Short Story:

THE NEW YORK TO PHILLY TECHNO BLACKOUT   BLUES

                                  Or,  A RANDOM ACT  

 

By Shaun Stanert


Holly Cormac is struggling to focus sleep-deprived eyes on the dashboard clock. It is almost midnight on a moonless August night in 1989 and the humidity is opaque on the windshield of her Blue Isuzu Trooper.

The wipers push it aside.

She is on the last leg of a journey. Right now, by her own biased assessment, she is in the middle of nowhere. She estimates it will take at least another couple of hours to reach her Philadelphia home. And, home is where she wants to be.

The humdrum of the roadside scenery pushes her inside herself. She recalls her four-week photographic assignment and the images as they blossomed on developing film: diaphanous and immutably stained on the negatives by light and perceptive determination. She is transported to captivating scenes of foggy morning Meadows, venerable trees, and translucent leaves, silhouetted against the lusty rays of a setting sun.

Soon she is relaxed; too relaxed. As if in confirmation, a yawn seizes the muscles of her heart-shaped face fleetingly rumpling flawless features. It calls attention to an odd flavor that seems to have settled on her parched tongue, an indescribable taste distantly reminiscent of the morning’s breakfast tainted with a hint gasoline fumes. She shakes an empty coke bottle roosting in the cup holder between bucket seats…. not a drop.

The unpalatable impression remains.

She attempts to distract herself from weariness and thirst. She turns on the radio. She punches the buttons. She finds a song that inspires her to sing along.

When the news starts reporting the latest statistics on “carjacking,” she shuts it off and listens to the wind lament as it squeezes through the narrow spaces of her speeding vehicle.

She loves her work, but dislikes traveling alone. She is eager to get home. She leans forward in her leather seat. She shifts toward the windshield, as far as she sensibly can, scrunches her brow, and beams a likeness of herself through the ebony sky. Her target is the townhouse she shares with her tall tender husband, and their dog.

She smiles anticipating the exaggerated greeting her silver Alaskan Malamute will give her, knowing that the wolfish, wiggling, “wanna-be-person” will greet her at the door as if she's been gone a decade.

She hangs on to thoughts of home like a child clutching a useless, frayed blanket. She glides down the darkened roadway, past miles of woods and open grassy pastures. She is so intent that she no longer registers her true environment. She is absent, lost in a longing for home and it in this altered state she bypasses a rest-stop gas station.

It is a mistake.

One that she remains complacently unaware of, as she continues, blissfully tooling along Interstate 95, mesmerized by pleasant thoughts, and the endless spectral glow of blurry taillights.

Soon, she is rudely summoned from her cozy self-induced trance by a disturbing change in engine noise. The comforting hypnotic monotony of the engine's predictable hum has been transposed into a discordant airy rattle.

Without a glance at the dash, she knows that the Isuzu needs fuel. Reflexively, her foot floors the gas pedal in a futile attempt to outdistance destiny. Nonetheless, the accelerating engine will not be fooled. Demanding the liquid treat it craves, it begins to buck and cough until the needle on the r.p.m. gauge sinks soundlessly to zero.

With no choice, she steers and coasts until she feels the wheels bounce onto the road's shoulder. She stomps the brake pedal, yanks the emergency lever, and snaps on the emergency flashers. Extending a dainty foot toughened by years of ballet training, she inelegantly kicks the driver's door open, with an unforgiving force matching the ferocity of her frustration.

She then exits, and marches back to the trunk. Leaning in she extracts a worn white T-shirt from the musty depths of the rarely opened built-in storage bin. She rips the Tee in half and ties the ragged remnant of cloth to the antenna. She, then, tucks the other half into the pocket of her knee-length summer dress, walks to the front of the Trooper and raises the hood in the classic distress signal.

With that done, she wipes her hands on the listless cloth faintly flagging surrender in the nearly breezeless night. Then sinking back until cloth-covered thighs press hot metal, she unconsciously folds her arms tightly across her chest in a symbolic self-hug, and processes the dilemma.

Several interminable minutes pass.

Her thighs begin to sweat, and the sharp bits of road gravel pressing into the flimsy soles of her well-worn summer shoes begin to feel like nails. Their nagging fragmented presence underscores the inner voice that is scolding her for neglecting to refuel.

