71 - Directions

The next morning – after yet another predominantly sleepless night – Tony tossed his small bag in the Camaro’s trunk, bid his brother’s family goodbye and hit the road for his cross-country journey.  It took only as far as the Jersey state line for the responsive car to feel like a natural extension of his body and respond accordingly, allowing his mind to get lost in the tunes pouring from the satellite radio and his own thoughts.

Naturally, with the brow beating he’d been taking the last few days, his mind first wandered to Lilah.  Specifically his peculiar reaction to those damn pictures yesterday.  Sure, he’d thought about Europe a few times, but he hadn’t let himself get immersed in the memories.  Living in the past had never served anyone well.

Unless you’re trying to figure out how it leads to your future.

That was a crock and he refused to get sucked into that hokey psycho-love-babble garbage.  People came up with that shit just to get-rich-quick from other people’s misery.  He wasn’t joining the fray.  And he wasn’t making himself crazy by doing this for the next seven days. 

Defiantly twisting the radio volume to a notch beyond way-too-loud, he let the heavy guitar riffs of the Classic Vinyl station fill his consciousness as the mile markers blew by, one at a time. 

He found a routine in the coming hours and miles.  Drive, stop for gas and coffee, drive, stop for food, drive and find some place to crash for the night.  It was working well for him until he came through Columbus, Ohio at about eleven o’clock on the second morning.  That's when the interstate signage alerted him to a looming fork in the road.

To the right was Indianapolis and, ultimately, home.  To the left was Lexington, Kentucky.  

Never had a road sign elicited such a visceral reaction.  Her damn picture might as well have been on the huge green and white sign.  A fast-forwarded movie clip, for that matter, because he heard her softly drawling voice as plainly as he saw her face.

“I’m not as obsessive about livin’ as some people.”

“Most things I think are better left unsaid.  They tend to make people think I’m an idiot.”

“I learned a long time ago not to trust anyone else to take care of me, no matter how temptin’ it might be.”

“My first husband told me I was frigid.”

“I love you, Tony.  I don’t expect anything from you.”

That highlight reel had his stomach roiling with regret and remorse.

He had fought for a goddamn month to get her to believe in herself and to take care of herself first.  A month.  And for what?  In the end, when she had stepped up and put herself first by saying she loved him, he’d become no better than either one of her fucking lowlife husbands.

He hadn’t believed her.

Clearly, Lilah wasn’t the only one who’d learned not to trust.

Speeding toward the highway juncture that was both a literal and figurative fork in the road, Tony had a decision to make. Did he take the right road, keep his journey on the fast track to L.A. and retain Lilah as merely a pleasant memory?  Or did he go the 'wrong way' and chase down that memory without any definite plan?

As suddenly as a blinding flash of lightning, he realized that he wanted – needed – to see her with a crazy kind of urgency that he couldn't understand.  The irrational impulse to go the ‘wrong way’ became too overwhelming to ignore and, with very little conscious thought, he jerked the wheel to the left, merging into the lane that took him from I-70 West to I-71 South.


It wouldn't be the first wrong turn he'd ever taken in his life.

✧✧✧

Tony flicked the key to the off position and the Camaro that had been gently purring beneath him went silent.  As he traded his prescription sunglasses for untinted ones and slowly disengaged the door handle, the adrenaline started to churn. 

He was going to see Lilah for the first time in almost a month.

And she had no idea he was coming. 

Then again, until three hours ago, neither had he. 

It would have made more sense to have called or texted before turning up unannounced on her doorstep – or even to have emailed.  It would have made sense, but unsure of what to say, he hadn’t bothered, somehow believing that her uncensored reaction to his presence would magically put words in his mouth. 

In short, with three hours of drive time between Columbus and Lexington to plan, think and re-think…  He was winging it. 

The beige Victorian house with its dark red shutters and porch swing was pretty in an old lady kind of way, he though,t letting his eyes take a quick survey of “Lilah Land”.  He wasn’t sure it was the house he had pictured her living in, but this Sayre Street address was the one she had listed on her fan club membership. 

Sayre Street.  Sayreville, New Jersey.  Way too fuckin’ ironic. 

Carefully closing the Camaro’s door, Tony started up the sidewalk and, for the first time, caught sight of the car that was parked at the back of the driveway.   As soon as he registered what he was looking at, every single hair along the length of his forearms stood straight up as though the thickly humid air carried an icy bite.

There, gleaming in the afternoon sun, was a gorgeous chunk of inky black American machinery.  The late-model Camaro convertible was washed, waxed and glossy right down to its personalized license plate. LILAH J. 

She drives a Camaro.  That’s not ironic, that’s just fuckin’ uncanny.

With his doubt about her address obliterated, he strode purposefully up the walk, feeling oddly energized.   The chains on the porch swing squeaked faintly as his flip flops slapped against the wooden boards and he drew to a halt before the door that was the same shade of red as the shutters.  Not seeing a doorbell, he lifted a light fist, rapping sharply. 

