All Those Far-Off Places

Note: this story contains themes of mental health issues, suicide and toxic masculinity.

Alex didn’t understand why he was crying. He did, however, understand that he hated himself for it.

He was alone in his car. The soft hum of its engine and the music barely drowned out his attempts at choking down the pain he could not articulate. His eyes stung with salty moisture that threatened to abandon ship every time his car hit the uneven pavement of Interstate I-76 West too hard. His ears, afflicted with tinnitus, hissed like dead air, scrambling his focus. The seat belt tightened around him and locked in place as if the car had already crashed, which made the heaving more noticeable.

The wind whipped outside of his car, gently swaying it slightly off course until corrected. He didn't notice how violently the trees that created a natural border of the highway shook violently. He was on autopilot. For the past year and a half, he traveled this route to get to and from work as a late-night television producer for a news station in Youngstown.

It was his dream job, at least some version of it.

DING. 

The small bright light of his phone illuminated the trash flooding the passenger seat. A message from his partner, Gwen, a thumbs up to his text telling her he was on his way home and that he loved her. 

“Cool,” he said, frustrated with her response. 

It had been almost three days since they were able to sit on the couch and talk to each other. He wanted to text back. To lash out at her for not saying “I love you back.” What good would that have done though? He was never home anymore, at least not when she was. 

Night shift at a news station is brutal. On top of the sheer number of police calls, fire calls, lift assists and public meetings to keep track of, a producer typically also has to deal with people who want to call and tell you how shitty you are or that you're a godless partisan scumbag. Then, the station directors responsible for helping you put together the 11 p.m. show could hoard all the decent stories for a different broadcast and forget to find anything worth covering for later.

All of which happened tonight.

Trying to stem the impending breakdown, he thought about what his father or brothers would think if they saw him now. He knew for certain they would make him feel small and ashamed. Men didn’t cry. Men didn’t have to whimper. They just handled their shit.

Pussy.

Faggot.

Bitch.

Another bump in the road and Alex was back in his car, on a long straight that would eventually take him over Lake Milton. The area itself was nothing special, a typical lake with dark blue waters that would welcome a myriad of guests every summer. It was surrounded by lake homes that were unremarkable but still invited Alex to admire during the day and wonder what the folks that stayed there year-round did with their lives at night.

He checked the map on his phone to see how much longer it would take for him to reach the bridge. It showed he was in North Jackson, so about 15 minutes give or take. His grip loosened on the steering wheel, and he shifted a little in his seat.

Tonight it seemed like he would have the highway to himself, which meant he could sulk and zone out without worrying about causing an accident. He reclined, closed his eyes, ignored the putrid smell of stale fast food and listened to the wind rock his car.

BRRRRBRRRRR

Alex flinched at the sound of the semi-truck picking up speed as it boarded the highway. The massive, white vehicle and its container reflected red from the bright glow of the Sheetz behind it. Massive deer antlers led the vehicle like a macabre sleigh. The wheels looked as though they had spikes growing from them.

BRRRBRRRRR

The truck blared its horn again as it attempted to merge. Alex put his foot on the accelerator to get ahead, but the truck did the same and they were quickly running out of asphalt.

Before Alex could move to the other lane and get out of its way, the truck began its merge. Cursing and screaming at the top of his lungs, Alex swerved out of the way as the side of the truck’s cargo barely missed him. As an added insult, it flashed all of its cargo lights, a signal to others usually meant as a “thanks.”

In this case, it meant “Get Fucked.”

Be a man.

Blind with rage, Alex floored the car to get ahead of the trucker. Then he jammed the brakes of his car. The immediate and sudden stoppage threw the truck off, making it swerve and fall behind. He rolled his window down and stuck his hand out of it, giving the driver the finger. Then he sped up, enjoying the win.

It was a victory that was short lived. The truck quickly caught back up and turned on its fog lights. They were so bright and so close, Alex was certain that it would swallow his car whole. The antlers looked like devil horns. His dashboard told him he was doing close to 95 miles an hour, he could feel it in his steering wheel and hear it in the screams of his engine. 

Closer and closer and closer the truck edged. “Holler from the Holler” by Stephen Wilson Jr. blared in the speakers. The trees that bordered the highway looked like walls collapsing around him like hands pulling him into a grave.

DING.

Alex’s heart dropped as he looked forward. It wasn’t his phone this time. It was another gauge on his dashboard - he had 30 miles until he hit empty.

