Tell Your Story Fall 2022 Writing Contest — Finalist
The Road to Winlock
Coming home from a trip always sucks, especially if you’re driving through a rainstorm with someone you despise. My boyfriend Doug and I had taken a weekend vacation to Eugene. We’d tried to mend the frayed strands of our relationship, but our efforts proved futile. The unraveling had gone too far. Only two things kept us together — our four-year-old daughter and the ramshackle house we’d purchased during happier times.
Pacific Northwest rain has a relentless, punitive quality, like it wants to kill you for your transgressions. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, clutching it with both hands so my minivan wouldn’t hydroplane into the ditch. The ungainly, wedge-shaped Toyota was fourteen years old. Its almost-bald tires clung to the road through an unreliable combination of willpower and inertia.
After limping through Portland, we passed a flickering neon sign that read “Waddles.” The decrepit restaurant had existed for years, catering to freeway drivers who hungered for cheap gruel. An accompanying clockface read, “Time to Eat.” The bent hands had been permanently stuck on 7:35 for as long as I could remember. Though I’d never dined at Waddles, I knew the food would be mediocre.
“We keep meaning to stop at Waddles.” My voice sounded overly enthusiastic, like I wanted to devour a greasy burger more than anything in the world. It was the first sentence I’d uttered in three hours. Though Doug excelled at silent treatment, I never kept my mouth shut for long. He could also go for days without eating, but I always felt hungry.
Doug turned towards me and snorted. “It’s all shit in cans and greasy platters of congealed meat. You must be kidding.”
In the semi-darkness, I couldn’t quite make out Doug’s face. Still, I could imagine his expression — gleeful, like he’d just kicked my ass in a competition that didn’t matter to anyone but him. He crossed his arms and swiveled towards the passenger window. “Besides, we ate in Eugene.”
Doug and I lived two hours north of Portland, in Tacoma. Gridlock always extended our commute, and rain made it even worse. We lurched forward a few feet, slowed to five miles per hour, then stopped. An endless, shimmering line of brake lights stretched ahead. Against the wet road, the luminous effect seemed almost festive.
“God damn it,” Doug fumed. “Isn’t there a side road we could take?”
Doug already knew that I-5 was our only option. “Is that a rhetorical question?” My voice exuded a deadly calm. “We should have left Oregon earlier. Now we’re stuck in rush-hour traffic. We’ll just have to wait it out.”
Doug thrashed in his seat, scowling. “You’re the one who wanted to stay later.” He bit into each word as if trying to tear gristle from a bone. “Good thing our daughter is at Scott’s place for another night. At this rate, we won’t be home until tomorrow.”
The traffic surged forward, and an opening appeared in front of us. We passed a four-car pileup, replete with an ambulance and police cars. Two people sat on a nearby guard rail, sobbing. Several cops encircled the damaged vehicles, shaking their heads as they hollered into walkie-talkies. Just another I-5 collision. Fortunately, no one looked hurt.
“Wow,” Doug said. “This freeway is always littered with wrecks. Everyone’s moving to the Northwest in droves, and we’ve got 1962 infrastructure.”
I felt humbled, since the spectacle had reminded me of my own fragility. Pressing the accelerator, I smiled at Doug. “It won’t be long now. We can get a bit of sleep before picking up Holly. Scott won’t mind.”
Doug nodded. “I suppose. Let’s hope nothing awful happens in the meantime.”
We lapsed into uncomfortable silence. A truce of sorts, but wobbly, in danger of toppling at any moment. The rain slowed to a drizzle. Doug fiddled with the radio until he found a classic rock station. Ahead of us, the traffic continued its steady rhythm.
Suddenly, the steering wheel made a sharp right-hand turn. I heard a series of flatulent noises — sharp and repetitious, like the report of a shotgun. The noise grew louder, and my hands began to shudder violently.
