Waiting
for the garage door to rise every morning really ticked me off. Was it getting
slower day by day? It sure as hell seemed to be. Getting up at 4:30am everyday
was bad enough. Driving an hour and a half just to get to the office was bad
enough. Waiting for a 20 year-old motor to drag the creaking garage door up
enough for me to duck under it was just too much.
You
might think I'm way over the top on this one. And you might be right. But my
two car garage is filled with the stuff of our lives. So much stuff that I
can't even park a single car in there. Scraping ice and snow off your car in
the heart of a Massachusetts winter is nothing to celebrate. Neither is staring
at a garage-full of cardboard boxes with stuff you haven't looked at in 5
years.
Neither
is losing your mind. Sitting in an idling car parked in a dirt-patch turnaround
on the side of dark country road is not worth celebrating. I'm just about out
of gas. I've been sitting here for the last twenty minutes trying to get a
grip. And all I can think about is that damn garage door! What I should be
thinking about is him. Or maybe, "it’s" out there. I’m not positive it’s a living
thing.
To
preserve what’s left of my mind, let’s say it’s a "he". Yes. That works for me right
now. He's out there somewhere. There's no denying it now. I guess he's always
been there. I just didn't know it.
What
at first seemed like me following in his tracks turned out to be just the
opposite. He’s following mine. All those people I spoke to, bought beer from or
just smiled at passing through a parking lot. They’re all dead. Not because of
him. But because of me. I didn’t understand why, up until now. Until I sat here
staring at the snow falling through the beams of my headlights. I get it now.
And I’m pretty sure that after all that’s happened, I’m going get it now. I’m
next on his list.
In
the autumn of 2012, I took a new job. Instead of working 25 minutes from home,
I blew up my commute. Chasing the almighty dollar, I switched jobs and earned
myself a ninety minute ride, one way. The higher pay sounded great until after
a few weeks on the job, I started doing the math. Between gas, tolls, oil
changes and all the other wear and tear that commuting produces, I would be in
the hole five thousand bucks by the end of the year. And what about next year?
Would my car hold up after two years of driving with a horde of speed freaks
three hours a day?
It’s
funny, starting a new job. Everything sounds glorious and new when you
interview. The promise of change, getting away from all the reasons you hate
your old job puts a bullet-proof edge on the new one. Until you get there. It
doesn’t take long for the “old-guard” to fill the new guy in on all the
problems of the place you just joined.
“Hope
you didn’t burn any bridges where you ran from,” Tony said. Tony worked in the department
I would be working in at the office. He gets all the new people “dumped” on
him, as he put it. As a matter of fact, my day one orientation included Tony
telling me all the reasons he wished he could quit. The list seemed endless. It
was a miracle he got through them all in an eight hour shift.
“That’s
how it’s always been and how it will always be,” he said. “The politics is so
thick in here, even if one of the ringleaders was to get fired or something,
the next exec in the pecking order would just fill in where the last one left
off.”
“Nah.
Really?” I said. “They can’t all be like that. I mean, doesn’t anybody want to
change things around here?”
“That’s
the point, Ed. They want to keep things just as they are. A small group holds
all the cards. They keep their big salaries, make bonuses off the work us poor
slobs do at below-market wages.”
“I’m not
making below-market pay,” I thought to myself. I got a fat raise to
come here. They must have really been screwing me at the old job. Those
assholes!
“As
long as they keep us in line, there’s no worries. All the big bosses have
something that connects them. Either through marriage, church, kids in the same
soccer league. It’s like a web. You step on a strand with the intention of
cutting it. And all the spiders descend on you.”
“That’s
pretty creepy, Tony.” I said.
“Well,
it is close to Halloween.” He smiled. “But it would be true no matter what time
of year it was. I’m telling you right now, keep your head down and follow
orders. No matter how stupid they are or contradictory they may seem. If you
take a stand around for anything around here, especially for yourself, you’ll
be out. That’s how they keep things the way they want it. You know, the
‘tallest nail gets the hammer’ in this joint.”
Thankfully,
I got to work with a few different people besides Tony as the weeks progressed.
None of them came across as negative as he did. In fact, they felt the same way
about Tony’s crappy attitude. I appreciated that. It was hard enough driving all
those hours every day. Working with a bunch of miserable people would’ve had me
looking for another job, again.
The
‘tyrants’ Tony described never did materialize. Did they ask for stuff at the
last minute and change their minds all time after I spent hours doing market
research for a project? Yes. Did it annoy me? Yes. But they were paying me good
cash, so I let it go.
