2

It wasn’t much of a ride, but it was a ride nonetheless.
Sapphire opened the door and grabbed a glance in at the driver. He was kind of ugly and looked pretty stupid. There were bags under his eyes and little dots of lint speckled his curly mop.
She momentarily lost herself staring at the five hairs hovering around his upper lip, each quivering from the beads of sweat rolling down them into gravity.
Sapphire stared into his eyes.
He seemed harmless and she slid into the car.
She took an inventory of her surroundings in case she had to jump out and call the police.
Dust covered most of the sun-cracked dashboard. White goo crusted all around the buttons on the radio and that was stuck on a lame Top 40 station. A moldy stench roared out from the backseat and slapped her face as she pulled the seatbelt down across her shoulder. She wondered how much this was going to suck and closed the passenger door.
As soon as she slammed the door shut, the car sped back out into traffic. Sapphire held her breath until the car started up the highway ramp, then heaved the contents of her lungs out with a loud sigh. Weezebaggin it, she sucked in another gulp of putrid air. Her whole body twitched in violent slow motion, the veins in her neck bulging out in an agonizing navy blue, as she gagged back the barf that was erupting up her puke tube. She cracked her window to get some air and a whirlwind screamed into the car louder than a freight train. Five Hairs turned to the noise and stared at her like she had just taken the last cupcake at his birthday party. She smiled back, pushing her index finger against the button to close the window and then turned her unimpressed stare out at the world that was passing her by.
The afternoon sky was blood red with sailors delight. Sapphire almost cried as the grenadine sundrops dripped slowly into the tequila horizon, mixing the perfect drink of her escape. She was happy to leave it all behind. Sure, she was a scared. She had no idea what the future had in store for her, no clue where her foot was going to land on her next step. Sapphire didn’t care. What ever was going to happen, was going to happen and she would embrace it. It had to be better than the shit pile she was running from. It just had to be.
She knew it.
Still, nobody knows the unknown.
Still, you know..
Anyway,
The stink from whatever was rotting in the back seat starting poking back up her nose, grinding the Lifetime movie soundtrack to a halt and shoved her back into reality. She pushed her pupils to the outskirts of her eye socket, trying to sneak a peak at the creep without moving her head. It was useless. Her nose was blocking one eye and the other eye was more interested in the unusually long eyelash jutting out from her upper eyelid. Sapphire wanted to look over at him and start up a conversation, but decided against it.
It was easier just to feign sleep. It fenced off any benign conversations about the weather, loneliness, and how cool it would be if she were a Klingon or a Wookie.
She was neither a Wookie nor a Kligon and had no desire to be.
She choked down the puke and rolled her shoulders away from five hairs. She let in the slumber but kept one eye open.
It didn’t take many miles before Johnny and his five hairs maneuvered past his shoulder belt and attempted to put his arm around Sapphire by way of some old trick and tried to lick the lips of one Sapphire Holycross.
Sapphire made a quick lunge away as far as the seatbelt would let her and shot him a look that made it clear he wasn’t getting any.
She had been there before.
It was very early in her adventure through life when she learned about the price you had to pay for the ride.
At first, they were sternly blocked, but then curiosity got the better of Sapphire and things changed. She occasionally let the all too eager teenage hand grope aimlessly for her breast, her silver dollar alveoli still encased in their under-wired cotton cage.
With nipples barely erect in want, she kicked back and those hands quickly found themselves back gripping the wheel at 10 and 2.
It was no surprise that she found herself just as quickly looking for another ride.
Life got bigger and bolder.
So did she.
She had little regrets about those fog filled nights when middle-aged fingers, squeezed purple with guilt by tiny gold bands, probed for the wetness she couldn’t hide, but she never gave up the prize.
That was hers to keep.
She would never leave it in a gas station bathroom, forget it at some drunken and fucked up night out, or misplace it a friend’s house, next to the “I Always Loved You” shattered male ego nightstand. And most definitely, she would never give it away as a door prize for a ride to the next town.
She learned to tease, please and put at ease, the sweaty nervousness known as man and get a little bit of peace and quiet for the rest of the ride.
But Johnny was different.
Not in a good way, and not really in a bad way either, just different.
Maybe it was the five hairs poking out randomly under his nose like a genetic afterthought. Maybe it was his lazy eye that always seemed to be looking for the phantom fly buzzing around his head.
Maybe it was his tooth.
It was crooked and brown and looked like it had never been brushed, but it was fascinating. It screamed “Look at me! I’m the tooth that hygiene forgot.” and that was all she could do.
It was huge.
It was ugly.
It even gave off its own unique stench, a blend of sour milk and old people. It wasn’t a smell that filled the room and overpowered you, but it was there. It just dribbled over all the air molecules and if you breathed through your mouth you could taste it
It just sat there in his pie hole, dangling from his gums like a candy corn he forgot to swallow.
It even winked at her.
She didn’t know why, but Sapphire felt a little twinge in her heart. It was like the time she sobbed hysterically when she watched baby platypuses busting out of their shells on the Discovery Channel.
That tooth, so marvelous in its ugliness, jutted out from its putrid periodontal roost in tartar covered splendor. An incisor that was a shade lighter than pewter, it glowed with a dreary opaque dullness. It wiggled with every tongue vibration and glistened slightly with spittle. About 25 degrees from perpendicular, it caused his upper lip to fold forward in a rapper’s snarl. The five hairs didn’t mind, as it let them be featured more prominently on Johnny’s decidedly unattractive facade.
Sapphire stole several quick glances, twisting her left eyeball and pushing her pupil deeper into the corner of her eye than was humanly possible. Her inner thigh began to quiver. Somewhere in her vena cava, a zealous blood cell riled up the troops and led a full frontal assault, storming past the atrium and landing full flush on Cheek Bone Hill.
Pupils dilated and the time between breaths abbreviated.
Somewhere in her perineum a nerve ending sent an “All Hands on Deck” call to her clitoris. Rationale had to step out of her office and scream “Don’t make me come down there and spank you!” at which, clitoris just giggled.
Sapphire cracked the window again to cool down the flush.
Johnny didn’t even look over this time.
He felt the heat too.

