Theo Duga's Cab
by Don NorumDavid had gone down on spring break to help gut houses from Katrina and ended up staying another week. The constant twanging of the demo bar still rang in his ears, and the rising clouds of dirty mold spores were nothing compared to the waterlogged photo albums and family Bibles they billowed from, nothing next to the teary-eyed families standing around outside watching their houses ripped apart by college students. And the families, who had nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, would watch the students leave for their northern cities with movie theaters and hotels and manicured parks and good schools and all the things that had been drowned and then wrung into pieces there in New Orleans.
He couldn't bear going back to his daily life right then, and he knew with utter certainty that he couldn’t stay in the city, so he cadged a backpack and hiking kit from a friend, scheduled a trip back home out of Baton Rouge leaving in a week and a half, and started walking ten miles outside of the Ward. The trails past cypress and through sunlit bayou were deserted, spongy ground that hadn't responded to any other steps for weeks. He walked, and when he was tired he found dry ground and made camp, reading silently into the night.
That was the first night, before the sucking mud and the humid oppression borne on the wings of a hundred million mosquitoes and gnats, before he slogged through every step, tripping over cyprus roots and bruising his shins. It would have been easier going just to walk along the shoulder of the road, but for three days he clung to his winding path, first out of his displaced desire for a Romantic sort of journey, then out of shame for his bedraggled, filthy form.
But now, as the sun beat down and he found himself still fifty miles from Baton Rouge, his hand started to jerk out at every passing motor, thumb up almost of its own accord.
Hot water from a Nalgene bottle swished around in his mouth, reluctant to be swallowed, as he heard the gravel crunch behind him. David turned and saw a battered pickup truck with an over-bed cover pull up and jerk to a stop. His own appearance was forgotten as he looked at the motorist.
A tall, thin man wearing dusty suit pants and a buttoned shirt got out of the cab. Lanky black hair hung down behind his shoulders, held in place by a sheen of sweat. Round over-large eyes, black and sparkling, stared at David.
"You all right?" His teeth were straight, white, and even.
"Huh? Uh, yeah, yeah, thanks."
"Hell, I thought you were hitching. I'm goin' in to Tickfaw, a ways on up, I's going to say I could drop you off along the way."
David balked. Then he felt the mud seeping in through the seams of his shoes, baking in the sun, the weight of his pack, and the dust that seemed to re-cake around him with every step.
"Bonn? East Baton Rouge?"
"Be there by tea-time." David looked down at his muddy boots and the dirt suffusing his clothes; felt the sodden heft of his pack.
"Is it all right?"
"No worries. Hell," the man said as he threw David's pack into the back and motioned to the passenger seat, "old Boomer'd be dirtier than that most days of the week."
As the man climbed into the driver's seat next to David in the cracked-plastic cab of the truck, he stuck out a long-fingered hand.
"Theophile Ferre-Duga. Theo."
"David Muscovitz." Now that he listened for it, David could hear a slight softening and flowing of Gallic tones in the man's voice. Theo saw the cocking of the ear and chuckled.
"As American as you, my friend. Name's from the first of the family to settle here. Great-grandfather. Picked up a few vowels and some swears from him, but I'm as American as you."
"Are you sure you don't mind taking me on to Baton Rouge?" David was still nervous – the man seemed strange, above and beyond the fact that he had happened to be there at all, and the run-down truck was distressing him in a subtle way, a bad odor that could be felt and seen but not smelled.
"Look, people got to stick together. We're all human, right? I'm going there anyway, you look like you could use a ride, why not? You ain't fixin' to rob, rape, or kill me, are ya?"
"What? What, no - "
"Just a joke, son. Really, no problem." He threw the truck in gear and trundled off. The rhythmic bouncing and rocking of the cab soon put David at ease, as the small talk turned over towards sports, weather, and after a full circle, the Katrina tragedy.
David didn't want to talk much about that, seeing as how he had had enough of it already, and Theo didn't seem to want to discuss it, either. So the ride to Bonn passed with relative ease, conversation shifting to other, more innocuous subjects – politics of a general "damn those politicians" variety, without two affiliations to rub together, and sports, which they treated the same.
