Chapter 02 - the Slow
I burned some time getting ready to leave. Lots of little things seemed as if they might be neat to have with me, and I had them in either the toolbox or in the space left over in the eight foot extended cargo bed. When I say I had a mild epiphany, and tossed a roll of high end duct tape, I should clarify. I don't mean a roll of duct tape you hold in your hand. I mean a roll of them, the bulk log of many rolls in one long package. Its not heavy, and it slips right down into the space behind my bench seat. Its up against a couple rolls of thick plastic.
Food was a no brains required decision. Sure, I grabbed some things like potato chips and the like, for the boring trip. A case of energy drinks, a cache of my favorite three liters of soft drinks. My grocery store has three liter generic imitations of the famous brands. Three liters of essentially the same thing, for way less? That's me.
That's just for fun on the two long drives. I got a few sacks of trail mix back in the toolbox. A whole box of MRE I found in cheap bulk online. Me and Merry use them for hiking, and having the boxes accumulate is a nice ace in the hole if disaster ever strikes. Now, is a prime example of a mild disaster. But I feel somewhat smug that I can just go and lay hands on two small grain sacks, filled with my own trail mix. A box of MRE, 32 meal packs? Overkill.
The big sack of jerky, is both fun and practical. The dual fuel little lantern, is more for a small heater if we need it, than for really light. I can run it on the gallon of expensive fuel, for heat in a somewhat enclosed area. But I have all this extra gasoline with me and I can run it on that as well, as long as I ventilate.
Merry helped me, and provided a few things I might not have thought of. Since I was preparing for the possibility of getting stuck for a few days in a snowdrift my damn self or with Zar on the way back? She took it upon herself to make a little care package so we wouldn't go stir crazy. A little hand size pack of DVD's taken out of their plastic cases. Half picked for me, the other half were ones she knew her best friend would like. We could each warm our hands over a long run candle in our laps, while we watched movies on my laptop.
It slipped into the cargo slot on the passenger side door, and it became Merry's little cache for the two of us that we would be entertained. Zar grew up doodling and coloring, and even does adult coloring books to relax. A little stack of printer paper and some pens and pencils got dropped down in. She added an ancient battered clipboard, so she could actually draw and amuse herself.
We live in a small hunting town, and its right on the edge of the biggest patch of state game-lands to be found anywhere in our state. We live in the tiny town, but I'm also the greens keeper for a gun club. I can go grab ten or twenty pounds of deer and wild pig jerky out of the coolers in the barn there, so I did. I realized the back of the pickup was essentially going to either be a temporary refrigerator or freezer, and I could take some deer and pig steaks with me. We hike and camp regularly, I can cook a steak on a little aluminum folding pan that fits down in the cargo slot on my driver's side door.
I've done this before, driving a vehicle in a deep winter snow. The worse the winter storm gets? The more I get the roads to myself. If or more like when it gets bad enough? We'll get the emergency shutdown. They like you to get the impression that you're not allowed out on the roads. Not so. You are, there's not so much as a fine for it. But you are on your own. No roadside service will respond, no police or ambulances, no tow trucks. No one, is allowed to respond, to anything.
People that learn this, in general take the hint. They stay indoors. But someone like me, well I'm a different breed. I take it upon myself to go out for coffee that night, and just because. Truck stops never close. Its a sort of redneck stoicism some of us display, and we're proud of it. Nope. A little snow? Will not prevent me from so much as disrupting my evening coffee routine.
So in some way, its sort of a mixed bag for me. A little bit of a challenge, some measure of a dare to it. But its not my first rodeo, and I have weird little extras. A handful of two stroke gas mix. A few of those little tiny plastic containers, my bar oil, an extra chain and my smallest gas chainsaw. I encounter a small tree down across a back road? No sweat. I can cut a limb off, or the top of the timber fallen... and scoot right around it. I have a sturdy but somewhat smaller spade shovel, so I can dig through a snowdrift if I have to.
My trip started out much as I expected. Wrightsville, is about smack dab in the middle of the state, just to the west of the Appalachians that come up and bisect Pennsylvania. To get out so to speak, and hit the highways to really move around? All I have to do is head south and join the first road I find. I keep the mountains on my left, until I see the signs for the highways.
