Road Kill

The road to absolution and forgiveness is a journey, not a destination, a road with no end, only beginnings. We never arrive just endlessly move on.

 (Wayne Wilks)

 

Wayne watched the large black furred Tarantulas creeping across the road in slow eight-footed time. The cooler weather brought them out of their deep earthly burrows as the nights once again became chilled. The relative warmth of the oil blackened asphalt road, heated by the bright morning sun, tempted them in sets of twos and threes to stalk boldly into traffic. That and the abundance of dark beetle backed prey and luscious summer fat crickets, juicy and sweet with the year’s previous abundance, attracted them to the roads sun given warmth. Their bodies made no noticeable noise as they vanished beneath the heavy Isuzu Trooper racing over them as seventy-five miles per hour, crushing them into thick sticky green muck. Just as well, they did not notice him or their own impending doom as they stalked quietly out of the world.

The all but empty highway snaked on ahead, gently curving, rising above and around low hill and swampy creek, presenting a seemingly endless variety of death and destruction along its lonely secluded path. Large Buck Deer, fully antlered, ripped, torn and smashed to shreds were not uncommon, spread across the roadway in dark crimson glory. They only added to the zoo like spectacle and the long trail of loss, unnatural and untimely death. Along with the fresh, musky and blood filled kills were many much older decaying sun dried corpses strewn along the roads shoulder. White-tailed doe and tender fawns rotted and decomposed amid the waist high grasses, gravels and dusts along the backcountry highway of North Western Kansas. Then there was the occasional flattened wild turkey, hawk or once, even a barn owl, adding variety to the show, each knocked from the air, taken out and pulverized by the tall rising flat faces of passing semi’s trailers. Rabbits, ground squirrels, mice, rats and snakes completed the bloody potpourri that stretched for over three hundred miles to his rear as he snaked, in doglegged fashion, west, then north, then west till once again north showed the way.

            What struck him most odd, as he drove, mentally inventorying the carnage, was the total absence of dead mutilated armadillos, possums, and turtles that were such a common sight along the roads in his home back in Oklahoma. Guess they did not care much for Kansas, hell he didn’t either, too bloody flat, and if an Okie calls somewhere flat, rest assured, it is flatter than hell itself.

Perhaps most common of all the squashed and torn were the skunks, one could smell their broken bloodied debris miles before one arrived, and for miles after. The stench of just one permeated a few square miles or more of dry prairie air. Sucked into the vents by the scooping, inhaling action of the Troopers ventilation fans and the fast highway speeds, it quickly filled the cab and stuck grotesquely to ones brain. Opening the window would do no good, best to simply endure it and push on. The stench would pass in five or ten miles, unless there was another one, which of course there most usually was.

The heavy, clinging scent of musk, casualty and decay, mixed with the pestilent aroma of the feedlots spaced one every twenty or thirty miles, kept Wayne smoking. Filling the cab with the enticing scent of freshly burned tobacco, an antidote to the wretched smells rushing in through the partially open window and seeping through the vents as he raced quickly by. He lit one after another.

Feed lots, he could not help but wonder if all of the steak eating millions and burger munching hordes had any idea what a fed lot was, what it looked like, what its purpose was and what it smelled like. Himmler must have loved feedlots, manure farms, deaths prep schools where the condemned were fatted, courted, and misled, much like the shower stalls of or Auschwitz or the bone meal collection centers of Treblinka where millions, expecting one thing, found another.

Yet this all passed quickly behind him as he sped away, leaving his thoughts, worries and sadness in his wind roused wake. The road ahead was long, unknown and wonderful. For the most part the music was loud and clear, the air, cool and clean, the mood light and expectant. The windows, half down, caused the air to rush through his hair and dance across his face, caressing and enticing. His left hand flew and glided in the rushing air as he held it out the window, tipping and angling it to best catch the wind. He felt happy, out on the road, alone and free, free as one can be in Socialist America. Carefree and upbeat with the sound of Christian Rock echoing through the cab he smiled, sipped his strong, sweet, cream filled coffee and thanked the Lord for all that was.

Here, alone in his car there were no rude, manner less idiots nagging and whining about his cigarette smoke while inhaling huge quantities of diesel fumes and car exhaust with no ill effects or complaint.

