The Ice Age (14 page)

It seems Delilah is going to write an exposé on those guys, that town, the whole cover-up of a teenage rape and its witless victim. Apparently this is what I've been diminished to, by the words themselves.

Her editor loved it, of course. Who doesn't love kiddie porn? They wanted a picture of me but I said no. They named the town, fingered everyone. There was even a picture of the bar. Hell, there were pictures of the shacks behind the parking lot. They interviewed the ambulance driver, who described my wounds and their whereabouts. It couldn't have been more mortifying if they'd snapped a picture of me taking a dump and stuck it on a billboard. That's what I felt like doing to Delilah. She hadn't actually found the time to talk to me in the breakneck flurry of activity that surrounded the championing of my cause.

Gunther was still spitting mad. He burst into the living room early one afternoon and said, ‘Are you feeling a little better?'

I said, ‘Yes.'

He said, ‘Good, because I'm getting you out of here.' He'd packed the car in a very haphazard, obviously hasty and irate fashion. He grabbed me by the wrist and deposited me in the passenger seat. He shut my door, and sped off in cloud of dirt.

We had to pass back through the offending piece of countryside to get to New York. I mean, pass much too close to that town for comfort. Gunther said we were only crossing the outer edge of the county.

I said, ‘Gunther, I think we should go around.'

We were both kind of exhausted by this point, though. Nearing a destination, being able to stop, held a new appeal. So we stayed on track for now, and checked into a crappy motel just inside county lines. Or at least, we started to.

When we got up to the front desk, the clerk was reading the paper. When he saw us, he gave a snooty look of surprise, and mock pleasure. He snapped the paper up off the counter, completely concealing himself behind it, and continued reading it. This exposed us to the front page. It was us. I don't even know how they got a picture of us. We were driving, but it was still a pretty clear shot through the car window. The headline read,
Pedophile at Large
.

I scanned down the article. I couldn't take my eyes off it. It was too compelling. It would appear the good township had launched a counter-attack, alleging Gunther had kidnapped me and had been whisking me around the country having his wicked way with me since I was fourteen. (They didn't indulge in any punctuation, so why should I?)

Gunther turned on his heels. I followed him into the parking lot.

He said, ‘I want to get out of here.'

I said, ‘So do I.'

We drove half the night and ended up nowhere. We just slept in the car. The back seat was loaded up so we slept on the front seats, sitting up, holding hands.

I'm surprised I slept at all. But I did, and it was a pretty morning when I woke up. All soft blue sky, with wispy clouds, and birds singing in the trees. We were parked next to a weeping willow.

I told myself it couldn't be too bad. We'd be out of this layer of hell soon, this boil on the backside of the country. ( Jeez, they were practically shaking pitchforks at us.) Surely not everyone had seen the paper. And of those that had, odds were high on most of them being illiterate.

We pulled into a doughnut shop for breakfast. No sooner had we got through the door than some freckle-faced hillbilly teen with shoulder length brown hair pointed at us and blurted, ‘Hey. It's that guy. Dad, look—and that kidnapped girl.'

His dad turned on his stool slightly. ‘Well, heck, so it is.' His ass crack was showing.

Gunther turned on his heels again. We sped outta there. We were half expecting them to make chase. In a pick-up truck. They shouted something as we left. I couldn't quite make it out; Gunther had already fired up the motor. I guess they had doughnuts to finish.

We found somewhere with a drive-through window and ordered some random crap, just to fill our tummies. I had fries with mine. And secret sauce.

Gunther drove and drove and drove, and didn't say anything. It started to get darker. We pulled up at a motel with an all-night diner attached. We'd traveled a long way today. Although it was still fresh, I wanted to think it was all behind us now.

We cleaned up and strolled into the diner. A woman with a blonde beehive hair-do and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth was seated at a booth, reading the paper.

And wouldn't you know it, there was a fucking picture of us. This one was smaller, and it wasn't on the front page. But sure enough, she raised her neon blue-shadowed eyes and narrowed them to a slit when she saw us.

