Bob Reynolds ran an auto repair shop—Honest Bob’s Auto Repair & Maintenance—in Emory, Utah. Typically the only people who stopped in were on their way west on I-80 to Salt Lake City or the I-84 junction. He was far enough away from the city that he didn’t get any business from anyone there, unless they had car trouble near Emory.
When an ’88 Mazda B2000 truck with a small U-HAUL trailer and Illinois tags stopped in, Bob didn’t find anything out of the ordinary about it.
The driver entered his shop and stepped up to the counter. His shirt was discolored and reeked slightly of vomit, and he was missing a shoe. And an eyebrow.
“Do you do cleaning? I hit a deer.”
Bob grimaced. “Sorry to hear that. Usually when you hit a deer there’s some damage to the vehicle but you look like you made out all right.”
“You would not believe the shit that’s happened to me in the past few days.”
“Well, I can probably handle the cleanup. Let’s go on outside and take a look. And feel free to talk about it, you know. I do love to hear the stories that people passing through tell.”
They stepped outside. The stench of death was immediately apparent.
“I’m Peter, by the way. I guess you must be Bob.” Bob nodded and shook Peter’s proffered hand. “There it is. This car’s pretty much the only thing I have left.”
Bob crouched down in front of the car. He picked up a stick off the ground and poked at the bloody mess on the grill.
“So the first thing that happened is my bank account got overdrawn. Apparently there was an administrative error with my paycheck and my employer got the bank to refund them the difference. Nobody bothered to tell me, of course. I didn’t have any food, so this was not a good situation.
“Then I go to work. And what happened there? My girlfriend dumped me! She showed up at my office and bitched me out. ‘You don’t treat me right,’ she said. ‘You’re a terrible lay.’ In front of the home office reps who were out on performance eval.”
“That’s rough.”
“The reps were not amused. Of course, my boss blamed me for the whole thing. It didn’t help that I was the fall guy for our big project a month back that completely tanked. Nothing to do with me, but the lead promised me he’d make it up to me.”
“Did he?”
“He might have. I’ll never know since I was fired.”
“Sounds like a hell of a day.”
“We’re barely into it. I get back to my apartment and I’ve got an eviction notice stapled to my front door. My super doesn’t like me and he’s sort of a jackass to me whenever we run into each other. Since my bank account was overdrawn, and my rent was direct withdrawal, he decided to evict me over missing my payment.”
“So what brings you to Utah? Doesn’t sound like the time for a vacation.”
“I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about a month ago. I can’t deal with this. There’s no way on God’s green earth I can pay for treatment so I’m going to get out of the country. My mother is from New Zealand so I have citizenship there. I’m moving in with her family. I can only afford to hitch a ride on a cargo ship so I left Champaign and I’ve been driving nonstop until I hit that deer. I drove over the Rockies in a blizzard! I couldn’t stand to wait out the storm.”
“Oh, I understand completely.”
“Almost slid off the road a few times. That trailer there was hanging out in space. Just dumb luck that it didn’t pull me over, I guess. But I finally get over the mountains, and I’m out on some flat land, and a deer just runs out onto the road. Out of nowhere! I thought I was going to roll over I swerved so hard. So that’s why I’ve got animal guts on the grill of my car. That’s also why I had to stop. Believe me, I wouldn’t if I’d had any choice about it.”
“Looks like a standard cleanup. Usually we only need to do something this heavy for semis that pass by. But I don’t know if we have enough bleach here at the moment.”
“That’s fine. I don’t care. The last few days have been a nightmare.”
Bob stared at the car for a long moment. “Amazing, though. That hitch just wouldn’t break.”
“What?”
“The hitch.” Bob pointed at the front of the trailer. “I’d say your trailer comes off and falls to the bottom of a ravine with all of the stuff happening to you, but there it is.”
Peter stared at the ground.
“You know, you’re right.”
He looked at the trailer, then back at Bob.
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