Here there were no news reports of his lying Muslim President, bowing to Arab dictators, selling his country to the Chinese, or giving away his hard earned paycheck and tax dollars to criminals, aliens and minorities who hated him, his country and everyone who resembled him, due solely to the lack of brown pigment in his skin. Nor was there any spite filled first lady using his country as a personal treasure chest for her own amusement, personal fulfillment and hate filled agenda.

Here there were no haters, no users, no separatists unable and unwilling to speak English, dress in appropriate fashion, pronounce the word ask nor any of those most common, those who felt faint  at even the thought or suggestion of work, education or family responsibility.

Here there were no fools in the skin of men, wearing curlers in their hair or covering their greasy unwashed heads in cut off female pantyhose. Here there were no Crack dealers, scumbags or high school dropouts whining and bitching about the size of their welfare checks, dressed like women, un-bathed, unable to pronounce a simple sentence, complaining about not having a job while driving new SUV’s, talking on five hundred dollar internet enabled cell phones and assaulting little old men and women.

Here there was no hatred, no swindling, and no conning, no entitlements, no handouts, no section eight. Here alone, was quite, sanity and justice, here all that he had belonged to him and that was his he had earned. Heading to somewhere he did not know, to nowhere he had planned, to anywhere he could find, there was no past, no evil, no hatred and no racism,  only happy prospects of a new and different future.

Here there were no clinging chains of past mistakes pulling him down, nor the blaring undying consequences of decisions past. No one hated him here, no one ignored him, and no one played him the fool. There was none here to leave him, no one to cheat on him, no one to abandon him. There was no one to blame him for others mistakes or others sins. Here was only him, his God, a wealth of beauty and the ever-present silence of solitude and open space.

Like the scenery along the road, all was new and fresh, unknown and exciting. With each passing mile, each gentle curve or smoothly sloping hill he left the bland and mundane further and further behind. Like the road itself, all the damage and destruction, the unfulfilled lives, the people unable or unwilling to love and all the empty black hearts lay behind him, passed in a flash, now no more than a vague remembrance, a passing fancy in a forgotten dream.

He’d left it all, tossed it to the side of the road, dead and dying, forgotten and alone, crushed and smashed like so much rotting road kill. He was free from it all. No more sorrow, no more regret or debilitating guilt, no more hatred from strangers or blame for things he knew nothing about. No more worry, no more doubt, no lovers left nor hearts abandoned could touch him now. Neither loss nor rejection could hurt him, no faithlessness nor abandonment, could cause him pain. No hate-filled losers could rob, cheat, nor abuse him. Just as the miles of road in his wake and the wealth of death there displayed, his former life was behind him, lost in time and distance, passed and forgotten. He’d find no dark ink filled eyes full of gloom and lies, no nothing from here but light blue skies and deep blue eyes.

He sought escape and escape he had found.

“Oh God,” he said.

“Thank you for freedom.”

He spoke to himself often, not particularly uncommon for a man who has spent the majority of his life alone. He spoke to himself and to his God, ever amazed by the beauty of nature, the charm of life’s creatures and the awe of creation.

He found himself thanking God for the little things as he glided along, the wind, the scents, the warmth of the sun, the cool of the breeze. He was thankful for much, for his freedom, for his car, for his earth. Yet his God was a God he hardly knew, yet wanted to meet, someday, somewhere on the prairie’s plain, the rocky mountaintops or some sand covered beach, pounded with surf and foam.

“Perhaps, someday,” he added.

“Perhaps.”

She came from out of nowhere, somewhere to his left in a field of knee high grain, reddish brown and eager for the scythe. There were two others with her, just slightly behind her and at her side. She bounced, flew, soared effortlessly over the five foot barb wire fence as if it were nothing, in one, no two short, quick, ever so graceful leaps she came from somewhere far to his left to now, no more than thirty feet directly in front of him and the speeding Trooper, now approaching eighty miles per hour.

Instinctively, without thought or hesitation, his right foot found the peddle thrusting forcibly downward on the brake. The two ton trooper squealed in surprised protest, quickly and oddly jittering slightly left, then right, then left again, rear wheels catching, releasing and catching again, dividing seconds into halves, eights and sixteen’s as the rear of the vehicle shuddered in violent resistance and the front end leaned downward, desperately clutching the roads surface, loudly asking why.

