon himself... upon the folded wreckage of his car, upon bits of concrete raining down from the impact as plumes of fire erupted from the undercarriage of the Malibu. Time returned to a normal pace as the car started to burn, black smoke rising from the mangled heap like steam from the spout of Clyde Rambo's teapot.
Just as he had imagined in his planning, the left half of the car was smashed in all the way to the backseat. What had been the driver's seat, where his body had been, was destroyed and made one with the pillar that helped hold Cambridge Parkway in suspension over the interstate.
As the car exploded, he knew he'd done it. He'd made it right.
The time for double indemnity to be set in motion had come, and he had seized upon the opportunity. He'd made it a reality.
He was dead...
He was gone...
He was over...
As the noxious cloud of melting flesh, scorching aluminum, boiling rubber and vaporized fabric engulfed him in his perch overhead, all the world went black. He heard the sounds of the rain and the laughing of the fire with the slipping tires of other traffic coming to a hurried stop for a short time, but then it all fell silent and he was surrounded by the very definition of nothingness. In the nothingness was quiet, in the nothingness was dark, in the nothingness was cold.
Christ, he had never been so cold in all of his life. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself, wanted to squeeze himself tightly in a fit of shivering, but he was without mass... he was without form. There he waited, alone in the void, wondering if this was to be forever.
Was this oblivion? Was this how it all came down, what it all amounted to after?
Consciousness in a vacuum?
Awareness in an abyss?
Hell...
He waited for a time alone, resigning himself to whatever would become of him. Resigned to believing that he'd done it and that all would be well no matter what he was forced to suffer in the aftermath. Things changed in a flash, however, and suddenly he was surrounded by white instead of black.
The black was still present, though, but in the form of a shining casket directly beneath him and consuming his entire field of vision outside of the white glowing at the edges. Reflected in its finish was the face of Tracy and the face of Garrett, his former wife and his son. They were looking upon what was left on their husband and father, a closed oblong box that was as dark as his spirit had been. A closed story that ended as black as it had begun. Neither of them looked sad, neither of them appeared to be crying... nor did either appear to be pleased. They both simply looked at the box that would be his final resting vessel, indifferent to what they were looking upon. Countless dollar bills blew by in front of their faces, obscuring his view of them for a moment until finally all of the money had passed and all that was left were their blank stares.
Then, after due time, they faded away and it was the face of Nick and of Nancy Swete that came into focus in reflection. The patriarch seemed to be shedding tears, feeling pain at what was lost. The more restrained half of the marriage was giving him comfort by rubbing his arm and holding his hand, and she looked angry more than anything else. These people had been his parents, not the two clowns by which he had been predeceased. They showed a bit of emotion, but it was a combination that he hadn't expected to see from them.
Once they paid their respects and were gone, it was Donnell and a black woman he'd never met sparkling on the wooden lid of his coffin. They didn't look upset at all, and in fact it almost looked as though Donnell had expected this to be how it went all along. There was a hint of regret in his eyes, but nothing more that was discernible in his wide eyed stare. The woman beside him was entirely unmoved one way or another, and her husband shook his head in as much dismissal as she showed before they too faded.
After that, the parade was over. There was nothing, there was no one else there to see him. There were no other friends, there was no other family, there was nothing left in his trail besides these few indifferent people.
Just the box.
Just what he amounted to be in the end for all of his days, for all of his efforts and for all of his dreams and wishes. An oblong black box, the lid closed because what lie inside was mangled. As mangled as his mind had become, his body now was. Closed because that's how he'd lived his life for thirty-five odd years.
Closed now, as before.
Closed now, forevermore.
A reflection appeared on the other side of the box now, and it was that of Father Lovett. His face looked frail, his eyes tired and wary of the journey he had chosen to see through to its natural end. An end that was closing in on him, an end which he fought with strength that was waning now in his twilight and the setting of his sun. Still, he fought the war to live... he struggled in the battle that Jake had conceded with a burning white flag. The man's mouth moved, but Jake heard no sounds. He spoke words, but made no noise. He was silent in void, like the void was silent in itself.
