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Trike

Posted on December 30, 2006
Filed Under The Stories |

The eighteen-ton truck cut through the early morning fog like a steamer of old, sounding its horn to alert potential roadkill and sleepy drivers. Norman honked the horn more because he liked the deep sound invading his mostly deafened senses. The giant wheel felt good in his grip, better because he knew that this was no nancy-boy transportation. He liked that controlling the truck was like wrestling with a giant beast and he liked that he sat in the mouth of the beast, so to speak, and commandeered it through the freeways. He was lost in thought, smiling at the image he had built of himself as a fearless navigator whose strength and agility kept his ship on course.

Suddenly he heard a brittle creak and the bending of metal a lot lighter than the behemoth he was driving; in his rearview mirror he spied the twisted frame of a racing bicycle. As the frame receded from view into a twisted pile of black that quickly became a dot he smiled and spoke to the dog that lay quietly on the seat next to him, “And that makes ten Ike. Ten little cyclists on the wall, pinned there by this big beautiful piece of classic American machinery.”

His smile grew broader, enhancing the crow’s feet around his eyes as he continued, “Little things like dogs and squirrels and cyclists should know better than to find themselves in the path of a big old piece of roaring metal like this here baby. What other end can the little fishies come to if they don’t have the sense to get out of the way of a big blue whale?”

He shook his head and turned to the dog, “I tell ya, it’s a damn shame the country’s getting overrun by the damn slants and slopes and greasy dotheads. Sometimes…”

He gripped the wheel harder as he prepared to go into his much repeated speech about what he would do to the various immigrant classes if he could just get them to stand still before his truck. But the words lost themselves when he saw that there was a girl seated where Ike normally lay. The unsmoked cigar he had been chewing on as he drove through two towns dangled unattractively from his fleshy lower lip as he sputtered, “What the hell! Who are you girl?!”

She looked at him, almost expressionless except for the flickering of her eyes. Her features were pleasant and she didn’t look a day over sixteen when in fact she was still a week shy of her fourteenth birthday. Her features were pleasant and she was slightly built, dressed in canvas sneakers, jeans, a grey tank top and a blue shirt over it. Her hair was loose but she also had a pink scrunchy around her right wrist so it was possible that she sometimes wore her shoulder length hair in a ponytail.

Norman looked through the windscreen to assure himself that he hadn’t somehow slipped into a weird dream. He was slightly heartened to find that the road was still under his truck and him. He turned to the girl who was looking at him with an unblinking gaze, “Who the hell are you girl? And how did you get in here?”

She reached forward to scratch the back of Ike’s neck and he followed the action in disbelief. Ike rarely allowed anyone to touch him and when he did, it was so that he could take a chunk out of the unsuspecting hand. Norman waited expectantly for the girl to clutch her bloody fingers to her chest and he was shocked enough to allow the cigar to actually fall to his lap when he realized that Ike was luxuriating in the attention.

This fact angered him more than the idea that a strange girl had managed to place herself in the cab of his truck while it was moving. He pointed a fat, stained finger in her direction and began to bluster, “I don’t know what your game is you little stowaway but I should throw your skinny behind off the truck this very moment.”

As Ike bared his teeth in a growl his face registered a look of satisfaction and then surprised dismay as he realized that his own dog was baring his teeth at him. He was stunned into silence. The girl took the opportunity to speak, “You really didn’t think your crimes would go unpunished did you?”

Norman started slightly, perhaps surprised by the fact that the girl actually had a voice. He managed to recover sufficiently from the surprise to fire back, “What crimes? Are you on drugs girlie?”

She studied his profile before she continued, “The deaths of those nine bicyclers.”

Norman smiled and spoke without turning to her, “Not up on your current affairs are you, young one?”

He hooked a thumb in the direction of the road he’d already covered, “I just climbed into the double figures. Got me my tenth cyclist this morning.”

The girl smiled, “Did you see the body?”

He frowned and seemed to realize suddenly that his cigar was no longer between his lips. His eyes flicked over to her, “Nah I didn’t see the body but that’s probably on account of it still being dragged by this truck. And anyway, I don’t know how you know my business but I’ll not be troubled to raise my tally all the way up to eleven before the day is done.”

She smiled, settled back in her seat and looked out at the road ahead. The sky was being streaked pink and after she’d taken in the sight for about a minute she reached forward to patted the dog, “Shall we leave?”

The dog merely looked at her. Norman turned to her in surprise, “And where the hell do you think you’re going? I ain’t stopping this truck.””

Her name was Tricia and she had become aware of her abilities when she turned thirteen. She knew when someone had done something so wrong that it couldn’t go unpunished and for the past eleven months she’d been righting wrongs. As she sat atop the hill and watched the truck burn in the ravine it had accidentally fallen into, she realised that there was no way she could get away with cutting first period again. She wrapped her arms around Ike’s neck and whispered in his ear, “We’re going to start our own agency. Tricia and Ike. Trike. We’ll solve…problems. But you have to promise something…”

The dog turned to her and dangled his tongue. She whispered, “You will have to keep it our secret.”

 

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