2. Interstate Deathwish




• At any given second I could die. I’m parked sideways on I-65 north in the middle of the night, halfway on the actual interstate and halfway on the shoulder of the road. Fog blankets the entire area.
  
  It’s the most dangerous part of the interstate near my apartment because it’s where I-65 curves sharply for a long stretch, almost in a complete circle. I know this because it’s where Gwen died. I park here every time.
  
  Most accidents within a five-mile radius occur at this stretch because there’s a ramp wall blocking the view around the entire curve. It’s impossible to see if anything is ahead of you or behind you. Even on a clear night the only landmark visible is the very tip of a yellow Waffle House sign off the next exit ramp. With my headlights and brake lights turned off I’m a guerilla disaster waiting to happen.
  
  I’m in the back seat masturbating right now, like I do every time I park on the interstate. Sometimes I like to listen to Everly Brothers or Patsy Cline, other times I listen to some of that newer music with more rhythm like Justin Timberlake.
  
  Headlights are blinding me and horns are blaring, their pitch becomes higher the closer the vehicles get, and lower as they pass.
  
  Whhhherrrrrrrr!
  
  Little drops of rain pelt the foggy windshield. The medley of rain and wet pavement wafts through the window and fills my nostrils.
  
  Cars and trucks swerve into the other lanes to avoid me, and the rush I’m getting is inexpressible. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I ‘m sure crack-cocaine can’t deliver this kind of ethereal high, where every five seconds a horn could mean I’m about to have my brains splattered all over the inside of my car. My hair is standing up on the back of my neck, and the inside of my scalp is tingling.
  
  I’m in a little, red 89’ Ford Escort. I could have brought my beat up Oldsmobile, but the Oldsmobile is bigger and safer. If I get hit in this little Escort, the chances are I’m more likely to die.
  
  No one can fault me for a lack of creativity. The Russians have their roulette; the Swiss have their William Tell, and the Japanese have their Kamikazes. Scholars can hyper-analyze these games to death and say they’re Freudian death wishes, or something deep and complex with roots in Greek mythology. But I think the reasons are simple; every society is plagued with boredom and will go to any lengths necessary to alleviate it. I just have my own fresh little spin on these cathartic games, my car parked sideways in the middle of hundreds of miles of dark interstate, waiting for a vehicle.
  
  I’m pretty much the opposite of a Kamikaze pilot. I like to purposely stack the odds against me. I won’t even venture out unless there is at least a ninety percent chance of rain that night. To increase the chance of fog accumulation I try and make sure the humidity is around one hundred percent.
  
  Joan says I’m delusional and psychotic, but in my opinion is she’s just a student working on her college degree, pretending she’s a therapist. I was caught last summer by INDOT (Indiana’s Department of Transportation) and sentenced to six months of inpatient therapy at Greenleaf, and six months of outpatient therapy. That’s where I met Joan.
  ***
  
  That summer, I parked in this same spot at night, with the lights off. I was working away at it, with my eyes closed. I hoped a drunk driver or an eighteen-wheeler would slam into me, or that a cop would walk up and catch me in the act.
  
  I was working away…almost there, thinking of Succubae. They ripped into my back with their talons and seared my flesh, sucking every last drop of life force out of me. Horns blared and the headlights created a laser light show inside my car. The Everly Brothers were dream-dream-dreaming away, when I heard a tap on my window.
  
  An INDOT worker stands outside my window, blinding me with a flashlight. That doesn’t stop me though. A minute later there’s another tap and three more people at my window, this time in police uniform. My back seat looks like someone blew their nose on it.
  
  Judge Polinksi tilted his bifocals and looked at me, shaking his cotton-white head.
  
  “Son, we don’t even have laws for this kind of thing, besides indecent exposure and reckless endangerment...which is a felony you know. Are you suicidal…” he paused to look at my rap sheet and then to me, “Mr. Broker?”
  
  I nodded.
  
  I have Obsessive Compulsive disorder and I’m bipolar; that’s what Gwen told me when she was still alive. I hate admitting that but she always encouraged me to so I could move on and get better. Joan thinks my diagnosis is much worse. We still meet once a week. I recall our first session.
  
  “Mr. Broker, ahem, why do you have this death-wish? You’re putting your life in danger and everyone else on the interstate. Could you explain to me why you’re doing this?”
  
