There is a sign on the I380. There is nothing truly remarkable about this sign. There are thousands just like it, on highways all over the country. It stands off to the side of the road, it fidgets left and right in response to August breeze. Long blades of grass, longer than their kin, reach up around the poles that connect the sign with the Earth. It stands there, as a marker for the people driving by at a cool collected eighty-miles-per-hour, attempting to get to wherever it is that they are going. A delineation.
Upon the sign:
Exit 0
A pick-up whizzes by the sign. And then a semi. Then, a tan sedan, bouncing a little madly between the lines of the right lane, begins to slow. The car slows, slows… picks up speed, and then slams to a halt almost directly next to the sign, in the shoulder of the highway. Its flashers come on. And for a moment, there is peace. A butterfly flits over and lands in the center of 0. The car’s flashers click rhythmically, layering the light sounds of wind with a rhythm. Grass rubs together in a sensual, syrupy dance. It’s a cicada summer, their song rolls clear across the ground.
Then, a car shoots by at eighty miles per hour and the driver’s side door of the parked tan sedan flies open.
“Just… get out of the car.”
Silence answers from inside the vehicle. Grass rubs together outside of it. The butterfly is long gone. The anger emanating from the driver is palpable, even to the insects populating the area. The cicadas quiet their singing. The wind seems to ebb. The air grows staler. Hotter.
Sam, the driver, glares into the rearview mirror.
“Get” his eyes narrow, “out” he unbuckles his seatbelt, “of” the knuckles on his lefthand squeeze from red to white as he grips the steering wheel with it, “the car.”
His passenger is lying face down on the backseat, most of his face obscured save for one piercing blue eye surrounded by shining sweat, dashing madly around in its socket. It travels around and around, only avoiding one spot: contact with Sam’s gaze through the mirror.
They stay like that, Sam attempting to channel some of his rage from his body into the steering wheel, his passenger’s blue eye in a state of avoidance. When Sam felt like the rage had subsided a decent amount, he opens his mouth to speak. He’s decided to be kind to his friend, now. He is going to show the human decency he’s famously shown to the people around him his whole life.
But his passenger speaks first.
“I’ve become something of a martyr.”
Sam swears and leaps out of the car, slams his door shut.
“Tucker, I swear to fucking God.”
He storms to the rear door, grips the handle, tugs. Nothing happens. He’s forgotten to unlock it.
“Fuck,” he says, at the exact same moment that Tucker, still in the car, realizes his opportunity. Sam sees Tucker scramble to sit up, reach towards the front. Sam’s blood goes cold when he realizes what Tucker’s trying to do.
He’s trying to lock him out of his own car.
Sam reopens his door and calmly pulls the keys from the ignition before his friend can carry out his malintent. The car goes silent. He shuts the door. He stands there for a moment, and stares at the sun. There it is, diligently continuing its rise. It warms Sam. It gives him a charge, momentum to do what he is about to do.
He walks back to the rear door. He squints into the window, mouth pushed off to the side of his face. Tucker, now sitting up, hanging over the center console, side-eyes Sam sheepishly. His dark hair is plastered to his head by sweat and oil. His eyes are set deep into his face. His entire being shakes. His mouth is a thin line and it vibrates in time with the rest of his body.
Sam clicks the unlock button on the fob three times. Upon hearing the thunk of the mechanism, Tucker dives back to the other side of the car, as far from Sam as possible. Sam heaves the door open. “Tucker.”
Tucker quivers in the corner, wide-eyed. He looks like a wild animal.
“Please get out, Tucker.”
“I’ve become something of a martyr.”
Sam roars. Tucker had begun saying this sentence—those six words—after they’d crossed the border into Ohio. Now, they’re in Iowa. Sam reckoned he had heard those words, in that order, about five hundred thousand times, and not one of those times had they meant anything.
“Just get out of the car!”
“You’re gonna leave me here!”
Sam groans, slams the door shut, and walks to the other side of the car. He heaves that door open. Tucker has scrambled to the other side.
