Broken
“Asphalt has a way of taking the beauty and life out of something that, at one time, held meaning to someone,” Slim declared above the arctic blast from the trucks air conditioner. Outside, heat enveloped the vehicle in small dancing waves.
We sped by the scattered remains of a wooden chair on the left shoulder of the freeway.
“We’ll swing back around and pick that up in a bit,” he stated flatly, reaching for the CB mike.
“Dispatch, this is Slim.” A quick burst of static and then silence. “Slim to dispatch, over.”
Again, no response.
“Must be on another damn coff—”
“Hey, Slim, go ahead.” The voice clearly that of a smoker. It was dry, a little raspy, but unmistakably feminine. He depressed the transmit switch for the third time. “’Bout time, Marci.”
“Sorry, Slim, had to step outside for a few.” Slim rolled his eyes and gave me his ‘go figure’ look.
“Listen, we just rolled past a chair on the northbound side of the freeway, south of Simpson. We’ll pick it up in about a half hour,” he said.
“Ten-four. Dispatch clear.”
“Unit 29 out.” Slim clipped the mike back onto his visor.
“She’s not much for words, is she?” I half-stated, half-asked.
“Must be that time, you know,” he said with a wry smirk. “She seems a bit moody today.”
Traffic flowed around us like snow melt during spring thaw. Staring at my notepad, I tried to focus on the story at hand. Slim wasn’t talking much and my brain was too busy processing storyline and haunting memories. I was here to do a job, but it wasn’t easy with my thoughts elsewhere. Slim rested his left elbow on the window frame as he drove, holding the wheel with his left hand. His right hand motioned as he spoke.
“So tell me again what you did to deserve this assignment.”
“Actually, I requested it.”
Slim’s brow lowered in wonder. “Okay, and why?”
“It’s off the beaten path, no pun intended; more human interest than the day-to-day tragic stuff. I’m numb from reading the police blotter every day and listening to the scanner to get stories about the misfortunes of others.”
A Jeep filled with hormones and thumping music went by and broke the flow of conversation.
“You haven’t asked me too many questions. Isn’t that what reporters do?” Slim asked.
“Sure we do. But a part of the job that gets overlooked is simply observing. In some respects the details tell more than the verbal answers do.”
“That makes sense,” he nodded in agreement.
Slim fit his nickname well. He didn’t fit his birth name, Gordon. He was tall and lanky, burnt sienna brown from daily sun exposure, but had crystalline gray eyes that looked right through you. The stare was a result of having seen much of life’s detritus spread along the roads of his town. He looked in his rearview mirror and signaled left to switch lanes.
He didn’t miss a beat as he spoke, “Look, I know it ain’t my business, but you seem a little preoccupied. It has nothing to do with roadway safety, does it?”
Grinning sheepishly, I replied, “Nope. No it doesn’t.”
“Only one thing makes a man that way, Kid.”
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“I really don’t need to tell you that now, do I.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I doubt it, but just for argument’s sake, suppose you fill me in.”
Slim took his eyes off the road just long enough to be dangerous. Long enough to see what most guys wouldn’t.
“I tell you what, Kid—”
“Dakota,” I cut him off. “You can call me Dakota, if you’d like.”
Slim’s eyes widened; then he smiled, “Dakota Straub?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, smiling.
“Hey! I read your stuff all the time! I really like it!” He shook my hand like I was some celebrity.
“Thanks.” I have to admit to being a little flattered by his staunch appreciation of my work. Never knew I had readership, much less a fan.
“Sorry, I interrupted. You were saying?”
His gaze seemed to disappear somewhere far beyond the hood of the truck; he looked like he was watching a concert pianist, lost and enraptured by every note. “Do you know how to swim?”
“What? Uh, yeah.” Jeez, from piano to foghorn.
“Stay with me here,” he said, reaching forward to adjust one of the air conditioning vents. “Remember standing at the edge of the pool, then walking along the side sorta’ watching the bottom as you walked?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“I remember thinking it didn’t look so tough,” he reminisced. “Before the day was over, I thought for sure I’d be swimming from the shallow end to the deep end, no problem. Piece of cake.”
“I remember wanting to go off the diving board,” I said, smiling at the memory. “That was the cool stuff.” He’d sucked me in, and I didn’t even know it yet.
“Yeah! Me, too. It was just water, and we were kids. We learned how to climb trees without even trying. How hard could learning to swim be?” he posited. “That’s what you think until you get in the water. It’s a whole ’nother ballgame when you’re in the pool and not outside.” Slim shot me a leathery grin, then silently pointed a finger to the tip of his nose. “The water’s always deeper when you’re in it.”