  “I can’t afford Cable,” I say, with a serious look on my face.
  
  She doesn’t say anything; she just stares me down with her look.
  
  She doesn’t turn red; she doesn’t even frown at me. She has two colors, a beautiful honey color when she’s normal, and bleach white when she is angry. I don’t think she’s ever happy. Just then she was white. Another indicator if she’s mad or put off is she squints and points her lazy eye at me like a gun. When she does this I can feel needles under my skin. Right then I could feel the needles.
  
  She says in the calmest voice, almost whispering, “Mr. Broker, may I call you Ted?”
  
  I nod.
  
  “Ted, I drive on that interstate every night. I have a three-year-old daughter.”
  
  Then she does that thing with her eyes again, calm as some Buddhist, but supple as a snake, slithering her way into my psyche. The part of my brain that says, damn, she might be right you stupid shit-for-brains.
  
  Joan looks twenty-two but I think she’s closer to thirty. Her raven hair hangs down placidly at her shoulders. Her nose looks like a crooked beak, jutting out from two, tiny, black pearl eyes. She acts like the type who merely studies people, with as much empathy as the little tropical fish in her fish tank. Well it’s not exactly her fish tank; it’s not even her office. She’s doing her practicum right now. I’m just a college credit for her.
  
  But that voice in the back of my head knows she’s right. She might be a bitch of Arctic grandeur, but she has a point.
  
  And, in some ways she is attractive, especially if you like women with lazy eyes.
  
  I've stopped telling her that I'm doing this to be with Gwen again. She doesn't want to listen to that. She doesn't understand me, nobody did except Gwen. After I lost her to that drunk driver I also lost my mind. It wasn’t as if I was the most stable person to begin with, either.
  
  These neuroses didn’t seem to bother Gwen. She was one of a kind, the only woman who could put up with my antics. Even after she discovered I took fifteen showers a day, no more, no less. The sleepless, manic nights when I’d be up in the kitchen boiling eggs or cooking things I’d never eat, just for something to do.
  
  I baked Pumpkin Pie for her all night, as if it were Thanksgiving. Pumpkin Pie was her favorite, and I made sure she had plenty for breakfast. I’d bake tray, after tray, after tray. Weird I know. Any given week and I’d be up all night, buried in a Stephen King novel. I’ve probably read IT over two hundred hundred times during my life. There’s the time I tried to file a lawsuit against myself for reckless endangerment, but she stood by me through it all.
  
  She had a way that made me feel comfortable. She always reminded me to take my medicine. She always brought me Tiramisu cake at the end of her shift because she was sweet like that. She was a waitress at O’ Charlies.
  
  I could smell her before she came to the door every night from work. She didn’t smell like you would think, like a vat of cooking oil or breading from onion rings or mozzarella sticks. She smelled like she did when she left, like that strawberry scented shampoo and conditioner she used. Her red hair was almost the same color as her button-up shirt she wore to work, not a rusty-red but almost bright orange.
  
  She was supporting us while I went to school to study Radiology. I didn’t feel too bad about this because we were also using my mental disability check to cover the rest of the bills. The last night I saw her was two years ago, October 18th. I can still smell the strawberry scent, and feel her kiss. She covered another waitress’s shift that night.
  
  Six hours later it was all over the news. Her body looked like nothing more than jelly, oozing with red pus. They never caught him either. From the scratches on the roof and from eyewitness testimony they say she was run off the road by a large, red, flatbed truck. Apparently he was drunk or high, weaving in and out of his lane.
  
  That’s partly why I’m sitting here, parked on I-65 in this little shithouse-deathtrap with wheels, jerking away. I’m waiting for that ticket to heaven, hoping the same guy will run into me that killed Gwen. If I die or if I don’t die, it doesn’t make a difference. It still breaks up the monotony of my life and you can’t find a cheaper buzz than this. The only overhead is a couple of dollars in gas. You can’t get off cheaper renting a movie.
  
  My therapist tells me I’m schizophrenic, that Gwen divorced me two years ago because of my crazy behavior. She says she's just waiting for the judge's approval to put me away for good. But Joan is just a hater. I’m not going to let her stop me from being with the only woman who has ever truly loved me. That red truck is speeding towards me now and it looks like Gwen's ghost is next to the driver. I’m working away, almost there…