I
did see someone get fired, though. This guy Scott who always seemed to come in
late and go home early got canned. He sat a couple cubicles away from me.
Sometimes I needed to ask him a question about stuff and he never seemed to be
there. If he was in his cube, he was usually on his phone texting or surfing
the web. I’m not sure why they fired him, but I wasn’t surprised. The weird
thing was on the day he got clipped, he cleaned out his desk and walked by me
on the way out. A guard from the desk downstairs walked a couple steps behind
him. He was smiling and winked at me on his way out.
I
watched his back as they rounded a corner to head for the elevator. “What the
hell was that for?” I thought.
A
few nights later, I sat at the kitchen table with Kaylyn and Emma. It had begun
getting dark early and we hadn’t even set the clocks back yet. I was eating a
re-heated plate of food. Kaylyn had made dinner for Emma at five o’clock. I
didn’t get home until after seven most nights. She couldn’t make an eight-year
old wait that late for dinner. Most nights, Kaylyn didn’t want to wait that
long either, so I ate alone in the kitchen while they were in another room.
But
on this night, Emma drew on a sketchpad with colored pencils while Kaylyn
checked her e-mail. I yawned several times. Kaylyn put her tablet down and
looked at me.
“Yawns
are contagious, you know.”
“Huh?”
I said.
“You
don’t even have to see someone yawn to make yourself yawn, too. You just have
to hear it. It works the other way around, too. You could see someone across a
room, like at a store or even walking down the street. Without hearing the
yawn, you’ll reflexively yawn too. They were talking about it on the morning
show the other day.”
“What
are you talking about?’ I said.
“You’re
barely awake when you get home. Since you took this new job, we barely get to
see you. And when you’re here, it’s like living with a zombie.”
“Zombies
don’t sleep,” I said. “The undead have no need for it,” I smiled.
“You
know what I mean. Can’t you leave work earlier and get home at a decent time?”
Kaylyn asked.
“Hon,
I just started. I don’t think it would be a good move to check out at four in
the afternoon just yet. They just fired a guy for that last week.”
“They
fired someone for leaving early?’ she asked.
“Well,
I don’t know that for a fact. But he always showed up after everyone else and I
bet he was the first one out the door every day.”
“You
don’t know if that’s why he got fired,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I
sighed and pushed some rice around my plate with a fork. ‘No. I guess not. But
I don’t need that kind of attention. Maybe after a couple of months, once I get
some projects under my belt I can leave early on Fridays or something.”
“Oooh.
One day a week. That’ll really make a difference.”
I
got up from the table and went upstairs and lay down on the bed. I still had my
work clothes on. I think I fell asleep in about 30 seconds. When I woke up is
1:30am. I still lay on top of the comforter. I shivered. We decided to hold out
on turning on the heat to save money on the oil bill.
Kaylyn’s
sleeping face was illuminated by the digital clock on her nightstand. I got out
of bed and looked in on Emma. She slept soundly, wrapped in her favorite
blanket. Kaylyn’s mother had bought her the fleece blanket with a pair of
horses running in field. She loved it because it was so soft and she loved
horses. I gave her a kiss and tiptoed to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and
slipped back into bed.
The
next morning, I sat in my car waiting for the defroster to clear the
windshield. I checked the screen on the dash. “5:45am and it’s 38°. What happed
to fall? Old Man Winter’s in a hurry to get here, I guess.” I said. My breath
formed a small cloud in front of my face.
Once
on the highway, I drove 75 mph and stayed in the center lane. Cars and trucks
blew by me at what had to be 90 miles an hour. Some of them swooped in front of
me, coming dangerously close to my bumper. Then they would accelerate and jump
in front of another car in the passing lane. “Where the hell are they in such a
hurry to get to!” I said.
These
Massachusetts commuters drove like race car drivers on those road courses that
curve a lot. Except they were driving vans and regular cars, not
high-performance speed machines. The weird thing is that I rarely came upon an
accident or a car pulled over by a State Trooper. They must be pretty lucky. I
didn’t think I could drive like that every day and not flip the car over or
plow into a big rig.
Work
crept by as usual that day. I left at the appointed time, not any earlier like
Kaylyn and Emma probably hoped. The highway had no lights. With only two lanes
in either direction, it could get pretty jammed up. But at this time, six
thirty, I didn’t have to deal with many other cars. It started raining. I
clicked on my wipers and was annoyed at the mess they left behind. Some kind of
film coated the windshield leaving it streaked and harder to see than when
there was just rain water to see though. I pulled on the wiper control for the
washer fluid, but none squirted out. I pulled again and again, but got nothing.
