Five Miles from Home

Five Miles from Home

By Shawn Kessler

Copyright 2014

I’d seen plenty of pictures of Tim. Usually he appeared as an unwitting bystander in the background: slightly out of focus, leaning over the exposed engine of a car or playing with his daughter, oblivious to his wife posing with her face close to the camera, showing a little cleavage or a lot of leg depending on the angle. These sorts of pictures filtered into my email account, a treatise on the modern broken home. One hundred years from now I can imagine them excavated from my old hard drive and hung in a museum; modern intellectuals will argue about whether life imitated art or vice versa when the Internet first made this sort of thing easy; they’ll laugh about it, comment on how the people in the pictures are so old fashion, and then they’ll go home, lay in bed, and wonder who their sleeping spouses dream about.

But now, in the present, standing next to Tim, I realize I never appreciated his size. She had told me he was a firefighter and her pictures always made it clear he was no slouch, but the photographs didn't do justice to his broad chest and muscular arms, or the six inches in height he had over me. Or, perhaps had I paid more attention to him and less to her sleek thighs and pursed lips, I might have noticed what was obviously standing beside me now: a powerful man, something pulled straight from the dreams of women and romance novels. When I go home I might again open the pictures and make him the focus of my attention, was all the evidence really there, just behind her lips, thighs and legs?

One thing's for sure, I’m glad he doesn't know who I am. As far as he’s concerned I’m just another guest at a mutual friend’s party; a casual acquaintance of his wife’s. We shake hands and exchange hellos, he is cordial but his muscles have a way of making me uncomfortable, my suit feels suddenly tight and ill-fitting. Fortunately, we three don’t linger together long. I haven’t seen nor heard from her in months; if there is any awkwardness it is between her and I, but it would go unnoticed except to the trained eye--just the awkward meeting between a small diminutive man and a beauty, as all encounters must be between such an unlikely pairing; one side looking up while the other can only look down. He shakes my hand again and squeezes my shoulder before we depart for opposite sides of the room.

I stay near the wall to watch him roam about the crowd. He isn't anything like I’d imagined. He is at ease with everyone. A smile is always quick to his lips upon meeting a new person. He laughs eagerly, holds his wife with an arm around her waist and pecks her cheek with his lips frequently. My eyes aren't the only ones studying him; most of the women give him more than a passing glance. The older ladies seem especially entertained by him. But nothing he does is offensive, he’s not overly flirtatious or obscene; he bares little resemblance to the inattentive, absent husband that haunted the background of her pictures and stories.

When I am absolutely certain he’s fully engaged I let my eyes slip back to her. She’s still beautiful, still tall and stunning, still all legs and grace. She knows how to fit into a dress and pair of high heels. The old fires still burn in me. But so much has changed since then. It’s surprisingly easy to avoid slipping back into my obsessive desire to hold and touch her even though she’s stunning. We’d gone pretty far once upon a time. We’d seen much together, but like two old war veterans from some forgotten, illicit and ill-advised war, we can’t talk about it with anyone, not even with each other. Our crimes are buried deep and out of the way, there would be no digging them up tonight.

They pass behind a large group of people and I turn my attention to the bar. A stiff drink never sounded better. But before long she slides onto the stool next to me. “He’s in the bathroom,” she assures me. And then, like we had never stopped seeing each other, she starts in on him, “Jesus, do you see the way he carries on with all these women? Frankly, it’s disgusting. Don’t you think?”

I look around to make sure he really isn't watching us. “We can’t talk like this,” I say. Suddenly I’m suspicious of her. Why is she even at this event? Did she known I would be here? Is she hoping to get back together? I need to get away from her before he returns.

“I've got to go.” I move away from her just as he exits the bathroom. Is she trying to get me killed?

The party grows steadily louder throughout the night. The natural effect of everyone consuming more alcohol. The DJ increases the pace of the music. A smarter me would have gone home hours ago. I don’t want to interact with her but it certainly feels good to see her. Between the music and alcohol I lose track of her for a while.

Later, I rediscover her yelling at someone. It’s not Tim that has drawn her ire; it’s some other ape of a man, giant and hairy. He stands close to her, pinning her against the bar. A much smaller man, but equally as hairy, stands next to The Ape, spurring him on with words. I find it hard to stay rooted to the floor; I want to run to her rescue but realize the impossibility of it. I can’t be the one who saves her from anyone, much less these two guys. I look around for Tim. He’s cutting a swath through the crowd, roughly pushing people aside. I silently root for him as he approaches the confrontation. From her body language it’s clear The Ape groped her. She’s in tears and is struggling to leave. But The Ape and his little monkey companion won’t let her pass.

