How to be Wild

[Knightofsloth707]

Outside of the door were two sturdy wooden chairs, their smooth wood contrasting with the decay infiltrating every other part of the porch.

"The Mackay estate has been in my family for," he paused for a moment, trying to do the mental math. "Generations," he finally settled on.

"I suppose when I'm gone nature will reclaim it," he said, settling down into one of the chairs.

"Last of my kind," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. He motioned for Ash to take a seat in the chair next to him.

His eyes surveyed the long expanse of unkempt grass in front of the estate. An old garage sat in the distance, it's green paint collecting in slivers at the base of its walls. A muddy path, straight as an arrow, led off into the distance. Farther along, ranks of live oaks flanked the path, Spanish moss adorning the intermingling branches of the canopy.

After a moment, the sun broke through the clouds, its golden light reflecting off the raindrops collected on the greenery around them.

"If you don't mind me asking," he said, turning to regard Ash. "How DID you end up stumbling onto my doorstep?"

 

[WretchRoad]

The last of his kind, she thought, what an odd title to claim in a world where people clung to their heritage and took pride in their linneage. It meant no siblings, no offspring, and no intent to change that. His lifestyle, what she'd seen of it, reinforced that notion.

There was something poetic about it, just a man and his dog, waiting out the clock. There was something infinitely depressing about it as well.

Her attention was drawn by the way the light filtered down through the moss-curtained branches, something she'd always loved about the boggy south, the way oaks dressed up like phantoms in drapes of tattered fabrics.

She took the seat and joined him in admiring the scenery as the sun rose up over the clouds.

"Short story?" she began, "I hitched a bad ride and ended up on the side of the road when I ditched him, decided to take a "short-cut" through the bush and ended up here." She took a slow sip of her coffee, she never hid who she was, not if she could help it. She watched his reaction over the rim of the cup.

"Mind if I ask why you're out here alone, no phone, no internet, just you and the cicadas and Roland?"

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel clenched his jaw as Ash told him about the ride she'd hitched. His imagination added sinister details to the little she'd told him. He felt heat rising up inside him.

Why do I suddenly feel so protective of her? He asked himself.

Nothing wrong with feeling a little protective of someone who wants your help, he reasoned.

But who is going to protect her from you, old boy? A voice answered back.

His reverie was broken by the question he'd known was coming, but still didn't have an answer for. How does one explain that they are too dangerous to be around other people? That it takes isolation, toil, repetition to tame the raging storm within?

Daniel knew what losing control meant. He was reminded of the consequences every day when he looked in the mirror and saw the circle of scar tissue on his shoulder.

"I wasn't always alone out here," he said finally.

"My family were here too, and after-" He caught himself. "-later I moved to the city for a time."

He smiled bitterly. "I didn't find peace there. It's better out here, just me and Roland."

 

[WretchRoad]

His explanation was as good as any, she supposed. Some people just enjoyed seclusion, and maybe he was the type who found the beat of a bustling city never quite matched his rhythm.

She, on the other hand, felt disconnected on those long stretches of highway, ones she occasionally walked for hours, sometimes days, before finding a ride headed somewhere civilized. Most of the people who picked her up did so because they felt the same isolation and need for another soul nearby. Loneliness could kill a person, or so she read in a National Geographic she found in a bus shack, once. Scientists had looked into it.

Ash caught the muscle in his jaw twitch. Attitudes toward hitchhikers were mixed. Some considered it a duty to pick up anyone on the side of the road, others tried to run her off the road. She didn't think Daniel was the latter kind of man.

The pause in his sentence caught her attention, and her eyes darted in the direction of the cemetery, only for a moment.

'Last of his kind.'

That pause said volumes without saying anything.

She wanted to ask why, what happened. Afterward she would tell him he's not dead yet, there's time to find a way out of despair, no matter how soothing it is...

Like her? Was she in any place to be giving advice on moving on?

They said "If you leave, your name will be ash in our mouths."

She looked back at the canopy of branches and the sky above, took another sip of her coffee. "Yeah, sometimes you just need to get away."

Then she looked over to him. "I'm glad you let me share your solitude for a little bit."

 

[Knightofsloth707]

"I'm glad too," he said. His eyes met hers and he smiled. A lull in the conversation came on and they sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping their coffee.

He sighed. The moment he'd been putting off was here. It was time to pack her off and send her on her way. Send her somewhere she'd be safe.

