Just a Couple of Days (10 page)

“Blip, where are we going?”

“The freeway.”

“We're already on the freeway.”

“Yes, the freeway is a big place, one of the closest conceptions of eternity we have, don't you think?” He flashed a vast grin at me as we passed the accident scene that was the source of the backup. “Don't look!” he commanded, grabbing my knee to pull my attention away. “That's the whole problem, don't you see? All it takes is one coward afraid of his own mortality to throw everyone off balance. You have to live in the now.”

Just past the accident, traffic loosened and quickened almost immediately, and Blip responded by veering into the left lane and opening up the engine all the way. Within seconds, the speedometer was pushing past eighty miles per hour.

“Going a little fast, aren't you?”

“Yes,” he agreed, yelling over the increasing wind and engine noise. “Of course, the stars offer a better example of eternity, but we don't see too much of them anymore, what with city lights and TV and all.”

“Blip! Slow down!” The needle looked peculiar so far to the right on the speedometer.

“What would you rather do, spend eternity gazing at the stars or driving on the freeway?”

I bellowed a scream as we flew past a semi, the drag of the eighteen-wheeler making our car feel airborne.

“All right, all right.” He removed his foot from the accelerator and friction quickly brought us back below 100. “Take it easy. You don't have to scream, for God's sake. I'll set the cruise control. Imagine being a truck driver though.
That's
an eternity on the freeway.” He locked the speed at 90, which felt slow compared to the 110 we'd been doing only moments before.

“What's going on, Blip?”

“Relax. Haven't you always wanted to go this fast?”

“Just slow it down to eighty, how about that?”

“Where are all the cops when you need 'em, eh?”

“What?”

“You may as well get comfortable, because I'm not stopping until I see some sirens.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Prison, Flake.” He looked at me, his expression humorless. “One way or another I'm getting back in there.”

I did not think to mention again that it was actually a jail.

 

34
The paranoid, hyperaware, self-conscious reaction that typically accompanies the presence of a police cruiser on the highway was noticeably absent as we sighted one ahead. “Ah! There's one!” Blip shouted and immediately floored the accelerator.
Soon we were doing well over 100 again. I glimpsed the officer's startled face as we roared past and must confess a feeling of roguish delight. I chuckled involuntarily, and Blip looked at me in fraternal approval.

I often lived vicariously through Blip's antics. Regardless of anything else, I had begun to enjoy myself, gliding with the glow, as it were. I felt like a couple of ex-cons on the lam. “Fuckin' cops,” Blip muttered facetiously as the siren wailed behind us. He reduced his speed as the officer gave chase. By the time we were doing fifty we were moving intolerably slowly.

“What do you want me to tell Sophia?” I asked, sighing in resignation. Blip was silent again as he pulled onto the berm.

“Well,” he began, after we had come to a stop. “Tell her I said to remember the hounds of hell, and how everything turned out all right in the end. Tell her I promise that everything will turn out all right, and that I know what I'm doing.”

“The hounds of hell?”

“She'll know what I mean. And don't try to get me released again, at least for a few days.”

“What are you doing anyway?”

“I'm being a conscious tool of the universe, of course.”

“Because some delinquent had the gumption to reply to you on the bridge?”

“You've never understood such things, Flake.” He sniffed at the air. “Do you smell that?”

I sniffed. “I smell nothing.”

“It's change.” He inhaled deeply, elaborating with his right hand. “You can definitely smell it. Change is in the wind, my friend, like the fart of a flower child.”

“What?”

He waved me off. “Never mind.”

“What about your car?”

“Who cares? Do what you want with this heap. I think I blew the engine.” Blip looked behind him and saw the police officer approaching. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet. “But I'll bet you a twenty I can talk my way out of this.”

 

35
Blip rolled down his window and smiled pleasantly at the officer, whose nametag read
APPLEBEE
. “Good afternoon,” he said as he extended his license and registration toward her.

“Can I see your license and registration please?”

“It's right here.” He gestured his hand toward her again.