I wasn’t entirely certain why, but I knew he understood my state of mind, or lack thereof. I looked down at my notepad again—very few notes. I began to wonder who was writing the article, him or me. Illegibly I noted ‘Time@job:’. “How long have you been doing this job?” I asked, abruptly changing the conversation’s direction.
“Going on twenty years.”
“Lots of time to think in this kind of job, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Sometimes too damn much. But,” he paused thoughtfully, “in the long run the asphalt is a pretty good teacher, if you know how to read her.”
“How so?” I wrote as fast as I could and still wasn’t swift enough.
“You drive the freeways and streets long enough you see and understand things in a different way.” His stare looked out my window briefly, checking for clearance on my side. The signal clicked as he moved into the right lane. “You learn to see things in patterns and shapes, instead of things or objects,” he continued.
“I don’t get it,” I confessed.
“Look at the road itself. It disappears into something called a vanishing point. All day I watch people rushing to that vanishing point but never reaching it. It’s an optical illusion, you know. It’s there because you can see it,” he mused, “but it doesn’t really exist.”
I scrawled two diverging lines on my pad with an arrow pointing to where they intersected, and labeled it vanishing point. Jotting a couple of more thoughts down, I gave Slim’s perspective some analysis of my own.
“I think there is some sort of mathematical correlation between emotion and logic.”
“How do you figure?”
“You ever reached that point where no matter how things sum up logically, the answer just feels wrong?” I asked.
For the first time in two days of riding with him, I saw him react without a word.
“Of course you have,” I said.
I could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to work out my logic. “So you’re sayin’ that no matter how much the head says stop, your heart says go?”
“Yeah.”
“Dakota, it’s been my experience that few things in this world are worth hanging onto if they hurt,” reasoned Slim. “If you touch something hot, you let go, right?”
“Sure,” I agreed. “But that’s physiological. Your body makes you let go to avoid further damage.”
“Exactly.” Two weathered fingers sprang up between us. “But name me two things you don’t let go of, despite the pain or potential for more of it.”
All I could do was look down at the vacant pa
ge of my notepad.
“Hope,” I said, allowing my voice to trail off.
“And?”
I hadn’t a clue.
“The love of a woman. The right woman,” he said emphatically.
Shaking my head, I said, “I should have guessed.”
“You didn’t need to guess,” protested Slim. “You knew the answer.”
“It’s hard to let go, Slim. No matter how I try, it’s something absolutely inexplicable that refuses to die.”
He just smiled and glanced in his rear-view mirrors for the seventh time in five minutes. He spent his day waiting to pick up the trash of careless or unfortunate others, while I spent mine making sure my own refuse didn’t decay. In the minutes that followed I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t noticed Slim pull over to the shoulder.
“Ya’ wanna’ help me pick this stuff up, or stay in here?” he asked.
“What…oh, sure. Yeah.” Opening the door reminded me of Mom making cookies when I was much younger. Standing next to her when she swung down the oven door, the blast of hot, dry air grabbing your attention. But it’s a dry heat, as they say out here.
Old wicker baskets and what had been rattan furniture of some type lay strewn along a twenty-yard swath.
“This happened last night,” he stated as if it was obvious.
“How can you tell?”
“Look up ahead toward the next off-ramp. See how pulverized it is? There used to be more here, but there’s always someone who likes to run over someone else’s stuff.” He had to shout over the din of traffic, which made his statement eerily emphatic.
I kept looking back and forth over the stretch of now malformed straw as Slim opened the back gate of the truck. We started from the closest object and moved away from the truck.
“Hey, Dakota, give this some thought,” he shouted.
“What’s that?”
“Think of stuff that gets broken.” His smile was stoic, but harmless.
After picking up the first piece I learned to kick the items forward instead of carrying them. The less time my skin spent in contact with sun-baked furniture the better. I’m sure it looked disrespectful to the passers-by, but it wasn’t their flesh getting seared. Fifteen minutes and a small bottle of water later we had it cleaned up and retreated to the grateful coolness of the truck cab
“What possessed you to get into this line of work?” I asked, slamming the door shut with a loud metallic thud. He kept staring out the driver-side window looking for a spot to merge, so he appeared to be talking to the window instead of me.
