Part of me, even if only a very small part, expected him to attempt to tell me why we should stick together and how I’d likely get myself caught or killed if we split apart. But he didn’t. The only time his mouth even opened was when he was smoking, something I’d noticed he had barely done since leaving the convenience store.
As we continued on, Gabe’s driving became more erratic and his eyes began to grow heavy. I could tell he was exhausted, but wasn’t sure how to point it out to him. On one hand, I thought he would pull over when he realized he was tired, or maybe even ask me to drive, but on the other, I knew he wouldn’t.
“It’s getting late,” I said, not necessarily succeeding at making conversation, but pointing out a fact. We’d been on the road for hours, Gabe driving the entire time. There was no way he wasn’t about to fall asleep at the wheel.
He didn’t speak or acknowledge my words, but kept pushing forward, his eyes on the road.
I tried again. “Gabe, maybe we should just pull off the interstate for the night. I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s just stop and start back up at sunrise.”
He reacted briefly, glaring at me out of the corner of one of his eyes. Moments later, in response, he pushed his foot harder on the gas pedal, causing the van to lurch forward, moaning under the strain he was putting on it. We were pushing ninety miles per hour, and the van was not impressed.
“What are you doing?” I asked, more confused than anything, tiredness apparent in my voice.
“I’m getting you to the California-Oregon border,” Gabe stated coldly.
I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped. If I spoke now, my words would be angry, and I didn’t want to start another argument. I figured with Gabe rushing me to the border, if I tried to contradict him, he might just pull over and kick me out of the van in the middle of nowhere.
I rolled my eyes out of habit. “Gabe, it’s late. We’re at least an hour from Oregon, so let’s just pull off and sleep for the night. We’ll get there early in the morning and you can be done with me, alright?” I pleaded.
“Done with you?” he scoffed.
I paused momentarily. “Yeah?” It was more a question than a statement.
“You did this, not me.”
“I know,” I agreed solemnly.
“So don’t make it sound like this whole thing is my idea. You want to split up when we get out of California, so I’m getting you there as fast as fucking possible. You can’t stand to be around me anymore, so I’m putting this partnership out of its misery… for you.”
He immediately pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit it while holding the steering wheel with his knees. The van swerved wildly for a moment, but it wasn’t as if anyone else was on the road with us. No one was around to call the police to report an impaired driver.
Anger began to build inside me, but I tried my hardest to keep it in its place.
“That’s not how it is, Gabe. I’m just trying to think of a solution that will be good for both of us. We’re not working well together. We’re getting on each other’s nerves. We hardly even speak unless we’re fighting… Things just aren’t the same anymore.”
Gabe took a hit from his cigarette and blew the smoke through the cracked driver’s side window. “That’s a pathetic excuse. You can’t handle it anymore, so you’re bailing.”
“That’s not it!” I urged, though it kind of was.
Before I knew it, I was slamming forward, making contact with the dashboard and slamming back again into my seat, crying out in shock and pain. Fiery pain shot through my leg as it slammed against the seat, and for just a second, I thought we’d had an accident. As the shock wore off, however, I saw Gabe had slammed on the brakes, and the van was now sitting motionless in the middle of the interstate.
“What are you doing?” I yelled, rolling up my pant leg and checking my bandages to make sure they hadn’t ripped or started to seep blood.
“You’re a fucking liar!” Gabe accused, his voice cracking as he did.
I threw my hands up in defeat and reached to open my door. It was a bold move, but at this point, I had had enough. I had better chances of surviving walking through the middle of nowhere than being in a vehicle with an emotional, unstable Gabe. I jumped out of the van, winced again as pain shot through my leg, slammed the door shut, and began walking north on the road, flipping Gabe off as I passed through the beam produced by the van’s headlights.
Gabe threw open his door and leapt out of the van, running as he hit the ground and catching up with me quickly. He spun me around, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Don’t walk away from me!” he screamed. His voice was dramatic and angry, but there was something else there, too. It was almost as if he was begging me not to go.
The look on my face had to have been priceless as he stood there, holding me by my shoulders, near tears. I’d seen him angry. I’d seen him upset. But I’d never seen him like this. I was equal parts intrigued and terrified about what could happen next.
I planted my palms on his chest and pushed him away, more aggressively than intended in my mind. “Get your hands off me,” I demanded, turning to walk away again.
“Where do you think you’re going to go?” he shouted as I continued my trek away from him.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t even care right now.”
There was a brief moment of silence as I walked, kicking up dust on the side of the road and passing through the thick clouds. I wasn’t walking fast, but had still put a good fifty feet between myself and Gabe and the van. As far as I was concerned, there was no turning back now. I had planned to split up from Gabe once we were into Oregon, now the situation had changed, and I was on my own a little ahead of schedule; alone and clueless about where I’d go next, but free from my tyrant.
