Beyond the End of the Road

   Jonathan entered the Texaco gas station and took a place in line at the cash register while Rico pumped gas into their white Chevy Equinox at a Shell station two blocks away. 

   "No one will give you a second look," Rico told him. "You're an old white man of average height with the same half-bald shiny head as the man behind you. You all look alike to the rest of us." 

   Rico had laughed at his own joke. He was a wild spirit, at least half-Latino, with a full head of thick black hair. Rico reminded Jonathan of his brother Pete when Pete was that age. He'd even mistakenly called him Pete once or twice.

  "Who's Pete?" 

  "Pete was my older brother. He died years ago."

  "Don't call me that!" Rico had shouted the next time it happened.

  Jonathan understood the young man's fear of death. For himself, at nearly seventy, he'd come to terms with it. At least in some ways.

  "Don't move," a man shouted, entering the Texaco. "Put your hands up into the air."

  Jonathan put his hands up and kept his head down the way Rico had instructed, peering up with only his eyes. The man wore a ski mask that covered his entire head. He could have been anybody. 

  "Open the lotto ticket drawer!" the masked man commanded. He aimed his gun at the cashier. 

  With trembling hands, the clerk emptied the scratch-off tickets and cash into the robber's outstretched bag. Jonathan's heart pounded as he focused on the boy behind the counter. He didn't look old enough to shave, but he still might pull out a weapon from somewhere. It was hard to tell how peoples' minds worked in these situations.

  Suddenly, Rico turned the gun from the clerk to Jonathan's head, using him as a hostage, moving out the door with the weapon expected to explode at any second. From there, the two jumped into the white Equinox Rico had left idling behind a semi-truck concealed from the security cameras and blocked from the view of customers inside the station.

  Just like that, they were on the road again, the getaway car blending into the freeway with all the others. Rico turned the radio to the oldies station, then he and Jonathan sang along to Help Me, Rhonda, and a few other tunes before settling down and drifting away into their own thoughts. 

 The music made Rico think of Kate's Bar and Grill, where he washed dishes five nights a week while music from the sixties drifted into the kitchen from the digital jukebox beside the bar. The corner tavern drew in an older clientele.

The night before the robberies began, Rico left work as usual only to walk into something of a nightmare.

"A scene from a horror movie," he thought. There was fog and mist in the dim alley and a man shuffled toward him from the opposite direction, stumbling for balance. When he came close enough, the man grabbed Rico's shoulder with one hand, trying to steady himself, then collapsed. Something dropped from his other hand to lay beside him on the concrete. A gun. The man wasn't dead, just unconscious, breathing loudly and reeking of alcohol. It was after midnight with no one else around. Rico, who was eighteen and didn't know what to do, did the wrong thing. He grabbed the gun and ran home.

  Rico hid the weapon beneath his pillow and lay awake thinking. His parents were drunkards, still out at the bar. They'd arrive home soon and fight until they finally passed out. James, his older brother, wasn't home and was not likely to show up before daylight. When James stole the money Rico had saved for college by guessing the PIN number on his bank card, he'd also stolen the future. There was no escape from this dreadful life. Rico had come to the end of the road. 

  He saw the gun as a way out. 

  The next morning, he stole a car from a man who'd left it idling double-parked on the street to run into a coffee shop. Rico then drove to the Houston Bank in the stolen car. 

  A nightmare came true, thought Jonathan as he dwelled back to the days before this all started. He had left his physician's office wondering what he was going to do. After a person reached a certain age, their family physicians began predicting their patients' futures with alarming accuracy. Dr. Anderson had handed him a terrifying prophecy—a death sentence, really. 

  "I suggest taking a nice trip while you still can. There are senior groups who travel together. Join one. Spend the time you have left seeing a bit of the world you've been living in these past seventy years," Dr. Anderson told him. 

  It took two days in bed and a lot of thinking before he could face the world again. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis was going to slowly trap his brain inside a body that wouldn't be able to move. An urge to scratch an itchy nose would go unheeded, the same as an urge to scream. He had no one in his life anymore. Helen, his wife, had passed away five years earlier, and they were never able to have children. He had friends, but he wouldn't tell them. He couldn't bear the pity.

  It was the end of the road.

  The only thing he had left was Pete's gun. 

  Jonathan and his brother Pete had been left to manage life on their own before they even learned to tie their shoes. They took care of each other. When Pete died a violent death, Jonathan inherited his brother's gun and had kept it all these years in a locked box in the closet. 

