Neglect

I’m no good at this I whispered under my rancid breath.  My whiskey laden lips stuck together-slurring my sober words.  It was three pm in mid-chilled December and she was covered in snow.  For the first time in her life she was experiencing a not-Florida winter.  Life expectancy was long gone but she still kept on keepin’ on. 

Home wasn’t too far down the highway but it was cold enough to make it feel like it was in China.  I’ve never been there-home or China.  A breath of white air made me think of the clouds.  Maybe the clouds were angel’s breath, or that’s some kinda flower.  The hotel 8 sign looked like a giant eye ball staring back at me from over my left shoulder.

The frost was heavy and hard to crack-even harder to scrape with ungloved numb hands.  I panted short cloudy breaths, scraped and knocked at the frost and peered over my shoulder at home staring back at me like Mama with a poached cup of coffee in her hand calling me in for supper.  I loved my baby but nothing could replace a warm shower, bed and breakfast! 

The lady behind the counter held my driver’s license up in the fluorescent beams.  Okay Mr. Jefferson your rooms gonna be number 7, she smacked her gums and flailed her blubbery arms, its down my right hall and on your left.  Normally I would have nodded and smiled at her as was the kindly thing to do but instead I took her directions and moseyed into number seven. 

My ball cap tossed on the bed, I poked my head through the curtains.  I’m no good at this I thought and shook my head as I backed away from the frosted window.  As I showered I mourned my baby full of empty bottles and rusted and heatless.  My head hung low for I had let her fall decrepit without intention, but you do not have to hold intent to neglect. 

My bed for the last eight years had been slouched in her leather arms under the shedding insulation of her thread baring roof.  Was I betraying her?  We traveled the country together and never had I let her see snow.  Snow makes me think of home-makes me ill with home.  That’s why I’d made Florida our port-the state with a no-snow guarantee.  We were on our way back to port when the flurry became a storm; nine more hours until we would have been out of range.  But she hadn’t been feeling too well, with her ticker tockin’ all funny like and her  lights were shinning dim, and me-I didn’t have the tools to fix her, so I would rub her dash and sweet talk her in hopes that something bigger than the both of us would carry us home. 

It started off lightly-the snow.  The first flake was the same as all those that followed, but they lined up quicker and quicker til her lights shone like lanterns in the daytime and her blades couldn’t clear the masses.  I couldn’t see the road beneath her feet so we treaded over.  I could feel the shift from iced tar coated concrete to the collection of similarly blinding flakes.  I don’t recall hearing anything after the hum of the heater died other than the chatter of my teeth.  I rummaged through the bunches of bottles that protected me-I figured, much like an air bag might, to find something to cover up with.  Instead I found what I knew would warm me from the inside out. 

I tilted my head back til the bottle was empty and tossed it into the pile.  I am no good at this, I don’t know how to let you go.  I rubbed the dash in a circular motion.  The dust stirred in the still and frozen air, and I swallowed it in my breath.  A tear captured my eye, I clenched the steering wheel-I fell asleep whispering baby, this is snow, this is snow.  The sun came early to wake me, I wasn’t ready for this. 

She wouldn’t have made it much farther.  Good thing on the highway home is always staring at you from down the road.  That time it didn’t matter much that we made it home, she died.