Clouded Rainbow (10 page)

As Carol drove, she thought about Lois’ date the previous night. The sisters would usually talk daily on the phone or during a visit, but it was not uncommon for a day to pass here or there without contact if one or both of them had been busy. After all, they were grown, married women. Carol figured that Lois and Roger had arrived home late last night after a lavish evening out and had a playful nightcap before an intimate encounter. Carol liked Roger, not just for his financial stability and honor, but also for the protection he offered her sister. She remembered one time how Roger called home as he usually did around lunchtime, but there was no answer from Lois. To make sure his wife was unharmed, he left work and sped home, only to find Lois taking a nap with the phone’s ringer accidently turned off. Carol knew her sister was safe with Roger. Even though Lois would sometimes complain about her husband’s forgetfulness, Carol was certain that Roger would never forget to protect her.

Carol had a busy morning and afternoon with the bi-yearly bedroom “deep cleaning,” as she liked to call it. It consisted of stripping their king-sized bed, washing the sheets, and then flipping the mattress. This was just the start of her work as she vacuumed the entire room by moving the dressers and night stands to pulverize the hiding dust mites. Robert didn’t like that Carol performed all of the shifting and moving by herself, but her adamant behavior was hard to change. This left her with little time to watch the news or even to read the paper, something she usually did in the morning. Robert was going to be working late at his corporate sales job, which left Carol to dine alone. She had a craving for a dish she made last month after she had read the recipe on the Internet. It was a baked black bean burrito filled with roasted chicken, steamed rice, fresh tomatoes, and a touch of basil. She had all of the ingredients except for the most important one—the black beans. The recipe required four ounces of black beans and the downtown organic specialty store had a naturally grown organic variety, perfect for her holistic way of eating. This was Carol’s reason for her voyage. By her calculations, it would be a short fifteen-minute drive into the city, ten minutes at the grocer, and then fifteen minutes back. This, of course, was dependent on minimal traffic and a close parking spot, but even in the worst case, she figured, it would be an hour tops for the trip.

Carol was nearing the passageway required to gain access to the city, the Pleasant Place Bridge, and she hoped traffic was moving quickly. The structure of the bridge came into her view. Its tall wire suspensions connected the two towers reaching for the sky. As she approached, she saw flashing red and blue lights from emergency vehicles in the middle of the bridge. At first, she thought a fender-bender was the reason for the emergency crew or even a crazed jumper. However, she realized two of the emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the lanes, which prevented any traffic.

“What’s going on?” she mumbled.

Up ahead, two police cars blocked the entryway onto the bridge with a younger traffic cop standing guard. Only a few vehicles scattered the roadway, which was strange for the usually bustling bridge.

Did I miss something?
she pondered.

As her senses surrendered to the mystery, Carol neared the traffic cop and rolled down her window.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You didn’t hear, ma’am? There was a huge pile up last night on the bridge. It was a mess, but we’re almost done cleaning it up,” he responded apathetically.

Carol raised her hand to her mouth. She wondered how she had missed such a prominent story. Her day of intense cleaning must have been the reason for not catching the news. She didn’t read the newspaper, didn’t watch television, and didn’t talk to Lois or her husband. In fact, she realized she didn’t talk to anyone all day. Surely, she reasoned, this story would’ve been the first thing out of someone’s mouth who was from the city.

“Was anyone hurt?” Carol asked.

“Yeah, several died actually,” the traffic cop said.

His gaze transferred to the cars waiting behind Carol’s parked vehicle.

“Uh, you’re going to have to find an alternate route. We need to keep this area clear,” he instructed.

Carol was stunned. She looked at the colossal bridge built for a fleet of speeding vehicles, but all she saw was a traffic-less shell. The normally thriving structure appeared lifeless. There was an ominous aura radiating from it.

A sudden feeling of loneliness overwhelmed Carol. She yearned for someone to explain the situation, someone who shared the same exasperation that she felt. She thought of Lois. She wanted more than anything to speak to her little sister.

11

The night air was cool and brisk. Roger staggered alongside a lightly driven road toward a shopping district. He was destined for the downtown some ten miles away, traveling the shortest route, which included the Pleasant Place Bridge. As Roger walked, a few passing cars honked their horns at the man they assumed was nothing more than an unstable bum. This, however, didn’t stop Roger’s drive as his mind and body focused on reaching the heart of the city to rebuild his memory.

This road was the one that Roger drove every time he had traveled into the city to work. From his current angle, the highway appeared unfamiliar. The upper-middle-class man had never actually walked the road, which made him second-guess his charted course. After about a mile, his right leg began to hurt again. Each abnormal step caused his left leg’s knee, the better one, to bend unnaturally, which induced more fatigue in his ailing body. He calculated it was the fact that his liver had finally removed his body’s painkiller—the alcohol. Roger began to lose sight of the downtown. His burning drive to uncover more pieces of the puzzle was quickly fading from a blazing fire to a candle flame starving for wax. Roger recognized his idea to walk was brainless, and he knew he had to do or find something quickly.

Should I hitchhike?
he wondered.

