Work Text:
“Sorry ma’am, but once they hit eighteen, legally we cannot consider them runaways. Your ‘child’ is an adult and is legally allowed to live wherever they see fit.”
. . .
There were no clues.
No friends really to speak of safe for a few acquaintances at the college.
You didn’t tell anyone where you were going.
Just spent a lot of time selling possessions you didn’t have room for in your suitcase and Avon Colorworks purse that your mother ordered for you from your neighbor. Apparently you’d told one classmate in passing that you had a little over $600 in savings. That was enough you had said, before offering to sell your textbooks. With that, it had given you approximately $650 to get on by with.
You had money. Apparently a plan. And you had withdrawn from all your classes before you came home for summer break.
That was fine honestly. At first the $45 in gas seemed dauntingly scary, almost enough to make you call off the whole thing altogether. But then you had thought of the disappointment that would read on his face if you didn’t show. Those big brown doe eyes would weep unnecessary tears and it would be all your fault for getting his poor hopes up for nothing. No… even if it was a long way to Texas and you were only nineteen, you could do it.
Figuring out food was the hardest part. Earlier in the week you’d been sent a whole box of jerky from your new family, and there was water right there from the tap. Perfect to fill up a few gallon jugs and load them up in the front seat of your car with your jerky box for four days of breakfast lunch and dinner. After consulting a map and some extensive research there was a diner that boasted a mean hamburger with a dime root beer. That could be a nice respite from dried meat. A celebration that you had crossed into the Texas border.
Later that evening after your parents ascended the stairs to their bedroom, you got your purse with the rainbow straps, put on a light airy blouse with brown corduroy overalls, and got into the car. You left quietly in the night without even turning around to wave goodbye to the sleeping house.
Since then you had been living on the road for what seemed an eternity. You tried to spend at least eight hours driving, or more when you could manage it. Once you got this momentum going it seemed you just couldn’t stop yourself.
You hope upon hope as you nearly miss an exit (and cut off someone on the high way mid bite of jerky), that there’s more of this ambrosia waiting for you by the time you get to your true home. It tastes the best when your boyfriend makes it himself. Usually it’s his brother that cooks for you when you visit, but simple jerky is something that he leaves entirely to your boyfriend. He always makes such evenly thin slices too. Never skimps on the meat even though they’re poor. Meat’s nice and marbled with a supple give in the streaks of fat, and a satisfying crunch when you bite into the dark brown bits on breaks when you’re consulting your map, or nearly choking yourself shoveling it in by the handful at an intersection.
The drive is so quiet without someone to talk to. Elton John and Fleetwood Mac keep you company on the road. You’ve probably listened to the same songs on the cassette tape over and over but it doesn’t matter to you. You’ll still croon off key along to Crocodile Rock to keep yourself awake. The Beetle’s tread is smooth against the asphalt, almost pulling you into slumber. When you feel tired, you pull off at the nearest exit and get a few minutes sleep before continuing on. You knew once you made the trip you weren’t going to stop, even told your new brother in law that you intended to keep a low profile so no one would follow. So far so good. Besides, you’d asked your father to give your Beetle a tuneup and new tires, and you didn’t mind sleeping in there when it was time to get some shuteye.
Sometimes you thought about home. You finally stopped at a diner before getting to the border to pick up a late dinner, and you saw some families on road trips. It made you think of your mom and dad. The thoughts are always sad and wistful when they come; you cried suckling the straw on your dime root beer and eventually back on your way, you had to pull over for a while as you let the sorrow wash over you.
Maybe your parents found your note by now? It was a nice goodbye to them. You’d left it between the cold cuts and eggs in the refrigerator, kind of a poetic hint of your whereabouts now that you think about it. You told your mom and dad you loved both of them very much, but you could not continue to live with the aching in your heart any more. Not since that faithful day when you made a pit stop at a gas station with the best barbecue in the world on your way to university as a young freshman. They didn’t take kindly to marriage after high school being a contingency plan. Certainly not to someone they’d never met and would never meet if you could help it. They almost made you withdraw from out of state college and set up shop back home in Maine. It hurt your insides with stress and it’s still fresh when you think of the hurt when they tried to deny you your true love, but as you take another satisfyingly crunchy bite of salty jerky, your belly warms up again with the thought of what waits you ahead on the journey.
