When he was done, he yanked me across the emergency brake, until his face was an inch from mine.
“You gotta learn, Roxie. You gotta learn.” I didn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t want to know.
“You’l learn,” he finished, then he pushed me off him, put the car in gear and we took off.
*
He drove erratical y. I thought we were heading toward Chicago, going east, but then he went south. We stopped at another gas station over the Kansas border. He chose one that was desolate, no cars this time, just the attendant. He tied my hands to the steering wheel when he went in to pay. He brought back cheese puffs and a diet drink and I ate with my hands tied. I noticed his wal et was ful of bil s, bulging with them and I was too scared of what was happening to be even more scared of how he got so much money.
I didn’t think of anything, kept my mind blank, tried to sleep so my body would be rested, ready to fight, but sleep wouldn’t come.
We headed into Kansas, went west for a while and, deep in the night, stopped at a hotel. Bil y tied me to the steering wheel again while he checked in. He didn’t untie my hands al night, even stood over me while I went to the bathroom.
Lying on my back in the bed, Bil y pressed into me, half his body over me, keeping me from breathing, my ribs stil hurt and they hurt worse with his arm tight around me.
He whispered, “You can’t leave me Roxie. You’re the only good thing I got. You’re the only good thing I ever had. I can’t lose you. Don’t you understand?”
I didn’t understand.
“Bil y, you have to talk to me. What are you running from?”
“We gotta stay clear for a few days. I struck it this time, Roxie. Right before you left, I hit it. Now, I can take you to France. Now, we can go anywhere. We can go to Italy, Bermuda. You can live in a bikini.”
“Bil y,” I whispered. “What have you done?”
“It’s al for you, Roxie. Everything I’ve done is for you.” I felt the tears crawl up my throat, my nostrils quivering but I fought it down and laid there, awake al night, Bil y sleeping beside me.
I was lying in the bed I’d made for myself.
*
The next day, more of the same, the only difference was I didn’t try to escape and I got a tube of chips with my diet drink.
We headed back east, then north, cut back and then south, then north again.
We didn’t talk, Bil y was beyond fast-talk now, even Bil y was smart enough to know he’d have to talk three miles a minute to bring me back around.
We were at the Nebraska-Iowa state line when the clock on the dash turned to midnight and we stopped at a filthy motel.
The manager looked at me tied to the steering wheel while Bil y checked in. I didn’t make a move, didn’t try to communicate my dilemma. Thoughts of escape were gone, for now.
Like my Mom said, I needed to be smart. To escape, I needed people, I needed a place to run, a police station, a fire station, a hospital, an al -night café. Something. I had to bide my time, not fight; maybe make Bil y think I’d given up.
Bil y would have to fuck up somewhere along the line and I was waiting.
That’s when I’d go, escape, find my way home, get my stuff from Annette and disappear. I’d have to leave the country, maybe go to Canada, Mexico, disappear and stay gone for a good long time, maybe forever.
I was my generation’s Uncle Tex; I had to cut myself loose. I understood Uncle Tex now. I understood how it felt to feel dirty even though it wasn’t you who jumped in the mud, instead, you’d been pushed, but you were soiled al the same.
I hadn’t taken a shower in three days, my hair was filthy, my face and body stil ached from the fight, especial y my ribs and I feared they’d been cracked when Bil y kicked me.
I hurt from being cooped in the car, my hands hurt from being tied together for two days. I lay in bed, Bil y beside me again, and my thoughts drifted to Hank.
I’d succeeded in not thinking about him until then, but I was tired, so fucking tired, I couldn’t push the thoughts away.
I wondered what he thought when he came home from his run, thinking to find me asleep in his bed, to wake me, shower with me, take me to breakfast, like normal people, like a couple starting out. Instead, he came home to find his house wide open and trashed, me gone.
One date and he said there was a him and me. He was so sure about it. He was so fucking sure he’d made me sure. For twenty minutes, I’d felt good and clean and free.
God, how I wished that could be true.
It didn’t last, couldn’t last.
Here I was, unshowered, in a stinking motel, on the run with a criminal, my pretty, designer clothes dirty, no longer my armor. Hank would take one look at me and wonder what in the hel he was thinking. I wasn’t what he thought I was. I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I felt a single tear slide down the side of my eye when the door splintered and crashed open.
Bil y jerked awake and came away from the bed and I rol ed the other way as the lights went on.