Then, the blackness overcame him again and again he was alone. Alone and still so cold. Chilled to the bone, though he seemed to have no bones left about him. He had bones no more than he had a body, had a body no more than he had a hope, had a hope no more than he had a soul left about him in the darkness.
He was alone until a voice called out, familiar to his ears though the memory of it was dusty with all the time that had passed since he'd heard it last. "Why, son?" It asked in a deep and manly baritone. "Why did you do it?"
"Dad?" Jake called into the void, seeing nothing, seeing no one. "Dad, is that you?"
Then, from the darkness came a shape. It was no more than a lighter shade of black in human form at first, but the color ran into it suddenly as it moved, as though it had passed through a cascade of light in the hues of life until he saw his father there before him, translucent and hollow in a mist.
"It's me, Jacob," the melancholy man replied. "And why? What have you done?"
Ashamed, Jake lowered his head and refused to look upon the man he hadn't seen in thirty years. He didn't need to look to know him, the man's appearance was almost identical to the one he saw every time he looked at himself in a mirror. The shade was younger than he was now, younger than he had been at the time of his death because his father hadn't held out so long, but it was still him... just with a different name, just with a different set of dates to mark their births and their deaths. The man was his father, and the man was him.
"I didn't have a choice, dad," Jake said somberly through the echoes, his voice distant and disconnected. "Everything good that I ever had was gone. Why should I have kept on living if the living was in misery?"
"Why?" The spirit replied like a broken record in discord. "Why did you do it? Why did you follow me into an early grave?"
"I just got tired, dad!" The prodigal son explained, returning home to no cold embrace. "I just couldn't do it anymore!"
"Why?" The empty mass said one last time before again the cascade of color spilled over it with a dreamlike quality that made everything even more surreal than it had been before.
The color turned the form black again for the brevity of a moment, but then it took on an overwhelmingly white hue as it painted an unblemished linen robe over a figure with whom Jake was not so familiar. It was the visage of Christ, it was Jesus of Nazareth standing before him, in spirit form. He was a spray of being with folded arms and a countenance of shame and disgust at what he was seeing in Jacob Garrett Gigu?re.
The form shook its head, and that enraged Jake beyond anything he'd ever known. He felt his formless fists clenching, felt his teeth locking together, felt spittle flying as he growled defiantly in pained tones. "You dealt these cards, you fuck!" He snarled. "And now you shake your head at me?"
The vision took no further malice at the accusation, but instead cocked its head in pity as it calmly spoke in thunder. "I was but the croupier, my son. You placed the wagers, you played the hand. Now, you reap what you sowed in life. You reap nothing, you impenitent fool."
Jake was preparing another verbal salvo of damnation in response as he felt the floor fall out from underneath him. Then he was falling, dropping like riders on a drop tower a mile high plummeting back to Earth at terminal velocity, and in the terror of the fall he started to scream. The scream carried over into his waking, which was violent and sudden.
With a start his back popped off of Nikki's couch a few inches, his voice shaking the walls as he cried out in mortal terror. He would've likely come all the way up to his feet if not for her body weighing him down, her head rested on his bare chest once again.
She woke with his scream, again wiping sleep from her eyes as she rubbed her jaw where his sternum had struck it. He was wearing only his boxer-briefs
this time, and she was in bra and panties. As the dream faded, he had full recollection of how they'd ended up this way.
It had started with her kisses on his neck, then him kissing her on the top of her head and running his fingers through her hair. Before long, they were in the rapture of a full make-out session with hands rubbing and petting atop clothes until the clothes themselves slowly started to come off. They stopped shy of anything that could be considered sex, but only because he brushed her off when she tugged at the waistband of his underwear. He did so because there was still a guilt within him that wouldn't allow for such a transgression, despite the pleasure he felt in the moment.
