In the Name of the Father- Chapter 1


Cammie couldn’t believe her luck.  First she got in a fight with her boyfriend and drove off.  She knew it was a stupid fight, and that she should have stayed. But she was too emotional, and the last thing Cammie wanted at that moment was to have to deal with his shit for another moment.
She had called Sarah on her way and was planning on staying with her; either until things cooled down with Tim, or maybe for good. Maybe she would just leave and start over. Maybe all she needed was a fresh start. Her hand drifted to her stomach. Cammie didn’t know if that was such a good idea; maybe she did need him. At the moment she just had to get away to think. And Sarah’s place was far enough for a start.
            In hindsight, maybe she should have called a friend that lived closer.  The town of Iguana was twenty miles east of El Paso. It was a sleepy little town, one of those places you only stopped in to get gas before getting the hell out of there as fast as you could. Between the two was not much but a lot of desert.  Maybe that was part of the problem too, Cammie thought. Did she want to be stuck in that piss-ant town for the rest of her life, stuck with Tim and a baby?  She didn’t want to be a walking baby factory while Tim worked at the crappy body shop for the rest of their lives.
It was just her luck that her piece of shit car would breakdown with ten miles to go before El Paso.  Now she was in the middle of nowhere with a dying cell phone and no signal. It was getting dark, and the last thing she needed was to have to spend the night in the back of her car in the middle of nowhere.
            Then she saw headlights coming.  Cammie knew that hitchhiking wasn’t a good idea, but her options and daylight were running out.  She now wished she hadn’t decided to wear the Daisy Dukes shorts and boots, but Sarah had mentioned hitting one of the dance clubs when she got into town. Nothing like giving a complete stranger the wrong signals at this exact moment.  Maybe the driver is a girl, she hoped. Or maybe gay. The last thing she needed was some old pervert thinking she was a hooker. She’d heard stories of girls having to give a dude a blowjob or more if they didn’t have money just to get a few miles up the road; she refused to do that. Or worse he could be a crazy rapist or serial killer. Cammie shook that thought from her mind. She decided to take her chances.
            She began waving her hands as the car came closer. It was an older model Toyota Camry that had seen better days. The silver paint was splotched with rust, but it seemed to be running okay.  She leaned into the passenger side window as the driver pulled over.
  The driver was handsome enough. He looked about thirty with blonde hair and grey eyes. The eyes seemed to look deep into her, and she felt a chill. She didn’t know why, but there was something unsettling but at the same time attractive about him. Then he gave her a white toothed smile. “Looks like you have some car trouble,” he said with a slight accent she couldn’t quite place. 
Cammie brushed a strand of brown hair that had come loose from her white bandana she was using to hold her hair back in the desert heat. “Yeah, I think it over heated.  I’m meeting a friend about ten miles up the road in El Paso. Think you can give me a lift into town?”
“Not a problem. Headin’ that way myself. Hop on in.” The driver popped the passenger side door lock.  Cammie slide in, taking a quick look around the interior before shutting the door. Nothing seemed to psychoish, though there seemed to be a smell she couldn’t quite place. It was a mixture of kerosene and something else. Something rotten.
“Sorry about the smell,” the driver seemed to be reading her mind.  “A jackrabbit snuck through the back door and got in the trunk. Little bastard was dead back there for three days before I found it. Smell still hasn’t gotten out. I hoped maybe the kerosene would mask it a little.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll just keep my window down,” Cammie replied smiling.  She looked at him as they began driving. There was something about the way his face was in a natural smile that put her at ease. This is fine. Just strike up some conversation and I’ll be having shots with Sarah by happy hour. No, not shots. Not tonight. Won’t able to do that for a while. “My name’s Cammie by the way.”
            The driver glanced over at her, maybe checking her out. Cammie smiled again. Just what she needed after her blowup with Tim, a man noticing her.  So what if he wouldn’t be getting anything out of it but her thanks? It made her feel good to know that maybe some guys still would find her attractive. “My name is Max.  So what is a pretty young lady like you doing driving in the deserts by yourself?”
            “I got into a pretty big fight with my boyfriend.  We got to yelling, and I told him I was leaving. I decided to visit my friend in El Paso and blow off some steam, you know? Maybe explore some other options.” She smiled at Max again. He is pretty cute.
            “So you live with this boyfriend?” Max seemed to become much more serious. Cammie wondered if she had said something wrong. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as he looked at the road. She nodded and answered him.
            “We have an apartment in this little town called Iguana. We’ve been together for a couple years. Sense high school really. Things seemed to be going pretty serious. Until today, now I just don’t know.”
            “What was your fight about? If you don’t mind me asking.” Again, something was becoming odder about Max as he drove. His voice had become flatter, more harsh it seemed.     
            “Well, I went to the doctor today. I found out I’m pregnant.” She looked down at her stomach and placed a hand on it. “He doesn’t know if he’s ready to be a father. We got to arguing about the cost of raising a kid. Our parents will probably want us to get married and we both are still in college.  I told him I could look for a job, and maybe he could ask his boss at the body shop for a raise.  Maybe pick up a second job. We just kept yelling and I didn’t know what else to do, so I left.”    
She looked up at Max. His face had seemed to soften back to how it was. “So, do you love each other? And you’re thinking about keeping it no matter what?”
            “Yes, I think so. I was raised to thinking abortion is wrong, and I couldn’t imagine punishing this potential new life for my mistake. It’s just crazy, you know? Our lives are about to change, for better or worse. And what do I do? I run away like some scared little kid.” Her eyes began to water and she turned her head to look out the window. No point in having some stranger see her crying.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.  She looked up at Max, and his grey eyes had a strange look in them. It immediately made her uneasy. A mixture of anger and sympathy.
 “It’s not too late to go back ya know.  I got a feeling that baby is gonna need its mama and daddy both to take care of it. I think maybe you should go back and do that instead of going out and possibly making a bad mistake.”
 Max’s grin stopped at his eyes. They still had that hard look in them.  It made her scared, but in the way her dad would when she was in trouble. It was more of a look of concern as disappointment, like she knew she was about to get a whopping. Much like she would do in those times, Cammie simply nodded. She didn’t have to ask what Max meant by a mistake; the way she was feeling if just one of those El Paso boys paid her enough attention and was cute enough… 
She saw a gas station up ahead, and considered having Max stop and let her out.  Maybe she should call Tim, have him come get her and work things out; or she could call Sarah and have her pick her up.
Again, it was as if Max was some kind of mind reader. “I’ll tell you what Cammie. Why don’t I drop you off here, and you have that boyfriend of yours pick you up.  I think you deserve a second chance to do the right thing.”
Max pulled the car up and put it in park. Cammie stepped out and shut the door. She leaned against the window again, “Thanks for the lift, Max. And the advice too. I hope you have a safe trip wherever you’re heading.”
Max gave her that toothy smile again. “Don’t worry about me, Cammie from Iguana. I got miles and miles to go, but I got the Lord with me. You just do right by yourself and that boyfriend of yours.” With that he pulled away.
As he drove away, her phone rang.  She finally had a signal and still some battery left. It was Tim. She immediately picked up, knowing what she wanted to say. “Baby, I’m sorry for running off. We can talk everything over and figure something out. I want to keep this baby, and I want you to be there with me.”
Tim’s voice was shaky, “I was going to say the same thing. I was so worried about you, where are you?”
Cammie began telling Tim about her ordeal as she watched Max’s car drive off. Something hanging from the trunk caught her eye. It looked like part of a shirt was hanging out the lip. A white shirt with a pink Playboy bunny on it. And something red splattered on the corner. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

National Novel Writing Month

Plugging Along