They pulled in about three o'clock with the sun high in the sky and dust circling in the humid air in front of the bus station. David hopped down and Theo went around to hand him his pack from the darkly cluttered bed of the pickup shrouded by the camper shell. They waved at each other and David hurried into the flattop glass-wall terminal, arriving at the desk slightly out of breath from the heat.
"Hi. I'm here for the three o'clock bus to Richmond. I have my ticket here." He reached into his pocket and was stopped by the old blue-hair behind the counter.
"Hold onto that for just a minute, son." David really hoped that she meant he wouldn't have to show his ticket, just go ahead and run on through to the bus like in a movie theater when you buy your ticket during the credits, but he didn't think so.
"Virginia bus left five minutes ago. You're too late."
"Great. Is there anything I can do?"
She looked down at the dispatch book behind the ledge and flipped a few crackling pages.
"Well, there's a night-liner coming through here later, I could convert the ticket for you. Meantime, there's a diner down the way, or benches here." She shrugged.
"What time does the night bus get there?"
"Here 'bout eight, gets there maybe twenty, twenty four hours depending on gas and traffic."
Yeah. An hour and a half after his plane would depart the tarmac, even before thinking about the security and check-in. Fuckin' marvelous.
"Is there anything else, anything else at all a bit earlier?" David asked.
"Sorry, but nothing else coming through to there 'til this evening."
"Thanks anyway."
David walked away and stepped outside, leaning on his pack against the wall sorting out how he'd have to do things. Get some change for the payphones, maybe find a calling card; he'd have to call his girlfriend and his parents and let them know the change in schedule, he'd have to reschedule the plane flight, and then he'd be getting into Dulles in the middle of the night, so he'd need to sleep or rent a car...
Shit. He set off in search of the diner the lady had mentioned. If he were going to have five hours sitting around, he might as well get something to eat and some coffee. It was easy enough to find the place. Down the street evidently meant across the street in these parts, and the counter was easy enough to see through the front glass wall. The flickering neon sign announcing "Sal's Diner" didn't hurt the recognition, either.
Inside the air conditioning beat a welcome wave across his face and he sidled up to the counter. A couple of Hispanics in paint-spattered jeans and sweatshirts, despite the heat, sat in a booth over coffee, and he felt a bit less self-conscious about the road dust caked on him.
He tapped the counter and got a cup of coffee and a burger, and was just pouring ketchup from the grimy glass bottle when the door behind him tinkled and he turned instinctively. Theo saw him and raised his eyebrows, then walked over and clapped him on the back.
"Hey kid. What're ya doin' still here?"
"Missed the bus."
"Sheee-it. Tough luck."
Theo sat down and motioned for the waitress, ordered a piece of cherry pie and some coffee before continuing.
"What's the plan now? Catch the next one?"
"Yeah, but that's not till this evening, and then it screws up all of my travel plans. New flight, new rental car, all that."
"Hell, then, I'll give you a ride."
"You will? But it's all the way to Richmond, that's like..."
Theo threw back his head and laughed.
"You think I'd take you all the way? That's something. You're something, but not that much of a something. No," he said, shaking his head, "I mean that that bus has a stop once it leaves here, and I can take a shortcut to drop you off two towns up, catch it in Ponchatoula."
"You'd do that?"
"It's out of my way a little bit, but I think that I could manage it." He checked his watch. "Still have a couple of minutes, if you want to finish your burger. I think I can still make it."
David grinned and proceeded to wolf down the rest of the burger and gulp his cooling coffee while Theo wiped the last few scraps of pie from his plate. He paid his bill and followed Theo out to the truck, handing his pack off and swinging gratefully into the passenger seat.
The bayou rolled past them as Theo turned off onto the back road that comprised his shortcut to the stop at Ponchatouola. David leaned back into the seat and sighed.
"Man, that was lucky you were there. Talk about God watching out for you."
Theo raised an eyebrow to him. "You think God made sure I was there when you missed your bus?"