1

Sapphire was the shit and she glided down the pavement like she was the shit. She knew it, everyone knew it. There was nothing that could penetrate her skin. Her skin was harder than sun baked concrete, bulletproof to bullshit. She was brined and pickled by all the bullshit that had drowned her childhood and hardened her against the hopelessness of dreams.
Numb and vacant, Sapphire followed her feet as they shuffled backwards down the highway. Her thumb was stretched out from the flat of her palm and pointed west, perpendicular to the road. As far as she could figure, her feet were following her thumb and she was just following her feet. It was a good a compass as any. You can’t go wrong following your feet. They just take you where you need to go.
She hadn’t washed her hair since Sunday. It was thick from the oil and dirt making her hair heavier but she didn’t mind the way it fleshed out her curls. Her high forehead, pink from the sun, just begged for someone to stop. Not like her forehead was the reason they would stop and Sapphire hoped it wasn’t the reason the cars sped past her without even hitting the brakes.
It was just a forehead.
Why would anyone care about a forehead?
It was pretty high. Six inches of skin spanned the gap between the top of her eyebrows and the first follicles of hair edging her pate. But why should it matter? It was just a bit of wrapping around a bigger, superior brain. Sapphire used to be self conscious of it, but her dad always made her feel better.
“Don’t worry about the way the other kids tease you, perfect is just something everybody isn’t” her dad use to say “They are just jealous of your big brain and how much smarter you are.”
She believed him.
At least she wanted to believe him.
And convince herself that he de