Even the deeds they did commit felt like some atheist form of carnal sin, and that poisoned the pleasure until it was cold and dead. It felt wrong and treasonous to him, like a betrayal of everything he'd held dear in days past. Part of him wanted to wiggle out from under her and dash out of the trailer, but the other -- and perhaps more vociferous half of him -- wanted to drive himself into her, if only to say that he'd acted in flagrant violation of those reservations that held him back. This was the duplicity of his psyche, this was the war waging in his head and in his spirit. It was brutal to endure, but there were benefits that were undeniable to his flesh and ego.
In the end, the most he would allow was her straddling of him, with her legs over top of his thighs and her crotch resting not far below his hips, all while both wore nothing but undergarments. He felt a love/hate for her caressing and undulating, and some twisted sense of pride and disgust when it seemed that she'd had an orgasm in her grinding. After that, while he was still as hard as a rock and longing for release despite the objections ever present, they'd calmed and shared one last kiss before settling in where they lay and falling asleep. A sleep that apparently lent itself to a terrible nightmare, perhaps as a preview of what was to come.
"What's going on?" Nikki asked as she shimmied a little further up on him to get a bit more comfortable, as though she would return to sleep once she had her answer.
"Just a dream," he replied. "A nightmare, I guess."
"Based on how high you jumped, baby, I'd say nightmare is a tame word," she said. "What happened?"
"Nothing," he sighed. "Just a really, really bad dream."
"I got that much, sweetie," she said softly, caressing his face. "I mean what happened in the dream?"
Thinking about it, reliving it, he realized there was no good reason that he needed to hide it from her. She had no vested interest in his continued existence, outside of the possibility that she could get off by riding him a few more times if he chose to stay alive.
"I finally did something that I've been thinking about for a long, long time," he admitted.
"You killed yourself?" She followed up as if it were common knowledge that he was on that path, that he had that intention.
"Yeah," he answered nonchalantly. "I guess you could say that."
"How'd you do it?" She asked, seeming almost cold in her morbid curiosity.
This talk of suicide, which he figured was pretty serious talk in most circles, didn't seem to phase or shock her in the least. That felt odd, but no more so than the other circumstances of his life at the time, so he elaborated.
"I drove my car into an overpass," he explained. "To make it look like an accident."
"Ah, an insurance job," she returned. "You're even more selfless than I gave you credit for."
"Selfless?" He chirped. "Don't you mean selfish? I mean, isn't the whole suicide thing a selfish act? Shouldn't you be telling me how I'm a coward or that I'm putting myself before my family? That I'm dreaming of taking the easy way out?"
"If I was a psychiatrist I might," she said with unchanged inflection through a yawn. "If I'd never been there myself I might. But I'm not the one for that kind of talk, sweetie. I've been to the edge, I've looked over it several times and seen what lies beneath. Shit, sometimes staying alive is selfish when it all comes down."
"But selfless? That's a hell of a leap."
"Like I said, it sounds like you're talking about an insurance job. I imagine that would leave your family with a nice little cushion. If they care little enough about you to have you out here with me, not wearing your ring, and not being out here looking for you, well... then taking yourself out in a manner that gets them paid, that's selfless."
"What if they are looking for me?" Jake asked, truly wondering what the answer would be in that situation.
"You mean that phone call?" Nikki recalled, which was exactly what Jake was thinking about. "I heard the guy talking, they know you're in Burlwood. If they were really worried, they'd be out here."
"It's not that easy," Jake offered as an excuse for his former family. "Tracy -- my wife -- has to take care of our son, Garrett. He's severely autistic, there's no way she could get him on a plane or in a car for long enough to get them out here. I treated her like shit anyway," he conceded, "there's no reason she should make any effort on my behalf."
"If she gave a shit about you she would," she returned.
"Why should she?" Jake asked. "I'm toxic. She's better off without me."
"And you're in the process of divorce?" She intuited, based on the vanishing wedding ring.
"Yeah," he said somberly.
"Who filed?"
"She did... and I don't blame her."
"You sure?" She asked with a hint of suspicion.
"I -- " he hesitated, "I don't think so."
"You obviously still love her," Nikki added, words that were like salt on his festering wounds.
"Why do you say that?" He asked, legitimately interested in her thoughts on the matter.
