A Short Story for Halloween

Here, in its entirety, is a short story, presented for your enjoyment on Halloween.

Forgetting

©2006 Noreen Braman


When Sandy forgot how to bowl, everyone though it was hilarious. She stood in the lane, staring at the pins, a look of dazed horror on her face. She threw her ball, tripped over her own feet and fell in the gutter. Afterward, she told everyone that she had just forgotten how to bowl. For the rest of the night she was the team’s comic relief, as she tried to remember what has once been so easy. No one would believe that there was suddenly a blank space in her brain; it was as if she had never picked up a bowling ball in her life. Her husband and her friends just continued to laugh.
It wasn't so funny when she forgot how to drive.

The lines on the highway were passing in a steady rhythm as Sandy headed for home. She kept her minivan in the center lane, hoping to avoid both tractor-trailers and cars entering the road. The three-lane highway was mostly straight in western Jersey — with only an occasional gently sloped curve here and there.

Sandy drove along, singing along with the radio. As she steered the van over a small hill, she began to have an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. At first it was just a twinge, then it grew into a gnawing fear, not unlike the feeling she would get on the slow, steady uphill climb at the beginning of a roller coaster ride. Then, she could close her eyes, hang on tight and endure the terrible feeling of uncontrolled flight until the ride finally came to a stop.

She watched as the lines on the road passed faster and faster, even though the speedometer told her she was still doing 55. Her gaze was magnetically drawn down to the pavement, as the white painted strips disappeared under the van. She watched the rest of the road peripherally, a kind of tunnel-vision view that made the highway surreal and distorted. As she approached a curve in the road she was seized with the feeling that her van wasn't going to negotiate the turn, but instead go crashing through the railing and down the embankment. She struggled to maintain control of the wheel. In her mind she pictured the van rolling over and over, faster and faster. She tried to assure herself that her speed was still only 55, but when she looked down at the dashboard the numbers and gauges seemed to be in a foreign language, spinning around in a dizzying whirlpool.
She fought the urge to press the accelerator all the way to the floor, struggling to make her rigid arms steer around the curve. Trees that lined the sides of the road seemed to tower over the lanes, curving so sharply they almost touched each other over the roof of her van. The other cars on the road flew by her at suicidal speeds, nearly missing crashing into her as they flashed by, arms gesturing and faces grimacing at her.

Her feet were suddenly dancing around the pedals, and she was unsure which was the brake, which was the gas. The car lurched across the road as she recognized a rest stop sign. She screeched to a stop and yanked the key out of the ignition, dropping it on the floor of the car, as if it were burning hot.

She called Garver. "What do you mean, you can't drive anymore?" Garver's voice was a low growl of impatience. "You've been driving for years. This isn't funny Sandy."
"Do you think I'm enjoying this? I don't know what's going on, but if you don't come and get me, then I'll be here all night."

Sandy got back into the van to wait. Her hands trembled as she tried to light a cigarette. She had been hiding her return to smoking for weeks and Garver would be furious, but, how much angrier could he get?

The familiar feeling of the cigarette calmed Sandy as she sat watching traffic. The unending lines of vehicles swept past her in a steady rhythm. As they sped by, the momentum distorted the cars, elongating them into cartoon images. Their shapes became more and more fluid until there seemed to be nothing on the road but an undulating river of molten metal. Sandy blinked her eyes and shook the image out of her head. That was all Garver had to hear. Forgetting things, and seeing things.

She put her head back on the seat and thought of Garver — his lean, tan body striding through the parking lot, his face scowling. Sandy tried to remember Garver's smile, she was certain he had smiled recently, but she just couldn't picture it. In fact, she was having the greatest difficulty remembering the color of his eyes. She took a long, slow drag on the cigarette and then tossed it out the window. It rolled on the blacktop, still smoking.

How disgusting, she thought. Who would throw out a lit cigarette so close to the grass? She opened the van door and followed the cigarette as it slowly rolled. When she finally caught up with it, she stomped on it, grinding it into the pavement.

She knew it would be a while before Garver arrived, especially with the evening traffic. She wandered into the restaurant, surprised at how seedy the roadside eatery was. Long ago, when she was a child, stopping at a rest area was a highlight of a long car trip. It served as a kind of tourist meeting place, with cars from all states lined up in the lot. there were maps and postcards and huge bathrooms full of sweaty women and screaming babies.

Now, Sandy wasn't certain that a trip to the bathroom was a wise idea. Several men in dirty clothing milled around the doorway as she went in. The restaurant itself was dark, with flickering fluorescent lights. The guy behind the counter didn't wear a paper hat, or even an apron.
Sandy stood at the counter and looked up at the plastic-encased menu. The pictures of the Highway Hamburger and Trucker's Special were so faded the lettuce looked yellow and the tomatoes were an unhealthy shade of pink. Sandy traced the letters, trying to read the faded words. Like the cars on the highway, the print on the menu seemed to be moving, flowing like a river right off the page.