Roger figured it was a viable option. He saw a car’s headlights racing toward him, but as he raised his arm to gesture the world-recognized “thumbs up,” a sharp pain traversed his bicep. The car flew by, nearly blowing Roger off the road. He was in bad shape and was quickly getting worse. His immediate goal was to find a way to kill the pain receptors in his exhausted brain.

Up ahead, Roger saw lights in the distance. It was the trite gas station he always passed on a ride into the city. He never stopped at the business because it always looked like the type of place robbed more than a bank with an open vault. However, it was a place to rest. Tall oak trees obstructed the full view of the store, but the blinding sign lit the sky like the constellation Orion. Roger stumbled toward the structure. The sign finally revealed itself, “Raj’s Quick Mart.”

The place was small with only four gasoline pumps in front and a diesel station on the side. No cars filled their tanks, probably due to the overpriced fuel grades. However, several cars were parked outside the convenience store as well as a large tractor-trailer lacking its load stationed near the diesel pump. Roger made it to the door as he sighed with relief under the bright lights of the canopy. The intense radiance hurt his sensitive eyes, but he saw the inside was even brighter.

Roger entered the compact store. Six aisles stacked with junk food, trinkets, and soda offered patrons a choice of the bare necessities of life and nothing more. The clerk was none other than Raj himself, the owner and operator originally from Pakistan with a stereotypical Middle-Eastern English accent. As soon as Roger entered his store, the owner’s eyes swiftly studied what he perceived as a potentially troublesome beggar. Quirky music from another decade belted from a cassette player near Raj’s side. In front of him, an elderly woman was indulging herself with a daily dose of lottery tickets.

“That’ll be four dollar,” Raj rasped.

The woman handed the man four crisp bills from her recently cashed Social Security check and proceeded to exit the store. As she did, her eyes filled with the image of Roger’s incapacitated frame. She let out an instinctive gasp as Roger scanned the store for a cure to his uncommon cold.

“Where is your aspirin?” Roger asked the suspicious owner.

“Aisle three,” the man replied with his chin held high.

Roger suddenly stopped cold. He stood in front of a large display of bottled water directly adjacent to a small section of automotive products. A seemingly innocuous bottle of fuel injector cleaner was the object entrancing Roger. It wasn’t so much the item, as it was the writing on the label. “Dynamite Fuel Injector Cleaner” was plastered on the side. Roger’s mind shifted to his lost wife. He thought of the way her hair flowed in the breeze and how she subtly raised her eyebrow from one of his witty jokes. His mind was removed from his body as he stood there absorbed by a single word.

Suddenly, a pop erupted from behind the register. Raj bent to pick up a phone book he had accidently knocked to the floor. While the noise was abrupt, the patrons did nothing more than give a quick glance toward its origin. However, Roger did something much more than just shift his eyes. His oversensitive mind, lost in another world, reacted strongly to the impromptu noise. His brain triggered a surge to the muscles throughout his body, sending him off his feet and into the bottled water display behind him. Bottles burst and rolled throughout the confined store. A couple deciding between cheese fries and barbecue chips peered over aisle five toward the outburst.

“Okay. Okay. Get out! Get out my store!” Raj demanded. His suspicions panned out.

Roger picked himself up and hustled toward the exit.

“Leave my store,” the owner added as Roger moved past him.

“Ah. Calm down. Calm down,” a boisterous voice bellowed from somewhere.

As Roger reached the door, the man attached to the voice revealed himself. He was a tall, hefty fellow about fifty years old and seemed to be on the side of the American-born man. His name was Jack and he was the driver of the monstrous truck parked near the diesel-pump.

Roger collected himself under the bright lights outside the door as Jack gave him a big, friendly pat on the back, which nearly knocked him to the ground.

“Ah, these dune coons. They come to our country and don’t even have the brotherly love to give a good guy a break. Don’t worry about him,” the loud trucker roared.

Jack was the type of man who said what he felt even if it wasn’t politically correct. He liked to drive a tractor-trailer for the sense of power and respect on the road that the magnificent vehicle demanded. Jack traveled the country in his power wagon and frequently stopped off at strip clubs and dive bars, and was proud of it. He had filled his diesel tank up and was browsing the beer specials when fate seemed to bring Roger and him together.

“Hey. You look like shit, man,” Jack remarked with a chuckle as he studied Roger.

Roger nodded.

“Where’s the flood? Ha! I couldn’t resist,” he added as he glanced at Roger’s ankle-high pants. “Jack’s the name,” he said, offering his sturdy hand.

“Roger,” the businessman replied as he instinctively gripped it.

Roger’s mind entrenched the action from his high-profile job, the job that seemed to be in another chapter of a partially burned book. Roger somehow felt a sense of relief in the presence of this man. His worries appeared to get a temporary push aside. He knew he would never have met this type of character in his real life and there was no way to explain how he reached this moment in his journey thus far. But the trucker’s force and conviction seemed to be just what Roger needed. Let someone on his current level stand up and offer his hand, Roger figured.

“Hey, where’s your ride?” Jack asked as he scanned the nearly deserted lot.

Roger didn’t know how to answer the question because he didn’t even know the location of his black SUV. For all he knew, it could be in the same place where his lost wife was hiding.

Roger’s lack of response didn’t stop Jack from offering his help. “You must be a nomad. I can see that… Do you need a lift?” the trucker solicited.