go. Trucks had been pulling up all day, and because I didn’t work there regularly, most of my work was the backbreaking type. The other three guys rotated turns using the forklift, so they might get a break now and then. Not me. My job was to sort the boxes and then haul them from the back of the trailer to where the door slid up, loading everything on pallets so the forklift could move them into the warehouse. But by the end of the day, since I was the only one there, I had to do it all. By the time I finished up, I was bone-tired. I could barely move my arms, I had spasms in my back, and since I’d missed dinner, I was starving, too.
That’s why I decided to go to Rhett’s Barbecue instead of heading straight home. After a long, hard day, there’s nothing better in the world than barbecue, and when I finally crawled into my car, I was thinking to myself that in just a few minutes, I’d finally be able to relax.
My car back then was a real beater, dented and banged up all over, a Pontiac Bonneville that had a dozen years on the road already. I’d got it used the summer before and paid only three hundred dollars for it. But even though it looked like hell, it ran good and I’d never had a problem with it. The engine started up whenever I turned the key, and I’d fixed the brakes myself when I first bought it, which was all it really needed at the time.
So I got in my car just as the sun was finally going down. At that time of night, the sun does funny things as it arcs downward in the west. The sky is changing color almost by the minute, shadows are spreading across the roads like long, ghostly fingers, and since there wasn’t so much as a cloud in the sky, there were moments when the glare would slant sharply through the window and I’d have to squint so I could see where I was going.
Just ahead of me, another driver seemed to be having even more problems seeing than I was. Whoever it was was speeding up and slowing down, hitting the brakes every time the sunlight shifted, and more than once veering across the white line onto the other side of the road. I kept reacting, hitting my own brakes, but finally I got fed up and decided to put some distance between me and him. The road was too narrow for passing, so instead I slowed my car, hoping the person would pull farther away.
But whoever it was did just the opposite. He slowed down, too, and when the distance had closed between us again, I saw the brake lights blinking on and off like Christmas lights, then suddenly staying red. I hit my own brakes hard, my tires squealing as my car jerked to a stop. I doubt if I missed the car in front of me by more than a foot.
That’s the moment, I think, when fate intervened. Sometimes, I wish I’d hit the car, since I would have had to stop and Missy Ryan would have made it home. But because I missed—and because I’d had enough of the driver in front of me—I took the next right, onto Camellia Road, even though it added a little extra time, time I now wish I could have back. The road swung through an older part of town, where oaks were full and lush, and the sun was dipping low enough that the glare was finally gone. A few minutes later, the sky started darkening more quickly and I turned on my headlights.
The road veered left and right, and soon the houses began to spread out. The yards were bigger, and fewer people seemed to be about. After a couple of minutes, I made another turn, this time onto Madame Moore’s Lane. I knew this road well and comforted myself with the knowledge that in a couple of miles, I’d find myself at Rhett’s.
I remember turning the radio on and fiddling with the dial, but I didn’t really take my eyes off the road. Then I turned it off. My mind, I promise you, was on the drive.
The road was narrow and winding, but like I said, I knew this road like the back of my hand. I automatically applied the car’s brakes as I entered a bend in