Unit 2 project

Running on Empty


Carol Leonard’s foot pressed heavily on the gas as she forced her way through the night, like a hand reaching through thick brush. Racing away from everything but toward nothing.  She drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand in her purse: counting and re-counting the stack of bills she had withdrawn from the bank earlier in the day. This repetition calmed her. The music blared but she didn’t hear it. Her pulse echoed through her ears, giving her a rhythm to cling to.  She drove on, numbly, blindly. Not thinking of the past or the future; not thinking at all.       She had been driving for nearly four hours when she noticed an off-ramp advertising gas. Out of habit, she glanced down at the lights behind the steering wheel. A little voice in her head reminded her that if she ran out of gas she would stop moving rapidly away from whatever it was that she needed to escape. She let that much seep through the fog in her head, but no more. She carefully, methodically pumped the gas, paid and used the bathroom without letting go of her death grip on the door to her mind. Nothing was getting in or out. Not enough time or distance had passed for her to begin processing all that had changed in her world so she flew on through the night, letting her anger lie still inside her.
                     *   *   *   *   *   *   *      Her eyes fluttered open to the glare of a bright sun and the taste of cotton in her mouth. Her neck was aching from sleeping in the driver’s seat, the sun had heated her to an uncomfortably high temperature and her eyes were nearly sealed shut from dried tears and cobwebs. She blinked rapidly until she could see more clearly and reached onto the floor for a half empty, warm bottle of water which she swallowed greedily. She became instantly awake and alert as she remembered where she was—or more precisely where she was not. The events of the previous afternoon came tumbling back onto her conscious—unwelcome, uncensored. The tears poured down her cheeks as her breath came jerkily, too fast and she began to hyperventilate. She reached for the door handle and stumbled out of the car, onto the windswept, dusty shoulder of the highway. She leaned against the tailgate of her full sized pickup truck and gracelessly heaved up the contents of her stomach. Shuddering from the effort of it, she slumped to the ground and sat in the dust, her head resting on the trailer hitch. She wiped her face on her sleeve, leaving three distinct trails of unappealing bodily fluids.       “Damn it girl, get it together,” she said.       She looked around trying to get her bearings. There was a green highway sign just behind her, on the other side of the freeway. If she squinted she could just make out, “Cheyenne Next Exit”. Cheyenne. Wyoming. A wave of panic washed over her, but she pushed it down, turned the key in the ignition, and leapt back onto the still empty freeway. The next sign she passed read “East I-80”. She felt a surge of something like joy at the word “east” but it was hard to define any feeling she had at the moment. All of her energy was focused on not feeling, not thinking. She read a familiar billboard cheerfully advertising “New Homes Starting in the 170’s” and she drew in her breath sharply and tears almost came, but she stopped them so quickly it made her nose run.       “Jackass,” she mumbled, turning her eyes back to the road and jamming a CD into the slot in the console.       She rolled along for a few more miles, the landscape of eastern Wyoming as barren and empty as she felt. She tried singing along to the music, but found she no longer knew the words. She took a deep breath and tried to reassure herself that she had done the right thing by leaving. Heading off into nowhere had felt pretty damn good in the aftermath of that last horrendous fight. It had been brewing for months—years, really—but she had never expected it to end so cruelly, so abruptly and so messily. She had been planning to leave him but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. With her whole world crashing down around her, dramatically, in vivid shades of red and black. Anger, guilt, and fear all bubbled within her as she slowly let herself remember that scene. A clip from a bad movie, in slow motion.       The noises floating down the stairs...she was frightened, was there an invader? She burst through the bedroom door, heart pounding, ready to fight...confusion, realization, then denial…her ears filled from the inside with cascades of “Oh god,” and “No”.       She took the next exit and looked for a place to use the bathroom. There was a truck stop, so she pulled in, bought some coffee then went to freshen up. As she emerged from the filthy bathroom she passed a display of post cards which caught her eye. Yes. A post card. She bought one, scrawled a few words on it and tucked it into her purse. Carol wasn’t ready to talk to any of them yet, but she could let them know she was alive, at least. She would have to find a post office. This would take perhaps more effort than she could muster, but she would do it because it gave her a short term goal, a destination. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven a.m. A post office would not be open that early, so she bought a large coffee and headed back to her truck. She located the post office quickly enough, and read on their door that they would open at eight. She slid into a parking space to wait. She knew that once she got back on the freeway she wouldn’t want to get off again until she was in need of gas.
