Flat
A Short Story
By Loren Hammer
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 Ryan Goble
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Flat
“No Shit, there I was…” the soldier began in the fashion typical of one of his profession.
“I was stranded with a flat tire overnight on the freeway, creepiest god-damned night of my life.
“A flat tire as mechanical issues go is pretty much an easy fix. If you must break down on a trip it’s pretty much what you hope for, right? That is unless you don’t have a jack, then it becomes a fairly insurmountable problem.
“I was having a boring ass weekend in the Guard, and was looking forward to getting out. Mostly I was glad this weekend was almost over. As always happens, the First Sergeant gave his motivating speech about driving carefully on the way home, including some rubberstamp advice to pull over and take a nap if you get sleepy. I was on this occasion, it turns out, I was actually listening.
“I missed my family and friends, and my daughter had surgery scheduled for the morning to have a mole biopsied, no big deal. I was in a hurry to get home. I normally stop off somewhere and get some Red Bull before I drive, because I get drowsy. This time I didn’t, like I said, I was in a hurry. I just changed into my civvies and high-tailed it on, out of town.
“Well, I made it about halfway home when I started to feel sleepy. Since I was in a van anyway, I pulled over for a nap. After all, an extra 15 minutes was better than a car crash.
“My alarm went off and I awoke feeling refreshed and ready to book it on home to my family and my usual Sunday night games with friends. As I pulled out of the gravel parking lot of the mom and pop store that is the only notable feature of the small town I rested at an old blue hair pointed at something on the ground. I checked my rear views and seeing nothing I just kept on driving.
“Shortly after I hit the freeway, I noticed a rhythmic rattling, a sound I couldn’t identify. There was a concrete bridge ahead; those tend to make less noise than the general highway does so I was hoping the sound would stop or that I could identify it. Neither of those things actually happened. There was another bridge soon and again I had the same hopes, again I was disappointed. I wasn’t off the bridge for long when the rattling increased, but now it was the distinctive, ‘thwop-thwop-thwopping’ sound of a flat tire.
“There were a lot of things running through my mind as I pulled over. Chief of which, was the way that I had made the conscious descision not to bring the jack and tire iron from my old car, I was running late leaving the house after all. I probably wouldn’t need them I figured. Secondly was the thought that Irony was one cold-hearted bitch.
“I got out and looked at my tire, it was flat, but not all that flat. I looked up and there was a sign that gave a distance to the next town, 4 miles. ‘Not far’ I thought. I was reasonably sure I could make it even with the tire losing air. I got back in the van and rapidly got her moving again. I didn’t make it far before realizing that it just wasn’t going to work.
“By the time I pulled over, the tire was completely flat and incredibly hot to the touch, I was short on options. My first instinct was to panic; there was no way out of my predicament that I could see. I started looking around inside the van for a solution. There was a spare tire, my army gear that I was too lazy to take out, and a few assorted personal affects. Not much in the way of solutions. None of my army gear could lift a two ton van and that was the best stuff I had for it.
“I saw something in my personal bags that while not a solution offered a measure of security and hope. It was my copy of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy along with The Case of Wagner. I knew I had to DO something. A small revelation I know, but it was what I needed at the time. I looked around the van knowing a solution would present itself. At first I thought I was looking for a way to fix the tire, that thought slowly gave way to the reality that the task was currently impossible. Therefore I needed the tools to make the task possible.
“I was along a highway in a sparsely populated part of the country. The closest town I had already observed was four miles from where I had started it was a little less now. More interesting was the rest area on the other side of the interstate. I didn’t like the idea of crossing the freeway, it’s dangerous at the best of times; the cane I hobble around on certainly didn’t make the idea any more appealing. I noticed a sign indicating the exit to an abandoned mining community half a mile up the road. I already knew from prior experience that there was nothing of value at that exit, but there was the exit itself. Half a mile up the road another half a mile back use the phone and then the return trip, all would be done in a little under half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, or so I thought.
“I started walking, ignoring the pebbles that were slowly gathering in my sandals as I walked. I was more interested in the endless cues around me that this idea was really stupid. Everywhere I looked there were animal corpses and car parts that had clearly found themselves violently on the side of the road right where I was, or beyond. I pondered that it was probably wiser to stay put and have faith that someone would come by to rescue me shortly. In the words of Nietzsche, ‘A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything…’ I, of course, proceeded as planned.
“I stepped over and through set after set of shattered bones. I never realized previously that America is paved with road kill. I’d seen the signs as we all have, a deer, or dog, or small unidentifiable mammal bloating on the side of the road. Until this moment, however, I never added all that up to what is actually out there. The sign that declared a rest area two miles up the road to be open was quite the enormous contraption up close.
“I considered going back to the rest area on my side of the highway but that would make for a four mile round trip instead of just over two. I noted with satisfaction, from where I was standing I could see a railroad underpass. The way I was going had just gotten a bit shorter and I pressed on. The pebbles gathering in my sandals were getting more irritating, but life was looking up. I glanced at my watch and did the brief math on how long my trip would take and how long it would take help to arrive. I should just barely be home by seven in the evening.
“Shortly before reaching the underpass I had to step around a reasonably freshly killed deer, its glassy eyes staring at me accusingly as I did so. I shuddered at the insects busily scurrying about on its rear leg with its shattered femur sticking through putrefying flesh. I don’t know if it was an effect of the wound or the fact that bugs kind of creep me out.
“I sat down on the end of the guard rail to empty the pebbles out of my sandals, and looked down at the train tracks. There seemed to be some sort of switching area. It was long ago that my father retired from the railroad and the term for what I was looking at escaped me, and still does. There were three sets of tracks each with a longish string of empty boxcars. ‘That’s an awful expensive bunch of equipment to just leave sitting there, I’ll have to be careful’ I noted.
“Scrambling down the embankment I came up with a plan for what to do if I should happen to encounter a train. Getting closer I saw that there was a lot more room than I had anticipated and getting hit by a train would not be the concern I thought it would be, getting stabbed by a hobo on the other hand, was another matter. Still, it was Sunday on a drill weekend and if I got stabbed by a hobo, the army would pay out my wife handsomely.
“Of course there were no hobos, just more carcasses. The most intact of which, I noted, looked like a dusty weather-beaten throw rug on the gravel. I ignored it, or tried to anyway, and made my way up to the other side of the interstate. I sat once again on the guard rail to empty the pebbles out of my increasingly uncomfortable sandals, and mentally added ‘get new sandals’ to the next day’s to-be-done list.