“You’re a coward!” Gabe yelled, making an obvious last-ditch effort to get a reaction out of me.
I kept walking, hoping the distance between us would grow so large I wouldn’t be able to hear Gabe yelling at me. The farther I got from him, the more hopeless and pathetic his shouts sounded. But then--
“This is all your fault! Airic is dead because of you!”
I stopped on the spot, turning and sprinting back towards Gabe and the van. Dust filled my mouth and covered my face, getting stuck in my hair as I made it back just as Gabe was finishing calling me a “pathetic, whining murderer.” The pain in my leg was searing, but I couldn’t force myself to care.
I hit him hard, knocking him first onto the hood of the van and then onto the ground, sending up another cloud of dust as he slammed onto his back, coughing and choking on his own surprise. Before he could even react, I was on top of him, holding him down with my weight and punching him repeatedly. I don’t know exactly what I was saying as I beat him, but my words came with such ferocity Gabe’s face was soon streaked with my saliva as it flew out of my mouth with angry force.
“IT WAS YOU! IT WAS YOU!” I screamed repeatedly as my fists made contact with his cheeks, nose, and chest. My next punch knocked Gabe’s head sideways and a small trail of blood erupted from his mouth and onto the dirty ground.
“Tell me!” he shouted through garbled speech. In the moment of excitement, his accent began to grow thicker, as if on a normal day he focused on Americanizing himself, but in the heat of the moment, let his Puerto Rican lineage come through in his speech. “Tell me how you feel!”
I hit him again, not sure if the noise he made was a bloody gargle or some kind of sick and twisted laughter. “Airic is dead because of you! My life is ruined because of you! We could have stayed! We could have told the truth and been able to stay in Hastings! You treat me like shit! Ford is dead because of you! It’s ALL YOU!”
He held his hands up, trying to shield my blows, but it was useless. I had already bloodied his nose and lip before he regained some composure and realized he was going to have to fight back. As I continued pummeling his face and chest wit
h clenched fists, a stomach-churning pain rang through my body as Gabe’s knee connected with my groin.
I rolled off of him and onto my back, wrapping my arms around my stomach and trying not to vomit. As the nausea began to fade slowly, I rolled onto my stomach and began to crawl towards the edge of the road, putting at least a little distance between us, hoping he would have trouble reaching me. I knew once he did, my life would likely be over. Beating the shit out Gabe had felt good for the moment, but the payback would be torturous.
Gabe pulled himself to his feet, using the van door as a crutch, and began to limp his way towards me. I let out a small whimper and continued crawling, making my way off the road and into the small ditch running next to it.
Seconds later, Gabe was towering over me, staring down like a rabid wolf about to pounce on its meal. I could practically see the saliva dripping from Gabe’s lips, though in reality, it was probably blood, a fact that made the situation even more terrifying.
“I’m sorry,” I moaned. “I-- I-- I…”
“You’re not sorry,” Gabe stated, holding his hand out towards me. I stared blankly at him, not sure what to make of his gesture. “Take my hand.”
Cautiously, I did as told, wrapping my hand around his as he lifted me out of the ditch and helped me steady myself on my feet. His face was smeared with his own blood and his bottom lip was split almost in two, yet he still managed to smile at me, blood streaked across his teeth as well. Looking down at myself, I realized I was equally haggard, dirt and ditch water staining my clothes. I was also drenched with sweat. I’d also bloodied my fist in my attempt at breaking Gabe’s face.
Neither of us spoke for close to a minute, but instead just stood in the light cast from the van’s headlights. Not a single car had passed since we stopped in the middle of the road.
I chose to speak first, stuttering as I did. “I-- I’ll go,” I stated, shaking.
Gabe shook his head. “Get in the van,” he commanded in monotone.
“But, I just--“
“Get in the van.”
I did as told, not sure whether or not I should be expecting my own execution soon, or if this had been our way of patching things up. As I thought about it, it became more obvious Gabe had not fought back until I’d lost control, and even then, he held back. He wanted me to release my frustrations on him. Maybe he knew he deserved it.
I sat down in the passenger seat and waited for Gabe to put the van into gear and begin driving again, but he didn’t. He sat silently, taking a moment to use his t-shirt as a rag and wiped the blood from his face, though his lip was still bleeding pretty badly.
“My lip might need stitches. Do lips get stitches?” he asked, oddly amused at his own disheveled appearance.
I tried not to laugh, but failed. “I don’t know, but I’m not sewing you shut this time,” I added.
“Did it feel good?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I stuck with honesty, saying, “Yes, it felt great.”
“Are we good? Are we okay?”
