he has been down a long time

on a dark desert highway, I saw a shimmering light. hold up, can't start this story with an eagles quote. my bad.

i struggled to stay awake. sunny had already jostled me several times-

“What’re you doing?”
“nothing.”
“don’t sleep.”

she was pretty relaxed about my nodding off, considering the fact that I was hurtling a cheap toyota down a desert blacktop in the middle of the night. we understood the possiblility of slamming into a retaining wall at 75+ mph, and yes we got it (in a general sense) that this would be bad and oh, right we weren’t seat belted. but what were the odds that something truly catastrophic could happen? We were still teen invulnerable. not to acne, embarrassment, or heartbreak. just to the life’n’death crap.

but now, with sunny sleeping soundly, i was on my own. windows rolled down, i tried to invigorate the blood by singing loudly along with “search and destroy." I read a hilarious road sign-

“maximum security prison zone. do not pick up hitchhikers.”

i repeated it in my mind so that i could tell it to sunny when she woke up. then I noticed a red light blinking on the panel. gas guage below empty. should’ve checked that earlier. oh well. there was an exit was a mere 2 miles away. 'fine fine, pull over, gas up, grab a diet coke, and… holy fucking shit. the exit’s closed.'

next exit, 29 miles. now i’m no brain surgeon, or even a functional literate, but even I could figure out there was no way we’d make it to that exit. we didn’t. sunny woke up sleepy and disbelieving. i said-

“it’s cool, we’ll just hitch a ride to the gas station.”

sunny didn’t know about the no hitchhiking sign, but the few and far between drivers passing us by at 4 am sure did. i felt so shitty about the whole thing that I offered to jump up and down in the middle of the highway until the next car stopped.

she seemed vaguely concerned, but let me do it. luckily they stopped. a mom, dad, and two sleeping girls in a station wagon. when we approached, the mom said

“we’ll pick you up but not the guy with you.”

“there’s no guy with us”

“whose that?”

we turned, and somehow, magically, there was a guy. tall and fat and carrying a mesh bag. asking for a ride to rosalind. said his girlfriend booted him out of the car a few miles back. dad told him no and told us to get in the car. i had to brush by the guy to get in, and when I did, he smiled at me.

at the gas station, we found out from a police officer that there had been a prison break that night. three escaped violent convicts were on the loose. he showed us a picture, and sure enough, right in the middle was our guy.

the officer said that he probably had one of the others with him, waiting in the bushes. for...ambushes... i suppose. when I gave the policman my statement, I told him how, at the end, the guy smiled at me. he said-

“well, you know, he has been down a long time.”

that sentence held all of our young, stupid, weak mortality. we could feel the other ending in our bones- the rape, the murder, the being stuffed in a trunk. sunny looked at me with tears in her eyes.

"that family who picked us up were guardian angels."

and i, who never met a heartfelt moment that couldn't be deflected, had to agree with her.

how could you say she was wrong?