Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, amid the throng of hurrying desires that trample on the dead to seize their spoil, lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible, as exhalations laden with slow death and o’er the fairest troop of captured joys breathes pallid pestilence.
–George Eliot 1889
“How much further?” His daughter asked for the umpteenth time.
His wife kept insisting, “We need to stop, you’re getting tired and I need to go to the restroom. I told you I NEED to GO!”
“Yes, I know. But there isn’t a town nearby and the GPS says were thirty minutes away from the nearest facilities. What do you want me to do? Pull over and let you use the bushes?”
The road was black as tar and the fog kept any stars or even the moon from making an appearance; nothing but road and more road with patches of fog collecting in the dips between the curves in the hills. Why is it that when you are exhausted, everything just seems to get worse? Great roads for a bike but not for a compact car loaded with luggage and a family that was too small to drive if you were over five feet tall.
Again, he felt the pinch points of the seat in his lower back and shoulder. He imagined the engineer who designed this particular compact car seat is probably the chief engineer responsible for reducing the pitch five degrees on the last economy flight he had to take. It was like sitting in a torture chair that only got worse as the minutes ticked by.
“I could be riding my Harley around Sedona right now”, he said.
“Well, why don’t you take your own vacation next time and I’ll just go shopping.”
After what seemed like an eternity there was a tattered billboard coming slowing into view- Next Services 20 Miles; that would have to do. Paying thirty cents more per gallon just for the convenience and probably using a filthy restroom as an added bonus wasn’t appealing but if he heard one more complaint from the wife, he was going to lose it.
If I only I hadn’t stopped…
“Hey, are you going to wake up?” he heard Trista mumble. He could only see black and felt like he was in a haze.
“Honey, I think I have the flu.” he said to his wife. “My back hurts from your stupid car.”
“Hey, you need to wake up and quit talking crazy to me! I’m not your wife! I’m Trista! And you are scaring the shit out of me!” She tried to pry his left eyelid open and saw mostly white.
The whiplash of reality finally sunk in the deep recesses of his brain about what had happened and where he was. The blood rushed from his face and his heart sank. His mouth was beyond parched. He needed to vomit and he did; all over Trista who was holding his head and trying to keep him from touching the wound on his stomach.
“Trista?”
“Yes.”
“What happened? Where are we?”
“What do you mean what happened!” she yelled. “You blew up a roadhouse and then shot a bunch of people and we stopped at this farm and you fainted. You got shot in the stomach or something and when I saw your shirt and jeans all bloody I freaked out and then you had blood coming out of your ear and I nearly passed out but I couldn’t very well do it with you on the floor now could I?”
“Help me up.” “Why am I in a tub?”
“No. Stay down. I could barely drag you into this bathtub in the first place. What are you like 250 pounds? We have been here three days. It’s the 14th and you have been really sick; like delirious even. You were talking to your wife and daughter about your vacation, and I couldn’t make it all out but what I do know is that you had a six inch long piece of something in your side and your ear was bleeding on and off for a while. I found some vet supplies in the horse barn and stitched up your side and gave you some antibiotics. You need to rest, you’re pretty fucked up.”
“Don’t talk like that. Wait, you did what to me?” Everything was slowing coming back and Trista was talking but he wasn’t catching much of what she said so he kept asking her to repeat what she was saying.
“Yeah, she continued, I was in 4H and showed some horses. Well, they weren’t mine but I was allowed to show them. Anyway, I learned some things about taking care of them. I have seen vets stitch up animals before, it isn’t that hard. I think I did pretty well under the circumstances. Did you understand that?” she talked and tried to pantomime what she felt, ”the concept of understanding,” would be pantomimed like.
“I found some crackers and some canned vegetables that got left behind but you have been so sick I couldn’t even get more than a dropper of water down your throat at a time.”
“Wait! You stitched up my side?” He looked at his abdomen at the curves of black thread in a haphazard pattern. “It looks like Doctor Frankenstein did those.”
Trista slapped him and then recoiled in anticipation of his response. When he didn’t move, tears welled up in her eyes. He just stared at her.
“I could have let you die you know. You are alive because of me!” She started to cry and talk at the same time. “I took, took, this out, out, of you.” she cried, holding up a jagged piece of iron pipe she picked up on the edge of the sink.
“Look, I’m sorry.”
Her lips were quivering and snot was starting to drip from her nose.