I could hear the wiper gizmo hum each time I pulled, but still nothing happened.
I
had a long way to go but I couldn’t drive like this. I slowed down and strained
to see the side of the highway. I picked up on the white stripe that marked the
shoulder. On the highway’s edge, a gapless barrier separated the pavement from
a slope. I had seen it in the daylight before it started getting dark so early.
I knew there a gully down there, a stretch of tall grass and then thick
clustered trees formed a forest’s edge.
“Hey,”
I said out loud. I saw that the guardrail ended here. I slowed down some more
and I could see a dirt path leading off the highway down the slope. A larger,
gravel and dirt circle sat at the forest’s edge. I pushed the button for my
hazard signal and eased the car off the road. The car bumped up and down as I
switched from asphalt to dirt. I came to a stop at the bottom. My headlights
shone on the swaying boughs of a hundred trees.
I
thought I might have a jug of windshield wash in the trunk. I got out and
switched on the flashlight on my cell phone. The rain had picked up and
instantly coated my glasses with beads of water. Searching in my trunk yielded
nothing helpful. I did find an old golf towel hidden under a folding camp
chair. It had plenty of dried dirt on it, but I thought I might be able to get
at least some of that grime off my windshield. I rubbed out a circular spot on
the driver’s side glass. The dirt mixed with whatever was already on there.
After
a minute the towel was soaked and dirtier than ever. I jumped back in the car,
cold and wet. Tossing the towel on the floor mat on the passenger side, I
switched on the wipers. They dragged back and forth. I could see the trees
ahead of me a little clearer where I had scrubbed. But as the wipers kept
working, they smeared the grime from other sections of the glass and smudged my
clean spot all over again.
“Shit,
shit, shit,” I said. The rain pounded on the hood and roof of my car. It was
really coming down now. I thought about how the hell I would get out of this
spot if the slope turned to mud. I reached for the shifter, ready to put the
car in reverse when I heard the “whoosh” of air brakes. In my side view mirror
I could see the illuminated roof of a tractor trailer. A bobbing flashlight
moved to the edge of the slope. It panned back and forth over my car.
I
pushed my door open and raised a hand to the trucker. The spotlight settled on
my face, blinding me. I put my hand up defensively, shielding my eyes.
“You
ok down there?” the man said, shouting over the noise of the road and the
driving rain.
“Yeah,”
I said. “But my windshield has some stuff on it. Trying to clean it off but no
luck. I can’t see enough to drive on.”
“You
picked an interesting spot to pull off. You know where you are?” he asked.
I
shook my head. The rain ran down my back and chest now. It had soaked through
my light coat.
“Let
me get something out of my truck. I’ll give you a hand.” He disappeared out of
sight.
I
decided to wait in the rain. The seconds passed slowly in that downpour.
Something the man had said suddenly jumped back into my thoughts. “You picked an interesting spot to pull
off. You know where you are?” I knew I was on the Mass Pike between exits 9
and 8. But exactly where I was? No. Was this a Department of Transportation
site that was off limits to the public or something? I looked beyond my car at
the woods. The tree tops were swaying in the wind. I could hear a groaning
sound, like some huge being struggling to move a heavy object. The trees
strained against the wind. Some of them would snap tonight and fall to earth.
Broken and twisted leaving a shattered edge at the point in the trunk that
couldn’t take the strain.
My
shadow loomed up large against the tree line. On the edge of my projected
outline, something moved. Was that a person under a big pine? I wiped rain from
my glasses but my hands had muck from the towel on them. “You’re an idiot,” I told myself. No. It had to be more shadows. A
small tree or…
The
sound of small rocks sliding came from behind me. I turned to see the trucker
starting down the slope. I cupped my hands around my mouth.
“Careful!
Looks like its getting slick!”
The
trucker’s boots dug in as he descended. He jogged to a stop near me. He was
wearing a hooded, orange rain poncho. He held a jug of windshield wash and a
long-handled squeegee.
“Name’s
Carl. Carl Goldberg. I’m from Tennessee. In the middle of a long haul to Nashua
and back.”
I
extended a filthy, wet hand and then pulled it back feeling foolish. Carl
didn’t have a free hand and touching mine wouldn’t help either of us. “Ed
Killingworth. I live about 40 miles or so from here. On the way home from work.
Thanks for stopping.”
“We’ll
try this stuff on it.” He held up the jug. “But even if it works, I don’t think
that Civic is gonna get up that slope. It’s getting pretty slick.” I nodded.
