Joseph Love - Kill Town, USA

I shrugged.

“But you’re lucky because I’m not the kind of person you shouldn’t take a ride from.”

“Hm.”

“And you’re brave—or dumb—to fight off a bear. I guess it doesn’t matter who gives you a ride, does it?”

I looked at myself in the side mirror. With a full beard and greasy, matted hair, I didn’t look like someone who should be afraid of taking rides from strangers.

The heat from the buzzing orange coils filled the drafty, moldy cab. My window turned foggy and green. The condensation dripped down to the cracked rubber seal on the door. Carla huffed in the back seat.

I didn’t realize how tired I was. I sank eagerly into the worn seat, my spine cradled by the rotting foam. All the places the pack touched my body were raw, especially across my hips. To not wear the pack was to be incomplete.

Coming down the mountain, the truck swerved and slid though a thousand gravel switchbacks. The tires twitched from road to shoulder. Tom’s hands played a game of which-way-will-it-snap with the steering wheel.

Carla rolled over after a rough switchback. Her head smacked the tailgate. She growled and did not stop.

The growling lasted the duration of the drive down the mountain. Her breathing was short and quick. In the mirror, she didn’t seem to be looking at anything.

Tom looked at me blankly, “I think you spooked her pretty good. She’s never been this vocal.”

The growling continued. “You live very far?”

“About twenty minutes once we get to the main road. Nine miles of these switchbacks.”

“You see many hikers this winter?”

“Oh, sure. They come steady year round. But you choose your torture. Bears or snow. It’s a hard choice.”

“I prefer snow.”

“Looks like you got both. Listen up,” he said abruptly. I listened, but he was quiet. A minute passed. “That’s the luckiest thing I ever heard, getting away from that bear.” He shook his head. “But you only have that knife.”

“It works fine.”

“Yeah. But what will you do?”

We stopped at the main road. Tom pressed the clutch to keep the truck from dying. He pulled onto the highway and whistled.

“Do you know, Jack, what you’ll do?”

“Keep hiking.”

“Keep hiking. Just you and a knife and some whiskey.”

He turned onto a limestone bridge off the road. His driveway was a sheet of moist clay rutted to the exact shape of the International’s undercarriage. Tom’s house was a large brown tower of mud and straw with church windows, portholes, a turret, and a large wraparound deck. Part of the roof was covered with tarp, another with plastic sheeting and asphalt shingles and roofing tar. Gobs of black tar adorned the roof like fat little spires.

“I live with my daughter some,” he said sadly. “When she’s taking a break from her boyfriend. Husband. Who cares what he is? He’s nothing. She’s not here today.”

The motor collapsed to a halt. The cab went silent except for Carla, unwavering in her petulant growl. I stepped into the mud and Tom lowered the tailgate for Carla. Thin snow fell quickly, crashing into mud puddles and swirling around my head. Suddenly, the snow turned thick and wet.

“Goddamn!” Tom yelled. I hurried to him at the back of the truck, slipping in the mud. Carla was clamped onto Tom’s hand, teeth sunk to the gums. She stared fixedly through him. Carla was dead quiet and still, head barely cocked to the side. Tom fell to his knees. Carla’s jaws were locked. Tom’s hand crushed.

I held Carla by the neck and stuck the knife between her teeth and twisted. She bit against the blade. Her teeth chipped and shattered and made a hollow crunch. The blade slid deep into her gums. She felt nothing. I let go of the knife and grabbed her snout and jaw. I pried them apart, arms trembling, while Tom thrashed. Blood fell from Carla’s mouth, and Tom fell away from the truck. His freed, ruined hand flopped in the mud. The dog stood wobbling on the tailgate. Skin hung from her mouth. I noticed the exposed tendons on Tom’s hand. The white of bone.

Carla stumbled forward and Tom seized her by the braided collar. He dragged her through the mud to a chain-link pen.

I closed the tailgate and followed him inside. He’d wrapped his hand in the bottom half of his shirt. He disappeared down a small, dark hallway and into the bathroom. I stood at the kitchen sink and ran hot water over the knife. I soaked the handle and watched the bloody tar slide off in clumps.

Tom’s breakfast bar was covered in coffee grounds, apple skins, and egg yolk. The house had a faint hint of nicotine. Under a magnet on the small refrigerator was a picture of his daughter in robe and mortarboard, diploma clutched in both hands. For all the satiny blues and low light, she was pretty. Straight dark hair and olive skin. She didn’t look like Tom at all.

Another photo was of Tom on a Harley. Another of his daughter with her husband. He was a police officer. In the photo, she was dreamlike pretty. And the husband, with a buzz cut and puffed-out chest, was uniform-handsome.

“That’s Audrey,” Tom said brightly. His hand was covered in a deep layer of gauze and tape. “And Watts. Theodore Watts. You call him Ted and he goes mental. Watts.” Tom looked out the kitchen window. “I don’t see Carla out there. She probably went in the chicken coop. She loves those chickens.”

“How’s your hand?”

He sighed. “I’ve never known that dog to be anything but sweet,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I know I said you spooked her, but it’s not your fault. She’s an animal, after all.”

I noticed a spot of blood already surfacing on the bandage.

“Feel free to help yourself to the shower. I think I’ll have some wine.”

Tom opened a small refrigerator and took out an already opened bottle of pinot grigio. He pulled the cork with his teeth and drank straight from the bottle. He made a sour face. “Shit’s old. Audrey opened it over a month ago. All I got.”

“Keep your hand up,” I said. “You’re about to bleed through.”

He dragged himself across the house to his canvas-covered sofa. He collapsed and propped up his arm.

“I got something for you,” he said, eyes closed. “Grab that cigar box on the bookshelf.”

I placed the old Swisher Sweets box on the coffee table.

“Go on,” he said. “Open it.”

I opened the box and carefully set the contents on the table. Folded receipts, a wallet, loose keys, broken cigarettes.

“My brother died last year of a heart attack. He was painting his fence and just fell over. That stuff was in his pockets.”

I pulled out two silver rings connected by a large piece of jagged wire. It was wound up neatly, no bigger than a condom.

“There you go. It’s yours.”

“It’s a tree saw.”

“Yeah. Kyle loved that thing. Carried it everywhere.”

“I appreciate it.” I pocketed the saw and gently put Kyle’s belongings back in the box.

“You’re welcome to a shower. Some wine,” he swished the almost empty bottle. “Whatever you want. When you’re ready, we’ll head to Hot Springs.”

“I’ll clean up a little.”

“I think I’ll close my eyes a while if you don’t mind,” he said sleepily.

A warm shower after a month of scrubbing in icy streams is a strange, welcome sensation. I relished the hot water while staring at the web of foot-long gray hairs cemented to the fiberglass wall. The water swirled away brown and thick.

I don’t mind a beard, but I like the peace and patience of shaving. I gave my razor fifty swipes on my belt and carefully scraped away the month-old beard. The straight razor reminds me of Dad, and during winter it pays to remember him well.