Ruth (686 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: ark
Rating: 2 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2006-12-24 23:15:30 EST
(http://www.ubersite.com/m/91263)
Ruth was heading down a bleak stretch of Interstate 70 under a gentle snowfall when the man stepped into the road ahead.
She had spent the day in Denver, buying clothes and getting a bite to eat before hitting the highway. After picking up some sneakers and underwear and a new pair of jeans and a few T-shirts, she had gone to a Denny's and ordered a steak. In the end she just nibbled at it, wondering if her appetite would ever come back.
It was Christmas Eve, and Ruth wanted to be away from all of the bullshit, the decorations, the carols, the busy stores. It made her sick. She was going to find a quiet pullover out on the road and spend the night alone, where it was quiet and dark.
In the Denny's parking lot she had opened the big doors in the back of the trailer and climbed inside, reaching for the metal chain and turning on the single overhead light. The old guy who had driven this truck before her had left the trailer virtually empty. Ruth had changed things.
There was a foam mattress and a few blankets. A radio. A cardboard box held a bunch of paperback books, most of them horror, by Stephen King, Brian Lumley, and Brian Steele. Screwed into the plywood paneling of one wall was a mirror. There were also hooks for her clothes. She also had a Coleman stove that did a decent job of boiling water for her coffee cravings, a cooler full of cola, a toolbox full of tools, and other toolbox that contained all of her makeup, and plastic shopping bag full of Slim Jims.
There was also a low metal washtub, a net bag holding soaps and towels and sponges, and a big plastic jug of water. She rarely stopped long enough to shower anywhere, finding it easier to wash down in the tub in the back of the trailer. The first time she did it she thought the cold water would give her a heart attack. Now it was part of the morning ritual that woke her up, along with a big steaming mug of Nescafe instant coffee.
Night or day, when she was tired, she'd find a place to pull over and go back into the trailer where she'd read and sip soda and chew on Slim Jims until she fell asleep to the faint and distant sound of singing, like ringing crystal.
Ruth had been on the road four months now, ever since the old guy, Layman, had died and she had buried him in the desert. When she needed money, it appeared. She'd help someone change a flat or pick up a hitcher in the middle of nowhere and they'd either give her a few bucks or coins would fall out of her pocket. She always found enough for the basics she needed or to buy a few extras, and to fill the gas tank of the midnight blue semi.
Layman had been as thin as a rail when she had met him, when he had told her that Jews, like her, had always carried the cargo in the back of the trailer. He said he felt bliss. Maybe that kept him from eating. She tried to eat as much as she could, but sometimes it was a struggle.
She didn't want to end up burned out by the thing under the tarp.
Sometimes she thought she should just ditch the thing, but a deeper sense of duty always welled within her like water in a spring and washed away her impulse to be free of the thing before it could become a burden.
She had never had any trouble on the road, even though she was legally still a kid. A kid with an expired license. She knew how to handle the big rig, and she never stopped unless it felt right. Layman had told her that he got 'feelings' while driving the midnight blue semi. She had thought he was full of shit, but every once in a while she just kept going when she was coming up on a hitchhiker, or someone who appeared to have engine trouble.
There were a few times when she though she had seen things in the rear-view mirrors as she had blown past these people, usually late at night. Their faces seemed to darken and shift, or become gaping black holes. Some seemed to shrink, or grown, or sprout leathery wings.
At times like that she soon pulled over, knowing fatigue was getting to her.
Now, and for the first time, with a chill in the air and flurries of snow sweeping across the highway like great sheets of gauze, Ruth felt uneasy.
The windshield wipers swept back and forth, smearing snowflakes on the windshield. She glanced at the speedometer. She was moving a little over 60mph.
She saw the man step into the road to Utah and stand with his arms folded, watching her. He was wearing dark pants and a white shirt, and he had a grimy gimme cap on his head. Without any conscious effort she leaned on the gas pedal.
The man grinned. Ruth was sure his image was distorted by the wet glass in front of her. His teeth looked like bleached tent pegs, thick and square and very, very long.
This is gonna be like stepping on a cream puff, Ruth thought. She realized he wasn't wearing a coat, and it was damned cold out there tonight.
The midnight blue semi hit him and there was a clatter and rattle, like a hundred pieces of safety glass had danced against the front of the rig.
Ruth looked in the mirror. There was no body back there, and since the road was already wet from falling snow she couldn't tell if there was any blood on the asphalt.
