An hour later, of course, somewhere in the midst of Alabama, Ray could do nothing but complain about his knee. In no time at all, the pair had pulled off a veritable miraclous escape from out of the boundaries of Columbus, Georgia. (Miraculous only because no twinge of responsibility or sanity had affected them as they went through the motions of packing.) They had gone to Vic’s house and gotten some things; clothes, toiletries, and a box of cigars that Vic had saved for no particular occasion. He stared at the top drawer of the dresser, empty except for the cardboard box of cigars, and let his imagination play out a scene of him on white sand, smoking a big stogie as the sun came up from behind them and the water turned an unusual shade of blue. It isn’t enough of a vision to make him smile, but it made him feel that some things were still worth daydreaming about. At some point somewhere, he had smacked that last pitch out of the park.

Ray had needed and picked up about the same stuff, sans cigars, from his apartment ten miles west of Vic’s place. He took his old green, navy duffle bag and filled it with clothes that he categorized as beachbum attire. And that is it. They left.

Vic is through. He just keeps thinking that to himself. What need is there for responsibility when a man is through? What of loyalty, what of faith? He had come and gone. He had come and gone, his time had passed. The only thing he had trust and faith in is Tommy, a local high school boy who helped him run his hardware store. Tommy would open the store, run the store, close the store. Tommy is that way—like a dog that just sits and waits for his master to come home, content to watch over the property, not own it. Tommy is like Vic that way. No questions—like when Vic found out his wife had packed her things and moved out, leaving him only a poorly written letter. He asked nothing, said nothing. No questions. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t try to find her. Tommy wouldn’t question Vic’s absence. He’d just run the store until Vic got back. And Vic smiles, while chewing on a half-finished cigar, steering his Camaro through the night. Tommy always ran the store anyway–Vic is just there for mock celebrity endorsement. He is public relations. He is pretty much worthless, and he is through being worthless for a while.

“Damn,” Ray complains in his Valdosta, Georgia drawl. “I don’t remember it bein’ this bad in a while.” He sits up to rub his knee, gets smoke in his eyes, and tosses the last of his cigarette out the window, irritated by it.

Vic just drives, his cigar clenched between his small, yellow teeth. He doesn’t even hear Ray — just the hum of the road, the low resonance of his dark green Camaro’s V8 engine.

“I don’t suppose we could stop for a sec, Vic–jes’ so’s I can get some aspirin or somethin’?” Ray asks as he gets another cigarette from out of his shirt pocket and lights it.

Vic blinks and looks around the car before focusing on Ray. “Huh?”

Ray signs with his hands to his apparently deaf partner, “As-pir-in.” He pantomimes unscrewing a lid and popping a couple of imaginary pills into his mouth.

“Oh. Yeah, sure. We can stop.” Vic checks his gas gauge and sees that there is a quarter of a tank left. “I need gas anyway.”

“Man, where the hell are you?” Ray asks. “You haven’t said two words in the last hour.”

Shaking his head slowly, Vic doesn’t reply. He is driving.

“I tell you what, man: when we see that sun come up over the Gulf, I promise, everything will look a lot prettier.” Ray leans the car seat back and adjusts his knee. He smiles at the dark road and where it is taking them. Vic nods.

“I remember being on the deck of the U.S.S. Hoover on the way back to San Diego. I is on my way home, and I is up when the sun came up. I’ve never seen anything prettier. Everything that’d happened didn’t matter. My whole tour just sorta’ vanished into memory when that sun came up.”

“When did we meet?” Vic asks tangentially.

“Shit,” Ray replies, thinking about it for a moment, “1971.”

“You sure?”

“It is the year before Maggie left.”

“No kidding?”

“Yep.”

Vic ponders it. He is pretty sure Ray is on target. “It seems like I’d known you longer.”

“It does seem that way,” Ray muses, as Vic puts the turn signal on and steers the car into a gas station.

“I’m gonna’ get somethin’ ta’ sip on,” Ray comments, opening the passenger door, and gingerly moving his leg to one side, the kneecap popping loudly accompanied by a liquid swishing harmony of some kind. “You want anything?”

“No, that’s all right,” Vic replied.

Ray takes his cigarette out of his mouth and leans over to put it out on the ground.

“What the hell are you doing?” Vic asks, watching Ray carefully.