When he arrives Tim doesn't ask any questions, he spins The Ape around and slugs him in the gut. The hairy man crumbles to the ground; then it’s chaos. The Monkey slips away as a circle forms around the two combatants. A few people head for the exits but most stick around for the free entertainment. I make my way to the inner edge of the circle that surrounds the men; I survey the crowd for The Monkey. I see him standing between two women; he’s throwing punches at the air--ducking, weaving, and sparing with an invisible opponent.

She’s up on the bar, kneeling with her shoes off and hitting The Ape with her high-heels while he grapples with Tim. The Ape is big but slow. Tim quickly has him on the ground with an arm pinned at a dangerous and painful angle. It’s the moment The Monkey has been waiting for, with Tim’s back toward him, and with his man clearly getting beat, he moves in with a knife. I step from the edge of the circle and throw a wild punch, something graceless and awkward, perfectly appropriate for my first ever fight. I hit the little hairy man in the side of the head. There’s a terrible crunch. He drops to the ground and the knife skips across the floor. She hops down from the counter, pulls Tim off The Ape, and then grabs my hand.

I’m swept up in their movement. Like a three headed beast we move across the room, then through the parking lot and into Tim’s pickup. Sirens can be heard in the distance. People are still spilling from the doorway. The Ape staggers out with The Monkey leaning against his shoulder.

In the truck she sits between us and asks, “Where’s your car?”

“My wife dropped me off. I was going to take a taxi home.”

Tim starts the truck. I notice a throbbing in my hand. “I think I broke something.” He puts the truck in reverse, roughly moving the shifter between her legs. The truck grinds and complains as he puts it back into first gear. Rocks fly behind us as he slams on the gas. We tear out of the parking lot, fleeing the scene before the cops arrive.

“Jesus, you two.” She puts a hand on Tim’s leg. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Tim says. The streets are dark. The lights on the dashboard cast a pale light on our collective faces. We turn red and green and yellow in silence as the truck pass under traffic lights. This is the first time I have been in one of their vehicles. I've never been in their house either. The cabin of the truck feels cramped and intimate. I feel like I am invading their private space. It’s somehow more offensive than my prior infractions. If I weren't here she’d be fussing about the bruise slowly taking over the side of his face. They’d be talking. She’d applaud him for being her knight in shining armor. And he’d play it down like it was nothing. “You guys can drop me off anywhere. I can still get a taxi.”

“Nonsense,” she says. “Tim will drop me off at home and then he can take you home. He owes you that much.”

“Really it’s not a big deal; I’m fine with a taxi.”

“I’ll take you home.” His words sound like a door slamming shut. I try to decide which is worse: jumping from a moving vehicle or riding alone with him. I decide the latter would be worse but I stay seated and offer no more objections. Jumping would remove me from the situation, and we’re not moving that fast--it would be easy at a stop sign--but it would leave her having to explain why her friend acted so strange. So I stay. I’ll be home in no time. And besides, I did save his life, a knife in the back could kill a man, he probably just wants to thank me.

We pull up to their house without further word. The porch light is on, another illuminates the living room. The upstairs is dark, the children asleep. I get out so that she can too. She kisses Tim and thanks him, then slides out my door.

“I didn't think you had it in you,” she says to me. “Tim owes you one.” She takes her shoes off and pads barefoot to the door, unlocks it, waves at us and then disappears into their home.

“Come on, Buddy.” Tim pats the seat next to him.

I had a dream once, of her and me leaving our spouses, heading off to some nameless town in the Midwest. In that dream I always envisioned her running barefoot across our yard--especially during the early dewy mornings--a long summer dress and little clippings of grass clinging about her ankles. If not for the old rumbling truck idling behind me, with her husband silently waiting, it would have been a lot like this moment. Nearly perfect.

I climb back in the cabin.

“Where to,” he ask.

I tell him to keep going straight.

He grinds the gear into place, this time with nothing but empty air sitting between the two of us. My stomach relocates itself somewhere north of my belly, it makes it clear that if I won’t jump from the car it is willing to disassociate itself from me before it’s too late. Between it and the pain in my hand I’m sure I’m going to be sick.

“You mind if I crack the window?”

