It's Not the Fall

1

“Have you ever been to the “spook light”? she asked.

“I have,” I said. “Twice, a long time ago, but I didn’t see it. Why”

“I just read about it online and I want to see it. Who did you go with?”

Here we go.

“Just friends. We would pick up a couple of six-packs of the cheapest beer we could find and drive to the middle of nowhere waiting for the light to show up. The last time I was there, we had to help a couple of kids get their truck out of a ditch. So, we didn’t get much of a chance to see it that night."

“Were any of those friends, girls?”

“It’s not real.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t even think I could find the place it’s supposed to be anymore.”

“So, you went with “friends” to a dark spot in the country getting drunk and you won’t go with your girlfriend who’s never been?”

That was the killing blow, and she knew it. I couldn’t refuse to take her if she thought I’d taken other girls before her. Though, the last time had been how I’d described it. My college roommate and I had gone out one night, a Monday night, after I’d gotten loaded on Seagram’s seven. All I accomplished that night was throwing up in front of a cop when we were getting gas and spilling beer all over my friend’s truck. And we did help a couple of kids get their truck out of a ditch.

“Alright,” I said. “We can go tonight, I guess, but I’ll have to ask someone if they remember how to get there.”

“Which someone?” she asked.

“The roommate,” I said flatly.

She came over and hugged me around the neck, really playing it up. While I know she was excited at the chance to see the light, I think she was enjoying her victory just as much.

My old roommate didn’t remember how to find the light but did remember the fool I made of myself the night we went looking for it and was more than happy to remind me in case I’d forgotten. I told him I hadn’t and apologized again for spilling beer all over his truck. After we hung up, I looked online for the location and once I’d skimmed through all the myriad spots the internet claimed it could be, I had enough matching information to plot a workable route. If nothing else, it would get us lost out in the country for a couple of hours.

2

We lived farther away than I did when I’d last looked for the light, so I suggested we leave a few hours early and get dinner in the town closest to it before grabbing our beers and heading out.

“We can do some shopping too, while we’re there can’t we?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said keeping my expression as neutral as possible. “That sounds great.”

After a lot of shopping and a quick dinner at a hamburger fast-food joint we found a liquor store near the edge of town close to where we’d begin our journey down the backroads.

“We always got a Mexican brand when we went out before, but I don’t think they make it anymore.”

“That’s ok. I want like, a hard lemonade or something anyway.”

“Well, you can drink most of it because those always give me heartburn.”

She kissed me on the cheek.

“You’re the sweetest,” she said.

She was winning everything this night and she was not going to let it go unremarked. I did manage to talk her into just getting a single six-pack.

"We’re a long way from home and going to be in the middle of nowhere, there's no reason to go crazy."

I even managed to have the foresight to bring a cooler so that she wouldn’t have to drink them too fast. I put water in it too, so with any luck, we’d both be sober by the time we went home.

3

There was no address I could put in my phone’s navigation app and my little SUV wasn’t exactly made for cruising gravel roads. It was going to be slow-going while she tried to read to me the map I’d drawn, and I nursed my car along at a reasonable speed to avoid potholes and kicking up too much dust and debris. The latter was a moot point. Lifted truck after lifted truck, 80’s era Chevy’s mostly, it seemed, deliberately sprayed dust and gravel at our car as they recklessly passed. She was giving an apologetic wince when I snapped my head toward her. I just turned back toward the road without a word.

Forty-five minutes later and we finally came upon the spot that X marked on my map. I drove a ways to find a safe spot to pull off the road and put the car in park. She was beaming when she handed me a bottle with the lid already off.

“I’m so excited,” she said and kissed me long and hard.

“I’m coming around,” I said and returned her kiss.

As skeptical as I was about the light and annoyed by the many inconveniences this trip had posed thus far, I couldn’t deny that there was something arousing about reliving our wilder days. Tasting the cold alcohol on her lips was like traveling back to a time when making out on a backroad was, to a young couple from a small town, the height of adventure. We weren’t old by any means, but we were many years past those days and weighted down with the responsibilities that getting older brings with it. So, as cool as I was trying to play it, I was probably just as excited as she was.