  Jonathan felt that because of how Pete died, some of his spirit must have seeped into the weapon. Because of that, he'd taken it out of the box during the worst times of life, letting Pete offer advice and comfort. 

  Once when Jonathan lost his job, Pete assured him he'd find another and had been there for him when Helen found out she'd never have children. His brother was there again when she forgot who he was. The Helen he knew and loved gradually disappeared from his everyday life without the expected grand finale. She'd died in a nursing home, afraid of the stranger who claimed to be her husband.

  It wasn't fair. 

  He sat now with the weapon on his lap and watched the sun drop below the horizon from his backyard. 

  "You feel the power, don't you," Pete's spirit said.

  It was true. The gun emitted power unlike anything else in the world. 

  "You think you don't have a temper, but you do. You're angry. I can tell. Admit that life has been more than unfair. For someone who's done nothing but the right thing for their entire life, you deserve more."

  So, while basking in the power of Pete's gun, Jonathan decided not to accept the fate life had dealt to him. He devised a different plan. 

  The next morning, he rode a bus to a bank in downtown Houston, then stood in line, his heart pounding harder than it had in years. He imagined the bank surrounded by police cars and a megaphone ordering him to come out. He'd come out then, with his hands up, holding the gun in the air. The authorities would tell him to drop the weapon. They wouldn't know the gun wasn't loaded. He didn't want to hurt anyone—he only wanted to die like Pete had died.

  He'd point, and then…. Pete had taken four bullets during a liquor store heist. The owner shot him in self-defense. No one blamed him, of course, but Pete's gun was empty when he'd carried out the crime.

  Anyway, Fate laughed at Jonathan's plans for that day, and things didn't go as expected. The man who stood in line just before him stepped up to the teller, shoving a bag through the opening in the bulletproof glass while, at the same time, grabbing Jonathan by the neck and holding a gun to his head. A different gun. 

  Jonathan left the bank as a hostage and was carried off with the bag of money straight to the getaway car. 

  Rico drove with the gun pointed at Jonathan, never saying a word. 

  "You did it!" Jonathan exclaimed with a grin after a time. "You should pull over and see how much you got. Is this your car?" 

  Rico didn't answer. Instead, he'd pulled into a parking lot and launched into a tirade.

  "It's not fair. This is James's fault. If he hadn't stolen my money!" 

  He called James as many foul names as he could, then slapped his palm against the dashboard and stomped his feet. Eventually, he broke down and cried. 

  "What have I done? I know I have a temper, but I'm not a bad guy usually. What got into me? First, I found a gun, and then I stole the car—No, first, James, my brother, stole all the money I'd saved these last two years washing dishes at the bar where my parents drink. I'd planned to go to college and start school in the fall. Instead, I faced a life sentence of washing dishes. When I found the gun, something snapped inside me. I'm sorry. You can go," Rico said. "I didn't mean no harm to you. I don't know whose car this is, but they'll be looking. When they find it, they'll find me."

  Jonathan didn't want to go. He'd been waiting for Rico to shoot him, not wanting to leave a witness behind and all that. His outburst reminded him of Pete's frequent blowups.

  "Of course, you don't want to spend a lifetime washing dishes, and you don't have to. What you need is a vacation to sort things through. So do I. I want to help you. I have a car in my garage not far from here. We can walk. My name is Jonathan."

  Rico disposed of his hoodie at Jonathan's suggestion. No one has seen your hair. Everyone will be looking for the hoodie. 

  You have no worries, Rico laughed. No one will remember you. You look the same as all the other white-haired bald men.

  It had felt good to laugh. 

  They used the hoodie to wipe off fingerprints in the car, and Rico tucked the stolen money into his shirt. The bag and hoodie were disposed of in a public trash can. 

  As they walked, Jonathan told him about his life and what the doctor told him. His money had gone to his wife's care, and now he lived on Social Security checks. It covered the expenses for now, but if the prices kept rising. He stopped talking, remembering that rising prices were the least of his worries. 

  When they reached Jonathan's house, they packed some things for him and planned to get whatever Rico needed from the Walmarts and such stores they'd pass along the way. Rico would do all the driving. Jonathan had failed his last driving test. 

  Since neither of them had seen the Alamo, it was their first destination. 

  The bank money lasted through three state lines. In addition to the Alamo, they visited the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, where they gambled and lost the remainder of their cash. They'd slept in the car.

