Road Trip
The Door to the office read, ‘Dr. Lawson.’
Rebecca Hines barely even glanced at the name any more. She had visited many times in the past but not as a client. Dr. Lawson and she were college friends and the sole blame to her damming job as Steve Harrison publicist. Miss Hines never understood why Sandy Reed-Lawson had become so personally attached to Steve. This was a man who had made her job completely worthless. He did not want to complete his community service.
Heh, she amused herself, community service, he was lucky that is all he got. Steve Harrison was a menace to any law or establishment. He was not a hippy who fought against war and wanted equal rights for all. He just liked to anger anyone and everyone, it did not matter if the person was broke or had a million dollars in the bank. It had been three months and still he had not completed one hour and the fact he had not been arrested for failing to do so this was even more bizarre to her.
This office is where her questions could be answered…she hoped. No longer would she do this just because a friend had asked for her help. He is a charity case and one that did not deserve charity of any kind.
With her brown hair flowing behind her head because of how swift she was moving she did hesitate a second to open the door to Dr. Lawson’s office.
Dr. Lawson’s head sprung up, her face blistering with surprise at the interruption. She looked at the intruder and then relaxed when she realized it was Rebecca. She gave her a small wave with a smile and pointed towards the chair in front of her desk, “sit.”
Rebecca sits down and sighs, “Why?”
Sandy responds by squinting her right eye in confusion, “What do you mean?”
“HARRISON!” Rebecca yells.
Sandy jumps in surprise from her seat and then laughs, “he is a handful, huh?”
“A handful is putting it lightly, Sandy.”
Sandy shrugs with her smirk not leaving, “you have to understand he takes a while to crack.”
Rebecca shakes her head angrily, “no, is a greedy manipulative bastard. Why do you care about this guy?”
Sandy nods her head as she thinks back to the first time she spoke with Steve. “He use to be a very kind person who was always stepped upon by others. He had no self confidence and was weekly abused by others inside the wrestling ring and by his family outside of it. He was an outsider, always insulted and never given a chance at shining.”
Rebecca's mouth opens in surprise, “are we talking about the same guy?”
“Yes.”
“Then what the hell happened?”
Sandy twiddles her thumbs together and sighs. “I worked with him on gaining confidence and not allowing people to take advantage of him. It was a slow process but it was process. A terrible car accident completely derailed all our process as he woke up from a small coma a changed man. He felt nobody came to visit him when he was injured and in turn he became bitter. He was a focused, almost insane person hell bent on finding out the truth about his family. Nothing matters but himself and what he believes and that is where you have come into his life.”
“What does that even mean?”
Sandy smiles, “well for a short time there I swore you guys were going to be lovers but it seems he messed up---AGAIN.”
“Ugh---really?”
“We have been friends a long time and you were always a kind person…”
Rebecca interrupts her, “sure sounds like I am the one who needs the counseling on not getting stepped on.”
Sandy shakes her head and stops twiddling her thumbs, “if you let me finish, I was going to say: I was hoping you could save him from himself. He does not ask me for help anymore he just asks me for favors---not good favors either.”
“Exactly, nothing can save the creep now.”
“Giving up on him will look very bad on your resume, Rebecca,” Sandy says her tone becoming more serious as the conversation continues.
“Is that a threat?”
She shakes her head, “of course not, you are my friend. I am just telling you that giving up at this point without fulfilling what you set out to do will make you look like bad.”
Rebecca throws her hands up, “I know, fuck.”
“Where is the little project anyway?”
Rebecca sighs, “He got it in his mind that spending time with Peyote Jones should count as community service.”
Fade Out
Watching a grown man walk around covered in oil is not a sight I wish to see again. July Fourth was a celebration that ended with me helping a drug addict find the catering room. In said room I witnessed a monster gorge on every platter leaving nothing but crumbs and droll for the rest of us.
“Meh.”
Yes, it is the vocabulary of one Peyote Jones. I do not understand why this creature feels we have a bound. I do not take acid and then walk around a mall naked looking for magic trolls that grant wishes. Trust me I have see the arrest report, Peyote Jones is that person. Every week I have the misfortune of running into him and watching him beg me for help. I really do not know why I even stop because not only does he look like an evil alien from L. Ron Hubbard’s cult but he smells like the feces of a sick and dying farm animal.
