END OF THE LINE
excerpt from the Road to Astroworld
Pete had driven for miles in the same circle. His eyes
burned like fire. He hadn’t slept. The cops were after him. He was like a rat
in a maze. He needed to steal a car. He needed to eat. He needed to shit. But
first he needed to ditch this piece of shit car. Stealing license plates was
only going to take him so far. The radio kept spitting out the make and model
and color of his car. 1976 Lincoln
Continental Dark blue. License Plate number FGH 775. Right car wrong plates. It was an old
Lincoln—a hand me down from his family’s Mortuary business which his Brother
was running. It’s blue-black shell blended into the night. However, the morning
sun was going to rise soon. A rat needed a place to lay low in daylight hours.
Pete avoided lighted avenues and boulevards and drove down dark rutted roads. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Where
could a hunted man go, he wondered? He saw scenes from the TV show Wild Kingdom
and Pete imagined himself as an ape running with the hot gaping jaws of lions
right behind him. He laughed at the thought
of the ape’s blue and red ass. For a
moment he had the crazy notion to paint his ass and run down the street
naked. A helicopter buzzed over Pete’s
car. Sweat dotted his forehead. He was a hunted man and delirious with fear. He
peeped through his windshield like a man peering through a dirty pool of
water. The helicopter buzzed away. Pete
sighed. He pushed a button and the radio lit up. The news announced that the Leaky Eye had
been identified as a forty-four year old Metro bus driver named Pete
Chesterfield suspected in dozens of attacks on women. Button after button spat his name or
something about his crime. He had attacked a little girl on his bus. He killed
a young cheerleader in his home. He may be armed and is considered dangerous.
Armed with what Pete wondered--a tire iron in the trunk?
A peculiar chill ran down his spine as he heard his name
called over and over. “I’m famous,” he
said to himself before red flashing lights ahead made him veer right down a
dark street. He stopped and looked at
the radio as it chattered about him, cut away to a song, and in a sultry voice
extolled the pleasures of drinking Malt Liquor.
He hit another button and there was another announcer speaking Spanish
and through the chatter his name “Pete Chesterfield” oozed over the airwaves as
if the announcer was singing it. Pete
started his car as mournful Spanish guitars strummed. Up ahead a little whitish dog was in the
street. Pete hated dogs. Even being a hunted man didn’t mute his rage of seeing
a stray dog and wanting to kill it. Pete
gunned the motor of his car. There was a
terrible yelping and then a scream. Pete
stopped and got out. He walked back and looked at the tangle of white fur and
blood lying in the street. It reminded
him of a body his Uncle had wrenched from a wrecked car. The body soot colored,
had only part of a nose on what was left of its face and its brains seeped through
a head of nappy hair.
“Look at it, boy. Death
is an ugly son of a bitch,” his Uncle had hollered.
“Look at death,” Pete said looking down at the mess of
animal. He didn’t notice her at first
but a soft whimper caught his ear. He looked up and a white woman with short
blond hair was crying on the sidewalk.
An empty leash hung by her side.
The chain twinkled under the moonlight. Her yellow housecoat bunched
around her neck. Her knees stuck out like small yellowish potatoes. Pete’s eye itched and he stepped toward the
woman working his mouth as if he was an actor in a silent movie. She stared at Pete. Her eyes sparkled with
fear and rage. They looked like blue sapphires.
She stood perfectly still as if she had been turned to a statue. Far off a siren wailed. The heat from the woman’s body warmed Pete’s
face. The siren grew louder.
“You lucky bitch,” Pete said as he turned and trotted to his
car. “You know I’m famous don’t you?”
Pete shouted back at her as he slammed his door.
Pete found himself easing past a patch of weeds near the Bus
Barn. He killed his headlights. From the distance he spied some of his fellow
bus Drivers standing under bright fluorescent lights. In their whites shirts and
black pants, the resembled large moths. Empty
buses stood like large patient animals waiting to be told what to do. One bus
was parked away from the others. It stood alone as if being punished. Plastic
yellow tape draped across the bus’ front door as if it had won a prize ribbon.
Pete knew it was police tape. He saw police cars parked next to the big opened
door of the depot. He knew they had
scoured the bus for evidence. He drove
on past. All of the roads he took were dark and unfamiliar. His car’s lights dimmed
as he drove. The motor in the old Lincoln was giving out. In a moment, the
motor sputtered and the car stopped. He
turned the key. The car lurched a couple
of feet before it finally died. Pete
looked at the dash. The temperature needle rose high above the H mark.
“End of the road, nigger,” Pete said to himself. He got out of the car and found himself
walking in a ditch. Steel girders rose in the distance and some swayed. Pete
wondered if he was near the docks. If he was, he could slip onto a boat that
was sailing to Jamaica or better yet, Africa. He stilled his breathing and
listened for water lapping and ship horns. All he heard was silence interrupted
by a frog croaking. He crouched low in a
ditch. It felt like he was in a grave.
He got down on all fours and crawled away from his car. He crawled
toward the steel girders. His hands and knees sunk in gooey mud. His eyes
blazed with heat and he could barely see. He thought of the story of Christ
healing the blind man by making a mud paste and rubbing it all over his eyes.
Would cool sticky mud heal his eyes? And would that balm heal his heart? Pete
grabbed fistfuls of mud and smacked his eyes. The mud was cool. He sat still
and the cool mud seemed to help. He found a puddle of muddy water and washed
his eyes. The stinging and burning was gone. He blinked three times at the
moon.
