I have always enjoyed driving in the dark, especially down narrow country roads under overcast skies going nowhere in particular. I was allowing myself this pleasure out of pure selfishness tonight. What I dislike is Halloween, strange snotty little kids banging my door into submission expecting candy from strangers. The other 364 days a year this act is frowned upon in every state in the union except Utah and a few counties in central Florida.
Truth known, I have little interest in any holiday. I mean what real service do they provide. Right? Take Christmas for instance. Only twenty-eight percent of the world is Christian yet we have turned this day into a bigger moneymaker than a rigged slot machine.
Valentines Day, now there's a winner. Lets just lavish dinner and jewelry onto a woman you've been lavishing dinners and jewelry onto for eighteen months in exchange for sex.
Memorial Day, they are all dead for Christ sake, they don't know.
Forth of July; nothing more stupid than celebrating the pricks who take thirty-five cents out of every dollar you earn then spends most of it killing people half way around the world.
Labor Day, now this is one of my favorites. You work your ass off all year and on the one day you have to celebrate it, your drunken brother-in-law shows up with five curtain climbers, a pregnant wife who's throwing up in your hall bath and you fucking have to man the grill.
And finally, there's New Year's Eve. I cannot remember one without at least two fistfights and a sixty-five year old bleach blond bimbo trying to shove her tongue down my throat.
The last holiday I celebrated was to Doctor King. I quietly lifted a beer in his honor and mentally freed everyone else in the bar from what ever might be holding them back. And not a single thank you. Thank you.
Fuck holidays and fuck Halloween.
So I left my house, tuned out the porch light and found my way out of town with an igloo cooler full of frosty Rolling Rocks on the passenger seat and a family sized bag of Doritos; cheaper that eight pounds of candy. Me and my Honda Accord were ready to travel.
I was on route 128 heading east. If nothing else developed, I knew there was a roadhouse twenty miles away where I was sure small kids would not suddenly appear, wrapped in cheap colored plastic, impersonating some made-up super hero.
The road was winding and heavily wooded on both sides. It was a steady grade upwards toward an Appalachian summit. It had looked like rain when I left. So far, the highlight of my night was imagining all of the little drowned rats scurrying back into vans dripping muddy water on new upholstery and smashing tootsie-rolls into the carpet.
The moon was trying it's best to break the grip of lingering storm clouds and was bathing the wet pavement ahead with a soft opal glow. Taking a sharp curve around a shear rock ledge my headlights fell onto a 450 SL now nosed into the limestone. The left front fender was crumpled and steam rose from under the hood. I found a shoulder wide enough, parked and walked back.
The driver's door was open and there was no one in the car. Dash lights told me to turn off the ignition and I removed the keys. There was a white, feathered eye mask lying on the seat, the kind with a long stick attached to one edge; you could hold the mask to your face and avoid a messy rubber band around your head putting a hundred dollar style job into disarray, very classy.
I looked around and saw nothing that made me thing the driver had not already been rescued and left the car for a tow that must now be on the way.
"That mask cost me fifty dollars." I turned and there was a young girl setting against the rock ledge fifty feet away. Her legs were straight out in front and one shoe was missing. She wore a short white lacy dress with a hemline that was intentionally irregular, cut high up on her left thigh.
"Probably shouldn't wear it while you're driving." I offered. I held up the mask.
"Wasn't" she said
"What were you doing?" I asked
"Trying not to hit a deer." She said.
"Admirable." I said, "Expensive but admirable."
"Should have plowed the fucker." She replied
"Probably." I said "But would you still respect yourself in the morning?"
"You always this chatty?" she asked
"I got cold beer in the car." I explained
"Ah, of course you do." She said
"Would you like one?" I asked
"Could it include a ride home?" she asked
"It can include a ride anywhere you want to go." I offered.
She set quiet. "I'm nineteen." She said, "I don't think you should be scaring a nineteen year old who is about to get in your car."
"It's Halloween." I said. I waited and she remained silent. I knelt down beside her. "I'm harmless, I assure you." I added.
She laughed. "The last prick that said that to me is laying on a beach in Barbados with my virginity in his night stand."
"Can you get up?" I inquired.
She held out her left arm and I helped her up. She hobbled to the shoulder.
"Where's your other shoe?" I asked. The one she was wearing had a four-inch heel.
She shrugged. "The deer must have taken it." She offered
"Brut." I said. I knelt and slipped the remaining shoe off of her foot and when I stood up I tossed it in the ditch.
"Hey, They were four hundred bucks a pair at Bergdorf's in New York." She said.
"Fine, I owe you Two hundred." I explained.
'Fuck." She said. 'My father is going to be so pissed."
"Just think how mad he would have been if you had lost your mask too?"
I walked and she limped up the shoulder to my car. I felt bad about banishing my cooler to the rear seat but I was betting the girl had better legs. I opened a beer and offered it to her and she took it, tilted it up and drained it like either a seasoned alcoholic or someone just crawling out of the desert into an oasis. The two pictures in my head, I chose an oasis and opened her a second one. I twisted the top off of one for myself and slid behind the wheel.
She was, to my relief, nursing this one. "Which way?" I asked
"I live on Cedar Ridge Drive." She offered.
"Does not help." I said
She sat, thinking about that. "Back there." She said pointing over her shoulder. It made sense to me. She was probably heading away from home and going to a party when she met Bambi so I u-turned and drove down the hill.
"How far?" I asked.
"Not far." She replied. "About a mile or so, I think." She had turned in the seat toward me and her left leg was spilling out from under her dress through the slit up her thigh. She was tall, maybe five nine. Her leg, the one I could see, was lean but it showed the muscle development a nineteen year old got from playing tennis at country clubs. It was tan and I was guessing the other one looked just a good.
Her hair was short, curly and brunette and it showed a few dirty blonde highlights. She was, for all practical purposes, beautiful and although ruffled and tossed from the accident, it wasn't taking anything away from that fact.
As I drove past a side road with a sign partially hidden by a tree limb she said. "There, my road, sorry." I turned around and took the turn. It was gravel and led up a steep incline and when it leveled out we sat facing a very large three story stone mansion firmly planted into the hillside. I figured the morning sun would bring with it a clear view of half of West Virginia.
"Daddy is doing well." I said
"Mommy." She said. "Daddy just chases golf balls and cocktail waitresses. A Former fashion model." She offered.
"And now?" I said
"Now she's an agent." The girl said. "She manages a model named Veronica Stone."
'Nice." I said. "By the way, I'm Charlie. Charlie Dawson. And just who is it I've rescued tonight?"
"Veronica," she said. "Veronica Stone."
When I got out of the car the front door was opening. "Who's there?' A feminine voice called.
"Trick or treat." I said
"I have a gun." She said
"I have your daughter." I replied. I opened the passenger door to reveal the young girl.
The woman, whom I rightly assumed was her mother, ran to the car. She was carrying a Beretta nine-millimeter semi-automatic. "Fuck, you really did have a gun." I said. "What kind of neighborhood do you live in?""
"A private one." She countered. "What the hell happened?" She looked at me as she helped her daughter out of my car."
"A very mean deer that was obviously not intimidated by a Mercedes." I explained. "Might want to consider a Hummer if your going to live out in the wild like this."
She looked at her daughter. "Do you need to go to the hospital?" She asked. Veronica shook her head no. "Who are you?" she asked.