The Violence Around and in Us
by Charles C. Cole
After eleven on a warm California mid-coastal night. Gabrielle, my ladylove of two years, was pensive, driving in the slow lane down from San Jose. Route 17 was empty, not well-lit in this section, to my relief.
I adjusted my headlamp and patted the package of spare batteries in my pocket. Gabrielle pulled onto the shoulder, her beams ironically highlighting a sign that read: “For Emergencies Only.” I leaned over for a quick good-luck kiss.
“Out!” she commanded, acting all-business but probably a little unnerved. “Good luck ghost-hunting or whatever this is! Don’t bring anything back. Happy birthday, an hour early!”
I got out the front passenger seat, while my pal and guide Nico hopped out the door behind me. “See you in three hours,” I yelled through her open window. She tapped the horn and waved.
“I’ll get us there,” said Nico, “but I’m not promising anything mind-altering.”
Over the hill on our right, at the base of the opposite side, unseen from the highway, was an abandoned carhop restaurant and drive-in, scene of a grisly 1960s murder, an admittedly idiosyncratic bucket list destination for my thirtieth birthday.
No patrolling armed guards to stop us, just a tall metal fence to discourage casual misadventuring, and plenty of ineffective “Keep Out” signs. So I’d heard.
Way down at the original entrance, now a small mobile home park, a watchman probably played video games and listened to the radio. He’d never notice us. As the crow flies, the shoulder of the highway was actually closer to the old frialators and industrial Hamilton Beach blenders, while the winding entrance once looked like a scenic approach to a hilltop prep school.
We dashed into the shelter of the woods and squatted down quickly as a car approached. After that, nothing but quiet, if you excluded the droning of rutting cicadas.
I didn’t need ghostly apparitions or echoes of ancient gunshots in a deserted parking lot or even muffled screams from inside the restaurant. Just visiting the scene was somehow profound enough. Ten minutes before, Nico and I had done a shot of Bacardi Gold Rum for liquid courage. I felt like a lightheaded nerdy teen, and everything about the world was intimidating.
We were not the first to dabble in dark tourism: there was a narrow, well-worn path through the woods; the trail blazed with broken beer bottles and fast-food wrappers and even the occasional condom packaging.
“If the road less travelled is this gross, I suppose that doesn’t bode well for our destination,” said Nico.
“Don’t look,” I offered.
“If this trash could talk,” sassed Nico, “we’d probably finally learn why your mother married your father.”
Nico’s sarcasm usually came out of discomfort, I knew. “If you’re suggesting my parents were once horny teens who had passionate unprotected sex in the Santa Cruz Mountains, my answer would be: Have you ever met my parents? The only passionate sex my father ever had was at his bachelor party, which he paid for.”
Nico laughed. My parents loved each other, but their affection was subtle, like repressed.
“What if we bump into someone else?” I asked.
“In case you forgot, it’s a school night. And anybody old enough to work for a living is already in bed. Except us.” Nico stopped suddenly, and I nearly bumped into him. “Damn!”
I squeezed by. There was a single towering light pole illuminating a large vacant parking lot shaped like an airfield, and a tiny box of a restaurant.
“That’s it?” I asked. “It’s small!”
“Yeah, they didn’t host a lot of wedding receptions,” joked Nico. “Everybody ate in their cars. That was the appeal. There was no indoor dining.”
“Where’d the shooting happen?”
“The closest parking spot to the serving window. These two couples were in a convertible, laughing and kissing, enjoying life. The roller-skating waitress had just gone to pick up their order when bullets and hellfire burst from a passing car. She turned so fast, blood sprayed on her face and the girl’s beside her.”
“Why?”
“Insanely jealous lover. But the punchline: it was the wrong convertible! Oops.”
A cold chill went down my spine. “I don’t need to get closer.”
“Me neither, but I would have, for you. Your birthday, your birthday wish.”
“Is it after midnight?” I asked.
He looked at his watch. “Just.”
“Happy birthday to me,” I said.
“Happy birthday. If we go back now, we’ll have a long wait. Or,” Nico offered, “I have a flask of Bacardi Gold Rum with your name on it.”
“No pot?” I teased.
“Pot’s for me.” Nico passed the flask and lit up a joint. “One less thing on the ol’ bucket list,” he said. “What’s next? Save a pod of beached dolphins?”
We sat on this cliff overlooking a faded tragedy, letting the chemicals work their magic.
I was ready to explain. “I ever tell you I had an uncle who was a paranoid schizophrenic? He stabbed my great-aunt to death. Happened before I was born. We don’t talk about it. I want to ask Gabrielle to marry me, but what if I have some of that homicidal DNA? Stupid, huh?”
“We better go,” said Nico, suddenly serious.
“What’s up?”
“Dude, my family’s just as messed up. The reason I know how to get here... the carhop-killer boyfriend, who was later caught, was my second cousin once removed. He’d been an altar boy and a Boy Scout! What if we’re born with a switch, you know, and one day that could be us? I need to remember how lives were ruined that day. That’s why I still go to church, why I still pray. Dumb, right?”
“We’re pretty much living on borrowed time. Or is that the alcohol talking?”
“Nope, we are. So, you keep me from driving off the shoulder of the road and I’ll do the same for you.”
“Deal.”
“Can we go now?”
And we left. And neither one of us has ever gone postal. Not yet, anyways.
Copyright © 2021 by Charles C. Cole