For a few moments she remains, feet pressing gravel, punishing herself with pointed discomfort, then relents. Guilty or not, it is safer, wiser, and likely more comfortable, to wait for help inside the Trooper.

Still, she cannot shake the edge off her tension. In a flash of stress-discharging volatility, She jerks open the driver's door. She flings her body into the seat. She balls her small hand into a tight fist and systematically hammers down all four door locks. Then, somehow, somewhat relieved, she rolls up the windows sealing herself within the Isuzu's now steamy interior where she sits, a damsel in distress, awaiting the police. Awaiting and waaaiiting...................and waaaattiiiiiiting!

Exasperation engulfs her; where is a cop! She muses about the way they never fail to materialize when her tail light or turn signals unknowingly fail to work. Still, if one shows up now, all past transgressions are forgiven.

More than an hour passes. She is sweltering. Without the engine running, there is no air conditioning, and the soupy heat heartlessly seeps in claiming the once cool refuge.

Discomfort heightens her irritation. She cracks the windows. It gets worse. Dampness tickles her forehead. She pulls the other half of the T-shirt from her pocket. She presses it to her brow. Its soothing cotton obligingly absorbs the perspiration wending a prickly path toward her brown eyes.

Her solace is short lived as her stomach vies for attention in low rolling rumbles that protest a lack of food since morning.

She stretches to the side, foraging through the clutter of the glove compartment for something to defeat her hunger, and catches a jarring glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror. Her shoulder-length, jet-black hair, sucking moisture from the air like a thirsty cactus, has swelled into a frizzy halo around her pallid face. Her Mascara has formed a dark ring around one eye in a way that reminds her of the markings on the trademark RCA dog.

She looks away; too drained to fuss over her appearance.

A scene from a television show begins scrolling through her mind. In it, a quirky, fiftyish, ad-agency boss is melodramatically sharing the details of the near-fatal heart attack he suffered while driving solo on a Philadelphia expressway. When he finishes, he pierces an associate with an eerie gaze, and drawls condescendingly "Never let anyone ever tell you a car phone is a luxury."

A cellular phone would be handy. As a barely employed photographer, however, her perception of their usefulness was clouded by a lack of cash.

She considers that perhaps no one can see her within the shadowy confines of the Isuzu. Warily she opens the door. Reluctantly, she eases a slim, athletic frame back out into the humid night air, liberating herself from the suffocating lair.

Alas, there is no perceptible atmospheric variation within or without. Her sheer dress begins to adhere to her skin like a wet gauze bandage. She apprehensively peers down the murky highway and mentally wills the welcome sight of a patrol car.

She is, countered, instead, with a carload of frisky young men. They whiz past hooting, laughing and whistling. They hang their bare, muscular arms out the open windows and playfully pound the side of their red mustang. They rotate their forearms, Arsenio Hall style, and grunt HOO HOOO! HOOOO!

The wake from their speeding sedan ruffles the delicate, bare-shouldered sundress she now regrets wearing, and sends her scurrying for the skimpy security of her locked Isuzu.

Inside her vehicle, sweat and panic fill her eyes. She tells herself they were just having fun. Still, her blind probing fingers delve beneath the passenger's side seat until they locate a heavy metal crowbar stashed there.

She is choked with nameless dread. The muscles in her neck are taut as steel girders, and her rapid breathing seems unable to secure adequate oxygen. She is mortified by her fearfulness. She is tough; resilient; a roll-with-the punches type. She runs her hand over the rough metal of the crowbar. Its weight and substance offer her a modicum of security. She allows the soothing click-clack of the four-way flashers to hush the hysteria welling within.

The respite is temporary. Like an endless loop video, her imagination repeatedly recycles detailed pictures of all the sinister things that could happen. She presses her palms over her eyes, massaging them gently, attempting to erase nasty thoughts.

She envisions empowering thoughts. Those thoughts, as slippery as Hudson River eels, elude her concentration. Soon she is relentlessly chewing her bottom lip. She brusquely stops when she tastes the saline stickiness of her own blood.

Enough is enough. She will walk to the nearest indiscernible exit in search of help.

She moves to open the door. Simultaneously, a large truck barrels past leaving her Trooper trembling fitfully in its dust. The eighteen-wheeler smoothly hisses to a halt about fifteen yards ahead, its flashers blinking in tempo with hers.

