A Worn Backpack Part 6

Jimmy and Catherine sat in silence for a few minutes, until Catherine finally decided the conversation ended with that question. Jimmy slouched back into his earlier position and sighed.

“That really is none of your business. I’m sorry. It’s just going a little too far.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Catherine whispered.

The car suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped. The front door opened, and slammed shut, followed by the click of the back door opening.

“You‘re fucking joking me,” Max grumbled as he leaned forward towards Jimmy, grabbing onto his shirt. With a tug, Jimmy stumbled onto the hard dusty floor outside the car. The back door slammed, isolating Catherine from the animated life taking place around her.

A murmur of dialogue was still heard through the heavy metal doors: “What the hell is wrong with you? Your fucking precious love life is too much to tell but the minute she asks about our family crap you spill everything!” “That’s different and you know it is.” “The fuck it is!”

Both reentered the car, slamming doors behind them. The car slowly pulled back onto the road, rolling down the humid highway with an overbearing silence weighing down onto the car and its inhabitants. After a seemingly never ending ten minutes, the car slid to the side of the road again, this time onto an exit leading off the beaten path to another ubiquitous ‘only gas station for 100 miles’.

Max pulled the car into a parking space and leaned over the back of his seat, “get out.”

“This is my car as much as yours. You have no right to kick me out,” Jimmy answered.

“We need gas. Take Catherine and go to the convenience store over there. Might as well by her a fucking lunch.”

Catherine stared at Jimmy, unsure what to do now, until he finally caved into Max’s desires. The two left the car and walked to the dusty glass door, halting for a moment before going in. Jimmy turned around and watched Max drive the car over to a pump, get out, and begin extracting blackened, dirty fuel as an only sustenance for the car. They both entered the convenience store then. An old man, too gray and drunk to comprehend a customer’s entrance at this time of the scorching day, sat at the counter, watching intently the shelves of food items sitting idly opposite him.

Noticing the frighteningly quiet old man, Catherine nudged Jimmy, “It’s really ok, I’m not hungry at all. Why don’t we go back outside?”

“It’s pointless now. He just wants to be alone. He’ll let us know when he’s ready to see people again.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Can’t we just leave him alone and go back to Max and the car?”

Jimmy looked at her curiously, just then noticing the old man. “I was talking about Max.”

Catherine continued to watch the old man, when they heard an uncomfortable sound: a car starting. The moment was followed by the whirr of hot tire speeding across pavement. Jimmy ran out, followed closely by Catherine. They both stood in front of the dirty glass door, still ajar. Max had driven away, leaving the two stranded in the middle of desolate highway life, ‘the only gas station for 100 miles’.

“What now?” Catherine’s tone lacked the anxiety any other person left stranded would exhibit.

“He’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

“What if he doesn’t come back? Do you really want to stay here forever? Why don’t we start going somewhere ourselves?”

“You mean walk somewhere? I don’t think so. We’d die from exposure, if not worse. He’ll come back. We just have to wait it out.”

The two sat down on the hard, paved rock in front of the convenience store, and waited. After five minutes, Catherine lied down, stretching her arms behind her head, and began to stare at the sun. Jimmy knelt his head onto arms folded across his knees, waiting patiently, like anyone who has ever put trust into someone who didn’t deserve it. Lying in front of the murky glass door, Catherine wondered how it could be, the first time she was strained into such an immobile position, she truly had nothing. Miles away, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, a sketchbook, and all her freedom and independence in movement were being driven further from her than her underestimated, flimsy legs could carry her. Everything, including the unusual calm that passed over her being as she came to grips with the reality of her current situation, was crammed into a worn backpack, still resting on the back seat of Max’s car.