Zombie Eyes

Beverly and I were on our way to the Catskills and stopped at a rest area to walk Crazy Bitch. The lot was filled with cars, which was odd, because there were no bathroom facilities or food vendors, just a tarmac acre beside the highway with a sidewalk and a low stonewall, and a magnificent view of the evening sky.

“I guess everybody came to watch the sunset,” I said to Beverly.

“I guess so, but look at those two guys standing in the weeds over there. They look like zombies. And they’re not even facing the sunset.”

Bushes and tall grass grew on the other side of the low wall, and the two men who stood there, indeed looked like zombies, or like deer caught in the headlights.

“They want to pee in the bushes,” I told Beverly, “but they don’t want you to see, because, you know, you’re a girl.

We both laughed, and we were heading back to the car when a tall lumberjack stepped from a pickup, also to walk his dog. He was wearing a plaid shirt, and two-tone denim jeans that were blue around the waist but black at the legs. Crazy Bitch touched noses with the guy’s little white bijou, and since I like poodles, I squatted down to pet the lapdog… and I realized this guy was not wearing two-tone denim jeans; they were just blue, but he had pulled on thigh-high, black leather boots with stiletto heals. This footwear was so unexpected that I looked up at the tall bearded fellow for explanation, and I felt uneasy, because he wore a slight grin, along with a zombie stare that matched the two guys standing in the weeds.

“Beautiful sunset,” the lumberjack with the stiletto heals said.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

Beverly suddenly pulled me up and towed me towards the car.

“These guys are not here to pee,” she said, “and they’re not here to watch the sunset. They’re here to have sex with each other.”

“No they’re not,” I said.

“Oh no?”

She jerked her chin to the right and when I looked in that direction, I saw — for the first time in my life — two people having vigorous sex in the back of an Oldsmobile. I don’t begrudge anyone a good time, but I was startled to the point of panic, as if I had walked into a ladies room by accident, and suddenly realized that I was someplace I shouldn’t be.

We both ran for the car, and once inside, I backed out so quickly that I knocked over a garbage can and sent trash flying.

“We have to go back and pick that up,” said Beverly.

But I kept driving, and that’s the only part of this story that I really regret. I hate a litterbug. I’m not sure if outdoor sex is illegal in the Catskills, but littering is, and of all the people who visited that rest area, I was probably the worst transgressor.