It seems as if I'm constantly changing roads every so many miles and every so often, but I'm not. I discovered it my first time driving here, way back when. Keep the mountains on your right, coming in. Mountains on the left, going out. Any road choice at an intersection of back roads and two lane routes? Simple. Pick the one that keeps mountains on my left now, its too easy.
Didn't take long for tire tracks to get more rare. Traffic become non-existent. I can drive at any speed I feel is best. In deep snow, I like to drive right down the middle of the two lane road. I have the roads all but to myself. I'm monitoring CB channel 19 on low volume. I'll hear the occasional trucker maybe, long before I see the first sign. Its winter, AM radio signals work better.
My CB isn't, really. Its a ten through twelve meter HAM transceiver. I'm for now more concerned with the scanner. If a power line is down, I can hear about it and route around the circus. I gave the gas station attendant I just stopped at, some wild pig jerky. He's stuck working overtime, because no one will come in to replace him. The owner pressed him into round the clock service until the owner himself relieves him tomorrow morning. Hey, a fellow stoic. We're not extinct yet, though I do believe we're on the endangered species list, and no one is providing any sort of a conservation project. They should.
It finally happened, and I was waiting on it. Nothing. Here it is, too. No tire tracks visible behind me, I'm making my own and that's it. None up ahead of me within sight, either. I didn't even pull over to stop, no reason. I just slowed down and put it in park. I stepped out, and took a squirt right in the middle of the road. Damn energy drink I had, followed by some soft drinks.
Idle ruminations run through my head, as I expel my urine. What's it like to be old, and its hard to take a leak. Prostate issues. I don't look forward to that. My pressure relief system still functions as intended, so far so good. No noise. If I did shut the pickup off, I could all but hear the snow falling. I like this solitude. I go for walks in those rare pea soup fogs, too. Sounds carry funny. Its interesting.
"Hey. Its me."
"Everything good?"
"Yeah. I'm getting near the highway."
"How is it."
"Just snow, really. No trees and power lines, at least not yet."
"You want the news?"
"Sure. I was almost in a good mood, go on and ruin it."
"The, air masses and all that shit?"
"Yeah."
"The, weather experts are now saying, looks like some big... blobs of, air pressure things? Are going to kind of sit where they are. They're saying it should just... bleed the moisture out from the warm air masses? And dump it steady, where it is."
"Sounds fun. Any idea where we are, where I'm going... in relation to these, big blobs of winter weather. Am I moving out of one, into one, what."
"Honestly, we're almost on one end of, a big red blob. I mean a really big one. You're picking her up? Right past the middle of it. Where its the darkest red."
"Nice one. Maybe I get to play Darwin, and interrupt natural selection... outside of it?"
"No such luck. Another... blob came in from over there? Joined our big red blob. You have no luck on this."
"Aw. All it can do, is make it take longer, that's all."
"Call me if you get bored."
"I just did. I'll call you again, when I get off the highway. Unless you don't want me waking you up."
"No, go ahead. Not like I have to be up for anything, otherwise. Make the call, and if I only talk sleepy for a minute or two? Don't take it personal."
"Tell you what. I'll send a text. That way, if you wake up to pee? You can say hello. But if you're asleep, no big deal."
"Okay."
"Love you."
"I love you too. Drive careful."
"I will. I try to be."
"I know, Panic. I'm more worried about what some other nitwit will do driving in this mess. Like I said, be careful."
"I will, I promise."
We both made teenager kissing noises, then hung up. I had told Zar I'd call her to let her know when I was leaving, but I realized it was an all but useless gesture. As if I could predict how slow my progress might be, how many times I might have to backtrack and re-route. In reality, I'm just comforting her so she knows I'm on my way.
"Guess who."
"It must be my Ober driver, and wonder of all wonders, he speaks English."
"And how will you be paying. Gas, grass or ass? Nobody rides for free, babe."
"Honey? I'm so happy you're leaving, you can have a blank check."
"Ooh baby. And here I was, thinking I had to do the old, I ran out of gas, that routine."
"Try it, it might work."
"Okay, little one. I have good news, and bad news."
"Give me the bad news first. I'm kind of used to it, right this moment."
"I didn't call to tell you I'm leaving. I'm sorry, to have to tell you that."
"Shit. What's the good news, then."
"You know how I run down the mountains, until I finally get on the highway?"
"Yeah."
"I'm about to get on the highway soon."
"That, was mean."
"It was meant to heighten your joy, when I gave you the big reveal."
