Next Stop, Halcyon

For a moment I stand frozen as I witness a soul deep agony that was at once mysterious yet universally familiar stir in the woman’s dark fathomless eyes. Not a sob left her lips, no wail split the silence, she just lay there staring into infinity as the tears flowed freely. The emotions I had stumbled upon here burbled up from her very core, a pain so private I had little doubt I was the first to see it expressed so openly. I had no business getting involved in this moment, but what choice did I have? Walking away was not an option. Her face, already one of the prettiest I’d laid eyes on, in this moment of unguarded anguish was the most tragically beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. The reality, the humanity, the purity of the moment took my breath away.

Taking a deep breath I clear my throat and say once more, this time more gently. “Hey. Um, you okay?”

At last my voice is able to pierce the cocoon of symphonic noise she had swaddled herself in to keep out the world. With a startled gasp her head snaps my way and her almond shaped eyes flare wide. Sitting up in a panic she gives a frantic wipe to each eye then pulls a pair of black-rimmed cat eye glasses from her sleeve and slips them on, causing her already large eyes to grow. Turning off the music and letting the headphones drop from her head she scrambles to her feet and faces me. As the hot wind rustles the skirt of her long dress she stares at me, a dozen emotions playing out across her features until…it suddenly goes blank. Like a cold, porcelain mask being pulled down over her face all the vulnerability I’d seen just moment ago was gone. Though her expression was blank a dark blush rises in her cheeks from the humiliation of a stranger witnessing her lowest moment. The woman suddenly spins around to face away from me, her small hands balled into fists at her sides.

Nervously I glance down the tracks ahead and behind then peer down over the edge to the long drop below. I focus back on her and say in a soft voice. “Listen. I don’t know what you’re going through, but…”

Her body tenses and she spins back around to face me again. Her shame turned to rage, though still mostly concealed behind her mask, she seethes through clenched teeth. “No. You don’t know anything at all. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” She glances off toward the road to note my car parked across from hers, her eyes darting away from me just for an instant before snapping back to me. “Do you always follow lone women out into areas where nobody can hear them scream?”

“Nobody will…what!? Hey now, it’s not like that! My car is running out…”

Kneeling down she punches a hand into her backpack, rummages around a moment then pulls out… a fucking hand cannon! The gleaming steel artifact with the pearl handle looked like it come straight off the hip of Wyatt Earp and I might have burst out laughing at the sheer surreal randomness of its appearance had the situation been different. Holding the heavy pistol disturbingly steady in both hands with both thumbs resting on the hammer she centers the barrel straight at my chest!

“WOAH!” I throw my hands up and stagger back a step, my foot finding nothing but air between the ties I end up falling back and landing hard on my ass. “Woah, woah, woah! Take it easy!”

“If you think you found some easy victim to…”

“No! No, no, no.” I scramble to my feet again, hands in front of me in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not like that! It wasn’t like that!”

“Oh?” She says. “What was it like? You here to rob me…or something else?”

“Neither! Could you please just put the gun down?”

“No.”

With a huff of fear and frustration I explain myself. “I was driving. My tank is on empty. I don’t think I’m going to make it to that town back there.” I thumb over my shoulder toward the distant Halcyon. “Yours was the first car I came across. I was just going to ask if I could get a ride into town or if I might siphon a bit of fuel to let me get there on my own.” I hold her eye contact and remain as calm as I can. This wasn’t the first time I’d found myself staring down the barrel of a gun but it was the first time the weapon was held by somebody who looked like they had nothing to lose. My voice softening again I continue. “I saw the path. I followed it. I saw you out here and I was scared for you. That’s all that happened.”

With that same unnerving false calm she studies me for a long moment, mulling over my words and appearance, before slowly lowering the antique pistol. Still wary of me but determined to ignore me she kneels and stuffs the gun back into her pack along with her headphones.

Letting out a great sigh of relief I bring my hands down. With the tension easing I flash her my most dashing grin and say in a more upbeat tone. “I think we got off on the wrong foot there.”

She gives me a look as if to say ‘ya think?’ but keeps her words to herself. Her narrowing eyes told me that my grin was not appreciated. Completely immune to the rakish charms that I so often relied on she focuses on the tie ahead of her.

“Erm, yeah.” I say. A long awkward moment passes, neither of us quite sure on what to say next. Given what I’d just seen something needed to be said. “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on with you but…”

“You’re not riding in my car.” She cuts me off. Standing up she shoulders her back and motions me to begin walking back the way I came. Relieved she was getting away from this perilous place I nod and begin to walk without protest. Keeping a ten foot span between us the woman follows. She says. “You said you could siphon a little gas from my car?”

“Yeah. I got a hose and gas can in my car.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve run out of gas.” She observes correctly, stepping slowly and cautiously from tie to tie. She would step with her left foot to the next tie, bring her right foot beside it, then pause a moment to ensure she was fully planted before taking the next step. The whole process forces me to slow my gait to keep within conversation range. “You’re accustomed to relying on the kindness of strangers. Or do you just take the gas when they’re not looking?”

I stop and turn back to her. “Now hold on a second. I could have drained your tank dry down there and I didn’t. I’m no thief.”

“Or you were worried about a witness.” Before I could protest she says. “One gallon. Ten dollars.”

“Ten bucks!?” I exclaim. “Ten bucks a gallon!?”

“Take it or leave it.”

I sigh and rub my face in frustration. This woman was insufferable! “Listen, I’m not exactly flush right now.”

“So you’re asking for charity?”

“No!” I huff, already picturing my gas station feast shrinking by the second. I could still hike to town and probably be okay time wise but I didn’t want to take any chances. There were more important things than my belly to think of. “Seven. Literally highway robbery, but I’ll give you seven and not a penny more.”

