Tooth and Nail (Draft In Progress - Book One)

Chapter 24 - Two Lights on the Getaway

The most important thing to know about stealing an old lady's car is to do it after eight at night so they're not awake and won't come after you with their husband's double-barrel shotgun.

I didn't know that the first time I tried to take a car and get out of town. But I know it now.

Old Miss Maggie chased me down in her fading blue nightie and bunny slippers in the cab of Mr. James's big-ass red truck until I finally pulled over and went back to town.

But I was not swayed. I had to leave town. I had to get out of Utopia. Long nights at the library and even longer nights in the moonlit sorting room of the post office, showers in random townsfolks' homes and breakfast always made on a portable griddle on the circulation desk. I couldn't take all the hospitality!

Who cares if I'm two years too young to drive? I can still see over the wheel, unlike some of these old bats. Especially the short Vietnamese family who only started visiting town again now that a new sort of system has formed, and they know its not a chaotic mess in Town Square.

I'm leaving Joseph and the girls and my warm cot behind.

I'm leaving seven-thirty pancakes and four-fifteen steaks behind.

I'm leaving little Utopia behind, and I'm going to look for Jezebel.

I know she's alive, I hear the talk. A team of kids from the Bubble with a CB. Jezebel and that weird-ass boyfriend and Tamerlyn and some other kids have been living up there in Austin. Maybe if I can get to them, I'll have a better chance.

I'm not proud that I was shot at by a woman who hasn't had a real bowel movement by herself in fifteen years, and hit.

I'm also not proud that my first theft attempt to get out of town was a 2002 Ford Taurus without a CB I could use.

But hey, beginner's mistakes, right?

On my second stroll through town after sundown, I looked more closely at my targets. More red trucks, the staple of a Texas man. More blue minis.

But finally, a 2004 Ram with a functioning CB and AM/FM radio. Solid black and not a scratch on it. Thank the lord for redneck country men.

Since no one in this little patch of Heaven is paranoid enough to lock their doors, getting in to the truck is easy. The hard part is fashioning a key with the stripped end of my phone charger, a discarded Bobby Pin, and my house key.

Once I hear the car come to life and a small current rushes through me, getting out of town is a snap. Heading north to Jezebel. Heading in the direction of what I hope is home.

-~-

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Avery set the fire.

Drew filled the water bucket.

Allen arranged the seating on old logs, with Maverick's guidance.

Tamerlyn busied herself with preparing brothless but stew-like stuffed foil pillows. She called them "Hobo Pack Dinners."

I did laundry in a wide basin bucket that had collected rainwater from the gutters that had been left to sit in the sun all day.

Together, we were quite efficient, preparing for dinner. Still, it was a solemn moment when we did finally settle in to eat. I had been seated around this fire many times, enjoying food just like this, with people just like this. The difference was, this was not the cook-out at the end of a week-long program stay at the mystic Camp Spicewood. This was undoubtedly the first of many dinners, resourcefully using tasteless food and limited foil, scraping up campfire-cooked vegetables and chunks of meat that was surely intended for the upper class dining at the steakhouse. Instead it has fallen into our mouth by flimsy tin forks and washed down with lukewarm water in cheap plastic cups. Maverick had no prejudice, and was perfectly happy to lick the foils clean and eat every bit that fell off our forks, or we threw to him.