The Barn, Nowheresville, MI.
We're from what I like to call a hick town. Scratch that. I'm not from Hicksville, Michigan. My boyfriend is.
Don't get me wrong, I love it here and I love him. Insert all this sappy bullshit about his awesome friends and family here, yadda yadda. But me? I'm actually from the city. That big one in Illinois. Maybe you've heard of it? Yeah, that one. Chicago.
So. When you take me (streetlights and taxis) and place me into their environment (dirt roads and tractors), well, I guess you can call it culture shock.
I've gotten used to it though, you know? After six months, a girl could really use a trip to nowhereville to walk through cornfields, or, you know, see her boyfriend.
Anyway, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. I've made some great friends out here. I've met some of the best people I've ever known in this small town and I adore them, southern-accents-even-though-they're-from-the-North and all. However, I'm usually the only female in the group because these guys, for whatever reason, prefer things to be a dickfest rather than mixed company.
I don't mind, really, and I've made one good female friend up here. Her name's Natasha, Tash for short, and she's dating one of the boys, Eddie. But between work, school and distance, I rarely get to see her.
Tonight, though, was one of those rare times when Eddie actually brought her around to The Barn, where the boys were playing Magic or guitars and I was buried in a good Tim O'Brien novel. Though I wasn't necessarily bored or anything, it was good to have the company of another set of milk-producing tits.
Right away she informed me that her piece-of-shit car needed gas and asks if I'd like to join her in the fifteen minute drive into town. I folded the book in my lap after setting the slip of blank paper I call a bookmark in place and hoisted myself to my feet, brushing away the dust my butt had clung to and removed from the dirty cement floor.
Tash waved to the boys who were throwing down cards on a wicker table, laughing and yelling, squeaking their individual and uniquely broken chairs. I side-stepped over a shattered bottle of Jagermeister everyone had been reluctant to sweep up from the party that got out of hand last night and followed Tash out of The Barn and up the gravel driveway to her car.
The sky was pitch black and our only lighting was from the house and The Barn, about an eighth of a mile away from each other. I could barely see my feet stumbling over the assortment of rocks, but we somehow made it to her vehicle without any broken or damaged limbs.
The door creaked open loudly, fighting against my weak strength and interrupting all of the sounds of nature that surrounded us. Tash disappeared beneath the top of the car, her head ducking into the interior as her feet ground against the gravel, pushing her weight inside. She, interior lights broken, fumbled around in the dark, sprawled across the seats in an attempt to clear her passenger seat of garbage and cigarette butts.
Finally, straightening herself out, I scooted in next to her and slammed her stubborn door shut with all of the power my boney little body could muster. I coughed in the chill of the autumn night and rubbed my hands together in the crease of my legs as Tash started the engine and flipped her lights on, flooding a good ten feet of my boyfriend's yard in yellow light. A rabbit bounded out of sight and into the endless trees to our right as we backed up, turned around, and headed downt he quarter mile of driveway that led to the dirt road.
Tash cranked the volume up as we passed The Barn, drowning out the laughter and loud cussing we could hear from the boys. Her car shook with the bass line of the Alkaline Trio CD we were listening to, "From Here to Infirmary", you know, their good shit. Once we hit the dirt road and hung a left, singing at the top of our lungs, we were really rocking (literally) as her tires braved the millions of potholes the road seemed to be made of.
This, alone, takes a good five minutes to get through because of the snail speed you have to travel at in an crap car like hers, so we were virtually two songs through the album before we even hit a main, paved road. From here on out, the speed limit rises from five miles per hour to fifty-five, and I cranked my window down despite the cold just to felt he breeze on my face. This isn't something you can do very successfully in the city, you know?
So we pull into the nearest gas station, a Marathon chain, and I decided my empty stomach needed some nourishment. While Tash slid out and began to pump gas into her tank, I fought with her door momentarily and then made my way to the junk food.
Two pumps over, a man stood washing his windshield as his car filled up. He smiled at me and I smiled back, lowered my gaze to my feet and pushed through the door into the shop. Right in front of me stood a stack of Sun Chips which I grabbed in my fist and approached the counter with. I asked the clerk for a pack of Marlboros, dug my hand into my bag to extract my yes-I'm-eighteen ID and a ten. At that moment, I glanced over my shoulder to look out at Tash and noticed the windshield-wiper man had stopped his antics and now stood leaning against the hood of his car and staring right at Tash. She, I deducted, was busying herself and avoiding glancing up at all costs.
I took my change, thanked the guy behind the counter who grunted back, scratching at the graying stubble on his chin. With the chips and cigarettes in one hand, I shoved open the door with my free arm and began to walk back to the car. I could feel the creepy dude's eyes on me the whole time and as I neared Tash, she mumbled between clenched teeth to hurry up and get in the car.
I did without hesitating, Tash and I synchronized in our movements. She started the car, flashed her lights on and put the car in drive. As we pulled away from the pump and peeled out onto the street, barely pausing at the stop sign, Tash glanced into her rearview mirror just as I flickered my attention to her side mirror. The creep had begun to follow us!