  It was Jonathan who decided it would be safer to rob gas stations. It was Rico who decided Jonathan should play a hostage at every robbery. The first gas station yielded forty dollars. People didn't carry cash anymore. 

  Except maybe to buy Lotto tickets. 

  The next robbery paid out a thousand dollars. Rico had demanded the cash from the lottery drawer. They tossed the scratch-off tickets into a rest-stop trash container. 

  "They'll be looking for those tickets," Jonathan said. "Everything is computerized with serial numbers."

  They spent the next day in the sun at Huntington Beach. 

  Now, they headed north, stopping first at Sequoia National Park and then San Fransisco. Here, the fugitives-at-large, visited Alcatraz, toured the city on a cable car, then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Funds were running low again. Using their same modus operandi, Jonathan walked into a Union 76 while Rico filled the car a few gas stations away. At the '76, Jonathan paid for one of those MasterCard gift cards. He hid it in a pocket of his cargo pants before standing in line to wait for the robbery to begin. Rico never showed. 

  Jonathan was worried. He went outside to find his accomplice waiting furiously inside the car in the next parking lot. 

  "There was no semi-truck to hide behind. No semi, no robbery. That's just the way it has to be," Rico chided. He was angry, about to blow and squealed the tires as he took off into the street. Again, the young man reminded Jonathan of Pete. 

The next hold up netted five hundred dollars. While waiting inside the Sinclair station for Rico to show, Jonathan impulsively bought a Powerball ticket and a Hershey's bar with almonds. Rico had mentioned Hershey’s with almonds was his favorite candy bar. Coincidentally, it was Pete’s favorite too. Jonathan smiled, slipping the ticket and the candy bar into a deep pocket. He’d had to watch his sugar for years.

  The following morning, Jonathan gave the white-haired stranger looking back from the mirror, a cold hard look. A few days earlier, his arm had stuck midway through lifting a comb to his sparse hair. He couldn't raise his hand any higher than his ear. It wasn't any better the next day or today. He was quiet when they returned to the road that morning.

    They were traveling through Washington, headed for Seattle and needed to replenish their funds.

  "Stop at the Chevron. I'll walk over to the ARCO. There's a semi-truck just pulled in. He'll be there awhile," Jonathan said. Halfway to the ARCO he stopped and turned, giving Rico a smile and a thumbs-up.

  Rico was busy pumping gas and didn't notice. 

  Jonathan walked on. 

  He wasn't afraid as he thought he would be but was surprised by how aware he was of everything around him. The blue and white sky above. The birds. Soft conversations of people. The traffic. Other sounds. When he entered the ARCO, he didn't step in line. 

  He pulled out Pete's gun and held it to the head of some scared-to-death teenager, yelling for everyone else to leave the store. The sirens began a minute later. When the flashing lights appeared, Jonathan waited. Someone would call him and tell him what to do.

  "Don't worry. I'm going to let you go," Jonathan told his captive. He couldn't fail today. There wouldn't be another chance. Help me, Pete, and help me God. 

  The phone inside the station rang. 

  "Answer it and hold the phone to my ear," Jonathan instructed the teenager.

  Rico heard the sirens as he waited to turn left on the busy street. Why had Jonathan chosen a station on the left? When multiple police cars entered the ARCO parking lot, Rico noticed the growing crowd. He left the car at the Chevron and ran to join the spectators among the red and blue flashing lights. 

  First, a kid younger than Rico came out with his hands up, and the police took him away to a waiting ambulance. Then Jonathan walked out with one hand in the air while the other held a gun aimed at the officers.

  "Drop the weapon," a megaphone shouted. 

  Jonathan took a step forward. When shots rang out, he crumbled to the concrete.

  "He’s dead," confirmed the first officer to reach him.

  Rico swallowed a scream, then drove with a lump in his throat until he couldn't drive anymore. He should have seen this coming. Jonathan talked about it all the time, but Rico never believed he’d follow through. The end of the road came as a rest stop, where he prepared to spend the night.

Rico opened Jonathan's suitcase, hoping to find a few dollars stashed inside. Instead, he found a note, a gift card, a Powerball ticket and a Hershey’s bar with almonds.                                        

Rico,

Thank you for being my hostage. You are now free to go on with your life. I hope you win the Powerball, but if you don't, there are a few thousand dollars on the gift card—the remainder of my Social Security legacy. I hope you use it to start college, I hope you forgive your brother, and I hope you give up this life of crime, but most of all, I hope you enjoyed our trip beyond the end of the road. I know I did. 

Thank you for being there,

Your friend Jonathan