"Maybe. Figure of speech, I guess. You don't believe in God? – Sorry if that's out of line or anything."
"Me? Nah, I don't believe in god. Not a capital-G God, anyway."
"Why not?"
"I guess because I was the youngest kid. You know, I never really could wrap my head around just why exactly this omniscient, all-powerful deity would go around poking holes in my baseball cards when I did something wrong, and after that it was too late, I guess."
"Baseball cards?"
"My mother talked to my teachers, Sunday school and beyond. If I was bad, every day until I was eleven, she'd sneak into my room and take a hole punch to my Topps. Say that God did it to punish me."
"Damn."
"Other than that, she was a saint." He paused. "So no, I mean, I don't think that there's a God. Higher power, maybe, but some father figure who looks over our lives and judges us to Heaven or Hell? No, I don't think that. Makes my life a lot easier, I tell you, just worrying about living my life instead of punishment in the ever-after."
"I guess so. Not my position, necessarily, but hey. No harm, no foul."
"As my mother said, just because you're disagreein' doesn't mean you need to be disagreeable."
David chuckled. "Amen to that."
He leaned back into the worn leather cab seat and let out a wheezy sigh.
"Man, I gotta thank you again. This is... I'd've missed my bus for sure if you hadn't come along."
"You already missed it, remember?"
They chuckled.
"Shit, you know what I mean. I wouldn't have even seen that one if it weren't for you, and if you hadn't happened along, I'd've had to wait another two days for the next flight or something. So I'm saying thanks for the ride up to the next terminal."
"It's nothing."
"Really, if I had a six pack or something, you'd be welcome."
Theo swerved the truck back and forth just a little bit, that sort of small oscillation that always hits the resonant frequency of your gut.
"Beer's not so good." Said with a smile. "'Sides, parish sheriff around these parts doesn't have much of a liking to me. Bit of bad blood."
"Why's that?" David had a brief glimpse of dark, decaying swampy manses, unwelcome backwoods thoughts, and a laconic, grinning Theophile seated opposite a be-hatted lawman in a diner.
"Rat bastard picked on me in kindergarten. Why else?"
He saw the quaver of apprehension on David's face and said, "Just a joke."
"Oh, no, it's just... You wanna hear something funny?"
"What is it?"
"Well, when you first stopped, I almost didn't get into the cab. All those horror movies as a kid, you know? Stranger in the car stops to pick up the hitchhiker, Bad Things thereupon occur."
"What, you thought I was a serial killer?"
"Well, not thought-thought, but it came up for a second there. The mind's a perverse monkey," he added, "like, uh, whatshisname says."
"Sheesh, talk about narrative logic." Theo shook his head.
"Narrative logic?"
"Yeah, like in a story. See, most folk," Theo turned and smiled, "me included, try to make sense of things in terms of how it would be in a story. Y'know, you go to meet someone somewhere and they don't show, you assume some mugger got them, or you're going crazy, or maybe they hate you, when really they're just late. You get a water bottle with the little tamper-seal things broken, and you're the target of some insidious drugging rather than the equally unfortunate victim of a clumsy shelf-boy."
"I guess maybe we're just wired like that, as humans. I mean, look at this. From that way, like it was a horror movie. What happens to the guy picking up the hitchhiker?"
"It's the hitchhiker that's usually a serial killer." David shifted uneasily as Theo said this.
"Or he gets killed by the guy giving him a ride. That legend was around before the man in the car."
"Or they both go along until they crash, and then the killer gets them both."
"Perhaps they're both the killer. Killers."
"And they end up competing for victims." Theo chuckled at himself.
"Maybe it's one of those cross-genre comedy pics, like Shaun of the Dead. Or two serial killers, each plotting to kill the other. Like Mr. and Mrs. Smith." David grinned and continued. "Or The Departed with a laugh track."
"Maybe it's like we're both the up and up normal guys, who turn out to be the killers in the shocker."
"Or the killers who turn out to be innocent in the last five."
