#except this one truck that passed me on the highway that splashed so much shit on my windshield that i literally couldn't see for a moment

[killerchickadee]

Driving home after work was a nightmare until I got off the highway in the city... I think the lake kept the east side warmer so a lot of the snow was just slush. But yeah the rest of the drive was bad bad.

But I kept thinking about this time when I still lived in Colorado... I was visiting my sister down south and had to drive four hours back home cause I had to work. There was an awful snowstorm and I could barely see the highway, and I had this car:

Which. Clearly not made for snow lol. HERE IT IS AFTER A COLORADO SNOWSTORM.

So that little car, and it had bad tires, and the wiper fluid tank was broken so I didn't have clean windows, and I drove it home four hours on shitty unplowed highway roads and made it home ok.

So I was like. Yeah I can do this lol.

[alicescripts]

Live show: Los Angeles, California

On October 30, we are releasing the Alice Isn’t Dead novel, a complete reimagining of the story from the ground up. It is a standalone thriller novel for anyone looking for a scary page-turner, whether they’ve heard this podcast or not. Available for preorder now. And preordering helps authors out tremendously, so please consider it. Thanks so much!

Hi, this is Joseph Fink. What you’re about to hear is the live Alice Isn’t Dead performance at the Largo in Los Angeles on April 5, 2018. This live episode was not any material from the podcast, but instead was a standalone show focused on the weird and interesting sites and places of LA. It was an incredible night, and thank you to those who came out to see it. Enjoy the show.

--

Oh. I’m sorry, I uh, I didn’t expect um, I-I didn’t know that anybody would be listening. [clears throat] OK. Um, when you tell a story, you should expect an audience but sometimes I don’t think about that. I just tell the story the same way I breathe, just move life in an out of my body.  I suppose you could listen if you want.

My name is Keisha. I’m a truck driver. It’s weird isn’t it the-the way say our jobs as though they were an identity rather than a thing we do for money. I mean do you think that outside of capitalism we’d confuse our self image with what pays the bills? [chuckles] Sorry. I-I got away from myself. Story not polemic, right.

I became a truck driver because, well, that-that’s a long one. I thought my wife alice was dead. But she isn’t dead. And she’s out there somewhere on the highways and back roads, and I’m trying to find her. Just driving my truck around and around looking for her. That’s who I am really. I am the one that looks for Alice. And Alice is the one who isn’t dead, but isn’t here.

I was in Los Angeles. All downtowns are the same downtown, they are landscapes built for the facilitation of money and business without thought to he human experience. And we are tiny to these monuments and that we are allowed to pass among them is a privilege, not a right. Still each downtown bears some mark of its city. The LA downtown, despite surface similarities, could not be mistaken for New York or Chicago, it’s too eclectic. It’s too strange in its architecture. LA is, is much more than movies but – movies infuse everything because movies are the only history the city will acknowledge. The history of the indigenous people, the history of the Latino people, these are set aside. The city looked at all the people that had already come and thought, ah! A blank slate! And so they did not draw from the Gabrielino or the Chumash or even the Spanish in their missions, they drew from the movies. From the foundational idea that LA could and should be anywhere in the world. So the style of LA is every style, each house and each neighborhood built in wildly different ways. It’s art deco and Spanish stucco and mid-century modern.

In Brand Park, out in Glendale, there’s this enormous house turned public library that is less actual Middle Eastern and more movie Middle Eastern, built by the wealthy white man whose garden that park once was. There’s nowhere in LA that feels stylistically of one piece, and it is that incoherence that provides the coherence of the city.

You see, I’ve come to town on your word, Alice. Only it wasn’t your word direct of course just – whispers through a network of safe houses and gatekeepers, those living on the fringe of society who can be trusted with the kinds of messages we send back and forth. But who knows how the messages mutate mouth to mouth? But still, even through this mutilation of intent, I can hear your voice, like a heartbeat, your skin and bone.

It’s Tanya in Omaha, a friend of the cause, who reaches out to me on my radio to finally lay your words to rest. There’s a meeting in Los Angeles, you’ve heard. You don’t know the exact nature and purpose of this meeting, no one seems to, but the word is that it’s a meeting of those at the heart of it, the ones that are making the real choices, that shape every decision that we think we freely make. So I’ve come to town to find that meeting. I will find this meeting and then… shit, I don’t know. And then I will decide what to do next.

I’m faced with a mystery that’s so much bigger than myself that it sits like an uneven weight in my chest. I feel off balance, so I take comfort in smaller mysteries, ones that don’t matter at all. In Pico-Robertson, a five minute walk from six different synagogues, and a celebrity chef kosher Mexican restaurant called Mexikosher, is a strange synagogue with no windows. The architecture is unmistakable. Modern LA Jewish has a certain look and this place has it, right down to the arches designed to look like the two tablets of the Commandments. Except this synagogue is several stories tall, and with no visible entrance.

What does it mean to blend in? What-what does it mean to, to disguise, what does it mean to stick out? These are intrinsically Jewish questions. A people that has, throughout over a thousand years of oppression, variously done all three. And this way too the building is very Jewish. Of course it is not a synagogue. It is, in fact, 40 oil wells hidden inside a soundproofed structure designed to look like a synagogue. And it is not the only one, just five minutes down the road is an office building with no doors and no windows, that one is 50 wells.

The machinery of our system is not hidden below us, it is disguised among us. Rocks that are actually utility boxes, trees that are cell towers. That vacant house that we walk by day after day, the one with the opaque windows? Actually a maintenance entrance for the metro.