He leaned back into
the soft earth. The road rose high in
front of him. Pete sat for a long time.
He wondered if there was some switch somewhere in the world that could
turn off daylight and allow him to lie in the ditch forever—lie in the cool
earth with his new eyes. He took off his clothes and rolled himself in the soft
dirt. Anyone passing would have mistaken him for a bear rolling and scratching
his back. A siren wailed off in the
distance. He sighed, closed his eyes, and then opened them. When he opened the
sky was purple as if dawn was about to break. He caught sight of the top of a
huge silver and blue wheel across the road.
Seats were suspended from the wheel.
Pete looked at the Ferris wheel.
It occurred to him that he had never ridden a Ferris wheel. No one had
ever taken him to a circus or a carnival.
As he was thinking this, he heard car doors slam far away. He peeped up out of the ditch and saw a swarm
of policemen around his car. Their
lights shined through his car. It glowed like the hollow carcass of a
beast. Soon those lights would be
shining all over his nakedness—soaking into his back, his thighs, and deep into
his eyes heating up the deep pools of water that ran from them. Pete scooped out a large hole with his hands
and buried his white shirt. He spied a culvert pipe that ran under the road
from the ditch to the carnival graveyard on the other side. Pete put back on his pants and crept through
the pipe. When he climbed out of the
hole, he was on the grounds of the abandoned park. A Ferris wheel rose above him. Parts of it
had fallen off and its steel girders littered the ground like bones. What was
left looked like a half-moon on a stick.
He cocked his head and listened to hounds baying. He reached up and caught hold of an iron bar.
He pulled himself up, and his feet found their way from girder to girder. A few
seats were still left on the wheel. Pete settled in the highest seat beyond the
reach of spotlights. From his perch he
could see the lights from the police cars flashing red and blue. A pack of dogs strained at a chain as they
sniffed around his car. He saw them
licking the front bumper and a man jerk them away. Someone bent toward the car
with a flashlight. Pete guessed the dog had found the blood of the mongrel he
had run over. A helicopter hovered over
the policemen’s heads. Its searchlight
blazed a washtub-sized light toward the ditch.
Soon the men were following the dog’s noses. Pete knew that in a matter
of time the dogs would be clawing at his shirt.
He stood and tested the beams that held the gondola. A fat one would
need too much of the belt. One too small and weak might snap and send him
tumbling onto the sharp rusty spikes below. He looked up and saw what looked
like the end of an alligator’s tail. He reached up and grabbed the pipe. It was
ridged with tiny spikes. The end of it was bolted to a larger beam with four
screws with heads the size of a big toe. Pete took off his belt. In the
distance he saw the cops waving something that looked like a white fag. They
had found his shirt. The dogs had a fresh scent. The helicopter buzzed louder. The light’s beam
danced over the abandoned rollercoaster tracks turning them into gold and brass
bars like coffin handles. He knew it was only a matter of minutes before the
light found him stuck amongst the beams like an insect. He took off his belt. Attached
to the belt was the silver hole-punch used for punching the destinations on transfer
tickets. He shoved it in his pocket. The belt was new and the scent of fresh
leather hit his nostrils. It would hold tight and not snap. Pete sniffed at it
for a moment before he looped the buckle end around his neck. He tied the other
end around the beam. Because the belt was new he struggled with the knot. When
it was secured, he looked down at his feet. He hadn’t paid any attention to the
seat, but now he saw how wide it was. He jumped and leaped forward, but could
not get his heels past the edge of the seat. He felt the heat of the lamp sweep
across his face. Again he jumped and bucked. He raised one foot off the seat
and then the other like a puppet dancing. He jumped with both feet in the air,
but could not hold himself suspended. His feet thundered onto the metal chair.
Suddenly his face burned hot. The light was unyielding and did not move as he
turned his face left and right. They had found him. Hoots and shouts echoed
from the helicopter’s crackling radio. He looked down. Red and blue lights
swept over the amusement park. A voice called from the helicopter for him to raise
his hands. Pete jumped again for the edge of the grate. The helicopter hovered
close. The wind whipped his face and his trousers. Soon there were voices below
and dogs baying at the bottom of the Ferris wheel. Flashlights below him
flickered like candles.
“Sir, put your hands in the air!” The voice was nasally and
sharp from the Helicopter. Sweat drenched his face. It burned his eyes. He
absently reached in his pocket as if it was a summer day and he was searching
for a tissue to wipe his brow. He caressed the metal punch. He pulled it out
and aimed it like a gun. The voice shouted into a radio and the helicopter
jumped away. In the dim light Pete saw the officers below scurrying behind
whatever they could use for cover. Voices shouted through bullhorns for him to
drop his weapon. He aimed the punch below. The next sound he heard was a loud
ping next to his ear. Then a blast of fire tore into his throat. Pete gasped
for air. Fiery knives pierced his body. He felt himself lurch forward. He
stopped midway on buckled knees. The punch fell out of his hand. For a moment
he thought it was music as it hit the metal bars below on its way to the
ground. By the time the cops had shimmied up the grates and catwalks and shined
their lights on him, his neck was stretched like a chicken’s. A grayish thick matter from his bulging eyes
ran down his face and his pants had fallen around his knees.