I shook my head. “Probably not,” I said. “But it’s a start.”
That was enough for Gabe, as he re-started the van, put it into drive, and pressed down on the gas pedal to get us moving again. We were soon back up to a normal speed, and I cracked my window to let some fresh air flow in. As it turned out, beating the crap out of each other made both of us smell like crap ourselves. I gathered a piece of my t-shirt and brought it to my nose, recoiling quickly and fighting the urge to throw up.
We were only back on the road fifteen minutes before I noticed Gabe signaling and exiting the interstate. I’d begun dozing off, and by the time I fully woke up, we’d passed the sign saying where we were exiting. At this point, I could assume Gabe had grown tired and wanted to sleep for a few hours, but I couldn’t be sure. For all I knew, he’d gotten angry with me again and was pulling off the interstate so I could leave again. Or maybe he just wanted to fight some more.
“What’s happening?” I asked groggily, wiping a chunk of dirt-caked hair out of my face and cringing at the residue left on my hand.
We came to a rest at a stop sign just off the interstate. The sign to our right let me know we were at the intersection of Historical U.S. Highway 99, an oddly familiar road, but I still had no clue which town we were in.
“We’re stopping for the rest of the night,” Gabe said matter-of-factly.
“Where are we though?” I asked.
Gabe turned right onto the road, heading towards the town. Since he hadn’t answered my question, I decided to check street signs and landmarks to see if anything looked familiar. By the looks of things, we were in a pretty small town, possibly one we’d seen on our way to Behler at some point. But truth be told, we’d passed through hundreds of small towns, and after a while, they all begin to blur together.
We turned right onto Alamo Avenue and continued driving, crossing Park Street and turning onto Main Street. All the street names were familiar, as if I’d visited this place long ago; I just couldn’t figure it out.
“Gabe, some information, please?”
Gabe laughed. “How soon they forget,” he said, adding, “I thought you’d recognize this place as soon as we pulled off. Where did we spend the majority of our time on our way out here? Where did we live for almost two months?”
My stomached dropped as we turned onto Gilman Avenue and I suddenly realized we were in Weed, California.
“No,” I stated.
“Yes,” Gabe smiled. “We need a place to crash, and you know this is our best bet. Fuchsia will set us up nice for the night, and who knows, you might even get some action.”
Before I could retaliate with more than a thousand reasons why we shouldn’t be in the ironically named town of Weed, the van pulled to a stop in front of a small, yellow house that seemed to glow in the moonlight. The shutters were painted dark blue, but they looked black at this time of night. The front yard held no decorations other than a wooden sign reading Madame Serena: World Renown Psychic. The yard was, at least, well maintained.
“Why are we here?” I asked, biting my lip.
Gabe didn’t speak. He knew how uncomfortable this was for me, but continued to smile anyway. He must have wiped his bloody teeth with his t-shirt, because they too seemed to glow in the moonlight.
As we exited the van and walked towards the front door of the house, I felt fear growing inside my stomach. I caught myself attempting to wipe grime from my clothes and face before we got to the door. Gabe glanced at me and said, laughing, “You look fine.”
I gave him a not-so-playful shove as we stepped onto the porch of the house.
“It’s late,” I pleaded. “She either isn’t home or won’t answer.”
Gabe rang the doorbell anyway.
After five seconds of waiting, I turned back towards the van, stopped only by Gabe who grabbed my shoulder, spinning me back towards the door.
“She’s not home,” I argued.
Gabe rang the bell again and a light to our left switched on, sending a soft glow cascading onto the front lawn. I saw two fingers separating a section of the mini-blinds in the window and a scrutinizing eye trying to make out who we were, waiting outside her house. I knew it was Fuchsia.
I took a step behind Gabe as the sound of the front door unlocking could be heard. The door swung open only about three inches and a young, tired face pushed itself against the opening, asking, “Can I help you?”
“Fuchsia, it’s Gabe… and Jamie. Can we--“ Gabe was cut off by the door slamming the rest of the way open. In the doorway stood a girl, about my age, maybe a year or two older (I never asked). Her blonde and blue hair was pulled into a messy bun and she wore a revealing nightie that really didn’t bother to cover up much of anything. She was still wearing makeup, meaning she hadn’t been asleep for long, and her smile outshined Gabe’s by a hundred watts.
“Gabriel Malvado and Jameson Brewer,” she chuckl
ed. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
She stepped aside as Gabe welcomed himself into her house. The living room was decorated just the way it had been a year ago, with mismatched furniture and a broken television.
“Sorry, Fuchsia,” Gabe began. “We were on the road and didn’t realize how late it was when we pulled off the interstate. Do you think we could crash here the rest of the night and hit the road again in the morning?”
