The Corruptor

Billy Baltimore never noticed the weird amalgamation of wet dog, rotting vegetables, and unwashed feet odor that wafted from his car. It was not the kind of smell that just showed up one day unannounced; it was the kind that festered in the upholstery and beneath the floor mats waiting for a blistering afternoon to slink into the open and whisper, guess who’s here to stay. Billy glanced about the interior of his 95 Ford Aspire hoping to see an old banana peel or half-eaten egg salad sandwich hidden beneath the layer of burger wrappers and newspapers that lined the car’s floor that could account for the odor.

But the search was futile.

The funk was there to stay.

Billy sighed and switched on the radio. For the past two hundred miles he’d been playing radio tag between two classic rock stations and one that boasted “All the Hits of the 80’s, All the Time.” Billy mainly stuck with the classic stations, but now they were fading and the 80’s station- WBLT- Hot 102.5 on your FM Dial - was the only thing coming in. But when he heard the opening licks of a Wang Chung song he had despised nearly two decades ago, Billy switched off the radio.

Some things were better left in the last millennium.

It was Billy’s luck that traffic on I-95 south had slowed to a crawl. According to the warning signs alongside the highway, some kind of construction was supposed to be going on somewhere further down the road. As a result, three of the four southbound lanes had been merged into a single creeping stream of vehicles.

Besides searching for the origin of the mystery funk and wishing that he had a working tape deck, Billy entertained himself by reading the bumper stickers on the rear end of the beige minivan ahead of him. There was a lot he could learn about people from their bumper stickers. For instance, Billy knew the owners of the van were PROUD PARENTS OF AN HONOR STUDENT, and that they voted for the Bush/Cheney ticket because GOD IS A REPUBLICAN. He also knew that someone had a sense of humor because FRIENDS ’T LET FRIENDS HAVE MULLETS.

Oh, how true that was.

And then there was the sticker pasted just above the license plate:

JESUS: ’T LEAVE EARTH WITHOUT HIM!

Nothing funny about that one.

Not even the picture of the little floating shepherd and his flock of sheep orbiting the moon.

Billy closed his eyes and hit the radio’s ON button. A John Mellencamp song from the days when he still went by the name Cougar was just beginning. Billy smiled. He could live with that.

It was another thirty minutes before I-95 opened to its full four lanes. By that time, Billy’s nerves were pretty much frayed, but as soon as he was able to push the Aspire to its maximum speed of 75, his mood changed. With the wind blowing through the open window and masking the car’s mysterious odor, Billy started to relax. There was still a few hundred miles to go before he hit the Florida border, but as long as he could keep moving, the better he felt.

Billy glanced at the dashboard, surprised to find the gas gauge dipping near E. Knowing the Aspire the way he did, he had another 30 miles left before he’d be out of gas. Normally Billy would have tried to get another two dozen miles off the tank, but the building pressure in his bladder told him that it was time to take a pit stop, so the best thing to do was pull off at the next exit and find a gas station.

Billy didn’t have long to wait. A sign for Exit 33 came into view about two miles later. A hundred yards after the exit were two small billboards advertising Food and Gas. With the need to pee intensifying, Billy flicked on his turn signal and steered the car into the far right lane as the exit approached. As he drove up the off ramp, the top of a blue and white gas station sign became visible.

Making a quick left, Billy steered into the parking lot, glad the gas station was one of the hybrid kind-part gas station, part convenience store. He had learned a lifetime of lessons on the road, one of them being that the hybrid stations usually had cleaner bathrooms.

Billy pulled up next to the self-serve pump and turned off the ignition. Out of habit he patted the back of his jeans to make sure his wallet was there before opening the door. Once out of the car, he hooked his thumbs into his pockets and stretched. Hardly a tall man at five-foot- nine, Billy still found his legs cramping up from spending too much time in the compact car.

Billy breathed in the sweet smell of gasoline before heading for the entrance. It was partially obscured by a five-foot rack of gallon jugs of blue windshield-wiper fluid and a poster informing all customers who purchased ten dollars or more of super supreme gasoline that a 12oz. travel mug would be waiting for them at the counter. Billy pushed open the door to the sound of a bell tingling which earned a quick glance from the overweight brunette behind the counter. Giving her a quick nod, Billy headed straight for the restroom.

The men’s room was no different than the thousands he had used over the years. It was tolerably clean, with a Christmas Tree-shaped car deodorizer hanging from the flourescent light to mask the ghost scent of stale piss that haunted roadside restrooms. Relieving himself into the porcelain whiteness of the urinal, Billy read the snatches of graffiti carved into the metal casing of an enormous condom machine that promised HIM complete protection and HER complete satisfaction. Carved in neat block letters at the bottom of the machine was JESUS IS WATCHING YOU.