Which buildings are real and which ones are disguises? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. But that’s what makes me enjoy considering it.

Sylvia’s here too. She’s really come a long way from the teenage runaway I first discovered on the side of a highway. Did you tell her about the secret meeting, Alice? She is both more vulnerable and far braver than either of us, did you send her to this place? [sighs] We reunited on one of the vacant cul-de-sacs near LAX, where neighborhoods that had once been an airport’s buffer zone were now demolished.

“Heya,” Sylvia said, as though we were meeting at the continental breakfast at a hotel, not on a dark empty street after months of not seeing each other. “Hey yourself,” I said. “Why did you come?” She shrugged, performed nonchalance. “Same reason as you, I guess.”

Well then I guess neither of us knew. Because I had no idea why I was there, I didn’t even knew who was meeting in this town, let’s start with that. OK what what organization, what secret brotherhood, what ancient cabal that influences world events is now sitting around the table in some sterile backroom in this sunny, thirsty city?

I could have asked Sylvia what she knew about it, but I didn’t. I felt like I would be following a script you gave to me, Alice, and I am not interested in your dictating my actions. So instead I asked her: “How you been?” And she took a long slow breath that was more answer than words could ever be. “[sighs] I’ve been good,” she said. “You know, trying my best, finding places to sleep, finding a friendly face on the other side of a meal.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s the same struggle for everyone. But those of us who live on the road, everything is amplified, you know?” I do know. Goddammit, I know.

I wasn’t even sure where in the region this meeting might be held. So I drove out east to the desert where the mountains looked like set backdrops, unreal and perfect, taking up half the sky. Palm Springs, the town killed by cheap plane tickets. Why drive two hours from the city for the weekend, when it’s possible to weekend in Honolulu or Costa Rica instead? Then, having died, Palm Springs hung on just long enough for everything dated about it to become vintage cool. Now it’s back, a mid-century modern paradise of steel beams and rock walls and that style of beautiful, but featureless wooden security fence that only exists in Southern California. Old motels not updated since the heyday of the 50’s now are converted to hip resorts with (farmed) table food and upscale tiki bars. The city is an Instagram feed. Which is both snark and compliment, because it is a genuinely beautiful place.

I wondered the town, feeling that there was something worth finding there, but unsure where it would be hidden. I visited Elvis’ Honeymoon Hideaway, a garish airplane of a house with giant wings of a roof looming at the end of a cul-de-sac, providing kitsch to the dwindling population of Elvis enthusiasts.

That house was built on sale for 9 million a few years back and is now reduced to an easy 4, so make those owners an offer and you too could own a house that is listed as a historical site. A place where Elvis had sex a few times. It probably doesn’t have a dishwasher, though, so… Just south of Cathedral City, I saw a sign that looked familiar. It’s this huge neon pink elephant, mouth wide in mid-laugh, splashing herself. A pink elephant carwash. The sign has a twin sister in Seattle, that one is famous. It was weird running into her in the desert too. It was like driving through the suburbs and suddenly finding out that 150 years ago, they also built an Eiffel tower in Pomona.

I stopped the car and I just gawked up at her. It made me so happy. And then, looking down from the sign, the horror came to me. I saw someone walking towards me with a shuffle that I recognized. Like their legs had no muscle or bone but were heavy sacks of meat attached to their body. One dead leg thrust forward after another, and as the man came close, he looked up and I went from dread suspicion to horrible certainty.

He’s one of those creatures that I call Thistle men. Sagging human faces hung limply on skulls that are the wrong shape. Yellow teeth, yellow eyes. They are serial murderers hunting the back roads of our highway systems, and one of them was here.

He made eye contact with me. He laughed, a sound like hanging knives clattering together. And then he was gone. The neon elephant’s face no longer seemed friendly. I mean it, too, seemed to be laughing.

Sylvia and I, we split up for the day. We just watched the traffic and people, looking for suspicious crowds, folks that don’t fit in with the tourists and the beautiful people working as baristas just for now. Of course we don’t know what those suspicious crowds would even look like. Grey men in grey suits going greyly about the tedious business of running the world? Or, like the Thistle men, monsters of hideous aspect?

I reached out to my friend Lynn who works as a dispatcher at my trucking company. She and I became friends soon after I started. She doesn’t take shit, I don’t give shit, we get along that way. “Any unusual moments in Los Angeles?” I said. “Strange shipments, unsual routings, anything?” “You know I can’t tell you that,” she said. “What if I said please?” I said. She snorted into the phone. [chuckles] “In that case, sure,” she said. “I always like you when I’m polite, let me see what I can find.”

Sylvia and I saw nothing of note that day. We ate together at a Korean barbeque place built into the dome of what had once been a restaurant shaped like a hat. “This is nice,” she said towards the end of the dinner. It was, it really was.

You know, a city is defined by its people but it’s haunted by its ruins. There are no cities without vacant lots, the skeletons of buildings, ample evidence of disaster and failure. Our eyes slide past them because they tell a different story about our city than the one we wanna hear. A story in which all of this could slip away in a moment. Even though we know this fact is true, even more for Los Angeles than most cities. This city will some day be shaken to the ground, or burned, or covered over with mud, or drowned by the rising sea or strangled by draught. The question is, as it is for each of us in our personal lives, not if it will die but how.

