The sun was just starting to set and the world took on a hazy orange that he could see in the corners of his eyes. He turned off the radio. The silent air that did not come in, through the open windows of his car, made him wonder if the day's heat would linger on through the night, despite all the weather reports calling for rain.
The highway was an almost empty one.
He was figuring he was tired of hocking toothpicks and napkins and cheap ketchup packets. He was tired of explaining the refinement of salt and the brittleness of the plastic cutlery sold by the other guys.
The thing he did most in his life was drive the highways; the endless highways.
But he wanted to walk.
He wanted to run.
He wished he were Wade Boggs.
Or at least Don Mattingly .
But instead, he'd been up and down those damn roads so many times, in the past twenty-three years that his mind seldom thought of the road always in front of him. He left that work up to his eyes. Just like he had back when he had first found work with Huxley & Ward. Back then, they had loaded up the men on buses leaving them with nothing better to do than stare out the windows, the driver dropping them off here and there, in this city or that, with instructions on when they would be back around to pick them up. And to sell, sell, sell. But the bus idea had not lasted long; only about three years. The Negros had kept killing each other. Policy changed and to be employed by Huxley & Ward, you had to own your own car. His father bought a new car and gave him his old one and for the last twenty years, he'd been driving along singing with the music, bitching at talk radio or more recently, using the CB radio, when he wanted to talk to other lonely, traveling men.
He owned mostly button-downed shirts, short sleeves, in blue and yellow. The pink one stayed at the bottom of his suitcase, with its neatly folded lines deep with crease.
He saw her walking along the side of the vacant highway. She wearing a short skirt; he noticed her long legs first. She was in white heeled boots, and she was slipping in the roadside gravel. As he drove passed her he slowed the car down, so he could stop for her.
And through his windshield mirror he noticed that she kept her head bent and he wondered if she would need a ride at all. But she did stop, a few feet from the passenger side door, bending to look in the open window of the dark green car. She did not speak. Despite the heat she was wearing a short blue fur coat.
"Do you need a ride, young lady?" He finally asked.
"I do not know," she replied, bending herself closer towards him, her dark eyes peering in at him.
"Well, where are you heading? If I am going that way, I can help you out," he repeated his offer.
She did not answer right away. Instead, she bit her lip.
But then she leaned forward for the handle and slid into the front seat. She said to him, "Kansas City. You want to come?"
"I do not think your parents would like that," he laughed, "Are you running away?"
And she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, as he put the car into drive again. “How old do you think I am?”
“I dunno,” he mumbled, “Fourteen.”
"I am fucking twenty-one years old. I even have the ID to prove it. But do you fucking know what?"
Looking overly startled at her outburst, he looked over at her, before replying, "No."
"Most fucking bartenders tell me my government-issued identification is fake! Are we going to Kansas or what?"
"I only got about enough to get myself home. The Boss is pretty stingy with the gas allowance,” he apologized.
"Where is home?"
"Mount Pleasant," he laughed.
"Close enough. What's you name?"
"Eugene," he said, with a twinge of embarrassment. He always hated saying his name to anyone on first introduction.
"Well, hi there, Eugene. I like your name. You can call me Sugar." She smiled and leaned over to change the radio station.
They drove for fifteen minutes, listening to mostly rock music. Loud. She turned down the radio once to tell him that the autumn was her favorite time of year. She mostly sang to the trees zooming by. He looked at her thighs and wondered about her boobs, but she never took off her coat.
When she turned down the music again, they were driving passed a nightclub on the outskirts of Georgetown. "You do have enough so we can stop and have a beer, right, Eugene? I have enough cash for my own."
"Well, yeah, I suppose we can do that," he replied.
"Good. I can get enough money to get us to Kansas, if we go to that place back there."
He looked over at her, as he slowed the car, to turn it around. She was smiling.
"Is that so?" he laughed and smiled with her.
And she said yes and stopped smiling. "Stop the car here, Eugene."
He did.
"Listen to me. You let me go on ahead. In 15 minutes or so, drive on over there and get yourself a beer. Sit yourself down right at the bar. When I walk by you and rub your head that means I want you to leave in five minutes. Wait for me in the car. Okay?"
"What?" he laughed. "You're not serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What are you going to do?”
She took his hand and tugged at it, his hairy hand in her white one. "Don't worry about me, Eugene, I'll be okay" she said, pulling his hand closer to her.
And when he looked down, he saw she had lifted her skirt. Pushed her cotton underwear to one side.
