Highways
The killer watched an ant move carefully across the strand of a spider’s web, towards the carcass of its last night’s kill. hovering above, the spider, its senses enlivened by the tingling webs, watched as the ant crawled deeper into the web; he knew and he waited. Sensing the danger the ant looked around, knew it was close, then grabbed the carcass and ran back the way it came. The spider swooped down towards the ant, its silk madly unfurling behind. Just as the spider would’ve grabbed him the ant jumped off the web leaving the spider swinging furiously back and forth, screaming its frustration. “Better luck next time, Mr. Spider.” The killer said as he stood up.
The killer stood on the wooden porch of a roadside motel. The highway was only a couple hundred feet away. Dry breezes were coming in off the early morning desert. The air was already starting to heat, it smelled of rock burnt over and over again. ‘Oh, well lets get this over with.’ He thought. He stepped off the porch of the broken motel, and walked towards the highway, sand and rock crunching under every step of his boots. A hundred yards down the road a billboard read: Jesus saves…We Pay interest. ‘Christ.’ He thought, ‘a fucking ad.’ Looking to the sky a ghostly moon still held its power over the desert. Telephone lines spider webbed the highway and his thoughts. In the far off distance he saw a car, he stretched his hand out over the aching highway, his thumb the lure, testing the tension of the shadowy webs. he knew, and he waited.
A car speeding along the desert highway, the driver, a crystal eyed salesman from Los Angeles. L.A. that sparkling diamond of new promise, and he was moving away from it. This was his second night out on the desert. It was a long, lonely drive where speed, time, and distance lose all meaning, he’d done it many times before, for business, ‘it was always for business’ he thought bitterly. He turned on the radio hoping it would drown out his thoughts. A news report came on: “a salesman was found murdered in a roadside…”, he didn’t need to hear that, he pushed seek on the radio hoping for some music. The tuner flipped through the stations, it stopped. A song came on that seemed familiar, he knew he should know the song, but he couldn’t remember, it was like something was missing, a memory forgotten, a dream missed, where all you remember is that you forgot something. He remembered liking the song when he was a kid.
At the end of his vision he saw a hitchhiker. There hadn’t been anyone, or anything since he passed that roadside motel, and it was starting to get dark, and the salesman was starting to feel the loneliness of the road. “Maybe I shouldn’t.’ He thought, ‘he could be a mass murderer or something.’ From what he could see the hitchhiker looked OK, he was wearing black jeans, boots, and a T-shirt, ‘he looks OK. Mass murderers and serial killers are just modern bogeymen’, he reassured himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d picked up anyone on this long dead highway, nor the last, he thought as he pulled the car off the road.
“Where you going?” The salesman asked, as the hitchhiker walked up to the open window.
“All the way, man.”
“Jump in.”
Rock and gravel sputtered out from under the tires as the car lurched back onto the highway, chasing the always receding horizon.
“You look like you’ve been out there awhile.” The driver said.
“Yeah, a couple of days.”
“Doing what?”
“Let’s just say I was exploring.”
“You a student or something?”
“No, not really.”
“Oh.” The driver said. The hitchhiker brooded. The driver watched as the hitchhiker absently pulled a pack of matches out of his pocket and lit one, staring at the driver as the match burned.
“How close will you let a match burn down before it burns you?’ The hitchhiker asked, as the flame extinguished at his fingertips. The driver smiled uncomfortably but didn’t say anything. The salesman and the hitchhiker lapsed off into the uncomfortable silence of their thoughts, as strangers often do.
In the awkward silence the salesman let his thoughts wander back to the morning he left, his wife and young son were at the playground, the birds chirping in the sun, the taut curls of his wife’s flowing hair blowing in the breeze. His son laughing and dancing, a carefree smile on his face, the lingering memory of the argument he and his wife had the night before he left. He had watched them from the distance of his car. If all went well this was to be his last trip across the desert, he had promised, had been promised. It was business, it was always business. He missed them, he’d call them as soon as he got off the desert.
The hitchhiker, a killer caught in a dream he couldn’t get out of, a hot dream of ravaged paradise, ruins, heat bending, girls swaying, always just out of reach, breaking. A salesman found dead, naked, matted in alcohol, sweat, semen, and shit, the t.v. flickering wildly in the madness, another sad motel movie death, morning could find you dead. “NO! Stop the car!” He screamed, bolting up in the seat, the driver slammed on the brakes, sweat poured off the hitchhikers brow, he felt the fear of the dream.
