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Jenny Myst · (06-25-2022)

Fuck Nevada was hot.

She had been cooped up inside for so long she had forgotten how absolutely terrible Nevada was in the summer time. Just a cess pool of sweat and B.O. And SO damn bright! Why was it so fucking bright?! She sat there with her thumb out like a loser, waiting for a ride for anyone going anywhere in an area of the country had more degrees on a given day than it did people to appreciate it.

When realization had set in that she had lost her newest and most favoritest toy, she didn't know what else to do. She felt lost, hopeless, alone. Sure, she had Artie with her but he just didn't listen sometimes! And he wasn't the best conversationalist.

Kinda bland, in her opinion. Drywall.

Honestly, she didn't wanna hear what he had to say most of the time anyway. He sounded way too much like Lance. Yuck.

She had spent the days following Savage in the only place she felt comfortable. Home . As terrible as this place had been to her in her life, it was consistent. Her entire universe was a giant dust cloud, moving with the breeze, but at least she knew that her little nook in North Las Vegas would always be the same. A little dusty now, and not full standing, but always consistent.

Consistent pain is better than occasional happiness.

Her knees up to her chin, arms around her knees, head down. Her knees were stained with mascera. Streaks. Her lipstick was smeared on her arms and knees as well. She had sat in a corner of the house that used to be the corner of her bedroom (very much in this same position as well), as her sneaker-covered feet planted into the soot and ash. She came back to the one place that hurt her so deeply, that ruined her so thoroughly--to the one place where she actually felt like she had control over this runaway train known as "life."

She had burned this place to the fucking foundation. Her and Ash had poured gasoline over everything and watched as it went up in flames. It was only a matter of time before the city came in and bought the lot, building a new nightmare on top of the old one. They were going to take that from her too!

Take and take and take and take and take and take!

NEVER GIVE!

The pink highlights in her hair were faded, they desperately needed to be re-done but the idea of socializing for long enough to go to a salon horrified her. People, in general, horrified her. At least here she wouldn't have to be near anyone. At least here she could be alone with the orchestra. They always comforted her. And tortured her. The torture was her comfort.

She missed Ash. She missed the adventure's they would go on. She missed the shenanigans they would get into. Most of all, she missed feeling normal again.

What even was normal? Any semblance of normality she knew was as finite as each individual ash where her old home once stood. Her only reality was being a disappointment to everyone around her. It was the only constant. Like the ashes and dust that surrounded her, like the charred wood and loose hanging electrical wires that have been stripped to the copper by the intense heat of the gas flames--her entire world has burnt down around her.

And for some reason, to her, that felt normal.[

Her wallowing had been broken up by the sound of a diesel engine. She never lifted her head, she didn't want to look. She didn't care. Take whatever you want, do whatever you want. Her newest toy was gone! How could she care about ANYTHING else?

It wasn't until she heard a voice that she lifted her head. Squinting in the first light she had seen--opening her eyes for the first time in days was painful--she saw the dirt kneed jeans and work boots of someone standing in front of her.

"Holy hell, Joe! There IS someone in here! It's a girl!"

There was another voice.

"Should we---uh---call the police?"

Dirty knees didn't respond. Instead he got one onto one of them, all up in her bubble. His hat said "DVC" which stood for Desert Valley Contracting. His shirt had a name on it.

"GARRY"

Or at least that is what she could make out through her burning retina's.

"Whatcha doin' here miss?"

His voice was a rasp, as if he had been smoking for 50 years and swallowed pebbles every night like vitamins.

She didn't say anything. She felt around in the dirt in for a shard of broken glass or something--anything--in case he got too close.

"Ya can't talk dear?"

As her blurry vision came back into focus she could have sworn he was wearing a dark brown mouth guard. He spit into the ash next to her as he stood up.

"Call Rawson-Neal. Looks like another one of their coocoo's got loose."

"Goldi" she said. "I....I lost goldi."

The man turned around.

"You los' what, girlie?"

"GOLDI!"

Her voice, being used for the first time in days, matched his in rasp. Her throat felt like a thousand angry cats were clawing the inside of her throat.

"I don't know what the fuck a Goldie is girl but it'll be okay soon...."

"It's my toy. My newest toy. She was my favorite."

The man laughed with a bit of a snort. He didn't take her seriously. Typical Garry.

She began to get up. Her joints raged like the fire here not that long ago. She dusted herself off.

The man had begun to walk back towards the truck. The other man was on the phone. Surely they were here to assess the land, to get the permit to knock down what was left and build something new.

