Cadillac ‘08

13Sep08

His thumb jutted out, parallel to his body. Cars whizzing by, his eyes glaze over behind dark sunglasses. The sweat forming on his brow is absorbed by a bright red bandana around his head. The gallon water jug forces his shoulder to sag, he lets it fall gently to the ground. It’s been a good eight hours since he last ate, his stomach turns circles.

A car eases to the side of the road and the passenger side window rolls down. His voice carries to the man, asking where he’s headed. The bandana-clad man saunters to the window, leaning over to see inside. He mumbles his destination and climbs in, grabbing his pack and water. He throws his items into the backseat.

They go for a hundred miles in silence. The radio tinkles faintly with some new hit of the week, and our main character wakes up. He notes the time and asks where they are. The driver tells him they’re in Portland most likely. College students flock on street corners, chatting about how artistic they are. They compare spoils and point out their scars. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?” they say to each other.

They pull into a small restaurant and get out. The driver orders a combo meal and his passenger pulls a sandwhich out of his pack. They eat quietly, but the driver glances up at the man and asks, “Why are you going to Vancouver?” The man explains a poorly thought out story about his dead wife’s brother needing some money from her savings account and only he could bring it to him, then resumes eating. The driver laughs and then comments, “So you’re saying you want to be left here?”

“What?”

“I figured that you were trying to get me to ditch you,” he said. “You know, you were trying to rile me up and get me to head out.” A smile played on his lips. The man shook his head nervously and disagreed.

“I just need to get away from all this,” he said, motioning around his head. The driver asked him what “this” was.

He sighed, exasperated. “I have this problem… I hear… things. Voices, you know, drifting in and out of earshot. It’s like I can hear people talking, but they’re not talking to me. They used to, but now even the voices in my head are too cool for me. Sometimes, I’ll be walking around and I’ll hear them suddenly stop, like they’re pretending they aren’t there. I’ll just shrug it off, you know?” His mouth became a thin line, barely visible. “It’s like… I’m constantly in a storm, now. I’m just trying to stay afloat. You ever heard that quote, ‘You gotta love livin’, baby, because dying is a pain in the ass.’? For me, living is a pain in the ass, and sometimes it seems like it would be so much easier just to die.”

“Then why don’t you? You seem so set on dying, so why don’t you?”

“That’s why I’m going to Vancouver. I know a girl up there, she fell out of love with me. She’s the reason I hear these things. I’m going to ask her how to get rid of them. I will never, ever be content with dying while I still hear these voices.”

The driver nods, pushing his plate to the side. They both step outside and climb into the car. Easing onto the highway, a bandana rests on a reclined seat.

“You know, I wanted to kill myself, too,” says the driver.

“How’d you get over it?”

“I stole a car, I decided I would drive until I ran out of gas then die where I landed.”

The man sits up and laughs quietly. “Maybe stopping at the gas station a few miles back wasn’t such a great idea then.”

“I thought it’d be nice to help you ou-”

Metal tore through metal, tires screech and a horn is going off. A bandana soaks up the blood that would be dripping off the man’s forehead. The driver slumps lifelessly. As the bandana clad man fights the pain away, his vision blurs.

“About time, now we can leave,” says a woman.
A man laughs, “I know! I thought he’d never be finished.”
“Oh my God, are you okay?!” screams a woman climbing out of her car.

He looks up, a woman stands there.

“Thomas?” she says. “Oh, Thomas! Shit, shit, shit, what have I done? Don’t die, I… I’ll fix this, I’ll fix all of this.”

“She’s wasting her breath, he’s as good as gone,” chimes a voice as the bandana slumps.
“About time.”

Filed under: Fiction, Long and confusing   |  1 Comment
Tags: bandana, car, car crash, hitckhike, road trip, suicide