Carol was accustomed to running five miles every morning about this time, so sitting still felt strange—not to mention all those little coffee beans dancing through her system. She decided to walk around the small town, to shake some of the stiffness from the long drive and the strange sleeping arrangements (or rather, lack thereof).
Everything was dark; closed. As she passed a narrow street a flashing neon sign caught her eye, and drew her toward it. “TEDS TATTOO’S”, it proclaimed, the misplaced punctuation jumping out her with each blink of lights. “Open 24-7”, stated a smaller sign in the window. She walked up to the door, reached for the handle and paused. A tattoo? Her inner voice asked her. Somehow it made sense to her. She was discarding the drab and dreary life of a middle aged wife and mother and embarking on a crazy adventure, so why not? She craved some physical pain right now—something permanent to anchor her as she tumbled through this change. A thrill like an electrical impulse shot up her spine and put a slightly crazed smile on her lips.       “Mornin’.” Said the lanky young man behind the counter, taking a final drag off his cigarette as he sized her up.       She blushed at his intense gaze, and was instantly aware that she did not fit the image of an early morning tattoo-seeker. In her old jeans and a blouse from her vintage clothing store, she felt much older than her 39 years. She ran a hand through her heavy black hair and broke eye contact.       “Can I help you?” he said. There had been a pause of nearly an awkward length.       “Oh, uh, yeah. Um.” Carol cleared her throat, and found her footing again. “Yes. I need an arm band—like that.” She pointed to a Celtic design just behind the young man’s head.       “Well,” said Rusty (as his name tag crookedly declared), “You’ll need to fill out a form of intent and make an appointment for no sooner than 48 hours.” He had light green eyes, almost gray, and his long blond hair was pulled neatly back.
“Oh. I won’t be in town that long, could you just do it now?” There was only a hint of a question in her voice.       “Well…” he shrugged coolly and glanced at the clock. “Boss won’t be in until 10.” He said that as if it answered the question, then stood to walk back toward the equipment. Carol followed.       “Where do you want it?” He asked. Rusty was lining up his tools, and turned to face her.       “Here.” She indicated her right arm, just below the shoulder. He nodded.       “You’re gonna have to lose that shirt.” He said it with such nonchalance that she almost wondered if he was gay. She flushed and he added, “There’s a stack of tank tops over there if you’d feel more comfortable.” Carol nodded and headed for the shelf he indicated. He seemed to be slightly disappointed at her eagerness to stay covered, but she couldn’t be sure. The shirts were new-looking and sported the logo of the shop so she quickly slipped her blouse over her head and replaced it with a black, surprisingly tight, tank top. She was getting sick of blushing, so she didn’t, even though she wanted to.
“The design you chose—we usually do that in black, is that what you want?”       “Yeah. Black is perfect. How long will this take?”       “Well, it depends on how much you cry.” His voice still sounded completely cold and business like, but she glanced up and caught a sparkle in his eye.       “I don’t plan on crying. I’ve birthed two children. I didn’t cry then, and I doubt this could be worse.” She only realized later that he might have been flirting, so long out of the game was she.
“Some say it is; some say it’s not. Sort of depends on how bad your labor was, I imagine.” He was back to business again, and she was oblivious to how hard he was fighting to keep his eyes off the distortion of the store’s logo across her chest.       Carol hated small talk, but the buzzing of the needle sounded too much like a dentist’s drill for her to concentrate on her own thoughts—which she was trying hard to filter anyway. She had put it off for as long as she could—naming all the states in alphabetical order, then state capitals, then just plain watching the second hand move around the clock. She had killed a mere twenty minutes.       “So…how long have you been doing this?”       “Three years. Hold still.” She found herself nervous about how much chatting was appropriate—she didn’t want to distract him and cause him to mess up.       “Are you local?” She felt the tiredness of her questions, and hoped he would start talking before she ran out.        “No.”       “Aw, come on? Is that all I get? I’m sure you get sick of the small talk, but why not pretend I’m one of your friend’s moms or something, and just—“       He stopped working, cocked his head and smiled at her. “I don’t hang out with little kids.”       “Excuse me?”       “Well, I’m 27 years old…I’d say you were much closer to my age than my mom’s.” He put the needle back to her arm, and she winced at the initial contact.       “You must know that thing feels like a scalpel—incessantly slicing….I uh…thought you were younger, sorry…” She pushed through the awkwardness, and moved along—afraid to stop before finishing her short list of meaningless questions.
