At a Rest Stop in Ohio
Devin walks his Chow Chow, Milly, among the half-dozen spruces. Mom went to the bathroom in the looming lodge, all windows and wooden pillars and green paneling. Milly squats low to poop, legs quivering, and Dev glances around because he doesn’t have a bag to pick it up.
He sees a man standing at the head of a picnic table, closer to the parking lot for truckers. The man has a gutsack stomach, long black hair that sticks to his neck, and jeans that slip down his flat butt. Dev tries to determine what he is looking at, but he’s just looking at the ground, until he looks up and stares at Dev instead.
Dev turns around, feels like he’s been caught. He doesn’t like the man’s eyes—set too deep—and he’s learned to trust his instincts with men. It’s highway as long as he can see in both directions.
His Gameboy Color died in Indiana before he could save his progress, so he’s been staring out the window for the last hundred miles. He has a new game where every time a truck passes, he hits it with a laser or cannon, blowing up the tires, the explosion causing the truck to flip through the air and land in a field, leaving a deep gash in the earth. It’s a good game. No truck has made it past him yet.
Mom comes out in her fur-lined black jacket and heads towards him, hugging herself against the wind. Devin hasn’t seen a hill in the whole state. Only fields and gas stations. She sees the poop and kicks leaves on it with her black boots, which makes Dev laugh.
The man stares at them. Dev does his best not to notice, but he does. Men tend to stare. Since his birthday, Dev forces himself to stare back. One second longer each time. He doesn’t want to, but it feels important.
Milly pulls them along, catching the tail of a scent, zigzagging. They cut back to the paved path and the man walks to their left, matching the pace. He swallows and Dev can see the bulge in his throat.
Mom asks if he needs to use the bathroom. Dev says no. He did, but now he doesn’t.
The man waves at them, doesn’t break his stride. Dev wants to yell at the man but has nothing to say. If only he could release Milly and scream “attack,” but she’s not trained to do that.
“Just keep walking,” Mom says.
Dev realizes the man is on a path to reach their car before they do, but he can’t know which one it is. Mom must see it too, as she circles them around the back of the parking lot, walking single file between the cars. Narrow corridors. They parked in the first row, but he doesn’t want to look over there in case the man can see his eyes. The wind stings his face. Milly barks at another dog in a Subaru so Dev tugs her closer to his hip.
The man stands in front of the rest stop lodge, tracking them, running a hand through his hair. Families walk past him, giving him wide berth. Like he’s mayor of the rest stop, Dev thinks. He gets mad at the other families. And then, not at all.
They approach the car from behind, a black Avalon, low slung, wheel wells eaten away by ice and road salt. Mom walks faster, so Dev does too. He wishes his heart wasn’t so loud. Mom gets in the driver’s side, Dev the passenger, pulling Milly onto his lap. Bang, bang doors. The click of the lock, the click of a seat belt. Inside, Dev forces himself to look up. One second longer, despite the heat on his face.
The man ambles over, hands in pockets, and stands in front of their car. He stares at them with big brown eyes. Mouth all quirked up, like he’s disappointed, like he expected better from them. Milly finally notices and barks. Mom starts the car.
They drive away and Dev stares at the man in the rear-view mirror until he’s a sculpture. He thinks about the other men on the road. The one who made strange gestures at Mom from his pickup in the lane over. The one who made jokes as she came out of the gas station bathroom. All the men who pulled over to give them a ride when their car broke down. All with the same grin, eager to barter.
Mom reaches over and runs her hands through his curls, which is Dev’s favorite, but it’s not the right time. He leans his head against the window and searches for trucks to blow up. Mom asks, “What’s wrong?”
Dev wants to cry, but he won’t, might not ever again. He stays quiet because he’s learned from the men on the road that weakness exists to be punished and he has no one else to punish.
Alex Juffer lives in a small town in Minnesota with his wife, two dogs, and a family of attic squirrels. He’s won competitions, been a Wigleaf Top 50, and has publications in Epoch, Passages North, Monkey Bicycle, Vestal Review, X-R-A-Y, The Los Angeles Review, and more.