BRRRRBRRRRRR

The hulking mass of the truck nearly eclipsed him. At that moment, he did not feel fear. He felt sadness. Regret for misdirecting his emotions. Maybe. Mostly he just felt tired. He was tired of being pushed around. Tired that no matter what he did, he could never seem to get ahead. Tired that people relied on him no matter how insignificantly. That no one cared. The impossibly endless drumming of life demanded he kept working. 

His foot began to ease off the accelerator. But as the car began to lose speed, the truck swerved into the adjacent lane and drove past him, laying on the horn. 

Then he was alone again, with the pain he was finally able to articulate but did not know the solution to. And then a new dread washed over him. When he reached the bridge, the tears and the heaving could no longer be ignored and the lights of the houses that surrounded the lake were distorted and looked further than they actually were.

A sudden gust of wind rocked his car. Then another. Then another. It rattled and shaked with each gale that hit the vehicle. He could see the cargo shake the truck in front of him also. Another rush of wind and it jackknifed, turning on its side, shooting sparks up into the air as metal and aluminum attacked the cement borders of the bridge and ground. 

Alex jammed his foot on his brakes but he was going too fast. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest as the belt constricted tighter around him. A rush of adrenaline, emotions, images of his partner and his family, his brothers and father.

Be a man, softly echoing in his head.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours pass until Alex wakes up with his car stopping just barely in time to prevent a collision. The truck was still turned over but there luckily didn’t seem to be any fire or even smoke. No one else was on the bridge with him and the truck. 

He struggled with the seatbelt, he could feel a pang in his chest left by it, which made it a challenge to move. The silence of the car, the radio off and engine now asleep, even the ringing in his ears was gone, made his struggle louder.

Standing outside he groaned as he stretched his limbs as far as they could. Which wasn’t very far as the pang in his chest restricted any real outward movement. A gentle breeze caressed his face as he looked around the bridge, swaying his attention to the houses in the distance.

“Hello?” He called out into the void. 

No answer.

As he walked to the edge of the bridge, he could hear the water gently sloshing against the beams. The bright light of the white moon reflected on the dark blue water. Much to his disappointment, there were no lights on in the houses that surrounded the lake - in fact he couldn’t see any of the silhouettes in the distance at all.

Knowing it would be quite some time before the truck would be moved, he leaned over the railing and looked out at the horizon. He wondered what was out there and how he could get there but knew it was a pointless exercise. Ignoring the fact that the bridge ran almost in a parallel direction, the cold, gritty concrete of the barrier pressed up against his skin, preventing him from moving the way he wanted - unless.

He swung his legs over the barrier and just sat there, watching the water sway back and forth against the bridge. It was calming to him, the pitch black and dark blue hues of it swirling around in a soothing motion. Inch by inch, he felt his weight shift forward into the void. The feel of the concrete gently agitated his skin. The small pains, large pains that he caused others could all be over in an instant.

How far from the water was it? Twenty? Thirty feet?

Jump.

Get it over with.

“Yeah, I’m sure that seems like a good way to go,” a voice from behind Alex stopped him.

Turning, he saw another man, much older and fatter than he was. He was balding, wore glasses with a headset that looked like it belonged sitting next to an Xbox. He wore ratty jeans, a white t-shirt and boots.

Instinctually, Alex shifted his weight back from the ledge. Embarrassed.

“Relax,” the man said. “I’m just fucking with you.”

He joined Alex and leaned over the edge of the barrier.

“I wonder what’s over there,” he said.

“Same,” Alex said. “Uh…Who are you?”

“Kenny. I was driving the truck.”

“Okay…” Alex said.

Silence.

“You have a lot of rage bubbling inside of you, huh,” the driver asked, still looking out into the distance.

“Who the fuck starts a conversation like that?”

“Why not? It’s why we’re here now, isn’t it?”

The audacity of this man, Alex thought. He wanted to grab him. Punch him. Claw his eyes out and throw him over the edge. He thought better of it, seeing how he was on the edge himself.

“Well…to be fair. I played a part in this mess too. Probably a larger part now that I think about it.”

The driver took a deep breath and then turned around to look at the truck. Alex turned to look as well. Maybe it was just the darkness, but it looked like there was almost no damage on the truck at all. Aside from the fact that it was completely turned over and blocking the road, there wasn’t anything to indicate it had wrecked. The barrier’s and road beneath it didn’t even have scuffs. Why wasn’t it on fire? Smoking at least?

“I wasn’t even halfway to my destination tonight, did you know that?”

“Where…uh…were you going?”

“Not where I should’ve been.”

The man turned around and looked into the water. Alex understood the sentiment behind his words. He thought of something to say back but couldn’t construct the bridge between them. It felt wrong. So the driver continued building it for them.