"Well," he said. "My truck is in the garage over yonder. If you want to grab your things, I'll meet you there and we can get you on your way."

A pang of regret was echoing inside him already.

It's for the best, the voice said.

Then why does it feel like this? He replied.

 

[WretchRoad]

Ash nodded, resolute. There wasn't a world in which she remained there after dropping herself on his doorstep. He was kind enough to keep her as long as he had.

And why would she stay? There was no reason, no logic behind why she wished they'd brewed another pot of coffee and just kept sitting on that porch all day. Even the silence had been easy with him, though full of things unspoken.

He didn't ask her who she was or where she came from because it didn't matter. She was here, now.

But, she couldn't leave without fulfilling her last promise. The dishes were quickly taken care of and neatly stacked before she grabbed her bag, laced on her stained shoes, and gave Roland some goodbye scratches before she was out the door.

Marching toward the garage with her pack slung over one shoulder, it started to feel like her feet were caked in mud again, like every step weighed thirty pounds. She chalked it up to comfort, rarely experienced and hard to leave, and carried forth across the overgrown lawn.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel stepped into the darkened garage, reaching blindly above his head for the dangling cord that would turn on the lights. It brushed against his hand and he pulled on it. A row of fluorescent tubes flickered, then illuminated the room. The walls were lined with workbenches and the tools organized on pegboards. The center of the garage was filled with a red 1965 F-150.

There are those who would have loved that truck with their entire soul - lavished it with care and attention - but not Daniel. It was his father's truck and he regarded it as one would a wayward mule.

The hours he did spend on it were not out of affection, but necessity. The truck was his only source of transportation to town, and perennially breaking down. Why he hadn't replaced it with a different vehicle was a question Daniel had yet to ask himself.

His last maintenance job had been only a few weeks ago, so he was confident it would run - for the moment.

He lifted the garage door and leaned against the truck. While he waited for Ash, he went over the rest of his to do list for the day.

I need to tend the plants in the greenhouse. Then there was a crack in the wall upstairs that needed caulking....

They were part of his normal routine, chores he did every week, but now they seemed unbearably sad and lonely. It was easy to be alone when there was nothing to compare it to.

 

[WretchRoad]

"Wow," she said. No inflection one way or the other, just a monotone exclamation.

"This is an antique," Ash laid a hand on the side as she walked along its perimeter, admiring the primitive lines on the old beast.

"Everything about your place makes me feel like I traveled back in time," her head popped up from behind the truck bed. "In a good way," she added, then came back around to the passenger side door. She wrenched it open with a stern creak, then tossed her bag onto the bench seat before sliding in herself.

She wondered if it wasn't to late to ask for a ride to the city again, since it would take a little longer. But why delay the inevitable?

 

[Knightofsloth707]

"Well, let's see if we can't get you back to your own time," Daniel said with more cheerfulness than he felt.

He slid behind the wheel and slipped the key into the ignition. The truck came to life with a sputtering roar. Daniel put it in gear and eased off the clutch. The truck only made it a few feet before the engine seized. With a loud grinding thump, the truck died, rolling to a quick stop. Daniel tried to restart the truck, but was greeted by nothing but more grinding noises and the dying sigh of the engine.

Daniel closed his eyes and slowly lowered his forehead to the steering wheel. He let out a deep sigh.

"I thought I'd fixed it," he groaned, his eyes still closed.

 

[WretchRoad]

Years ago, during the longest stretch of time Ash ever spent anywhere, she sat on a Colorado mountainside as nubian goats under her charge sought out spurts of grass exposed by the spring melt.

Her fellow goat-shepherd, beads in her hair, read aloud from a book about the secrets of life. The word "manifesting" came up countless times. Ash nodded, barely listening back then. Nothing that had ever happened in her life would let her believe in the power of prayer by any other name.

Now she wondered if she had somehow broken the truck.

"I'm sorry," she said automatically, but only because Daniel seemed in distress. "Maybe I can help you fix it? I learned a few things over the years."

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel cracked one eye open and looked at her. He expected her face to be a mask of disappointment. Instead, she seemed unphazed. Daniel looked at her carefully. Was that relief on her face?

He took a deep breath. It was embarrassing, of course, that the truck had given up the ghost less than ten yards from their starting point, but nonetheless, Daniel felt a weight lift off of him.