“Just—” Sam reaches his body into the car and grasps Tucker’s thin, bony ankle with both hands and begins to pull. Tucker grasps at anything, anything at all to keep himself in place. His hands find nothing, despite there being several things within his reach to grab onto. Sam grabs his other ankle with one hand and pulls. Inches and inches give way until, with one last great heave, both men tumble into the grass alongside the car.
Both lay there, Tucker faced down, Sam faced up, staring into the sun, half-heartedly wondering how many more days that thing has, that universal constant shining down on him. People say it’s going to be gone someday. People say it, but to Sam it doesn’t seem possible.
He sits up. “You think I would leave you on the side of the highway, Tucker?”
Tucker is unresponsive. His face digs into the grass and the dirt and the gravel as he vibrates.
“You think I would do that to you? What, exactly, in our grand history of knowing each other would make you think that, huh?” Sam stands. He looms over Tucker as he speaks. “What are you basing that conclusion off of, really?” He prods Tucker with his foot. He whinnies like a horse and vibrates in response. “Would you—just get up man.”
“I feel like shit.”
His words are mostly stymied by the Earth.
“I need—I need some… thing.”
Sam smacks his own head, walks a tiny circle.
“What thing, Tucker? What thing do you need, man?”
Tucker stirs, and he presses both of his shaky hands to the ground and lifts himself up to a sitting position. He stays there, crumpled, a defeated look on his face.
Sam recognizes this look. It is all too familiar to him.
“I think you know. What I need.”
His eyes seem to set further into his skull.
Sam rolls his eyes and sits next to Tucker on the grass. They’re protected from the highway by the car, its flashers still beating rhythmically in time with Sam’s slowing heart. The anger within him begins to subside, and he takes a couple quick breaths before he says:
“I think I know what you think you need.”
“You know people can die from alcohol withdrawal?”
Sam looks off, down the way. His eyes rest on the sign.
Exit 0
“I have.”
“You have what?” Sam asks, eyes still on the sign.
“Become something of a martyr.”
About a thousand miles from here, and thirty years earlier, there were four people walking down a pier that jutted straight off into the Atlantic Ocean as the sun set behind them. It basked the world in an orange milky glow. It was late August, on the coast there was no hint of oppressive heat in the air; simply a comforting orange syrup that glazed those four individuals in its sticky warmth.
“She could swim very good. Very good swimmer, she was.”
“She was alright, Tucker. No better than me, or you.”
“Are you kidding?” Tucker leapt over, grinning with nostalgia for the afternoon that had just ended a few hours earlier. He had lost his first baby tooth on this vacation, and the glaring hole in his mouth taunted Sam, who was very jealous of this milestone his friend had reached before him. “Did you see her Sam?” He pantomimed a graceful swimmer; coasted through orange salty sun rays like an otter. “Ah, what was her name, again? I keep forgetting.”
“Emma,” said Sam, bluntly. He was somewhat sour about the day. The girl, Emma, had shown Tucker quite a lot of attention at Long Pond. And now Tucker, his best friend, was still devoting time and attention to her.
“That’s right, that’s right. Emma. Cool name. You ever heard that name before? It’s a new one for me.”
“Boys,” Sam’s mother called from ahead. Her and Tucker’s mom were nearly to the end of the pier, the children having fallen far behind. “Come on, now.”
They both took off, wildly flailing down the pier, both racing without agreeing to any terms. When they reached their mothers, they were scooped up.
“Gosh, you’re getting heavy, Tuck.”
Tucker flashed her a smile, showing the hole where once there’d been a tooth.
The women, each with child in tow, approached the guardrail.
“Em-ma,” Tucker sounded out the name quietly, into his mother’s ear. Sam rolled his eyes.
“Look, Tucker. Look, Sam,” said Tucker’s mom. They both looked out onto the orange sea. The water rippled and morphed with the tide and the waves. A Bouey floated off in the distance, but there was no apparent thing that Tucker’s mother could be trying to draw their attention to.