“Oh.” She was taken off guard by Blip's preparedness.

“You're welcome,” Blip replied cordially, without being prompted by rote gratitude. “The reason I was going so fast,” he continued, again not giving her a chance to ask, “is that I've recently been fired from my job. I have an interview for another job, and I didn't want to be late.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Officer Applebee held up a yellow card he had handed her along with his papers. “What's this?”

“It's a Get Out of Jail Free Card,” Blip grinned and explained the obvious. “You know, from Monopoly. Community Chest.” He succeeded in amusing her.

“Well, you're not going to jail, but speed limits are for safety, and you were
way
over the speed limit.”

“How fast was I going?”

“My radar wasn't on when you passed me, but I was going seventy, and you flew by me out of nowhere. Given that, I'm estimating at least eighty-five.”

“I'm real sorry, Officer, it's just that I heard Warden Hoosegow is a real stickler about punctuality.”

“You have an interview with Hoosegow?” she asked with sudden camaraderie.

“Yeah. I lost my job at the university. I did some homework, and it turns out corrections is a growth industry. We already imprison more of our citizens per capita than any other country in the world, and that's going to double in the next decade. So, there's high demand and job security, not to mention a decent salary, and they kick in for dental.”

“What're you going to do there?”

“Consulting criminologist. Mostly it entails maintaining the internal structural organization of the facility. They want the successful applicant to maximize the number of prisoners they can hold while minimizing the possibility of any disturbances.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Yeah, it is. And if I get the job, I'll get a hefty commission for each additional prisoner I can add, since they get a tax credit for each head.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Blip nodded affably and let the conversation pause. “So, do you think we can wrap this up quickly? I'd hate to lose this opportunity.”

“Oh,” she smiled, handing him back his license and registration but keeping the Get Out of Jail Free Card. “I'll tell you what, let me give you an escort there. If you get the job, put in a good word for me. I could use some part-time work.”

“Great, I will. What's your first name?”

“Anne. Anne Applebee. Just follow me, okay?”

“Thanks, Anne.” After she left to go back to her cruiser, Blip turned to me with his palm out.

“I don't understand,” I said, slapping a twenty in his hand. “I thought you wanted to go back to jail.”

Blip pocketed the money, smiling. “I do.” At that, he got out of the car. “Hey Anne!” he hollered to Officer Applebee, who had not yet gotten back to her cruiser. “Everything I just told you was a ranking pile of birdshit, and it's just like a moron pig cop like yourself to fall for it!”

 

36
Blip was arrested. According to Officer Applebee, the charge was reckless driving and verbal assault on a police officer. She instructed me to “take your wiseass friend's car the hell off my road before I have it impounded.” I obeyed smirkingly, and after parking his car back in the campus lot (not under the sycamore) and cleaning the droppings off his hood, I finally arrived home as dusk was just beginning to stretch its shadows before fading off to sleep. I poked around my kitchen for a while, postponing the inevitable call to Sophia. It wasn't long, however, before she rang me.

She was scared and angry, wistful and distraught. She cried on the other end of the line, and the most I could do to comfort her was swing the phone cord from side to side and echo Blip's words, “Everything will turn out all right.” I told her that he had mentioned something about “the hounds of hell,” and that elicited a chuckle. She must have sensed my curiosity, and she related the story behind it. I was grateful. It gave me goose bumps.

On the first anniversary of the day they met, Blip surprised Sophia by taking her to a luxury cabin for the weekend. On the
way there, they picked up a hitchhiker who, after learning that it was their anniversary, presented them with a bag of magic mushrooms as they dropped him off. Thrilled, they thanked him and went to explore a nearby gorge, where they consumed their gift. They decided to leave, however, when they saw a father smack his son for jumping into the creek with his shoes on.

By the time they returned to their car, the effects of the mushrooms were beginning to manifest, and they thought they'd better hurry to their cabin while they could still drive. Along the way, however, the two of them were so awestruck by a grassy hillside that they pulled over and decided to run to the top of it.

