Squeeze
These sirens are killing me. Everyone on the road ought to know by now who the cops are chasing. You’d think they could at least turn the sirens off. Hell, my Challenger’s damn near the only car on the interstate. The news crews must’ve put an alert out.
We just passed mile marker 117.
Twenty or so blue-lighters have been bearing down on us for almost two hours now. It’d be game over already if I didn’t have this beautiful angel next to me in the passenger seat: my Penny. She looks so gorgeous right now. Her legs are tucked into her stomach like she’s watching a horror movie, waiting for an inevitable "boo," but I know she’s not scared. She’s the one person in this world who never judged me. Maybe it’s because we know each other's struggles so well. Maybe it’s because without each other, we’d both be face up in a hole somewhere. There’s no “maybe” to it, really; I know.
What I don’t know is how long I’ve been in this damn Dodge. Everything looks the same on this godforsaken Florida interstate. Feels like weeks, but I know it’s only been since we lit out of Tallahassee around breakfast. You figure all these cops would have something better to do than follow me around. I guess it’s because of my unconventional occupation. And the fact that there’s thirty pounds of cocaine sitting on the back seat.
Being a drug runner’s no picnic. God knows how long I’ve been running this stuff across state lines. Went into business for myself a few years back. I’m just trying to make a living, same as the next fellow. Dopers gotta have their dope, and I’m the guy that gets it there.
The drop-off in Tallahassee should’ve been a piece of cake, but the whole deal went to hell in record time. We’re on the road for fifteen damn hours, making tracks all through the night and we turn the corner by the park and see the drop-off swarming with 5-0. Dirk was supposed to be there so we could give him the stuff and that would’ve been that, but the blue boys got him first. “P-p-please Officer, I’m j-j-just out for a s-s-stroll,” he probably said. That skinny bastard always did sound like Porky Pig. Then the cops probably reached in his pocket and found the pipe he always carries. He never learns. After that, he must’ve ratted faster than Leo in "The Departed." I still don’t know how they knew we would be there, but there was no time to think.
It’s my own fault we were seen in the first place. Slamming on my brakes wasn’t the best idea. The reaction from the fuzz was priceless, though. It was like twenty dogs heard a whistle all at once; their ears perked up and every single head looked in our direction. Almost took out an old lady’s poodle in the process; I don’t think I hit him, anyway. If I hadn’t panicked and lost my head, we could’ve just pulled off the road quietly and headed back west. It’s only because we had a few blocks head start that we’re still on the run.
The fact of the matter, though, is that we’re in a tight squeeze. Every blue-lighter in the Panhandle is on my ass. There’s enough blow in the backseat to put ten of me away forever; there’s no getting away clean. One way or another, this ride is going to end. I know it. Penny knows it. But she doesn’t care. I know she doesn’t care, because we are each other.
Everything before this has been nothing short perfect. Hell, how else does a guy like me, someone that barely made it out of high school, stay in the same illegal line of work for damn near a decade? I’d like to think it was all luck, but I know it’s mostly because of Gladiator. I hate the son-of-a-bitch, but he was a smart one when he wanted to be. Everyone used to call him that because he had this giant poster of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus hanging above his bed. It’s a stupid name for a guy that might be an inch above five feet tall. He’s a stubby little bastard, but he can scrap if you push him and he can definitely hold his own. Thinking back on it all, he’s the reason I’m in this game. He was always a good friend to me. Known him damn near my whole life. Went to the same high school in Alabama. Graduated together. What a life we made out of those diplomas. He lived with his older sister, Debbie, over on Tomlinson since both of their parents had been dead since ’85.
Slinging drugs was something Gladiator always did on the side while we were in school. Ssack of pot here and there was all it ever was, but if you add all that up over four years of high school, you’re talking some serious scratch. I’m sure his sister knew what he was up to, but she didn’t care. It’s probably because he never sold to any of his classmates. He’d always use that old phrase, “Don’t shit where you eat.” After graduation, I had no clue what I was going to do, but Gladiator had saved damn near fifty grand and he knew right quick what he was going to do. Same old, same old. He got a job at the Dothan Grocery, but it was just a front. He moved out of his sister’s place and put a down payment on a house near the outskirts of town that looked like where Norman lived behind the Bates Motel. He’s been there ever since.