“What?” Ray looks at Vic and then at the cigarette. “Oh c’mon. It ain’t like there’s a puddle of the stuff on the ground.” Ray points at the asphalt. “It’s perfectly dry.”

Vic shrugs and gets out of the car.

Grabbing the roof of the Camaro, Ray pulls himself up into a standing position and tests his knee carefully. He looks across the roof of the car at Vic’s back as Vic gets a hose off the gas pump. He stares thoughtfully for just a second wondering what his friend is thinking about before Vic turns around to fuel the car. Then, Ray turns and limps into the gas station store.

When Ray opens the door with a jingle, freon cool air assaulted his nostrils, the attendant and the manager warily eye his blue and orange flower print shirt, his goutee. He looked like something to beware of–not suspicious, but not immediately trustworthy. Ray looks around the drinks, grabs some fruit punch, limps down another aisle to get his aspirin and then stops to look at a rack of sunglasses. He tries a few on and looks at himself in the mirror mounted on the rack. Regardless of the frames, he looked silly in sunglasses, and each time he puts on a new pair, he just chuckles to himself. When the playful light in Ray’s eyes is covered up, he looks like a whiskery old criminal of some kind. It is his eyes that make people trust him — even if it is against their will. They pulled in the curious, the wary, the lost with their light. Ray always looked like he knew a secret. Still though, he decides that it is a matter of practicality. He and Vic were going to Florida. He would need some sunglasses. Finally, he settles on a pair of thick cheap gold plastic frames with brown tinted lenses.

Approaching the counter, he smiles at the young attendant and the manager, still looking like a Southern Gestapo in their green and yellow polo shirts. Both of them overweight, the manager stands just behind the attendant like a Russian doll and its miniature counterpart. “Going to Florida,” he announces. He sets the sunglasses, drink, and aspirin down on the counter. “Figure I’ll need a pair of these.” Then he smiles ridiculously, since it is obvious they are’t going to be friendly.

The attendant attempts to smile politely in return, strained, as he rings up Ray’s goods. The manager doesn’t move and just watches the attendant’s fingers for mistakes. It is apparent that the kid is in training the way his dirty hands hover uncertainly over each key he presses.

Vic comes in the jingly door and steps up to the counter as Ray pulls out a wad of twenty dollar bills and pays the attendant with one of them. He takes his stuff, gets his change, smiles at Vic, and then tells the employees, “Ya’ll have a good morning,” and leaves with another jingle from the door.

“Eighteen on number three,” Vic says. He gets out his credit card and gives it to the attendant. Glancing in Ray’s direction, and then looking the manager directly in the eyes, he says, “I can’t believe I got to drive that fool another hundred miles.”

The manger smiles, even laughs a little. Vic looked the part of the Everyman in his pastel polo, his khaky pants. He and the manager were of the same caliber of completely unnoticeable men. There is nothing to be afraid of in Vic, and everything to want to marginally like. The attendant runs the credit card through a machine and hands it back.

“He’s quite a character,” the manager says, his arms folded and resting on his large stomach.

Vic nods and smiles. Then, taking his reciept, he heads for the door, “Take care.”

“Have a nice mornin’,” the attendant replies.

“Good luck,” the manager says, chuckling.

“Yeah,” Vic calls out. He walks out the door, over to the car, and gets in.

Ray is carefully lowering himself back down into his seat with a bit of a grimace on his face.

“You all right?” Vic asks, genuinely concerned. His friend complained unnecessarily sometimes, but not usually that much and not without a smile. Ray had a habit of complaining while smiling. The world could smell like shit, and everybody would know it, Ray included, but he’d just say, “Smells like shit today,” and keep smiling with that sparkle in his eyes. Maybe his secret was that he liked the smell of shit.

“Yep, yep,” Ray says adjusting himself in the seat and shutting the door, enclosing the cabin in shadows again as the interior light shuts off. He looks to Vic, “Don’t mind me. I got drugs now.” He holds up a little bottle to show Vic, and laughs quietly through his nose. Vic rolls his eyes.

Looking over his shoulder into the gas store, Ray peers at the fat attendant and the looming, fat manager. “What’d you say to them? They weren’t that friendly when I came in. Sure seemed to like you though.”

“I said, ‘I can’t believe I have to drive this fool another hundred miles,’.”

Ray smiles. “And a hundred fifty back tomorrow.”

Vic starts the car, revs the engine, and pulls out of the gas station chuckling, because suddenly, he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing.

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