“Used to be your garden variety garbage man.” He paused a moment then looked at me and pointed a finger. “Be damn sure you write ‘sanitation engineer’ if you quote me! They don’t like to be called garbage men,” he said.
“You got it,” I stated, making a note of it.
He turned to his left to talk to the window again. “Anyhow, I was asked to fill in one day doing this job for someone who called in sick.” He shook his head, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of unrelenting traffic or something else. “The guy I filled in for wound up becoming my ex’s second husband. I never trusted that scumbag.”
Suddenly the truck lurched forward, rubber grabbing hot asphalt and squealing. Once we were up to speed, he continued.
“I learned quickly that I much prefer accidental trash to the stench of everyone else’s. Make sure that gets printed.”
“You bet. I like it,” I couldn’t help but smirk. “It works on a few levels.”
A toothy grin ripped across his sweat drenched face. His eyes went right back to the mirrors, ever vigilant, always attuned to surrounding traffic.
“Take a look over your left shoulder.” His voice lacked casualness. I turned expecting to see a police chase in progress or something of that nature, but instead saw nothing.
“Okay, what am I looking for?”
“See that orange Camaro a few cars back?” he asked.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Notice anything odd?” The humor had gone from his voice.
I couldn’t see much detail. The remains in the bed made sure of that. “Hard to tell, but in general, no. Should I?”
“His front, driver-side tire has a huge bulge in it. On top of that he’s been weaving in and out of traffic for a few minutes—at least as long as I’ve seen him. Damn, with the heat outside and the heat generated from road friction…I’m not sure I like the possible outcome.”
Glancing back at the hot shot and then at Slim, I wondered aloud, “What d’ya’ mean, the outcome?”
“Forget about it for now, Kid. Probably nothing now. But it will be something eventually, I guarantee you that.”
I let the ‘kid’ reference go. Someday maybe I’ll appreciate it instead of letting it annoy me. Instead I turned around and settled back into my prior mental routine. I stared outside the window, unfairly mesmerized by the broken white lines as they zipped past. I recalled when I used to stick my hand outside the car, testing the wind resistance with my hand parallel to the road, then palm turned up and my hand would swing back from the resulting force. Now as an adult I choose to keep the window rolled up. Less wind resistance leads to greater fuel efficiency. Plus it keeps the cool air inside. All that rational adult thinking completely cages youthful curiosity and wonder. At least as a child you know little, if anything, of love. Plenty of time to learn how it can leave ashes at your feet.
I looked over my left shoulder again to see the Camaro just off our left rear bumper. Something about the car was familiar. The windows had limousine tint so I couldn’t see inside, but an ungodly strong feeling gripped me. I knew the feeling immediately, but quickly dismissed it as an impossibility, chalking it up to my all-too-active imagination. I couldn’t help but stare at it. Trying to gaze through the obscurity of the tint, I had fixated without even realizing it.
“Something wrong?” Slim’s voice seemed tinged with concern once I snapped out of my daze and ran it through my head a second time.
“Um, not really.” I casted, hopeful he’d take the bait.
He glanced over at the Camaro as it glided past. Our speedometer read 77 mph, the Camaro was doing at least eighty.
“You know that car?” he asked.
“No, not entirely.” I kept my answers terse to avoid any lengthy explanations he may not have understood. Slim allowed my tone to pass without comment.
“So,” he began, “given any thought to my earlier request?”
“What request?” My mind was blank.
“Back when we were picking up what was left of that weed-weave furniture.” Still nothing came to mind. Slim sighed, “I said to think of stuff that gets broken.”
“Oh, yeah, right!” One of the largest pieces in the bed banged against the tailgate. “Well, there are certainly a huge number of things.”
“Give me a few,” he prodded.
“All right. How about broken dreams?”
“Good start.” Slim nodded approvingly.
I looked out the windshield over the hood. “Broken lines,” I said, motioning for no good reason. “Broken home, broken down…”
“You got the idea.”
I didn’t understand his point. “Okay, so?”
“So, notice how negative it all seems.” He paused. “Now look at what I do for a living. I take things that get left behind while people are in transit, and, in some case, I make something new out of it. I find a use for something that was useless and forgotten. If it’s broken sometimes it can be fixed.”
I’d been jotting notes in my own doctoral-fashion shorthand, when something compelled me to look up. The Camaro slid in front of us, sped up and cut off a rather nervous-looking, gray-haired man in a Cadillac. Slim and I watched in amazement as the Camaro maneuvered—or more precisely, dangerously weaved—from one side of the road to the other and back again until it was just out of sight over a hill. Never a cop around when you need one, but come to a rolling stop and they materi
alize out of nowhere.