“I found out my dad died the other day. It's got me all twisted up.”

“What do you mean?”

“To be honest, I hated him. Hated how he treated me and my brothers. I’ll spare you the list of cliches…It made me start thinking about how I treated the people I was supposed to love. Made me realize I didn’t do any better than him and that made me hate myself just as much. It’s silly, I stopped talking to him a long time ago.”

Guilt. Shame. Regret began to bubble inside of Alex. He thought about his own upbringing. His dad wasn’t awful, not in the abusive sense, but he did raise him and his brothers. All of his tendencies in tough/emotional/uncomfortable situations were his father’s and brothers’. 

One time when he was younger, he and one of his brothers got into a fight so violent it threatened to break the foundations of their parents’ house. He remembered the hatred he felt that was building up until it couldn't be contained. It ended with a body-sized hole in the wall that would remain unpatched for eight years afterward. It could have been avoided.

Alex looked at the driver and felt dumb. By comparison, his life was so much better. He remembered something he learned growing up from his brothers - your life could always be worse.

“What’s got you wound up tonight?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Try me.”

Suck it up.

Be a man.

“I just feel…I’m trapped,” Alex stopped and realized what he was doing. Suddenly he needed air and a lot of it. 

“I lost a job two years ago where the pay was good but I hated it. I rushed into a new one because it’s something I thought I loved but they treat me like dirt and the pay is shit. I turn thirty next year with nothing to show for it. The only good decision I’ve ever made was Gwen and even that’s shit because of this…But I can’t quit. Where would I get money? I have debts, bills, needs, her needs. Who would even hire me?”

Inside of him, a wash of scenes from earlier in the day. The closed off way Gwen acted toward him when he told her he wouldn’t be home until two in the morning. Like this now for months. He remembered when he found out he was going to work the holidays. He told her on the way to a family party, not sure why he did it like that. He tried to ignore her silence the rest of the drive there. Failure. Then and now.

Queerboy.

Wimp.

He could feel a hand on his back.

“I am not equipped to handle this,” Alex said. “I’ve been taught to ‘be a man’ and to ‘suck it up’ and suppress my feelings, that no one cares. I want to reach out but I’m afraid to. It feels like I’m going to erupt.”

“We’re products of our upbringing,” the driver replied. “Truth is, earlier today, I would have agreed with that sentiment. The ‘No one gives a shit about me so deal with the problem on your own. It's what a man does.’ It’s all bullshit.” 

The driver climbed on the ledge and sat next to him.

“My point is, you shouldn’t feel ashamed for not being able to do things the way you were raised to do them. A man is not defined by how long of the road he can endure, but the help he asks for and the decisions he makes along the way to get him to where he wants to be.”

In the distance, lights began to flicker, granting a reprieve from the conversation that Alex was still trying to grip with. He wondered why his driver was being so kind to him? It scared him how much sense he was making. He felt dizzy. Light. 

The breeze picked up, and he could smell something alien in the air. His ears started to ring again.There was something else, something in the far off that he could hear but couldn’t place. Muffled voices? Sirens?

“Sounds like someone’s coming to finally move the truck.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Y’know we never talked about your dad. I feel bad only worrying about my problems.”

“No worries. I suspect it’d be pointless now.”

“Hey, I just wanted to tell you I…” Alex choked on his words.

“We both made mistakes,” the driver replied. “But listen, there’s something you have to do now.”

The driver stood up on the wrong side. Alex tried to grab him, save him from death. But the driver did not fall, he just stood on the line of the horizon, looking back at him. 

“You need to wake up.”

“...WAKE UP.”

Alex was still in his car, the smell of smoke surrounding him and a stranger peering in, trying to grab him. He realized where he was, his car half smashed into the overturned truck that was now engulfed in flames. With some struggle, and help, Alex got out of the car and watched as emergency vehicles swarmed.

The fire was the greatest at the front of the truck. He knew the driver was dead and in some way, it was partly his fault. Shock. Violent coughs. Pain in his joints. He fell to the ground and cried, finally in the open.

So many things he needed to do. Too many things to think about now. He felt overwhelmed. Defeated. Ashamed. Maybe that was okay so long as he was open about it to someone. To be seen, understood. Maybe he could talk to Gwen, be honest with her and they could make a plan together. 

Through his sobs, he noticed the wind picking up. This time it did not threaten. Instead its gentle push brushed against him, swaying in the direction of the far-off places that surrounded the lake. The lights never looked closer, he thought.