Black Mask

Going the Distance
by David Bart

The gritty concrete felt like sandpaper against his cheek. His head ached; probably not un-common after being smacked with a gun. Vibrations along the entire length of his body felt apocalyptic; a characterization supported by the desert wind scorching his face. But it was just traffic, whizzing by a few feet away; a stream of vehicles apparently occupied by people unified in their indifference to the plight of a sixty-year-old man. His worn/ torn backpack, just a few feet away, looked as deflated as he felt. All his worldly possessions had been contained within until Randy dumped them like so much trash.

So, here I be. Broke. Alone. Never gonna be a champion.

Hank spit out the bad taste of giving up. He’d never waited for the referee to reach a count of ten—sure as hell was not gonna start now. Heaved himself to a bent-over position, hands on his knees . . . then stood up straight, or near enough, swaying like he was well into a week-long binge. He’d heard once that old age wasn’t for sissies. Well, he’d never been called a sissy, but the old age category fit: sixty, going on a hundred and—

Sudden hiss of airbrakes turned him to face the towering chrome grille of a Peterbilt semi, the big rig idling just a few feet away, heat radiating off it like an open pizza oven; which he knew from a double shift at a Domino’s somewhere along the way. Maybe Austin or San Antonio. He’d endured many brief jobs over the last decade, living paycheck to paycheck, one menial gig after another. He’d once been moderately famous; now he was just another old guy on the ropes.

From behind the bug-splattered windshield the driver waved him aboard. Hank clambered into the passenger seat, nodding at the Samaritan trucker. The guy sported a greasy John Deere hat and a jutting chin with black stubble drizzled with chewing-tobacco juice. The air quality in the cab spoke to the trucker’s disregard of personal hygiene, but the red cab—inside and out—was immaculate. Sparkling.

“Bleeding,” the trucker said to Hank, easing his paunchy body back onto the faux-leather driver’s seat after cleaning insect viscera from the windshield. “Upside your melon, there.” Pointed to his own temple below the darkened band of his filthy cap.

As they headed west on the interstate Hank blotted the seeping wound with a white sports sock from his restuffed backpack, finally relenting to the truck driver’s repeated inquiry as to what had happened to him. . . .

That same morning he’d quit his job at the repair garage. His boss, Wayne Spivey, called him a punch-drunk old palooka after he’d dropped a shop light, shattering the bulb. Hank told Spivey to shove it, got his back pay, packed his stuff in the motel room he’d rented for the last three months, and begged a ride with Randy and Sharon Hatton, a thirtyish couple who’d overnighted at the Amarillo Residence Inn on their way to Vegas. Randy insisted his black 2002 Mustang was vintage, Hank thinking: Yeah, if “vintage” means junk. “Show me you can help pay for gas,” Randy had said, smirking like a skunk proud of its own stench. Hank opened a ragged wallet stuffed with two weeks’ pay.

Hours later, just past Tucumcari and right where the trucker would later give him a ride, Randy had pulled off and invited Hank to exit the car, offering to relieve him of all his money, casually pointing a gun at him like Hank was no threat. Sharon’s blond head was bobbing to a country song from the radio about friends in low places.

Hank had set up to take a swing, but Randy, younger and quicker, hit him in the noggin with the revolver.

“The road can be a hard place,” the trucker said, nodding solemnly; a tobacco-chewing oracle sharing an ancient truth.

Fifty miles before Albuquerque, at a wide spot in the road called Coyote Junction, the trucker exited to “diesel up.” Hank thanked his odiferous savior, saying he’d hitch north on the intersecting county highway—gulped fresh air like a drowning man on his way toward the nearest gas-station restroom. He greatly appreciated the ride, but was even more grateful for unsullied oxygen.

Inside the restroom he stood at the sink, the corroded faucet regurgitating dark orange water onto his scraped palms. He felt like weeping. It hadn’t always been like this; he’d once been a well-heeled prizefighter, billed as Hank “Hurricane” Harding. On the circuit, he’d stayed in five-star hotels, adoring women knocking on his door, fans begging autographs. Sure, he’d been bested in the ring a few times, but mostly won by TKO or knockout punches that drew cheers from the spectators, applause being the essential sustenance of a warrior.

His voice echoed off the ceramic tile walls as he said, “But nowadays, sports fans, the old guy just beats himself up.”

Hank leaned in closer to the cracked mirror—obligatory feature of gas-station restrooms along any interstate—parted his long, gray-brown hair to expose a red knot. No longer bleeding, so that was something anyway. He splashed rusty water on his face, the stuff so nasty he’d have to dry swallow any Advil still in his backpack—bent over to rummage, exacerbating the pounding in his temple with the sudden rise in blood pressure, found the painkiller and swallowed it, jerked the door open.

The upper half of the New Mexico sun loomed just above the horizon like a fiery red planet colliding with Earth. But despite that awesome spectacle, he could see that his present location was true to cliché: He was in the middle of nowhere.

