The Drive

Clinton Wayfield fishtailed his dad's Chevy. He navigated a rapid succession of sharp curves on the abandoned haul road the locals called Snakeback Drive. Sitting shotgun, Vicki Stimpson checked her seatbelt for the third time. She managed a half smile as her date set about the task of proving his manliness by demonstrating an ability to press down a gas pedal while beating on the steering wheel in a rhythm that almost but not quite matched that of the AC/DC tune currently playing in the Blazer's CD player.

Vicki harbored doubts about the boy next to her and had resisted his advances since her freshman year. Clinton definitely wasn't her type, yet now as a senior with graduation just days away, she finally relented. It was more as a favor to him than anything resembling interest. Curiosity, she had to admit, had also played a big part in her hesitant acceptance of his most recent invitation. She had never understood the adoration he managed to garner from some of her otherwise sane friends and hoped a night out with him would perhaps clue her in to the apparent charm she had yet to discover. Now, just a half hour into their so-called date she had already thrown that theory out the Blazer's dusty window.

"Where are we going?" she asked as they rounded curve number three. The sun-baked surface of the gravel road was thick with wash-board ruts the size of speed bumps on this part of Snakeback and Vicki could practically feel her teeth rattle as Clinton accelerated over them. How anyone could think that risking permanent back damage or accidental tongue amputation was a girl's idea of a good time escaped her.

He turned toward her and smiled, saying nothing.

He did have a nice smile she had to admit. She had never really noticed it before but it was now unmistakable, sort of Hugh Grant-ish, a slight self-deprecating quality to it that made him, well, handsome. She had never considered that word before when regarding Clinton but now...
Too bad he was still the same brain deficient dunce who held the current record for most suspensions of any student in the history of Woodland Hills High School. Still the same troublemaker who happened to possess the dime-store charm that somehow enabled him to be liked and even admired for his rebellious ways. Vicki figured he likened himself to a modern day James Dean, and judging by the gushing praise heaped upon him by Vicki's friends at school he wouldn't be alone in that assessment.

Clinton was cool, she was not. He was the one everyone wanted to be around while she had endured four years of relative obscurity, achieving the all too common status of also-ran on the schools popularity scale. The right clothes, the right friends, the right music, she did all she could to attain the desired popularity, but to no avail. She had been told she was pretty, knew she was smart, and had been blessed with an abundance of curves in more or less all the right places. Though she dedicated a good amount of thought to the subject, she could not solve the mystery of her mid-level position on the high school social ladder. People were just too damn shallow she finally concluded, especially in this town. College would solve this dilemma once and for all. Smarter, more mature men, real men, would see her in the light she deserved. She couldn't wait.

Vicki took some comfort in knowing that Clinton's success at popularity was due in large part to a prank he had pulled during their sophomore year. It made him a school celebrity almost overnight and he somehow managed to ride that wave of coolness all the way through the rest of his high school career. He was a living legend for a stupid stunt that Vicki just thought was cruel and immature.

She had been absent the day of the event but heard about it repeatedly from her friends, when they could finally control their laughter long enough to tell it. They spewed on about it the following morning before first period, after first period, at lunch, and incredibly, even during Algebra as Mr. Weaver spent the first ten minutes of class querying students on the latest developments, obviously enjoying the scraps of gossip tossed about regarding the prank.

It began with a fishing trip. Clinton spent a Sunday evening fishing a small farm pond a couple of miles from his house. He took a five-gallon bucket equipped with a battery powered aerator and over the next hour or so he stocked the bucket with two dozen three to five inch bluegills.

Sometime later that night, he drove to the high school and gained entry into the building. When questioned later, Clinton claimed the West door was simply unlocked and he walked right in. Vicki wondered if this was true but everyone else seemed to accept that answer and according to the police there were no signs of forced entry.

Clinton deposited one live fish in each toilet of the school's four women's restrooms. He told some friends afterward that his biggest fear was that the fish would attempt an escape by darting into the toilet's downspout, effectively ruining the prank. As insurance he had tested his idea at home the night before and was delighted to discover that the small bluegill he placed in the guest bathroom after his parents had gone to bed was swimming in the bowl the next morning. Alive and seemingly quite comfortable in its new surroundings, the fish darted about the bowl and completely ignored the potential escape hatch.

Exactly what he hoped would result from his prank Vicki didn't know. It was one of the questions she intended to ask him tonight. What did happen though was probably better, in Clinton's opinion, than anything he could have imagined.

The following morning, as was her usual routine, Ms Crafton was the first teacher to arrive at the school. Also part of her routine was to retrieve her paperwork and schedule for the upcoming school day from her briefcase and review it while visiting the restroom for her typical morning "sit-down".

In the he most agreed upon version of the story, Ms. Crafton, engrossed in her paperwork, never glanced down before sitting. Speculation was that she had been ill or had possibly eaten a meal that didn't agree with her the night before and the result of that morning's toilet time was of a more liquid nature.