Alarmed, I swerved towards the road’s narrow shoulder. Cars whizzed by, oblivious to our plight. The van’s flimsy interior vibrated with each passing. An off-ramp loomed ahead. Its attached sign read, “Winlock.” I felt a tiny surge of hope. If we could find our way into town, somebody might take pity on us. Perhaps a gas station would have tires for sale.
I sputtered towards the exit and activated the emergency flashers. Halfway through the off-ramp, the engine died. Without thinking, I rolled into a clump of weeds, and my van ground to a shuddering halt.
“A flat tire,” Doug snarled. “Of course, we don’t have a spare. Why did you pull off the shoulder? We can’t stay here. Someone will tow our sorry asses.”
“We won’t go any further without four functional tires.” I struggled to keep my voice even. “I suggest we find a place to spend the night. It’s after seven, and the local repair shops will be closed.”
Doug sighed. “I wanted to get the van off the ramp before retiring for the evening. At least we’re not blocking traffic.”
The two of us peered through the windshield, assessing our limited options. Winlock was devoid of roadside amenities. A pitch-black, two-lane highway stretched before us. In their infinite wisdom, WSDOT flunkies had decided to forgo the expense of overhead lighting. Half a mile to our right, a faintly illuminated sign read “TEL.”
“There’s a motel up the road,” I said. “We can leave a note on the windshield and return in the morning.”
Doug reached into the rear of the van and extracted his backpack. He groped inside a half-zippered pocket and found a tattered piece of paper, then rummaged inside the glove compartment for a pen. Leaning against the dashboard, he scribbled:
“Please do not tow this van. It has a flat tire, and we can’t change it until tomorrow. We promise to come back in the morning to pick up our vehicle. We’re so sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you. Doug and Leah, 12/04/1999.”
The two of us clambered from the van. Doug lifted a windshield wiper and tucked the note underneath. He took a step backwards to admire his handiwork, then shook his head in disgust. The paper was already saturated with rainwater. “I hope this piece of shit will be here in the morning,” he said. “But I’m not making any bets.”
We wandered towards the end of the off-ramp and began our journey towards the motel. A fresh deluge blasted across the road, soaking our clothing. I walked with exaggerated care, avoiding the murky puddles.
“Come on,” Doug said impatiently. He always wore the same cheap combat boots. Months beforehand, he’d purchased them for ten dollars at an Army-Navy surplus outlet. The boots were hideous, but waterproof. My boyfriend didn’t give a damn how he looked. In the beginning, I found this endearing, but not anymore.
Reaching into a pocket, Doug pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. He jammed a cigarette into his mouth and ignited the bent tip with a flick of his lighter. Doug never missed a chance to light up while outdoors. I didn’t allow him to smoke in the house or the van. He’d promised to quit, but his addiction kept getting worse.
Finally, we reached the motel’s gravel driveway. Easily fifty feet long, it extended towards a dense grove of evergreen trees. I could barely see the building. The almost-full moon made its outlines look sinister, like something you’d encounter in a horror movie. Otherwise, the structure seemed completely devoid of light.
As we drew closer, I took note of the darkened windows. The adjacent parking lot was deserted. Deep cracks riddled its asphalt surface. Not a car in sight. Crabgrass and dandelions protruded from several crevices. They were intent upon returning the lot to nature. The motel’s cinder-block structure had been heavily abused, then abandoned. Peeling red paint dotted its doorframes and window ledges. The bare patches looked scabrous, like a particularly hideous skin disease.
“This motel is defunct,” Doug said. “Now what should we do?”
I spotted a pockmarked sign that read “office.” The door was covered with muddy footprints. Vandals had kicked its surface repeatedly, trying to gain entry. A scrawled sign hung inside the cracked window, affixed to the glass with a strip of yellowed tape.
If you need a room, please go to the trailer in back. Knock hard on door.
Doug and I wandered behind the motel. Our steps seemed slow, as if we were walking underwater. Why hadn’t we brought our flashlight? The damn thing was in the back of our van under a pile of soiled underwear. So typical of us to bring a useful object on a trip and then forget about it.