She braked slowly, working the gears and still looking in the mirror as she pulled over.
She opened the door and leaned out, looking back the way she had come. She reached into a recess between the two seats and grabbed a few things. Then she stepped down onto the road.
It was cold. She was wearing an old leather jacket with a balding fleece collar. It might have been Layman's at one time, but it looked like something bomber pilots wore in old black and white war movies.
She looked at the front of the rig as snowflakes swirled madly in the headlights. Aside from a layer of old bug carcasses, the truck was fine.
Walking along the length of the midnight blue semi, Ruth went back to the spot where she had thought she had hit the man. She had sewn a couple of very deep pockets into the coat, and she reached into one of them for a flashlight.
She switched on the light and saw nothing on the road. No blood. She went back to the front of the truck and walked ahead of it, wondering if he could have been thrown further down the road. She was suddenly aware that the man in the white shirt was standing in front of her.
"You didn't even consider hitting the brakes," he said. "I like that."
Ruth took a few steps back. Even though the man was standing in the glare of the headlights, he seemed immersed in shadows. "Who are you?"
He shrugged and pushed his cap back, revealing tousled brown hair. His gimme cap was old and grimy. Above the bill was the blue, green, orange and red LIFE cereal logo. "I'm a messenger, Ruth. I'm here to tell you—"
The lights of the semi flared behind her and Ruth turned to see a blonde woman in a long white coat step out of the glow.
"Don't listen to him, Ruth."
Her voice was soft, maternal. Caring.
"Wow," the man said. "Don't you ever take a night off?"
"Not this night," the woman said.
"Who are you people?"
"I think you know, Ruth," the man said. "You just don't know it yet."
"Be quiet," the woman said. She looked Ruth in the eye. "Don't let him confuse you."
Ruth heard a sound like distant singing. It was the sound of the relic in the back of the trailer.
"You want what I'm carrying, don't you?"
The blonde woman smiled. The man in the gimme cap looked grim.
"It isn't safe anymore, Ruth." The woman put a hand on Ruth's shoulder. "You are not enough to protect it alone."
Ruth felt the warmth of the woman's touch through the old leather coat.
"I don't know about that," the man said. "She keeps on rolling. She's doing a good job so far."
The man and the woman stared at each other, and Ruth noticed that the snowflakes were now falling away from them. She felt as if the road under her feel were trembling.
Ruth thought about the thing under the tarp. When she first saw it she wanted nothing to do with it. Now... now she felt that strange sense of duty to protect it at any cost, and that scared her.
The woman smiled sweetly. The man turned his face away. The ground felt solid under Ruth's feet, and the snow fell down on them again.
Ruth felt that unknown something well up inside her again.
"I don't need either one of you," she said. "Fuck off."
The woman looked heartbroken, and the man raised his face to the sky and let out a deep rolling laugh.
"Ruth," the blonde woman said, "Would you turn away from the love... the face of God?"
"Why not?" Ruth looked up at the night sky, feeling snowflakes melt on her face. "He's turned his face away from us. Fuck Him."
The man in the gimme cap grinned again. "Atta girl!"
"Oh, shut up," Ruth said to the grinning man. "I'm protecting what is in the back of the truck not because I feel any obligation to God. God is an old man who has lost his shit. I'm protecting the remains of something that... that meant something when God meant something. I don't know if that makes any sense."
The man cocked his head as if she had said something profound.
The blonde woman smiled. Ruth thought her aquamarine eyes were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"Ruth, God has not given up on you."
Ruth pulled a crushed pack of Camels out of her pocket and took one out. The man in the gimme cap gave her his widest grin yet. He reached up and pulled a tooth out of his mouth, turning it in his hand and holding it out to her. The root was slick with blood, and a tiny tongue of flame danced there.
The blonde woman gave the man a disapproving look. "Please," she said.
Ruth lit her cigarette on the tooth and nodded her thanks. The man threw the tooth away like a burned out match.
"So God has always been with me, huh?" Ruth was angry, and her anger grew when the blonde gave her a maternal smile. "God was with me when my dad stuck his fingers in me? I was four years old. I remember that, although he might have been doing it earlier."
The blonde woman said, "Dear Ruth—" and Ruth cut her off.
Was God with me when my dad came into my room on my tenth birthday and shot himself in the head with a .22? Was God with me as I watched him bleed to death, knowing I couldn't call for help if I wanted to because my mom had taken the car to her shitty waitress job and we lived out in the boonies and we couldn't even afford a fucking phone?"