I like to go and look at these broken places where the refuse of recent history shows. It allows me to look at a region differently, maybe see what I was missing. And if a secret meeting was gonna be hidden here, where but in the cracks? So I peer in. I search.

Above the Pacific Coast highway in the hills of Malibu that are so beautiful when they aren’t falling or burning, is what remains of a house. That house was a mansion built in the 50’s and burned in the 80’s when its location finally caught up to it. There’s now a popular hike that goes right into the ruins, so any walker can go see this place where people lived as recently as 30 years ago. A ruin shouldn’t be so new. A Roman home destroyed by a volcano, well OK you know. A medieval castle, sure. Even an old stone settler’s hut, 100 years old, alright, OK that make sense. But a house that once held a television and a shower? It feels wrong to walk on the foundation, stepping over the bases of walls and around the chimney. It was a home not so long ago, and now it is transformed. Transformation is uncomfortable, and easily mistaken for an ending.

In Griffith Park, I met with Sylvia in the old zoo. All the animal enclosures are still there, and you can sit in them and look at where once caged animals lived, and now wild animals are free to come and go.

Sylvia and I sat in the artificial caves, trying to imagine what the purpose of this secret meeting was. Sure, generally the word was out that it was a meeting of those in control in order to further control us, but specifics were, as they often are, lacking. Sylvia asked me: “Do you feel like this story is too convenient?” And I had no way to respond but nodding. “But we still have to look for it, right?” she said. And I nodded again.

As the sun moved behind the hills, it got very cold. She said, “Yeah”. And I said, “Yeah.” And neither one of us meant it.

Gentrification comes for us all. Let’s leave aside for a moment the many issues of endangered communities and rocketing prices, and consider just two cases of what people will look past to get access to LA property. December 6, 1959, in the hills just below Griffith Park, a doctor lived with his wife in a mansion with an incredible view. The Christmas tree was up for the season, wrapped gifts underneath. At 4:30 in the morning, the doctor got out of bed, retrieved a ball-peen hammer and murdered his wife with it. Then he attacked his daughter, though she survived. And then he took a handful of pills and was dead by the time police arrived.

That house stood empty ever since, still filled with the family’s things: the furniture, the tree, wrapped gifts underneath. A prime house in a prime LA area, but who would live in a house where such horror had happened? For 60 years, no one. Well, the house sold for 2.2 million last year. A view of the city, just above those (-) [0:21:06]. Well at this point, who wouldn’t take some hauntings and a terrible bloody past for that?

Meanwhile the Cecil Hotel in Hollywood, site of an inordinate number of murders and suicides, where the Night Stalker lived in the 80’s while causing terror across the region, where just a few years back, a body floated in the water tank for days before being discovered, is now the boutique Stay on Main. A rebranding for this rebranded city. Even our murders are getting gentrified.

Maybe it’s me. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t like change. Change is often wonderful. But we should definitely think hard about what we are changing into, and what that change might mean. We should just spend a little time thinking about that.

[long break]

Still searching for this meeting. I went up the coast, over the Grade and down toward Axnard, not as cool as Ventura or as rich as Camarillo. Oxnard gets by. As I waited to hear from Lynn, I walked on Silver Strand, just watching the surfers. Many, even now in the winter. Nothing will keep them out of those frigid Alaskan currents. I headed south to Channel Island harbor. It was absolutely peaceful on its shore. The ocean is chattering and restless, the harbor sleeps. It does not stir except to send crumbling waves in the wake of the few boats in and out.

During my walk, I saw a rowboat. Old, practically falling apart. Something about the occupants of the rowboat made me look closer. Stooped figures in awkward postures that looked painful. One of them turned to face me, though the boat was 60 feet offshore, and even at that distance, I could see. Two Thistle men, floating in a rowboat in the (Sound).

“Ooooooooooooooooo,” one of them shouted at me in a gentle high-pitched voice. “Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.” There was something that looked a lot like a human arm poking out over the rim of the rowboat.

I returned to my truck. Not everything is my problem.

Worship is a feeling so all-encompassing that it can be easy to misunderstand from outside. Take the worship of Santa Muerte, a Mexican (folk) saint of death, likely a legacy of pre-Colombian devotion, dressed in the clothes of the colonizing religion. The church has spent a long time trying to suppress her worship, but of course the church has never been good at actually suppressing much, and devotion to Santa Muerte has only spread in recent times.

Like many figures of death, she represents healing and well-being. Religion often lies in embracing contradiction. Those on the outside, they see this as a weakness but those on the inside recognize it as strength. The temple of Santa Muerte in Los Angeles is just down on Melrose Avenue, sharing a building, as everything in LA does now, with a weed store. It is a one-room shrine established by a husband and wife, full of life-sized skeletons bearing (-) [0:25:04]. It would be easy as an outsider to default to one’s own associations with skeletons and come to one’s own emotional conclusions, but it is healthier to embrace the contradiction of these symbols of death. That, after all, physically hold us up for as long as we live. To deny Santa Muerte is to deny our own bodies.

Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater carries a different kind of worship: devotion to a performance style that time has left behind. And the outside of the building is – let’s face it, it’s creepy. Because, like skeletons, puppets have taken on a certain cultural connotation in the wider world. But we should try to see it from the inside, as the earnest expression of performance and joy.

Mm mm. No I can’t. Mm mm, I ju- not with puppets. Skeletons, fine. Loose-skinned monsters from whatever world, well I’ve deal with them, but puppets? Mm mm.

