Coastal Highway, Tax Farm Four, Day One of Yore Reborn
Becky was beautiful, even more so than usual in her willowy yellow black trimmed sun dress, her crinkled red hair brushing her slight tan shoulders like…
‘Why is she looking away while she starts to talk and then doesn’t say a thing?’
‘You should not have let her drive. She can’t talk and drive without getting in an accident.’
‘She still has the nicest tits—it’s a shame her parents are rich.’
‘Yes, that is it. Stop watching her. It makes her nervous and she can’t drive to begin with.’
The mindless music, some wigger mumbling into a mike to remixed music from the 1980s, cut out in favor of something worse:
“In this time of drug addiction, job dislocation, family dysfunction and alcoholism, we, at Recovery Centers of America understand the need for a helping hand. At Recover Centers of America, we have a program for you. We are open nights, weekends and every holiday to receive you into care with the goal of a lifetime of recovery. So please, if life is getting you down, don’t despair because we care!”
‘A lifetime of recovery—of endless psychotherapy? What a nightmare.’
The outro music was irritatingly much more catchy than the post-negro mumble rap.
‘Yes, and now she talks—this is bad.’
“Brit?”
“Becky?”
“Are you serious?”
“About what, Becky—I sometimes think about other things then getting you in bed...so we have options here.”
Her face scrunched up so much that she was momentarily only an 8.
‘I wonder what she will look like when she’s old?’
‘Well, you are about to meet mom and you will find out.’
“Brit!”
“Becky—watch out for the Tesla ahead, that must be Elon himself the way he’s driving.”
“Brit!”
“Becky?”
“Could you stop looking at my tits for maybe ten seconds? I don’t need my parents thinking you’re a perv, okay.”
“The F-150 is cutting in—ease up on the gas.”
“But he should—”
“Should doesn’t live here, Becky. This is the Highway of Does, in the magical Land of Is. Let’s get to the beach alive and then we can talk.”
“Brit!!”
“Becky?”
“Don’t blow me off!”
“Becky?”
“The job, are you fucking serious about the job?”
“Of course, Becky. I start in 8 days, as soon as we get back to Lancaster. I’ve got all the tools I need with supplies on order—”
“No! The real job, are you seriously not going to apologize for resigning and ask to be reinstated—or a lateral move, surely after being on track to be V.P. of the largest dental supply manufacturer in the world, surly you have options?”
Tears were wetting the corners of her perfect round eyes.
‘Oh, no…’
“I start with Jose next week. He has roofing jobs booked all week every week, including weekends until October. I’m taking over operations since he has the connections. We have a good team, two strong crews. As it is, if we get rain, we’ll have—”
“Mexicans—a fucking Mexican business partner—and you put up half the money?”
“Becky, partners meet each other half way. Besides, I got through school working with Jose, and…”
“And, and, he’s your coach. That’s what it is, this bullshit boxing stuff, punching each other in the face, starving yourself—you are 34 years old, Brit...Thirty...Four!”
“Yes, and after 35 I will have to get special physicals to fight and will not be eligible for open class…”
“Brit! You are not listening to me!”
“What did I not hear?”
“Brit! My parents.”
“I’m sorry, I did miss that monologue about your parents—I mean, I don’t even know their names.”
“Brit!”
“Yes, Baby?”
“Don’t start with the Baby, Brit.”
“Yes, Baby.”
“Aaahhh, no, no, no! We are not going to kiss and make up! You are not fucking your way out of this—I hate that I’m addicted to sucking your cock!”
“Ah, I’m not experiencing any anxiety over that.”
“Aaahhh!”
“Watch out for the Nissan—that’s an actual black man, he might take offense.”
“Becky all of a sudden became a marginally competent driver, almost flipped his Jeep Wrangler as she zoomed around the Nissan and Brit gave the open hand wide-eye look to the brother behind the wheel that was the universal cross-tribal signage for, “dis bitch be karazee, bro,” and he was returned a salute and some how they survived the next three seconds of vaginal acceleration and the external siren song continued:
“Brit!”
“Becky?”
“I did not tell my father that you resigned. I do not know how he’s going to deal with me being engaged to, to, to…”
“A roofer, Baby—it’s how I paid my tuition in the first place.”
“A fucking six foot white Mexican who boxes and talks to my father’s daughter like I’m a black woman with a gigantic ass!”
“Baby...plea—”
“Aaahhh!!!!”
‘Is she insane—has she lost it?’
Becky pulled across traffic and onto the berm, the two passenger side wheels up on the grassy bank, unhitched her seat belt, pulled down her dress top, dropped those pears of feminine fruition over the stick shift and unhitched his belt with hands long practiced over this last year. Her long wonderful red hair cascaded over his now exposed thighs and he could not believe how lucky he was as he looked over her back out at traffic and the dapper, brown dude in the sun glasses and Nissan saluted him as he drove by.
‘What exactly is the problem here?’
‘Are they all crazy?’
“Oh, Baby—good girl…”
‘If I wake up and discover that this messed up life is all a dream...well, even so, there’s no switching teams…’
Fifteen minutes later, Becky was driving down coastal highway into Ocean City, reapplying her lipstick as she drove, with surprising discipline and skill, as if she were transformed into a rational human being...and the ringing in the ears returned.
The internal siren song had begun about the time they met, but also at the same time he received his promotion. He had not thought until now that there was possibly a connection between the two, his job and her. Even now, the thought that the ringing in his head might have multiple converging causes, stayed just below his analytic horizon.
He didn’t know what it was. But it sounded like a cross between a commercial power outage alarm and the inner echoes of a sea shell, a constant ringing cascade like a waterfall. Jose didn’t think it was from the concussions, but what did that fathead know about head trauma?
He agreed though, that it was not the boxing and not the few kicks he ate in the cage. The ringing in his head that often drowned out the noise of the world, it had started after he had become acting V.P. of operations at 33, a year ago.
For the past twelve months on this side of hell, ever since the workplace nightmares began waking him up every hour, he observed the cruel world and it’s meat-puppet tools from within a bruised mass of gelatin, seated with in a ringing bell on the shore of some distant sea, assailing him with its ever-singing and undecipherable plea…
Silently, like some great satiated serpent, the beautiful red haired stranger drove him, internally drained of his external grit, in his vehicle into what must be Jimmy Buffet’s idea of damnation, if executed by a Soviet architect and Liberian contractors…
