After Leaving
Story, Leaving, Pre Comming Home
My life after her? To say the least it was filled with cheap Smokey motel rooms on some long forgotten roads buried under by the appearance of highways. To say honestly I don't remember where I went or where I have been. I spent a while in one place. It rained allot so I couldn't really leave on my bike. Spent allot of time there just sitting staring at the peeling wallpaper in the ten dollar a night room. Ate at a diner where the only people were a couple semi drivers and an aging waitress by the name of Marge. I couldn't point it out on a map, but the place matched the turmoil in my heart. I thought for awhile to join the army. Go over sea's, pull some stupid stunts, and die on some foreign soil where I was looked at like filth. I had left my cell phone at the house, I didn't remember to grab it before I left. I didn't remember to grab allot of things. I took up smoking for a while. People said they did it to relax. It only made me brood more. Tell ya what, there is something kind of foreboding about a black wolf leaning against a wall under an overhang, his black bike feet away as the rain is coming down. Him smoking on his cigarette. Or so the prostitutes who were taking shelter there also said. When they asked my story, even they called me a fool.
What is it about people? Everyone thinks they have some say in your life. The way you should live, who you should love, the people you should hang with. I've heard it all, and what hurts the most is that I listened. It tore me apart hearing my parent's accuse me of hating them, of being a traitor, to defiling their name. It hurt more to hear her friends accuse me of manipulating her, of abusing her, when even she argued saying I was a saint. Some saint I am looking out of a motel window staring eyes vacant over an empty parking lot. I wanted to die to kill myself. I drove to fast on roads, took to many risks, but I could never pull the trigger to say the least. She would always flash in my mind's eye right before I could. She was my emergency contact still in my wallet. If anyone found me they would of called her. I could of thrown it away but when i did I always slid it back into its spot. I couldn't do that to her name.
This small down I drove through had a church I parked in front of. I went in and sat at the pew facing the alter for hours. A little girl sat in front of me and stared into my eyes curiously before her mother came and pulled her away. I gave her a smile as she turned back to look at me and she waved and said, "Get better soon mister." I was stunned but couldn't help laughing. Nothing is as pure and as honest as a little kid. Even through my black wolf pelt and scary rugged clothes she could only see a man in pain. I cried... for Hours after. At some point we had talked about kids, she wanted five three girls and two boys. I wanted two a boy and a girl. We didn't fight we just kind of smiled and cuddled on the couch after.
What made me head home though was something I was never prepared for. I was riding through the mountains and on the side of the road there was a hitch hiker. I stopped she was a red fox and she looked like she had been through hell and back. I asked where she was heading. She said, "As far as your willing to take me." We didn't talk for the first two days. We just rode and stopped, rode and stopped. I asked her name once and she just shook her head said it didn't matter. One night as we were sitting at a diner she told me her story. Her father had sexually abused her from a young age, her mother ignoring her pleas turned to drugs. She had given up on hope and was going to just lay there and die. She had found some sedatives and was going to take the bottle in one go, but as she stood there pills in hand looking in the mirror. She claimed she saw fire in her eyes. She knew at that moment she was worth more than nothing she was better than this. She told me the authorities would think she died in the fire she had set, she had drugged her dad and left him in his chair a smoke in hand. Within an hour the place was burnt to the ground. She told me I was the only one to know, but she could trust me because I didn't try anything with her. She told me she could feel my hurt, see it in my eyes, and she also said, "Is running worth the hurt?" I couldn't respond to her.
We traveled for a few more days and at a city I bought her a used bike. When I handed the keys to a Harley over to a small red fox, no more than eighteen years old, she cried. She was so confused. I embraced her in a hug. "Running is not worth the hurt, and when you need help." I handed her a small piece of leather. No name but on it was burned my new cell number and address. "I don't know if I'll be there, but this phone." I held up a prepaid minute cell. "This phone is always on for you. When you get settled, let me know." We embraced one more time and I waved goodbye to the girl that opened my eyes. As I started my bike she called over the roar, "Ruby." I chuckled tears in my eyes as I drove away. A red fox named Ruby saved my life.