“I wasn’t even thinking Trista. I’m really sorry. I am supposed to be dead now and with my family. I wasn’t even supposed to live through the attack and now I am still alive. It seems the game has changed. You need to go home. You need to go home right now, he insisted. I must have been out of my mind to take you with me. I blew up a building and shot up a town; that is terrorism and I will get caught and will fry for what I’ve done and if you are with me, you will likely die in jail.”
“ If you think I am going back to that hell hole you are sadly mistaken. I don’t care if I live or die. Things happened to me in that town.”
“Listen kid. My family was killed by those bastards and the law let them go on technicalities and lack of evidence. I threatened some of them outside of court and they got a restraining order out on me. They know I did it. Now go home!”
“No one knows anything yet except the Icehouse got blown up and the news is saying a cartel shot up a bunch of tweakers on bikes. At least that is what the news is saying.”
“What?”
“You do realize we are only thirty minutes from town don’t you? I know this farm. It belongs to Dr. Sinclair. He is trying to sell this place and has been for some time. He comes, I mean came in the café all the time and told me about his problems. Everyone does, I mean did that. Also, the news is crawling all over town interviewing people and so are FBI, ATB and other official looking people.”
“ATF you mean. How do you know all this?” he demanded.
“I have a cell phone you know.” She showed him a website that posted the pictures of the town. It looked like a tornado of hell passed through it.
“Yeah, your van bomb or whatever it was not only blew up that bar but it also ignited the gas line that runs through the center of town. My coffee shop isn’t there anymore, or the hardware store, or the gas station. I think they think I am dead; I like that idea.”
He couldn’t speak, he didn’t want to. He should have been dead and now this doe eyed girl was talking to him and he couldn’t seem to process all the information correctly. Coming to his senses, he knew he couldn’t let her be a part of this. What to do? He stood up in the tub and nearly fell. Must have gotten a concussion from the blast, he thought. Did someone get a shot at me? Did anyone see me? He wondered. No, it was the gas line that burst that must have put that piece of pipe in my side.
“I must have been too close when the van exploded.” he said to himself out loud.
“Maybe”, Trista answered. “But I think you got shot or something blew up next to you because you were bleeding a lot and I haven’t seen anyone bleed from their ear before. It’s disgusting!”
“I suppose it is. But thank you for keeping me alive, I guess.” he said, still not quite hearing himself talk normally.
“I feel like I have cotton in my ear.”
“You do, silly. I put it there.” She gently pulled it out but he noticed no difference.
“I have a perforated eardrum and…” He stopped talking, then took a breath and continued but Trista interrupted him.
“The way I see it, you can ride into town or call 911, if you don’t feel like riding, spend the rest of your life braiding some dude’s hair in jail or life on death row, or GET THE CHAIR!, or you can ride away with me and lets enjoy life for a while.” She waited for his response not knowing what he would choose. She couldn’t read him at all. This wasn’t the guy she met just a few days earlier, he seemed broken and sick. What have I gotten myself into she wondered? No… this is right. He was right and maybe the town was better off scorched. He just needs some time to clear his head. He is different and I believe in him she told herself.
He thought a moment and tried to stand. He wasn’t wearing anything but a towel and didn’t even ask where his clothes were.
He paused a moment. “Do I have to ask?” he said looking at her as the towel slipped out of his hand. He winced as he tried to pick it up.
“You bled on all your clothes and I washed them in the sink. The water is on in this house, just not the electricity.” I hung your jeans and jacket inside the barn so no one would see. I tried to push your bike in there too but I dropped it on its side and couldn’t stand it back up so I covered it up with a tarp. The mirror is broken and it has a couple holes on the side of the seat. I think someone shot as us as we left.”
“I see.”
“We have to make a decision don’t we?” Just saying that made her tingle with excitement. Is this what alive is supposed to feel like? she wondered.
Zen looked deep into her green eyes and placed his left hand on her face. “I am in serious trouble for sure. You can walk away and go back to your coffee shop. Well, maybe not there but somewhere else. However, you are going down the path to hell if you ride with me and you are too young and sweet to throw away your life with a walking, talking dead man. This isn’t Bonnie and Clyde. This is real life, not MTV and mine is almost over. I am not going to jail, I would rather die first. Yes, you saved me but from what? I have no family. I have just murdered a bunch of people and destroyed your jerkwater town. Do you realize that?”