Billy zipped up his pants and slapped the flush handle with his palm. Not Jesus Saves, or Jesus Loves You but JESUS IS WATCHING YOU. He stepped away from the urinal and started for the door, but remembering that Jesus was still watching him, turned back to the sink and washed his hands. Upon finishing he discovered there were no paper towels, so Billy dried his fingers on his jeans and stepped back into the store.

Billy shot a cursory look around the aisles of junk food, but even though he was hungry, nothing seemed appetizing. Empty handed he made his way to the counter in the middle of the store. “Can I get five bucks worth of regular on pump 2?” he asked, sliding a five-dollar bill across the counter. The plump brunette eyed the bill for a second then scooped it up with her pig-like fingers. Casually, almost imperceptibly they brushed against the tip of Billy’s forefinger. The touch was so minute that the woman probably didn’t even realize that she had come in contact with him, but for Billy, it was enough to sense the cancerous tumor lying dormant in her lymph nodes. It was still only a chemical abnormality encoded in her that wouldn’t be detectable for at least another decade, but it was there nonetheless. No doubt about it. It would get bigger, and she would die because of it.

No doubt about that either.

“Sure,” she said, punching in the amount on the register pump controls. “You want a receipt with that?”

“No thanks,” Billy said, pulling his hand back. “That’s okay.”

The woman nodded and told him to have a nice day.

Billy didn’t return the wish. He flung the glass door open and headed for the car. “Damn it,” he said between clenched teeth. Over the last two weeks the ability to detect sickness and disease, a power that he had thought long gone, was unaccountably awakening again within him. It was a power he never asked for or wanted. And for Billy, it didn’t matter that the power had come directly from God.

God could have it back.

Reaching the Aspire he flipped open the gas cap then yanked the nozzle off the gas pump. As he started to fill the car, a tall, gray-haired man in a ripped jean jacket came up beside him. “Hi,” the man said, giving Billy the thumbs up sign. “If you’re going south, can I get a lift?”

Billy didn’t answer. He stared at the man’s hand. Even though the temperature was over eighty degrees the man was wearing gloves.

“What do I want at the store?”

Nine-year-old Jeffery Nash pursed his lips and stared hard at his mother. “One pack of hamburger buns,” he answered. “Just one pack. No candy, no gum, no football cards.” He held up the five-dollar bill his mother had given him. “And I better bring back the change if I know what’s good for me.”

Carol Nash smiled at her son and mussed his thick brown hair. “Okay, you got it. Just to the Stop-n-Shop and back, okay? No hanging out at Jimmy’s house.”

Jeffery started to protest. His best friend, Jimmy Newman, had just gotten a new Shadow Force game for his Game Box, and Jeffery was dying to try it out. “Come on, mom. Just for a little bit. His mother said that I could come over.”

Carol’s glance darted between her watch and her son’s pleading, brown eyes. She held back a laugh as he fluttered his eyelashes at her. God, she thought. What a heart breaker. “One hour,” she conceded, tapping her wrist with the forefinger of her right hand. “You make sure you’re back by . And you better have my buns, got it?”

“Got it.” Jeffery slipped the bill into the pocket of his shorts then turned and ran out the front door. Through the screen door, his mother watched as he bounded down the porch steps, his curly brown hair bouncing as he went. He paused for a second and waved. Carol couldn’t help but smile.

Then Jeffery turned left and started to run.

And was gone.

The hitchhiker’s name was Matthew Johns. He was a 62-year-old retired systems analyst who had never married. He had no children, and Billy was profoundly grateful that his passenger didn’t attach the ubiquitous “at least any that I know of” when he offered that snippet of biography. Matthew was a self-proclaimed aging hippie who was in the last stage of hitchhiking, what he called, “the four corners of the country.” After a quick handshake and introduction, Matthew offered Billy the condensed version of his trek. “I started in Orlando,” he said. “Then made my way to California and up to Seattle. From there I hitched across the Canadian border to Maine. Now I’m heading back to Florida.”

Billy asked him why.

Matthew shrugged. “Just for something to do, I guess. I never had a chance to travel when I was working, so when I retired I said, ‘what the heck.’ You only go around once, so I packed up my bag and got some travelers checks and hit the road. Haven’t you ever just felt like packing your bags and taking off, Billy?”

“Can’t say I ever felt that way,” he replied, staring out the windshield. Matthew didn’t respond right away, and in that silence, Billy had the feeling that his passenger knew he was lying.

“That’s good, Billy,” Matthew said. “That’s good.” The older man pushed his neck against the headrest and closed his eyes. A mile later he was asleep.

Chapter 2