folly of a fool

     Her slender white hand reached through wine bottles corked with candlesticks for a pack of Marlboros. She straightened up and rest her back on the head board of the bed without looking over at the naked man sitting next to her. Though slight in stature her presence was imposing, that's what had attracted him. The post coitus euphoria wearing off he listened to her. The flick of the lighter, the light pop and gasp as her thin lips broke from the cigarette and took in the smoke. She passed him the half and broke the silence.
"You don't love me, you know?"
"I know." he lied
"You only love my fuck," she said flatly.
"I think there's a little more to..."
"NO!" she cut in,"You make it impossible for your mind to foster anything positive. Your religion is cynicism, so if you see no good in anything how are you capable of loving anything that isn't carnal?"
The words burned because he knew them. Not to be true, but certainly a silhouette of truth. She'd not finished speaking before he was out of bed and putting his clothes on.
"Fuck you!"
Her words had set off the fight or flight in his mind. He fastened his belt, grabbed his shoes, and walked barefoot to the door.
"You'll never out run yourself!", she got out just before the door closed behind him.It stung, not being used to being challenged and suddenly forced to face himself. He stopped in the foyer to put on his shoes and felt that shadow growing. That long old friend always pulling him away from the light.

He finished lacing and jumped up toward his rust and rot, two tone ford truck. He opened the door of 'Ol Betsy', climbed in and patted her dash before he turned the engine over. She'd been his home, his bed, his beast of burden and his refuge and he gave her that respect. This old girl would always run away with him. As Betsy warmed he reached around the bottom of his sleeping bag and took out the larger of two bottles of cheap Canadian whiskey. With his thumb he spun off the cap and took four hard slugs off the bottle trying to put out that fire from the bedroom a few minutes before. All he could feel was the burning and the whiskey. He put Betsy in drive and pointed her to anywhere but there.

Hitting the whiskey quick and the back roads slow, meandering through orchards and vineyards on up into the wheat fields.
"We're taking the long way home," he slurred at Betsy. The foothills just in the distance, he stopped the truck.
"I gotta piss."

Bottle in hand and nearing empty he stumbled out, steadying himself with one hand on the vehicle. Balancing the bottle on the bumper with Betsy holding him up. Trying to keep from pissing on himself and then his mind wanders. Belligerent and cursing himself, the fight, the girl, the whiskey. His mind turns, sharpened in focus for a moment as he remembers the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson in the glove box.

He finished, grabbed the bottle and stepped in his own piss on the way to the passenger door. A mouth full and two hard swallows he emptied the bottle, let out a dragons breath, and threw the bottle down the road. A quick pop with his palm on the silver button and the glove box opened where he retrieved the gun. The weapon in hand he felt himself swell with ego and anger. Only the six bullets in the cylinder remained from the last whiskey ride.

At the front of the truck he squinted drunkenly down the sights and nearly fell. Recovering, he straightened up and let out three shots toward the empty bottle, hitting nothing. Trying hard to gain himself he pointed the gun again down range.
POP!
The bullet hit just left, kicking up a little puff of dust from the road.
POP!
This time hitting home, it's shattered glass held intact by the sticky labeling. With a grunt and a grin he lowered the .38 and looked at it.

"One bullet left, what good are you if you're not loaded," he stammered as a set back for the driver's seat. Flipped the radio dial on but AM static came from the speakers. Wrapping his arms around the steering wheel and resting his forehead in the center he looked down and started to spin. Vomiting up hot whiskey through his mouth and nose, he drooped and spat on the floorboard between his feet.
"I'll end you boy! I'll end you," came the words through the spit.
The words were involuntary and he was startled at their sound.
"What the devil was that?"
He sat back in the seat and put the revolver beneath his thigh. Staring out the windshield at the bottle in the road for what seemed like forever, fighting off thoughts of where his own voice had come from. Pulling the rear view mirror in to look over his face. Two days from a shave, eyes red and full of booze, sickened he tilted back the mirror.

     His hand still adjusting the mirror he noticed a dust plume coming up behind a hill. He followed it with the mirror until he saw the police cruiser with blue lights on leading the dust. Panic, fear and adrenaline washed over him immediately.
How are they here? Did a stray bullet hit a farmhouse?
No,  nothing but dirt and crops out here.
No place to run in jail. Too many walls.
The cruiser was closing rapidly and began chirping its sirens when a single solitary thought settle on him.
"Run"

Her engine still running he slammed Betsy into drive, spitting rock and dirt as he put the pedal to the floor. The light rear of the truck swung out around the corners as he did all he could to keep her on the road. Sirens screaming now and flicker of blue through the dust he crested a hill and the crackle on the radio ceased. An evangelist, clear as day, "I will read to you from Matthew seven verse one. Judge not, lest ye be judged. For what judgement..."
He put the last bullet in the radio.

The fear and adrenaline half sharpened his mind but the whiskey was still in control of his senses. Revolver clenched in hand he took the next corner too fast. She whipped her ass first left, then right, he couldn't correct and went sliding down the road sideways. Coming to a stop, he looked out the driver's window at the coming cruiser.
"It's over," he thought. "Take your lumps."

He reached for the door handle, settled with his fate, with living in the walls. He jumped out of the truck forgetting the empty .38 still in his hand. He didn't hear the shots, didn't feel the bullets tearing through his body, didn't feel his body hit the ground. He heard the breeze brushing the wheat, he felt the hot dust drying his lips. He could taste the dirt.