“Wha?” The hitchhiker said, looking around he remembered where he was, who he was. “No, no, go.”
“Jesus!” The salesman said, “you scared the hell out of me.”
“What do you know about it?”
“What?”
“Hell.” The hitchhiker said, “I know all about you.”
“How could you? We just met.”
“I know myself, therefore, I know you.” Was there a hint of malice in the hitchhikers tone? The driver couldn’t tell.
“Then tell me.”
“OK, your life has been nothing but pre-planned and perfect, college, wife, kids, a house in the suburbs, a nice office, weekends off.” The vinyl of the car seat cracked as the salesman shifted uncomfortably .
“I may have that.” The salesman acknowledged “but the idyllic life isn’t always ideal.”
“Let me tell you about hell.” The hitchhiker said. “I’ve traveled all over this country, lived in hotels more alive with creatures than humanity, seen all kinds of people, from hookers, pimps, and hustlers, to the rich hypocritical politicians, and the overfed masses of the middle class, and I reject all that, there are some of us out here who don’t give a damn about morality.”
“Sounds like envy.”
“Of what? Would it surprise you if I told you I was born in a house of privilege, raised in rooms of warmth and comfort with all the necessary luxuries. The American Dream has become a nightmare, living to consume, when the truth is, we’re only consuming ourselves.”
“Your parents were well off?”
“Comfortable. My father was a bigwig in some corporation, a slave to an empire he never understood. My family was probably not that much different than…yours.”
“Where do you live now?”
“I live everywhere and nowhere, residing in bars and other palaces, a loose exile.”
“How did you become so desperate?”
“I discovered the horror of being alive, I realized that someday I was going to die, and there was nothing I nor anyone else could do about it. It’s the ultimate despair of the soul. It’s like walking around with a deep, cutting, secret knowledge, but the knowledge also gave me something.”
“What?”
“Freedom.”
“That doesn’t sound like freedom, it sounds terrifying.”
“Real freedom is, that’s why people grasp wildly for the vestments of religion, cults, anything that reassures or distracts them from the knowledge that universe is chaotic, anything for peace of mind except the truth. I’m dangerous because I can live with that truth.” The hitchhiker ducked his head straining to look through the windshield out into the night sky.
“What are you looking for?” The salesman asked.
“The moon.”
“Why?”
“I’m following it.”
“Where to?”
“To wherever it leads.” The driver looked over at the hitchhiker, his eyes had a messianic glint in them. “Nothing but clouds.” A few raindrops splattered on the windshield. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”
“What?”
“I’m not real, I’m a metaphor.”
“What?! That’s insane.”
“I’ve moved beyond the physical I’ve become a metaphor for the randomness of death that we can pick up any time on the highway of life. Better turn on the windshield wipers, looks like things are about to get nasty,” he pulled himself closer to the driver. “Do you really want to know what I was doing out on the desert?”
“Uh, no, I’m not sure.”
“I killed a guy.” A crash of thunder punctuated the absurd statement, lightning filled the car with an eerie glow.
“You’re kidding, right? You’re trying to scare me?”
“No.” It was a straight forward answer, no conceit, no deceit, a simple no. And the salesman knew it for what it was; the truth.
“It was self-defense..?” The killer stared at the driver. “Why? Why’d you kill someone?”
“He was bugging me, he wanted more for his ride than just an interesting conversation, if you know what I mean.” The killer looked over to see the salesman’s reaction. “Actually, I think he was just jealous of my freedom, so I made him as free as I am.”
“Aren’t you afraid of being caught?” The driver turned on the windshield wipers, the rain was pouring down.
“Not really. This is America, if you have enough money you can get away with murder, but commit a crime against property and you’ll swing for it.” the killer said coolly, “murder has become commonplace, just look at the papers, TV, movies, slaughter has become the sign of the times, rage is all the rage.” He thought a minute, “you know what will be remembered as the start of our age?” He asked.
“The invention of the computer?” The salesman ventured.
“No, wanna try again.”
“The Atomic Bomb?”