Forget about what you’ve left behind. You’d still leave it all for love.
The road changes sometimes drastically or not at all. Greenery, city, and eventually the dry desert landscape you dream of. By the end of this trip, you don’t intend on getting on it ever again. Not unless you absolutely have to. After passing through Knoxville a few miles back it’s already too late to turn around to home and close enough to anticipate the warm bed welcoming you. There was one more stop before you gassed up at the Texas border. You dialed a number in the gas station’s pay phone, and were told to just head on in once you got there and you’d be made comfortable.
Keep going. Keep going on and thinking of the warm respite that’s waiting for you. It’s tempting to make one last pit stop before you go on, just to say hello, but there’s too many people there at the Last Stop at the moment, and you just want to get to your new home and park the Volkswagen in what will presumably be it’s final resting place. Better to go to pot in Newt than rust in the inevitable hell that was the house in Chamberlain.
By the time you pull up to the old gray once white house surrounded by parched trees shriveling in the heat, the afternoon sun is just starting to burn down lower into the sky. There’s a roar of a generator near by, drowning out the honk of your horn because no one seems to come to the door at your summons. You feel nothing but the palpitating of your heart. The air conditioning still works in your car, and the minute you step out into the humidity it feels like your heart is going to soar into the clouds. There’s still a faint smell of iron and rot wafting from the slaughterhouse a bit further down the road where that hitchhiker whooped at you, but compared to the sterile hell you faced back home, this was heaven.
It isn’t until you get to the front porch that you start to feel a jumble of regret butterflies threatening in your belly. What are you doing here?! You think as you approach the screen door (he said just walk right in, so that’s what you intend to do) that you’ve just done the dumbest thing in your life. That you shouldn’t have sold everything you owned and kept slaving away until you got that degree, then waited to come out here on your own when you knew your parents wouldn’t try to find you. After watching the movie Psycho you knew better than to take anyone else’s money or stop at a hotel where you’d leave a record. Pay in cash. Take only what you own. Even though you knew you did good it still didn’t quell the nerves. With another moment’s trepidation, you open the screen door and let yourself inside.
It stinks even worse in the house, but at least it’s cooler than the outside. Your Chuck Taylors whisper across the threshold as you struggle to call out and make your presence known. You’re still whispering to yourself “what did I do? What did I do?” as you come further in. Maybe he’s up stairs? Maybe further into the room with all the taxidermy skulls? You’re just standing there in the middle of the entryway at this point, hardly making a sound except for a small puff of breath.
Some part of you, the excited part, makes you squeak out, and the house holds its breath.
“Hello?”
There’s a crash somewhere that scares the bejeezus out of you. A high pitched squealing followed by a an inhuman howl sounds off after, and heavy bounding announces the presence from the doorway who starts hollering even louder before it bounds over to you.
Before you can think, everything, including the life, is staring to be squeezed out of you as your body is lifted up high in big meaty arms. You’re dazed, almost dizzy as the earth tilts under your feet and you feel nothing, but you’re brought back to the land of the living when you smell that sickly sweet stench of breath on your face and wet, juicy lips marking your face with saliva.
He did it. Like always he squeezed the doubt right out of your heart and you can’t help but make a scream of delight, returning the favor and marking him up with salty jerky kisses as you wrap your arms around his neck for dear life. He’s already carrying you away upstairs, his groans and hollers indecipherable until they unmistakably try to form into some purposeful babble that sounds vaguely like your name.
“Oh sugar bear, I’m home!” you’re crying at this point, tears wetting your cheeks as your beloved Jedidiah Sawyer, your beloved Bubba, wails along with you and howls like a feral dog.
“I’m home Bubba! I’m home at last!”