Lynn got back to me. “You didn’t hear this from me,” she said. “That goes without saying,” I said. “No it doesn’t,” she responded, “because I just told you that. Now, there have been some shipments that don’t belong to any company. Or the company info is missing from them, I can’t understand what I’m looking that. They certainly don’t hold up to any scrutiny at all, so I don’t think that they were expecting scrutiny. These things stand out so bad that they might as well be big red arrows pointing at a location in Los Angeles.”

It was late afternoon. Sylvia was asleep in the back of the truck’s cab. I lowered my voice. “Where?” She told me. I looked at Sylvia, knowing she would want me to wake her up, to take her with me. But I didn’t. I let her sleep. I went alone. Better that one of us survive.

I went where Lynn told me: up La Cienega, past a mall and a hospital. I came to the address she gave me. An unassuming place. If it weren’t for the brightly lit shine, I might not have even spotted it from the street. I went through the gates. There was a courtyard there, deserted. The air was still and there was no sound, but the stillness felt temporary, like the pause after an act of violence before anyone can get over their shock and react. I continued through the doors to a dark room. Not the grand hall I might have expected for a meeting like this, but a cozy place. Rows of theater seats. A stage draped in red curtains, from which a speaker stood addressing the crowd. There was music. Was that music? Or was it the shifting and squirming of inhuman bodies? Because there was something inhuman in this place, I could feel it. Not the people in the seats, they seemed completely human. Looking up at the person speaking, following the narrative, and slowly having information dawn on them.

In fact, the people in the seats did not at all seem like the kind of people I would expect at a meeting like this. Were these the powerful, the wicked? Were these the unseen hands ushering us to disaster? Looks can be deceiving. Everything can be deceiving, up to and including the truth, but no. I did not think that these were monsters, I thought they were people like me. People lured to the spot for the same reason I had been, because the story of the meeting had been a very good story. It played exactly into how I had thought the world works. It fed my suspicions and it led me to this place. And I think the same is true for every person in that room. They were there, like I was there, looking for a good story. But why were they led there? Hmm? If the meeting itself was a decoy, then what was the true purpose of this moment?

And that’s when I saw them. Lingering in the shadows at the edges of the crowd. Men with faces that sagged. Flesh that peeled. Yellow teeth, yellow eyes. Thistle men ringed the crowd. (Wools to sheep, parks to bunnies). Hunters. Prey. Did the people in their seats notice? Did they look into the shadows and see the inhuman eyes peering back at them, did they smell the breath of the Thistle men, like mildew, like soil? A smell of rot from deep within, cold lungs, did they hear the occasional laugh coming from a gurgling broken throat? Did they look beside them at seats that were empty and think, wasn’t someone here just moments ago? Or was there? But surely there wasn’t, because where could they have gone? And then the shadows at the edges of the crowd, the people that had once sat in those seats, were led into a place from which they could never return.

I understood. A simple plan: tell an irresistible story. A story that is exactly what all of us fighting Thistle might want to hear. That we were right all along. That the world really is against us in so simple and easy a way that the culprits could all meet in one room. And we would come to hear that story, and then Thistle would take us. Why hunt when instead they could lure?

Standing in the door to that hall of horrors, I saw the faces of the Thistle men as they turned and noticed. One gave a yelp and started to lope towards me and I fled. Where the courtyard had been empty, it was now packed shoulder to shoulder full of men with loose faces and eyes that went yellow at the edges and wet lips hiding sharp teeth. They were waiting for the crowd inside. Hungry creatures preparing to feed on any person that stepped out of that theater. I pushed into and past them, using their momentary surprise to escape, and I ran until my throat was dry and ragged, through that courtyard and out to where the lights of the strip club across the way flashed back and forth, back and forth, and then into my car and then onto the maze of freeways where it is so easy to disappear.

I kept my eye glued on the mirrors, but no one was chasing me. Somewhere behind me, an audience of innocents remained in Thistle’s trap, and I wouldn’t help them. I couldn’t.

Instead, I went back to the truck. Sylvia was still asleep in the cot. I sat in the driver’s seat. I was exhausted. The sun had fully set, and I allowed my eyelids to drift downwards. “Hi,” said Sylvia. She was in the passenger’s seat turned sideways towards me. It was light again. I don’t know how long I’d slept, I know I didn’t dream. There are small mercies in life, I guess. “Did you find out anything?” Sylvia said. I looked in her eyes. She’s so young. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair that she was out here like me on this labyrinth of roads and rest stops. But that’s just what it was. For her and for me and for so many others.

And she looked at me with trust. And I looked right back and I said, “I didn’t find anything. I don’t think the meeting is even real. Let’s get out of here.” Sylvia yawned, she stretched, she nodded. “Yeah OK,” she said. “Might as well. Too bad this turned out to be nothin’.” “Too bad,” I said.

So now here I am telling the story from just outside of Ashland, Oregon. Los Angeles is hundreds of miles behind me now. It isn’t far enough.

I love you, Alice. I stayed alive another day. You do the same, OK? OK.

[applause]

Joseph Fink: Thank you to everyone who came out for our Largo show. We will be back in two weeks with chapter 1 of our third and final season. This show would not be possible without our Patreon supporters. Such as the incredible Ethel Morgan, the indomitable Lilith Newman, the victorious Chris Jensen, and the electrifying Melissa (Lumm).