“Meh.”
Ugh.
“Mehhhhh.”
It is like speaking to a child, but there I am every week, literally watching myself get dumber by socializing with him.
There I was though wishing for lobster tail and getting nothing as he ate everything in sight. My brilliant mind decided that this specimen of the human condition needs help and I, the great and mighty Steve Harrison have community service to do. I knew any judge would see this as a kind act by me and all the time I spend with this thing would help me get rid of this annoying probation I have.
I was hoping at least.
I believed a road trip from Baton Rouge to Memphis would be helpful for both of us. For one I could keep him out of trouble and at the same time it would take off a few hours of my community service. We unfortunately had to go through the educational retards of Mississippi and it was there I had to stop for gas.
“I want a slushy!.”
“Really?”
I shut the door on the begging Peyote. This was not a 7-11, this was some back woods local place that probably had white sheets hanging around back with half burnt crosses leaning on a broken down shed. I nodded my head at Peyote in hopes of shutting his whining up and went inside to prepay for the gas I needed. Inside I saw a man with overalls over camouflage clothing, taxidermy animal heads on the wall and the smell of rotten chewing tobacco.
I walked up quickly to the counter in hopes of getting the hell out of the gas station and then this redneck town. “I need twenty.”
“City folk,” he said, afterward spitting in an empty tin can to the left of him.
I sighed, “My money is green unlike the grass outside this gas station, so take it and shut your mouth.”
“I reckon you thank you better than me cause you drive some chink mobile.”
I nodded enthusiastically hoping to anger the moron more and respond with a smile, “heh, that is a Chrysler 300, now can I go so you can call up hooked on phonics and learn how to read?”
The inbred finally took my money and leered at me as I exited and walked towards my car. I got to the car and my face became beat red, my mouth dropped and I swore over and over under my breath.
The door to shotgun was open and PEYOTE JONES WAS GONE.
“Shit, this is all I need.”
I slammed his door shut and began pumping the gas as two gladiators fought angrily inside my head. My patience was running on empty I tapped my foot until finally the pump stopped and everything I was thinking hit me like a pile of bricks. “This isn’t good,” I said quietly to myself.
I locked the doors to my car and went running to the woods. I had no idea where he had went but with nothing around for miles I was certain Peyote would run to the woods like the animal he was. The sun had begun to set so time was running out and every foot deeper I went into the woods the more nervous I became.
Noises became louder, things I saw out of the corner of my eye looked threatening, and I was constantly running into branches with cobwebs on them. “Ugh, I hate Peyote Jones!” I screamed to the sky, sweat beginning to soak my Polo and run down my face. I wiped my face then tripped over a tree root and fell on my side. I held my knee for a few seconds and when I looked up you were there pointing a sawed off shotgun at me.
“Notin’ bout me shooting?”
Steve Harrison stands up at the same time keeping his hands in the air as he stares at the shotgun being held by local man. “I am sorry but everything I told you was true, no reason to shoot.”
The man grunted loudly, his mouth opening to show very few teeth and where there were teeth they were blackened by gingivitis. “This is my propity, Yankee. I knows that der negro president be tryin to shut me down,” he replied to Harrison saying most of his words incorrectly.
With his hands still up Harrison attempts to reason with the gun tooting redneck, “I love George W Bush and I would help you defend your property if it was being threatened. But, come on…nobody even knows you are living here.”
“Exactly.”
“Um…no, sir, I will not say anything. Trust me you can have all my money and we can pretend we never met. Buy yourself a new gun or some Klansmen propaganda, I don’t care just let me go,” Harrison pleads.
“I reckon,” the man cocks his gun.
Harrison throws all of his cash at the man. The man goes to grab it which gives Steve enough time to turn and start booking it back towards where he came from. “I hate Peyote,” he says to himself as he barrels over tree branches towards his car.
BANG!
BANG!
Shots are heard coming from where he ran from but he does not turn back.
“Ah, goddamn rednecks, goddamn south, fuck them all!”
Fade