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.