I had accumulated gambling debts that I had no way of repaying and when the debt-collector came to break my legs, I broke his neck. At least I think I broke it - I can't be too sure. I had knocked him down and I had knocked him out. I don't know how I managed it, but it was a desperate moment and I had no choice. I was a rat with its back to the wall, snarling its teeth in a fight to the end with a rabid fox and I came out alive. I didn't know if he survived the blows or not, but I wasn't planning on sticking around to find out if he had died. I got scared and I fled. I packed up my things and I took to the road.
Dylan had taught me that if you want to hide a tree, you should hide it in a forest where nobody would find it. Maybe I should hide in a casino. All the local croupiers knew my face and knew my name and ultimately would know I was on the lam from my creditors, so that wouldn't work. I'd spent my entire life running from one thing or another, so maybe the road was the place for me to be. I'd make sure I'd never be found.
I can't tell you how much time has passed or even where I've ended up. I might have even lost my mind. I've been on the road for so long now that they've all blurred into one. Like the way the lines in the middle of the road blur into one as you're driving. White line fever was driving me insane. It was punishing me for my sins. There was very little money left in my pocket and I had just blown the last of it on coffee, which was burnt and luke-warm. If I had a little more I could've bought myself a sandwich or a slice of cake or something, anything solid, and then maybe I'd feel satisfied right now. Oh well. Such is life on the road, life on the run. I need to get from A to B. A is no home for me now and I still have no idea where B is, but that's exactly where I'm heading and I'm going to get there someday.
Well, now I was outside and hungry, licking the film of stale coffee off my teeth and staring hopefully to the horizon at the end of the road with the casual breeze in the air pushing my hair around like an adolescent bully. My thumb was erect but directionless. If I got a lift I didn't care where it took me, it just needed to get me out of here. Wherever here actually was. I was now definitely in the middle of nowhere but at least it wasn't the middle of the night and dark. It was getting there though. It was that eerie period between sun-down and moonrise. There were no planets overhead and no stars keeping an eye on whatever shit we got up to down here. The roadside cafe's light was on. Purple, triangular and neon with a coffee cup in the middle. It was a horrid sight but it provided a good leaning post. Soon my lift would come. My stomach growled.
Leaning against my post with the thumb out, waiting, waiting, my mind started to drift into the depths and shallows and through the ripples and waves of my ever flowing stream of imagination as it meandered to the abyss of the ocean. If I were a cowboy I wouldn't need to be here; I could climb on top of a horse and just ride into the Sun. If only. All the horses were gone and couldn't be ridden. There are now too many dogs to feed and broken vases to be glued. I could hitch a ride in a car, with a family inside and they'd welcome me in to join them on their trip to the nearest aquarium they could find, or they could spray my face with the dust and debris that their car wheels spat out as they passed by. Another embryo would take its place on the horizon and eventually grow up to become a vehicle. A truck. A truck would do, with its mysterious bounty of treasure for its cargo as the family car disappears forever with the cowboy and the horses. I wave the truck down and I'm allowed on board.
The driver was large and breathing heavily. He wore a dirty, green trucker's cap and a droopy moustache, which provided shelter for the heavily chewed toothpick hanging from his mouth. The cab smelled of stale sweat and the leather seats were cracked, with patches of duct-tape holding in their stuffing and keeping them alive. He had a strangely sinister looking Jesus statue hanging from his rear-view mirror by its ankle.
As I settled in my seat in the cab, I heard the door lock behind me. The trucker looked into my face with his lonely, longing eyes and whispered "Yo' mighty purty."
"Shit."
He reached for my thigh and squeezed tight and I knew from now on I'd be running on adrenaline and instinct. I thrust my forearm upwards into the flat of his chin and pulled my leg free of his grip. Seeing him reach for the handle of the gun beneath his chair, I pulled the knife concealed in my boot and thrust it thrice into his side. Steel on bone, steel on bone, steel in flesh. Bingo. It slid right between the ribs. The blade pierced meat, flesh and organs. He screamed like a sinful dog fleeing Hell with its tail set on fire by Satan's breath. I raised my free hand high and brought it down as hard as I could on his temple to silence the wails. I pounded his skull repeatedly and his head flopped back and forth on the hinge of his neck like a fish on shore fighting for life whilst the fisherman takes his proud photographs. Near his ribcage, the blood stain had formed and was growing rapidly, turning his chequered shirt a dirty mauve. It didn't take long at all before his eyes glazed over and he was gone. This time I was certain.
Not again. I had to think. I couldn't leave him here in the truck and get out, back in front of the roadside cafe and hitch another ride. Someone would notice. I'd get clocked. I was already on the run and couldn't hang around. I'd have to move him somehow and drive the truck out of here myself. If only I knew how. There had to be a way. Run or drive. I could do neither.
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