Back in those days, Dad was bigger than Jesus and could yell louder than God. He scared the shit out of her when he screamed but he was the kindest man ever when he was calm. He could soften himself into warm blanket and let everyone feel how much he could love, then hammer everyone into their hiding places when he barked out his rage. The whole family walked around on a tightrope every day, wondering what side of him would show up.
Her mom stumbled around like a zombie, sneaking drinks from all the bottles she stashed around the house. She never left her dad and was always telling anybody who would listen, how much she loved him.
Sapphirre didn’t get it.
There wasn’t any real love. It seemed like her entire family hated each other from top to bottom, but thought. “Damn It! We are family and we are going to like this whether we like it or not.”
Then Tyler, her dad’s dog, got sick. Dad sank into himself and didn’t talk to anyone. The whole family knew he was distraught and tried to help him grieve, but he wouldn’t talk about it. He’d just mumble and say that he was fine.
The giant voice that was always omniscient and perennial was suddenly missing.
Several weeks went by and her father never uttered a word. Everyone walked around the house like ghosts, trapped souls unable to speak to anyone around them. No one spoke of Tyler.
No one spoke of his sickness.
No one spoke of their day.
No one spoke at all.
One day Sapphire woke up and went down stairs and her Dad was in the kitchen crying.
Tyler had died.
She walked over to her dad and hugged him. He grabbed her tight and started crying. It felt odd, this monolith of a man convulsing in sobs against her shoulder. For a moment it made him angelic, almost divine. After about a minute she became disgusted. She saw him as the weak nothing of a man that he was. She was ashamed of him and resentful of all the years she spent thinking he was bigger than life. Sapphire pushed him away and went up to her room.
She packed a bag and left home, never looking back.
It seemed like decades since she smelled that acrid onion stench of the raised ranch she once called home. She almost felt homesick, but all she wanted now was ride.
She knew she would get somebody to stop. Nobody would notice her forehead, she knew she had a nice pair of tits and wore a very snug and low cut top to utilize her assets. Throw in a cootchie cutting skirt and legs freshly shaven in the putrid gas station restroom a few miles back and a ride was all but hers.
Four boiled eggs kissed each other in her purse, waiting for the lunch of their demise. Saphirre had swiped them from a diner that morning when the waitress wasn’t looking. Next to them, was a compact mirror confused and anxious by its momentary unuse and some seashell No.5 lipstick melting in its cylinder cone. Hardly a journeywoman’s warehouse, but it was all that she needed. She knew what it took to get from town to town and she had it all. She had a thumb, some leg, a bit of a smile and the know-how to mix it all up in a casserole and serve it up. She knew how to get a ride and it wouldn’t be long. She was so done with any useless lessons her cry-baby dad tried to drill into her brain or the nothing that her mom had taught her.
The road was a better teacher.
That placid prison back in Connecticut melted with every mile she traveled. The father that barked at every miscue, real or imagined and the mother, too passive or too drunk to even care that she had been choking on her husbands balls for decades, stiffened into silent mannequins of a distant past. Freedom lay somewhere up ahead, just past the next intersection, or maybe even beyond her minds eye, but it was out there.
She looked down at her thumb pointing out to the horizon.
Within moments, a midnight blue Crown Victoria skidded slightly and caressed the breakdown lane. She wanted to run, but sauntered slowly to the passenger door and poked her head into the open window.
“How far you going?”
“All the way to Chicago.”
Sapphire looked in and tried to judge the homicidal potential of the guy in the drivers seat. The guy was way too smiley, but he was kind of small. Sapphire figured if things got rough she could kick his ass. He looked like a crier.
Five hairs don’t make a mustache, but he thought he had one. He leaned over and opened the door like an invite to his junior prom. He pushed out a full toothed smile and a wink at no extra charge. Sapphire shrugged and slid in across the leather seat.
“I’m going that way.” She said. Any way was good for her as long as it was away from here.
“I’m Johnny.” He smiled under his five hairs. He had all the charm of an after school special. Sapphire pretended to be interested, pushing her scowl into a grin.
“I’m Sapphire”
She slid in onto the leather. It was cold and her ass clenched against the shock. She looked over her right shoulder and reached for a seatbelt. It wasn’t there.
Johnny noticed “This here’s a 1970 Monte Carlo with a custom 454 in it. I’m grandfathered in so I don’t need no seatbelts. If you get scared, you can just slide over hear and saddle up next to me. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Sounds good!” she yelled back over to him. He was revving the engines, probably trying to pump up his cool.
Johnny slammed down on the gas pedal and spun out into the night. Sapphire grabbed onto the door strap and gave Johnny another fake smile. It was only five hours to Chicago. Johnny was a chump and she would have him eating out of her hand in two. She was master of the road.