After a long pause she nods. “Deal.”

Shaking my head I begin to move again. Glancing back at her labored steps I say. “Is that as fast as you can go? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt!” She snaps back as she takes another careful step. “I’m afraid of heights. This is as fast as it gets.”

“You’re afraid of heights?” I say, incredulous. “Then what were you doing…?” I stop before the question could be asked, realizing the answer was one neither of us wanted to deal with. Stepping back toward her I offer her my hand to aid her but she waves me off.

“You stay over there.” She says, voice tense from the fear she tried so hard to hide behind her mask. “I don’t need your help.”

“Fine.” I say. Remembering that look of pain on her face just a few minutes ago my tone eases once more. “My name is Dusty, by the way. I was just passing through your…” I look around at the endless expanse of nothingness. “…beautiful part of the country.”

“Dusty?” She scoffs, doing her level best to try to ignore the drop beneath her. “What kind of name is that?”

“Man of the hour, too sweet to be sour.” I say with a humorous lisp. “Funky like a monkey?” She stares at me blankly. “My dad was a…”

“I retract the question.” She butts in. Step by step we gradually make it back to solid land, much to both of our relief. In silence we make our way down the embankment and begin to walk back along the trail toward the road, the grass catching on her long skirt as she goes. Then, out of nowhere, she says in a voice barely more than a whisper. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

I stop and turn around. “What?”

She bristles, another dark flush coloring her cheeks, the says again with more annoyance. “What you thought you saw back there.” Her voice drops, something approaching vulnerability creeping in. “I know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t that. I’ve lived here all my life. I know the train schedules by heart.” Her eyes flash and her voice sharpens once more. “I’m not some damsel in her high tower waiting for a white knight.”

I give her a slow nod, weighing up exactly how to respond to that, then quip. “I got that. Damsel’s don’t often carry pocket howitzers in their backpacks. That old relic even work?”

She rolls her eyes and motions me to push on. “Let’s get this over with.” A flash of annoyance peeks through as I don’t immediately start walking again. She tries to hold my gaze but quickly looks away, beginning to squirm as her cheeks continue to darken. Perhaps it the situation, or maybe it spoke to an inherent shyness, but this was a woman that basic niceties and easy back and forth communication did not come easily too. After a few seconds she finally says. “What? Why aren’t we moving?”

“Aren’t you hot in all that?” I ask, genuinely perplexed at how she could wear so many layers and not even be breaking a sweat. Being away from the bridge and standing closer now I could take a moment to really get a look at her. She was definitely of East Asian ancestry and stood a good eight or ten inches below my own six foot one. Though it was hard to tell under her 40’s or 50’s style dress, the old knitted 70’s style sweater over top that and 80’s inspired striped leotards I could just see peek out between her leather boots and the hem of her dress enough of her shape came through to tell me that she was thick and voluptuous. Her long black hair lay loose around her shoulders but I could see bends in her shiny locks that suggested she’d had her hair up recently.

“Aren’t you tired of being nosy?” She retorts as she crosses her arms, closing herself from my gaze even more.

“Just trying to make conversation.” I say, turning and continuing toward the highway. The rest of the walk consists of awkward silence.

Her glasses glint, the lowering sun coming through her lenses from over her shoulder as she stands closely watching me draw the gas from her tank. Her mask at last cracks into a contortion of disgust as spit a bit of gasoline from my mouth onto the hot asphalt. I put the hose into my gas can and watch it slowly fill. I spit again then take a swig of water I had ready.

“Only one gallon.” She reminds me.

“I know, I know.” I pinch the hose off the moment the level touches the gallon mark. I ensure I get ever drop coming to me then tilt the hose back up to drain the remaining back into her tank. I close up her gas cap, shut the hatch, then even give the paint a little polish with the rag I had. “Easy.”

Without a word she puts out her hand. With a sigh I produce my wallet and count out my seven one dollar bills. I glance into it. Thirty bucks left to my name. I’d run low before but never quite this dry. Pocketing my wallet I pick up my gas can and look down at the woman.

“Pleasure doing business with you. Hey, I never got your name.” I say, again wielding the easy charm that usually opened doors for me.

Hers slams shut. “I never gave it.”

“Right.” I sigh. Glancing back toward the trestle bridge an image of her laying there, suffering and alone, flashes through my mind. “Hey, I know we got off to a rocky start and none of this is any of my business…but if you needed an ear to listen…well, I know what it’s like. Maybe not specifically, but I’ve had some…moments. When it feels like nobody in the world could possibly understand. Times when I thought it would be easier to stop fighting. Whatever is bothering you, you don’t have to carry it alone. Sometimes talking to someone not involved helps.”

Her eyes narrow, whether out of suspicion or surprise I could not tell, before her face goes blank once more. “I don’t need your help, Dusty. I don’t need anybody’s help. Especially not some nosy Southern drifter. You don’t know me. You don’t want to know me. I do not like you, Dusty. I do not like one single thing about you.” With that she pockets my money, turns away from me and gets into her car.

The door slams and the old VW sputters to life. A moment later I am watching the tangerine orange Beetle speed away from me through the dust it had left in its wake. Reflecting on everything that had just happened I stand a moment, gas can in hand, and watch the car climb the other side of the valley. What a bitch! Normally I would have filed that experience into the rest of the wild happenings one came across when living on the road but something about her…stuck. Despite her rudeness I only felt sympathy for the mysterious woman. I hoped she was going to be okay.

I let out a humorless laugh and shake my head as I turn to cross the highway, quipping under my breath. “Nice to meet you too.” Pouring the scant gallon of gas into my tank I pat my old family SUV and mutter. “Next stop, Halcyon.”