"How long, do you think..."
"Honest, I have no idea. Depends on what mother nature throws at me. My dot on the GPS, still where you're at?"
"Yep."
"Are you in a diner, or something like that?"
"Nope. They felt bad, and let me wait at the office building. The security guy, said I could stay in the lobby."
"Good enough. I'm going to get moving. I'd ask what the weather is like there, but... I kind of already know."
"Its coming down, like... you know those little glass eggs we'd shake up and watch the snow, when we were kids?"
"Yeah. Mom had a couple, they came out for Christmas decorations."
"Pretty much looks like that, but you don't have to keep shaking it."
"Yeah. Well, I'm gonna get moving. Next time I call you, I'll be off the main highway."
"Thanks for doing this, Panic."
"Don't sweat it, little one."
"Bye."
"I'd say I'll see you soon, but... I'll see you when I see you. Bye."
Monitoring channel 19, there wasn't even a lot of tractor trailer traffic. Less vehicles on the road appealed to me, but it was an omen in and of itself. When the big trucks finally throw in the towel, it reminded me of rats leaving a sinking ship.
The hell does that make me, then. The one rat getting on while all the others are skedaddling. Wonderful. When one member of the herd is the only one going the opposite way? That's either the most intelligent or the least intelligent herd member. I suppose I'll soon find out. I don't know who coined the phrase, that its better to be lucky than to be good? But bless them. Waiting for any traffic before I jumped on the highway, a trucker mentioned that he was following one of the big state plow trucks, and he was getting the red carpet treatment. The big dump truck with an oversize articulated plow on the front, was trailing a trickling of salt in its wake.
Could I even be that lucky? The guy's slamming my receive meter, he can't be that far from me. I'm looking at deep snow on the highway, and the one lane ruts from traffic are getting filled in some.
"Hey, red carpet."
"I hear you."
"Any chance you're westbound."
I got a musical fun retort.
"There, certainly is."
"You anyways near the Bovin exit? I'm looking to be westbound, and..."
"Mister? I wish to declare two things, about Pennsylvania. One? Y'all roads, crumble like stale birthday cake. But, I done got to give y'all credit for that signage. You boys put mile markers up, every tenth of a mile? Like a got damn religion. I would be part near, to... eighty eight, point one. What's Bovin? I mean, I got a good radio setup, and if you have a good radio setup... we might be further than we think."
"Oh. I think Bovin might be, ninety-two?"
"Hold on, partner. I got me, that there giant screen GPS. I can almost do shit with it now, and... got damn it... okay. Ninety-three, this Chinese thing is saying. Five miles, about. And, this is one a them big tri-axle dump plows. Man, this bad boy is doing thirty-five, while he's throwing that avalanche. I honest, can't rightly figure how he can even see, but... he is."
"Hell. I could go faster, but following that salt plow is just too tempting."
I got chuckles back, crackling the airwaves.
"Join the party. I hope this plow guy? Goes clean to the Ohio border."
"That where you're headed?"
"Right now. But, Colorado right after that. I was supposed to be dead-heading back to Colorado, when this shit got worse. My home base, told me to put in at one of their places, in Ohio."
"Well, good luck. I'm only with you for a while, until I cut north. Beaverton exit."
"Well, you won't miss the big yellow light in front of me. Now, mind you. I'm a little ways behind him. On account of I'm letting the salt get a head start, by the time I get there. You can't miss me. These assholes I work for? They pay good, but they do paint the damn trucks all up, like a got damn Christmas tree. Stupid blinking LED's, I can't shut them off. I look like a flashing motel sign, for Christ's sake."
"Well, I can't miss that."
"Nope. And we might be the only two idiots out here, for all I know. I hear more talk, as I go near truck stop exits, to tell you the truth. Last guy I talked to? Some old guy at home. Don't know up where you are, but for a while now? I got tire tracks, but they is all filled in. Ain't a lot of us fools out in this."
Guy has a decent personality, another stroke of luck. Radio banter isn't any fun with curmudgeons.
"Same thing here. Weather only fit, for mad dogs and Englishmen."
We gabbed while waiting to link up, and like any avid CB driver, its basically a party line on channel nineteen. You invent things to say, between all the information. When I'm on the busy highways at night on a road trip, I know where the speed traps are. And I don't mean I know in general, the boys actively report to the tenth of a mile marker and beyond, to pinpoint any cop. They're job depends on the uncanny ability they develop to recognize them tucked back in. Cops are harder to spot these days since the light bars got practically invisible.
