Interstate (2 page)

He rides the Interstate another two weeks and then gives up; they're probably not driving on it anymore, he thinks, or they got a different car, but now that they know he's out looking for them and no doubt told the police he actually saw them on it, or just the driver knows—the other guy could be anywhere else, even shot dead by now, being involved in what he had to be and having exhibited the kind of craziness he did—they're not going to chance that van or this road no matter how dumb or reckless they might be. He did ask the police that day to check on a white Ford minivan with the Florida license plate number he gave and which either has some damage to its right side or will be having body work done there, but they can't locate any van like that in any state they've communication with and the Florida plates were reported stolen in Georgia a few days ago.

He phones his wife and asks her to come back, “I'm done looking for those guys and am going to get a job first thing and get my life back in order,” but she says she can't, it's all finished, it's best they get divorced, for he's shown something of himself in all this, no matter how terrible the circumstances might have been to provoke it, that she never wants to risk experiencing again. He's talked on the phone to his daughter almost every day since she and her mother left, mostly just “How are you?” “Fine,” “What've you been up to lately?” “Things,” “Anything in particular?” “Nothing much,” “Maybe something new you want to tell me about?” “Not today,” “How's your school doing?” “It's all right,” “And your mommy?” “She's okay, I guess,” “Why, something happen to her?” “No, everything's the same,” “I love you, sweetheart,” “I love you too, Daddy,” and asks to speak to her now and tells her he loves her, “that's nothing new to you, I know, but like I love no other person on earth, not even your mommy, and I loved your sister as much as I love you and will always be a broken man because of what happened to her that day with you both on the highway, do you know what a broken man is in the way I said it?” and she says she thinks she does, “it doesn't mean split in two like a stick but is about sadness,” and he says “Though of course I also know how horrible it was and must still be for you in what happened, as horrible as anything it is for me, and I wish you were with me so I could help you and you, with just being with me and maybe in some of the things you'd say, could help me, do you understand what I mean, sweetie, or am I just being dumbly complicated again?” and she says “I understand but can't do what you want as I have to be with Mommy,” and he says “I know, and I want you to, but I wish we could all be together again, not just with Julie, of course, but if that's impossible, then the three of us left,” and she says “Mommy says we can't, and I don't know how long for, but wishes the same thing about Julie,” and he says “Probably right now you also don't want to just be with me alone—it's all right, you don't have to answer that, I don't want to put you on the spot, and do you know what that means—I mean, by that spot?” and she says “I can figure it,” and he says “Because you see it's obvious I'm still all out of sorts over it, meaning unhappy, meaning miserable, that highway thing, which is why I say I understand why you wouldn't want to be alone with me now, it might be frightening, though please don't ever be of me, but I'll be back to pretty near normal soon and then maybe almost completely normal, and almost completely normal and normal are just about the same thing, though with always a little left out for your sister, of course, which is okay and normal, and some also left out for what it did to Mommy and you, but not altogether enough with those to put me back to being even pretty near normal again,” and she says “Daddy, I don't understand anything you're saying now,” and he says “Anyway, what I'm saying is that when I'm back to being almost what I was, which should be soon, you can come stay with me, half with your mommy and half with me,” and she says “We'll see,” and he says “Then just weekends, or weekends here and there and summers or a month of one every year,” and she says “I don't know about that either, you'll have to discuss it with Mommy,” and he says “‘Discuss,' oh I love that, you're getting so big and smart that that's also why I want you to be with me now or very soon before you've really grown and won't need to be with your parents anymore that I'll just lose you naturally in a way I would have even if Mommy and you were living with me,” and she says “Perhaps, I'm not sure of that.” “You know,” he says, “though maybe you don't unless your mommy's told you, but I almost caught the driver of that car—that van, a minivan, a Ford it turned out to be,” and she says “No I didn't, Mommy probably didn't want me to,” and he says “Well, she's likely right, but the van was much faster than our old buggy and I'm sure souped up, which is when they do something to increase the power of the car, so it got away. I