Firsts

                                                               “Strike-anywhere Matches”

In the end, it wasn’t the last things she did that stayed with him; rather, it was the series of firsts that she did that stayed with him, but each a cut deeper than he had initially realized. 

The car actually needed to be towed, from that remote space on the highway, and while she initially told him that she’d be fine she waivered when she saw the tow truck driver get out of the cab. 

               You’re not leaving me with him.  It was a directive, not a suggestion.  The driver, about 60, weighed well over 300 lbs, tugging on a rag kept in his back pocket, belly straining against a stained brown shirt with his name on it.  Ned.

               He didn’t remember a whole lot about Ned’s fussing with the car and hoisting it up off the two front wheels.  He remembered her standing pretty close to him though, not seeking protection, but just close enough to be noticed.  He didn’t want to keep looking at her, so he watched a few hawks circling above the trees.  Sporadic traffic kept them on the dirt by the road, still somewhat muddy from the rain.  But the air smelled clean, and in the slight breeze he could smell the shampoos from her still-wet hair, a  soapy and distinctive hint.  At one point she reached over to his shoulder, putting her hand on him while she raised a leg to let a pebble out of her sandals.  The sudden first touch was a surprise but it was like she had put her hand on a tree.  She didn’t ask, she just did.  And when she finished she merely released and resumed watching her car get cranked up into the air.

When Ned finished he indicated she should ride with him in the cab.  He remembered looking at her as she blanched and when she looked at him he had a wry smile.  You’re coming too she said.

               What about my car?  You want me to just leave it here?  

She answered by narrowing her eyes. 

As Ned climbed in the entire cab teetered that way and they looked up and into the seats.  The cab had a 4-on-the-floor shift and Ned was spilling over half of the bench seat. 

               You first she declared.  He climbed up, feeling Ned’s heavy presence and then she came in.  She squeezed the door shut and they rambled out of the road’s shoulder and into the north towards Elgin. 

The trip was noisy, high up above the blacktop, the tow truck ambling around 50 miles per hour.   He breathed in the sweaty proximity of the driver and the delicate presence of her.  She had her elbow on the window sill, staring out the glass with her chin in her palm.  She watched the sweep of trees and the crisscross of farm to market roads that shot out in directions away from them.  Now and again her left knee would glance off of his, uncontrolled and likely giving into gravity with the decided tilt of the cabin courtesy of Ned.

But at one point her leg, her knee…her calf, her thigh…they sidled up against his and stayed.  He looked at her but she kept her gaze on the right side of the road, unblinking, no change in expression.

It was like a strike-anywhere match had been lit and thrown against his skin.  Her leg was warm, denim-clad and it felt like it had cleaved into him.  He didn’t want to move.  He actually had probably stopped breathing and when he remembered to exhale he felt like his right side was glowing.  So he stayed rigidly still, not wanting to move the slightest that might move her away from him.  He almost felt like moving away slightly to see if she would follow but he realized that he was where he wanted to be.

He felt like he could feel the pulse in her, the heartbeat as the femoral artery churned the life blood through her.  He felt like he could feel how alive she was, even with her just staring out the window.  He felt the heat of her, the friction of her, and the visceral part of her that pulsated beneath her skin.  It was a simple touch of her leg against his but in his mind she had scorched his landscape, left it dry and hot-blown. 

Half of all forest fires are started in high summer by lightning strikes.  Catching the dry and kindled wheat and straw like gasoline that explodes and breathes hot breath across hundreds of acres of trees.

Here, in the cab, high above the Texas blacktop, he watched the road stream by, his mind careening in colors of orange and white, and the thoughts of a thousand one-hundred foot oaks ablaze.