Edward Lorn: Crawl

God , shut him up before I throw myself from a speeding car.

The Mercury’s bumper flashed in her mind.

JXSAVES… I DO NOT

She could only imagine how many Americans had requested JCSAVES, or some variation of such, since the invention of the vanity plate. Had the Mercury’s driver decided on JX, using the X in place of a C? Juliet wondered if the X in JXSAVES stood for the Greek-to-English translation of Christ, like when someone used Xmas instead of Christmas. The common misconception was that the X was meant to take Jesus out of the holiday. She wondered where she’d come across that information. Perhaps that long ago day in Bible school, listening to the bright lady with the neon-pink hair (whose name evaded her at the moment) tell horror stories concerning the stoning of whores, and Christ’s crucifixion and subsequent zombie-like rise from the grave three days later. Sweet baby Hey-Zeus, church had been a scary place for a ten-year-old.

The second time they ran across the Mercury with the JXSAVES plate was at a Waffle House in Columbus. Neither Colton nor she was hungry, but he needed coffee, and she had to pee.

The Merc had been parked at the back of the restaurant, beside the dumpster’s enclosure. White exhaust puffed from the tail pipe, and the headlights highlighted the steel doors that hid the trash area. As the Subaru’s lights washed over the driver’s side of the Merc, Juliet could see that even the side windows had been tinted. Given the creepy message made when the vanity plate and the bumper sticker were combined—

( JXSAVES… I DO NOT )

—Juliet doubted that a benevolent individual owned that relic of a bygone age. A time when a cup of java and a gallon of gas would have run you about the same price, and twenty bucks bought enough groceries for a fortnight. She kept expecting the Merc’s door to pop open and Satan to step forth into the parking lot—the asphalt smoldering under his cloven hooves. All those thoughts of Sunday school had her imagination running in religious circles. Her mind needed better company. She averted her eyes and focused on the empty booths inside the Waffle House as Colton pulled into a spot directly in front of the entrance.

Both hopped out. He held the door open for her then followed. Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” played over the speakers while the cook at the grill sang a high-pitched backup. The heavy-bosomed lady twirled a spatula like a drumstick as she crooned. She nodded at Juliet and winked at Colton.

“Down, boy,” Juliet chided.

“As if,” Colton said, before grabbing a stool at the bar, looking not unlike a cowboy saddling up to a saloon in preparation for a night of drunken abandon. He dropped a quick “Hello” on the cook as Juliet made for the restrooms.

As she passed the men’s room, the door swung open and a man stepped into her. His momentum pushed her into the opposite wall. Her arms came up in a defensive reaction.

“So sorry, child.” It was as he said this that she realized he was dressed like a priest. No… Not a priest, exactly. His slacks and shirt were a deep crimson, but the requisite white clerical collar was unmistakable.

She scanned his face; his coal-colored eyes couldn’t actually be black… could they? No. Just a deep (hell-deep?) brown. Had to be. His silver hair came to a widow’s peak that could surely have pierced stone. Ruby cheeks offset a bloodless face, making him look like a corpse all made up and ready for his wake. His thin, purple lips arched perpetually downward, and, when he smiled at her, stretched into a flat line you could balance a level on.

“Jesus saves…” she heard herself mutter.

He smiled, “…and I do not.”

She pointed down the short hallway. “I’m… I have to piss.” As unladylike as her statement was, it burst from her nonetheless.

“Do wash your hands afterward, young lady. Cleanliness is next to godliness. I suggest running the water before using the commode, though, as the water takes a while to warm up. Have a good night.”

A silly need to ask him what his ominous “I do not” meant caught in her throat and she coughed.

Forget that shit , she thought as she retreated down the cramped hallway to the ladies’ room.

She rushed into the first of two stalls, shoved the door in, spun, and slammed it closed. She yanked the chrome lever into the clasp and backed up until the back of her jean-clad legs bumped into the lip of the toilet. Her heart, a wild animal in her chest, scrabbled at her ribs. It was hard to breathe. A cloying antiseptic odor hung in the air. She filled her lungs to the point of bursting with that smell. She tasted cigarettes, and was not surprised to see a fine, gray haze clinging to the ceiling above the cubicles.

In the stall beside her, someone coughed.

A raspy female voice, sounding an awful lot like Kathleen Turner with throat cancer, said, “I’ll be done in a minute.”

“No rush,” Juliet managed.

She undid her button-down fly and sat on the cold porcelain. She made water like a busted fire hydrant.

“They don’t let us have a smoke break,” Deathbed Kathleen Turner said.

This isn’t happening , Juliet thought. I am not having a conversation with some unseen soul while I’m emptying my bladder.

Obviously DKT hadn’t gotten that memo, for she continued with, “Takin’ a crap’s the only time I get to have a butt.”

“That’s… unfortunate,” said Juliet, and instantly regretted it.

“Don’t worry, though. I wash up real good ’fore goin’ back to work. Say, where you headin’? No one comes in here—” DKT paused and made a sucking sound Juliet assumed was her taking another puff off her cancer stick, “—at this time ah night unless they’s travelin’.”

Do not answer. Ignore her.

Juliet heeded her inner voice’s advice. Instead of playing twenty questions with DKT, Juliet wiped, flushed, and stood up.

“You okay in there?”

Quietly, Juliet undid the chrome latch.

“Eh, didja have a stroke or somethin’?”

As she pulled the door inward, the hinge squeaked. She cussed it, her lips moving but not adding sound to the expletive.

“Fine, then. I’s just makin’ conversation. Sheesh…”

A half-smoked cigarette cartwheeled over DKT’s stall door and landed in the sink. Juliet wanted to wash her hands, badly—

( Cleanliness is next to godliness )

—but she didn’t want to spend another minute in this carnival sideshow, with attractions like red priests and Kathleen Turner impersonators.

When she stepped back into the hall, she caught a glimpse of Colton as he disappeared into the men’s room. She quick-stepped in that direction, hugging the wall, and backed into the restroom after him.

When she faced him, Colton already had his fly down and his pelvis thrust into the urinal.

He craned his neck to look at her. “Whoa, what’s wrong with you?”

“Weird, weird, weirdy-type people.” Her heart continued to race. She couldn’t remember if it had calmed in between the red priest and Deathbed Kathleen Turner, but she didn’t think so.

Now, standing in the men’s room of a Waffle House and watching her hubby piss into a wall, she began to laugh. Whether her sudden joviality was a nervous outburst, the realization that a chatty restaurant employee on an illegitimate smoke break was nothing to be worried about, or the insanity of the situation truly setting in, she didn’t know.

“You’re the only weirdo I’m seeing right now. Get out of here before some stranger comes walking in. We guys are infamous for whipping out our hoses before we get to the fire.”