He
handed me the flashlight, then walked over to the car. He splashed some of the
cleaning fluid across the top edge of windshield. As it ran down, he caught it
with the squeegee and pulled it across. A grey sludge accumulated where the
glass met the frame. He held the squeegee in front of the flashlight beam. He
smelled it.
“Could
be road oil or silicone. Not sure.” Carl pulled a rag out from his back pocket
and wiped the squeegee blade. He went back to work on the driver’s side. When
the glass looked done, he wiped down the wiper blade. We walked around the hood
and repeated the process on the passenger side.
“Pop
the hood, Ed. I’ll fill your washer reservoir with this.” When we were done, Carl and I looked at the
slope with the flashlight. Small canals of rain water were running off the
highway and down the dirt and gravel path. A car passed close to Ed’s truck and
a wave of water splashed up and over the edge of the road.
“If
I were you, I’d leave the car here until tomorrow. It’ll never make it outta
here now,” Carl said. I nodded. My teeth were chattering from the cold rain.
“Tell
you what. I’ll give you a ride to the next exit or rest area. Whatever you
want. We’ll call the State Police so they don’t think you abandoned it. Got
someone who can pick you up?”
“My
wife’s home with my daughter. But I’d rather call my friend. Kaylyn doesn’t
like driving at night in a storm like this.”
“Ok.”
Carl said. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”
Carl
went up the slope first. I shone the light so we could both see where it was
safest to walk. His rugged boots had bright yellow letters that spelled CAT just
above the heel. Once he gained the top, I started up. I slipped a bunch of
times. Then I went down hard to my left. I bent my arm to protect the
flashlight. My elbow took the brunt of the fall. My whole left side was now
covered in mud. I heard Carl yell down to me.
“Ed!
You hurt?”
I
struggled to my feet. My elbow thrummed in pain.
“Nothing
serious. I’m ok. Loafers aren’t too good for mud climbing.”
Carl
put down his squeegee and jug. He came to my side and helped the rest of the
way up to the road. Standing in front of the truck’s headlights, I looked at my
condition. A soaking, muddy mess. I felt panicked for a second and patted my
pockets.
I
groaned. “Forgot the keys.” I looked back down at the car.
“I’ll
get them, Ed. Give me the light.”
Carl
managed the mud with no problem. I could see the door open. The flashlight
moved around the Civic’s interior. It seemed like it was taking him a long time
to just grab the keys. I heard the door slam and the chirp of the door lock.
The parking lights flashed twice and then the car sat dark and quiet. Carl came
back up the slope.
He handed me the keys and my work bag.
“Thought
you might want to bring this home with you. No need to leave it in plain sight
in the car. Some fool might break a window if they thought something valuable
could be in there.”
“Thanks,
Carl. You're a life-saver.”
“No
problem, Ed. The road’s a dangerous place to be stuck. Been broke down enough
times myself to know that. Go ahead and climb up the passenger side of the cab.
Don’t get in right away. I have a sheet of plastic to throw over the seat
before you dirty the place up.”
Carl
waited for me at a table in the dining area of the rest stop. I did the best I
could in the rest room to clean myself up and dry off what I could. They only
had air dryers in the bathroom. Most of me was still either wet or plastered
with semi-dried mud.
Carl
sipped on a steaming coffee he bought from McDonald’s. He shook his head as I
approached.
“You
are a sight, Ed. Did you get ahold of Stuart?”
Stu
was the friend I called to pick me up.
“Yup.
He’s on his way. I called my wife and told her what happened.” I should be all
set now. I can’t thank you enough, Carl.”
A
second cup of coffee sat on the table. Carl pushed it toward me.
“Here.
I bet you can use this.”
I
reached out and picked it up. Just holding the warm, Styrofoam cup made me feel
better. I smiled crookedly.
“Ever
see those car insurance commercials for State Farm?” I said.
“Like
a good neighbor, State Farm is there?’ he said in a sing-song voice.
“Yeah,”
I said. “They need to re-write that jingle and say Carl Goldberg is there.
Helping me out has got to have put you off schedule for your trip.”
Carl
shook his head. “Not a big deal, Ed. My brother-in-law is the dispatcher. I let
him know what’s going on. You can’t make great time in weather like this
anyhow. That being said, though, I’m gonna get rolling if you’re ok.”
I
held up the coffee and took a sip. “I’m all set, Carl. Stu will be here in
about 20 minutes.”
I
held out a hand. This time Carl shook it. He smiled warmly.
“You
be more careful out there, Ed. Not all truckers will stop for you when you’re
stuck. Most of them don’t have family back at the shop running their
schedules.”