It was soon after that that he asked me if I would run packages over state lines to deliver to certain people every week or so. He said he would pay me right and the drop-offs would be absolutely safe. I knew what was in them, but it never bothered me; I knew what I was getting into. I had no purpose or motivation, anyway.
Even though he’d been selling since before freshman year of high school, hardly a soul knew outside his own circle. In fact, I bet not even half a dozen people ever knew he sold. Folks who weren’t involved in the transactions, anyway. I don’t know how he did it, but I never asked. That was part of the bond between us: he knew I wouldn’t ask questions and he knew I could be trusted. He’d give me a name, location and the amount of money to be received. It was as simple as that. Of course I always had a snub-nose in my pocket in case things got heavy. We both kept mediocre jobs during the day, but after dark was when the real work happened. The crazy part of it is that neither one of us used. I never even smoked grass. I get drunk maybe five times a year and a needle’s damn sure never come near my veins.
Once business was booming, there was hardly a drug that Gladiator wouldn’t sell. Meth, coke, smack, you name it. I don’t know where it all came from. I’d leave his house one night, show up the next afternoon and a dozen boxes were there that weren’t the night before.
“So, you ready to go?” he’d say.
“Why else am I here? Quality time at the dinner table?”
The one thing I could never get over, though, was that he would let his close buddies use in his house. His small circle of friends would come by and shoot up whenever the urge struck them, as long as they phoned first. It was always the same people. There was Perry, who came up with us in school. He always had a pipe in his palm, squeezing it so hard you thought it might explode in his hand. Nate and Dean-O never seemed to leave because they were always snorting lines of this and that off the coffee table. Even a few girls, like Rachel and Jen, would come by every now and then and chill out on the couch for a few hours. They were sweet. He had the trust of every last one of them, but I didn’t want to see that shit when I walked in the door. I hated it. Kind of hypocritical that I was taking that garbage from state to state all those years. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.
Some people say things happen for a reason. It’s a cliche that’s been beaten to death, but by God, I swear it’s true. I’m not religious, but there’s got to be some sort of unseen force in this world that puts you exactly where you need to be.
I’ll never forget the day: the second one in June. It had been raining for an almost-local-record-breaking two weeks. Seeing the sun felt like seeing a friend who’d moved away long ago. I walked in Gladiator’s front door and stopped cold in my tracks; I don’t think I even shut it. On the couch, in between Nate and Dean-O, sat a young blonde woman, not a day over twenty-two. Her eyes were closed and a tourniquet was wrapped around her left bicep. A needle was dangling from the bend in her arm. Blood and some of the yellow heroin Gladiator just got made a trail down her forearm and into the couch. She wasn’t moving.
A rush of energy came over me like I’d never felt. I was thrilled, appalled and terrified. She didn’t need to be here. All I wanted to do was to take her and make her better.
“Who the hell is that?” I said.
Gladiator appeared from the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal, smiling with squinted eyes as he stuffed his face. For the first time that I had seen, Gladiator looked high. “Come on, man. How many times have you met Dean-O?”
“I’m not talking about Dean-O! Tell me, who the fuck is she?” I ran over to her.
“Oh, that’s my cousin,” he said. “First time smacker, he’s helping her. She’s goin’ pretty hard now.” He turned and walked back to the kitchen, still munching on his cereal.
“You fucking psycho."
I looked back to the girl. "Come on, baby, we gotta get you up. Come on, let’s go.” I pulled the needle out of her arm and picked her up. As I ran with her to the bathroom, her arms and head bobbed, lifeless. I kicked open the door, laid her on the floor and flicked on the light. All I could think was that this girl was going to die on this crud-covered bathroom floor and Gladiator didn’t even care. I put my hand across her throat to see if there was a pulse.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I slapped her face repeatedly, trying to wake her back to life. I grabbed her arm at the top of her shoulder, squeezed and ran my hand down her arm, just above the puncture. Some of mixture came oozing out of her arm like a staph infection that had festered for days. I reached around her back with my left arm, grabbed the back of her neck with my right and held her up.
“Come on, baby, wake up. Hey! Open your eyes, girl, come on.” I kept shaking her and patting her face. Slowly, she half-opened her right eye and looked at me. She stared into mine for what seemed like eternity.
Finally, she slurred a few words. “I like you.”
