Chapter Two: Ada

My eyes were blurry with tears and my head was shrouded in an angry fog, so I pulled over to the side of the old dirt road I had been roaring on and killed the engine. I felt dead inside and I let my head fall and smack itself hard on the plastic steering wheel. I sat there, with the night humming around my tiny metal frame, and calmed my buzzing head. I opened the glove box and rummaged around, my fingers expecting to find the small bottle of Jack Daniels that I kept for emergencies. It was gone though, and with a groan I realized my mother had probably stolen it from my truck around the time that she had taken my keys from me. I grabbed the bag I had hastily thrown randomly chosen personal items in my haste to escape and rummaged through it, praying to God that I would find booze. I found instead a smattering of clothes, a jar full of money I had been saving for four years, a toothbrush and razorblade, Amerika by Kafka, a picture of Caroline in a broken wooden frame, a small bottle of mouthwash and the last letter I had received from Ray. I tried drinking the mouthwash and felt my insides light on fire. I flopped out of the door and crawled over to the ditch on the side of the road and was sick. I picked myself out walked into the middle of the road and lay down on my back. The night was calm and quiet and the crickets and peepers were singing their summer song and the stars were winking down at me through the treetops. I was at peace then, and wanted nothing more in life than for a car to come roaring down that road, for that driver to be dazed and distracted and for that car to hit me full force out of this world and into the arms of whatever come next. No car came though, and I lay in that road until my brain flickered off and the night carried me away into a black and empty dream.
I woke up to the sun rising and a hangover. I was stiff in every joint and the sleeve I had used to wipe vomit from my lips was dried and disgusting. I wiped it off with my handkerchief and slowly walked back to my truck. I slid into the front seat and gathered my thoughts. I considered heading back towards my mother, but I decided against it. I took out my mason jar of money and counted the bills. It was a sizeable load for a glorified piggy bank and would hopefully keep me afloat for a couple of weeks if I rationed it wisely. I had some money in savings, but I didn’t want to touch it unless absolutely necessary. I started my truck and was happy to see the gas gauge resting decidedly on full. I started driving then, towards the only gas station in our town. I got there in less than ten minutes, stepped out of my traveling home and walked over to the payphone the station kept outside with a handful of quarters and an address book. I needed someplace to go, someone to see and someone to make me feel human. Ada’s was the first name on the list. I dropped the quarters in the slot and dialed the number, my fingers were crossed as the phone rang and finally a tired, raspy voice rattled through the telephone.
Ada Murphy was pale, thin girl with dark brown hair and Irish freckles and ice blue eyes. I had known her since high school where we had a brief fling our freshman year that was decidedly juvenile. She was a good friend of mine, and when we went our separate ways during college we managed to stay in contact and keep our friendship intact. Ada had always been a bit of a mystery to me, more demon than angel and more human than anyone I had met before. In high school she was always a true rebel, someone that I wished I could be as angry as and someone whose creative independence always struck a perfect chord of jealousy and envy within me. I had loved her for everything she was and hated her for everything I couldn’t be. We had some rough years during high school, but distance had tamed my jealousy and made her one of the closest friends I had. My final year of college had been straining in all of my relationships as I fell deeper into depression, deeper into my writing, and deeper into alcohol. The only people and had managed to keep contact with had been Caroline and Ray. I hadn’t spoken to her in a year, and as her voice came over the phone, the same as always, I hoped she remembered mine.
“Hello?”
“Hey Ada,” I pressed my fingers into the corner of my eyes “it’s Jack… Jack Capistrant.”
There was a pause and then her growl slithered through.
“No shit.”
“Yeah…so listen…How have you been Ada?”
“I’ve been good Jack.”
“Good, good. Are you still living with your parents?”
“Heh? Nah Jack, I’m in Boston.”
“Ah, some nice apartment with a view I bet.” She laughed, long and deep and I stayed silent, breathing quietly into the receiver. She found her breath and composed herself.
“Oh it is shit man, absolute shit. I’m living above a butchers shop. It stinks to high hell when the heat waves roll through and I hear at least one gunshot a night, Crack! Crack! Right outside my window. I never thought I’d be kept up by the smell of death and the sound of violence when I moved here I tell you that.”
“That sounds absolutely appalling.”
“Bah, it isn’t so bad after awhile. You should really come down and visit me sometime. I have a couch you can crash on and we can catch up and stay awake until the sun rises, listening to gunshots and getting drunk off our assess.”
“Actually Ada, that’s why I’m calling…see I’m in a transition period and I feel like driving myself into the ground. I need a place to stay traveling through to hell,” a place to curl up and forget, I thought, “and so I called you.”
She laughed again and she gave me her address and then I was on the road and driving south towards Boston, fighting off the tremors of a beaten body and feeling a glowing seed of optimism crack open and spread its tiny fingers outward.