“I
will, Carl. I will.”
I
watched Carl push through the glass doors and jog through the sheets of rain to
his truck. I walked over to the big glass windows. I was too wet and
uncomfortable to sit down. The lights came on as he fired up the engine. In a
minute he was rolling past the gas pumps and up the on ramp.
I
couldn’t see much outside because of the rain. The inside of the rest area
reflected on the glass came into sharper focus. I looked like hell. Stu would
have a good laugh when he got here. That’s when I noticed him. The man standing
in the open archway leading into the men’s bathroom. Dressed in hooded coat
that hung past his waist. I saw deep blue pants and boots on his feet. It struck
me that he didn’t move. He just stood there facing in my direction. I closed my eyes for a long
couple seconds and then turned to look over to the rest room. He was gone. I
didn’t see anyone moving in the place except the counter man at McDonald’s and
a guy in a light blue uniform mopping the floor near the entrance.
I
started walking toward the bathroom. I don’t know why, but I needed to see
where the hooded man had gone, though a creeping fear of him compressed my
chest. My heart pounded like my rib cage had started shrinking. It thumped off
the sides of its cage, seeking more room to beat. I tried to catch my breath
and slow it all down. When I got near the bathroom, I saw muddy footprints on the
tiled floor. A pair where he had been standing, looking in my direction and
four more that went into the bathroom. Had he just appeared in the door way?
Where were the rest of them? The guy mopping the floor was working near the
entrance door about fifty feet from here.
I
took another step toward the bathroom. I put my right hand over my mouth to
keep from screaming. My nostrils flared, having taken over the work of oxygen
intake. It wasn’t sufficient.
Another
step closer. A shadow appeared on the wall just inside the door way arch. Quiet
steps approached. I froze in place. The shadow grew larger. I could see the
shadow of the man was holding something long in his left hand. I dropped my
coffee cup and put my left hand over my mouth, two hands now barricading the
scream in my throat.
The
guy in the light blue uniform, who I saw mopping the floor by the door came out
of the rest room. He had thinning, brown hair. I could see his scalp through
most of what was left. A colorful set of tattoos covered his right forearm. The
left forearm had intricate designs in black ink. Later I would remember that
this was only an outline. It was unfinished. So many things are left
unfinished.
In
one hand he held a wood handled mop. In the other, a yellow, caution cone that
had “Wet Floor” written on it. He stopped when he saw me.
Looking
me over he said, “Bathroom’s closed. Hey, you gonna throw up?”
I
almost said ‘yes’ since some bile had crept up my throat. I swallowed and
lowered my hands. I whispered a hoarse, “No.”
“You
drop that coffee,” He pointed to the floor with his mop.
I
nodded without speaking.
He
sighed. “I just did this floor.” He put the cone down beside my feet.
“Well,
if you really gotta go or if you think you’re gonna really puke, use the ladies
room. Nobody’s in there and on a night like tonight shouldn’t be too many
people coming through. Just hurry it up.”
I
backed away from him and the yellow cone. I turned and went inside the ladies
rest room. I marched over to the sink. I wanted to splash some water on my face
and snap out of this, whatever temporary madness had come over me.
The
faucet worked on motion, no knobs to turn or handle to push and pull. I waved my
hands beneath and received streams of scalding hot water on my palms.
“Ouch!”
I said. Jerking my hands up, I inspected them for damage. Other than looking
slightly red, nothing happened to them. I tried another sink and got the same
too-hot water. I wanted nothing more to be dry so I approached the hand dryer.
“You’re an idiot,” I said out loud. “Burned hands under a hand blaster throwing
hot air.” But I did it anyway. I wanted to be dry more than anything. After the
scalding water, it wasn’t bad at all.
I
felt calmer now. My hammering heart stabilized. I felt better about things. I
glanced around the ladies room and noticed there were no urinals. All stalls.
It made the place seem so much smaller. The last stall in the corner was labeled
with a handicapped emblem. I could see a pair of muddy boots under the door,
positioned so that they faced the back corner of the stall.
I
made a low groaning sound. My body went rigid and the fear took hold again. The
boots lifted and turned. Clomp. Clomp. Now the toes faced in my direction. I
needed to scream but my hands covered my mouth again. I turned and ran. Rounding
the corner, I twisted toward the dining area and those big windows. I slid
across the wet floor and my feet went out from under me. I slapped the tiles
hard, my head rang. My vision blurred. A pair of dark boots appeared beside my
shoulder. Then I blacked out.