He pointed his middle finger just in time to have it slide inside of her. She breathed out through her mouth, when she pulled him out of her. She dropped his hand and reach for the door handle. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Go for a drive or something.”
As she began walking towards the country bar, she waited until Eugene had pulled away. Pulling her underwear down and over her white boots almost made her fall. She stuck them in the waistband of her skirt.
Randy Travis and then CCR came blaring from the bar, before Eugene worked up his courage to enter inside. Twenty-two minutes later. It was not his kind of place. The lot was full of motorcycles and transport trucks. It made him feel nervous. It made him feel unmanly. Even if Eugene did all the maintenance on his nine year old car.
The roadhouse was dark and smoky; sweet with the smell marijuana and hot with the smell of moldy alcohol and fermented man urine. Sugar was dancing with a man wearing leather. They were the only ones dancing and every other man spoke too loudly; pretending not to notice that they were laughing, as she rubbed the backside of herself against him.
"Hey there," the permed barmaid said to him, as soon as he sat down. She was wearing a blue tank top and she let him see her cleavage. "A long day of traveling?"
"Yes, ma'am," he smiled, but not at her.
"What can I get ya?"
"A Bud."
Eugene drank two beers and for the next half an hour, watched Sugar dance with a half dozen men, who all appeared to from the same biker gang. But he mostly kept his eyes on the barmaid’s chest because she let him.
She left the boys for the ladies room. And when she came out, she made her way to the bar. Eugene was talking to the server, so she leaned over him and smiled. “Can I have one of whatever Badger drinks?” And then to Eugene, as she rubbed his head. "Hey, Daddy-O. Save me a dance."
Up close, she smelled of Ivory soap.
"What about you, Badger? Don't you want to dance with me? Everybody else has. And I got to get back on the road."
And the other guys hooted. Hollered.
"Go for it, Boss!"
"Do it."
“That’s okay," he shook his head, in protest.
She pouted. "I gotta leave in ten minutes, if I am going to make it to the airport on time. Won't you please dance with me before I head on back to Kansas? I bought you a beer." She brought it out from behind her back; surprise and handed it to him.
He took a swallow; half the beer. "I don't liked gettin' picked last for nothing."
“I was just saving the best for last, Boss." she said and she grabbed him by the ear, hauling him up to his feet.
He only followed her out onto the dance floor because the tugging on his ear hurt like hell and he was into pain. And because he could dance really well. And because his wife, who could also dance well, always wanted to stay home.
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s, Freebird, was playing too loudly, but Badger made his moves anyway.
“Oh,” she laughed at him. “You think you’re John Travolta!”
“I am, honey,” he grinned.
She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Show me," she said, feeling the rigid thickness of him against her. She grinded herself hard into him, grabbing his ass.
Six minutes later, she was walking out the door and Badger was fingering the damp spot she left behind on his jeans, drinking down the last of the beer she bought.
He did not notice right away that his wallet was missing.
"Alright, Eugene, lets get out of here," she said, opening the car door and slidding in. They drove for five minutes, before she took the wallet out of the waistband of her jean skirt.
She turned up the music and then opened the wallet to count the money.
“Shit,” she yelled. Then she snapped off the radio. “86 dollars, Eugene. That’s fucking it. So much for Kansas, buddy.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
They drove for awhile in silence and then she asked him, "Don't you ever get tired of all this driving?"
He just laughed.
"Well, I am tired. I have enough money so we can stop and sleep at a motel," she offered.
"Can't you sleep in the car while I drive?"
"No," she said, firmly.
"There is a place about ten minutes up the road," he decided.
The Oasis was a long green building, advertising rooms for $19.95. The weekday special. The vacancy lights were flashing pink. She counted out the bills, in the parking lot and handed them over to him.
When Eugene flicked on the switch, just inside the doorway of the motel room, two brown lamps on either side of the bed lit up. The room was wood paneling, with green carpet. The bedspread was yellow and flowered.
She ran across the room and jumped on the bed, landing in the middle on her back.
"Eugene, I am hungry. Does this place have any food?"
"Just a pop machine at the desk. I've got some donuts, in the car. I will go get us both."
The first thing Eugene notice when he walked back into the room was that she was not wearing her coat. She was still on the bed and the next thing Eugene notice was that her skirt was hitched up. The next thing he noticed was that her underwear was completely gone this time.
"Did you lick your finger, after I got out of the car to go into the roadhouse, Eugene?" she asked.
He almost dropped the glass Coke bottles he was carrying.