“You’re getting closer, one more.”
“I don’t know, uh, going to the moon?”
“No, I’m disappointed in you, it’s Jack the Ripper, that’s the true bellwether event that started the era we live in.” The killer saw the driver starting to sweat. “The thing is there weren’t any witnesses…until now.” The killer slid his hand over the back of the seat towards the driver. The salesman swallowed, the windshield wipers beat in time with his heart, he thought of his wife and son, and leaving to the suffocating demands of business ‘always business’ he thought wistfully, now he worried, would morning find him alive? He felt like the car was inching across the strand of desert, he pressed a little harder on the accelerator, and turned towards the killer.
“You don’t look like you could kill anyone?”
“If I did would you have picked me up?”
“No, I guess not.”
“People have the mistaken idea they can judge the content of a person’s character by looking them in the eye, or by body language. Most of us don’t reflect our inner selves anyway. If someone mentions an accountant or murderer in conversation certain images are conjured. If a murderer people expect the grotesque. But the more human looking the monster, the more inconceivable the horror.”
“You, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?”
“Why not?” The killer said, ominously.
“I didn’t do anything to you! I’m innocent!”
“No one is innocent, not anymore. You gambled when you picked me up, there’s danger in every choice we make, you made the choice not me. People are always making bad decisions,” the killer said, shaking his head “and then they wonder how they got in that fix, and they pray pass this cup before me. Most of us live with too many tomorrow’s anyway, don’t you?” The killer asked. The salesman thought of the argument he had with his wife the morning he left, he pounded the top of the steering wheel in frustration, “you’re evil!”
“Evil?” The killer said, laughing, “evil is just a point of view, if something happens to you that’s uh, well detrimental, people call it evil, do you really expect the hunted to understand the motivation of the hunter?” The rain was coming down in torrents.
“What do you want?”
“No, no.” The killer said, chuckling, “it’s too early for that.”
“What?! What do you want? Do you want me to admit I’m scared, to being human, or do I have to resort to desperate actions.”
“Which would be what?” The killer hissed, as he slid closer to the driver. The salesman looked at the killer, saw the hardened mask of a face, and thought the better of it and turned back to driving.
“Good boy.”
“Why are you doing this?” The driver pleaded.
“It’s not something I have complete control of, it starts like, uh.” The killer paused, thinking, “it’s like a desire, something to make me whole again, to feel like everyone else, and until I fulfill that urge, I’m ravenous, restless, it’s like having a hole in you and nothing you do fills that void except satisfying the desire, and all my hungers are in place.” The killer said. “I’ll tell you what I want, I want you to know what desperation feels like.”
“I desperately want to live.”
“No, it’s not that easy, it’s where you fail, but then it’s where everyone fails, it’s not the desperation of wanting something, what I’m talking about is the kind of desperation you can see in the eye, feel in the jaw, the desperation that comes with knowing your world is crashing down around you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” The rain was pouring down the windshield, the wipers flapping wildly, water ran down the glass in a sheet, the killers hand crept closer along the back of the seat towards the driver. “Are you scared?” The salesman didn’t say anything, but he could feel the perspiration running off his forehead, he was sure the killer knew.
“I’m driving.” The salesman said. The killer slide closer to the driver.
“Now, tell me about your family.”
“My family?”
“I’ve wanted things from this life, once I even made a grab for them, but they were beyond my grasp, now I want what should’ve been mine, I’m going to get it one way or another.” The refracted glow of the headlights reflected in the eyes of the killer, he looked mad. “Where do they live?” The killer asked, the salesman felt his face flash through all the hues of red as he swallowed his heart. “Are you afraid to die?” The killer watched for a reaction. “I’ll tell you what,” the killer said, “you possess the key to living, all you have to do is find it.”
“You’re going to kill me? I’m not going to tell you where my family lives!” The driver pushed the accelerator down, the rain poured off the windshield in blinding sheets. “You want to die? I’m ready!”
After the storm the car pulled over to the side of the road, the killers boots hit the highway again, the car’s tires sprayed gravel as the car pulled around in a tight U-turn heading back the way it came, west. A couple of remnant raindrops splattered on the asphalt close to the hitchhiker, he watched the rising sun, and the endless possibilities that the highway lay before him.