Into the Fire

Six

“The experience didn’t start until about a year after my wife died.” Even saying that brought the choke in his throat. He cleared it. “I started doin’ my Dad’s long hauls then. Drivin’ a lot of nights. Sleepin’ in the daytime at truck stops. That’s when some trucker we’d known for years gave me the nickname—”
“Nightcrawler? I saw it on your truck door. Isn’t that a worm?”
Micah laughed at the discomfort in her voice. “Yeah. One that comes out at night. Anyway, it stuck. I didn’t care—I felt like a worm. It’s hard to explain. It was like the daytime reminded me of Jean—of our summers together, or our seasons. We used to spend hours and hours outside together. Of course, at first we just played like a couple of kids, hiked, swam, collected rocks.” For the first time in he couldn’t remember when, it felt good to remember the past, to express the joy of their time together.
“So I drove at night, focused in the darkness. I couldn’t pray for awhile. I wasn’t mad at God for taking her home, but I didn’t get it, you know? She was so young, and she was my wife.” His voice caught, and he had to stop and regroup.
“I wouldn’t have believed in a God who took someone I loved away from me,” she decided.
“Yes, you would’ve, Bonita.” He was emphatic.
“How can you say that?” The sunglasses were now focused on him.
“Because I know Him, Bonita. Not just in my head, but deep inside. I know Jesus.”
“How can you believe in someone you’ve never seen? How do you know he’s not just a figment of man’s imagination? Like people who want to believe there’s more to life than what we see, so they think there’re aliens or something.”
Micah hesitated and glanced at his mirrors. “I’ve seen Him, Bonita. That’s how.”
Her swollen lips parted and then closed. She turned her gaze back to the asphalt ahead of them. “Oh.”
A half hour later Micah took an exit and pulled into the large parking lot of a burger joint.
“We can eat in there or get it to go.”
“To go.”
“What can I get you?”
She reached inside her pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich with fries and a large Coke.” She handed him the money.
“Keep it. If you need to use the restroom, I’ll lock the truck.”
“Micah Jones, I can pay my way.” There was irritation in her voice.
Pulling off his sunglasses, he looked directly at her. “Look, Bonita Carson, you’re going to be off work for at least a week. Paying your way for a week isn’t going to break me, okay? Now put your money away and—” He stopped and took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling of his cab.
“’And’ what?”
He softened his tone. “And drop the attitude.”
She smiled at him for as long as her lips allowed. “I need to use the restroom.” And she got out of the truck.
He handed her the Coke, unlocked her door, and told her to take her time as she smoked. He went around and got in the cab and arranged his food for travel. She set her pop on the floor and hoisted herself up into the truck. Situating the pop between her legs, she removed her food from the bag.
Micah bowed his head and prayed not only for the Lord to bless the food but for him to be able to handle this girl that sat beside him.
“You afraid to pray in front of me?”
“No, why?”
“Well, I don’t mind if you wanta do it out loud.”
“I’ll remember that.” He started his rig and drove across the road to a fuel island to fill up.
After they’d eaten, Bonita cleaned up the wrappers, depositing them in the bag hanging off the arm of her seat. “So, continue.”
He looked over at her, once again trying to follow her thinking.
“You know. You were driving at night on long hauls, and this thing started happening.”
He tried to organize his thoughts. “Well, after a year of feeling dead myself, I guess I decided the only one who could get me out of this incessant grief was Jesus, so I was finally able to really pray again, and I told the Lord if I had to remain here on this earth, I wanted to be able to accomplish something for the Kingdom of God. By then I’d had my fill of the night driving and the darkness I was carrying around, and within a couple of months of that prayer, I had my first unusual experience.”
As the sun began to drop below their sight line ahead of them, Micah gave her a brief sketch of some prophetic dreams he’d had over the years and how somehow God managed to tell him the circumstances of some people’s lives. A long silence ensued.
“Like mine.” She stated it rather than asking, her voice coming from the shadows and almost startling him when she finally decided to speak again.
“Like yours.”
“Like when?”
“Like the first time you came to my table.”
“But not when you saw with me with Blaine?”
She remembered, he realized. “No. The first time I saw you with Blaine, you reminded me of—” He couldn’t finish.
“Of who?”
“Something about you reminded me of my wife,” he forced out.
“I’m goin’ to bet your wife was a whole lot better lookin’ than me,” she reacted with a disbelieving laugh. “Probably built better anyway.”
“Bonita, what’s with you? You’re an attractive girl.”
“Uh-huh. Give me a break, Micah Jones. I mean I appreciate all you’re doin’ for me. I really do, but cut the—” She stopped herself before cussing. “You probably don’t much like cussing or swearing, huh?”
“No, I don’t, but I’m not going to tell you how to talk.
“You reminded me of my wife because I saw you as fragile and vulnerable. My wife had a physical condition with her heart that wasn’t diagnosed until it couldn’t be remedied. She was fragile and vulnerable in a different way. We married so we could experience each other—give ourselves to each other—before she died.” The words had made it out but not without an effort to even make them audible.
He was glad there was quiet afterwards. He couldn’t have responded if Bonita had commented. It must have been close to a half hour before she spoke again. “I’m sorry, Micah Jones.”
“And she was slender like you.”

Taken from Nightcrawler (WIP tentative title) (2007–?; written by Nicole Petrino-Salter)

*Please continue to pray for Kristy Dykes.*