She is immobilized by suspicion. She strains to see the truck through the fogged windshield. The sound of rasping metal ricochets off the shadows, as its door swings open. A lanky man, with thick, partially graying hair, agilely drops from its rugged cab. She can hear the crunch and spray of burdensome work boots displacing gravel as he advances toward her.

She peers through the darkness. He does not appear threatening. Still, fearful of being trapped inside her Ute, she tucks the crowbar-wielding arm behind her back. She eases out. She ascertains the level of force to muster should the need arise.

She falters. Perhaps, It might be best to run, avoiding a tussle altogether.

The man is moving closer.

When he is near enough to clearly see Holly's fragile figure, he stops abruptly. His tall body cartoonishly vibrates back and forth slightly, as if blunted by an invisible force field.

Unexpectedly, she gains insight into the scenario from his perspective and finds herself suppressing an urge to laugh. She controls the reflexive reaction and appraises him with tempered empathy as he appraises her.

She tracks his eyes. They take in her weather-wild hair, slide to her heat-flushed face, and briefly take note of her attempt to conceal at least one arm. She sees his shoulders stiffen, then relax, a hardly discernible action. Slowly, almost too nonchalantly, his eyes drift back up and settle on hers.

His expression is unreadable. Either he senses her fear, or he fears her.

He maintains a deferential distance. She finds it disarming. Then he cups his hand to his mouth and using the measured, octave-raised pitch usually reserved for lost children or full-grown lunatics, he hollers, "Do you need help?"

"Yes," she bleats, startled by the swiftness of her response, but pacified by his lack of proximity, she continues. "I'm out of gas." The sheepish timbre tolling her words chafes already tattered pride. He must think her a simpleton. A warm blush of embarrassment spreads up her neck and face. For the first time this night, she is grateful for the dark.
In response, a friendly chuckle bridges the space between them. "I've done that a few times myself," he confesses. Gesturing toward his truck and broadcasting his solution to her dilemma, "I'll use my mobile phone to call a service station," he says, raising his hands chest level, palms beseechingly facing out as if warding off a gunslinger’s bullet. "I'll wait in my rig till help gets here, O.K.?"

Apparently, however, not needing an answer, he disappears into his truck, where he stays.

A giggle broods in her stomach and rises to her throat like an air bubble surfacing in a pond. Is it a physical manifestation of relief, or does she truly find the situation humorous? She is not sure. Tentatively loosening the grip on her paranoia, she releases the weapon and rests it on the hood, placed within easy reach although now she intuits no danger.

Within fifteen minutes, a service truck sidles up. Its presence snuffs any remainder of apprehension like a cap over a candle flame. Focused on the immediate resolution of her problem, her attention is elsewhere. Still, the intent to thank the trucker for his unconditional kindness never leaves her.

While speaking to the attendant, a gear-grinding whine intrudes. She realizes it is the trucker firing up his massive engine. Regret sinks her heart. She feels the ground shiver as the long silver rig rumbles onto the highway, but she can only see the broad back-end of it lumbering away.

The knowledge that she now has no way to thank the driver wounds her.

Blinking away a haze of fatigue and disappointment, she scrutinizes the departing truck for a clue to the identity of her modest Good Samaritan. There is not one. Her gaze clings to the license plate and tries, but fails, to read the rapidly diminishing numbers on the rectangular scrap of metal. Passenger cars, dwarfed by the vehicle's mass, relentlessly crowd the space behind it, still, her eyes continue to pursue the truck, and she is overcome with a perplexing sense of helpless loss.

As she walks slowly along the roadside trailing the path of the lone truck like a bewildered toddler, the attendant fills her tank and processes her credit card.

Meanwhile, with nothing else left to do, Holly does the only thing she can. With solemn determination, she directs her thoughts to the briskly retreating vehicle. Slowly, she draws in a chest full of steamy night air. She holds it in; she wills the tenseness from her body closes her eyes and slowly exhales.

As she sets her breath free, she imagines it forming a cushion around the hulking rig, an invisible, invincible bumper. She knows it is only a thought, and few believe thoughts have power. Nevertheless, she reminds herself, a thought is the only gift she has to give.

She dismisses self-doubt. She intensifies her aim. She expands the image. She positions it in front of, behind, beside, above and below the rig. She concentrates…. She connects…. She tucks the image into a corner of her mind's eye and keeps it there long after the truck has faded into the inky distance. .....

                                                    END