“What, mom? Look at what?”
“Well–,” she faced back towards the land, from where they had just come. “You see that?”
“See what mom?” asked Tucker, annoyed. Both the boys looked from the Atlantic, back to land, back to the Atlantic, back to land again. They could see nothing.
“Back there, that’s everything. Back there is everything that you have ever known. Back there is our car and the town where we’re staying, it’s our home. It’s grandpa’s house, and Sam’s house, it’s Westminster Park and Bandit, and dad. School is back there. And all your friends, except Sam of course. And then—” she faced them back towards the ocean, “this is the end of that. This, ahead of us is water, nothing but water. No more land. It’s the edge of the world that you know. Right now, we are standing at the very end of the world.”
“Whoa,” breathed Tucker. “Cool.”
Sam didn’t allow himself to react outwardly. It was just water; he didn’t see why such a big deal was being made of it.
Despite this, he felt bumps raise on his arms as he stared out onto the ocean. The woman’s words caused saliva to surge in his mouth; sent his mind wandering to places that were unseeable to him, but that surely existed.
“I don’t want to go.” Tucker’s eyes are darting and red. He’s managed to shout this towards Sam, who’s standing with his back to him, staring down Exit 0. Tucker had begun dry-heaving about seven minutes earlier, tablespoons of nothing-but-stomach acid-and-water dribbling past his lips. “I just need a beer… or, or something. Sam! Seriously just something. I feel like I’m about to have a seizure.”
“If you feel like you’re about to have a seizure,” Sam turns his head so half of his face is visible to Tucker, “then we’re definitely bringing you to rehab.”
“I don’t need—” He stops to heave some more bitter liquid up onto the grass.
Sam turns towards his friend, towards the rest of the highway, towards oncoming traffic. A couple people had stopped to check on them now, to see if they needed any help. Sam thanked them for their offers then politely refused. But he wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t need the help. He did not feel equipped for this.
He tries to picture what lays beyond that sign as he stares at it. But he can’t. He can tell just by looking at Tucker that he is in a bad state, extreme physical discomfort, perhaps trulyon his way to a seizure. He feels his heart in his throat and inwardly kicks himself for not accepting the help of the strangers who had stopped to ask if they could give some.
He entered his apartment, in the dark, and sensed something amiss. There was an unfamiliar looming in the invisible corners of the place, a loaded silence that made the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck bristle.
He’d already had a bad night. His girlfriend had told him that she thought they needed a break. That their relationship had gotten too serious too fast, and they just needed time away from each other. Just a break.
He had told her to stuff a break ‘up her ass.’
He’d gone to a bar on his way home. He didn’t drink often; not after he’d seen what it had done to Tucker; how it could change a person into something nearly unrecognizable. But on that night, he drank enough so he at least wouldn’t have to think about that girl anymore. Alcohol was good for that. When he got drunk, he was able to focus on how wiggly his brain felt, instead of the wiggly-ness of everything else.
“Hell—oh shit.” Sam flicked on the light in his apartment. Standing there, in his dining room, was Tucker. There was a poorly hung HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner above him. On the table beside him sat a cake.
“Surprise!”
Sam stared in silent dread at his friend, who looked more haggard than Sam felt. He clearly hadn’t taken a shower in quite a few days. His clothes were dirty. And he was drunk. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Tucker sober.
“Wow,” Sam mustered. “Geez, did you…”
Tucker motioned behind him, towards the kitchen. “Your back window. It was unlocked! I didn’t… y’know.”
Sam eyed Tucker up and down, made sure there were no bulges in his clothing, nothing stuffed down his pants. He didn’t keep any large amount of cash in the house. His pulse began to slow as the initial shock wore off.
“Well, geez. It’s great to see you, man.”
“I just remembered,” Tucker started lamely, “I remembered a long time ago that you told me you’d always wanted a surprise birthday party. And that nobody’d ever given you one. And I remembered that today was your birthday. So,” he stuck both his arms out, indicating the banner and cake, “I drove here. To give you a surprise birthday party.”
