Wild

One minor occurrence—a seemingly insignificant incident—can easily change the course of major events. A soft breeze pushing a single pebble off the side of a cliff results in a landslide. The precise angle of your smile and a particular sequence of words seems like a small thing, but three weeks later the bitch with the pouty lips is giving you a blowjob in the backseat of a ’65 Volkswagen. It’s all timing and collective energy. Stopping to tie your shoe prevents you from being in a head-on collision 10 minutes down the road. Predestination? A random universe? Who the fuck really knows? One thing that’s for certain –life is one big chain reaction! That’s exactly what happened when Wayne stumbled and kicked the trashcan. It was a chain reaction that now had Wayne and Willie mushrooming out from the explosion of chaos at Thomas Jefferson High School, flying down the straight stretch of road, drunk, in a baby blue convertible with the voluptuous Suzie Sable passed out in the back seat. Wayne rode the brakes, nosing the car into the tight turn, feeling the tail end sliding loosely in its arc. He straightened the wheel coming out of the curve, heading down the long, straight stretch of blacktop. The shrill sirens of the police cars faded in the distance as the boys sped away in the opposite direction. Wayne and Willie stared out through the windshield, bug-eyed, still pumped full of adrenaline, watching as the car picked up speed, gobbling up the pavement. The roar of the wind rushed over the frame of the windshield, tugging at their hair, feeling like freedom and the harsh edge of reality—all at once. Now, they were both asking the same inevitable question: “What now?” The boys hadn’t thought things through; how could they? Things had happened too quickly. But now they were forced into trying to find a solution to the serious trouble they were in. No—there was not real solution—the damage had been done—no fixing it. What they needed was some type of buffer—something to buy them some time—time enough to let the smoke of the battle clear. They came to the same conclusion at the same time—there was only one way to buy time and that was to invest in space—lots of it; they had to get out of town. Giving voice to the thought, Willie looked over at Wayne, who was tensed up over the steering wheel, trying to focus on the road. “We’ve got to split, Wayne, haul ass out of this town. We really, really fucked up this time; we’re in deep shit, son!” Willie shouted. “Sonofabitch, there goes my weekend. Know who I had a date with?” Willie yelled over the trammel of the wind. “The Canadian cock doctor!” Wayne didn’t look around but raised his voice. “Yeah, we’re in deep, Willie. But we’re not getting in any deeper. If you think I’m stealing this car, forget about it! We already stole one car this month; remember?” “No, Wayne! Camp! We’ll take a bus to camp; no one will ever look for us up there. We’ll ditch this car and take a bus to camp!” Willie yelled, leaning his head toward Wayne, his hair blowing around in the turbulence. “Lewisburg?” Wayne shouted, watching the road curving ahead. “Hell, yes, Lewisburg! It’s only three or four hours—you have a better idea?” Willie shouted back. “No, but bus tickets cost money. You have any?” Wayne hit the brakes, slowing the car, jerked the wheel and bounced onto a side road. “No, I’ve got only a couple of bucks, but I’ve got an idea!” “What, Willie? What’s the idea?” Wayne shouted. “I’m not robbing any store—forget about it!” “No, dude, Aunt Dottie’s! Head to Aunt Dottie’s; I’ve got a plan!” There were dozens of narrow roads that cut back and forth across the top of the mountain, embedded like deep channels in a wooded maze. Wayne and Willie were rolling along one of these small roads when the blacktop suddenly twisted up around a knot of pine trees, then shot straight back into the heart of the mountain. Wayne was quiet for a moment, watching the fading gray pavement slide beneath the car, as if they were riding the back of a molting black snake. Wayne’s shoulders rolled with the turns, as he steered through the serpentine curves, happy to be off the main road. “Aunt Dottie? Cash, Willie?” Wayne asked, glancing away from the road for one second. Willie looked over to answer, watching the sun flickering off Wayne’s face through the trees racing by. As Wayne turned back to focus on the road, his movement looked like an old movie, his head clicking back around a frame at a time. “Bitch is rich, Wayne, you know that! Cash out the ass!” Willie shouted. “We just have to figure a way to get our hands on some of it!” Wayne tapped the brakes, letting the car roll slowly to the gap in the trees on the left side of the road. There was a one-lane trail, crowned in hard-packed gravel, that cut back through a throng of tall, lazy pine trees. Wayne nosed the car in, crunching back trough the narrow gap tunneling through the woods. Willie leaned his head back on the seat, staring up at a million pine needles, splintering like sharp explosions in the glare of the afternoon sun. “Rest stop?” Willie said, as a thickening canopy of branches rolled back over his head. “We need to get off the road for a while. They probably have an A.P.B. out for us by now!” That caught Willie’s attention, and he sat up straight. “A.P.B.? All points bulletin? Goddamn, Wayne!” Willie shifted in his seat. “That’s some serious shit!”