Slim had slowly made his way over to the left lane. He’d become accustomed to sighting things far enough ahead that he could pull over and pick it up almost immediately, provided he stayed in the left lane.
Outside the cool safety of the cab, the blue afternoon sky floated in a seamless sheet over a brutally sun-scathed city. Slim had spent the last few minutes regaling me with tales of Old Man Time, what he called his own personal collection of war stories. I scribbled once in a while when something pithy caught my attention.
Then it happened.
“Holy—! Did you see that?” Slim shouted. We both looked up at the same time.
“What the hell was that?” I asked him.
“Nothing good. That much I know.” His once calm, almost jovial demeanor instantly changed to one of uncomfortable seriousness.
Slim signaled left and eased onto the shoulder. I could tell it was second nature to him. There was no thought process. His eyes focused on the growing dust cloud ahead, which began to darken with what looked like smoke. Reaching up, he yanked the mike off the visor.
“10-18, this is Slim.” A half-second pause. “Dispatch, this is an emergency, come in!”
“Go ahead, Slim.” This was concentrated professionalism on both ends. No games, all business.
“We have a possible 42 just north of the Pesham overpass. Possible 37 and 38.”
“10-4. Dispatch clear.” Slim let the mike dangle as we approached the cloud. Traffic was already slowing down due to rubbernecking. As he slowed down, he spoke sternly. “Let’s do what we can, but if you smell fuel get the hell out.”
I just nodded. “What’s a 42 and the other numbers?” I quickly asked.
“A 42 is a possible accident; 37 and 38 mean possible wrecker and ambulance needed.” His eyes never left the cloud. Then he flatly stated, “I knew it.”
Dust began to clear, only to be replaced by smoke. At its center lay a mangled and bent orange Camaro, upside down. Unforgiving sunlight glittered off the broken glass now sprinkled in the median. I suddenly had that same feeling as before. I tried harder to push it aside, again to deny its plausibility. I knew this car seemed familiar.
Slim threw his door open as he yelled. “You take the passenger, I’ll get the driver!”
I gave him a thumbs-up sign. The clamor of traffic and oncoming sirens would have drowned out my reply anyhow. My gut wrenched—there was no way to dodge the feeling that I was about to find a place of no tomorrows.
The front part of the car—hood, doors, top—all looked like a corrugated tin roof: wavy and undulating, only more acutely angular. The passenger door folded outward in a haphazard manner. I kicked it away from the body of the car so I could get down and extract the passenger. As I looked across the belly of it, I could clearly see the front driver-side wheel; no rubber, just twisted metal.
Coughing, I dropped to the ground, placing myself between the kicked-open door and the passenger side, every fiber of my being concentrating on the task at hand. The passenger was female—an all too familiar female—although her head was turned to the side so I couldn’t see her face. Grabbing her wrist I checked for any sign of a pulse: present, but faint. Then she slowly turned her head toward me, and my heart and stomach collided.
She was here, in this horrific, twisted metal coffin. I heard Slim shout something but had no idea what it was, nor did I care.
“Heaven help me,” I muttered while slowly stroking her face. Multiple cuts from glass cast tiny rivulets of blood down her cheeks. I started to cry, so helpless, but needing to help her.
“It’s okay, Angel, you’re going to be fine.” I mustered. “Hang in there. I’ll have you out in a minute.”
Tears began to burn my eyes, acrid smoke and approaching sirens assaulted my nose and ears. Slowly, anger filled my heart. Anger from lack of care, absolutely irresponsible driving, and a cavalier attitude about everything.
This was his fault.
Putting aside my rising testosterone I moved fluidly as I began extracting her. Half kneeling, I would have been better positioned to genuflect in church than rescue someone. I managed to get a careful grip on her so I could undo her seat belt without having her drop on her head when it released. I had no idea what other internal injuries she might have, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to let her perish in the car. Not next to him.
“I’ve got you. It’s okay.” I had to raise my voice above the commotion. It wasn’t so loud I couldn’t hear the buckle as it unsnapped. Then her weight was on me. As carefully and methodically as I would thread a needle, I moved her outside the car. The ambulance was rolling up as I laid her down, cradling her gently in my arms.
I stroked her hair as I tried to soothe her. “I’m not leaving you. I’m here. Everything is going to be alright.” How I hoped it would be. As if in slow motion, her eyes looked up at me, a pained smile crept upon her face, and I felt the kindest of grasps on my hand. I kept trying to dab blood away with my shirt while keeping her calm.