“Wow,” said Sam. “Geez, that’s…” and despite himself, seeing his friend here, with this cake that he’d stolen, and this banner that he’d stolen, filled him with a jubilation. The wild look in his eyes, the dirty clothes, the dirty hair. The fact that his birthday had been three days prior. All this did not matter to Sam in that moment.
His friend was here, throwing him a surprise party.
“This is great Tuck. I’ve had a… me and… my girlfriend broke up with me.”
Tucker cocked an eyebrow and stared up at the ceiling, trying to conjure a name from the plaster.
“Rebecca,” offered Sam, and then went on, “you never met her.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“This is great though. This is great.” Sam looked towards the kitchen. “I’ve got a bottle of brandy, in the cupboard.” There was no point in attempting to push sobriety onto Tucker that night. Both men already had liquor coursing through their bodies.
“Oh?” Sam could tell from the way that Tucker said this that he already knew there was brandy in the kitchen, and that he knew what it tasted like, too.
“I’ll grab it,” said Sam.
He walked into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and pulled out the liquor. It had indeed been drained. But there was enough for two glasses, which Sam filled. He returned to the dining room. Tucker was seated at the table now, looking nervous.
“Sam, I–,”
“Do you want to play video games?”
“What?”
“Would you like to just play some video games, or something? I haven’t done that. For a while.” He held out one of the glasses to Tucker, who stared at it for a moment before grabbing it and smiling.
“Yeah. Let’s play video games.”
They stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, like kids, reminiscing about girls long gone, drinking the house dry of alcohol. Laughing. No meaningful words were spoken between the two, until daylight broke outside and Sam announced that he really needed to get to sleep.
He walked Tucker to the door of his apartment. He felt emptiness growing inside his abdomen as they got closer to the door. There was a finality looming in the apartment. Sam was growing older, and he knew that he couldn’t entertain his friend’s downward spiral forever.
“Thank you again, Tucker,” he said. They stared at each other. “Keep… keep in touch, yeah?”
“Yeah, of course!” Tucker gave him a wide, toothy grin. Sam shut the door. They wouldn’t see each other again for years.
“If we just go to a Casey’s we can buy a beer. Or, or, or we can find a bar.” Tucker points down the highway, down Exit 0. “We can go to find a fucking bar, okay? Isn’t that okay? One drink, and then you can—you can drop me off at rehab and that will be enough, right? You can drop me off at fucking rehab and you and I can be done. You can go back to your happy little life, okay? Your fucking job that I’m sure you’re missing right now. Why are you even doing this? I don’t need you to fucking—” He doubles over to dry heave some more.
Sam watches him and drums his fingers on the roof of his car. His brain is shooting thoughts inward, thoughts like this ungrateful little wretch. This ungrateful, sniveling drunk criminal. He doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve you.
When he’s finished with this round of dry heaves, Tucker looks up at Sam, tears crawling out the corners of his eyes. He’s still doubled over when he says, “You want to know what I mean, Sam? When I say I’ve become something of a martyr?” His voice is raspy, his throat is raw. “I’ve gone my whole life, my whole life not feeling well. Not being all that happy. And I found a way to—” he chokes on a few tears, and a little dry heave, “to be—to feel like, whole, man. And I found” he’s drooling and almost whimpering these words out of his mouth, “like friends who understand me and like care about me. Who are also trying to make sure I’m happy. Not you though. I bet you say things to your friends about how I am some kid you knew, who you, who you grew up with and who like lost his way. But I didn’t lose my fucking way Sam, I found a way to be happy and I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit into your narrow little fucking world view, doesn’t fit in with your great plan for me. And these people who I know now, who I care about and who care about me, we only have each other. There’s no outside actors fucking with them. They don’t need to worry about their old nobody loser ass friend showing up out of fucking thin air and basically kidnapping them, they don’t need to worry about anybody forcing them to live their life some fucked up demented lame ass way. So it’s just me, dude. It’s just me. I’m the guy. I’m the martyr. I’m the guy who’s being forced to go to rehab, to what? To make you feel better about yourself? Or what dude? That’s the only reason I can think of why we’re out here,” he motions to the sign.