Wayne’s heart jumped into his mouth as the mother deer and her two maturing offspring seemed not even touch the ground before him. Immediately bounding skyward once again, disappearing from in front of the vehicle, they departed as quickly as they appeared. It took them but one leap to reach the right side of the road, one to glide across the fence on the other side and one more to vanish from his sight.

Wayne released the brake no sooner that he pressed it and the speeding mechanical instrument of destruction straightened instantly, eased its prostrating protests, resuming its distracted trail forward. Its jittering, convulsive movements immediately stopped as it once again fled smoothly ahead.

Catching his breath he continued, slowing the vehicle as the flush left his face. Filled with a rush of electric adrenaline, his heart pounding in his chest, his mind suddenly filled with images of the broken and crushed Buck deer. The does and fawns, the skunks and the rabbits, those that flew, crawled and slithered, the complete spectrum of the dead and crushed he had previewed earlier that morning flashed before him. Try as he might he was unable to shake them. Images of the gory unending spectacle he had witnessed over the last five hours speed past his mind’s eye in rapid succession, like single frames in a Technicolor slide show. A slideshow of death, ruin and decay, splashed across his mind, playing before him all that had come before, all he had seen and all that had passed.

He searched the distance, squinting in the bright early pre noon sun. Finding what he sought, he slowed, checked for oncoming traffic or any approaching from the rear, and then turned off the highway. Turning slowly left, he entered a small gravel road butting up against a wire fence. A cattle guard of long steel posts lined the ground, thumping against his tires as he pulled forward across them. A sign warning against hunting and trespassing greeted him, as did the slow meticulous rising and falling of a small whitish pump pulling black hearted gold from far beneath the prairies surface.

Stepping out of the vehicle, he stretched, breathing deeply as the adrenaline sped through his liver and into his bladder. Turning his back on the road he opened his buttoned fly, sighing loudly before relieving himself atop a lone and thorny prickly pear cactus at his feet.

Around him were numerous small tufts of deep purple Snake Root, once a staple food of Native Americans due to its long starchy tuber and usefulness as an agent against snakebite. Tall windblown stands of Snow on the Mountains covered the prairie and lined the road. Along with the purple spikes of the Snakeroot, white flowering Catnip, Jimson weed and Asters blanketed the prairie with patches of violet, white and whitish green. Tall stands of verdant green Poke, veined in deepest darkest purples, thrust upwards from the shade beneath the few stunted trees, displaying their dark crimson berries to the birds and those with fur, cunningly offering sweet juicy fruit in exchange for dispersing her seeds.

Wayne breathed in the air, still a bit cool yet warming quickly as the sun approached its zenith, and found it sweet and mildly scented with sagebrush and ragweed. Across the road, a group of half a dozen wild turkeys stopped and stared. Unsure of their safety and eager to leave, the one strutting Tom took the lead, as the Hens followed, disappearing behind the tall grassy brush and tangled scrub.

Stretching and yawning wide he headed back to the car, his mind made up. He settled comfortably in the gray leather seat, pulled on the safety belt, latching it loosely and started the powerful twelve-cylinder engine. Lighting a smoke and taking a good full draught of his luke warm coffee, he scanned the prairie around him, noting the quiet and stillness.

“Goodbye,” was all he said.

Putting the vehicle in reverse while checking his mirrors and looking out the windows, he confirmed the emptiness of the highway, before backing out of the short rocky drive. Back on the road, facing the opposite direction, heading back from where he had come, he put the vehicle in drive leaving the future behind him for the one up ahead.

He knew now. Freedom, true freedom meant making one’s own decisions, one’s own mistakes, reaping the rewards and paying the consequences. There was no escaping ones history, no running from ones past. Our problems remain, our guilt persists and our hearts still weep wherever we run to, only put to rest when faced and fought. The road kill behind us is always there. It waits silently, eagerly joined by the road kill ahead. There is always another gentle curve, another sloping hill, another fawn, another doe, another tire screeching surprise. There was no escape, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

The road to absolution and forgiveness is a journey, not a destination, a road with no end, only beginnings. We never arrive just endlessly move on.

Feeling a bit hungry he decided to stop for lunch at the first small town he came to, before driving the long five hours back home. Pressing the gas, he lit a smoke and smiled.

“Thank you God, for freedom.”

 

 

 

The End

 

© 2009 Tim Wilkinson