More time together, working in close proximity... Daniel stopped the fantasy there. This was a temporary delay, nothing more. Sure, it's nice that he got more time with her, but she wasn't staying forever.

Don't get attached, he told himself.

"Ok," he said. "Let's push it back into the garage."

 

[WretchRoad]

Don't watch him push, don't look at the shape of his biceps, straining against the truck, don't watch him grit his teeth and imagine...

Ash put all her effort into the last push before the truck's tires rolled back into the worn, warped divots in the garage floor. The shocks creaked a few times before it finally came to a reluctant rest.

"Do you need water?" she wondered. "I'll get water. Or lemonade. Or whatever you have," she spoke quickly before disappearing back into the house to refocus. To stop thinking about Daniel.

Daniel propping open the hood, Daniel leaning over the engine, Daniel wiping a smear of dark grease on his cheek.

Ash appeared with a cloth when she came back with non-descript red juice she'd made from a frost-encrusted can found in the back of the freezer.

It tasted like red.

Beyond that, her help was limited. Her knowledge of mechanics allowed her to change a tire, or even the rim if she had to, but didn't extend to venerable antiques. She did know all the tools, though.

The sun rose high and hot as they traded wrenches back and forth, the music of cicadas rising along with it. He slid under the truck and she sat on a flattened sheet of cardboard nearby, recalling the ins and outs of herding goats as she tried not to look at the sweat dripping down Daniel's neck.

"They lose their shit for blackberries," she said, "even the leaves."

By then breakfast was long forgotten. They broke for lunch.

When a fresh batch of rain swept in, the truck had only managed to start for a few short seconds before sputtering out again, and Daniel suggested she spend just one more night. He wouldn't dream of sending her away in the rain. She feigned resistance, but accepted.

The water ran black as she scrubbed her hands in the sink while Daniel showered upstairs, the trickling of water working its way down the pipes of the old house. While he was occupied, she discovered his record player and went sorting through his sheafs of albums, all smelling of dust and old glue.

She perused the collection until the steps groaned under his feet again.

"I hope you don't mind," Ash called up just as she set the needle into the groove, a few pops uttered through the speakers before the twang of century-old guitar began a repetitive melody.

"My girl... my girl... Don't lie to me..."

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Unbeknownst to Ash, a struggle was happening upstairs in the shower between Daniel's heart and mind. His mind, who had maintained order all these years while his heart remained sealed away and dormant. Ever since Justine. But his heart was dormant no longer - awakened by what? Her eyes? Her scent? Her very presence?

The struggle raged inside him while the hot water washed over his sore muscles, stripping the grease and sweat off his skin.

His mind fought with facts. Logic. Asking him to consider the potential consequences.

His heart fought with sounds, images. The sound of her voice. The feel of her skin. The way her eyes looked into his, tinged with sadness, and something more...

He could feel his heart speed up. The images came faster now. The curve of her breasts beneath her shirt, her fingers brushing against his. He imagined her naked, lying next to him while he traced the patterns of her tattoos down her body. He felt blood flowing to his manhood down below. Desire swelled up inside him, threatening to overpower all else.

He turned off the water and shook his head, his heart still beating fast. He wanted to get out of there. As if leaving the room would allow him to escape his own indecision. He slipped on a henley and some pants and came downstairs.

Any defenses his mind had left crumbled the instant he stepped into view and saw her brown eyes looking up at him. It would be his heart after all, and he was glad of it. He smiled to himself.

"Ah, a record like this you need to have a drink in your hand to get the full experience, you see."

Daniel stepped over to the bar cabinet and selected two tumblers.

"What's your poison?" He said, looking back at her over his shoulder.

 

[WretchRoad]

Ash was too concerned with her own struggle. To her, his generosity was nothing more than good etiquette, evidenced by his vintage home, good manners and fine things. It was clear he enjoyed having her there, perhaps as a novelty, a short but welcome break in his long isolation, but nothing more.

Besides, more was exactly what she didn't want. Why start down that road when she would never cross the finish line, so to speak. She didn't know what to do with more.

She had seen how he retreated after catching her in a towel. And wasn't she too young for him, anyway? Too wild, too nomadic, too different.

Friendship was what he offered, she decided, a temporary gift she would cherish while she had it.

Ash would have politely refused the drink except that he already had two tumblers in hand and she wasn't about to let the man drink alone. "Then I welcome the full experience," she remarked, "whiskey," she said, flat.