“Whatever you like, Buddy.”

The night air helps a little. The anxiety lodged in my gut makes me recall the night she told me she had to “quit this madness.” You spend your whole life thinking you've experienced heartbreak only to realize you've been so wrong.    

Tim fidgets with the radio, scans the stations for anything, but all he’s picking up is static. Suddenly, his hand comes down hard against the dashboard. He bangs it again for good measure before turning the radio off entirely.

He says, “That’s quite the right hook you have there, Buddy. I guess I should thank you.”

I insist it was nothing. He doesn't debate the point.

“Turn here.” The truck makes the turn and we pass under tall trees. My house and family are just seven miles down this road, we live in a little subdivision on the other side of these woods.

Street lights become sparse. I can’t be certain but I think he’s taken his foot off the gas. The engine noise has changed. The truck is definitely slowing. We coast another hundred feet and then he swerves off the road onto the shoulder; his red brake lights illuminate the forest behind us. My door is unlocked. I should bolt now, but instead I try to act like this is normal.

“Did we run out of gas?” I look around as if that will tell me anything about the state of his gas tank.

He doesn't answer. Instead he reaches under his seat and pulls something out. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but it’s long and skinny, it looks to be rope. He kills the ignition and turns off the headlights. The last thing I see clearly before the lights go out are his hands crafting the rope into something, a haphazard noose.

“You know what this is about. Lean over here.”

Unthinking, I do as he asks; he places the loop around my neck. He leaves it loose there but doesn't let go of his end.  

“I know what you did with my wife. Yeah, I know all about it, Buddy.” He wraps his end of the rope tight around one of his hands. He looks at the rope while speaking, as if he’s threatening it instead of me. “In exchange for the little fun you had with her, and for me not telling your wife, you’re going to sit there and let me choke the shit out of you for a while.” He finally looks at me. A car passes by. Maybe they see nothing. Maybe they see two guys talking in a truck on the side of the road. Whatever it is they see, they don’t stop or brake. But their headlights reveal the details of his face for a brief moment and I can see he’s struggling to go through with his plan. Sweat glistens across his forehead; he frowns with confusion; he’s not so much tightening the rope as playing with it, stalling. I have a chance to get out of this. I have to bluff, take advantage of the fact that he’s a good guy.

Like old pals, I playfully hit his chest with the back of my uninjured hand. “Look, Tim, come on. You got to know I've already told my wife. All that was so long ago. I even have a kid now.” I can’t keep talking with the noose around my neck. Although he’s not making it any tighter I can feel it constricting my airway. With every word I speak it presses against my chest like a millstone. Its very presence is smothering my lungs. I slip it off my head.

The cabin of the truck is silent for a moment and then he says, “Put the rope back on, Buddy.”

I keep it off--drumming up nerve I didn't know I had--and say “I can’t do that, Tim. Come on, you’re a nice guy. Just let me out and I’ll walk home from here. I can walk five miles, come on, what do you say, Tim?”

He’s talking to the rope again, this time directly to the noose. “Put the fucking rope back on or I’m driving to your house and telling your wife everything.”

“I told you, Tim, I already told her; I explained the whole thing; she knows it’s over. Come on, you’d just be wasting everyone's time.” I laugh timidly.

“You little shit!” Tim growls the sentence like it’s one word and lunges at me. I probably should have let him hurt me a little with the rope rather than be stuck in the cab of the truck with him going ballistic like some sort of deranged animal, but it’s too late now. I put my hands up to defend my face but the punch never lands. He reaches across me, pushes open my door, and then shoves me out. My elbows and tailbone hit the ground hard, maybe one more broken bone for the night. He slams the door shut and drives off in the direction of my house, leaving me alone in the woods.

I try to remember if I told him my address. The pain in my elbow makes it hard to think. I don’t believe I told him. But maybe I did. I don’t know. Maybe he already knew it. I fumble around in my pocket for my phone. Cell service is always spotty underneath these trees. Two bars. I call home.

My wife picks up, “Where are you? I thought you’d be home already.”

“I’m about five miles from home. I’ll be there soon. Listen, if someone comes to the door, don’t answer.”

I hear some kind of noise in the background, or maybe it’s static on the line. Her voice cuts in and out. One bar. I hobble a few yards down the road hoping to improve reception. The last thing I hear her say is, “What was that? Hold on.” More noise, maybe words, maybe the doorbell. Zero bars.

The End