She smiled and ruffled Gabe’s hair. “Of course you can!” She then made her way to me as I stepped into the house and awkwardly closed the door, sealing us inside with her. “How are you, Jamie?” she asked me, looking me up and down and recoiling slightly at my ghastly appearance.
“I’m good,” I said monotonously. “I see your dad still takes care of the lawn.”
She laughed heartily as she led us into the kitchen, flipping the light switch and causing two of the three lights in the room to spring to life. I squinted at the brightness, as Gabe and I had been riding in the dark for hours.
Fuchsia was a girl Gabe and I had met when first traveling through California. Spending our cash wisely and trying not to leave a paper trail, we’d found ourselves squatting in an abandoned motel on the outskirts of town. This arrangement worked out just fine until Fuchsia and three of her closest friends decided to randomly crash in the same room as us one night.
We had been there to sleep and lay low, while they had come there to hide out from the cops, one of whom happened to be Fuchsia’s father, and do drugs.
We decided to share the space, as we had nowhere else to go, and Fuchsia claimed they couldn’t get high at her house, because her father, the sheriff, was also her landlord. I didn’t ask, but apparently the rest of her friends were either homeless or living with her.
The night grew increasingly uncomfortable as Fuchsia and the others started out smoking weed, and quickly moved on to other, more life-altering substances. Long story short, Fuchsia became angry as her “friends” attempted to pressure her into trying harder drugs when all she really wanted to do was smoke pot. Gabe and I intervened, driving Fuchsia home while the others stayed behind to snort coke, smoke crack, and according to the newspapers the next morning, attempt to build a meth lab that would burn down two-thirds of the abandoned motel.
Out of gratitude (and possibly the fact that all her friends were now either in jail or the burn unit), Fuchsia offered to let us stay with her for a few days, until we decided to hit the road again. Of course, a few days turned into a few weeks turned into a few months. And of course, things between Fuchsia and I grew more serious over time, or as serious as any relationship between a drug-dealer on the run and pot-head woman who works as a “psychic” out of her house can be.
She got clingy, and I got bored. When Gabe and I left Weed behind, I promised to write, call, and let her know where we were staying, something I failed to do, and never thought would have any consequences until this very minute.
Gabe stripped off his shirt, wadding it into a ball and holding it between his hands. “Shower?” he asked.
“It’s right where you left it,” Fuchsia said, motioning with her head towards the hallway. “Leave some hot water for Jamie; he reeks too.”
Gabe sprinted down the hallway, leaving Fuchsia and I alone.
“You missed the fire,” Fuchsia said.
I was a little confused. “What are you talking about?”
“The wildfire. Right after you left. It wasn’t more than two weeks after you were gone, and then so was half the town. People called it the Bole Fire,” she said, not meeting my gaze. “Part of me wondered if you had something to do with it.”
“I didn’t,” I said, but in my mind I wondered if the Bole Fire ripping through Weed and the explosion that took out part of a city block in Behler were proof that destruction followed me no matter where I ended up. At some point, the lives of all those I touched would get burned.
“You didn’t call or write,” she said, wasting no time in entering the long-overdue, awkward conversation.
“I didn’t,” I admitted.
“Can we talk about it?”
I hesitated. I knew we’d have to, even if Gabe and I were only staying for the night. But the truth was I didn’t want to. Fuchsia was flawed, this I knew, but she really wasn’t a bad girl. She was loyal, caring, compassionate, and a great kisser. But deep down, I couldn’t find myself attracted to her because I’d only really been attracted to one girl my entire life, and that attraction ended up ruining Fuchsia for me.
“Can we talk about it in the morning?” I asked.
Fuchsia looked forlorn, but nodded. “I’ll get up early, make us some breakfast. I don’t have any readings until after noon.” Living in an extremely small town aside, “Madame Serena’s” psychic business seemed pretty popular.
“You should get back to sleep. I’ll wait for Gabe to finish showering, take one myself, and then I’ll sleep on the couch,” I said, leaning forward against my better judgment and kissing her on the forehead.
She smiled and turned to walk down the hallway to her bedroom. Without facing me, she said, “Let Gabe take the couch; you can stay in my room if you want.”
Moments later, Gabe exited the bathroom wrapped in a towel. He was an exceptionally fast shower-taker. Combing his wet hair back, he glanced in my direction and whispered, “How’d it go?”
I ignored him, stepping into the bathroom and locking the door. I half-expected Gabe to try to enter in an attempt to badger me about the conversation that had just transpired between Fuchsia and I, but he didn’t.
As I turned on the shower, letting the water heat up, I stripped off my muddy, bloody clothes and stared at myself in the mirror, wondering what exactly had happened to me and what my life had become.
(Back to the Middle)