Little Rock




                                                                                        Little Rock
       


   The face in the fly-specked mirror is a hard one, shaped even meaner by the rusted room. The smell of stagnant humidity lingers behind the stinking mixture of the excrement and paper that fills the mineral stained toilet in the graffiti scratched stall, a literal shit-hole. Cyrus Bohannon has recently added his own bloody shat to the stinking pile in the bowl, carefully hovering himself over top so as not to touch his ass to the filthy seat.

Perfect! No hot water. He shaves with tepid water dribbling over the cheap, pink, ”toss-away” plastic razor. His toothbrush is in his pocket, but he does not pull it out, afraid that somehow the putrid air might carry the shit smell into its bristles. He successfully washes the sweat from his skin, and from his face, but he can not scrub the red, nor the tired, from his eyes. Cyrus Bohannon's life smells about like this cankerous Arkansas highway rest stop.

Cy reaches into his other pocket, the one without the toothbrush, and he removes a clear sandwich baggie, its bottom a rainbow of pills. He deftly removes one of the capsules and breaks it in two with his right hand before pouring the powdered contents of each half into the hollow between his left thumb and index finger, after which he tosses the empty halves into the sink's trickle. Lastly, Cy Bohannon lowers his face into the powder and inhales deeply, feeling it burn as it sucks through his nostrils. Soon came the familiar acidic drip down his throat that precedes the rush.

The sun blinded him upon re-entering the world. Cyrus squints into it, using a hand to shield his red-rimmed eyes. His boot heels are worn on the outside edges, giving him an uncomfortable looking, bow-legged stride, or maybe that is from the hemorrhoids, its hard saying.

Cy climbs onto the fuel tank, grabbing at the grimy Stuckey's bag he had shoved down between the rig's seats. There are picnic tables close by the toilets, but he does not care for company, so he finds a shaded curb near the rig where he lowers himself gently onto the concrete. He grips the greasy bag with shaking hands, not at all hungry, but knowing that he needs to eat. That is the problem with the speed, you never feel hungry. He closes his eyes for just a few seconds. On the highway behind him the hum of tires and the roar of the big rigs zip along with frequent, but balky inconsistencies, lulling him despite the jittery-tingle of the pill. In a brief, but vivid dream behind closed eye-lids, snow falls, and the Freightliner slides down Monteagle while Cy holds tight to the wheel. The air-brakes whine a strange whine, a high-pitched, hungry whine right before the crash. Cy lies dead in the twisted metal... but he couldn't be dead, because he could feel the heat of the day, and the weight of the crushed door pressed against his thigh. He squeezed his eyes tighter, wishing to be dead, but the door moved, and then pressed again. That was strange? With a reluctance known only by the aged and the lonely, Cy opened his eyes. 

It wasn't the cab door pressing against his leg at all. It was a dog that had crawled its way up beside him. A damned fleabag stray! Cy "shoo-ed" it. The dog took a wary hop away, its back arched, but it did not go. Instead, it whined. The same whine as the air-brakes in his dream. Cy "shoo-ed" again and the dog took another step away. Now Cy was able to get a good look. A mutt, spotted brown and white like a Holstein cow, long eared and long tongued. Ugly. That was one ugly dog! The dog took a circle, and sat itself down on Cyrus' other side, leaning hard against his right thigh this time.

"Shoo, dog," he hollered, and once again the dog took a step away, but it still did not go. Instead, it stretched it's nose toward the Stuckey's bag, snuffling gently, hopefully. Cyrus noted then how thin it was, even for a dog. He took the burger from Stuckey's bag. The dog sat. Cy put the burger back in the bag and the dog stood. He took it from the bag again, "hooting" as the dog sat once more. "Well, how about that?" Cy didn't even realize in his excitement that he had spoken aloud. Cy took the burger from the bag, smiling when the dog sat. He took a bite. Nothing from the dog... not even a whimper. Cryus pulled the meat patty from between the buns and tossed it at the dog, who promptly snagged it out of the air and smacked it down. "Whooeee! I reckon you are a smart dog!" Cyrus took out the french fries next, and tossed them one-by-one at the cur, who yanked each one from the air and smacked them down, just as it had the meat patty.

When the fries were gone Cyrus wadded up the bag. The dog sat. "That," Cyrus thought, "is really something! I reckon she knows just when to sit. That is a smart bitch, ain't it now?" 

Cy grabbed at air to pull himself up from the curb. The dog stood as well. Cyrus limped his way toward the Freightliner, the dog limping along behind. A station wagon sailed by, its children waving at Cyrus and the dog from its opened windows. Cy found himself waving back. He did not know which was more noteworthy, children waving at him, or him waving back.

Cy climbed into the cab, settling his hemorrhoids into the worn cloth of the Freightliner's seat. The big diesel roared beneath his boots, shaking the cab like an atmospheric re-entry. The dog sat hopefully, panting nervously in the hot sun, long eyes gazing upward to the driver's door. The brakes hissed, the gears ground, and the big rig shuddered forward twenty slow feet before the brakes hissed again, and the rig lurched to a stop. The man climbed back down and gestured to the dog, who dropped her ears and trotted forward.

At sixty-four years of age, Cyrus Bohannon finally had a lucky day. He found his luck in Little Rock, so that's what he called her, and so that everyone would know, he painted it in block letters beside the airbrushed “Queen of Hearts” on the sides of his cab:

Cyrus Bohannon

Owner/ Operator

Me and My Little Rock

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