"Eugene," she continued talking when he did not answer her, opening her legs wider, moving her hand over legs to touch herself, "why are you just standing there like a dork? Don't you want some more?"
He put the pop and donuts off the floor and took off his shoes, before walking over to the edge of the bed and pulling her by legs, and kneeling his face into her woman parts.
She was almost hairless; fine black hairs growing upwards. He kissed the hair, moving is mouth to kiss her more. Opening his mouth to use his tongue, sliding it deep into the folds of skin; tasting her. Fresh and clean; not like the day.
He undid his pants, pushing them to his knees. He touched himself. Stroked himself, but knew he would come, so stopped. Instead, he pressed himself hard into the bed and took his hand to place a finger inside of her. He listened to her moan.
When he withdrew his finger, he reached up for her mouth. "Taste yourself," he urged.
Her nostrils flared, taking in the smell of herself. She thought she smelt like onion rings. She put her lips over her fingers, anyway.
The pounding on the door startled the both of them.
“Fuck,” she said, sitting up.
“Jesus Christ. Which one is it going to be?” Eugene asked.
“The big one," she answered.
Badger pounded on the door some more. “Bitch, you let me in there or I am breaking this door down. I am giving you one minute!”
Badger counted backwards in his head and when there was no response, after that one minute, Badger broke the door down. Kicked the door right off the hinges with one kick. The first thing he saw was a fat man standing beside the bed. The next thing he saw was her sitting on the bed; chin to knees.
“Give me my wallet, bitch,” he said, holding out his hand. “Give me my fucking wallet or you are both going to be sorry."
And Eugene knew it was true. He could hear the sound of the motorbikes outside. And then, through the opened door, the sound of sirens edged into the twilight.
“Fuck!” Badger swore. “Give me my fucking wallet.”
“Did you sniff my underwear, after you found them in your back pocket?” she asked him instead.
Badger shook his head. “Better they deal with you then me.”
When the two officers walked through the door and asked what was going on, he was the first to speak up. “Why don’t you tell them, honey.”
And she burst into tears and pointed at Eugene, "This man picked me up and he brought me here and tried having sex with me.” The she pointed at Badger. “That’s my Daddy. He has come to save me. I am only fourteen!"
Oh, fuck, my wife is going to kill me, Eugene thought.
"Is that your dark green Mercedes out there, sir?" one of the officers asked him.
The highway was an almost empty one.
He was figuring he was tired of hocking toothpicks and napkins and cheap ketchup packets. He was tired of explaining the refinement of salt and the brittleness of the plastic cutlery sold by the other guys.
The thing he did most in his life was drive the highways; the endless highways.
But he wanted to walk.
He wanted to run.
He wished he were Wade Boggs.
Or at least Don Mattingly .
But instead, he'd been up and down those damn roads so many times, in the past twenty-three years that his mind seldom thought of the road always in front of him. He left that work up to his eyes. Just like he had back when he had first found work with Huxley & Ward. Back then, they had loaded up the men on buses leaving them with nothing better to do than stare out the windows, the driver dropping them off here and there, in this city or that, with instructions on when they would be back around to pick them up. And to sell, sell, sell. But the bus idea had not lasted long; only about three years. The Negros had kept killing each other. Policy changed and to be employed by Huxley & Ward, you had to own your own car. His father bought a new car and gave him his old one and for the last twenty years, he'd been driving along singing with the music, bitching at talk radio or more recently, using the CB radio, when he wanted to talk to other lonely, traveling men.
He owned mostly button-downed shirts, short sleeves, in blue and yellow. The pink one stayed at the bottom of his suitcase, with its neatly folded lines deep with crease.
He saw her walking along the side of the vacant highway. She wearing a short skirt; he noticed her long legs first. She was in white heeled boots, and she was slipping in the roadside gravel. As he drove passed her he slowed the car down, so he could stop for her.
And through his windshield mirror he noticed that she kept her head bent and he wondered if she would need a ride at all. But she did stop, a few feet from the passenger side door, bending to look in the open window of the dark green car. She did not speak. Despite the heat she was wearing a short blue fur coat.
"Do you need a ride, young lady?" He finally asked.
"I do not know," she replied, bending herself closer towards him, her dark eyes peering in at him.
"Well, where are you heading? If I am going that way, I can help you out," he repeated his offer.
She did not answer right away. Instead, she bit her lip.
But then she leaned forward for the handle and slid into the front seat. She said to him, "Kansas City. You want to come?"