Coyote Junction had long ago surrendered to the ravages of sun and wind; a town bereft of intrigue. A tiny diner and a neglected one-story ma-and-pa motel, its fifteen rooms huddled in a semicircle between a pair of gas stations, most of the letters in the vacancy sign glowing, the V and the Y dark. The gas station with the restroom he’d used hosted three people at the pump islands; an area off to the side was designated a bus stop.

“Tommy, hurry up, it’s a long drive to Grandpa’s ranch.”

The woman stood beside a bright yellow convertible at one of the gas islands, clapping her hands at her son to hurry, then turned to pull the nozzle out of the gas port. “And wash your hands.”

The little boy ignored her, pushing past Hank on his way toward the restroom. The kid wore ripped-at-the-knees blue jeans, red-and-white sneakers, a black tee, and Dayglo-blue-framed sunglasses. His little chest puffed out like a diminutive despot with important things to do.

Hank liked the kid’s confidence: cocky for a six- or seven-year-old. Or maybe he identified with the boy; he’d been pretty tough as a kid himself. He squinted at the young mother, shaking his head, silently admonishing her: You can’t let a kid go into a public restroom unattended, for Christ’s sake. The world’s a perv factory, lady.

White short-shorts, dark-green halter, dark hair in that Parisienne cut he’d once favored. Thirty, or even younger, with a lot of miles. Hint of an ex-stripper, which was an assessment, not a judgment. She leaned against the bright yellow, top-down Toyota convertible, tapping her toes, waiting for the kid—She felt Hank’s eyes on her and glared back; defiant, sneering.

And he knew what she saw: big old guy in dusty black sweatpants, faded-to-gray thrift-shop tee with a vague image of Stallone as Rocky on the front. Bare feet shod in ragged sandals. About three months past a haircut. A weathered face frosted with white stubble. A woman in California once told him he resembled a taller version of Kris Kristofferson, a comparison validated by his gravelly voice and dubious singing ability.

He walked over to where the bus would park upon arriving. He was flat broke, couldn’t buy a ticket, but hoped to pity his way on board. Drivers were often empathetic. Been there, brother, take a seat.

But where was the little boy? Hank didn’t want to miss the bus, but if you couldn’t watch out for youngsters, what good were you? Maybe he wasn’t much of a man anymore, but he could look out for a child. Even though he’d never been one himself.

As though she’d picked up on his concern, the mother pushed off the side of the convertible, glanced at the little girl in the rear seat: about five years old, curly dark hair, concentrating on the chirping device she held. The woman said something to her and then hurried toward the restroom, past two grungy guys at the pumps, one of them eyeing her while his buddy pumped gas into a faded beige Ford van with rusted-out rocker panels. No doubt a previous life on the salted roads of some northern city. Maybe transporting stolen goods.

The two guys put their heads together, whispering as they leered toward her car. Their eyes, Hank could see even from where he stood, were glazed with the feverish shine of druggies.

He tensed, from a core feeling of primal intensity, like every time he’d stepped into the ring.

—the woman got to the restroom door just as one of the druggies sprinted from his gas island, grabbed the little girl out of the backseat, the kid shrieking, kicking her legs, staring at Hank, her little arms reaching toward him in a pleading gesture— Hank shrugged off his backpack, sprinted as fast as his sixty-year-old muscles could manage—stumbled and nearly fell—damnit, should’ve tightened the straps on these old sandals.

The abductor was running alongside the already-moving van, its sliding side door open—tossed the child inside just before Hank landed a solid blow to his head, which unfortunately knocked the guy inside next to the girl, the asshole kicking the sliding door shut, Hank pounding on it as he ran alongside, the van pulling away . . .

Out of breath, bent over. “No license plate.” But he committed details to memory: broken left rear taillight, lateral cracks in the rear-door window, badly worn tires. Oil burner, white smoke boiling out of the tailpipe.

He wished for that candy-apple red, performance-tuned Corvette he’d owned in the eighties; he could catch them in a— Thoughts interrupted by an agonized keening, the young mother running toward him, clearly hysterical . . . stopped, as if brought up short at the end of a rope, her head swiveling back toward the gas station, no doubt remembering her young son was still inside the john.

Hank glanced that way, thinking: What more could go wrong? He watched the little boy swagger out of the restroom, the mother scooping him up, scaring hell out of him, his legs parallel to the ground as she ran back toward Hank— He waved her away, pointed at her convertible, shouting, “We have to get after them, can’t lose sight.” His backpack, with all his possessions, was slouched on the tarmac by the bus-loading area— No time, let it go.

He got to the convertible, jerked the door open, got in behind the wheel, the woman swinging the boy’s legs up and over the side, dropping him in the narrow backseat, staring at Hank, a crazy look in her eyes— She didn’t trust him, but was forced to acquiesce to the terror of the moment.

“Keys,” he shouted, his hand out.

The mother fumbled in her purse . . . held up the remote fob for him to see, pointed a trembling finger at the starter button in the dash. He punched it as the woman slid into the passenger side, the boy wailing, raising hairs on the back of Hank’s neck, the kid kicking the back of his seat, screaming, “Where’s my sister?”

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Copyright © 2024 Going the Distance by David Bart