Making Friends

Rupert had to drive across country in a U-Haul van with his car strapped to the back of it, rolling along behind. He didn’t really have any help in the process. He had about a 20 hour drive ahead of him and he didn’t think he was possibly going to be able to make it. Especially with the crappy little, no CD Player, radio that came in the van.

It was about 3 AM somewhere past Memphis and he saw a roadside weigh station and he knew they had really big parking lots in them. He thought he could get a nap if he opened up his car and lied down in it for a while. The trouble was that it was really, really hot and humid. He wouldn’t have any air conditioning. He thought he might still be okay though.

So he pulled in and got into his car. He also couldn’t really stretch out. His car was not a very big one. That sucked, too. He lay back and thought about how scary it was to pass cars when he was driving something so very, very much larger than he was used to. With his precious little car swinging along behind. He was never sure he had passed them enough before swinging back into the right lane. If he didn’t go far enough, he could slap some stranger’s car with his own, swinging behind.

He thought about the way he could feel beads of sweat growing on his forehead. He tried to ignore them. Tried to suppress the desire to wipe them away so he could just sleep. He thought about what it meant to sleep deeply. What did the depth mean? Did you sink down into yourself? What was the self?

He was pretty shallow if sleep meant sinking. As tired as he felt, no hint of sleep.

He tried crossing his arms on his stomach. On his chest. If he left them at his sides they would fall off the edge of the seat and that felt wrong for sleeping. He worried about sleeping.

Later, he would not really be able to remember whether or not it felt like he was about to drift off to sleep when it happened, but he heard this tapping on the glass. He opened his eyes up and expected to see someone staffing the weigh station looking at him. It was not someone from the weigh station. It was someone else. The tapping against the glass was the butt of a gun. He tapped on the driver side even though Rupert was trying to sleep on the passenger side. The man looked like some sort of deranged hiker/Australian adventurer. He had a gnarly beard, a tooth missing and deep set eyes that opened wide and wild. His mouth had a constant, weird smile. His clothes looked dirty as hell.

He had a friendly look, except for the gun. He wanted Rupert to open up the driver side. He was scared but he did it.

The man got into the car and sat beside him. He left the gun on his lap, but on the side furthest from Rupert. No chance of randomly grabbing it. The man smelled like a very damp Autumn.

“Howdy!” the man said.

“Hey,” said Rupert, meekly.

“Just catching some sleep I guess.”

“Trying to.”

“Can’t sleep here you know? They won’t let you.”

“Oh.”

“Can’t sleep a lot of places,” the man said world wearily, “can’t sleep almost anywhere you don’t pay for it.”

“No?”

“Nope. S’Bullshit. Some ground. Shouldn’t be a big deal.”

Rupert just looked at him.

“Trying to walk across this whole country without using any roads, you know? S’a bitch, I tell you. S’a fucking bitch and a fucking half.”

“That so?”

“Ain’t no wild land to live off. Ain’t nothing but fences, I tell you. Ain’t no place anyone’ll let you just lay down and have a sleep. I slept a few hours ago but i feel like I ain’t slept since Clinton was President, you know?”

“Are you here to rob me?” Rupert asked, only because he felt so exhausted and scared that he wanted to get it over with if that was it.

The man looked at his reflection in the windshield and said, “I am looking a little rough, ain’t I? Ain’t got that stock broker look to me. What do you do?”

“Risk assessment. Insurance. That stuff.”

“Sure, sure.”

“So are you?”

“You got a lot of stuff. Where you moving to?”

“Phoenix.”

“That’s where Tyson lives.”

“Guess so.”

“Ya gonna fight ‘im.”

“No.”

“Ya oughtta fight him. Ain’tcha got no fight?”

“Not really.”

“No?”

“No.”

The wild man didn’t look like he liked that.

“You need all this shit? I don’t know what it is but that’s a big ole truck there, no shit.”

“I expect to put a lot of it in storage. I just… no time to deal with it.” Rupert had been worrying about just that when the guy came. He wanted to unload a bunch of it but he couldn’t afford to throw it away. Some of the stuff he didn’t want would be worth something. He didn’t know how to use Ebay.

“Man, I hate people who need a lot of shit. I don’t want you to live like that, man? We’re friends, you know? No fences, buddy. Quit carrying your fences around with you. Gimme the keys to your car.”

“Are you stealing my car?”

“Just gimme the keys a minute.”

Rupert handed them to him. The man got out, unlatched the car from the cart that was pulling it. Took off everything securing it. Then he opened the door back up.

“Get in the driver seat, buddy.” The crazy man said.

Rupert got out, walked around with his hands up, and got in the driver seat. Once he sat down and had his hands on the wheel, the man shot Rupert through the thigh. It felt like someone had pushed a hot pole through his leg, but it didnt’ feel like he’d hit the bone. He bullet didn’t go quite through. It stopped short of making it out the other side. Rupert would feel the far side of his leg and he would feel the shot there, pushing at the edge of his skin, not quite enough to go all the way through the heavy meat of his upper leg. Blood burst out of his leg with the shot and Rupert thought he also felt the shot in his gut, but that was his mind. Just his mind.

“Hospital’s a good four miles back the way you came. They’ll patch ya up. You’ll use it again, fine, but it’ll leave a nasty scar. I bet you’ll touch that scar all the time. Where khaki shorts out in the burbs and tell people about the crazy man who wouldn’t let you sleep. Yeah. It’ll be great for you. Anyway, that scar’s my little present, you sonuvabitch. Quit living like such a goddam pansy. Insurance! Christ. Have fun on the anaesthetic, ya pussy. Have yourself a little nap with the doctors. They’ll let you sleep there, but you’ll pay for it out the nose.”

The crazy man looked around at the moon and the woods behind the lot, “Ain’t it always that way anymore?”