Finally, we spotted a tiny, lopsided house trailer. It squatted in the brush like an unhappy animal. All the window shades had been drawn, and tiny slivers of light emanated from the bottom of each pane. Feeling dazed, I ascended the steps and rapped on the door. No answer. I rapped again, harder. Then a third time. Silence.
The door flew open, and an elderly woman stepped into the threshold. “You don’t need to pound so much. I’m old and it takes me a while to answer.” She was about seventy, clad in a ratty, terrycloth bathrobe and blue house slippers. Her pale face looked misshapen, like someone had blown it up like a balloon and allowed it to slowly deflate.
The woman squinted at us, sizing up the reason for our nocturnal visit. “You here for a room? Our motel’s closed. The county is going to tear it down next month. Meanwhile, we’re staying as long as we can.”
“Oh dear,” I said. “Our van has a flat tire. We had to leave it beside the off-ramp. We saw your roadside sign and figured you’d be open. I’m not sure what to do.”
A wave of coughing arose from the back of the trailer. It began as a low, phlegmy rattle and increased in velocity. Deep hacking, gasps of breath, followed by more frenzied hacking. The staccato rhythm peaked and eventually subsided. There was a final throat-clearing noise, then silence.
The proprietor seemed familiar with this routine. “Don’t mind my husband, he’s always sick.” She contorted her face into a smile. “If you want to stay in the motel, I guess I could let you have a room for twenty bucks. Cash, of course.”
“Sure,” I said, without hesitation.
Doug and I couldn’t afford to be picky, and the woman knew it. I reached into my purse and pulled out a crumpled twenty. She snatched the bill from my hand and shoved it into the pocket of her filthy bathrobe. Although the entire transaction took less than a minute, it seemed interminable. I felt exhausted, like I’d been walking for hours.
“I imagine we get our pick of rooms,” Doug said.
The proprietor snickered. “You might say that.” She wandered over to her kitchen cupboard and pulled a battered plastic key fob from a row of hooks. The fob had a large “4” printed on it, along with instructions to drop the key into a mailbox if we failed to return it.
“I guess you want towels and bedding too, huh?” She reached into another cupboard and extracted a set of striped, faded sheets, an ancient quilt, and two ragged towels. The towels had originally been white, until heavy use decimated them. Now piss-yellow, they smelled of mildew.
After she dropped the items into my outstretched arms, another spasm of coughing arose from the next room. The hacking sounded even louder than before. It was trying to force its way out of the man’s throat like a cornered animal. Doug and I looked at each other for a long, awful moment. His face wore a terrified expression, as if the noise had triggered a primal fear.
“We’ll be going now,” I said. “Thanks for everything. I’ll leave the key in the room tomorrow morning.”
When we reached the parking lot, Doug sighed. “I’m not even tired.” His facial muscles had re-assumed their usual stoic, inscrutable lines. “I don’t suppose they have Turner Classic Movies.”
Doug could still disarm me with humor, but not tonight. We stumbled through the gravel and found Room #4. Its door looked like all the others — scarred, dented, and covered with a thin crust of moss.
After a couple of halfhearted tries, we managed to gain entry. Our room was even more spartan than I’d expected. The only light emanated from a fly-specked light bulb that dangled from the ceiling. All extraneous furniture had been removed. No desk, no chairs, no bedside table. On the far wall, a bare, queen-sized mattress perched atop an iron bed frame. The setup looked precarious, like it might topple at any moment.
I lowered my ass to the edge of the mattress and bounced a couple of times. Perhaps it would bear our combined weight if we didn’t move around too much. Erotic shenanigans weren’t on the evening’s menu. To my surprise, our bed felt sturdy. I grabbed the fitted sheet and wrapped it around the mattress. The sheet’s corners were badly frayed, and flaccid elastic protruded from their edges.
Doug leaned against the far wall and peered through the window. His angular body looked disjointed, as if he, too, might collapse without warning.
“This isn’t too bad. We’re lucky to be here.” My voice radiated a hearty, fake cheer.
