Holly and the Hindenburg

Part 2

"You stay in the car and keep watch, girl," she told me when we first wheeled into the potholed parking lot. "I don't wanna lose two grand because we were too stupid to leave the goods unattended." There was something too-sure about her words that didn't set well. I wanted go inside, stretch my legs, scout around for my own snack. But you stay?

There was a night, maybe the third or fourth time I sat with Jackie at the bar, when this tone first surfaced. A social situation, an incident that both she and the bartender were rehashing, one that she summed up by bellowing out I'll backhand that bitch if it happens again. She cackled at her own humor as the bartender grinned and poured her another drink, saloon-style. I was weary from a day of flirty contractors and invoices for Red Chief putty, and just wanted some like-minded company. But I took notice. Jackie, it seemed, wasn't scared of anything. I'm taking more notice now.

How far does desperation have to take you? Would I have to one day tell Nick how we afforded the move back to Albany? How Holly lost her mind and turned thief-for-an-eve, all for a thousand bucks?

We're back on the road, and Jackie's tapping her ring against the window, once again running her mouth. "I wonder if any of the Hindenburg's passengers had their fingers gripped to our cross-braces when the flames finally got to 'em."

I'm from New York. Was a college athlete. Became a single mother. So I'm not the softest gal around. But I can't believe the words I'm hearing.

"What do you think?" she says, looking for affirmation as she pops the top off her third Hi-Life.

"I don't even know where a cross-brace is on a blimp," I say flatly.

She explodes in laughter, spitting flecks of beer across the front of the glove box. "What, and I do? Come on, girl, what do I know? I'm just a house painter. Hell, I don't even know how many people died on the Hindenburg. But seriously, can you imagine? Some poor soul's hands plastered—no, melted—to the steel?! We outta tell this antique freak that they had to cut people's fingers from our braces just to remove their bodies. That way, we might be able to get another g out of him!"

She wraps all of this up with another burst of laughter and yet another big elbow to my side, slinging suds onto my shirt and lap.

We zip past a large cornfield, and in the deep distance the stars form a sprinkle of silver kernels that pock the backdrop of the night. I look at it but see very little. The idea that any human died while clinging to what we're about to profit from sickens me, even terrifies me; the news image of the Hindenburg going down in flames skips through my head, and the only thing able to drown it out is the endless howling from the woman to my right.

A boiling point. Did the Hindenburg have one of those? An instant where its hydrogen began to leak? A point at which the static electricity that danced around the balloon's periphery became too much, ripping into the airship's structure? A point of desperation?

Mine occurs at a Shamrock gas station. Tonight. May 17, 1996. 12:19 a.m. Somewhere in rural Jersey. It happens but then, truth be told, I'm not exactly sure what happens.

For over half an hour Jackie's been yanking at my arm, telling me she's got to pee. So when the green roadside neon hits our sight she shrieks something idiotic and claps loudly, right outside my right eardrum. It's a run-down gas station, closed, not one of those all-night joints, so I pull around to the side and she stumbles out into the shadows and finds her way to a restroom that's no doubt seen the lowest of the lowest walks of life.

The passenger seat of my car is a train wreck. There's beer bottles and candy wrappers everywhere, and I, being the mother that I am, begin to scoop it all up in a fury, reaching over and stashing everything into Jackie's duffel bag. If she doesn't like it, to hell with her. I'm done with this drama.

But then it happens. I'm stuffing the last of Jackie's mess into the bag and there's this loud clink. I eye the bathroom door and decide to go for it, pulling the bag across the seat to my lap, wondering what in hell ol girl's got in her dirty little bag. And there it is again. Not a glass on glass clink, but more like a glass on steel clink.

I rummage through a mess of towels and T-shirts, a pair of paint-splotched work boots. And there, right in front of me, lies a large grayish pistol. It's fantasy, something out of a detective show, but as real as the headache I've had for the last two hours. Starlight falls through the windshield, picking up the glint of the steel, the twinkle of the cold silver. I press the gears of my brain, frantic, scrambling to make a quick decision.

Was there a split moment when the Hindenburg's main captain could have made a difference? A few seconds where a lightning-like maneuver could have saved more lives? I'm told that some of us have such moments. A flicker of a crossroads in which the choice made will determine much of the rest of our life. For better. Or for worse.

I generally like my car clean. So off I go, coasting over the parking lot's broken asphalt, headed for the trash can I've just spotted. It's sitting at the pull-out to the main drag, right alongside a telephone booth. Through the glass I can see the juvenile scrawling all over the blue interior panel, 908-479-9219, Jake loves Sara! and so on.

Window down, I reach over, begin discarding the trash from Jackie's little party. The Snickers wrappers are sticky, and the beer bottles feel warm and clammy in my hands; my knuckles nick the corner of Jackie's index card as I run my fingers through the crevices of the center console, collecting bottle caps, straw wrappers, other pieces of small trash.

Bag back on the floor, I sit still, the car still in park. The rearview mirror gives me a clean snapshot of the bathroom area. The bits of the blimp rest comfortably in the back. And I'm teetering on the ledge of my own crossroads. Thinking about my future and my son. Wondering at just how sideways or right-ways life can become by a sudden snap decision.

I slide the car out of park, the engine of my mighty hooptie bracing for its next command. Is this how far desperation had to take me? I look in the rearview mirror again. I'm still not sure.

But then, maybe I am sure.

I'm sure that I'm better off with Jackie than away from her. That going for it could mean asking for it. The gear stick shifts smoothly into reverse.

I'm also sure how much better two grand is than one. That the gun that's only a few feet away probably means a lot more than I'm willing to entertain. That I simply can't take any of this anymore. The stick is now in drive, and it agrees with me. I mean, it really agrees with me.

But something that comes around every four or five days finds a way to happen at the worst possible moment: my Cutlass conks out, poof, lickety-split. The car rolls back gently as the engine goes dead, and I press the brake pedal and jam the engine into park. I grip the keys, about to re-start the ignition.

And there's Jackie, standing right at the passenger window, stooped over, staring at me.

Is this where desperation has finally dropped me off? Jackie opens the door, not taking her eyes off me.

I think I'm about to find out.