"Now that you mention it, that is sounding a little fishy." David grinned.
"Yeah, well, look at it this way. If I was a serial killer," Theo said, dropping his jaw and disgorging the last two words as if his face were made of plastic, "I wouldn't want you to think that I was. And if I'm not, then I wouldn't want you to think I was, so either way, I say I'm not. Unless I know that you know that, so I act like a serial killer because that's how a serial killer wouldn't act, unless he knew that you knew that he knew…" he started flipping his head from shoulder to shoulder, a grin on his face.
"An infinite regress problem. Like Aristotle and the Homunculus."
Theo nodded and knocked him on the shoulder. "Right on, little man."
"Mind pulling over for a second? Coffee at the diner just hit me."
"No problem. There's a little spot up ahead." Theo pulled off down a side road and moved along for a bit away from the paved road onto a rutted dirt trail away from prying eyes.
David walked carefully through the tall grass away from the truck. The last few days had instilled in him a respect for the spongy ground's ability to effortlessly entrap unwary limbs. He rounded a small coppice of cyprus and pulled down his fly, finding his footing as he started to relax.
He felt a sharp twinge around his right ankle and jerked. Around his lower leg a ring of metal had popped up from the weeds and latched around his calf. Three curved prongs of rusted iron topped by semi-circular plates sprouted from a disc half-buried in the silted plain. David pulled his leg once, rearranging his pants. A chain linking the disc in the direction of the stumps twisted half-free of the dirt.
"Hey, Theo!" he cried, trying to shuck from his back the inevitable cold chill.
"What, man?"
"I hit some sort of trap here. It's got my leg."
"Hell. Is it a bear trap?" David could hear a note of concern and alarm in Theo's voice.
"No, I'm all right, it's just locked around my leg or something."
"Oh, okay. That shouldn't be a problem."
"Yeah, could you help me out with that then?"
"Hey, sorry man, I'm on it." David could hear Theo rummaging for tools in the back of his truck as he pulled a bit more of the chain free. David looked down; the tines on the end of the plates had locked together when it closed, preventing him from pulling it open. He could hear Theo continuing to talk as he made his way through the brush.
"Damnit, that's probably one of my old ones from a few seasons ago. See, a lot of the other trappers around here use those old style bear traps - dangerous as hell, and half the time whatever you catch up and dies on you 'fore you can reach it. I'm the only one that uses this type around here, must'uv forgotten about this one." David felt a twinge of anger about the man's nonchalance. He wasn't the one trapped like some oversize swamp rat.
The man's generosity be damned, he felt like giving him a little bit of a berating as he rounded the coppice - especially seeing as it was his bloody trap he was caught in, but then - then - he reconsidered.
The blowtorch could be for weakening the chain links to the point where the bolt cutter could get through them, while the duct tape could wrap around a prong to prevent a flying spray of splinters if the old metal snapped when it was cut. The pliers could bend back the prongs holding the trap closed, while the various awls might trigger some internal release mechanism in the base. And if all that failed, then, well, the chainsaw could get the anchor out from the coppice so that they could go and find someone else to get it off.
As for the apron, he shouldn't expect some kind, well-dressed local trapper to not only give him a ride, but muddy his clothes too while freeing his stupid ass from the leftovers of last year's fur traps. All rational thoughts, all perfectly reasonable.
Although he couldn't think of why Theo would need a five-pound bag of salt, or a cheese grater; nor, for that matter, a boning knife and several Hefty trash bags. And the battery in the truck was good, and the truck on the road, so why would he have a spare battery and jumpers? He started shivering.
"Oh no, no, no-no-no-no-no – no – you can't – but no – you said – "
"Shit, boy, weren't you listening? A stranger picks you up and jokes 'bout how you can't tell if he's a serial killer? I thought you were smarter than that; I mean, how much plainer could I have been?" Theo asked as he sparked the torch and shrugged.
©Don Norum
Don Norum is a graduate student in physics at the University of Virginia. He has been published in Science and Physical Review Letters, with an essay on cyberpunk forthcoming in Aoife's Kiss.