Doug wheeled around, gaping with incredulity. “You have an odd concept of luck.” He was as tired of my unflagging optimism as I was of his gallows humor. “I mean, look at this place. I don’t think I’m going to get a bit of rest. But you go right ahead.”
Without another word, I climbed into bed and pulled the tattered quilt over my body. I flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. Doug shuffled towards the mattress. A shaft of moonlight pushed through the flimsy curtains and illuminated part of his face. He stood above me, swaying.
“Can we please leave the light on?” Doug struggled to steady the cowardly tremble in his voice, to no avail. “Just as a favor to me?”
I couldn’t handle Doug’s shit any longer. The two of us had fought like rabid jackals for a year. Though I’d tried to mitigate the hostility for our daughter’s sake, my efforts had failed to bear fruit. The man loved to argue, and I wasn’t much better. His sudden vulnerability made me feel like a shark, hungry for more blood.
I thrashed my way to a seated position and glared at Doug. “Why?” I snarled. “So, when someone kicks in the door to murder us, we can see his face beforehand?”
Doug lowered his body to the mattress and sat on the edge, holding his head in his hands. “Please, Leah. I won’t be able to sleep otherwise.”
In the semi-darkness, I could see that Doug’s frail shoulders were shaking. My boyfriend had convinced himself that a hundred-watt light bulb would prevent his grisly, untimely death. Without that beacon, our destruction would be certain.
Doug had always been painfully thin. He’d ignored his dietary needs for years, but recent anxiety had made eating even more difficult. When Doug was young, his mother often neglected to feed him. Sometimes, his entire lunch consisted of sugar sandwiches on white bread. He never stopped punishing himself for her negligence.
My anger evaporated, and I placed an arm around one of Doug’s shoulders. I groped around the wall with my free hand until I found the light switch. “It’s okay. At this point, I’m so exhausted I could sleep in the goddamn parking lot.”
“Thank you.” Doug crawled under the quilt and assumed a fetal position. “I hope nobody tows the van.”
“I’m sure it’ll be there.” My voice had developed a soothing tone, like I was speaking to an injured child. I rolled towards Doug and wrapped my arms around his torso. His fragile rib cage pressed against my fingers. “Let’s try to rest now.”
Morning came faster than I expected. I knuckled the sleep from my eyes. When I tapped Doug’s arm, he pulled away and sat bolt upright. His sudden movement caused the springs to squeak loudly. The bed frame wobbled a couple of times, but remained steadfast.
“It’s just me,” I said. “For heaven’s sake.”
Doug’s face relaxed and became almost happy. “I guess it’s checkout time. What a delightful stay.” As if by magic, Doug’s acerbic humor and faux bravado had returned. At least he seemed to be in a good mood, for a change. “Hard to believe, but I slept rather well. I must’ve been more tired than I thought.”
My neck was stiff from sleeping without a pillow. Otherwise, I felt surprisingly well-rested, like I’d spent the night in a functional motel. “Yeah, let’s get out of here. We still need to head into town and look for a gas station. Or a mechanic. Some place that sells tires. I think Winlock is on the other side of the off-ramp.”
Doug and I picked our way through the parking lot. Sunshine illuminated the dandelions, giving them a cheery glow. The prodigious rain had stopped, at least for a little while. We skirted a couple of puddles and made a quick left turn at the end of the driveway.
“I wasn’t even tempted to take a shower,” Doug said. “That place had Psycho vibes.”
“We didn’t bring clean clothing, anyway.” I caught a whiff of my armpits through my sweater. Matted, sweat-soaked wool clung to my torso, increasing the gamey stench. I looked and smelled exactly like someone who’d slept in her clothes.
Finally, we spotted our van, still nestled in the weeds beside the off-ramp. Its dented metal hood shimmered in the morning light. The vehicle looked clean for the first time in months. Rain had washed away most of its dust. Our scrawled note fluttered in the damp breeze.