“Can I say something? “Trista countered. “What you did what was right. Now, maybe causing most of the whole town to go down in flames was a bit overboard but you do realize that that nearly the whole town was either doing meth, selling meth, or making money off it somehow. I think you did the public a service, if you ask me. And those guys weren’t real bikers. They were just using that club they started to move drugs and to intimidate people. They were always trying to get me to party with them and they took over the town like a cancer. Even the cops were taking money from them.”
“Well at least I got that red bearded bastard that took my family!” he shouted at her while hitting the wall and driving his fist through the sheetrock; immediately regretting doing so.
“You mean Thumper?”
“Yeah, that was him. He was the one that started it. How do you know his name?”
“Everybody knows, um, everybody knew his name in town.” she said, looking down at her feet. “Him and his brothers started dealing with some Mexican cartel and they went from being petty drug dealers to really bad people and they were getting rich off the suffering of others. Even my little cousin got a taste of what they were calling “road bumps.” And next thing you know, he was stealing from me. Like stealing 4H ribbons and trophies and was trying to pawn everything to get money for drugs.
He actually tried to fight me when he was tweaking because no one in the next town wanted to buy my second place ribbon. Anyway, I guess Thumper and those guys were always bad but bad people with money are really bad. You know?
“Yeah, I know”, he whispered.
“Well, their daddy used to steal anything he could get his hands on back in the day. Thumper’s real name is Theodore, not Thumper. I mean it was Theodore.”
He could see her voice lower and her face fall as she corrected herself. Still some innocence in there, he thought. Poor kid.
“Yes I know. I spent every waking moment researching everything for the case against him. I pissed off the district attorney and even got cited for harassment in my quest of trying to find out everything about that bastard. I didn’t know he had any siblings though. You mean club brothers right?”
“No, he has two other brothers, like real brothers; one older and one younger. They look like him. They all have long red beards like they want to be in ZZ Top or something. Yeah, a ZZ Top band with meth mouth. Gross.”
“Well I know I killed him because I saw part of his face. I saw his bike with his name on the tank parked out front. I saw his beard and half his head on the floor. Everyone was on stage when the van drove through and everyone that wasn’t on fire or blown to pieces got shot with that Krinkov.”
“Krinkoff?”
“Krinkov. It’s like a short barreled AK-47; I bought it illegally in California of all places along with the steel core hollow points. I even put mercury in the tips and capped them with paraffin. I wasn’t taking any chances. It was a devastating weapon. Now, I know I killed him and I don’t care about his stupid brothers.”
“What are you some kind of ex-cop or something?”
“Just a broken man who lost his family and spent a lot of money and time on the internet planning vengeance.”
She was afraid to say it but she did it anyway. “Did you see him get off the bike?” she asked in the softest voice she had ever spoken.
“No, but I know that was him. I was watching for it and then you came out to where my bike was parked and I…Let me see your phone!“ he growled, grabbing it out of her hand. He tried accessing the internet but the phone buttons were different that his own and he was shaking so she took the phone back and showed him how to work it. He opened the browser and read the articles on the major news sites, making mental calculations before checking the next site. He scanned the list of the dead and was unfazed at pictures of the collateral damage. He skipped over the details when it mentioned the two local women severely burned and the destruction of the public property. The roll of the dead listed their aliases; twenty nine names in all:
Clifford Marsiglio, aka “Pinky” Troy Stolle, aka “Hoosier”
And on and on it read. Under a new paragraph, there were two last names that loosened his bowels; Terry Blevins aka “T-bone” and Timothy Blevins aka “Rusty” but no Theodore Blevins aka “Thumper.”
Then on the last website, he saw a picture of Thumper in handcuffs wearing a green Department of Justice bullet proof vest being escorted into a building. Above the picture in bold letters it read:
Drug Deals Gone Up in Smoke Along With CA Town. Cartel Suspects and Ringleader Arrested. Zen saw the picture and the date of the story was the 14th. No, that can’t be right he thought, because today is the 14th. He looked at his watch. Amazingly, it was still on his wrist there it was, the date was the 14th. He stopped breathing. “No, I saw his head.”
Something inside him spoke audibly for the first time in his life, “No, you saw part of his head. It wasn’t his, it was one of his brothers and he is still out there. “
Trista was looking over his shoulder reading the article and when he stared at her, she could only mouth the words, “I’m so sorry.”
“No Theodore Blevins, no Theodore, no Theodore, No Thumper!” He kept screaming the name and alias over and over while smashing the phone against his head until there was nothing left in his hands but part of the back of the casing of the phone. The rest of the smart phone was either on the floor on embedded in the hamburger that moments ago was the side of his face.