If you would like to join these folks in helping us make this show, please check out patreon.com/aliceisntdead, where you can get rewards like director’s commentary on every episode, live video streams with the cast and crew, bonus episodes, and more.

Thanks for listening, and see you soon.

[tehirschler-blog]

Based on a True Story*

*But the “true” story was told to me by my dad and he might just have been screwing with me (but he swears it’s true).

Joe yawned and scratched his stomach absently. The skin on his stomach was hot from the sun and he could feel the early stages of a sunburn. He knew he should move, but the five or six Budweisers he had downed in the last couple of hours told him not to worry about it. He was going to pay for it later if he listened to the Buds, so he split the difference and rolled onto his left side so that he could at least roast a little more evenly, like a rotisserie chicken. He’d been in the sun most of the day and it was way too late to do much about it.

His eyes drifted closed again. The sound of water lapping against the side of the boat and the accompanying rhythmic rocking was lulling him into a comfortable beer-nap. Sleep was just taking him over completely when a torrent of water pelted his face. Half-asleep, he at first thought it had started raining, even as part of his brain told him that there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all day above Lake Flores. “Are you going to sleep the afternoon away?” It was Carol, his good friend Bill's little sister. Bill was Joe’s best friend and the guy whose boat he was currently napping on. He and Bill went back to grade school; he even had a scar on the back of his head from where Bill had “accidentally” whacked him on the back of the head with a baseball bat while playing out on the sandlot. In fairness, Bill had a scar from where Joe had hit him right back with the same baseball bat, so they were square. Joe blinked his eyes open long enough to see a pair of undeniably appealing brown eyes staring back at him from over the edge of the boat. Carol was cute and if she wasn't his best friend's sister he would have asked her out by now. Plus, she had a boyfriend, Jack, who was currently watching their interaction right now. That didn’t stop her from messing with Joe; they had known each other forever by now. “Not all afternoon,” he replied finally, his voice laconic from a combination of beer and heat, “just a little bit longer.” “C’mon, get back in the water, we’re having a good time,” she replied, undeterred. The “we” in the water was the rest of the group they’d made the long drive out with. Aside from Joe, Bill, Carol, and Jack there was Kelly. Bill had been trying to get Kelly to go out with him for months and had finally talked her into coming out to the lake with him. The trip to the lake had been Bill’s idea, one last push to get Kelly’s attention before the end of the summer. That little plan hadn’t worked out so well so far. She’d spent the day alternately gabbing with Carol and splashing around in the water. Not that she hadn't spent any time with Bill, it was just that Joe didn't get the impression she was into Bill that way. Not that it was much of Joe's business, he mostly just hung out with Bill and Carol; shooting the shit. And lain on the boat drinking beer. All in all, it’d been a pretty good day. “In that case, I’ll only slow you down.” He kept his eyes closed, hoping she’d get the point. “Why don't you go bother your brother instead," he added as an afterthought. “Bill's trying to talk to Kelly,” she replied under her breath and he could almost hear her furrowing her brow in irritation. “Plus, he wants you to come out, too. Don’t you Bill?” Bill hadn't really been paying attention, but his ears must have perked up because he yelled, “Yup. C’mon, Wilson, get your ass out here.” The rest of the group joined in and started chanting “Wilson, Wilson, Wilson”. “God dammit,” he muttered under his breath and pushed himself up to sitting. He shook the cobwebs out of his head before standing up and leaning over the side of the boat. The boat was a fifteen-footer with a little shit kicking motor that was good for getting you out to the middle of the lake, but no good for doing much else. Now that he was moving he could tell he was burned all over. He ignored that sensation and dove headlong into the ice-cold water. The chill of the water instantly woke him up and within seconds he was treading water. “Alright, you got me out here now what?” he asked as he wiped the water from his eyes. Four hours later, as they pulled the boat over to the shore, Joe was sunburned for sure. His skin throbbed all over and he regretted his earlier bravado just a little bit. He slipped a on a t-shirt and a baseball cap, but the damage was already done, he was cooked. He slipped up to the stern of the boat as Bill steered it toward the launch. When they were about three feet away, Bill cut the engine and Joe jumped off and into the water. As the boat continued to coast in, Joe guided it up and onto the trailer. About halfway up the metal rails the boat lost momentum and Bill goosed the engine to get it to skid the rest of the way up. Joe jogged back to the aft of the boat and flicked the locks into place so that it couldn’t slide back into the water. “We good back there?” Bill asked. “All set,” Joe said and jogged around to the side of the boat just as Bill hopped down to the ground. “Who you riding with?” Bill asked. Joe glanced over at the other car, where the rest of the group had gathered. “Anybody riding back with you yet?” “I don't think so,” Bill replied and, to his credit, he only sounded a little let down. “Then, shit, I’m riding with you,” Joe said, not bothering to look again at the rest of the crew. “Let’s roll then,” Bill said and walked around to the driver’s side. “You heading out?” Jack called over from the other car and Bill gave him the thumbs up. “We’ll see you back in town.” Jack was driving and he rolled down the window and waved to them before pulling out and up onto the dirt road. As Joe hopped into the truck he heard the passengers of the other car yelling merrily. He sat down on the scorching seat and Bill handed him another beer. “Thanks,” he said and pulled the tab. The beer was a little warm now, but he would take it. “Let’s hit the road,” Bill said and put the truck into first gear. The truck groaned a little and struggled as they pulled the boat up to