Postby Tramp » Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:32 pm
They’d decided to follow the coastline and stay clear of as many cities as possible. Luke wanted to see the Atlantic, and it also had the benefit of keeping their cop exposure to a minimum. Jimmy took the wheel since Luke couldn’t seem to hold the wagon anywhere near the speed limit, usually letting it creep up to over eighty. By noon, they were crossing the Chesapeake Bay on an endless bridge, miles and miles of highway suspended over the gentle chop of ocean.
“Hack, check that shit. Looks like the road goes right into the water. Weird trick, huh? They call that a mirage, you know. You ready?” Jimmy shook his head, and Luke dredged another Bud from the cubes, the icy water dripping on the mat of black hair covering his chest. Luke wasn’t big on shirts either, and with the amount of hair covering his torso, he didn’t need one. “Someone should make a cooler you just plug into the cigarette lighter. ‘Course we got the blaster plugged in there now so we’d need two sockets.” He drummed the dash. “Electric Jimmy. Fucker could work that thing.” He had Hendrix decibeled to distortion on the CD player they’d bought at Circuit City leaving Dover. He’d spent forever in the mall, picking up about every imaginable thing in the place, including a pair of two-hundred-dollar sunglasses, waiting for Jimmy to pay. Jimmy hated malls.
“Turn that down a little.”
Luke glanced over, stopped drumming on the dashboard. “You had that zombie dungeon metal crap ‘bout this loud.”
“Yeah, but this is the fourth time you played that.”
“Hack, it’s James Marshall Hendrix. He wasn’t a mortal, he was a god.” But Luke thumbed the lever, the volume retreating infinitesimally. Suddenly, he grabbed Jimmy’s shoulder. “That’s a tunnel up ahead.”
“Yup.”
“I ain’t so keen on tunnels. You better pull over.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. I can’t handle tunnels.”
“Can’t handle them?” His shoulder was starting to throb.
“No way I can go through that tunnel. It’s a Nam thing.”
“You serious?”
“Dead.”
Jimmy eased their speed. “Can you let go of my shoulder?”
He released it, and feeling began to return to Jimmy’s arm.
“Hack, we gotta go back. Turn around.”
“It’s hours and hours.”
Luke nodded, clutched his beer, and continued to stare at the tunnel mouth. “Tell me this! Why the **** would they drop the bridge down into a tunnel in the middle of the ocean? That’s juss crazy. What’s wrong with keeping the bridge above? Tell me that.”
“This way the boats can get across.”
“**** the boats!”
“It’s only a short tunnel. Can’t you close your eyes or something?”
“It’s under water for ****’s sake! Goes right into the damn ocean.” Luke’s face, for Luke, was blanched, and he was breathing as if his breath were choking him. “Hack, I was buried alive over there. Seven hours before they found me.”
Jimmy turned into the visitor’s center parking lot as far away as possible from the stone building that housed the tunnel entrance. He shut off the music and arranged the brand-new beach towel—it had a Bud girl in bikini printed on it—over the cooler. Who knew when a cop might show up? He asked Luke for the map and studied it, calculating the distance. “Six hours.” He began tidying up the car—beer bottles; CD wrappers and CDs; four different chopper magazines; snack bags for chips, beer nuts, Slim Jims, Gummi Worms, and Cheese Waffies; boom-box packaging and plastic mall bags—and carried the litter to a trash bin. Luke sat there, his eyes still fixed on the darkness, not even drinking his beer. With the wagon reorganized and the oil checked, Jimmy slumped in behind the wheel again, the sun near noon, burning, but the breeze from all the open water cool. Motorists kept pulling in and parking, whole families disembarking near the visitor center.
“Let’s head back,” said Jimmy. “It means going through Baltimore, D.C., and Richmond though.”
“Hack?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I can do it, man. It’s just about a minute, right? One ****** tunnel.”
Jimmy stayed quiet. He wasn’t going to say a word. Luke rolled a spliff the size of a small megaphone. The end when ignited looked like the taillight of a finned Cadillac. He worked it down, the breeze carrying the dense clouds out the window. Some of the tourists probably thought the wagon was on fire.
“Okay, Hack, I’m ready, man.” He gripped the door handle, his eyes blinking madly, moisture glistened along the sides of his nose. Jimmy started the Impala and goosed the accelerator, the car leaping across the lot. He careened onto the highway right in front of a truck, air horn bleating angrily, and hammered toward the black orifice. He avoided glancing at Luke. “Oh, ****,” said Luke. “Mother of God.” They blasted down into the tiled cocoon and Luke screamed, one prolonged roar of terror. Then they were headed up and into the sunlight again, and Jimmy eased his foot on the pedal. Luke lay back in the seat panting, sweat beaded in his heavy brows and chest hair, dripping from his nose, his do-rag wet. A nasty armpit funk assailed Jimmy’s nostrils.
“I did it. Hack, I did it! But I tell you what brother—never again.” He was beaming now, started to laugh, slapping his knee. “How ‘bout it? Home free. The sun never felt so good.” He inhaled the air as deeply as a prisoner released from solitary after ten years. He reached back into the cooler, twisted open two frosties, handed Jimmy one, and nearly drained his. “It’s amazing what you can overcome if you set your mind to it, man, but that nearly killed me.” He rotated for another beer, wiped his brow with cooler water, turned back forward. His face crumbled and he dropped the unopened bottle. “No ****** way!” Jimmy slammed the accelerator to the floor. Luke only muttered as they charged the second tunnel.