The woman that flung open that front door a scant minute later had Tony taking a quick, backward step.  She was exactly like who should live here.  The fiery little grandma was wearing one of those flowery dress things like his own grandmother had always worn, and she peered up at him skeptically.  “Yeah?”

Remembering that he was more-or-less in the South, he stowed away his shock and rounded up his best manners.  “Good afternoon, ma’am.  I’m looking for Lilah Bennett.  Does, uh…  Does she live here?”

“Lives in the garage apartment out back.  At the end of the driveway.”  An arthritic finger pointed to the right side of the porch.

Why am I glad this isn’t Bluegrass’s house?

“Thank you for the information, and I’m sorry to have bothered you.”  With a parting smile, he spun on his heel only to come to an abrupt halt.

“She ain’t here though.”

Slowly pivoting back around, his smile was more forced this time.  “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where she went or when she’ll be back?”

A head topped with hair reminding him strongly of steel wool tipped up and he met watery blue eyes through prescription lenses that made his look non-existent.  “She don’t talk to me much.  Keeps to herself.”

“So that’s a no, then?”

She cocked her hip and dipped her pointy chin to peer at him over the rim of her glasses. “Just because she don’t talk much don’t mean I don’t know things.  I got eyes, ya know.”

“So you do know where she is?”

Steely permed curls bobbed.  “I reckon I might.”

Good Christ, this is like pulling teeth…

“Would you mind sharing that information with me?”

Folding her arms with an asthmatic huff, she looked him up and down, taking in his Harley tank, frayed jeans, scruffy face and tattoos.  “You one of them Hell’s Angels?  My husband Lester – God rest his soul – always wanted to be a Hell’s Angel.  Reckon he is one now, the sorry sonofabitch.”

Tony didn’t know whether to laugh or run like hell.  It was an item up for serious debate.    “No, I’m not a Hell’s Angel.  I’m just a friend of Lilah’s.”

“Well, I think visitin’ hours over at the hospital go from four ta eight.  You should have plenty a’time to see her before eight.”

That garbled bit of information sent his eyebrows winging up to his hairline as fast as it sent the pit of his stomach hurtling to the ground.  “Wait.  What?  Hospital?  Lilah is in the hospital?”

Don’t spazz.  You don’t know that it’s anything serious.

“I’d say so.  Amb’lance jus’ left here about a hour ago and them EMT fellas was sayin’ somethin’ bout hemorragin’.  She didn’t look so good.  Had an oxygen mask on.  Mighta been unconscious.”

The pit of his stomach shot up into his throat with a rebound that would do any bungee jumper proud.  Lilah was hemorrhaging?  And unconscious?  What did that mean?  Why was she hemorrhaging? 

More importantly where IS she?

“Do you know what hospital they took her to?” he tried to interrupt, inexplicably desperate to get to her side and prove to himself that she was okay.  Then he would bitch her out about not taking better care of herself.  She was too careless, even after what had happened in Turkey.  Always so friggin' optimistic that everything would be fine and that she was invincible.

Dammit Bluegrass!

The woman on whom he was reliant for information paid him no attention, continuing to ramble thoughtfully on.

“Even if they don’t admit her, I’d say she’ll be there a while.  Ya cain’t ever get in and outta the hospital any quicker’n three, four hours ‘round here.  Nurses are too busy havin’ coffee and screwin’ the doctors to go any faster.  Dunno why she called an amb’lance though.  That boy of hers shoulda took’en her if ya ask me.  ‘Course don’t nobody ever do much on her account from what I can tell.  If she don’t do it, it don’t get done.”  She shrugged with wide-open hands.  ”But I’m just the nosy landlord.  Whadda I know?”

This crazy old bat was just about to piss him off with her rambling commentary on hospital gossip.  She was divulging just enough to make his blood pressure spike.  You didn’t drop words like ‘hospital’ and ‘hemorrhaging’ and then go off on a random fucking tangent, ignoring everything else around you.

“What hospital?  Ma’am.”

She lazily scratched at her jaw and stuffed her hands into the pockets of the thin cotton house dress, rocking back on her heels while shaking her head.   “No way to be sure, but I’d guess Central Baptist, bein’ as it’s closest.”

He jerked his phone out of his pocket, already tapping into the GPS app as he jogged down the stairs and absently thanked Lilah’s neighbor over his shoulder.  A search for Central Baptist had the hospital listed as eleven minutes from his current location.

Bet I make it in six.

Sliding into the driver’s seat and feeling oddly like one of the Dukes of Hazzard, he fastened his seatbelt and cranked the ignition, cursing.   If he had dicked around too long and missed out on a chance to see her again…  To…

Just drive, asshole.  Don’t think, just drive.

The Camaro peeled out from the curb without Tony once thinking about the damage he'd just inflicted on the tires of his new car.