"Well," The voice startled Sandy. She looked up. This close, she could see how badly the counterman needed a shave.

"I can't make up my mind," she said. ”Just give me a sandwich.” The counterman pointed to a rolling cart behind her that served as a kind of salad-less salad bar. Rows of sandwiches in wax paper covered half of its surface.

Unwilling to try and read the menu any more, Sandy nodded her head, and took one marked with a huge “B” for bologna. She stared at the lettering all the while she paid for it, picked a table and sat down.

It occurred to Sandy that perhaps the ink had seeped through the paper, into the sandwich, oozing through the bread and had settled into the meat, making it dark and foul. She was immediately nauseous, and she left the table, looking for the bathroom.

The feeling of sickness overcame her fear of the bathroom, and she burst inside looking for a place to throw up.

Inside the door, a young woman with missing teeth was sitting on the floor, facing the wall. She was talking to herself.

"Come on, come on," she whispered as she ripped open the sleeve of her shirt. Sandy stood fascinated as the woman tied a piece of cloth around her upper arm and pulled it tight. Sandy saw the glint of a needle, and the nausea came back as she watched the needle plunge into the woman's arm. Her involuntary gasp made the woman look up.

"What are you staring at," she hissed, waving the needle in Sandy's direction. "Maybe you're looking to take my stuff."

Sandy backed up against the sink. "No," she said, " I don't do that...I mean I don't want yours... hey, do what you want!"

The angry glint in the junkie's eyes faded and she smiled a toothless grin.

"What does it do for you anyway?" Sandy asked her.

"It makes me forget," she answered, "Just makes me forget."

Forget what, Sandy wondered as she watched the woman slowly gather up her ragged belongings. Then without warning, she whirled on Sandy, hitting her full in the face with her bag. There was something heavy inside and it knocked Sandy unconscious.

The sound of dripping water became louder and louder until Sandy opened her eyes. As she tried to sit up, she was instantly aware of pain- pain in her eye, pain in her mouth, and intense pain in her arms.

She struggled to clear her vision and looked down at her arms. They were covered with puncture wounds, each oozing a dark drop of blood. A bloody, broken hypodermic needle lay on the floor beside her. As she struggled to her feet, she realized that her shoes were gone, as well as her jacket and her bag. What the hell happened to me, she thought.

She squinted in the mirror, trying to focus her thoughts. Her brain was kicking out images that didn't make any sense. Something about her van, something about someone shooting drugs, something about a rotten sandwich … Just as quicly as the images flashed into her mind, they faded into oblivion.

She stumbled out of the bathroom, noticing how dark it was outside. It seemed very funny that it was so dark, and she began laughing out loud. She pushed open the door to the parking lot, and still laughing, started looking for her car, shewas sure she had a car.

None of them looked familiar — Sandy tried to remember what color it was.

Down at the end of the parking lot there were two tractor-trailers parked. That's my car, she thought. She staggered across the lot, and climbed up into the cab of the one with the interior light on. A man was sitting in the driver's seat, reading a newspaper.

"Garver!" she shouted, throwing herself on top of him. God, it had been so long since he held her...
The trucker pushed Sandy off him.

"Hey lady, you're nuts!" he said, but Sandy didn't hear him. She threw herself on him again, kissing him hard in the lips. Already she was forgetting his coldness, his meanness. If she could forget, so could he. Suddenly, he responded to her, clutching her roughly and tearing at her clothes. The interior light went out.

Hours later, Garver stood with the police in the dark parking lot. The coroner's van had already picked up Sandy's nude body from the pavement.

"Looks like she stabbed herself repeatedly with that needle – must have shot enough stuff to make her out of her mind, I’m sorry." The police officer looked away from Garver. They had already searched the building carefully and found traces of blood in the bathroom, along with the broken hypodermic needle. The bruises on Sandy's arms spoke for themselves. Forensic testing would soon match up the blood officially, blood that would be strangely clean of any drugs, but full of other mysterious things that the lab technicians would forget about.

"I was just so mad at her," Garver said, "I couldn't believe her that she forgot how to drive. I had no idea she was doing this — how did she hide it from me?" He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, still not believing how this could have happened.

The cop shrugged; nothing that happened at these highway rest stops surprised him anymore. And now, with even a former governor claiming he participated in sordid activities that went on there, his hands had been full dealing with curious and stupid gawkers poking their noses where they shouldn’t, and getting into trouble.

Several hundred miles away, a trucker was racing as fast as he dared away from New Jersey. He was still in shock over what had happened, what he had done –that woman, she had been crazy- all over him one minute, and screaming for help the next. Accusing him of making all those bloody marks on her arms. Blood that had smeared all over him and his truck. At least he thought it was blood — already, his memory of what happened was getting foggy. It would be the first of many memories to evaporate as he headed down a suddenly unfamiliar highway, slowly beginning to forget.