"Let's start with the obvious," she said, sliding down him several inches and then pressing her flesh to his as she moved back up, maximizing the friction between their bodies. "First of all, any man who wasn't in love with someone else would've fucked the hell out of me by now. It's not like I haven't been trying."
"Point taken," he said, trying to still the natural urge to become aroused.
"Then there's the fact that, until now, you've never even mentioned the woman, let alone spoke her name aloud."
"How does that mean I still love her?" He asked, confused.
"In my experience," she began, "a jilted lover usually can't shut up about how terrible the person who shunned them is. You haven't said an ill word about her, and that's just not typical of a man who is angry or feels cheated out of something he wanted. I run into plenty of those types, trust me. Should I continue?"
"No," he replied, feeling the weight of hurt on his heart. "No, I guess you're right."
"So, if that's the case -- if you still love her -- then what the hell are you doing out here? If you think you've wounded her so much that she won't come to you, why don't you try going back to her?"
"I'm trying to help Chucky, that much I've told you."
"And the Chucky thing is more important to you?" She wondered. "You put that above your marriage, above being involved in the life of your son?"
This required a moment of thought, and Jake took it with full diligence. "It's not more important, it just that there used to be more hope in fixing this than there was in fixing my marriage."
"But there was hope in fixing your marriage? You said there was more hope here, but you didn't say there was no hope there. Isn't any hope better than no hope? Doesn't any hope make what you're clearly planning on doing an empty exercise? I mean, if you can make it all right, isn't that better than making it all gone?"
"I thought you were a waitress," he said with sarcasm, feeling the sting of harsh truths. "I had no idea you were a therapist."
She gave him the evil eye in return for a second, but abandoned it quickly and rested her head on his chest very shortly thereafter. "I'm not a therapist," she answered with as much bite as he attacked with, "but I've spent enough time with them that I might as well be. If you want me to shut up, I'll shut up. I
f you want me to get up and get dressed, I'll get up and get dressed. If you want to strike out on your own again, go ahead and strike out on your own. Your life is in your hands right now... just as it was before."
Jake said nothing to this, because he knew full well he didn't want any of those things, and that she was probably right. At the same time, he didn't want to be talking about his condition, he didn't want to be looking in the mirror while he was bleeding all over himself.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I just don't like to talk about it."
"Because it hurts?" She offered.
"Yeah," he replied.
"That's how you know there's still hope," she advised. "Now whether you choose to drive into an overpass or home to her is your option."
"I wish it were that easy," he said, "but I'm afraid she won't listen to what I have to say anymore."
"Then that's too bad for her," Nikki suggested as she settled in atop him again, melting fully to his body and the couch underneath, "and it's perfect for me."
Within minutes she was snoring, but there would be no sleep for him. He would be awake for hours, mulling over facts and assumptions about many things in the landscape of his life. He would think of Chucky and of Rusty, he would think of Rambo and Ron Boudreaux. He would think of murder and of dismemberment, he would think of love and of hate. He would think of alcohol and of gambling, he would think of sobriety and of longing. For the first time in many days, he would think seriously of Tracy and of Garrett.
He would lay there until Nikki awoke, and then together they would go out for dinner at a modest restaurant where they would speak of the many things he'd been thinking about. In the hours they spent there, they would discuss the train wreck that had become of his life in detail. He would speak of his depression, his alcoholism, his gambling away of everything that he and his family had, his faults and his failures as a man, a father and a husband. She would offer little in this conversation, she would largely just listen and prod him when he tried to omit portions of the story or failed to expound upon details that weren't comfortable to speak about. He would spill his guts to her, and she would take it all in like a sponge.
When it was over, he would feel empty... and the emptiness would be fabulous, as he would be free of all of his burdens. The two of them would return to her trailer again, but this time they would lay together under the sheets of her bed. They would end up fully nude, but he would still not allow anything beyond heavy petting to occur between them. She would accept this with understanding, but she would also bring him as much pleasure as he would allow.
They would fall asleep, and he would dream of nothing... and nothingness was perfection.
FIFTY-FOUR