the flat ground, but once they were going it wasn’t a problem. As they bounced up and down along the dirt road, they passed through clouds of dust left behind by the other car. They drove for a good twenty minutes before either of them spoke. “It’s getting dark quick,” Bill said, leaning forward to look up at the evening sky. “Yup, good thing we’ll be on the highway soon,” Joe said and, almost on cue, they came around a curve and spotted the pavement. Bill looked to the left before pulling on, but that was mostly a formality; this stretch of highway had only been built a year before. Except for the occasional long-haul trucker, there still wasn’t much traffic yet. “So, what do you think about Kelly?” Bill asked once they were moving again. “She’s alright, I guess,” Joe said. He crushed the beer can and tossed it out the window. By the time his hand was back in the truck, Bill was handing him another. “Just alright?” Bill asked. “Alright, good, great, whatever you want to hear,” he said. He pulled the tab on the beer and took a gulp. The alcohol was settling in again and he was growing weary of the conversation already. “Maybe if you made a move we could all move on with our lives." “There’s just never a right time,” Bill said, switching gears. “That’s what you always say, but summer is almost over. Once school starts again you’re going to run out of chances.” He had heard this refrain before. Frequently. “Yeah, I know you’re right. She just doesn’t seem that into me.” Joe didn’t have the courage to tell him, but he agreed with that assessment. Bill had been laying it on thick for months and she didn’t seem any more interested in him now than she had at the beginning of the summer. Some things, though a guy had to figure out himself. “Shit, man, you’ll never know unless you try,” Joe said and took another drink from his beer. It was really getting dark now and all he wanted was to finish his beer and nap the rest of the drive home. “You’re right,” Bill said and slapped the steering wheel and startling Joe. “As soon as we get back…” He didn’t get to finish his thought, though as there was a loud boom and the truck pulled into to the left. Bill struggled with the steering wheel and Joe was thrown against the doorframe on the passenger side. He tried to right himself, but by that time they were skidding the other way and onto the dirt shoulder. Bill hit the brakes and Joe braced himself against the dashboard with both hands. Joe could sense the weight of the boat behind them and it felt like the momentum was going to flip it over the top of them. In a few seconds they had come to a stop and thankfully the boat hadn’t come over. “God damn, what was that?” Bill asked. Joe jumped out of the truck without answering, his heart still pounding from the surprise. He walked around to the driver’s side through the cloud of dust they had kicked up when they stopped. The dust swirled like miniature tornados in the headlights. By the time he came around to the far side of the truck Bill was out and looking towards the rear of the vehicle. “You okay?” he asked. “Sure, you?” “I’m fine, just a little shook up,” Bill replied, his voice quavering a bit. “I definitely wasn’t expecting that either,” Joe replied. They both walked toward the back of the truck. The dust was clearing now and they could see that the left rear tire had blown. This wasn’t a simple flat, either; the whole tire had shredded and bits of black rubber had scattered everywhere. The wheel well and fender were all torn up as well, probably from the pieces of tire as it disintegrated. “Son of a bitch,” Bill said and kneeled down next the exposed rim. “I wonder what could have caused that,” Joe said. “I don’t know, but my dad’s gonna be pissed,” Bill said and ran his hand over the damage on the fender. “You got a flashlight?” Joe asked. He wanted to check down the road to see what had torn up the tire, but there was no way they were finding anything in the dark. “Yeah, in the glove compartment,” Bill said, still inspecting the damage. Joe hustled up to the driver’s side door, stepped on the running board, and reached across to the glove compartment. He turned the silver knob and the door opened with a thud. He pulled the flashlight, a big heavy silver one, out and slid the switch into the on position. “I’m going to go check out the road,” he said. “Sure, but don’t take too long, I want to get this thing swapped out so we can get going,” Bill said. “Go ahead and get started, I’ll be right back,” Joe said, but he needn’t have, Bill was already climbing up into the bed of the truck to retrieve the jack. Joe walked along the edge of the highway, the beam of the flashlight running from side to side. The weight of it felt good in his hand, reassuring in the darkness. There wasn’t anybody out here, he was just as likely to get attacked by a bear as he was to get attacked by somebody, but it still was nice to have something to defend himself with. “See anything yet?” Bill called. “Nope, not so far,” Joe replied. He was probably thirty feet away from the truck now. If there was anything on the road, it would be somewhere around here. With the exception of a few pieces of tire, the highway was otherwise smooth. “How about a hand back here?” Bill called. Joe glanced over his shoulder and it looked like Bill was getting the jack in place under the truck. “On my way,” Joe said, but he took another couple of steps first. As he was about to turn, the light caught something curled up in the middle of the lane. His first instinct based on the shape was that it was a snake coiled up and ready to strike and so he dodged back and let out a cry of surprise. He realized as he stepped back that whatever it was it was too motionless to be a snake. “Are you okay?” Bill asked. “Yeah, just was surprised,” he responded. He approached the coiled object and realized almost immediately that it was a length of chain. Joe walked up to the chain and picked it up. It was still warm from lying in the sun and it was quite heavy. He turned it over in his hand and examined it. It easily could have done the damage to the tire. He looked all around, but even thought there was nothing nearby he had the distinct feeling of being watched. He shook off the feeling; the only thing out here was coyotes and maybe some real snakes. It must have fallen off one of the long haul trucks that passed through here. He considered flinging it into the brush at the edge of the highway, but