Exit 0
“Parked on the fucking highway.”
Tucker’s panting, saliva is dribbling down his lips. Sweat is pouring from his forehead, his throat pulses from stress. He stares at Sam wild, with red saucer eyes.
Ungrateful
Drunkard
Wretch
Sniveling
Why are you here?
“Why are you even here?”
“Have you seen Tucker lately?”
Sam sat with legs spread on his mother’s couch. He flinched at the question.
“Nope.”
“Neither has his mother.” His mom took a sip of her post-dinner decaf coffee. “Not that that’s unheard of. I hardly see you at all.”
Sam waved her off. “Mom, I see you all the time.”
“Hardly,” she said, a smile hidden behind her mug. “But Tucker’s… you don’t call him? Or anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s your best friend.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Jesus.” They had this same conversation many times over the years. This didn’t stop her, though. “He’s not my best friend. He’s not even… he’s a mess. He’s a real mess.”
“So you’re abandoning your best friend because he’s a little messy? It’s not like you’ve been the cleanest kid through the years.”
“But, historically, I’ve cleaned it up. Myself.”
“We don’t do much in true isolation, Sam. It takes a village, you know.”
“To raise a child, mom. The saying is ‘it takes a village to raise a fucking child.’ He’s a grown man. A grown man and I shouldn’t be made to feel like that’s my responsibility.”
“Don’t swear at me.
They sat there in silence until Sam spoke again. He chewed on his bottom lip. “He threw me a surprise birthday party. A few months ago.”
“Did he?” There was a smile in her voice.
“Yes. He broke into my apartment at night. Well, he didn’t break in. I had left the kitchen window open. And he used it. And he was just in there, and he had like a cake. And he remembered that I’d… always wanted one. A surprise party.”
“Did you?” his mom asked. “Jesus, have I failed you as a mother?”
“I don’t think I like really wanted a surprise party.” Sam shrugged. “Maybe I did. Back in the day. I don’t know, I must’ve said that to him, at some point. But it was just him and a cake that he stole and a banner that he probably stole. And it was late. It was three days after my birthday. But, I don’t know, for all I know he just… lost some days. Or something. And to him, it was December 4th. And he was right on time.”
“That’s very thoughtful of him.”
“And he was drunk. He’s always drunk now. And he’d stolen some liquor, and I think some cash was missing. Not a lot. But, like…” Sam looked up at the far corner of the living room. “It was nice. It was so nice, but I can feel it when I’m around him. I think maybe I’ve always been able to feel it. That there’s just a thing surrounding him, this like vortex, or like a timer, maybe. There’s a look in his eyes. Like a bomb is about to go off. And it was a fine night. He can have the liquor, he can have the cash. But like,” he dropped his gaze down to his mom’s face, “I don’t want to be there. I just don’t.”
“Don’t want to be where?”
“I don’t want to be there when it goes off. The bomb.”
The air in the room got a little colder.
“Sam.”
“What?”
“I did not raise you to be like this.”
“Be like what?”
“Selfish.”
“It’s not selfish to—it’s not fucking ridiculous to stay away from people like that. He’s fucked himself. He is gone to the world, mom. He is not the kid you knew anymore, and it is not unheard of—it is not morally bankrupt to stay away from people like that.”
“People like what, Sam?”
“People like—him! Addicts and—mom he’s a criminal! A thief!”
Sam’s mother pursed her lips. There was a fire behind her eyes when she said, “Sam, he is the same kid I knew. He is still Tucker. He is your best friend, and maybe he’s faltered a bit. Maybe he needs help, maybe he needs something, anything. Maybe he needs you.” She set her mug down on the side table. “I am embarrassed to hear you talking like this. Utterly embarrassed. He threw you a birthday party.” There was disgust worn plain on her face.