“Don’t you leave me, don’t even think about it!” I demanded. I could see my tears fall and dilute the drying blood on her cheek. All I could do was hold her. So helpless. So dark. Carefully I stroked back her dark bangs and kissed her softly on her forehead. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’m here,” I kept repeating, trying more to convince myself than her. I heard the rattle of a gurney and shuffling feet. Then Slim’s voice, gentle but firm.
“Dakota, they gotta’ take her.” My arms wouldn’t let go. I just shook my head.
“Dakota, they can help her, but you gotta’ let them do their job!”
“No! No!” I lashed back. “I’m not leaving her!”
Aluminum and metal clanged as the gurney dropped flat next to us. One of the paramedics grabbed my arm.
“Sir, please. We need to get her to the hospital. You can go with us if you like but we have got to get her on the gurney.” I didn’t want my eyes to leave her face. “Okay,” I mumbled through growing sobs. Leaning forward quickly I whispered in her ear, “I love you.”
I rose slowly as the paramedics took over.
I was amazed at the activity around us—two ambulances, two police cruisers, Slim’s truck in the middle, the crumpled mess just to my right.
“Dakota?” someone said. “Dakota, hey. You alright?” It was Slim trying to get my attention.
Considering the buzz around us, my senses were far from overloaded. Thousands of years of emotional conditioning took over.
“No. No, I’m not.” I said, spinning on my heel.
I briskly stepped to the other side of the car, where a second team of paramedics huddled over a separate gurney. My entire body grew taut, fists clenched, anger seeping from every pore.
I snapped.
With one frantic lunge I began my assault, shouting from the top of my lungs at the body strapped to the other gurney.
“You pestilent cancer! This is all your fault!” Fury screamed from every sinew. “Remorseless, thoughtless waste of skin!”
I planted my left foot, leaning over to kick the gurney with my right foot. Two solid arms suddenly locked around me pulling backward. I kept screaming.
“You took her from me once—you will not get a second chance!” I struggled and sobbed at the same time.
Vengeance wasn’t my style, but the moment made it natural. My head slumped between my shoulders, at once embarrassed and ashamed.
“We need you to calm down, buddy,” a stern voice said from behind. I relaxed enough to turn around. It was an officer. “I know you’re upset, sir, but we can’t have you hurting yourself or someone else here. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He relaxed his arm lock, making sure I wasn’t going to lurch forth again.
“I understand you helped extract that woman from the car,” he said. “We all appreciate your assistance, but let us take it from here.” I simply nodded, and then suddenly remembered her ambulance.
“Slim!” I
yelled. It came off sounding like a frightened, lost child. “Don’t let ’em leave!”
Slim motioned to a paramedic as he started shutting the left rear door, then waved me over. Five running strides and I was leaping into the back of the ambulance, Slim right behind me. The right door banged shut and instantly we began rolling.
The paramedic tended to his patient carefully, but methodically, calling ahead with her vitals to the emergency room. I sat quietly, just cradling her hand between mine, softly stroking it. A couple of minutes went by without a word spoken, but it seemed like an hour. My introspection took over.
“Slim…,” I said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Her face…her heart…,” I ever so gently squeezed her hand as I spoke. “She is the one God meant for me to love.”
My eyes never left her face, but I knew Slim was listening. Reaching up I wiped new tears from my dusty and sweat-laden face.
“Broken heart,” I whispered aloud.
Slim’s voice was quietly inquisitive. “What?”
“Your question to me, about stuff that gets broken. Broken heart should be at the top of the list.”
“I wondered when you were going to say it,” he said quietly, laying his hand on my shoulder.
The muffled siren outside was the only thing invading my concentration. Respectful silence stayed with us for the remainder of the ride. Minutes later the sound abated and the ambulance rolled to a quick stop. I bent over and kissed the back of her hand, telling her one more time, “I’ll be waiting.”
Light and heat streamed in as the double doors flew open. The driver deftly rolled the gurney out the back and locked the wheel struts in place. The other paramedic quickly followed suit. Not a moment wasted.
I ambled out of the vehicle’s bay behind Slim, thinking about the wheels on the gurney as they hustled it through the wide double doors into the ER. With certain clarity I knew how my story would start. Three days later it ran:
“Asphalt has a way of taking the beauty and life out of something that, at one time, held meaning to someone.”
Some things should never be broken.