The New Normals
The road ahead stretched out into the horizon and the clouds above were a stormy black. It was only two in the afternoon but the sky continued to darken so forbiddingly that it was beginning to look more like twilight. Thunder droned off in the distance and lightning illuminated the far corners of the sky as Kit sped down the road, the contents of his car shaking mechanically from the engine’s furious roar. His rear-view mirror hung lopsided and from it dangled a pine-scented air-freshener that looked as though it had had its last drops of fragrance squeezed from it before the turn of the century. His dashboard lay scattered with papers, many of which had already found their way to the floor. The floor, too, was piled high with everything from a hastily-packed suitcase, held shut by two bungee chords, to a fishing rod and hunting equipment, to an outfit which most resembled what a middle-aged man living incognito in Hawaii might wear.
Kit wore a week’s worth of stubble and a long-sleeved t-shirt that was stained slightly with what appeared to be tomato sauce. His nose was coarse but pensive. His jeans were torn, but not unfashionably so. If they were any less torn he could have attended dinner parties and if they were any more torn he would have looked like a vagabond. It’s true that he was a nomad, but still, the image of the long-haired, world-weary, drifting transient wasn’t one he cared to adopt. He’d been away from home for awhile but he wasn’t too far gone.
The desert air was humid. There were beads of sweat that clung on Kit’s forehead, just above the crooked pair of shades for which he was rather notorious. He didn’t need the shades on a day like today but that didn’t concern him much. He took a final drag from his cigarette before extinguishing it and coolly flicking it from the window he’d just rolled open. Desert air filled the car as he peered into the sideview mirror and watched the cigarette butt burst into sparks against the cracked pavement.
Kit turned on the radio. A combination of static and Roy Orbison’s “Crying” filled the car and caused its contents to shake all the more ferociously. Thunder began to rumble more loudly as Kit continued, the gargantuan red rock formations drifting past him on both sides as he sped along. He was on the run. He wasn’t particularly frantic about it though. While he was, in fact, speeding, this was far more a result of the open desert scenery than of anything like a sense of urgency. More than any fear of imprisonment, the thundering clouds overhead and the hot air breezing past were what compelled him to accelerate. But it was something else too. Today felt different in ways that Kit struggled to put words to. As the papers in his car began taking flight, he rolled the window closed again and kept his foot firmly planted on the gas pedal.
People had been acting strangely that day. In the days leading up to it, too, but today especially. In his drive through Flagstaff, Arizona, he drove through a parade. People in animal masks danced feverishly. They looked almost perverted with their inhuman movements. There was something deeply demented about the whole scene; Kit felt unnerved, but he drove on and simply allowed himself to shrug it off.
Deviant winds of change whipped electrically through the desert around him as the clouds darkened forebodingly. The thunder droned on loudly and with an uncanny evenness that felt eerily anticipatory. The very world itself looked as though it could crack open at any moment; humidity hung thick in the air.
Kit spotted a figure in the distance. In truth, the sky was so black now that he appeared more as a tiny silhouette standing against the now-deep-purple, mountainous tower of rocks behind him. As he grew closer, Kit noticed the man appeared to be standing quite confidently. With a leg propped up against the ridge behind him, he stood patiently. He looked serene — and it was sense of serenity that appeared both firmer and more weather-resistant than the mountain of rocks behind him.
The man wore a white rhinestone-encrusted leisure suit that looked both unusually pristine for a man so deep within a desert and unusually antiquated for a man living in the 21st century. His shave, too, appeared remarkably clean for a man so far from a mirror and razor. He was subtly grinning in a way that seemed both detached and warmhearted — and he held out a hitchhiker’s thumb in a way that seemed both careless and meaningful. Though the man seemed perfectly content with where he was standing, there was a pointed curiosity about his demeanor that Kit found difficult to ignore. He allowed his foot to ease from the gas pedal. He was on the run, but not so on the run that he would mind company. His car was filled, but not so filled he couldn’t push aside his scuba-gear, WD-40 and loose pair of binoculars in order to make room for the fellow traveler clad in 70’s gear.
A storm was looking increasingly inevitable. Kit pulled up beside the man. Still leaning carelessly against the wall of rocks behind him, his eyes met Kit’s. He began moving toward Kit with such a lack of urgency that it almost seemed inconsiderate. He then removed the earphones, which, admittedly, Kit hadn’t noticed up until this point, and placed them delicately into his front pocket. Kit swung the passenger door open for him. The man leaned down, his hooked nose and long, brown hair following in suit. He looked left and right within the car, shrugged almost imperceptibly and sat beside Kit in friendly silence. The silence was short-lived. “The name’s Roland,” the man stated with stern warmth. “I’m Kit,” he responded, measuring his passenger slightly, rain now beginning to dot his windshield.
