Reflections - cover2

A Journey not Measured in Miles - Rash
him – they didn’t need him, or he, them. He could see her now, laughing with her head thrown back, her agile mind, “quick like a fox” he always
said, responding to his subtle humor. God! How he missed her. He had never kissed her, never touched those warm breasts, never felt the length
of her body against him. A despair, deep and dark, swamped him. He felt as if he were dying. He wanted to die. Black, empty loneliness. He
thought of Milton’s “slough of despond.” He was there – he was drowning in the cold slime. Alone, afraid, Godless.
The clatter and din of the beer joint suddenly intruded on his thoughts. He was suffocating, drowning. Didn’t anyone see or care? He struggled to
his feet, frantic to escape. To where? How? He didn’t know. He just knew he must leave this place. He could see the doorway across the room; it
seemed a mile. His legs were indifferent to his efforts to walk, but somehow, after straightening his hat and tucking the book under his arm, he
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made his way across the expanse of sawdust floor, threading his way through the tables, lightly touching the backs of chairs for support as he went.
Rash had deteriorated over the past year. He often forgot to change his clothes. The once crisply creased trousers and starched shirts were often
rumpled and dirty. He seemed not to notice. Ruby would tell him to change, or maybe his wife, if he made it home. And he would obey
sheepishly, like a little boy. Thoughts of sex had ceased to exist for him, except in memories of regret.
Now he stood by the car in the parking lot. He was confused. He couldn’t remember why he was there. Where was he going? He looked back at
the building he had quit only seconds before. Had he been there? Yes, now he remembered. He had suddenly wanted to leave for some reason.
He thought he had forgotten to pay – well, no matter, they would put it on his tab. He had tabs in beer joints over a three county radius. When he
left in such states of disrepair, the cashier simply paper-clipped the tickets together and kept them in the cash register. Occasionally, when he was
sober, he would make a pilgrimage to all his haunts and pay off his accumulated tabs.
Without trying the door, he fumbled through his pockets for the keys and came up empty-handed. He leaned over clumsily and peered through the
window. He could see them glittering in the ignition, hanging there seductively like a woman’s long earrings. He often left the keys in the car, the
doors unlocked, tempting fate – he hoped somebody would steal the goddam hearse. He struggled with the heavy door and staggered forward,
dropped into the driver’s seat. In the rearview mirror, he could see the low dark outline of the building. The lights at the corners of the building
cast a pale, dingy glow on the parking lot. The music was barely audible, but it represented some tenuous link to humanity that he suddenly hated
to leave. Looking at life through a rearview mirror – that seemed to be his fate. He smiled at the thought. A couple left one of the parked cars and
passed across the mirror’s vision. They were walking with their arms around each other’s waists, their heads close together. Suddenly, the woman
threw back her head and laughed. The man dropped his hand from her waist and squeezed her ample ass. She reciprocated by dropping her hand
and playfully pulling his pants up his crack.
Turning the keys, Rash felt the powerful motor roar to life. This car was the only potency still left him, and he at once loved and hated it. Driving it
fiercely down the road through the darkness was a kind of mechanical masturbation. Now that everything between his legs was dead, it was the
closest he could get to the physical sensation. Managing the concentration required to maneuver the crowded parking lot in his state of
drunkenness was a major ordeal, but he accomplished the task with a small degree of self-satisfaction. The exit from the parking lot presented a
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