Chainsaw Willie

Chainsaw Willie and a Goodwill bag

Sometimes, I think God looks down on me and giggles to himself as he turns up the Suck Knob on my life.
How else can you explain my neighbor or Chainsaw Willie as I like to call him? The guy thinks he is the reincarnation of Paul Bunyan. He moved into the house behind me about a year ago and has been cutting down trees ever since. Many a Saturday morning has been ruined by his constant tree felling and lumber dismemberment. He has even managed to cut down a few trees on my property. We have had shouting matches, stare downs and run-ins with Joe Law. I used to love my little Alcove-In-The-Woods, until Chain Saw Willy hit the scene and turned my peaceful nook into a logging camp.
This morning he was out there at 5:55 am!
The only reason anyone should be using power tools at that hour is that they are hacking up annoying dinner guests and trying to dispose of the bodies.
After about 15 minutes, I kicked off my blue and white comforter and ran outside, barefoot and clothed only in my flannel PJ bottoms and a T-shirt. I was about to let out a verbal tirade that would make a Marine blush, when I heard the guy who lives on the other side of Chain Saw Willie start screaming every cuss word known to man in Willies direction. They harangued back and forth, grunting threats, gesturing wildly and safely posturing behind the small forest that separated them. Chain Saw Willie kept squeezing his finger on the throttle of his Troybuilt and screaming obscenities, while my angry neighbor flayed and paced back and forth across his deck.

Soon, I realized that my poor little man nipples were about to fall off from exposure. It was damn cold out there that morning.
I went back inside and jumped into bed, but it was of no use. I am not one to easily fall back asleep. Once I am awake, that is it. I am up for the day. So I got up, made myself some tea and decided I would use this “free time” to clean out my closet for a trip to Goodwill.
I swear I must have been really drunk every time I went clothes shopping. I have some outrageously heinous clothes. Plaid pants and neon muscle shirts paraphrased my teenage years and somehow still managed to command a hanger in my closet. I am defunct fashion-wise. I don’t even remember my flannel phase, but I must have had one because I have like 15 flannel shirts. I even have some clothes that went out of style when Miami Vice went off the air.

I came across: A corduroy shirt with a zipper that only went down half way. Light blue “Plastique” sweatpants (I don’t remember when I was in my “Twink” phase either). Nut hugger shorts from Junior High. A stone washed jean jacket with Motley Crue and Jane’s Addiction patches on it. (That was actually kind of tough to throw in the goodwill bag “sniff, sniff”). And lastly, several ties with various farm animals on them.
I think I need to get the guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to go shopping with me, so I don’t look like a dork all the time. Either that or get my girlfriend to hit the mall with me. She loves to shop and has a much better sense of style than I do. I still wear white socks, for Christ’s sake….
Just then I noticed something.
Silence.
I looked out my window and saw a couple of Joe Laws in Chainsaw’s yard.
Then I saw Chainsaw get cuffed and stuffed.
I don’t know exactly what happened, but Chainsaw is probably wanted in 35 states for non-payment of child support and running an animal porn ring. Or maybe he is running a safe house for unlicensed lumberjacks.
Whatever the reason, it’s good to see him suffer a little bit.

Not like I’m malicious or anything, I just like to see a good end to a bad story.

I smiled as the toaster popped up my waffles and I took another drag from my coffee mug.
I guess God just turned down the Suck Knob.