Thin Luck

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Indiana IC 35-42-2-1

Assault with a Deadly Weapon

THE LAST TIME I hitched I was sixteen years old. It was summer, and I had much better assets then, skinny legs and a tight miniskirt. A family of four picked me up. I sat between the baby's car seat and the toddler's booster. I lied about my age and destination. I said I was eighteen, on my way to college to stay with some friends before the semester started. The family thought it was a wonderful coincidence we were going to the same place, but they had a bumper sticker that said they were 'UCONN Alumni,' headed toward Storrs so it wasn't that much of a coincidence.

But there was no miniskirt on this chilly day, and no skinny legs. Many cars whizzed by. One car honked at me, and I gave him the finger. But the next car, an older model station wagon, pulled over.

The bumper stickers said things like 'Friends don't let Friends miss out on Jesus' and 'Sin is the Disease, Christ is the Cure.' I popped my head into the open window, giving the driver an opportunity to change his mind, somehow hoping he might. To say the man was fat was an understatement. He took morbid obesity to a whole new level. I'd done a story on a man so large they had to saw a hole in his apartment and hoist him out with a crane. This driver could look forward to the day he would need to be removed from his home through a conspicuous hole carved out of his bedroom wall in full view of his neighbors. He'd be spending his fifteen minutes of fame on the front cover of the local paper.

His chest pressed up against the steering wheel. "Are you saved, lamb?" the man asked.

I shook my head no.

"Where are you headed?"

"Oregon." I contemplated telling him about my lesbian lover waiting for me there. Maybe then he would wave me off.

"I can get you as far as Chicago." He started throwing papers and fast food wrappers to the back. "Hop in."

I shrugged, and opened the door. The smell of rotten food made my stomach lurch. The seat had a greasy feel, like years of fast food wrappers had languished in this seat. The floor was littered with breakfast sandwich and hamburger wrappers. My rubber boots had melted cheese plastered to them the moment I sat down.

He put the car in gear and then we were off with a sputter. The radio bellowed the Christian station. I didn't listen to the talking so much as the sudden stop in conversation with 'Amen' repeated several times.

"God sent you here to me, lamb." His voice was so low I could barely hear it over the radio.

I put my hood up. My head rested on the window. I concentrated hard on staying awake. I alternated pushing up on the lids of my eyes until my eyeball was dry. A loud siren penetrated through the fire and brimstone on the radio.

The obese man switched off the radio. "Looks like an accident." In an effort to get closer to the windshield he rested the folds of his chins on the steering wheel.

There were four fire trucks and a few police cars. In the center of it all were two red mangled vehicles and a black Escalade with Connecticut license plates. "Shit," I said.

"I hope they were all saved," the obese man said. He stopped in front of the wreckage, craned his neck past me.

It was the Escalade I stole, it had to be. I took the time to wipe down what could, but I didn't take that much time. How long until the police put together the pieces?

The obese man finally drove on after a good long look at the carnage, more than I could stand. I rolled down the window for a breath of grease-free air.

"Are you too hot? Why don't you take off that heavy coat?" he asked. "My name's John, by the way." He put his hand out to shake.

"Jenny." I didn't put my hand out, didn't even look at him. My hood went back up. I put my head against the window.

"Tired, huh? Are you... I mean... Do you work at night, so to speak?"

My jaw felt tight. "Are you looking for a hooker, John?"

"No. I... I just want to save your soul. I believe God wanted you to get into my car."

"Is that right? What did God want me to do for you? Did he happen to mention it?"

John didn't respond.

I sized him up. While he was certainly a little crazy, he was probably mostly harmless. The hell and damnation continued on the radio. I tuned it out, just like I tuned out Carla's rants in prison.

I resisted the need for sleep, but my head bobbed every few minutes. My eyes were heavy. I could hear my hard breathing echoing in my ears over the noise on the radio. I rubbed my eyes as they teared up involuntarily. I stared straight ahead to the dashed white lines until they had me under hypnosis. I tried to think ahead to keep myself awake, but my worried brain resisted thoughts any deeper than where I would sleep and how soon it would happen.

A jab in the head with a hard object woke me up.

"Hey," John said.

I took off my hood. The first thing I noticed was the car was stopped. We were parked in the woods somewhere. But then I saw John's gun. I didn't like guns, especially not one that pointed at my head. "What the fuck?"

"God didn't bring you here," he said. "It was the devil. He brought you here for temptation."

My eyes focused on the gun, but the jerking movements of his left hand made me look down. He fucked himself. My throat burned from the bile inching up. His pants were on the floorboard around his ankles.

"It has been too long since the flesh took over. I need sweet release, and you are going to give it to me."

The thought, just the thought, revolted me. I didn't even try to conceal the disgust like I did with the guards. "No fucking way."

"Yes. You walk the streets, Jenny? How much do you get paid? I'll pay you."

"I'm not a hooker."

"Oh." He looked disappointed, but the gun was still pointed at my face.

"Look. I'll just get out of the car, and you can go get yourself a real hooker."

His face balled up like a baby's. The sobs came out, but the gun stayed up. "I failed, I failed," he said over and over.

I put my hand on the door handle. I was ready to risk being shot.

He stopped crying. "No!" The gun thrust into my temple.

"You don't want to do this, John."

He started playing with himself again. But when he reached for the handle to push the seat back, the hand holding the gun slowly started to dip toward the floor. I pushed it the rest of the way down. His weak arm was unable to fight back, but in the process of fighting against me the gun went off.