A green sign beckoned from the opposite side of the ramp: “Winlock, 1 mile.” Doug and I looked at each other and shrugged. The two of us began our arduous hike towards salvation. Doug lit a cigarette and trudged along the shoulder. I trailed behind him, averting my head to avoid his secondhand smoke. Some of it wafted into my nostrils anyway, and I began to cough.
If Doug noticed my distress, he gave no indication. His gaze remained fixed on the road to Winlock. The two of us fell into an impenetrable silence. I could hear nothing except our footsteps and the periodic rumblings of my belly. When was the last time I had eaten? The two of us grabbed a couple of sandwiches in Eugene. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since then. Maybe we should’ve stopped at Waddle’s after all.
We came to the outskirts of a tiny, desolate town. Cheap storefronts advertised payday loans, nail salons, thrift stores, and tool rentals. All the trappings of a depressed backwater hamlet that was trying its hardest to make it into the new century.
At last, a sign loomed in front of us: “Cal’s Towing and Repair.” Uniform-clad men milled around the parking lot. I envied their sense of purpose. Unlike Doug and me, they knew exactly where they belonged. We approached one of the mechanics. He was an imposing man with a long red beard, clad in a wool shirt and Carhartt overalls.
“Are you Cal?” I asked.
The guy glared at me like I was a bloodsucking insect. I half-expected him to swat me away. Instead, he rolled his eyes. “Who wants to know?”
Ignoring his hostility, I plunged ahead. “My Toyota van is stuck beside the off-ramp. It has a flat tire and we had to leave it overnight. I need help as soon as possible.”
“We don’t change tires on off-ramps. We’ll have to tow it in. It’ll cost a hundred bucks for the tow and seventy-five for the tire. Cash only. You can wait at the edge of the lot.” He snapped his fingers, and a younger man ran over. “Toyota van at the end of the off-ramp needs a new tire. Go pick it up.”
Doug and I hovered at the edge of the lot, counting our money. Between the two of us, we had just enough for the shop. “Surly asshole,” Doug muttered. He leaned against the chain-link fence and lit a cigarette. “We’ve met some real winners on this trip. I wonder what was wrong with that guy in the trailer?” He took a deep drag and gazed at the horizon. “Probably has emphysema. Poor sucker.”
A few minutes later, the tow truck returned. The driver unhitched our vehicle and dumped it onto the concrete with a loud, unceremonious thud. He strode into the office without looking at us, then re-emerged, rolling a tire in front of him. The act seemed comical, like a circus trick. Nobody was amused, however. Everyone had decided to loathe us on sight.
The driver knelt beside the van and got to work. With effortless skill, he removed the ruined tire and replaced it with a fresh one. Our ordeal had lasted more than twelve hours, but the actual tire change took less than ten minutes.
I wandered over to Cal and pressed the money into his hand. Sneering, he shook his head. “You guys ever heard of a spare tire? Next time, be sure to bring one. It’ll save you a lot of money.”
I wondered how Cal would react if I told him the truth. It was our second flat tire in less than a month. Doug and I were too busy hating each other to bother with automotive maintenance. Our mutual animosity involved an expenditure of energy that overshadowed mundane tasks. We barely had enough strength to crawl into bed at the end of each day.
Instead, I nodded at Cal and fired up the engine. Doug settled into the passenger seat. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the windshield. I crept towards the end of the parking lot, made a right-hand turn, and accelerated.
The transportation gods had finally granted us the gift of motion. After so many hours of relative immobility, it felt strange to be rolling along at sixty miles an hour. I glanced over at my boyfriend. His face wore a thoughtful expression. Most likely, he was ruminating about our experience, trying to understand something that made no sense at all.
Doug sighed, shifted in his seat, and rearranged his long legs under the dash. Even in a minivan, he always felt cramped. In a couple of hours, we’d pull up in front of our house. Doug would stand on the porch and smoke a cigarette, and I’d rummage through the refrigerator for snacks. Our routine had already been set by an invisible director who would allow no variation. The two of us were destined to remain together for a while longer.