I know where a fresh deer got killed, and which lane to change into. For one lane construction? I know which lane to be in that I don't get held up. I expect wrecked vehicles and abandoned cars tonight, so its a pity there aren't a few more truckers out reporting any obstacles. But I won't complain, I'm hitting a run of decent luck.
By the time we were getting close to my exit, my radio buddy mentioned the little lone diner, up on the hill. I had gone past it numerous times, and finally went in late one night just for the hell of it. Nice little place, never real busy, always open. He likes it because its right at an exit, big parking lot, he can grab something and be back on the road in minutes. Truck stops can get to be a bit of a procedure sometimes, for the big trucks. So, I got to meet the guy.
On the radio, he sounded like a big voice, big personality, but with a good nature and general cheer. One of those guys that looks like he should have been a linebacker. Big friendly baby face, that puts you at ease. He tipped his battered firearm themed baseball cap to the lady at the counter, and I'm pretty sure he said... squeeze me, ma'am. Instead of the expected excuse me. He drawled it out just right, that it passed.
This guy would probably be a laugh riot, back at the camp. The range boys coming in for deer season in a few weeks, would get a kick out of him around the campfire for dinner. I bought a few little snacks, and got the big guy a coffee when he wasn't looking. We bullshitted a few minutes before we each set off on our own paths again. His plow and salt was only several minutes ahead of him, so he hadn't lost any of his own good fortune.
Once I got out of the area around the exit itself, it looked like no tracks at all. Frozen tundra and squalling snow was all there was to see. Like I even need a weather report, but I gave it five minutes while chugging along. The red blob as Merry had called it, had grown more. It pushed the more arctic air back up, but this parked the edge of the blob over some of the great lakes. The monotonous voice described how the blob would "feed" on the moisture.
The lecture explained how the blob would under ordinary circumstances dump its moisture slow as it cooled off. That was to have been the already big snow dump. But now that it got to warm up cold moist air from the great lakes, we were to think of it as the sponge that was about to dry out, suddenly got a big source of water.
Lake effect snow, the voice claimed, was under more normal circumstances localized to the region around the water. Big thick heavy flakes. But like a gargantuan sponge, the warmed up moisture would wick directly all around the blob. This would now continue, with heavier thicker flakes. It would not stop, until the blob was no longer feeding on the lake moisture. The more it snowed, the smaller the blob would shrink.
Snowstorms in general are on the move, and they dump on you as they pass. The unique thing about this one, was the way it was trapped and hemmed in. Warm air with high moisture was coming up from the gulf, and doing its thing. But the way it was parked and getting access to recharge with more moisture, was aggravating the situation. The voice explained it really wasn't an abnormal amount of snow all things taken into consideration, it was that it was doing it all in one place.
This guy must be fun at parties, unless he turns into a charismatic dynamo as soon as he gets done broadcasting. Enough of that for now, though. I texted Szarabjorna. My phone beeped quick.
"Hi."
"I'm off the highway, little one. How you holding up."
"I try not to be a whiner. At least I'm indoors. Sort of, anyways."
"You said, like a lobby?"
"You know how you got those two big double glass doors?"
"Yeah."
"Well, then there's another set of double glass doors. It makes that little, room at the entrance. I'm in there. They have to lock the, inside door? They left the outside door unlocked. Not like there's anything to steal. What. Someone is going to try to make off with the doormat."
"You have heat?"
"Yeah. There's one of those little wall electric heaters. But the thermostat? Is locked. I wish I could turn this stupid thing up."
"Well, you at least get chairs, and magazines? Anything."
"Nope. I'm sitting on the floor, like a little kid."
I small talked with her some, but in the end of everything I have to keep moving. The sooner I get there, the sooner she'll be doing better. Its a band aid for me to say something to try to cheer her up at this moment in time. Arriving there, cures what ails her.
"Text with Merry and Junior, maybe."
"I can't plug my phone charger in anywhere."
"I guess you don't have a rechargeable brick."
"No. I don't."
"Remind me to give you one. I buy the empty cases, cheap online. I put my own lithium ion batteries in them. I can make one as big or as small as I want."
"Well, go on and get moving."
