Night descended. Full moon glowing illuminated a blue landscape. Frogs chirped in the shadows of shallow ditches.
“I think I need to sleep.” Zombies walk faster.
“Yeah, me too.”
We slumped back to back in the gravel about two feet off the county road. Tall wet grass robbed us of any horizontal comfort. Minutes, hours, time, the illusion of motion, the progression of things, it’s hard to say, something passed in the form of unconsciousness and then headlights.
Note: this story contains adult
language.
“Shit! Car! Move!” I know how a deer feels. Frozen in the oncoming doom. We rolled into wet grass and frog and cricket filled ditch.
“Fuck! That was close.” Hearts thumping. “Who the hell drives out here this late, or early? I don’t know what time it is.”
Gathering our selves, we continued slogging onward west through quiet still night after yet another near incident, until another set of headlights were upon us followed by red and blue lights.
The police squad crossed over the median and blocked our path on the opposite side of the road. The passenger door opened.
“Hold it right there boys.” A floodlight in our eyes.
Fuck, I thought- I’ve had my share of police harassment as a hoodlum teen in a small town. It gets old. Stick to the routine: keep both hands out of any pockets and in sight (even if its winter), don’t make any sudden movements, say yes sir, and don’t be cocky. After about thirty to forty minutes of wasted time looking up my vacant criminal record and questioning, its usually all over, except for that bad taste in my mouth.
Blinded, we shield our eyes.
“What are you two doing out here?” Asked the officer stepping out of the vehicle. “We have a report of someone laying in the road.”
“We’re just walking Officer.”
“Walking to where?”
“Home. In town.”
“You know it’s two thirty at night. Kinda late for a stroll this far out of town.”
The driver stepped out of the vehicle with a long bright flashlight pointed on us. “These the kids?”
“Seem to be.”
“So, what are you two doing out here?” The driver brushed a hand along his belt.
“We’re just having an adventure. Walking back home.” I did not want them to search my backpack as I carried some not do legal at the time substance to ease the pain. A ride in the back of a squad car was high on my do-NOT-want-to-do list.
“We received a phone call about a couple kids laying in the road. No one else out here. That mean its you two?”
I search Jason’s face. Then he said the most brilliant lie. “I was just kneeling down to tie my shoe.”
A huge weight lifted from the scene and there wasn’t much anywhere else for the conversation to go. Big bright headlights blinding two twenty some year olds ragged in unbathed for days, starved, dirty, tired, hopeless in the middle of the night. Strange encounters of your own kind. The officers confused as hell on what to make of the situation and what to do with us.
“Well, seeing it isn’t breaking the law walking out here, I guess, anytime of day. Next time go down in the ditch to tie your shoe. Off the side of the road. We don’t want to be back out.”
“Yes Sir.”
“We will Sir.”
“Do your parents or anyone know you’re out here?”
“Ah, yes Sir. They’re expecting us home soon.”
“Alright. You two be safe and stay off the road. Don’t want anyone getting hit by a car. Drunks drive out here ya know.”
“Right! Definitely.”
Both Officers strolled back to their vehicle feeling they did their job. I was pleased not to have been harassed for my ID and scanned through their systems, let alone searched.
Turning off their spotlight the squad car pulled a U-turn in the road leaving us in their trail of dust. Two angry red eyes disappearing into the darkness down the long dark road.
“Fuckers could have offered us a ride back to town.” We laughed.
“Guess we should find a better place to sleep.”
“Yeah, that was close.”
A few more wandering miles, a dozen, hours, I’m not sure, into the dawn. Impossible to measure the weary dragging of body and bones. Time moved in blistered footsteps. Up ahead on the right side of the road church came into view.
“I don’t think its Sunday.”
“What does that have anything to do with anything?”
“We can sleep at the Church.” I said. “At the front doors, under the roof and sheltered. Seems perfectly safe. God welcomes all right?”
“Ok. Yeah, I’m fucking beat.”
Up a small flight of stairs to the two large brown front doors we slept at the gates to Heaven stuck in Hell. Darkness enveloped our consciousness slumbering like babies on cold concrete slab.