Probably a shopping mall or something. A big obnoxious shopping mall.

They wanted to take this from her too. Garry wanted to take what she felt was hers. The only shred of happiness left in her life. Garry wanted to send her back to the nut house and go about his day like nothing happened. Ruin a life and go play the scratch tickets with a large coffee.

She took a step on a trembling leg.

It hit her, in that moment, like a wrecking ball knocking down a building. All anyone was ever going to do was take from her, and all she ever did was sit around and let father time go grey. Right then, in her moment of clarity, a voice came to her like an angel sent down from the heavens above.

Tim Robbin's voice.

"Get Busy Living, Or Get Busy Dying."

--Shawshank Redemption, 1994.

She soon felt the ground under her as the soles of her sneakers pounded the pavement like the jackhammers that would soon break the ground of her old home. There was no wind on this stagnant day yet she felt as though the wind was under her, like she had wings, like she was soaring.

She just felt like running. She laughed to herself as she heard Tom Hanks say that same line verbatim in her head. It also made her want chocolate.

Every so often she would look behind her to see if the truck was following her. It wasn't. Garry was too self-absorbed to care about what someone else was doing, especially someone like her.

A little bird in a giant forest.

As she ran through the vast expanse of nowhere another voice carried through her head, sticking in her brain as if it came from the end of a needle and she was a voodoo doll. It just appeared.

Morgan Freeman.

Young Morgan, though. Not old, spotted, fumbling over his words Morgan.

"I Have To Remind Myself That Some Birds Aren't Meant To Be Caged."

--Shawshank Redemption, 1994.

Sure, people can be happy when they let something beautiful go free, but there is still the sense of sadness knowing that when it is gone, life just feels like it is missing something.

She would see Goldi again.

She would see her friend again.

Fuck Arizona was hot, too.

She almost wished she had picked the other direct route, which would haven taken her through Utah. Here she was in some desert hovel, sitting in the middle of a diner-gas station-vape store all in one, sipping on lukewarm coffee and watching her pancake age 10 years with every passing minute. She made two X's for each of the eyes and an anime-style grinning face, teeth included, with the syrup. It didn't matter to her that it was the middle of the day because as far as she was concerned it was never too late for pancakes.

She looked over at the old man in the flannel shirt and jeans, despite it being 110 fucking degrees outside, as he took a drag of his cigarette before ashing it in the small black plastic ashtray in front of him. His coffee mug sat a few inches from him on the table along side a newspaper. He didn't look very friendly. Nobody here did, for that matter.

The trucker she hitched the ride with was in the bathroom, he had told her not to order food as they weren't staying very long. He had business in New Mexico. She stared at her pancakes, moving them around with her fork. She missed her friend. She felt so alone.

1,734.4 miles to go

Fuck New Mexico was hot, too.

And boring. So fucking boring.

She found herself sweating as she got out of the car in this desert wasteland. Were there even any people in New Mexico? She was at a little road side rest stop. She needed to pee so bad she felt it flooding behind her eyes. Sure, she was crazy, but she was human, too.

This was a truck stop on Route 66. The bathroom was dingy but serviceable. The door didn't latch and she was pretty sure there was an entire yellow pages worth of phone numbers scribbled onto the door. Relieving herself, however, she made her way back out into the unbelievably bright sun, despite it being dusk. There were several trucks parked out there. The sun was going down and as she shuffled through the lot she had several people shout to her to come to their truck, and how much, etc. A few cat called.

Did she really look that bad?! Or did that mean she looked good?! Or.....

She shut the door of the truck and pondered if all men were gross.

1,318.0 miles to go

The top corner of Texas and Oklahoma weren't much to see, and she mostly just slept through them. Though, Dog The Bounty Hunter was from Pampa, on the Panhandle, and she thought that was pretty cool.

She liked his hair.

Jelly.

Though, there was this small incident in Oklahoma, but it was no big thing.

She had gotten lost in the vast expanse of the rest stop when they stopped just outside Ada, Oklahoma. This was a new driver, and kind of quiet. He said nothing as she got out of the beat up old Town Car. This rest stop was a massive mix of closed restaurants, open ones that nobody cares about and employees that looked like zombies.

There was so much to look at! All the bright signs and chain link gates! While wondering, she didn't pay attention to where she was going. She walked into the mens bathroom. Seeing no difference initially, she sits down to do her business. Exiting the stall to wash her hands, she looks towards the sinks and see a large gentleman, naked from the waist down, washing his very soiled underwear in the sink. Horrified, she backed against the stall. Trying to slide by, the looked at the other sink. The other sink had another large gentleman pouring condensed Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup into a bowl and using water from the “underwear washing station” to dilute his delicious soup.”

