Last Sanctuary

In his gut Joe Curtis knew when he first heard the sounds. A certain arrhythmic thrum deep in his Pontiac's engine, a nauseating whack of hot metal on metal, that he had a big problem. He knew cars well, and so he knew this. But for the same reason, and others (he was both optimistic and, in some measure, desperate), he let himself believe it was a thing he could fix if he needed, that in any case he could nurse the thirteen-year-old J2000--an '82 showing 125,000 miles--to the west coast, his destination, and deal with the problem there. And as if his faith were enough, the thrumming stopped then, after a minute or two. He was on I-94 a hundred miles west of Fargo, North Dakota, halfway between there and Bismarck. He had three hundred dollars in his pocket, and was hoping the car, a beater he'd bought for four hundred and fifty dollars and refurbished economically but very nicely, including even new paint, could be sold on the coast for maybe fifteen hundred, at least a thousand--more than enough to fly himself and his brother, Terry, back home to Detroit. Even if he couldn't sell it, the two of them together could make the drive back in a few days. This was the fourth time Terry Curtis had tried to leave home, and the fourth time his younger brother had come after him. But on this run, Terry had gone a long, long way, clear to Seattle, 2400 odd miles, in the belief, perhaps, that with that much distance he had to stay away, that whatever happened, he couldn't call for help, because even if he did, no one could come. Near a town called New Salem, fifty miles past Bismarck, the thrumming came back, louder, angrier this time. Whack, whack, whack, so strong it vibrated the steering wheel. Joe pulled over and stopped to listen. He felt sick in his stomach at the thought of what this might be, here in the true middle of nowhere, as far from home as he was from Terry, over a thousand miles either way. He needed this car to get him there, and either the car or the money from it to get them both back. So he'd have to have someone take a look. He accelerated gingerly, not pushing it above forty, and rode on the berm with his hazard lights flashing. The farthest Terry had gone before was Nashville, eighteen months ago, where, he'd said, he was going to break into the country music business. Then he just went broke, got evicted from his weekly-rate motel room, and lived on the street for two weeks with a scabby woman named Edie until he was arrested for vagrancy and held in jail while the cops rifled his wallet and called his family. Joe drove the nearly six hundred miles in one long shot, bailed his brother and signed an agreement to sacrifice that money as a fine, and made Terry drive all the way home the same night, straight through. In all, the trip hadn't taken much over twenty-four hours, and prodigal Terry was back in his rent-free room in the attic of their parents' home, where he'd lived, except for these failed trips, for most of the twenty-seven years of his life. Joe had seen Terry tell people himself, with a kind of simpering smirk that was supposed to be cocky but came across more as pathetic, that he was a fuck-up of the highest order. No one had ever disagreed. Just past the sign saying NEW SALEM NEXT RIGHT as Joe pulled onto the exit ramp and slowed to thirty miles an hour, he heard a gunshot crack, felt a shudder run through the car's frame and then the power beneath him just quit. In the rearview mirror, during the silent coast down the ramp, he watched a long slick of oil and grease and gas spreading out on the hot, white pavement behind him, as the car bled quickly to death. [read more]