
"Dry Heat"
He sat there staring at his radar gun fuming. He had never been so angry in his life. He had just got off the phone with his wife after another typical 10 minute argument and he had no way to vent. He sat there staring out into the flatland desert highway. The road went for miles and there was nobody on it. “Why the hell had he even considered moving to New Mexico” he thought to himself. As if on cue he was reminded by the text he got at that very moment. It was the wife, again, telling him not forget the milk when he came home. “Yep, she’s the reason why I moved to this god forsaken place” he said out loud to no one. His radio cracked and he picked it up. “This is Officer Lloyd” he responded. After a few minutes of back and forth with dispatch he was again sitting there angry. They had just extended his shift another two hours. He would be staring at this flat road for quite some time today.
She was racing along the road bored to death. There was no radio reception out here and after listening to the only cd she had in the car nearly 10 times in a row she would rather have the sound of the wind blowing through her hair than hear the Eagles “Hotel California” one more goddamned time. A road trip from Texas to California was not her idea of a great vacation but she had a thing about flying and this was the only way. It was even more a downer that her A.C. was out and so she had to deal with open windows and asphalt heat. At one point when passing through West Texas she thought to herself “This has got to be the most boring place to drive on earth”. Now that she was cruising across bottom of New Mexico she realized just how wrong she was. She felt like screaming but didn’t bother because there was no one around to hear it.
“Next time I do this, remind me to bring a friend” Cherie said out loud. At one point she had even contemplated tying her bra to the steering wheel to keep it straight while she took a nap. As flat and treeless as this highway was she could well have gotten away with it. Common sense got the better of her though. “Lord, please! When will this end?” she screamed. She had been driving for at least an hour now with nobody else in site. When she pulled into a small town about 100 miles or so back the gas station attendant there told her make sure her tank was full and that she had lots of water, the Arizona border was a long way off. Cherie drove a bit further when something caught her eye on the horizon. It wasn’t a tree because there was no such thing here. After a few more miles she was able to make out what she was seeing. It was a car off to the side of the road. As she got closer she then realized it was a patrol car of some sort. She glanced down at her speedometer and a wry smile crossed her face. “At least I may get to have a little fun in the armpit of America” she said to herself as she stepped harder on the gas taking the car even further over the speed limit. Little did she know just how much fun she was going to have.