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.
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