“Thanks for the
ride Man.”
Dark spots from
his approaching headlights still blinked in my vision, but pizza, tobacco and
sweat reached out to me from the truck cab.
“Get in or get
lost Kid. I got a schedule.”
I swept my
rucksack up into the and followed it close. We pulled away before I got the
door shut and I slid across leather polished by too many passengers.
“How far you
headed?”
“Far enough.”
Words escaped through the gap between chapped lips and a grimy hand rolled
cigarette.
He flicked a
lighter and his dark stubbled face leapt into angular life, before skulking
back into the shadows of the dim illumination from the dash.
“So it’s a girl,
right? It’s always a girl. They’ll be the death of you Boy. Broads I mean. Man
killers, every one.”
“No.”
I cracked the
window but the smell just gathered tighter around me like cobwebs on your face
in the morning.
“No? A story for
a ride Son. That’s how it works.”
“...I’m going to
meet her...”
The cigarette
flared, then languid wraiths of smoke curled from his nostrils before diving
for the window and freedom.
“So, this girl
you’re meeting..?”
I closed my eyes
and rested my head against the cracked headrest, shutting out the strobing
monochrome scrub flashing past the rusty wing.
“It was Jeff,
her Daddy. The police wanted her to testify, but she was scared Man... and it
was her Daddy, you know? The Sheriff called her at work, followed her to my
house, sat outside the house all night, but Jeff, he’d just laugh. If she was
late, well, he called it a reminder. Told the Sheriff she fell. He took it up
with Jeff in the diner, but without a witness, Jeff knew he was home free.”
The truck engine
droned like an angry metal bee and the tyres roared.
“So...?”
“I tried to tell
her, you know? She had to get away, her Daddy was trouble, real bad news. No
future for us if she stayed. Told her I’d set her free. So I did...”
The trucker
turned, deep sunk eyes fixed on me like a mongoose watching a snake.
I saw her face
in the reflection of the windshield.
The tyres
rumbled onto the gravel verge, a stony tattoo beating on the underside of the
body, and he jerked the wheel. The tyres gave a banshee scream as he stomped on
the brake. The truck stalled and I looked across at him to find myself staring
into the steel blued tunnel of a snub nose revolver in his shaking hand.
“Out!”
“But I’m going
to meet her...”
“Out.” The barrel
twitched me on my way and I slid out into the cool night air.
The truck leapt
into life, drenching me in a shower of dust.
The single tail
light dwindled against the first whispers of dawn’s approaching skyline.
I caught the
memory of her scent on the breeze. I could meet her here as well as anywhere, I
figured. I pulled open the bag, feeling inside for my carefully stone whetted
ticket.
519 words
@nickjohns999
This story was written for Jeff Tsuruoka’s Mid-Week Blues Buster challenge and was inspired by Kira Skov's song 'Riders of the Freeway'
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