As it happened, a nearby resident was in the habit of leaving his Doberman unleashed. When they were a good distance away from their car, barefoot and defenseless, the dog came trotting along beside them. It did nothing as long as they kept moving away from his territory, and their car, but as soon as they would stop or try to make their way back, it would bare its teeth and growl. Tripping madly by this time, they wound up having to go to a stranger's house and ask with trembling voices if the alcoholic woman who answered the door could please call her neighbor and have him bring his guard dog in. After this ordeal of the surreal, Blip and Sophia made straight for their luxury cabin to try and salvage what was left of their trip, their anniversary, and their sanity. Blip kept repeating, “Fucking Dobermans and 'shrooms do
not
mix, fucking Dobermans and 'shrooms do
not
mix,” until they got to their country cabin, where the couch pillows were embroidered with a picture of a big black dog on a grassy hillside.

After turning over all the pillows and leaving speculation about such a formidable coincidence until later, they discovered
that they had their own grassy hillside. It was even better than the one they had seen earlier, there was no Doberman guarding it, and they'd paid for their right to be there undisturbed. So that's where they stayed all day, running around the gentle slope, marveling at the dandelions that had been flung about the entire hill, finding cherubic shapes in the clouds, and making love under the dome of the sky. Toward evening they watched the sun set and the stars come on from their hilltop perch, then retreated back to the cabin with its full kitchen and a hot tub on the porch. Sophia described it as the best day of their lives, when no matter what tumultuous events were going on in the world or just down the road, they were alive and at peace. They decided that day that if they ever had a little girl, they would name her Dandelion.

“And do you know what he said to me just before I went to sleep that night?” Sophia said, her voice filled with affection at the close of the story. “He said, ‘At the gates of heaven lie the hounds of hell.'”

 

37
It was an appropriate anniversary of their auspicious beginning, and it was the beginning, their first moment of pure and innocent delight in each other, that they forever strove to keep in their hearts. This was apparent to any visitor to their home. A tattered placard from which their union commenced was elegantly framed and hung in their front room, and they relished any opportunity to tell and retell the story of their meeting.

Of what am I speaking? Pardon my verse, but I speak now with honor of tale well-worn, a love story born, a mythic event
that came to pass at a festival of forgotten origin. It was outside, that is certain, for Blip tells of an irritating glare blinding him as he ambled, flashes of refracted sunshine glancing at him from ahead. The source was a sign, a shiny white poster held by a joyous young sylph. She was dancing and prancing and sparkling all over, a woman whose legs were purportedly hidden by a gauzy sarong of mandalas and rainbows. But all is revealed in the pure light of day, and so were her limbs seen barefoot and blissful, skipping and stepping, tapping and hopping, foxing and trotting.

She presented her sign to all passersby. Some people frowned and hurried away, but most of them smiled and embraced her with glee. His attention thus distracted, his libido so attracted, he wandered to where he might read the inscription on the poster she picketed with such glad-hearted pith. His mind and his body conspired to drench him with curiosity both sensual and intellectual, pushing him, prodding him, shoving him toward the zing-zippety zaftig. As he approached the proscenium of her performance, her placard pitched left, ducking the sun and revealing its message to the kind, sexy man strolling her way:
FREE HUGS
!

The connection made, the communication given, the poster bounced on its corners like a card on the run, flirting and bidding him beckon her call. The letters held fast, together they carried the words of their hostess, two words that she uttered and breathed into life: “Free hugs!” Sophia gushed with the lilt of honest joy, and meant them as much for Blip as for anyone else.

He smiled at the sign, and the fingers that held it, and looked up to see the eyes that propelled it. Their eyes locked tight and squinted with grins, swollen pupils stretched forward to soak up more sight. It was but a moment, an invisible instant,
no simpering stares or protracted eye goggles, only a glimpse and a blink with recognition complete. He glanced toward her sign and smirked to himself, the smirk of a fool, blind to the inevitable but brave nonetheless. “Who,” he scratched his head like a gorilla, then asked her the question that leaped from his mouth. “Who is Hugs?”