Kit wasn’t a talkative man. Moreover, picking up hitch hikers wasn’t something he liked to make a habit of. He was a kind man, but he was standoffish enough that it could be easily missed. The clouds overhead continued to darken. Kit’s vague hope of at least sparing a stranded traveler from an impending storm was quickly dashed by Roland’s overbearing nonchalance. Roland didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the approaching storm. Kit tried flipping through radio stations. “Won’t be doing you much good out here…” said Roland. The crescendoing static over the speakers seemed to agree with him. Kit acquiesced and lowered the volume — volume 7 static would do just fine.
“Service is pretty spotty in these areas… I always like to keep my iPod on me. It’s old, but definitely does the trick.” The road took a dramatic bend as the two approached another massive rock formation.
Speeding around the curve in the road, Kit quickly noticed a police car. His heart skipped a beat as he glued his eyes firmly to the rear-view mirror. Seconds later, Kit noticed as the stationary patrol car sprang into life, clouds of dust emerging from its tires as it began to pick up speed. Rain spattered the windshield half-heartedly and the thunder continued to intensify until it began to reverberate violently from the canyon walls that surrounded them.
As the police car began flashing its red and blue lights, Kit tried not to let on how nervous he was beginning to feel. With a confident look on his face and a few new beads of sweat sneaking slyly down his forehead, Kit let out a hard sigh. “Shit,” he muttered angrily beneath his breath. The reds and blues were now joined by a siren. Kit tried to appear casual as he continued driving, as if the police car tailing him would lose interest if he looked care-free enough. A leery look from Roland confirmed this wasn’t the best idea and Kit pulled reluctantly to the side of the road.
Now motionless in the car, Kit turned off the radio as a rapid succession of thoughts began to flood him. He still didn’t want to let on to Roland how concerned he was about what seemed like only a minor driving infraction. Moreover, he didn’t care to explain to Roland that he was on the run, or why. He continued to sit still, mind racing over what excuses he might give the officer.
A baton hit loudly against his window twice and abruptly removed him from his tormented musings. As Kit began rolling down his window, he tried to cram a couple minutes worth of meticulous planning into only a few seconds’ time. His eyes met the officer’s. More accurately, Kit’s crooked, mostly-see-through aviators met rather timidly with the impenetrable slick-black shades the officer scowled at him through. “License and registration,” he said coldly. It was beginning to rain a little harder now.
Kit breathed deeply and carefully collected his registration from within the glovebox. He then reached slowly into his wallet, his mind still strategizing at a break-neck speed with each slow and calculated motion. As he turned to face the officer, he hesitated for a moment. He tentatively handed him the papers as terror continued to seep into him. The officer yanked them abrasively from his hand in cruel silence. Thunder cracked loudly nearby and the officer, barely taking notice, thumbed through the papers as he idly made his way back toward his car, taking a suspicious glance toward Kit’s license plate as he did. Kit kept his window open a crack as the rain continued.
The officer picked up his walky-talky as he took a final glance at the license plate on Kit’s car. His face began to harden. “I’m gonna need some backup,” he said assertively, much to Kit’s horror. Looking left out the window, Kit quickly weighed the option of just turning the key in the ignition and simply speeding out of there. He looked to his right, as if for support, and noticed the seat was suddenly vacant.
“Sir, get back in the vehicle!” He heard the officer shout.
Roland had gotten out of the car and was now placidly strolling toward the officer. Hands now clenched firmly on his gun, “I’m warning you!” the officer continued. Kit fastened his eyes on the scene now transpiring behind his car. The moderate shower outside had turned into a relentless downpour. Roland looked impressively collected as he approached the increasingly apprehensive officer, rain staining every inch of his immaculate white leisure suit with each step he took. “That’s it! Down on the ground now!” the officer shouted, both hands wrapped around the gun now pointed directly at Roland’s forehead. Rain was falling rapidly from his bangs as Roland appeared now to get very still.
Hands still clenched firmly around his weapon and beginning to shake slightly, the officer glared bitterly at Roland. Roland took a sharp inhale before weaving so suddenly to the officer’s right that he exuded both the deftness of an acrobat and the fury of a raging gorilla. The officer fired suddenly and missed by so much Roland would probably have laughed if he weren’t so transfixed on the officer’s next move. As the officer began pointing his weapon toward Roland’s new location, Roland bobbed his head slightly, as if in slow motion, and bounded airily to within a foot of the officer, quickly jabbing him in the throat with the precision of a marksman. The officer’s weapon fell suddenly to the ground as he began desperately grasping for air. Before he could even think about grabbing his weapon again, Roland leapt into the air and dropkicked the officer with such concussive force that it would have impressed WWE wrestlers and kung fu masters alike.
Kit exited his vehicle and looked down at the mostly-lifeless officer. He was laying face-up toward the pouring rain, motionless, his disembodied baton at his side. He looked like a fish out of water, but one who had stopped thrashing and accepted his predicament. Kit’s glance moved upward until it caught on Roland. Looking both haughty and a little sheepish, Roland grinned slightly and then shrugged before getting down on the ground beside the officer and hoisting his legs into his arms.
“We better hurry, I believe he may have requested backup,” Roland said with almost playful pragmatism. Stunned, impressed and more than a little dismayed, Kit joined Roland on the ground and grabbed the officer’s arms.
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