Sam choked in disbelief and sprang up. “Goodbye mom,” he snapped. “Thanks for dinner.” Then he was out the door, in his car, his shiny tan sedan. He grabbed the steering wheel tightly in his hands. His knuckles turned paper white. And all he could picture was Tucker, smiling at the thought of playing video games all night.
He swore, then pulled out of the driveway.
He drove home, tears stinging in his eyes. When he arrived, he logged onto his computer and began doing research, looking up various clinics that might help Tucker. He found one in the Midwest that sounded promising and printed off the details. He attached the page to his refrigerator with a magnet.
And then, he waited.
Weeks passed.
Then, months.
Then, years.
One night, Sam was brushing his teeth in the bathroom of his house, alongside his wife. His phone rang.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” There was a cacophony of background noise on the other end of the line, underneath the woman’s voice.
“Is this… Sam?”
“Yeah.” He waited for a response that did not come. “Who’s this?”
“It’s… well, you don’t know me. I’m with Tucker. Well I was with Tucker. And he’s got your number taped to his fridge. And he’s just… look, I can’t help him. And he’s, I’ve just heard him talk about you. And I don’t really know who else he’s got. And he needs help.”
“Is he…”
“Oh, like he’s alive and everything. Nobody’s, look I don’t know. He’s kind of seeing things that aren’t there. Psychosis, or something. Look, I’ll text you an address. And then you come to the address. He’s in there. Just kinda freaking out.”
The line went dead. Sam set the phone down on the bathroom counter and stared at it.
“Who was that?” his wife asked.
“Tucker.”
Her eyes widened.
The message came to his phone a few minutes later.
2187 Walnut. Thnk u i didnt know what else to do
Now, he’s got his hand on the handle of his car door. Tucker’s begun to walk in the direction from which they had come. He watches Tucker’s back get smaller and smaller, until a pang pulses through his being that causes him to let go of the handle and sprint after his jittering friend.
“Tucker.”
No response.
“Tucker!”
He puts a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. Tucker flails from his grip and keeps walking forward. Sam grabs him again, tighter this time. Tucker turns. He’s crying.
“What? What? Do you want to scream at me some more? What? Do you want to hit me or something? Just—go home, okay? Just leave me alone Sam.”
“That’s not the right direction.”
“What?”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“You don’t know where the fuck I’m going. I’m not going to fucking—don’t tell me this is the wrong way. You have no idea.”
Sam holds onto Tucker’s arm, and with his other hand points in the direction that Tucker’s walking. “We’ve been there. We came from there. We—that’s the wrong way.”
“What?”
“Back there, that’s everything. Back there is everything you have ever known. Back there is East. It’s decisions made and people you’ve met. It’s the life you’ve already led.”
There is no body of water in sight. They’ve driven to the middle west; they are landlocked. But there is that sign; that striking green sign standing diligently; the sign wobbling imperceptibly in the wind; that sign no different from thousands of others all over the country.
Sam points to it. There are tears stinging his eyes as he says,
“In that direction is everything else. It’s a life unclaimed. It’s unknown, and it’s scary. And I don’t know exactly what waits for you that way, man. I wish I did, and I wish I could tell you. But I know what waits for you the other way. And you’re not going back to that. I’m not gonna let you.”
He lets go of Tucker. The sun vibrates in his liquid eyes. A thousand miles away there is a pier jutting off into the impossibly vast August Atlantic. There’s a tan sedan in the shoulder of the I380, its flashers clicking in time with the rhythm of decades passing second by second; there are infinite cars parked on the shoulders of highways, taking brief respites on their journeys. And there is them, Tucker and Sam; two men gazing at each other with the same eyes they’d been looking with since they were boys.
“So we are getting in my car and we are taking that exit. And we’re gonna find out what’s on the other side of that sign. You and me.”