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July 12, 2005
rest stop
The rain had stopped but the streets were still slick and Spider tried to concentrate on keeping his speed down, on not rushing. He had the defroster on low and the wipers set on maximum delay. The light ahead of him turned red and the three cars in front of him went through it as he braked. He stared ahead through the windshield, dead-eyed as the traffic began to flow on the cross street, three lanes each way. The light changed to green and he shook his head and inhaled deeply, eased out into the intersection and accelerated to road speed, slowly exhaling. The street was silver, it matched the sky, like driving on a liquid mirror he thought. He reached over and turned the radio on and then immediately off again. He opened his window and turned off the defroster.
His phone rang and he picked it up off the seat and pressed the kill switch, then studied the display briefly before putting it back on the seat next to him. The canyon was coming up and he needed to be able to concentrate. His brakes were lousy and his tires were worse. The phone beeped amber, message waiting, and then went dim. He passed a large sign that showed a person flicking a cigarette butt out of their car with a big red circle with a slash through it. $500 fine. Spider scratched his forehead, then grabbed the wheel with both hands as the road began to twist down and around along the canyon walls, between the tall pine trees that grew out of the red dirt that the foothills were made of.
The silver surface of the road reminded him of a photograph he had seen one time, in a doctor's office waiting room magazine. It was a black and white photograph taken at some industrial facility showing a worker wearing construction boots and overalls and a flannel shirt, standing on the surface of a large reservoir, the size of a swimming pool, filled with liquid mercury. He was standing right in the middle of it, his weight dimpling the surface of the sliver liquid ever so slightly, a proud smile on his face. The article said that just as the surface tension of water is strong enough to support a waterbug, the surface tension of mercury was strong enough to support a man. Looking at the image, all Spider had been able to think of was what would have happened to the guy if something broke the surface and he fell through, what a way to die, drowning in mercury.
He shook his head and concentrated on the road ahead. He knew the road through here well, so well that sometimes he wondered if he could drive it blindfolded; but today, as eager as he was to be through the canyon and away home, he wasn't willing to rush. Brake. Turn. Hard right. Left. Brake. Dip -- slow down. He turned the wheel left and right, relieved for the distraction, for the chance to get outside his own head, even if it was only for a couple minutes. He thought of this part of his commute as wrestling the anaconda.
He coughed and spit out through the open window beside him, his shoulders working as he turned the wheel, then he coughed again and winced, his eyes squinting. Spider was worried. Visa kept calling him, at home, at work. He had to mail the money tomorrow, money he didn't have, the money he had no prospects of getting. Until now. And he had no idea what Dice was after.
He didn't like the sound of Dice's offer. He didn't like Dice, didn't trust him. But he knew he was going to go over to the Cobalt Derby after he fed Mr. C. and gave his mother her medicine. He turned the wheel to the left hard to avoid some broken stones strewn across the roadway and back hard to the right to get back in his lane. He could feel the tires lose their grip on the pavement just a hair, just the slightest little shimmy in the rear end, and he pressed the brakes gently and squeezed the wheel, countering the torque, his lips making an F sound. The car twisted and then the wheels caught as he gentled the brakes. The falloff on his side of the road was a couple hundred feet.
He noticed that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. There was a scenic overlook up ahead, Spider pulled off and stopped the car. He turned off the engine. He sat there looking straight ahead into the branches of the trees, his eyes not moving until his breathing was normal. He picked up the phone and pressed the callback button, wondering who it was that had called him. "Amarantine Visa," a cheerful voice answered. His lips made the shape of the F sound again.
This is what it's like, he thought. Drowning in mercury.
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posted by matthew at 06:52 PM