He got into his car and drove. What else could he do? It was one of those muggy, hot Missouri nights that made your clothes cling to you like a second skin. The air conditioner in his old blue Cavalier didn’t work, so he lowered the electronic windows, hoping the blowing air would cool him. It didn’t. He traveled West and sailed down the curving country roads towards the main highway. Lightening flashed in the distance.
"I don’t think I’m coming back this time," he thought.
As he drove he struggled to place where it had started to go all wrong. The baby? No. The baby was just the final straw. Things were shaky before then. Maybe the meth or the coke were at fault, or the occasional LSD. His wife was not fond of drugs, but he had brow beat her into participation. She found the hallucinations bazaar and frightening. Once on LSD, she said she had seen his head roll off his shoulders and land on his plate, grinning and winking at her.
The night grew darker and more close. The lightening flashes were nearer now. He could see occasional cloud to ground strikes when the trees weren’t in the way.
The baby had only brought the long festering boil to a head. Poor thing! Every time he thought of her, he was filled with pity, disgust, guilt and amazement that they could have produced such a child.
She was born with a hair lip and a cleft pallet, but the worst were the flippers with fingers that projected from her shoulders, where her arms belonged. He never admitted that he was glad she had only survived those few days, but his wife knew, and he knew she knew. She loved that poor, misshapen little girl as if she had been born the world’s most perfect child.
All she did is cry anymore. Their sex life was non-existent. Well, he was young, too young to give up sex!
"No, this time, I’m not going back!"
The brilliant flash of lightening and the immediate, deafening clap of thunder brought him back to the moment. A spatter of fat raindrops struck the windshield. The wind began to buffet the car, and he was in the storm. The rain drove into his windshield with a fury equal to that in his soul. He quickly rolled up the windows and hit the wipers. As he rounded the next curve, there, in his headlights was a jack knifed semi truck. His stomach gorged in his throat as he stood on the breaks and cut the wheel sharply. He felt the car hydroplane, and shut his eyes, waiting for the impact. Nothing happened! Somehow he had made it! The rain tapered off and a dense fog arose. He could barely see the edge of the road. It was like driving into a piece of flat, grey paper. He felt as if he had been driving for days.
Through the fog, he saw what looked like a bright, five pointed star.
"A Texico," he thought. He pulled in and retrieved his coffee mug from the back seat. He got out, stretched, and went inside. He filled his cup from a full pot and went to the counter to pay. As he reached in his pocket, his eyes fell on the headline of a newspaper in the rack in front of him.
"AREA MAN KILLED IN COLLISION WITH SEMI"
In the accompanying photograph, there was his smashed car, with him lying half through the broken windshield!
"On the house," said the kindly old grey haired gentleman behind the counter.
"First customer of the day is always on the house."
He staggered from the station.
He got in his car and drove. What else could he do?
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