"Should I drink as well, or is it the holding kind of whiskey?"

 

[Knightofsloth707]

"This," Daniel said. "Is from my grandpappy's private collection."

He handed her a tumbler half filled with an amber liquid. "You can hold it, and it'll make you look classy and sophisticated. But if you drink it, it'll make you classy, sophisticated, AND fun."

Daniel settled into a red upholstered chair and took a sip. "For me, I better drink, or grandpappy will be judging me from the great beyond."

 

[WretchRoad]

"Do I look classy and sophisticated?" she wondered rhetorically, swirling the glass with one hand as she leaned her hip against the sofa, still in the t-shirt and shorts that exposed the larger portion of her tattoos. Her purple hair, brushed free after a long day in a tie, hung loose over her shoulders.

Before taking a drink, she held the glass up in acknowledgement "to your grandpappy," and took a sip, nearly choking on the burn. "And to his taste buds."

But the burn evened out over another, slow sip, and soon she began to taste the more delicate flavors in the liquor as the next track began to play. She couldn't help but move her shoulders and tap a foot with the beat.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Roland doddered in, determined not to be left out of any potential socializing. He harrumphed himself into place equidistance between Daniel and Ash, ensuring that both could reach him for head pats.

Daniel reached over and ran a hand down his head absentmindedly while he slipped his whiskey.

The burning warmth filled his stomach and soon he could feel himself beginning to decompress, relaxing parts of his body he hadn't even realized were tense.

He watched Ash tap her toes, noting the odd juxtaposition of her purple hair and tattoos with the vintage whiskey and record player. She was like a being from another realm. A life far different than his.

"So," he said with mock seriousness, "if you are to continue your role as my apprentice mechanic slash head chef slash professional dog appreciator...I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you some questions."

"First: what qualifications do you bring to this estate, Miss Ash Nolastname?"

 

[WretchRoad]

The grin she gave him was broad and wide after the fleeting anxiety he inspired with the notion of more questions.

It was never easy walking into someone's life or car or home, though she took to touring humanity like a natural as the years went on. And yet she always wondered how much to say, what topics to avoid, or how to put someone at ease with her so she could be at ease with them.

His question made her shoulders relax.

"Well," she placed her free hand on her hip and peered at the ceiling as though searching for the answer. "As you know, I'm an expert goat herder — so animals love and obey me."

She held up two fingers, "Two, I was personally trained in breakfast technologies by the top chef at the Green Turtle Hostel in Seattle. And three, I have changed no less than three flat tires, once in the dark, in the snow." A pause. "And I was on three tabs of acid... anyway," she moved onto the next topic before he could acknowledge that.

"With my skillset you should know I have a number of enticing offers, so let's talk benefits. What do you bring to the table, besides an enviable record catalogue?"

 

[Knightofsloth707]

"A very impressive resume, Miss Anonymous," Daniel said, stroking his chin.

"Of course the Mackay estate offers a number of world-class amenities." He walked to the window, pulling back a curtain. "As you can see, our views of overgrown vegetation are without comparison."

"There is a vintage truck (that runs sometimes)," he muttered under his breath.

"And did I mention our hallway filled with creepy family portraits?" He said, sweeping his hand towards the staircase.

"Now, as to your compensation," he said, bringing the decanter over to top off her glass.

"I'm afraid we can't pay you, so instead we'll just have to ply you with liquor," He was close to her now, mere inches away. "...and whatever else you need, of course."

His eyes, twinkling with mischief, scanned her face.

"Oh," he said, holding up a finger. "We have drugs too. Just some marijuana I grew in the greenhouse - don't get too excited."

 

[WretchRoad]

Ash giggled under her breath. She could count him among the sane in society now that he acknowledged the portraits were unsettling and the land had long been reclaimed by nature.

Her laugh became a nervous smile as he drew closer, and she swallowed, hard, her wide, brown eyes darting over his features. Every muscle collaborated to steady her glass when he topped her up. Did he see her shiver? The heat rising in her cheeks was surely because of the whiskey.

"Drugs..." she murmured, coming back to the conversation after what seemed to her like an uncomfortable pause, one that only lasted a second in reality.

"Oh, I see." Her grin emerged again. "That's quite the offer, much better than the health, dental and paid vacation from the Briarcliffs down the road," she feigned dissatisfaction, then held out her right hand. "I accept, on the condition I get to sample your crop for quality."