4

We’d been so caught up in each other that I’d nearly forgotten why we were there. When I felt a sudden and frenzied beating on my chest, I was brought quickly back to reality. After I pulled away from our kiss, I saw her eyes wide, in shock or terror, I wasn’t sure. I followed her gaze out the front windshield and then I saw what had frightened her. A small green light was hovering a few feet off the ground, maybe a hundred yards ahead of us. We sat staring at it as it seemed to gently bounce up and down, neither saying a word for what felt like several minutes. She was the first to break the silence.

“It’s growing,” she whispered.

“I don’t think so,” I said as my hand flashed to the ignition. “It’s getting closer.”

As soon as the engine turned over and the headlights came on, we were blinded by bright lights through our rear windshield. She screamed for me to drive. Whatever was behind us, had their brights on and spotlights all over the cab of their vehicle. I was blind. We felt a thud on the back of our vehicle and this time her scream was bloodcurdling.

“Drive!”

I threw the car in gear and peeled out, barely managing to keep it from spinning out of control on the loose gravel. Still blinded, I turned on my own brights. For a split second, I thought I’d seen something in them, a black clad figure holding a green light, but just as quickly, it was gone. We hit a large pothole and once again nearly lost control of the car. I still couldn’t make anything out while my eyes were adjusting back to normal. I knew if I stayed on this road though, it would lead to asphalt soon and from there I could make my way back to town.

My girlfriend was having trouble trying to breathe so I lowered her window to let in some cooler air and told her to take a drink of the water I’d brought in the cooler. After several minutes she started to regain her composure.

“We have to tell the cops!” she said.

“We can’t. We’ve got alcohol on our breath and after flooring it out of there, it’s spilled all over the car. Plus, those people are gone by now, so we’d basically just be turning ourselves in for drinking and driving.”

“But they can give us a breathalyzer. You barely had any.”

“I don’t think we can risk it. It’s still illegal to have open alcohol in the car. We’re safe now. We’re going home and we won’t ever do this again. Ok?”

She said “ok”, but I could tell she wasn’t completely convinced. I took her hand and squeezed it, trying to calm her down by letting her know I was calm.

“It’s going to be alright,” I said and squeezed her hand again.

She squeezed it back lightly.

“Ok,” she said.

5

It had been a few days, and everything wasn’t yet back to normal. She had started staying up late, waiting for me to get home from work before turning out the lights and leaving for her own work a little later than usual so that the sun was up. She didn’t tell me, but I was pretty sure she was taking different routes each day to and from work. I could tell by the lack of half-drank iced coffees in the fridge that she wasn’t stopping anywhere either. I got worried enough to set down with her one night when we were both off work to talk about it.

“You can’t keep living like this, honey, it’s eating you up,” I said. “Nothing has changed for us. It’s ok to go back to living like you did before that night.”

“I know. I’ll try, I promise. I just need some time. I’m glad we’re both here tonight though.”

She kissed me and gave me a little wink, then got up and headed toward the bedroom. I took our dishes to the sink and grabbed a bottle of wine before heading that direction myself. When I got to the foot of the stairs, a scream from the bedroom caused me to drop the bottle and start running. She was on the end of the bed sobbing and pointing at the tv.

I sat down beside her and turned up the volume.

“Police are asking anyone with information about what happened that night, even those involved, to please come forward. They believe it was a prank gone wrong but would still like answers to why a teenage boy was left to die alone on the side of a dirt road. So, again, if you or someone you know may have information about a deadly hit and run this past weekend, call the number at the bottom of the screen.”

It wasn’t a pothole. It wasn’t a pothole. I repeated it frantically, over, and, over in my mind. It wasn’t a pothole. In stunned silence, I turned off the tv and put my arm around my girlfriend. She turned and sobbed against my chest. We remained like that most of the night before falling asleep.

6

Over the next few weeks, we fought almost constantly—each of us tossing blame around like grenades. We couldn’t be in the same room. It didn’t take long for our professional lives to start unraveling as well. After missing several days of work when she couldn’t get out of bed, she quit her job. The night they walked me out of mine for showing up drunk one too many times, I came home to an empty apartment. It was the first time in a month the lights had been off when I got home. On the kitchen table was a piece of paper. There were only three words. “I’m sorry, goodbye.” I read the note twice and put it down exactly where I’d found it. I grabbed a bottle of vodka and went into the bedroom. When I locked the door behind me, the click echoed like a gunshot through the silent apartment.