Synesthesia: Chapter Ten

serial fiction

Image: LARAM, Unsplash

I wanted to give a fake name at the tow yard, but they wouldn’t let us in without showing ID. This made me nervous, and I almost turned around and left. But I really needed my music back.

My car was completely wrecked, of course. Unsalvageable. The guy at the tow yard offered me $300 for it and said he could use it for parts. I accepted the money, signed over the title, and said I just needed to grab some things out of the car.

Poor little thing. I laid my hand against the mangled metal body that had brought me from Indiana to Arizona, my partner in crime since my first kidnapping more complex than Netflix-and-chill turned felonious.

Amber stood watching me, her arms crossed, her forehead dripping sweat. A sudden breeze pushed the patchouli-scented cloud of impatience around her toward me.

“Just give me a few minutes,” I said, annoyed.

I don’t like being rushed.

Leaning through the empty frame of the passenger-side window, I opened the glove compartment and removed a small black CD wallet. I unzipped it and flipped through page by page, checking that all my CDs were present and accounted for.

No. One CD missing.

Still in the player.

I didn’t have the key, and I technically didn’t own the car anymore, so I trudged back to the office to ask the guy I’d sold my car to for help. Amber’s patchouli stink got even worse.

I ignored her. This was important.

“You want to get your CD out of the player?” the guy asked me, smelling faintly of wood smoke. I nodded. “Didn’t think people still used CDs these days,” he muttered, searching for the right key on the big key rack on the wall.

He found the key and held it out to me, then paused, his hand poised over my palm, his brown eyes fixed on me seriously.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” he warned. “You be sure to bring this right back.”

I rolled my eyes as Amber and I headed back through the maze of towed cars toward the one that was recently mine. “What did he think I was gonna do, steal a car that doesn’t run?” I asked no one in particular.

“It probably runs okay. The engine, anyway,” mused Amber.

I reached in from the driver’s-side window and turned the key. The dashboard lit up, ready to go.

“Poor thing,” I said, punching the eject button on the CD player. “Those days are over.”

I took the CD, returned it to its rightful home in the CD wallet, then turned the key back to the off position and removed it. My car, or what was left of it, sat dark and lifeless.

“Let’s go,” whined Amber. She stank of wood smoke and patchouli.

I didn’t hate it.

“Okay,” I said, turning back toward the office.

The guy seemed surprised that I was returning the key. I resented that, his assumption that I was some sort of criminal.

Amber and I got back into the red Mustang, and I immediately turned on the air conditioner. The car didn’t have a CD player.

Useless modern junk.

I merged smoothly onto the highway and we drove in silence for a while, Amber gazing out the window, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts.

She didn’t smell like anything. It was disconcerting.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, unnerved by the silence and the opacity of her emotional state.

“How long are you gonna hold onto that guy in the dog crate?” she asked, turning to me.

I shrugged. “I haven’t planned anything,” I answered. “We just took him for his car.”

Amber turned back to the window, watching the dry scrubby plants zoom past. “I want you to kidnap someone for me,” she said, as matter-of-factly as if she were asking to borrow five dollars.

I raised one eyebrow. Amber seemed to think I was some sort of kidnapper for hire. And she wasn’t even paying me.

“Why would I do that?” I asked, annoyed.

Soap-scent filled the car.

“I could call the cops and turn you in,” she threatened.

I laughed. “You’re an accomplice now,” I reminded her.

More soap. Angry and generic.

“Just do this for me, okay?” she whined. The soap took on a slight strawberry tinge.

I drove silently for another mile, assessing.

“Who is it?” I asked finally.

She responded with a wave of shitty cinnamon and an enormous grin.

“His name is Gas Stove,” she said, spitting the name out as if it tasted as bad as the air inside the car currently smelled.

I scoffed. “What kind of a name is that?” I asked, holding back a laugh.

Amber scowled, getting soapy again. “It’s the name of a man who hurt me,” she said, flopping her tiny weight backward against the seat and readjusting her position. Her arms resumed their crossed position across her chest.

More silence from us both. Amber stewed in soapy indignation, no doubt recalling past injustices perpetrated by someone named after a kitchen appliance.

I exited the highway automatically, still thinking about what to do next. I didn’t know the first thing about Gas Stove. But if he had hurt Amber, he was probably a more formidable target than “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE” guy in his stupid-looking Hokas.

I parked the car and we headed into the motel room. Hoka guy was still in the dog crate, curled into a fetal position, sucking on his thumb. He scrunched up his eyes against the brightness as Amber flipped the light switch. The room smelled heavenly, perfumed thickly with orange blossoms.

Amber slipped her shoes off and I flopped down onto the bed. “I dunno, Amber,” I said as she headed into the bathroom to relieve herself. “This guy smells delicious.”

The man in the dog crate let out a series of high-pitched whines, exactly like a terrified dog. The orange blossoms hung more heavily than ever.

“You mean you don’t wanna get Gas Stove?” Amber asked, her cut-grass smell of disappointment undercutting the orange blossoms.

The man in the crate whined more frantically than ever.

“Please don’t eat me!” he begged, bursting into tears.