a coyote should care

Here’s one way to live forever.

He works long hours, now, keeps to his route, doesn’t even listen to music on the radio – the stations change too often and the sounds of the road are enough, the slick and clatter of windshield wipers or the whistle of some undiagnosed mechanical trouble he’ll have to get looked at one of these days, but not until he’s had a chance to clean up his cab, give it a real once-over for stubborn stains. He’s young, and the job hasn’t taken a toll on his body yet – he must not look like people expect, when the door to the truck’s cab swings open and there’s a young man inside with soft eyes and a worn denim jacket that’s too big at the cuffs, too broad in the shoulders. Jim knows this because people tell him so – sometimes boys, sometimes girls. They say you’re not how I thought you’d be, or I thought you guys were scary, and Jim always says, it’s the guys in cars you’ve got to look out for. They’ll drop you off on the wrong road, or they’ll feel you up, or worse. Nobody’s expecting them anywhere. Nobody’s watching for them. Nobody’s listening. From time to time there’s a crackle on the battered old RoadKing, somebody asking about speed traps or cheap gas, somebody’s got some beaver who needs a ride to grandma’s funeral. Every girl on the road is a beaver; every cop is either a bear or a pig. Everybody’s going to a funeral or a concert or some other worthy cause, hoping they’ll get there, and sometimes they do. Men, women, boys, girls. How badly do they want to get where they’re going? How badly do they want to live?

Somebody’s lonely, somebody’s looking for company. Everybody’s lonely on the road. Everyone is looking for company. Sometimes they get it. Jim sticks to the speed limit, and he’s always, always on time. And then one day on the side of the road there’s a man with his collar turned up against the rain and his thumb out – Jim’s headlights illuminate the hard planes of his face all at once, the stark familiarity of it in the rainy roadside blackness. It’s not West Texas, it’s somewhere high up on the Washington border where nobody ever goes, but Jim knows that face. That’s the face that got him started.

He looks smaller from this angle, spattered with reflections from a thousand mirrors, but not a day older – fierce with animal handsomeness, bleached white as bone. Jim slows, and wheels his rig back a few feet at the light – the man is standing in a muddy trench, with dark water swirling around his feet, but Jim’d wager there’s more than water darkening the cuffs of his jeans, the temple-corner of his pale blond hair. All these years, all these miles, all the blood spilled between them. His heart is hammering high in his chest, one of those old stress reactions that the doctors say you can’t help, the kind of thing he hasn’t had in years – but it’s not fear that makes his heart sing out. It’s not that.

Jim opens up the passenger-side door, and welcomes him in like an old friend.