The man raised a finger. "Actually, that was me." The man smiled again, and his smile was whole, the missing tooth back in place
"Yeah, right," Ruth said.
"Please God, please somebody," the grinning man said, in the voice of a ten year old Ruth. "Please take my daddy away and make him stop doing these things. He makes me hate him."
Ruth remembered those words. She remembered kneeling beside her bed and saying that prayer just before her father staggered into her room stinking of bourbon and holding his .22 caliber pistol.
The man took off his gimme cap and gave her a solemn look. "I care, Ruth. God may not give a shit, but I care. And I've tried my best to protect you. And I've done better than you could ever do with that same pistol you now have in your pocket."
Ruth said. "My stepfather tried to rape—"
"And was later found dead on the toilet," the no longer grinning man said, "With a rubber band wrapped around his cold blue cock and Polaroids of you scattered on the floor at his feet. Oh, and I did your uncle too. The one who taught you how to drive a rig. He was working on his Cadillac in his driveway and I gave the jack a little nudge. You were gone by that time though."
Ruth looked at the blonde woman.
"These are tests, Ruth," she said. "Tests of your faith. You must prevail—"
"What are you?" Ruth said. She stepped closer to the blonde woman. "You an angel or something?"
"No, Ruth. I'm older than that. I am a part of God that has been forgotten."
Ruth tossed away her cigarette and looked at the man still holding in the grimy cap. One of his fingers crossed the logo and all she could see was LIE. "And you?"
"I already told you," he said. A snowflake landed in the corner of his eye and melted, running down his cheek like a tear.
Ruth pulled the old pistol out of her pocket and fired a shot into the man's face, but he was gone.
"Blessed Ruth," the blonde woman said. She reached out, and Ruth pushed by her.
"Leave me alone," Ruth said, shoving the pistol and flashlight into her pockets. She returned to the open door of the cab and the blonde woman followed. Ruth said, "Stay away from my truck," and the woman paused, snowflakes clinging in her hair.
Ruth climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut. When she looked out the windshield, the blonde woman was gone.
She put the truck in gear and turned on the radio. A wavering AM station brought her the voice of Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.
"Shit," Ruth said. She turned off the radio and pulled onto the road.
She drove in silence, and a moment later she saw the man in the gimme cap standing by the side of the road ahead. He was holding a piece of cardboard that he had written on like the kind of impromptu signs hitchhiker's made.
As she drew nearer she could see what he had written.
'Don't believe everything you see,' the sign said.
Just before she passed him he tipped his cap and flipped the sign. Showing another message on the other side.
'Merry Christmas.'
In a moment the man was lost in the darkness behind her, and she drove into the night alone, hearing soft singing from the thing under the tarp.
User Reviews
Submitted by swimmingbirdblue (user info) at 2007-01-24 00:46:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice. Keep 'em coming.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2007-01-10 12:20:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Para 5.... you little cock sucker
Submitted by Kabuto_N (user info) at 2007-01-10 11:52:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-12-27 08:47:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-12-25 11:08:26 (#)
Ranking: 2
Kaos_King will shit his skivvies at paragraph 5....
********
Brian, did you miss this post?
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-12-26 14:53:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
great.
Submitted by combatwombat (user info) at 2006-12-26 10:08:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice write.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2006-12-25 20:24:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
fuck'n mangy road-dogs
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2006-12-25 17:34:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
shazam!
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2006-12-25 15:22:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-12-25 00:58:37 (#)
Ranking: 2
sometimes you leave me with nothing to say.
-----------------------------
yup
Submitted by ih8u2man (user info) at 2006-12-25 15:03:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yeo.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2006-12-25 14:16:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I knew a dog named Ruth. A red heeler. She was awesome.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2006-12-25 14:03:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-12-25 11:08:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Kaos_King will shit his skivvies at paragraph 5....
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-12-25 01:37:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-12-25 00:58:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
sometimes you leave me with nothing to say.
Merry Christmas, Jack
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-12-25 00:29:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Don't take so long for the next installment...
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2006-12-24 23:23:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Seriously, I like your writing. I'll read it tomorrow.
Still...+2 not penis.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2006-12-24 23:17:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not reading all that tonight.
+2 provided there's no penis.
Sorry, it's the JD talking.
and me.