"Shit!" Tash shouted, slamming an open palm on the steering wheel and leaning forward before slamming back against her seat. "Shit, shit, shit. What should I do? WHAT SHOULD I DO?!"
We were both panicking, my heart raced and a rush of adrenaline flowed through my body and made my head feel light. It was pitch black on a country road, no houses or people for miles. Sure, I've had worse encounters in the city, but there are usually people around, people to call and at least there I had a general sense of direction and knowledge of my surroundings. In Hicksville? We were as good as fucked.
The music, for some reason, was still blaring from Tash's speakers. I jabbed my thumb on the power button and, still shouting like I had competition, screamed, "Go back to the gas station!"
Immediately, Tash swerved her car onto the shoulder, tires squealing as she made a U-turn, skidding across the opposite shoulder and spraying pebbles into the air as her backend fish-tailed slightly. The car rocked as she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, shuddering and lurching forward. I slid into the passenger door, then smashed my knees against the dashboard from the momentum. I'd forgotten to put on my seatbelt and reached frantically for it as we shot past the fucker whose head turned and watched us go by.
A moment later, he too had turned around and I felt my heart in my throat, colliding with my brain as the blood rushed to my head.
"Fuck, are you kidding me?" Tash screamed, her hands gripping the top of the steering wheel, voice choked up and ready to break any second. We pulled back into the gas station once again and I spotted a pay phone across the lot, pointing at it and leaning forward, my face practically against the windshield.
"Pull up to it, real close, and I'll jump out and call one of the guys," I instructed out of nowhere and she did just that, slamming the breaks, jerking us both against our seatbelts (thank God) as I reached for the door handle.
Throwing myself out of the car and stumbling, bent over and almost face-planting on the pavement, I grasped the phone in my left fist within seconds and started dialing Eddie, the one most likely to have a phone on him.
He picked up after two rings. "What, are you lost?" he joked after I shouted his name into the receiver. From in the car, Tash's voice came frantically into my hears. The man was at the station, parked opposite us and sitting, watching but not moving.
"No, Eddie, seriously. This guy is following us and we're fucking scared! What do we do?" I rushed out, practically bouncing in place, mind racing.
Eddie's voice grew serious, deepening. "Drive back here, now. If he follows you two back, he'll be sorry."
I could hear the voices of our fellow friends in the background grow louder, shouting questions, trying to find out what was happening. I hung up the phone and dove back into the safety of the car. The man was still watching us, headlights off but engine running.
"Go," I breathed to Tash's awaiting face. "Just go. Back to The Barn."
Tash stepped on it and this time I remembered my seatbelt. As I turned to reach over my shoulder for the strap, I watched as his headlights flicked on and I swallowed my tongue, I swear.
My biggest fear at this point was that Tash was going to get us in an accident from her panicked reckless driving. Or, of course, that the guy might try to run us off the road because he had begun, yet again, to trail us. This time, he stuck close to our bumper instead of giving us a few feet of space.
Tash rolled her window down as she drove, shouting, "Fuck you!!" as loud as her voice could go. I would have laughed under different circumstances but right now we were barreling down the road, doing about eighty-five miles an hour instead of the normal fifty-five. I could see the flashing yellow lights ahead, the signals that reminded me that I needed to make a left if I wanted to get to my boyfriend's house.
We were nearing that turn and not slowing down and that's when I started screaming for Tash to slow the hell down or we would crash right into the forest. She slammed her foot into the breaks, the tires screaming louder than I was, and took the corner at a speed that nearly lifted the left side of the car off of the ground. As soon as we cleared the corner, though, she was back to flooring it, zooming down the road for the next couple miles until we had to make yet another left-hand turn.
The trees were whizzing by, dust sweeping up around our car. The man was still following us, not as closely as he had been, but remaining there none the less. Tash didn't even bother to signal as she spun the wheel, turning us onto the dirt road and spinning the car a little. My heart was pounding worse than ever and my hands were clutching the seat and the door; I was praying for my life.
As we hurled down the dirt road, the car bouncing like it had hydraulics from speeding over the holes, I looked in the mirror and noticed the man hadn't turned with us. I breathed out a sigh of relief and loosened my knuckles just enough to let the blood start flowing to my fingertips again, but my face was still flushed and my head was still pounding. Tash, her hands gripping the wheel just as tightly as ever, stared straight ahead with wide eyes, her chest visibly heaving with every breath.
Now here is where it gets a little funny. As we slowed down, closing in on the long driveway that led to The Barn and, ultimately, our awaiting boyfriends, the headlights of the car washed over a heard of silhouettes. There, at the end of the driveway and spilling out into the road stood our boyfriends and their friends, arms extended threateningly with random objects. Some had baseball bats, one a shovel, and lastly, Eddie, standing with a pitchfork in hand.
That's right. A pitchfork.
Despite the whole horrifying experience I had to go through tonight, subject to such harassment only because Tash and I were two young females and were alone, I laughed. I laughed until Tash threw the car into park and rushed out into Eddie's pitchfork-holding arms. Every time I think about that moment when we pulled up, finally safe and feeling relieved, my giggle grows until I snort.
Only in Hicksville, Michigan, would your boyfriend protect you with his pitchfork.