"I do not think your parents would like that," he laughed, "Are you running away?"
And she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, as he put the car into drive again. “How old do you think I am?”
“I dunno,” he mumbled, “Fourteen.”
"I am fucking twenty-one years old. I even have the ID to prove it. But do you fucking know what?"
Looking overly startled at her outburst, he looked over at her, before replying, "No."
"Most fucking bartenders tell me my government-issued identification is fake! Are we going to Kansas or what?"
"I only got about enough to get myself home. The Boss is pretty stingy with the gas allowance,” he apologized.
"Where is home?"
"Mount Pleasant," he laughed.
"Close enough. What's you name?"
"Eugene," he said, with a twinge of embarrassment. He always hated saying his name to anyone on first introduction.
"Well, hi there, Eugene. I like your name. You can call me Sugar." She smiled and leaned over to change the radio station.
They drove for fifteen minutes, listening to mostly rock music. Loud. She turned down the radio once to tell him that the autumn was her favorite time of year. She mostly sang to the trees zooming by. He looked at her thighs and wondered about her boobs, but she never took off her coat.
When she turned down the music again, they were driving passed a nightclub on the outskirts of Georgetown. "You do have enough so we can stop and have a beer, right, Eugene? I have enough cash for my own."
"Well, yeah, I suppose we can do that," he replied.
"Good. I can get enough money to get us to Kansas, if we go to that place back there."
He looked over at her, as he slowed the car, to turn it around. She was smiling.
"Is that so?" he laughed and smiled with her.
And she said yes and stopped smiling. "Stop the car here, Eugene."
He did.
"Listen to me. You let me go on ahead. In 15 minutes or so, drive on over there and get yourself a beer. Sit yourself down right at the bar. When I walk by you and rub your head that means I want you to leave in five minutes. Wait for me in the car. Okay?"
"What?" he laughed. "You're not serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What are you going to do?”
She took his hand and tugged at it, his hairy hand in her white one. "Don't worry about me, Eugene, I'll be okay" she said, pulling his hand closer to her.
And when he looked down, he saw she had lifted her skirt. Pushed her cotton underwear to one side.
He pointed his middle finger just in time to have it slide inside of her. She breathed out through her mouth, when she pulled him out of her. She dropped his hand and reach for the door handle. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Go for a drive or something.”
As she began walking towards the country bar, she waited until Eugene had pulled away. Pulling her underwear down and over her white boots almost made her fall. She stuck them in the waistband of her skirt.
Randy Travis and then CCR came blaring from the bar, before Eugene worked up his courage to enter inside. Twenty-two minutes later. It was not his kind of place. The lot was full of motorcycles and transport trucks. It made him feel nervous. It made him feel unmanly. Even if Eugene did all the maintenance on his nine year old car.
The roadhouse was dark and smoky; sweet with the smell marijuana and hot with the smell of moldy alcohol and fermented man urine. Sugar was dancing with a man wearing leather. They were the only ones dancing and every other man spoke too loudly; pretending not to notice that they were laughing, as she rubbed the backside of herself against him.
"Hey there," the permed barmaid said to him, as soon as he sat down. She was wearing a blue tank top and she let him see her cleavage. "A long day of traveling?"
"Yes, ma'am," he smiled, but not at her.
"What can I get ya?"
"A Bud."
Eugene drank two beers and for the next half an hour, watched Sugar dance with a half dozen men, who all appeared to from the same biker gang. But he mostly kept his eyes on the barmaid’s chest because she let him.
She left the boys for the ladies room. And when she came out, she made her way to the bar. Eugene was talking to the server, so she leaned over him and smiled. “Can I have one of whatever Badger drinks?” And then to Eugene, as she rubbed his head. "Hey, Daddy-O. Save me a dance."
Up close, she smelled of Ivory soap.
"What about you, Badger? Don't you want to dance with me? Everybody else has. And I got to get back on the road."
And the other guys hooted. Hollered.
"Go for it, Boss!"
"Do it."
“That’s okay," he shook his head, in protest.
She pouted. "I gotta leave in ten minutes, if I am going to make it to the airport on time. Won't you please dance with me before I head on back to Kansas? I bought you a beer." She brought it out from behind her back; surprise and handed it to him.
He took a swallow; half the beer. "I don't liked gettin' picked last for nothing."
“I was just saving the best for last, Boss." she said and she grabbed him by the ear, hauling him up to his feet.
He only followed her out onto the dance floor because the tugging on his ear hurt like hell and he was into pain. And because he could dance really well. And because his wife, who could also dance well, always wanted to stay home.