That initial flush of great luck, dwindled and dissipated then petered out. Off the highway portion of my trip, I'm on medium size roads now. One lane either direction, a dashed center line to pass if you feel its prudent. It only opens up to more lanes when you get to the next town or built up strip mall area. Then it goes back to the same two lanes. Smaller roads have little need to be carved and flattened like big highways are made. So I now get more hills and turns to deal with.
These towns and strip mall areas are plowing and salting, but everyone is ignoring the road from one to the next. The signs announce state maintained. A plow will run through whenever in the hell it happens, then don't hold your breath until the next flyby. I'm finally getting wrecks and abandoned vehicles here and there. I stopped and honked my horn at each one, just in case some poor asshole was trapped in there and wanted a ride to the next town or a restaurant or something. No one. The honk was just superfluous. With no steamed up windows, there was no one breathing inside.
No tow trucks, no flatbeds. I didn't think there was that kind of wind, but a tree was down. I scraped upper branches as I got a little run going, to aid me in getting through the side of the road snowdrift as I squeezed past to continue on. The wind was going down, and the thicker flakes were starting now. Mother nature must be a giant goose. She's shitting white all over me.
The deep tread, those glorious extra long spikes. The moderate clearance a pickup affords you. The weight that gives me firm footing. With almost no other vehicles, I always use the middle of the two lane road. With all that free space on either side, I have more distance to react to anything that happens. Its a sort of a game, to see what speed I can reliably maintain. I feel good up to about forty, but by forty-five I feel something mushy.
Forty it is, then. I finally had my progress impeded in the first substantial manner. Chugging down a hill and around a bend, I encountered a little pile up. With a hill down over one guardrail, and the other guardrail sporting a cliff there was no going around this. Someone must have wrecked even if it wasn't serious, but people freewheeling down the grade ran into it around this blind turn. This was a long enough time ago, that you couldn't even see the responding vehicles tracks and all the foot traffic you would expect from such a scene. They must have just extricated the people, what else can you do but wait until tow trucks start responding once again.
I backtracked and wormed my way along actual side roads, until I found my way back onto the road I needed to be on. More hills. Steeper grades. Tighter turns. Less road to work with. The slight higher elevation seemed to somehow trigger the snowdrifts to accumulate. Now and again I was obliged to stop, get out, and shovel some before I could get a run going and churn through. I felt the urge to stop and cook a nice steak, but the thought of Zar on a cold tile floor in an entryway as if she were nothing more than a well dressed homeless person gave me that twinge of guilt.
A fresh energy drink and opening up another pound of jerky gave me my compromise. I'd enjoy the steak more, once I could share one with Zar. Some people are more or less important in your life, there's no way around a sort of hierarchy. Szarabjorna comes in right next to my own girl, Merry.
There are certain moments in your life, that end up defining you afterwards. If you recognize such a moment with some clarity and focus, you have a chance to climb another step. Because life is like a staircase.
You start out at the bottom, we all do. Rich, poor, impoverished or spoiled. There we are. A squealing, drooling, smiling and crying... thing. We're born small, frail, weak and powerless. About all we can do is breathe on our own, if healthy. Its not about your start, no way. Its about where you finish up at the end of the journey. I want to die at perhaps age eighty if I can. I want to be higher up that staircase. Every step I wrangle myself up, is another chink in the armor to getting through and making it.
Some moments pass with no fanfare, yet others? Well, they define what comes after. As a toddler, what did I even know about love. Nothing much. Mom dotes on me, in between scolding me about this or that. Dad followed suit. Its a mantra... I love you. Older people are wiser though, and an older and wiser relative smiled and once explained it their way. Love, real love... that's when you can make yourself happy by only first making sure the other person is happy. They do that back, for you. And, its ten times better and more powerful than just each person makes themselves happy.
It was one of those moments. I took it in, contemplated it, and understood. That, was one of those steps up. There are many. The next time I ate at a friend's cook out? I was given leftover pork chops to take home. I was full, yet they insisted. There was too much. I took the little care package home, and gave my little family dog one.
That, was my introduction to real love. It wasn't in any way sexual. Its this slow shiver that radiates out from a central sort of warm feeling of goodness. I never forgot that moment. My mother and indeed my father, seemed inordinately pleased when I reported back what had gone on.
