Highway 9

I was riding shotgun high on a handful of kicks Albert scored from his brother who worked at the county jail in Santa Cruz. Love’s Creek had launched her fury and spat out foam, sticks, and a couple of dead hobos along Big Basin Road. We decided to gun it over Skyline Boulevard to the mountain highway where the redwoods sucked in the bullets of rain like rails of Albert’s Mexican coke. Our dented VW zig zagged across the road on account of the fog and Albert’s narcolepsy. The floorboards were soaked through and worn so thin that you could see the highway underneath our flip flops. Shards of asphalt stung my legs every couple of seconds. I was half way through the can of Hamm’s and a sweet vape of hashish when the headlights of an angry flatbed flashed at us since Albert was drifting off to sleep again and we were swerving into the lane of the red-faced driver in the baseball cap. “Slow down brah,” I said and we started skidding back toward the other side of the road. Albert laughed and let go of the wheel. “What are you doing, man?” I saw the sign for Henry Cowell State Park. Fire Hazard: Low. No shit. There was a zap like a bolt of light. I remember Albert laughing louder. The car took the hairpin turn and more lights flashed. I woke up with blood pouring out of a gash on my forehead. The cut wasn’t from the VW, which was wrapped around a redwood, but from the hash pipe that slammed into my head when Albert pulled the e-brake. We spun around a few times and I kept seeing rain and trees and the red skin of the redwoods. Then my door flew open. I tumbled outside in the rain and bounced across the road. I tasted warm metal running into my mouth from my head. The red-faced flatbed driver said he knew we were trouble the minute he spotted us. “Couple of clowns,” he said shaking his head. His shoes were bloody from dragging me off the road. “Called in the crash on my CB. You’re lucky Felton Fire and Rescue had nothing going on tonight. They saved your ass.” “What about Albert?” “You’re friend? The driver?” “Yeah, Albert.” He pointed down the road and walked away. “Where’s Albert?” I asked the brunette angel who kneeled beside me with a scratchy blanket. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear her. She smiled and draped her arm over me like we were settling down for a movie at the drive-in. Over her shoulder I saw the firemen working. The car was wrecked and so was Albert, wrapped around a redwood like a sailor clinging to a buoy. His teeth scattered around the tree. I could see all of them. A shrine of Chiclets and diluted blood interrupted only by the hissing of the engine that screamed at me. “You did this,” they said.