was on the same highway also, though maybe I shouldn't go further into it or even remind you of anything connected to it, but I was going to, I swear to you, smash into the van to force it off the road—I'd already bumped into it with our car—and then strangle him till he almost died or club him with this kid's baseball bat I had right beside me in the car just for that, I didn't care, and then hold him for the police but not kill him, as I'd really want to, for I wanted much more to get the guy who killed your sister and I thought I might force who that guy was out of him or the police might or the courts when they got this driver on trial, but what do you think?” and she says “You mean the other man wasn't with him?” and he says no and she says “Still, you ought to stop worrying over it, Daddy—let those men alone, they might kill you first next time, they're so bad,” and he says “Your mommy told me that so long ago I forget when, so she probably also told you, for those were almost her exact words,” and she says “Even if she did, and this is only what I now think, what you want to do to those men won't do anything for Julie. She's dead and you should start knowing it,” and he says “What do you think?—of course I do, but getting those men would do wonders for me, I'll tell you, because I can't live right knowing those guys are still around, enjoying themselves maybe, maybe even bragging about what they did and got away with and maybe even just that they forgot what they did till I bumped the van of that driver, or that they're still doing it to other cars, though I haven't read anything in the papers on it, though they could have switched those crazy killings to the street—that goes on all the time—or to highways in other states, which how would we have gotten news of unless it was to like ten cars in one day? but for your sake I'll do what you say and stop worrying over it. You're right, you're right on just about everything, sweetheart, boy do I have such a smart right kid, but I'll tell you a little secret—I gave up on ever finding those guys once that rat driver got away, so as I told your mommy, I'm no longer driving on the highway looking for them,” and she says good.

He gets a job and about three months later is on his way to work when he sees two men getting out of a light blue minivan with no windows except in front, both looking from almost a block away like those guys in the white van: same ages it seems, sunglasses though he can't see from here if they're dark, and as he gets closer to them just their faces and smiles and the driver's big bulky forehead seem the same. He drives past slowly, they're talking on the sidewalk, smile a big conniving-together smile and slap their right hands in the air like he's seen athletes do after a real good play and then go opposite ways on the sidewalk he sees in his right side mirror and then in the rearview when he turns it to show more of the right and though they don't have mustaches and have on baseball-type caps instead of fedora-style hats, they're the ones all right, no mistake of it. He doesn't know what to do, slowing down to almost a crawl: get one somehow and best yet the guy who killed his kid and through him the police can get the other one soon, but he doesn't know if he's revved up enough to do what he thinks he could have easily done or at least made an attempt to on the Interstate when he was cruising for them and which with his bumping their van he almost did. “Fuck it, the bastards,” he says, “they killed my kid—you fucking guys did and you're both going to get it in the head,” and makes a sharp U, no cars are coming either way, which he didn't think to look for when he made that U, cuts across the street and the driver, one nearest and heading in his direction, stops and looks at his car, and he climbs the sidewalk and starts for him with his foot now all the way down on the gas and the driver yells “Hey, what the shit—Luke!” and quickly looks around where to run it seems but he hits him, driver going over the front of the car and landing in the street and he starts for who he supposes is Luke who's running across the street darting back looks at him, through the rearview and right side mirror sees the driver on both knees shaking himself off, front and Luke's on the other sidewalk running away from him with no looks back now and he drives off the sidewalk, doesn't know if he should get on Luke's sidewalk or stay in the street alongside him till he has a clear shot at him with the car, gets on, nobody else is there and gets to about twenty feet of him with the gas pedal all the way down when Luke jumps over the front of a parked car, foot clips the hood and he tumbles to the street, he cuts into the street second he's past the car in front of the jumped car, stops hard, looks back and sees the driver hobbling back to their van, and looking through his back window, Luke getting up slowly and holding his elbow, doesn't know whether to turn around and head straight for Luke or back up on him hard, knocking him down, and then turn around