Country Roads, Don't Fail Me Now

 

"Cut the light when you leave, Rylie," the janitor hollered from the doorway, withdrew his head, and slammed the cafeteria door.

Running late, Rylie hurried to clean up the kitchen at Slippery Ridge School where she cooked and tried keeping a smile when serving mouthy kids and cranky teachers. She dried her hands, taking a deep breath. Pine-Sol competed with lingering whiffs of burnt macaroni. In the mirror by the door she caught a glimpse of her auburn hair escaping the hairnet sliding down her moist forehead. After tucking the net in her apron pocket, she checked her watch. Kripes, 4:45! She cut the light.

Rylie fired up Torch, her rusting orange VW held together with baling wire and spit. Her back and feet hurt. She longed for a hot bath, maybe after husband Buzz left for his Lodge meeting. She whipped in front of the last two busses to exit the lot. Her tires churned up gravel that clattered like angry hail. The busses headed south to Fincastle. Didn't matter, she beat them. She needed to feed Buzz and get him off to the Masons.

Turning her VW north, she lurched onto Girty's Pike, the treacherous two-lane road that linked Fort Fincastle on the Ohio River to Slippery Ridge and all points north.

She rarely got beyond the next tiny village of Hardy. Rylie figured she could make it to Gilroy's General Store in Hardy in fifteen minutes--tops--if no runaway cattle jammed the road. She cursed Jake Ratner for his broken down fences. She figured to pop into Gilroy's and pick up steaks and frozen corn cobs from her locker. Gilroy's had a great butcher who processed his own beef and freezers in which she stored all her zucchini and the veggies she hadn't had time to can. All summer Buzz had asked, "Why nine mounds, Rylie?"

She chugged on up the road, downshifted to second, and turned a hard right at the U S Post Office next door to what was left of Mander's General Store-just about it for the village of Slippery Ridge. Mander's had no butcher, no frozen food locker, but it did have one gas pump that worked if the clerk kicked it a good one. She shifted into third gear. An almost two-tenths of a mile straightaway seduced outsiders into thinking Girty's Pike had no tricks left. Then they hit the gut-dropping curve that plunged to the T-intersection with Gregg's Cabin Run, a mud and gravel country lane on the right. She braked and downshifted. The road snaked past a decapitated house, victim of the tornado two springs back, then on to the Slippery Ridge Volunteer Fire Station at the base of a hairpin bend to the left. She laughed every time she heard the siren screaming in the night. Lucky to get to the firehouse without crashing, the volunteers never just tore out of the station. Couldn't.

She downshifted again into first gear, wondering as she worked the clutch and gears: what ties a body to the mountains when a jump to the river north or south takes you to a city-to good jobs, people-fast food? Might could be sunsets all misty, crickets chirping . . . fireflies leaping to the stars still visible at night. She sighed and longed for that bath. She stomped the gas and shifted back into third gear. Nope. More'n likely it's these roads, like varicose veins linking hill to hollow, ridge to creek bottom all over the Mountain State. Rylie loved putting their collie in the folded-down back seat of her VW and ripping up and down the West "By God" Virginia hills.

She had but a mere five miles of equally twisting road to Hardy-piece of cake for Torch. But that's when Zucchini Queen, as the butchers at Gilroy's hailed her, saw fire chief Cory Deaton waving a red flag.

 

 

She opened their front door. There stood Buzz, scowling, in his white shirt and good pants. No tie yet but his crew cut all slicked. "Where in Sam Hill have you been, Rylie? Do you know what time it is? You know I have Lodge tonight!"

The scent of his Old Spice and Brylcreem distracted her. She wanted to nuzzle in his neck but caught the sparks in his blue eyes. "A-course I do," she said, "haven't I been driving all over this county and the next for the last hour, trying to get home?" She tossed him the wrapped and string-tied steaks.

"First off had to back Torch up Slippery Ridge to Gregg's Cabin Run, get along past Grinder's Point and the dump. Kripes, it still smells this late into October." She exchanged her stained school apron for her red one with chickens strutting on the skirt. "And onto south Cattle Ridge. You know how I hate that gear buster. Thank God they've filled in the gaping hole at the bridge. Then had to pick up north Long Run over to Old Hardy Run. That got me into Hardy the hard way." She laughed.

Buzz felt the steaks through the butcher's paper. Slightly pacified, he choked down his anger and came out with a noncommittal "Well?"

 

 

Buzz ate; Rylie talked. "Left school in good time on my way to Gilroy's as usual. Rounded the bend to the fire station when Cory flagged me down. Had on his striped hazard vest. No big deal. You know almost any day on Girty's Pike cars 'n vans run off the road into them miniature canyons left behind by the gully-washers."

Buzz smiled. "Yep, that's why everyone in West Virginia drives left of center." He waved his fork. "Go on."

"Well, I kept going; it's only Cory, for God's sake. He came loping up and stiff-arms Torch's fender. I floored the brake and clutch. Torch grunted. Cory tipped his cap. We known each other since grade school, you know."

Buzz nodded, once again trying to forget how popular Rylie had been in high school.

"'Howdy, Rylie,' Cory says. 'You'll have to back up. We have a . . . a bit of a . . . situation here.'"

"So I get out, sort of peering over his shoulder. First thing I see is this big rig hauling a flatbed. But it wasn't just the wide, extra-long flatbed, complete with red flags and flashing lights, some good they were doing, oh no! 'Lord Love a Duck!' I yell." She paused, reliving the shock.

Buzz swallowed his last bite of steak, checked the time, 6:30 on the kitchen clock, and pushed for her to finish. "And?"

She took a deep breath and shot him the Swear to God look. "This time someone screwed up big time. That flatbed was hauling a big old missile-warhead large as life-leastways it looked like the business end of a rocket to me. It just gleamed, dazzling white in the afternoon sun. That's when I see your buddies Jake and Kenny walking around the flatbed, holding industrial grade walkie-talkies up to their faces.

"'Cory,' I says, 'how in the Hell did a missile get stuck here on Girty's Pike? Don't the driver have a map? Any fool should know-- '

"'No fool like a truck driving fool!' Cory cuts in, grinning like a hog in the corn crib.

"I flat out ask him, 'But how did it get on GP?' You shoulda seen Cory's face-went Plaster of Paris stiff. 'The driver turned wrong off the Interstate,' he says.

"I give out a snort. 'There's no right turn off the Interstate, less you want to drag your ass up roads that barely allow two goats to pass side by side--no matter which wrong turn he took. To get stuck in Slippery Ridge?'

"Cory didn't crack. 'To repeat,' he says with his hands on his hips, 'you'll have to back up and go round. Now.' He wasn't smiling.

"'Cory,' I say. 'Call Buzz. Tell him I'll be late.'" She gave Buzz a nod.
"He gets that sick cow look and says, 'Can't, Rylie. And you can't, neither. Don't know how you got through, damn fat-assed deputy supposed to block the road. You gotta go round, Ryl. And keep this quiet. Hear me!'

"I didn't miss a lick. 'Right, Chief,' I tell him. 'When one route fails, beat it to another. You'll get there.'"

She smiled, feeling better for getting her encounter with rocket science off her chest. She urged Buzz to finish dressing and get going. "If you see Cory tonight at the Lodge, give him the old handshake. Get him to tell you what in tarnation a rocket was doing in this neck of the woods."

Buzz heaved himself up and kissed his wife on her cheek. "Don't have to, Babe. It musta been going to that secret anti-ballistic bunker over the State Line off Jefferson Pike."

"Well, there you go! Government Job!"

L. N. Passmore

 

L. N. Passmore bids you to come visit Lisnafaer and her other green worlds.