The fact that Wyoming is an almost perfectly square state is fitting. There’s nothing there. And I couldn’t even figure out how Kristy and I had gotten there.
We were about 100 miles west of Laramie. For some reason, I decided to just follow I-80 west until I got wherever it was that I wanted to be. Kristy didn’t seem to have a problem with it. She would know when she got wherever she was going, too.
We seemed to be getting on better than before. We didn’t really have a choice, I guess. We’d moved beyond polite small talk and fighting and somehow progressed to broken dreams.
“So you were going to be an actress?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Kristy replied.
“Whatever happened to that?”
“I wasn’t good enough. I was in New York. Biggest theater scene in the country and I couldn’t get one damn part. So I cut my losses and hit the road.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Now it’s your turn. How’d you end up at that Princeton truck stop?”
“I hit the road, too. I was tired of the Midwest. I wanted to get out.”
“So what’s the plan?” she asked with a grin.
“No plan,” I said. “Get wherever I’m going, find a place, find a job and start …” I trailed off and looked in my rearview mirror.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Shit, I must’ve been speeding. We got company.”
Kristy spun around and saw the the flashing lights behind us. We were the only car on the road. I started to slow and pull over.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted.
“I’m pulling over. I’ll take my ticket and we can keep driving.”
“Don’t pull over, goddamn it.”
“What? You want me to run? Why?”
“I don’t play well with cops,” she said.
“I don’t really care. I’m going to fucking pull over, take my damn ticket and keep driving,” I said and slowed even more.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put your foot back on the gas — hard,” she said.
“What the hell are you going to do if I don’t?” I heard a click very close to my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kristy looking right at me. I turned and found myself face to face with the barrel of a gun.
“Quit asking questions,” she said, “and fucking drive.”
1 Comment
September 3, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Heehee. So you were in Rawlins, WY?