When very little, we were Catholic so I ended up in those weekend bible classes, once I crossed over from a Catholic grade school to regular education for the first couple of years. In a talking group led by the nun, we were asked if any of us had any experiences to share. I was half ecstatic to raise my hand. In general I had nothing to add or share or ask the group. Now I did. The nun listened, then evaluated what I related.
The nun nodded. To little kids, these older women draped in black robes and hoods sporting crosses are giants. Her first observation, the best thing was that I was stopping to analyze what I was doing, and why. Did this fit in with what I was taught about right from wrong, good from evil. Here, I was deciding to put something else above myself. I was doing for another. So I got a gold star for that, and we were all told that we were to do this with everyone and everything in our lives.
Awash in more of that warm little glow. I had done the right thing, I was a good person. I was even well on my way? To growing that and doing it on a bigger scale one day. And everyone else would be doing it too? How cool was that.
The warm glow didn't last long. The other children only smiled and nodded and agreed when the nun was leading our little discussion group. The nun left the little room for perhaps ten minutes, and the other children did what they always did. Dropped the nice and sweet act. I got made fun of for being a suck up, and it ended as always. Several other kids grabbing me, while others put their hands on me. Here, jabbed with sharp pencils.
This was a wonderful system, but... why didn't it work for me, in practice. At all. In fact, the better of a person I tried to be in all ways, the worse things turned out. This observation was consistent. It was as if everyone else only pretended to take in all these rules and guidelines. If I followed all the rules, I experienced heavy static. Like now, jabbed at with sharp number two little yellow spears.
I don't know why the world works the way it does. No one can know. My missing ingredient, was violence. Without it, the wonderful set of rules doesn't mean squat. Its obvious on its face. When that nun was leading that talk, everything was wonderful. She was the authority. I can tell you a magical secret about nuns from having attended Catholic grade school for first through third grade, and a few weeks into the beginning of fourth.
There are nuns that will smack the taste right out of your mouth, at the drop of a hat.
That's all that was missing in my child mind. I need to not just fight back, I needed to fight back and win. Just as any new endeavor doesn't go well? Fighting didn't go well at first. I had to work at it. I had to study it. I had to make it an ongoing hobby. I was a bookworm. There were four hundred page books on Samurai, Ninja, Buddhist monks. War movies and books. History, too. Napoleon and Genghis Khan, General Lee, the list goes on.
As a teenager, I was still an oddball. A shy quiet bookworm. Periods of explosive anger and violence every now and again, for a much needed relief valve. A skinny six foot one lean beanpole that would fill out slow over the years, a late bloomer at everything. What did I even like and desire.
The ideal of the renaissance man, infatuated me. I can't be Pascal, Beethoven, Michelangelo or Leonardo DaVinci... but then who even can. They're all some sort of a composite Christ figure. A few sparse fleeting moments in history produced men this capable and noble like baking tins of cookies for a Christmas party. For you to marvel at for all time. You can't equal these giants. You try, and that's the whole point.
The warrior figure called to me, as firm as the gravity of renaissance ideals. Not just a warrior, though. As a simple toddler, I was fascinated by tall muscular super heroic figures. Comic books, paperbacks, movies are overflowing with them. By my teenage years, I saw the differences. Size and strength were wonderful ingredients. Yet so were other things, great recipe additions in their own right. Intelligence. Cunning. Strategy. Dedication and perseverance. The ability to take anything, until the time to strike was at hand. Then how to best be able to make use of that moment. Competent ruthlessness.
Now just a warrior, the warrior poet.
So that's what I strode towards from a young age and never looked back. I wanted to be some sort of a self-styled half renaissance man, half warrior poet. I was born a weird if bright kid, just the hand of cards I got dealt. I took odd viewpoints in response to strange stimuli that I encountered. This all combined to lead me on a quite novel path, and to say it was unique would be an understatement.
Catherine the Great, was a legendary stoic. As an exercise, she would sometimes in winter let the fire go out. Now, this was an all powerful enlightened dictator. The undisputed leader. The example she chose to set, was that once in a while she wanted to put into practice that she could stand anything. She would sit there and endure the cold as best she could, while all the noble court around her begged for a fire.
The story I read, claimed she did it because there was some firewood problem on the other side of her large empire one bad winter. She was showing her idle rich court members, what the ordinary people were going through.