‘Oh Gott in Himmel,' muttered Gunther, with extreme exasperation. He doesn't speak German very often, but I kind of like it when he does. It's another vampirism about him. Most vampires started out on the Continent, I figure, and picked up a few languages over the centuries. ‘Why choose this life now, though?' I thought to myself. It's not very glamorous. Or distinctive. And why wouldn't you just rise up and rip all these people's throats out?

‘You know,' he said partly to me and mostly to the awful patterned carpet, ‘I think I would just like to sit down and order a
fucking
meal.'

Gunther doesn't swear very often.

But he added, ‘Fuck!' and strutted over to a booth on the far side of the room. The old bee-hived battleaxe said something to the waitress, who never came to our table. No menus, no ‘Hi, what can I get ya?!' Not even a glance. No waters, no bottomless coffee.

Gunther said, ‘What is it with these people?'

‘People hate the P word, Gunther.'

We talked about driving around looking for an open supermarket or another drive-through fast food hole. We didn't feel like it in the end, and wound up getting potato chips and lemonade from a vending machine and going to our room. I noted internally that this was first time I had ever hit the vending machines with Gunther. Thus a new standard was set in vending machine companions, grumpy or not.

He said he wasn't going to scurry away like a fucking fugitive just because some fat blonde looked at him funny. So we sat in our room and smoked. And watched a James Bond movie. We both just stared at it. Those type of movies don't do anything for either of us, and my mind had plenty of chance to wander.

‘Y'know, Gunther.' I leaned toward him. ‘Some would say now we got nothing to lose.'

As I spoke, James Bond was gliding across a swanky hotel room to bed a vixen. Gunther blinked lazily at the screen. I was trying to cheer him up, give him some encouragement. But I had that little devil on my shoulder again, too. I can never tell if I'm a good person or not.

‘Christ, girl,' Gunther muttered, finally. ‘Your stitches—you're not even healed yet.'

‘I mean later,' I said, ‘I meant…' I was going to say ‘love', but why bother mentioning that now? Even though by rights I could. To say that I love him is no overstatement. He rules my world; has me hypnotized in some sort of fevered love trance. I can't hold it all in, like a miser hugging all my riches to my chest, making sure none fall. I feel like it will all burst and go scattering. Like so many door beads.

I looked over at him. He looked tired.

Then he muttered with deadpan lethargy, ‘Maybe when you're older.'

It surprised me to hear him say that. And it all but confirmed my theory regarding his savoring his moment to freeze me into a love-locked eternity. Still, I can't believe he's putting me on the shelf. What the heck is wrong with starting your happiness now? What's wrong with loving someone who loves you; loving them forever? I think that's what everyone wants.

I smoked and typed on the old red machine for the rest of the evening, which pretty much brings us up to speed.

Someone wrote ‘pervert' on our door; we noticed it as we left, very early in the morning. Only they misspelled it. What they had actually written was ‘prevert'. I just incorporated it into my lingo. A couple times today I teased Gunther with something like, ‘Why, Gunther, you old prevert.' He's been so down in the dumps lately, he barely cracked a smile. Maybe he's getting sick of my wisecracks. But I like to laugh, what can I say? If there's something to laugh at, I will. If that makes me immature, so be it. Glorie says it's good for your abdominal muscles, laughing.

We drove in complete silence, and I replayed Gunther's blandly put but promising projection. There was the ‘maybe', but there was also the ‘when you're older'. How much older? I don't want to start losing my looks. Or my personality. People do say age gives you character. But for my money, most people, it just takes what character they have and pickles it into goo.

And, hang on a minute…maybe he's just trying to get me off his back. Like a parent. ‘Maybe when you're older'—goddammit, it's not like I asked him for a puppy. This is love. He should give me a fucking straight answer. Leave me dangling…

I turned my head slowly sideways and gave him a contemplative squinty-eyed glare. He didn't see me. He was practically collapsed over the wheel. It was nearly check him for a pulse time. I wasn't about to get on his case about this latest quandary of mine, or anything else. No matter what happens, what's going on, when it comes to a future with Gunther, I still want to be in the running. So I try to behave myself.