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s, Freebird, was playing too loudly, but Badger made his moves anyway.
“Oh,” she laughed at him. “You think you’re John Travolta!”
“I am, honey,” he grinned.
She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Show me," she said, feeling the rigid thickness of him against her. She grinded herself hard into him, grabbing his ass.
Six minutes later, she was walking out the door and Badger was fingering the damp spot she left behind on his jeans, drinking down the last of the beer she bought.
He did not notice right away that his wallet was missing.
"Alright, Eugene, lets get out of here," she said, opening the car door and slidding in. They drove for five minutes, before she took the wallet out of the waistband of her jean skirt.
She turned up the music and then opened the wallet to count the money.
“Shit,” she yelled. Then she snapped off the radio. “86 dollars, Eugene. That’s fucking it. So much for Kansas, buddy.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
They drove for awhile in silence and then she asked him, "Don't you ever get tired of all this driving?"
He just laughed.
"Well, I am tired. I have enough money so we can stop and sleep at a motel," she offered.
"Can't you sleep in the car while I drive?"
"No," she said, firmly.
"There is a place about ten minutes up the road," he decided.
The Oasis was a long green building, advertising rooms for $19.95. The weekday special. The vacancy lights were flashing pink. She counted out the bills, in the parking lot and handed them over to him.
When Eugene flicked on the switch, just inside the doorway of the motel room, two brown lamps on either side of the bed lit up. The room was wood paneling, with green carpet. The bedspread was yellow and flowered.
She ran across the room and jumped on the bed, landing in the middle on her back.
"Eugene, I am hungry. Does this place have any food?"
"Just a pop machine at the desk. I've got some donuts, in the car. I will go get us both."
The first thing Eugene notice when he walked back into the room was that she was not wearing her coat. She was still on the bed and the next thing Eugene notice was that her skirt was hitched up. The next thing he noticed was that her underwear was completely gone this time.
"Did you lick your finger, after I got out of the car to go into the roadhouse, Eugene?" she asked.
He almost dropped the glass Coke bottles he was carrying.
"Eugene," she continued talking when he did not answer her, opening her legs wider, moving her hand over legs to touch herself, "why are you just standing there like a dork? Don't you want some more?"
He put the pop and donuts off the floor and took off his shoes, before walking over to the edge of the bed and pulling her by legs, and kneeling his face into her woman parts.
She was almost hairless; fine black hairs growing upwards. He kissed the hair, moving is mouth to kiss her more. Opening his mouth to use his tongue, sliding it deep into the folds of skin; tasting her. Fresh and clean; not like the day.
He undid his pants, pushing them to his knees. He touched himself. Stroked himself, but knew he would come, so stopped. Instead, he pressed himself hard into the bed and took his hand to place a finger inside of her. He listened to her moan.
When he withdrew his finger, he reached up for her mouth. "Taste yourself," he urged.
Her nostrils flared, taking in the smell of herself. She thought she smelt like onion rings. She put her lips over her fingers, anyway.
The pounding on the door startled the both of them.
“Fuck,” she said, sitting up.
“Jesus Christ. Which one is it going to be?” Eugene asked.
“The big one," she answered.
Badger pounded on the door some more. “Bitch, you let me in there or I am breaking this door down. I am giving you one minute!”
Badger counted backwards in his head and when there was no response, after that one minute, Badger broke the door down. Kicked the door right off the hinges with one kick. The first thing he saw was a fat man standing beside the bed. The next thing he saw was her sitting on the bed; chin to knees.
“Give me my wallet, bitch,” he said, holding out his hand. “Give me my fucking wallet or you are both going to be sorry."
And Eugene knew it was true. He could hear the sound of the motorbikes outside. And then, through the opened door, the sound of sirens edged into the twilight.
“Fuck!” Badger swore. “Give me my fucking wallet.”
“Did you sniff my underwear, after you found them in your back pocket?” she asked him instead.
Badger shook his head. “Better they deal with you then me.”
When the two officers walked through the door and asked what was going on, he was the first to speak up. “Why don’t you tell them, honey.”
And she burst into tears and pointed at Eugene, "This man picked me up and he brought me here and tried having sex with me.” The she pointed at Badger. “That’s my Daddy. He has come to save me. I am only fourteen!"
Oh, fuck, my wife is going to kill me, Eugene thought.
"Is that your dark green Mercedes out there, sir?" one of the officers asked him.
Comments
But great to read another of your stories.