The Boarding House

The Breakdown

The red check engine light illuminated on the dash as he heard a strange noise erupt from under the hood of his beat-up old Camero. In the next few seconds, every warning light on his dash lit up and the engine died."Fuck!" Joey yelled into the empty cabin of his car.

The Camero coasted to a smoky stop on the side of the dark two-lane road that Joey had been traveling on. He looked ahead, then in his rearview mirror for signs of life, lights, or anything that insinuated that he wouldn't have to walk for miles. He cussed again when everything was dark.

He couldn't remember the last gas station he had passed. He willed the car to start as he turned the key in frustration. The Camero refused to come to life for him. Joey decided it was inevitable and he was going to have to kick rocks. He grabbed his phone off of the center console and started his darkened journey down the desolate road in the direction he had been driving.

Alone in the darkness, there is little protection from one's own mind. This proved true for Joey tonight as he remembered his final words to his now ex-girlfriend. "I'm sorry Donna, it's not you. It's me." he had told her as he gathered the last of his things. "No, you didn't do anything. I just feel like I need to figure things out. I think I want something different." The words replayed in his head. The vision of her sitting on the couch crying as he turned and walked out of her apartment was fresh in his mind.

He didn't know what he needed to figure out, he just knew that things had changed for him. She hadn't done anything, it was him. He had felt less and less attracted to her over the last few months of their three-year relationship. Because of this, their intimacy had waned to almost nothing recently.

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed shadows moving in the trees ahead of him. There was some kind of light coming from behind him. He turned to see a pair of headlights moving in his direction. Joey frantically woke his phone up and turn on the flashlight function and waved it in the night hoping to get the driver's attention.

The car slowed and came to a stop in the middle of the road just in front of Joey. As he walked up to the dark two-door BMW, the passenger side window lowered. "You good man?" came from inside the dark car.

"Nah man, my car died a couple miles back. Where's the closest gas station?" Joey asked the stranger.

"You're not gonna find anything open around here at this time of night. This area rolls the towns up and puts them away after sundown." the voice informed Joey.

"Just my fuckin luck!" Joey lamented as he looked at his phone, seeing it was well after midnight.

"Places will be open again in the morning. Ya want a ride somewhere?" The stranger asked.

"Man, I'm a long way from home and even farther from where I'm going." Joey replied almost instantly regretting giving so much information to a person he couldn't even see.

There was a few seconds of awkward quiet before the man in the car offered "Look, I have a place not far from here. There's an extra bedroom. You're welcome to it for the night. Why don't ya come with me and we'll figure out your car in the morning."

At twenty-one, most of us think we're invincible and so it was with Joey. He accepted the offer, opened the car door, and climbed into the car. When the door opened, the interior light came on and Joey was met with an extended hand. "I'm Danny." Danny was a little older than Joey but looked normal. He was clean cut, with short well-maintained hair and a goatee. He certainly didn't look like anyone Joey thought he should be afraid of, he felt better about his decision to take Danny up on crashing at his house for the night.

"Joey." He said taking the man's hand and shaking it. "I appreciate this."

Danny wasn't lying, the drive was pretty short from where Joey got into the car before they made their destination. In the ten-minute or so ride, Danny told him that he had a big old farmhouse and rented some of the rooms out to supplement his income. He currently had one vacancy. Danny told Joey that was on his way back from a beer run. He and the guys were hanging out by a little fire. Joey didn't talk much, he mostly just listened.