Synesthesia: Chapter Sixteen
serial fiction
I could feel the stove’s foul breath on the back of my neck as the four of us sped down the highway toward Tucson in Hoka guy’s red Mustang. It was a tight squeeze, and it felt like Gas Stove was taking up most of the available space in the cramped car.
I’d checked out of the Tumbleweed Inn that morning. Bringing Gas Stove back to the motel room had involved so much noise, I was scared we’d have the cops called on us. It was time to move on, anyway. Tucson was just as good as anywhere else I could have gone.
Amber sat in the passenger seat beside me, her bony fingers poking at the control panel, changing the radio station every ten seconds or so.
It was making my teeth itch.
I took a breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to calm down. I really hate driving without my music. And the jarring, ever-changing noises as the stations switched from one to the next were worse than silence.
Suddenly a familiar electronic melody almost made me forget I was steering a block of metal down the highway at 78 miles per hour.
“Stop there!” I said, brushing Amber’s hand away from the controls.
She settled back into her seat and looked out the window without a word as “Walking on a Dream” poured itself into my ears like water into the mouth of a thirsty desert wanderer.
Tucson was a washed-out pink as we headed in from the north. A train of stacked green boxes chugged along to our left, and purple-gray mountains in the distance off to our right baked under the relentless sun.
Next to me, Amber was all cinnamon and patchouli. I knew nothing about her son, or how and why he had ended up in Tucson, but I could understand her excitement at the prospect of being reunited with him, as well as her impatience.
The radio was off again, so it was just the engine, the wheels, and our own breathing.
“Excited to see your son?” I asked her, trying to make conversation.
She nodded, but didn’t give me an answer beyond that. Instead, she turned around in her seat and addressed Gas Stove. Soap-scent curled out of her mouth as she spoke.
“You’re gonna give my friend directions,” she commanded.
Unbelievably, the stove boomed back, “Okay.”
We sat in silence for another couple of minutes, the engine rumbling quietly beneath us. Then the stove spoke again.
“Take the next exit,” he said, his voice far too large for such a small space. I decided to risk a quick glance into the rearview mirror to check whether the rope binding Gas Stove’s wrists was still in place, but he was pressed up so close to the back of my seat, all I could see was his face. When he saw my eyes on him, he twisted his lips into a snarl that made my stomach lurch.
Maybe I could just drop off Amber and Gas Stove in Tucson and take Hoka guy back to Phoenix with me.
“Take the exit,” the stove thundered in his regular speaking voice.
Shit. I had forgotten all about it.
I glided across three lanes of traffic trying to make the exit. Amber gripped the seat and inhaled sharply.
“It’s fine,” I scoffed, annoyed at her fragility. Hey, at least I got a tiny whiff of orange blossom out of it.
Then the rear window lit up with flashes of blue and red, and the whine of a siren broke the silence of the car’s interior.
“Oh fuck, it’s the cops!” Amber hissed, extremely helpfully.
My pulse immediately doubled.
“Maybe it’s not for us,” I said, hoping I could will it into being true.
The lights and siren continued to follow as I slowed and drove along the frontage road.
No, it was definitely for us.
I barely registered whatever was being whispered in the back seat. Instead, I tried to focus on staying calm and not breaking any additional laws as I pulled into the gas station and put the Mustang into park.
I watched the officer exit the police car and walk toward me in what felt like slow motion. Should I just drive away? How was I going to explain any of this? What if Gas Stove or Hoka guy talked?
Something was tugging on my right arm. I looked down at it and saw Amber’s hand on me.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
I barely had time to consider what she might have meant by that when a loud knock on the window to my left made me jump.
Breathe, I ordered myself, and I lowered the car window.
The aroma of wood smoke hit my nostrils as soon as the window cracked.
“Any idea why I pulled you over?” the officer asked. His skin was so pale against the dark blue of his uniform, I wondered how he managed to survive out here in the desert. Maybe he was already suffering from melanoma, and ours was the last car he’d pull over before he finally dropped dead, betrayed by his own skin.
“Do you speak English?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if the sudden gasoline smell was his amusement or just the normal stench of the gas station.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir,” I stammered, trying to remember the right way to talk to a police officer. I’d been extremely lucky up to this point in my career.
He raised one sand-blond eyebrow at me behind his wraparound sunglasses.
“I said, do you know why I pulled you over?” The wood smoke had a faint tinge of patchouli now.
“Uh… no,” I answered, marveling that no one in the back seat had said a word so far.
The gasoline smell crescendoed.
“When you were learning to drive, did they teach you to cut across every lane of traffic all at once without signaling?” The eyebrow did a little wiggle.
Suddenly my throat was as dry as the mountains baking in the distance.
I swallowed, trying to wet my throat, but it felt like swallowing air.
“No, sir,” I said, my voice coming out horrifyingly small.
At that moment, the officer seemed to notice there were other people in the car. He leaned down, quickly noticed Amber, then peered into the back seat.
He stood up again to his full height, which couldn’t have been more than 5’9”.
“Lotta people in that car,” he said faux-casually. “You going to a party or something?”
“A funeral,” said Amber, and my heart dropped in my chest like an elevator with a snapped cable. She was definitely going to fuck this up.
The officer leaned down again and looked at her. For an uncomfortably long time, he said nothing.
“Whose funeral?” he asked, leaking gasoline.
Amber sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “My sister,” she said, her voice breaking.
The officer’s wraparound sunglasses pointed toward the back seat again.
My hands, at ten and two on the steering wheel, were gripping so tightly they hurt.
Finally, the officer stood up again.
“I’ll let you off with a warning this time,” he said. “Signal from now on, and change lanes one at a time.”
Then he walked back to his car, got in, and drove away.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I asked Amber.
From the back seat, a few inches behind my head, Gas Stove’s booming laughter filled the car, and I nearly drowned in gasoline.