Daybreak and back on our one direction. After meandering through a cemetery we finished our water.
“We need more water.”
“And some food.”
“Yeah.”
A few miles down the road we passed an apple tree stealing a few while eating more. Filtering water from a small creek each step brought a little bit of hope inching towards home.
Upon entering town, and lumbering our weary selves down broken cracked sidewalks through small neighborhoods, the people in their yards would stop and stare at us. Strangers in a strange land. I desperately wanted to drink from the garden hose the old lady used to water her flowers. Her evil glare kept us moving onward.
The last five miles, the most difficult part of the journey. Blisters popped moistening socks with blood and fluid. Raw open wounds rubbing inside dirty worn boots. Each step more painful.
“You two look like world travelers.” Said a lady from her front porch.
I waved, too tired to speak.
One last night in the grove, under young pine trees with dropping branches. Dew drops clinging to the tips of green needles. We slept near a river and a railroad track. Making a fire to keep warm as we slept under the stars. In the morning we walked the tracks north into the heart of town. Trains honking rushing up behind us and forcing us to jump out of the way. A slew of color and graffiti blurring past us.
One final obstacle lay in our way to complete our suffering adventure. The wide dark flowing river neither of us had the strength or ability to swim across. Home lay miles away on the other side.
“Hey!” I shouted at a fisherman casting a line from a pontoon. “Hey Mr.” I waved my hand to get his attention.
“Yeah? You’re scaring my fish.”
“Hey, could you give us a lift to get across the river? I live over on the other side.”
“Hu?” He began reeling in his line.
“We need to get across the river.”
“Ah, I don’t know.”
“Please?”
“Hum, Nope. Don’t think so.”
“Ah, come on man. Please. We need to get home.”
“Nope. Leave me alone and stop scaring my fish.”
“Ah man, you suck.” Jason flicked him off.
He ignored us.
“Fuck that ol’ bugger Jason, come on. We’ll get across at the highway.”
“Hu?”
“Up ahead not far. See that bridge? It’s the interstate highway. We’ll run across the bridge.”
And that’s what we did, lugging ourselves up the steep brushy embankment until popping out into 70 mph traffic. We hid behind the concrete railing until there was a gap in the speeding traffic.
“Ok, ready?”
“Sure. Fuck it. Lets go!” and we jumped over the railing running downstream with the traffic buzzing by. Three hundred feet, two hundred, one hundred, fifty, twenty, ten, five, and we fell into the bushes on the other side of the bridge as we rolled off the highway to safety.
“Fuck my feet are killing me.”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.”
Gray day muted all color to a dull palette. We bushwhacked through a small section of new growth forest trying to travel as the crow flies. Dragging our wounded selves back into our small familiar neighborhood. Each step, one less we wouldn’t have to do again. Everything hurt. We asked ourselves, so near the end, did we find what we were looking for? Did we know what we were looking for?
We collapsed outside a small box-shaped building. All you can eat Chinese buffet. Days of stink and hunger unraveled from our sleeves and faces. Mid-afternoon, we entered the establishment. Eyes shifted drawing a silence from patrons. A few seconds melted like raindrops and voices carried on in the blur.
We filled two plates. Then we filled two more, and a couple more after that, and maybe one more after that, and then topped it with ice cream. I got a cherry nearly exploding from the belly.
Upon reaching home we fell into the carpet sinking and sinking deeper into bliss and the soft reality of not walking. Warm hours and moments passed in a complete state of euphoria. Limbs numb, mind blank, some stupid commercial was playing on a radio or TV left on in the background. My eyes were open but my body was asleep.
“Yo.”
“What up?”
“Let’s go sneak into the hotel I work at. If Todd is at the front desk he’ll let us in. We can go float in the pool and sit in the hot tub.”
“Fuck yeah.”
And in the warm dim lit pool room with high vaulted wooden beam ceilings we floated on our backs looking up in ecstasy and tranquility. I sunk to the bottom of the pool and let go. The Walk was over.
This entire story based on true events
All works and art by Charles Denton