Then she vomited in my face. Two short projectile bursts. Right in my mouth.
She immediately reached up to my mouth as if to say, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” The look in her eyes was one of innocent embarrassment. She was still reeling, but she knew what she’d done.
All I could manage to do was laugh. Nothing about this situation was funny, but, I swear, that’s all I could do. She looked at me, confused, as I continued to laugh. Then she joined in. We both knew how the situation should have turned out, and the relief we both felt manifested itself in the form of howling laughter. What a scene it was: me and this girl I’d seen for maybe sixty seconds laid out on the bathroom floor, covered in blood, drugs and vomit, and we’re laughing like Borat just walked into the room. It was beautiful. I’d never felt such relief.
After that, I knew she would be all right. But something else was accompanying this feeling, something I hadn’t felt for as long as I could remember. My stomach was turning in such a way that it frightened and excited me. It was love. Pure vomit-covered love. She felt it, too.
We both stared at each other in silence. Our gazes were connecting us to each other in a way that seemed beyond impossible. Her pupils were a doorway into her past, present and future. But it wasn’t just her future; it was our future. When we saw "The Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time together, her palm in mine as we ate stale popcorn and giggled while Gandalf and Bilbo got blazed on that hilltop in the Shire. Our first dinner date at Mellow Mushroom when she said, “Oh my God, no way! This is my favorite place.” The disappointment in her eyes five years later when we would find out we couldn’t have children. The content in her face when she would tell me, “We have each other. It’s not all bad.” And I could see us growing old together. But I didn’t even know her name.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“I’m— I’m— I’m Penny. Who are you?”
“My name’s Hank.”
She giggled. “Hank. Penny. I— I like that.”
With Penny in my arms, I walked out of Gladiator’s door for good. I went into business for myself after that. I haven’t seen him for about ten years, but I know he doesn’t hold any grudges; we squared up pretty easily. He knew I wouldn’t rat on him or steal his business; we always understood each other. If you’re in this gig long enough, one way or another you meet enough folks who need someone like me.
Penny was always with me. She knew what I was doing was crooked, sure, but she never left my side. Neither of us used. She knew I wouldn’t, and I knew she wouldn’t. I knew how to work the business, and the money was too good to pass up. And I reckon it was the easy way to get paid, but I’m a damn fool for ever thinking we’d make it this—
“Baby, we’re about to run out of gas.”
My God, how long was I in my own head? That whole “life flashing before your eyes” line sure has some truth to it.
We’re passing mile marker 120. The cops are keeping their distance from us. I reckon they know we’re about to run out, too.
“I really don't know what I'm doin' here, darlin'.” I’ve never been so helpless. It feels like I’m a passenger in a submarine that’s sinking to the bottom of the ocean, the pressure from the water beginning to squeeze the sub like an egg, cracks starting to appear all over it as I realize the impending doom that’s—
Penny’s grabbing my hand. She’s opened the glove box. On top of old fast-food napkins rest two snub-nose revolvers. There aren’t any bullets. I know what she’s thinking. She knows I know what she’s thinking. And she’s right.
“Baby, I was dead when you found me. I got to live again because of you. I know that if we get out of this alive, I’ll never be with you again. I can’t live like that, I don’t want to and I won’t. It’ll be quick, and everything will be okay.”
She always speaks the truth.
She’s crying harder than I’ve ever seen. There’s an exit up here where I know there’s an enormous cotton field on the right-hand side. If we go there, there won’t be any possibility of others getting hurt. I don’t want that. Penny doesn’t want that. The cops will follow us off-road.
Penny’s looking at me, surprised like she just had one of those light-bulb-over-the-head moments.
“We never even turned on the radio.”
“My God, you’re right.”
Of all the songs on all the stations on the dial, what will it be? It has to be perfect. I know what I want it to be. “Badlands” by Springsteen. Shit, there’s no better song in the world.
Keep pushin’ til it’s understood and these badlands start treatin’ us good.
Penny pushes in the volume knob. I don’t even know what station we left it on.
Static. That figures.
Pulling to a stop in the field now. I look over at Penny, my eyes getting lost in hers the same way they did that day in June. She’s no longer crying. Her kisses get me every time. I sure will miss them.
I have to say something.
“We did a hell of a lot of livin’, didn’t we?”
Penny is smiling, and everything is perfect. Everything.
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