for some reason decided to bring it back to the truck. Since he wasn’t searching for anything the walk back to the truck went quickly and he was soon by Bill’s side. “What’d you find?” Bill asked, while cranking the jack. “Here’s the son of a bitch,” Joe replied and let the chain dangle from his hand. Bill looked up for a second and returned to his work. “That’s a mean looking bastard,” he said. He had raised the back end of the truck up enough so that the rim was about to lift off and stopped. “Better loosen up the nuts before we lift off.” He held the lug wrench out to Joe. Joe considered making a smartass comment, but instead he dropped the chain in the truck bed and took the wrench from him. Bill sat down on the warm asphalt and shone the flashlight on the rim so that Joe could see what he was doing. Joe slipped the head over the closest nut and pushed against the wrench. It gave way almost immediately and with a few turns it was loose enough to move onto the next one. He proceeded this way until he reached the last nut. For some reason this one was particularly tough. He put all his weight into it, but the only thing that would happen was that the whole rim would shift and the nut groaned a little bit. “You want me to do it?” Bill asked and Joe could tell he was enjoying this. “I got it,” he replied. He was annoyed at Bill, but more annoyed at the damned tire, annoyed at the asshole that dropped the chain in the first place, but mostly annoyed at himself for his failure. He threw himself against the wrench and it was just starting to twist when the wrench snapped in half. He fell forward hard onto his right knee and the broken end of the wrench jammed him in his ribs. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled. “What just happened?” Bill asked. He had jumped to his feet and was next to Joe. “This thing broke in half,” he said, picking up the broken piece of the handle and throwing it over the truck and into the dirt. “Let me take a look,” Bill said, laughing at Joe’s anger. “Knock yourself out,” Joe said and walked away, seething. Bill put the remaining piece of the handle back on the nut and tried to twist it, but there was only maybe six inches of handle left and he couldn't get a decent purchase. If the nut wasn’t moving before, it certainly wasn’t moving now. He grunted as he struggled with it, but it wasn’t going. Finally, Bill tossed the wrench to the ground with a clatter. “Well,” he said, “unless you have any ideas, I guess we’re walking.” Joe put his hands on his hips and stared at the rim, but unless another wrench magically appeared he didn’t have any ways around this. He shook his head from side to side. “Let’s get going,” Joe said. Bill took the remainder of the wrench and threw it into the brush with its partner. He shrugged and smiled. He reached inside the truck, took the key out of the ignition, and grabbed the last two beers. He offered one of the beers to Joe who gladly accepted it. Bill closed the door again and they started walking along the shoulder. “Do you remember how far the last gas station was?” Bill asked. “Twenty miles, maybe?” “Well, hopefully somebody stops and picks us up, otherwise it’s going to be a long walk back,” Bill said. “Do you think Jack will realize we’re missing and come back for us?” Joe asked. “That guy? He’s probably already asleep in bed,” Bill laughed. “If we wait for him, we’ll be out here until tomorrow night.” “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. I guess it’s going to be those twenty miles, then,” Joe said and took a drink from his beer. "What do you think of that guy, anyways?" Bill asked. Joe shrugged. "Carol seems to get along with him pretty well. I guess that's something," Tom said. "Yeah, I guess," he replied. "He's better than the last guy, anyways." This was a running theme for Bill. None of the guys his sister went out with would ever be good enough for him. In truth Jack wasn't such a bad guy. He and Carol got along great and he did well in school, stayed out of trouble. He was a pretty good short stop for their team as well, so that didn't hurt. "That's the truth," Bill said. The last guy had been a real asshole and they had all been glad to see him go. “Can I ask you something else?” "If this is about Kelly, I don't want to hear it," Joe said. "But she just got in the other car, that doesn't seem like a good sign," Bill said. "Just think, though, if she had come with you the two of you would be out here by yourselves." "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" "No, but you would have had to do all the work on the truck." "I probably wouldn't have broken the wrench," Bill said. "You wouldn't have been strong enough to break it. You’d probably still be trying to loosen the first nut." “Yeah, right," Bill said and after a pause added, "But seriously, do you think I’m wasting my time with Kelly?” “Look, I can’t tell you what to do,” Joe said warily. “I’m not asking you to tell me what to do. I’m just asking if you think I’m wasting my time,” he said. “I don’t know. I mean you’re right, it seems like you’ve been spending a lot of time hanging out with her without much progress. Unless there’s something I don’t know,” Joe said hopefully. “Shit, I wish there was, but no.” Bill took a chug of beer. “Look, maybe give it until the end of the summer,” he said, hating himself for softening, but not able to bear completely crushing his friend. “That’s another month. Plus, it’s not like there’s much going on right now anyways.” “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Bill said. “Plus, once school starts…” he began, but he stopped at a sound behind them. He turned and looked over his shoulder and in the distance he saw a pair of headlights.  “Shit, look, here comes our ride.” “What?” Bill asked and then he looked back as well. “Hey, maybe our luck is changing after all.” “Quick, toss your beer, otherwise they might not pick us up,” Joe said and threw his beer can off into the dirt. Bill did the same and then both of them stuck out their thumbs. “Hopefully, they see our truck and realize we’re just broke down,” Bill said. “I don’t know how they could miss it,” Joe replied. The headlights were growing closer and he could just discern the outline of a semi-truck. It was barreling along pretty fast; he hoped it wouldn’t just fly past them. At this rate, it was going to be on top of them in less than a minute. Its headlights illuminated their own broken down truck and it kept going without slowing down. They were illuminated now in the truck’s headlights. “I’m not sure he’s going to stop,” Bill said. Almost on cue, the truck’s horn blasted twice, startling them both. The truck was almost on top of them and it was clear it wasn’t going to stop. Both of them stepped back away from the road because it seemed more likely they were going to be run over than picked up. As they stepped away, both of them turned their backs to the truck for a second and while they were looking away it went silent. Joe turned back to the road and the truck was gone. “What just happened?” Bill asked. “I…I don’t know,” Joe said. He stepped into the road and looked both ways, as if the truck would suddenly appear again out of nowhere. Although, given the circumstances, that seemed like it was entirely in the realm of possibilities. “There was a truck just here, right? I’m not making that up?” Bill asked. “I saw it, too,” Joe said, turning around in a circle. He was looking for a side road or anywhere else the truck could have turned off, but there was nothing there. Even if there was a side road, they still should have seen or heard the truck go by. For a crazy second he thought the truck dropped into a ditch or something. But that was even more unlikely. They definitely would have heard a semi truck crashing into a ditch. “What is going on?” Bill asked. “I don’t know, but I think we should get out of here,” Joe said and started walking down the shoulder again. Bill came along beside him and as part of some unspoken agreement they started jogging. “What the hell happened back there?”” Bill asked. “I don’t know,” Joe said. There was only one thing it could be and he didn’t really want to think about it. “Did that thing just disappear?” “I said I don’t know,” Joe snapped. He didn’t know how long he could jog, not another nineteen miles back to the gas station that was for sure. “What?” Bill said and stopped running. Joe stopped too, but before he could ask him what was wrong he saw it. There were headlights coming from the other direction. “Shit,” Joe said. “Let’s get out of the road.” They both walked down into the scrub brush. Joe hoped that they wouldn’t step on any rattlesnakes. But between that and the ghost truck, he would take the snakes. He shook his head. It wasn’t a ghost truck. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t that. From a safe distance they watched the headlights approach. It didn’t take long for them to recognize that it wasn’t a truck this time, but a regular car. “I don’t think that’s it,” Bill said. “Yeah. I think you’re right. Maybe they’ll give us a ride out of this place,” he said. As the car approached they jumped back towards the highway and flagged it down. The car’s brakes squealed as it came to an abrupt stop. The driver’s side window rolled down and Jack’s smiling face appeared from inside. “What the hell are you two doing?” he asked. Joe could hear the girls inside talking and laughing. “This might be the first time I’ve ever been happy to see you,” Bill said. “What’s the matter?” Jack asked, seeing the look on his face. Carol leaned across him from the passenger seat and Kelly rolled down the window in the back. Joe and Bill glanced at each other, both evaluating whether it was a good idea to mention the disappearing truck. They had no evidence for what they had seen, had been drinking all day, and would certainly never live the story down. They wordlessly agreed that it was best not to say anything. “We got a flat and the wrench broke,” Bill said. “Damn, it wasn’t your lucky day. Glad I decided to check on you guys,” Jack said. “He’s full of shit,” Carol said, leaning across Jack, “we made him come back when you didn’t turn up.” “Yeah, don’t believe him,” Kelly said. “Have you got a wrench?” Joe asked. “I’m sure there’s one in the trunk. Hop in, I’ll take you back to the truck,” Jack said. “I'll make space for you guys,” Kelly said. Bill got in first and slid in next to him. "Are you guys okay?" "It was scary," Bill said, "I really had to work hard to keep the truck on the road." Joe leaned against the window and tried not to roll his eyes. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes to cover the distance back to the truck that it had taken Joe and Bill twenty to walk. Joe half-expected it to have disappeared as well, but there it sat. “You weren’t kidding, that’s a pretty good blow out,” Jack said. “I think we hit a chain in the road,” Bill said to Kelly. “Really? That’s scary,” Carol said. “No kidding. You said you think there’s a wrench in the trunk?” Joe said to Jack. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Jack replied. Jack pulled the keys from the ignition and the three of them walked back to the trunk. Joe got out of the car, but Bill, Kelly, and Carol stayed behind and kept discussing Bill's heroics. Jack opened the trunk and they found the wrench pretty fast. That was another item in the plus column for Jack: he kept a fastidious trunk. Before they headed back to the truck Jack tapped on the rear window with the wrench. The three of them piled out of the car and then all five crossed the empty highway to the truck. “You guys got to the last one before the wrench broke? That’s the worst,” Jack observed. “It didn’t want to budge,” Joe said. “Let me put a little muscle into it,” Jack said and slipped the wrench onto the nut. He braced his feet and posed theatrically before putting his full weight into the wrench and nearly toppled over then the nut turned easily. “I thought you said this thing was stuck.” “It was,” Bill said. “I guess it was just your super hero strength that pried it loose,” Carol said in faux-pride. “You know it,” Jack said and flexed his bicep. The three guys worked quickly to get the tire changed while the girls talked and watched. Within a few minutes the spare was safely installed and they were all set to go. “Tell you what, we’ll follow you this time,” Jack said to Bill. “Sounds like a good idea,” Bill said. “I’ll ride with you this time, if you don’t mind,” Kelly said. “Sure, that’d be great,” Bill said and then added to Joe, “That okay with you?” “No problem, I’ll ride in the car. I’ve had enough of you at this point,” Joe replied. They all boarded up and were quickly back on the road again. Joe turned around in his seat and watched the stretch of highway disappear behind them. He was pretty sure he would be passing on any more trips to the lake this summer.