The Pick-up Chapter Two: Ghosts on the Road
Seger again. 'Against the Wind' this time, his voice projected over the road noises, which were all but swallowed by the Knuckle's gnarly voice, pipes loud and proud. I could hear her breath, feel it close to my ear as she leaned in closer; I felt the heat of her lips against my skin.
“Name’s Raven,” she breathed finally, heavily, her voice carrying the weight of smoke and secrets.
“The name you gave me then. The one I still wear.”
The way she said 'you' gave me shivers and sent a chill down my spine. I liked it.
I twisted the throttle harder, trying to outrun the words or the name. But they stuck, clinging to me like oil. I realized they would never go away again; never again be forgotten.
The vague remnant of a memory began to stir, then emerge, a full featured, acid flashback, complete with sounds and smells. I had to pull The Knuckle off the highway and park.
Raven: A name, or perhaps a curse. Either way, it fit.
She looked as if she belonged to the night sky, wings spread wide, flying just ahead of trouble. Rhianan reborn.
“Where you from?” I asked, voice couched against the coastal wind.
She laughed low, wickedly, a sound that came from a place far older than this one. Again I shivered.
“From where you left me.” was the soft reply.
I started to ask more, but she cut me off with a light, fleeting kiss. “You’ll remember when we get there.”
“Get where?” I asked.
“Our destination, the Big Slur,” she said, “where it started, and where it will conclude. Don’t you feel it?”
I did.
That stretch of coast had always pulled at me, like gravity. Like fate. I remembered it all then.
Raven: the name I had pinned to her the night we met, high on free-base meth and Captain Morgain's finest, Jamaican rum. We had been lying, stretched out on sleeping bags, atop a dune of drifting sand. Her eyes reflected back the moonlight. Gazing deep into that blackness I felt the name grow clear and firm in my mind. "You are Raven." I whispered, and she was.
Back in the now, her arms tightened around my neck, and I felt her heartbeat sync with mine, steady, heavy, undeniable. She was pulling me into her rhythm. Into her time. Again.
And that’s when I realized this wasn’t about picking up a stranger on the side of the road. Not about today.
This was about something I’d left undone, not just years, but a couple of lifetimes ago.
We made it to Big Sur at sundown.
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