Somehow, and she wasn't sure why, this made her smile.

829.6 miles to go

She had made it. She was here, and it was time to take back what was hers. She found herself, having traveled 1,910 miles and 1 day, 4 hours and 37 minutes, to be sitting in a cafe/brunch/fancy lunch joint attached to a vape shop. What was with all those?! It was kind of a hip, artsy place, and tried to cater to a progressive crowd. This wasn't an especially progressive town, though, and it appeared they had as many of the same rednecks come in as every other place in town.

There were all kinds of ridiculous customers, but the ones they all really hated were the after-church crowd. They did nothing for business, because the place would have been busy anyway. Most of them were people who only went out to eat after church and who seemed mystified by the whole experience. Special orders, complaints over nothing, lousy/nonexistent tips, taking forever to leave even when there is obviously a line of customers.

Apparently, this local Kentucky city council was considering a 'controversial' bill to address housing discrimination against LGBT people (because not allowing people to be bigots is religious discrimination, right?). This had become the topic of chatter among bible thumpers all over town.

While Jenny sat there, minding her own business, one individual came up to the front counter and pulled our owner/chef away from the kitchen. Being a manager, he was usually always ready to talk to a customer and be friendly. The guy asked the manager if they were a 'Christian-friendly' establishment. Little did she know (she should have, because everyone in Kentucky is faker than a 3 dollar bill) who had a few minutes earlier been in the back talking about all the 'fucking water-drinking Jesus fucks' said, "Of course, sir, we're friendly to everyone!" The man then said, "So you don't employ or serve Sodomites?"

What the fuck was going on here? She travelled this far, sleeping in cabs of trucks and shitty roadside motels, to get here and be hit in the face with perhaps the most backward society in modern America?

THIS IS NO PLACE FOR HER GOLDI TO BE!

It took the manager a second to figure out what the hell the guy was talking about. When he did, the manager (a hairy, greasy, definitely extremely hetero dude) had had about enough. He leaned over, kissed one of the male line cooks on the cheek, and said, "We're all Sodomites! Would you like to see a dessert menu, or do you just want the check?"

Jenny knew, at that moment, that this was no longer a game of hide and seek that Goldi was playing. This was a rescue operation. She needed to get her newest friend the fuck out of Kentucky.

She knew her mission was not done, however. She needed to stay in this hell hole until she found Nelson County. She was going to get Goldi the fuck out of there.

TO BE CONTINUED

"You STOLE from me, GaRRY. I wasn't supposed to lose that match! I wasn't supposed to let Goldi go so soon! And you bet your ass I want her back! You're going to turn the title into a comedy skit, but this isn't Saturday Night Live motherfucker! I am going to love and coddle Goldi, give her the push she deserves. I am going to carry on the legacy that Charles worked so hard to build! You....you're going to make it.......make it.....a joke. You get by on your witty humor but more than anything else, you got lucky.

Everyone can be great once, but they lack the ability to be that great again. Are you a flash in the pan, Garrold? Did you have one good night? That is what you have to ask yourself. You're the champion now. The pressure is on you. This title is designed to reward you for winning, for being great night after night. You are SUPPOSED to beat me now, Garrison. Your days of finger banging lady luck are over. You sit amongst the elite now, and your entire world will become one giant mirror. You will have to look at yourself everywhere you go, and ask yourself that same question.

AM I GOOD ENOUGH?

Are you Garry? Are you?

That is why I was granted this rematch Garrah. Because there is nobody else out there who can give Goldi the life she deserves. I can give her the recognition and reputation she deserves. The only thing you'll give her is a black eye when you come home plastered and realize she hasn't washed the dishes fully with all the kid watching and house primping she's doing. You're a monster, Garry, and a selfish one at that! You don't WANT Goldi, you just don't want anyone else to have her!

You selfish, arrogant man!

You are in for a world of hurt. You have no idea what it takes to be a parent! Your lifestyle isn't conducive to a productive environment to raise a Goldi in! You don't deserve custody of such a beautiful girl!

Which will make taking her away from you that much sweeter.

It will be liberating!

Go ahead, pick your stipulation. It doesn't matter what lengths I have to go to in order to get her back, I will make sure that I am the one holding her tightly to my chest when the night is done! Whatever stipulation you have planned, I am not afraid. I am not intimidated. I don't fear you. I pity you.

You're about to step into a world you don't understand.

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