and drive over him, “Luke, over here,” driver shouts by the van and Luke starts to run to it, almost falls and then limps to it and he shoots forward, stops, angles the car so it's diagonally across from Luke and backs up fast as he can and Luke lunges but he jerks the steering wheel that way and hits him. Luke goes down, driver's fumbling inside his pants pockets probably for car keys, Luke's pushing himself up with his arms and he shoots forward, backs up and goes over some part of him he feels from the bump, goes forward so over probably the same part though just wanted to get where he could see him, thinks “Yes? no? screw him, he killed my kid and if he gets up he'll probably try to kill me,” and backs over him with both the back and front wheels now till, and doesn't know why he didn't think of this before, he's in front of Luke who's flat out and face down and maybe dead and he screams “Killer, killer,” and floors the gas pedal and goes over him making sure not to hit his head, then makes a U, driver's on the sidewalk looking as if he's unlocking the passenger door, doesn't know whether to drive up on it and hit him or just ram the van from the street, stopping it from going and maybe hurting the man, or just pull up and jump out and grab him and pound him to the ground. People have come out of some of the ranch houses, workers are standing right outside the one-story computer-graphics place, the lawn sign says, between two ranch houses and which the van's parked near, cars have stopped at both ends of the street, driver's got the door open and is getting into the van and he rams into it from the street, is thrown forward but head doesn't hit anything and windshield doesn't crack and he flops back into his seat, driver's thrown down on the seat or floor somewhere or is looking for something there, “Gun, get him before he gets it,” he thinks and jumps out of the car and runs around the van, driver's on his back on the seat with his eyes closed and opens them on him and he thinks “The kid's bat, left it where?” and pulls the driver out by his legs, driver shoots his hand back to protect his head but it bumps on the sidewalk and the driver yells “Oh shit” and looks in great pain, he gets down and grabs the driver's head, hands flinch from the blood in back of it but he says “No, fuck it,” and grabs it again and hard and driver screams and he says “You remember me, right?” and the driver says “Hey, wha?” his eyes rolling and he says “Hey, hey, you remember me, don't you?” and the driver says “Hey, I'm hurt, don't, no more,” and he says “But you remember me, you and your pal do, or he did, right?—open my window, roll it down, stick a gun in my face, aim it in back, shoot who the hell you want to, me and one of my dead little kiddies, right, right?” and the driver says “What? I swear. What pal? I haven't got one. I didn't do anything. What do you mean?” and he says “On the Interstate here—white minivan—don't you remember me bumping it?—where's your mustache and fedora?” and the driver says “What fedora? Fedora, what's that?” and he says “This fedora, this fedora, my daughter,” and bangs the driver's head against the car several times and people yell “Stop…Don't…Enough…Someone!” and he lifts the head high and bangs it against the ground and again and hands grab him from behind and he tries shaking them off while banging the head and someone gets him in a neck lock and yanks him back while he drags the driver's head with him till someone pries his fingers off one by one and he lets go with the last fingers and someone catches the driver's head just before it hits the ground and they still pull him back and he says “All right, okay, I've stopped, you've stopped me, I'll be good now and stick around for the police,” and they let him go and he sits a few feet away on the curb and wipes the blood off him on his pants and shirt and just looks down at his feet.

“Jesus, did you do them,” a man says, crouching beside him, “what was it, like you said?” and he nods and the man says “One in the street's dead, I don't know if you know, fucking face crushed, and other's—” and he says “Didn't mean to run over his face, in fact I intended—” and the man says “Well, your aim was bad, but the other looks almost finished too—cops and medics are on the way,” and he says “They deserved it, hope the alive one dies,” and the man says “Listen, for some advice, don't go blabbing that, say it was self-defense, defense,” and he says “It wasn't and at this point I'm not going to start bullshitting,” and the man says “Then say nothing, put your hands over your face like you're sad, look disturbed, even, and wait for your lawyer or one given you but don't sell yourself away and ten more years for it,” and he says “I'll answer what they ask and if they don't buy it, fine, I'll swing,” and the man says “That's what you think now, but I've been inside, babe, and later when you're there you'll hate every extra day for not doing what I say, but okay, I'm only trying to help, and lots of luck,” and the man stands and he stands and hugs him.