Amy..San Diego

Hmm..wonderful sleep….the feel of Amy next to me..her perfume drifts over and caresses my nose. We were running through a lavender field, primping and preening, pretending we were French supermodels. I made a box with my fingers and she posed, haughtily piling her blonde hair above her head land laughing as I snapped an imaginary picture. It was good to goof off ; there was no one around for miles. I could see a dirt road past the old broken  fence.

When she collapsed into a grassy glen, she said she was exhausted. I stood over her, the sun behind me, the rays shining past me to her face. The vibrant grass made her eyes seem azure, a pool of the deepest water. I plopped down next to her and rolled on to my  left side. She lay on her right hip, blades poking her in the forehead. It was so high around us that we wouldn’t be seen unless someone walked right up to us. Suddenly serious, she rolled lavender between her fingers and asked:

“Do you think you’ll always be confused? I kind of knew I was a lesbian when I was four. My dolls rode dirt bikes and had buzz cuts…”

An embarrassed giggle burst from my throat. “Not sure. I’ve been confused ever since I could remember.” She caressed my cheek with her rough hands. Mechanic hands..she always said. But really, it was from stripping her paintbrushes in her art studio. Hours spent etching her angst onto boards showed up between her fingers and on her nails. “I quit dipping my hands in the paint thinner. Grams told me to cover my hands in Vaseline and sleep with my hands in socks. Be soft soon…” but I didn’t never about her hands. I cared about her heart.

“I don‘t want to hurt you…” I was sad. Every good thing in my life ended because I was fumbling blindly through it all.

“Why do you say that? Every time it (*HONK*) gets good (*HONK HONK*) you go getting depressed on me,” she looked mad, but I was wondering why it sounded like a car was in the field.

“Damn dykes! Learn to drive!”  

The blue sky was suddenly a different color. Pain shot through my head, and bile rushed into my throat. Had I thrown up recently?   There was no soft bed of clover grass beneath me. I could smell bus exhaust. What the fresh hell? I looked to my left, and Amy was fast asleep. I started to sit up, but my head hurt. Rushing wind, the knowledge of being in an open moving vehicle and a sudden panic made me feel like I had to puke.

We were in the back of a strange white truck, barreling down highway 70. Gingerly, I twisted around until I could see the driver of the truck. Were we kidnapped by ax murderers? I could see a man in a flannel shirt, with a crew cut. Next to him, a woman in a baseball hat. OMG..

“Amy!” Shaking her shoulder, I tried to whisper..but the wind was loud. “Amy, you gotta wake up! I don’t know where we are!”  Panic rose in my gut..and just as I ready to pinch her forearm, her eyes flew open. Her eyes crossed slightly, and it was apparent she was trying to focus. She tried to shade her eyes from the bright sun, and peered at me from underneath her hand.

“What the fuck? Who are those people? Where are we? Where’s my fucking car?” I hated when she woke up cranky, because the next 3 hours would be all about “the fucking fuck” and “godddamn sonofabitch.” She only woke up that way when she’d partied too much the night before. When hung over,  those words would take the place of nouns..which was annoying because I would have to decode.

“I don’t fucking know! Last I  remember is sitting with you in the piano bar with Fred and Sean…and then that guy came up and tried to convince us not to be lesbians.”
“Did he buy that Hurricane you were drinking?”…oh no…

“I was broke before you even picked me up from my house. Aw man…” suddenly I felt very stupid. Of course she would pick up on the situation right away, but I still existed in a rosy bubble believing everyone was mostly good.

“Um…yeah. Fucking asshole.  He probably drugged us. Check your underwear! Rapists steal underwear for souvenirs!”  We both lay on our back and pulled down the front of our jeans. I could see black and white checks. She had much less to work with. A tiny red piece of fabric was visible.

She twisted to check out the people in the cab.  

“Welp, we both have our underwear. No rape. But how did we end up in the back of this hillbillies truck? Probably gonna take us to his farm and feed us to his pigs…” Now I was alarmed. “I’m gonna go make his acquaintance. He isn’t gonna chop me up without knowing me first.”

She knew my history, and normally wouldn’t make a statement like that. However, she had drank jack and coke all night..and her brain was working at a quarter capacity. She stuck her head through the open window between the cab and bed.

“Hey dude! Oh damn….I mean Dudette! Sorry, I’m kind of hung over here. I’m sorry! Anyway, do we know you?”  

When Amy got a good luck at the face, she  knew immediately that possible ax murdering driver was a woman. Who had boobs. The wind was whipping around the truck’s cab and pummeling Amy in the face. “Ew, fuck!  I swallowed a fly! Gross!” She spit it out and flashed me a reassuring smile. Amy had talked us out of a few near misses already, and she wanted me to have faith. “Anyway, where are we headed?”  This was definitely not anywhere near East St. Louis.

“We’re going to our apartment to change, then we’ll take you to get your car, ok?”

“Ah man, that would be awesome. Thanks!”

She grabbed me in a hug and pulled me up to sit between her legs.   “See, I told you it was gonna be ok. You worry too damn much,”

“You did not tell me that. You made me think he was a hillbilly ax murderer. That shit isn’t ok. “

“Oh..god..I’m a lame. But it’s gonna be ok now. Let’s chill.”

Fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves in the Grove area of the city. After the truck came to a stop on a private street, we sat up and looked around. Hmm..not an area where an ax-murderer might live. These were historic houses in a historic district. “Hey, you can get out now.”  The driver turned out to be Andy, short for Andrea. The passenger, her girlfriend Memory. We were invited inside to eat some “grub” before getting on with our “travels”.

We sat at their breakfast table shoveling omelets in our mouth while Andy narrated.  “We saw you guys earlier in the night. One of your friends is a flamer. He’s like short..and has a lisp…kind of a rude little shit. Kept bumping into us at the bar and never even apologized. ”

“Fred,” Amy offered.

“Yeah anyway, we ran into him around 3 in the morning and he asked if we saw his friends. He described you guys to us. Said you left him without a ride home. He was pissed.”

“Ah shit….”

“Well anyway, we hadn’t. But then we walked out to leave about 5 in the morning, and you guys were sitting on the filthy ground next to a car in the back lot. I couldn’t leave you there.  Memory came back in and asked the bartender what to do, but she said it wasn’t their problem. So you see my conundrum. We’re in an area where people get sliced and diced, and you’re two women. My sister got raped at a college party and fucked her up for life.  You there, “ she gestured at me, “You were passed out in her lap.”

“And you..” she said to Amy, “You were barely there. I had to yell at you a lot before you woke up. But finally you woke up. I asked you if you needed help, and you told me you locked your keys in the car. I tried to get your windows and tried to jimmy the car open, but nothing worked. And while I was was working to get your car open, you passed the fuck out. So like, I’m stuck. I had to get big old Titanic Mary to help me load ya’ll into the back of my truck. Memory fucked her back up at the factory. “

Amy grimaced. Mary was a hulking, burly old queen with a long memory. She helped you, she’d remind you about it every time she saw you.

“Well by now it was like, almost sunup. So I’m loading ya’ll drunk asses into the truck with Mary. Neither of you two woke up.  Titanic Mary is moving ya’ll close together so you can share my old military blanket. Amy, you roll over and out come your keys out your pocket. But I can’t unlock your car and put you two in there because nobody is out there in the daytime and you can get robbed and killed then too. So I kept ya’ll. Figured you’d sober up and then take you back to your car.”

“I’m grateful, I really am. Thank you for looking out. But I feel like an ass. You could’ve been a rapist. I could be a skin shirt or lamp by now. So yeah..no more drinking for a while,” It didn’t seem necessary to mention the roofies.