Its past midnight & we are on the road somewhere between Reunion and Corazon when the left rear tire exhales suddenly & the wheel begins bouncing & grinding on the stubborn surface of the highway. She panics, gets more than just a little nutso as I slowly pull the car over into the breakdown lane. All the other cars speed past us like yesterday is catching up to them. I ask her if she’s okay & she says yes so I open the door carefully on my side of the car. If you get out get out over here, I tell her. She slides across the seat & the sound of her jeans across the leather & the scent of her hair as she gets close to me remind me why I’m making this trip. Force of habit I check the ropes tying the mattress to the top of the car. Every time we open a door the ropes slacken a little. If it gets loose the slightest wind will pick it up & make it impossible to drive.
I walk to the rear of the car & open the trunk. Not one of those highway bastards even slows down to gawk. They just rush past us. Whenever a big truck passes it’s like the end of the world in stereo. Most of the people seemed hypnotized by the road. I catch a glimpse of one guy in a shiny Suburban, his eyes staring above the wheel & the dim glow of his dashboard casting dim light on his vacant face. He looks like a dead man or some cursed zombie, damned to cruise the highway for all eternity. I lift the crappy carpet in the trunk of the car & begin looking for the spare. There’s no spare, she says meekly behind me. I look at her & could simply kill her right then. If it weren’t for all the cars. Not that any of them would notice if I swing the jack around & tore her head open.
But there’s no jack either I notice now. Great. Whatthefuck are we going to do now. She tries to be helpful. Just flag one of these cars down. I laugh & it sounds like something inside me is trying to crawl out & die. Have you noticed they are all moving at speeds of nearly ninety miles an hour & not one of them has even slowed down to gawk at our little accident. It’s just a breakdown, she says. A flat tire. If it was an accident somebody would have stopped by now. Witnesses. This gives me an idea. Let’s push the car into the highway then, I tell her. It’s my only car, she says. And all my stuff is in there.
All her stuff is in there. I go around to the back door and open it. The ropes holding the mattress loosen a bit. There’s a box there labeled KITCHEN STUFF. I open it & grab a knife & head back to the rear of the car. She looks at me like I’m about to kill her. The knife cuts easily through the ropes holding the mattress. I grab the bulk of it by one edge and drag it onto the ground. What are you doing? She’s still spooked. I can hear it in her voice. Or maybe it’s the wind. Getting us out of this, I answer. Back in the trunk is a can of lighter fluid. Enough to soak the mattress good. A single match explodes the whole thing into a huge pyre. A few of the cars slow & right away a semi belches roars & hisses to a halt alongside the highway. The fattened driver leaps from the cab with a fire extinguisher & heads for the flames. Smoke and vapor mix to an interesting odor.
In no time the flames are doused and the smoking ruins of mattress lay before us. The trucker looks at me, his face glowing with sweat & fear & excitement. What the hell happened? He wipes his brow with his sleeve. Smoking in bed I tell him. It’s a killer.