“So what do you do for fun around here? No offense, but it looks kind of, uh, sparse…”       “Yeah. That’s a good word for it. It sucks. I moved here from Denver, to answer your earlier question. Sorry I just get sort of in a zone sometimes and I forget I’m not alone. I’ve almost finished the outline, and then I’ll just need to fill in…of course that’s the long part. Just put your arm above your head….now, this is the worst part. Hold on to something.”       Carol was using her Lamaze techniques to breathe through the pain but it wasn’t working, and a long string of profanities proved it.       “You okay?”       “Me and my big mouth.” She tried to force a smile, but instead she grimaced, then passed out.       They were sitting on the floor when she regained consciousness.  He was directly under a “No Smoking” sign, tapping an ash into what looked like a lumpy bowl, but was in reality, an elementary school art class-crafted ashtray.  She blinked—struck by the absurdity of waking in such a confused state twice in the same morning—and looked longingly at the little curl of smoke.  He took a deep, satisfied drag off his unfiltered Camel and blew the smoke toward the ceiling, offering her the unlit end.
“I haven’t smoked since--”  She caught herself turning down memory lane, and hurriedly erected a nice tall road block.  “In years.  I haven’t smoked in years.”  She had taken her first long pull of the cigarette before her words hit his ears.  She sighed and shook her head.  “Don’t say a thing, kid.  I only said I wouldn’t cry.”
He shrugged and stood, ready to get back to business.  She stubbed out the glowing tip of their shared cigarette and climbed back into the chair.  She closed her eyes and offered her arm to her invited torturer.  
“So what are you running away from?”  His question was far less jarring than it should have been, although it could be argued that the searing pain in her arm would have even taken the sting out of such classically disturbing statements as “You are sentenced to hang,” and “Your babies were switched at birth.”  She squeezed her eyes tighter and grasped the edge of the chair with her free hand.
“I’m not running.”
“Uh huh.”  His sarcasm felt like sandpaper against her cheek—a pleasant contrast to the thousand tiny knives in her arm.
“My life.  I’m running away from my entire life, okay? From a cheating husband and a whore of a business partner, and a shop I built from years of dreaming and saving.  I’m also running from the law, I guess you could say.”  For the first time in what felt like months, but was probably more like 18 hours, Carol was being filled from the bottoms of her toes with laughter.  It seeped through her and spilled over her lips slowly at first.  Rusty stopped his work and silently watched her be carried off on the wave of it.  She spiraled from light, hiccup-y giggles to great thick guffaws, and ended with a tear-streaked face that was so separate from the laughter that she didn’t dare meet the eyes of the only person in the room for fear he would read her mind.  
“Sorry…”  She wiped her hands carefully across her face and flung her throbbing arm out resolutely.
“A fugitive, eh?  I never would have pegged you for a bandit.” He smirked at the last word and she laughed again—self-consciously curt.  
“Now, if you can sit still, I’ll be finished soon.”
They were silent then, the needle engulfing the small room with a soft, full buzzing.
Carol opened her eyes a few minutes alter and looked first at her beautifully mutilated arm, then at Rusty.  
“I love it.”
He was midway through his response when the door crashed open and a large, red-faced man lunged toward them.
“Mornin’ Ted.”
“Didn’t I fire you, Larsen?”  He growled in their general direction.
“Yeah, I guess you did.”  He stood his ground.
The older man’s blood-shot eyes bulged further out of his round red face.
“OUT!!!”
Rusty grabbed his last customer’s hand and pulled her with him, out into the bright morning sun.
As they ran laughing toward her truck, he offered her a glimpse of the gun and wad of cash he had tucked inside his shirt.
“You up for a little company?”
Carol shook her head, eyes wide, grin wider.
“Get in, then.”