=On Avoiding a Shallow Grave=

[image by HTC & Meeah Williams]

It's a dangerous thing to do but I'm in a bad situation and it's the lesser of two evils so I hitch a ride out of town with a complete stranger. The guy behind the wheel looks like an actor in a film about the gods and heroes of Norse mythology. Long golden locks, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, etc. Like Odin or Thor, via Ralph Lauren. He drives an expensive car; I don't know what kind, but you can tell it's expensive because it's like riding in one of those shiny high-end coffins and practically does all the important driving for you. Of course this doesn't mean he's not a serial killer. I decide to consider it a joke when he takes his eyes off the road for an uncomfortably long period of time in order to look straight through me, light a cigarette, and say, "What would you say if I told you I was a serial killer?" "I'd say, 'Cool. So am I.'" 

The miles pass in a sphinx-like silence, both of us attempting to solve the riddle of the other. 

We stop for gas at a station straight out of Edward Hopper. I don't jump out of the car the way you and I think I should. I stay put; I check my lipstick in the light-up mirror under the sun visor; if I have a death-wish, well, I'm hoping to look my best. I tell myself: "It's not officially an abduction until you actually try to get away." He climbs back into the car with a Dr. Pepper. "Ready?" I nod. We drive on.

More miles pass beneath us.

We stop at a roadside motel straight out of a David Lynch movie and have sex without blinking like two people well aware that in every movie of this kind this is where the knife comes out. When we're done, we lie side by side, staring at the ceiling, and share a cigarette even though it's a no-smoking room. We conclude that neither one of us is tired enough to sleep so we get back on the road and continue on our way. 

As we cross the Nevada state line we discover that neither one of us has a clear destination in mind. "I thought I'd go wherever you were going," we both blurt out at the same time and then dissolve into helpless laughter. "What a story we'll have to tell our grandkids," we agree.

We smile our beautiful sociopathic smiles at the light-splashed windshield and drive on for miles and miles and miles into the funnel of night. The moon, the stars, the great enigma of the horizon, it all lies before us. Dawn is somewhere another state away. One hand hidden, thrust down between the seat and the door, separately and together, we both finger the handles of our knives. 

"You know what would be best?" he says, eyes never leaving the vanishing point.

"A road that goes on forever," I say with an absolute certainty I seldom feel about anything. "That would be best."