Zealot

 The Matheson Brothers exchange nervous glances in the back of the car as I stare numbly through the rear window at the little lights going back-and-forth, back-and-forth from phosphorescent red to phosphorescent blue.

            “John.  Don’t fucking fuck us, John.”

            “Yeah, don’t fucking fuck us.”

            Cliché twin stereotype.  Echoing each other’s sentences, blandly.  I stare at their snide, self-protective expressions and I feel like I’m in a 1920s dime store novel.

            John lets out a deep breath with his lips in a little “o,” both hands on the steering wheel.  He keeps driving.

            “We’re going to be fine, guys.”

            The twins clench their teeth in delayed unison, one then the other in the exact same motion, as if they’re on a miniature West coast time zone video standby.

            “We’d better.”

            The first one puffs out his chest.  The other nods.

            “Or… what?” John breaks his stoic expression, for the first time today, into a barely perceptible grin.  “Hm?”

            The twins are silent.  The sirens’ wail seems to permeate the sweat on my skin with electric shrillness.  I speak up.

            “Are you going to stop?”

            “No.”

            John breathes deeply again, pursing his lips, as he does, like a morphine-addled quasi-mystic from the most decrepit slums of the Far East.

            A searchlight shines obliquely into my eyes through the right window, whiting out the flat, black landscape.

            “We’re on the six-o’clock news.”  I point in the direction of the helicopter noises, squinting.

            John just stares blankly into an endless river of asphalt and bright yellow paint.

            “It’s 7:04.”

            One of the twins squeals, impotently.

            The other one swallows an airy throatful.

            “That was mile-marker 184 towards Seattle.”

            “The drop is five-hundred miles from here.

            “We’ll never make it.”

            John breathes out again.

            “Silence your corporate egos, boys, and you’ll be fine.”

            John’s personal philosophy is a “metaphysically revisionist” blend of Buddhism and Marxism.

            “We’re terrorists, boys.  Don’t worry about it.  The labels and constructs of the capitalist hegemony are existentially impermanent.”

            The twins give their best deer-in-the-Channel-47-Action-News-Eye-in-the-Sky-Spotlight look.  I can’t contain myself.

            “Fuck you, John.”

            He breathes out again, whistling slightly.

            “What?”

            I grind my molars together.  Need to get that cavity looked at.

            “I said, fuck you.”

            John smiles again, broadly, his teeth gleaming in the penetrating white now pouring in from every window.

            “I’ll stop this car.”

            “No you won’t.”

            “I will.”

            He checks his blind spot, theatrically, twisting his neck around once, twice, and again; and then he presses down hard on the brake pedal and sends the vehicle screaming to an immediate halt.  The groan of the engine tumbles down into quick submission under a blanket of sirens, drawing closer each instant.  John turns to me.

            “We’re a team.  Take it back.”

            “John, what the hell…?  Hit the gas, man!”

            In the back, the twins are hyperventilating.  John’s nostrils flare, and I can hear the thick, hot air he’s pushing through them.

            “We’re a team.  Take it back.”

            “John.  It’s okay, man.  Just go!”

            “We’re a team.  Say it.”

            “Fine.  We’re a team, John.  Fuck!”

            The tires spin steam high over the ragged pavement and the car threatens to drive on into the night once again until an overzealous policeman who forgets his breaks runs his cruiser headlong into the right rear door.

            There’s this momentary consciousness of weightlessness, less a perception than a perceptive lack, until the seatbelt tugs violently on my larynx and on my ribcage, the relentless motion of impact burning my skin into thick, bleeding hives, ripping my flesh apart from all directions.  The sunroof cracks and our heads hit the blacktop.  I can swear I feel my gray matter sloshing and rattling in my head as the upturned Oldsmobile skids and skids over stray gravel and potholes.  There’s a horrible screech of grinding metal that spiders deep into my viscera.  I can’t tell if it’s real.  The whole world seems to fade into the news chopper’s searchlight.

            Somehow, my gaze is twisted in the direction of the back seat without my moving, some whim of shattered bone, because when I open my eyes I’m looking at the twins.  The same aluminum pole, the kind you use for hanging clothes, has stuck itself straight through both of their heads like a shish-ka-bob stick, splayed mirrors of each other to the bitter end.

            I turn to John through miles of agony.  He’s struggling with his cobalt blue jacket from L. L. Bean, gets it open, breaking the zipper click by click.  Underneath, there’s a mess of wires and canisters.  He reaches deeper inside.

            I spit and sputter in protest, blood and drool spraying from the corners of my mouth.

            “N-n-n-n-nuh.  No.”

            John smiles, radiantly.

            “Fuck you, Damon.”

            I hear a click.

            I’m told the explosion could be seen for several kilometers in every direction.  Embossed against the evening mist and low-hanging clouds, it looked like lightning until the smoke started to rise from some distant roadway.

            I don’t even close my eyes this time, but already I’m sprawled on freshly clipped grass in a clearing cut deep into the adjacent woods.  All that is left of the lower half of my body are the charred remains of a femur, hanging limply from a mess of bright red spaghetti.  An invasion of fire-ants surges over what’s left of my skin.

            Parked police cars canvas Route 72B, seven miles from the nearest intersection, labeled Exit 203.  The police officers leave cruiser doors open and wander into the clearing with weapons raised.  They stop at the sight of a charred, writhing torso.  For a few seconds, they just stare at the suicide bomber’s abortion, unsure of what to do.