I'm sure the court missed the whole damn point, what a great statement she was making. Its what happens when pearls get cast before swine, I suppose. I took another piss by stopping in the middle of the deserted side road, and rearranged my drinks. Snow in a box in the bed of my pickup, is like a little refrigerator freezer compartment. I can put my soft drinks there before I open them.
The temperature is starting to drop again. My natural refrigerator is turning into a natural freezer by the hour. My main rule is to just keep moving. I chug along for a time, then take a short break. Switch out cooling for warming soft drinks in my box of snow. Each stop reminds me that there's a twinge of guilt if I take too much of a rest. Keeping on the move, assuages it.
I started out thinking this was going to be a pass or fail course. I get there and get her home, and then handle this other chore now as well. Maybe its a graded course after all. I get an A for timely pickup and return. A grade of B, if it takes me too long. What percentage of my grade comes from handling the favor on the way back. If I fail to find the guy that's indisposed in this mess outside, do I fail or just get the dreaded D minus.
Some music helps quiet this inner monologue I can't squelch because of the solitary nature of this work. Constant side roads and routing around obstacles started eating into my perceived midterm grade, when I arrive. Maybe I can get extra credit for being so well prepared with creature comforts. A nice warm pair of insulated coveralls if she needs it. Food, drinks... even a hot steak cooked slow.
Finally. Something resembling progress. I had to tramp up and down a sinew trail of hills and valleys. Throw a string up in the air. How it comes down? That's what this portion of the trip resembled. I crested a tall hill, though. A squirt of piss, a cold drink. My short stretch and I noticed it. With the leaves off the trees, the underbrush in hibernation... the hills were vanishing. Smaller rolling things now, not these hard to traverse cliffs.
Amen. I'm nearing my destination. I'll text that in.
"Mm. Hey. What, is that a picture of."
"I'm out of the hills, I'm pretty sure. I'll be back on a decent road, and I use that term loosely tonight, believe me."
"Why are you up in the hills? Sightseeing, huh."
"No, honey. Wrecked cars piled up. Abandoned vehicles. A tree down, some power lines. Pretty sure, I went around Hazelbaker's barn over just a cable line down? Not taking any chances. I'm looking to get there, maybe before first light."
"Hmm. What time is it, anyways."
"Close your eyes again, and maybe I'll be there."
"How long, you thinking."
"Now that the main road might allow me to get around things, when I have to? Maybe, an hour or a little more. I'm guessing. I hate to lie to you, though. I could run into anything, and it takes an extra hour. Mother Nature is on her period, honey."
"Sorry you drove all night, Panic."
"Its fine. Oh, hey. Zar?"
"Yeah."
"If you don't go back to sleep, and you get bored? You said there's a lock on the thermostat cover, in your entrance."
"There is."
"Got a paperclip?"
"I do."
"You can amuse yourself, by sticking the paper clip into the key hole, and... does it look something like a metal desk lock."
"Uh, kinda does, yeah."
"Run the paperclip down the inside of the lock. You should hear a series of tiny clicks. Try it. Count those little clicks."
"Right now?"
"Why not. Amuse me."
"Well? Hold on."
I heard rustling around.
"Click, click, click. Three of them."
"You ever see in the old movies, the detective is always opening all the locks?"
"I like old movies. Definitely."
"Imitate that. You wiggle the paper clip around, making clicks. You need something to give very slight pressure, to trying to turn the key. Like, a nail file. Because even if you accidentally get it unlocked? You'll never know without really light pressure, turning. It'll give you something to do, and I'm telling you? Anyone can do a desk lock. I could unlock every teacher's desk and filing cabinet, before I left high school."
"Okay. If I lose my patience? I'm afraid I'm going to try to knock it off."
"We're under emergency rules, little one. If you really need the heat? Go for it. Just don't get cut. Bet we can't get an ambulance in this mess."
"I'd say take your time, but really, I wish you... you know what I mean."
I sighed.
"Slow and steady? Wins this race, Zar. I'm gonna get moving."
"Bye."
I did end up back on what I considered the main road to this leg of the trip. I could indeed, go around things again. In a little over an hour, I was pretty sure that I was invading her zip code she resided in, if only for the moment. I've already went around orange cones and barrels and police tape, so going the wrong way down a one lane road didn't phase me in the slightest. No headlights, no tire tracks. Who cares.
Rather than text and call her, I decided it would be more fun to just appear in her doorway.