It doesn't feel like we will ever escape this fucking hellhole of a county, which seems to be populated entirely by seething semi-literate pitchfork-wavers. It seems to be expanding as we try to reach its borders. Elliot, back at the hospital, had told me about a porno he'd seen at a party. Most unsexy porno, ever, he said. It was called Airtight, and consisted of a lady being fucked by several men trying to plug every hole they could think of. He said she didn't look like she was having much fun. So I guess a couple of local fellas trying to play Airtight with me behind some shacks was the most excitement this region has seen for a while. At least there were only two of them.

We got pulled over for a broken taillight, of all things. In broad daylight. The cop wrote Gunther up a ticket, told him to get the hell outta there, and spat when he said it.

Gunther suggested we stop only for gas; keep moving until we reach civilization again. I agreed.

It was at one of these gas stations that I did a scan of the magazine stand on my way to the ladies' room, and came across Delilah's article. I'd been wondering when that was coming out. I thought maybe at least it would clear up some of the nasty rumors floating around; clear Gunther's and my names. Or, at the very least, Gunther's. I didn't have to look far, either. It was staring me right in the face. The cover. Of a proper nationally syndicated rag. The headline: Little Girl Lost. Well now, that really boiled my potato.

I bought it, and showed it to Gunther. In the end, Delilah hadn't taken any pains to make Gunther and me appear above board. It was full of vague innuendo and half-assed disclaimers. (‘Perhaps he
is
just a kind soul giving a waif a lift…')

Gunther rang her from a pay phone. He told her with sinister composure that if she didn't rectify this situation with a forthcoming truthful article, he was going to sue her for libel and assassination of character. Apparently she said she had already written that article, it was her editor who insisted on giving it that risqué slant. And she assured him she is as upset as he is.

He said, ‘I doubt that very much.' And returned the handset slowly and heavily to the receiver.

When we got back to the car, he said, ‘Maybe she'll get a fucking Pulitzer,' and threw the mag as far as he could. Which wasn't very far. But magazines aren't very aerodynamic, I guess. It landed all folded out and crinkled on the other side of the pumps. And then he just sped off. It's not like him to litter.

A few miles down the road he did something even more un-Gunther-like. He screeched the car to a halt, nearly in the ditch, got out, and just wandered off. Went trudging through the tall grass.

‘Gunther?' I shouted behind him.

He mumbled, ‘I'll be right back.' (I think.)

I thought maybe he was going to take a piss. After all, the world is one big men's room. However, Gunther always prefers to use proper facilities, so I doubted this theory. But I decided to give him some space anyway. He took ages though. I felt like it was getting darker. I got out and headed in the direction he had. He hadn't gone very far from the car, really. He was leaning against a weird sharp rock formation, smoking.

I said, ‘Since when do you smoke during the day?' He lowered his eyes toward the joint and I took it from him. I didn't intend on smoking it. I just placed it lightly on my palm, like a little burning caterpillar.

‘Gunther?' He didn't answer, and I hadn't thought of anything to say, anyway. My chest hurt, right through the middle. I took a drag of the joint. I took about five more, than handed it back to him. We made our way back to the car.

Then he just sat there, in the driver's seat. Sulking, I would say. I stared at him for a while. Then I said, ‘Maybe we should keep driving.'

He said, ‘Yeah…Can you?'

‘Gunther!' I laughed, ‘You know I can't drive… Well…I can sort of…Do tractors count?'

‘No.'

‘Bumper cars?'

‘No.' Now we were both smiling, a little.

He pulled off the road, onto a dirt road that was basically part of the prairie, nearly indistinguishable from the grasses growing up around it. He proceeded to teach me how to drive his old beast of car.

‘About time you learned,' he said.

Seemed a strange time for a driving lesson.

‘You're a natural,' he said.

‘Been watching you.'

He chuckled, and kind of rolled his eyes.

There weren't many cars around, so after a couple of hours I ventured out onto the road. I was a little shaky, but I did OK. Gunther reckons I was speeding.