Finished, she reached for the flush handle, probably beaded with perspiration and no longer quite so involved in her paperwork. She heard a splash beneath her. The bluegill, distressed by this turn of events, was flailing about the bowl in an attempt to flee the now polluted water. If fish wore slippers the poor creature would have been tapping his heels together at that moment. Ms. Crafton shot up and spun around. She looked into the bowl, something she had absolutely no intentions of doing seconds before. The bluegill flailed wildly, throwing a small fountain of water in the air. Ms. Crafton's head hit the tiled floor before the ripples from the fish’s splash dissipated.

She awoke from the faint minutes later and Mrs. Wagner, another teacher, was kneeling beside her, a cell phone to her ear. She talked rapidly, telling someone to hurry up, and they were in the north women's bathroom. She asked Ms. Crafton what happened. Ms. Crafton, still foggy and confused from the as yet undiagnosed concussion told her in a terrified voice. "I had a uh, bowel movement...and there was something...alive in it, something alive in ME!" As Mrs. Wagner tried to comprehend this statement, Ms. Crafton continued, "Oh my God, I think I feel another one!"

That was usually where the tale ended as far as anyone telling it was concerned. The remaining portion, regarding the discovery of the fish in every toilet and subsequent expulsion of Clinton when he confessed later that day was not interesting enough to include in the telling of the tale and the story inevitably ended with "I think I feel another one." usually followed by howls of laughter at Ms. Crafton's expense.

Vicki reached over and turned off the Blazer's CD player, cutting Brian Johnson's searing vocals off in mid-screech.
"Where are we going?" she asked again.
"You'll see." he answered finally.
Clinton accelerated as they approached the sharpest curve yet on the winding road. Beyond the curve, Vicki knew, was the Big E stripper Pit, thirty feet below the nearly vertical drop off that they were quickly approaching.
"Slow down!" she said, both fear and anger resonating in her words.
He drove a little faster.
"So why did you finally decide to go out with me?" Clinton asked, taking his eyes off the road to look at her.
"Watch the road!" she demanded desperately.
Clinton kept his eyes firmly of her even as he accelerated faster. The curve was almost upon them. She looked at him as they reached the curve and was terrified to see him staring right back at her, a tight grin on his face. She screamed. He suddenly yanked the wheel left sending the blazer into a stuttering skid. The Blazer spun off the road and they slid sideways, the cliff closing quickly to Vicki's right. He was still staring at her. She looked out her window and saw with horror the moon's rippling reflection off the black water far below as the Blazer quickly closed the remaining distance to the cliff's edge. She screamed and closed her eyes.

The sound of the blazers skid, like muffled static, drowned out her scream as they careened across the rocky earth toward the drop off. She waited in terror for the silence and the sickening turn of her stomach that would signal the beginning of their plummet into the cold depths below. When the silence came she steeled herself for death. She felt the shoulder strap of her seatbelt hard on her shoulder, her purse floated up from the floorboard and caressed her cheek. They were falling. She wished she had time to cry.

"Having fun yet?"
Vicki flinched at these words. She opened her eyes and saw Clinton behind the wheel, looking at her. Had they really not fallen? Confused, she looked to her right, expecting to see the edge of the drop-off just inches away, maybe so close the outer edge of the Blazers right front and back tires were actually over its edge. What she saw was infinitely more unnerving. Vicki was staring at her house.
"You want me to walk you to the door?" Clinton asked.

She looked back at him and he was still smiling that sheepish, strangely unfamiliar smile. A dream? She looked at her watch, almost midnight. He had picked her up at eight-thirty. Not a dream. If it was a dream, an incredibly vivid dream, she would be able to remember something about their date and so far she was drawing a complete blank. She suddenly felt lightheaded and a little bit nauseous. She put her face in her hands.

"Don't bother trying to make sense of it." Clinton said.
She slowly raised her head and looked at him.
"Keep telling yourself it was all a dream, stick with that and eventually you may even begin to believe it. A dream is such a clean and tidy explanation. I have found that it is almost always the first explanation latched onto by those who have came before you, so I encourage it. It's a temporary crutch that will help you move forward on the journey you began tonight. A journey to a destination not quite as neat and tidy as a dream but immensely more interesting."

"I don't understand." she whispered.

"You will...eventually." Clinton answered. "Just put it behind you for tonight and sleep well. I promise you when we go out again, it will be more of a...traditional date. Tonight was sort of an example, if you will. An small showcase of who and what I am. I think you'll conclude that before tonight you really didn't know me, and though you think that you damn sure don't know me now, you'll begin to understand some things over the next few days. Perhaps you'll even revise your assessment that I'm little more than a guy who played a clever prank a couple of years ago and is still reaping the social benefits of that so called cruel and terribly immature stunt."

Vicki sat in stunned silence. She detected something strange in her mind, something just beyond the grasp of her thoughts. Strange and...not unpleasant. She looked at Clinton and was amazed she hadn't noticed his attractiveness before. He nearly shined before her now.

She realized she was leaning over to kiss him, her movements not completely of her own free will but instead seemingly initiated by that something strange and nice just outside of her conscience. The kiss was otherworldly, she moaned and nearly begged him not to take her home just yet, but knew somehow that was not an option. At least not yet, not tonight. After the kiss, she smiled and climbed out of the Blazer. She turned back toward him and said thank you.

"No, thank you." said Clinton.

As he drove away she smiled and wondered when he would ask her out again.

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