Sinners and Saints

Sinners and Saints Chapter 38 - Lightning Crashes

I don’t get a haircut.  I drive past my salon, but there’s a big sign in the window that says they are closed for a company picnic.  So instead I just keep driving.  Angry tears dripping onto my jean-shorts.  My phone rings and rings in my purse, but I don’t look at it.  I head west on 41 – out of town and toward the Everglades.  I need to be alone. 

To think. 

I know I’m being a petulant, pouty child, but right now I don’t care.  My BS-meter is red-lining and I’m about to start my period again.

I’m a little cranky. 

Everglades National Park is one of the most lovely – and most dangerous – places in the US.  It’s immense, old and filled with alligators, snakes, swamps, sink-holes, quicksand and the stench of decay.  But it’s also primal, raw and completely untamed. 

Mother Nature at her most savage. 

And it has always soothed me, somehow.  So many, many times as a teen – and later in college – I would drive out here when life was too much to handle and let myself get lost in my own head.  

It’s fairly safe in the day – as long as you keep to the paths and don’t do anything incredibly stupid – but there’s no cell coverage and being out here alone isn’t a good idea. 

Never stopped me before. 

When I finally get there, I park and shut down the Jeep, listening to it cool under the humid, muggy, bug-infested air.  There’s a small breeze today, which sighs and swishes its way through the cypress trees and swamp grasses.  There are constantly things going “plink” and “plop” in the waters – a frog jumping, a gator submerging, a crane stabbing – but those sounds, along with the breeze caressing the trees, only verify that people don’t belong here. 

Those of us brave enough to trespass – and there aren’t many, judging by the parking lot – do so at their own risk.  

That thought has me in a whole new batch of tears.  I could wade out into the swamp naked and covered in steak and would come out fine.  I could put the Jeep’s battery in the swamp and hook the jumper cables up to it and my nipples and I would still be fine. 

“Ew,” I tell myself, “Back the drama down a bit.” 

This is the effect that the Everglades has on me – always has.  Puts things in perspective.  The petty dramas of life mean nothing out here.  It’s kill or be killed.   If you’re smart and strong and lucky enough – you live. 

My tears slow enough for me to start thinking.  

As much as I can, of course.  I have half-assed information – at best.  As far as I know, angels can’t lie.  But that doesn’t mean that they can’t withhold truths or misdirect them, when they see fit. 

And I have to laugh at that – no wonder Jojo and I are so bad at lying.  Why we try to deflect or hide the truth instead of out and out lying about it.  Because we’re basically angels. 

But angels with free will.  

A knock on my window makes me jump out of my musings, “Unlock it,” Jojo says – muted through the glass. 

When I do she climbs in the passenger side, “Thought I’d find you here,” she gives me a knowing look.  She is my sister, after all. 

“Yeah – the salon was closed,” I give her a self-mocking smile. 

“Heard you tore into Clark pretty bad,” she nods, “Are you ok?” 

“Depends on how much trouble I’m in,” I shrug.