George had changed since his return, but Judith would never admit it. Her devotion to her husband was as strong as the day they had married, the day before George had been shipped off to Iraq. Their friends said that he never smiled anymore, but Judith disagreed. He just smiled when only she was watching.
George dressed in the style of the 1920s. Although that was almost a century ago, George knew his history and believed that it was a better time. People were unaware of what lay ahead back then and were simply happy with the way things were. He never left home without his trench coat and fedora, and this night was no different. His hair remained short, unchanged since the war, and what used to be thick black locks when he was in high school was now salt and pepper sod. George stood in front of the car, which they had pulled over to the right side of the road, the hood now up the strut. His trench coat blocked one of the emergency blinkers, but the headlight pierced the black fabric, shooting between his legs and down the side of the highway. He ducked into his coat and rolled a cigarette.
Judith sat in the driver’s seat watching her husband with admiration. She understood George’s appreciation for classic style and rejected those who said it was strange. She smiled and used her fingers to brush her brunette hair, which hung down to her shoulders and now had streaks of gray, back over her ear. She looked down at her watch to confirm a passing thought: it was the middle of the night. She looked back towards her husband and saw that he was now facing toward her.
“It’s really amazing, isn’t it?” George asked, the cigarette now perched in his lips. “People have no respect for their fellow man anymore.”
“Isn’t that kind of generalizing, sweetheart? I mean, some people do,” Judith said, leaning slightly out the window.
“No, they don’t, honey. I’m sorry, but they don’t. How long have we been out here?”
Judith looked down at her watch again. She told him the time.
“It’s been almost an hour! That’s a sin!”
“But…”
“But what?” George interrupted.
“It’s the middle of the night! How many cars do you see passing by?”
“There are some that pass by, will you agree with me on that?”
Judith paused for a minute as a small sedan roared past.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then think about it! There aren’t many cars out here, but there are some. All the more reason that people should stop! People should see us on the side of the road and say, ‘Hey, there aren’t many cars out here, so if I pass them by, maybe no one else will see them. I should go help these people.’ But do they? Absolutely not. We’ve been out here for an hour. The emergency lights are on, the hood is up, and I haven’t seen anyone so much as slow down when they saw us. I love you sweetie, but you’re wrong. Nobody cares.” George grabbed the burned-out cigarette from his mouth and threw it to the ground in disgust. He twisted his foot until all the glowing embers were gone. He then proceeded to roll another.
“It is late. Maybe people just want to get home,” Judith said.
“How long does it take to pull over and help someone? I’ve pulled over to help people and I don’t think it’s ever taken me more than five minutes tops. Either you can help or you can’t, but you can’t know if you don’t stop.”
“You have an idea what you are doing with cars. You, unlike most people, can help people on the side of the road. An 80-year-old woman isn’t going to know how to flush a radiator.”
“That’s fair, but what if our battery is dead and we just need a jump? Maybe we just stopped on the side of the road to get some quick shut-eye, and the car wouldn’t start again? Most people know how to jump a car. Hell, most people keep jumper cables in their trunk.”
“You don’t.”
“That’s besides the point…” High beams flashed, and George put his hand up to block his face. He moved out of the way, towards the driver’s side of the car, as a red pick-up truck pulled alongside the car and parked ten feet in front of them. The truck was beaten from weather and dirt and was missing a back gate.
The door of the pick-up opened, and a large man dressed in a flannel shirt and long, narrow jeans stepped out. He wore a hat with an emblem, but George couldn’t read it in the darkness. He held his palm above his eyes as he walked towards George, blocking the light from his face. Judith had the brights on and the man could barely make out George’s face.
“Looks like you folks are having some car trouble?” The man spoke with a lisp, though it could have been a result of the mustache that covered most of his lips.
George took off his hat and handed it to his wife, who placed it on the passenger seat next to her. He walked back to the front of the car and held his hand out to the stranger. “George Packard.”
“Earl Wilkins.” Mr. Wilkins stuck out his palm and they shook.
“How are you, Mr. Wilkins?”
“Fine, sir. And yourself?”
George raised an eyebrow and gave a small smirk as he plunged his hands into the pockets of his coat. “We’re having a bit of car trouble tonight, unfortunately. The headlights are turning on, but the battery can’t get the engine going. I don’t suppose you have a pair of jumper cables we can use?” Mr. Wilkins brought his bottom lip up, scrunched his chin and began shaking his head.
“Piece o’ shit truck I’m afraid.”
The smirk disappeared from George’s face.
“Gate blew off a couple months back and I haven’t gotten around to getting a new one. Can’t keep nothing back there. I just live right o’er there, though,” Mr. Wilkins said, pointing down the road. “If you don’t mind waiting a couple more minutes, I could go get ‘em and come back.”
“Sounds fine,” George said dismissively.
Mr. Wilkins raised a bushy eyebrow but lowered it as the sight of Judith’s beautiful smile came through the windshield.
“Right then. I’ll be back.” The man returned to his truck and drove off into the darkness.
George turned to his wife, whose expression had not changed since the man had left.
“What are you smiling about, Judith?” George asked sternly.
“Kind of puts a hole in your argument there, doesn’t it? He stopped.”
“Do me a favor. Look at your watch.” Judith glanced down at her wrist. “What does it say?” She told him. “We’ve been out here for an hour and fifteen minutes! After an hour of waiting I have the right to label these people however I want.” George sneered remembering Mr. Wilkins’ dirty language. “No class,” he whispered.
The two stayed silent for a while; George leaned on the front of the car and Judith sat still in the front seat, now reclined.
“Maybe people are scared,” she called out the window.
“What?” George asked, not bothering to turn and face his wife.
“It’s dark out and you are dealing with strangers. That’s scary.”
George turned around; his expression had changed. It was back to the smirk that came when Mr. Wilkins called him ‘sir.’
“Well, isn’t that just perfect. You just proved my point, honey.” Judith tilted her head and squinted. “It goes so far beyond not caring. Not caring is part of it, sure. But it’s that fear that stops people from helping a couple in need on the side of the road. That fear is based in selfishness. Faith is about trust. When people say they have a faith in God, it means that they trust that God has a plan. They have faith that God will make sure that everything happens as it is supposed to. And that is exactly what we have lost between people. There is no more trust, no more faith. People just passing by.”
A midnight blue sedan began to slow as George and Judith’s emergency blinkers came into view. The sedan parked in the same place that the pick-up truck had. It was long and spacious with a trunk that seemed longer than the hood. From its driver’s side emerged a woman with red hair, dressed in white from head to toe.
“Bad time of night for car trouble, huh?” the woman said, closing the door behind her, holding her hand above her eyes like Mr. Wilkins had. Both George and Judith’s faces went straight. “Mind if I take a look? My brother’s into cars and you kinda pick that stuff up.” George moved towards Judith as the woman approached. She bent over to take a look under the hood. Judith switched off the headlights and the emergency blinkers as George’s hand slowly moved toward the hood strut, then yanked it. The hood came crashing down on the woman’s neck, which bent into an unnatural angle, her body a limp marionette without strings. George stepped toward the front of the car and lifted the hood up again, letting the woman’s body crumple to the dirt before slamming it closed. Judith stepped out of the car.
“She kept the motor running,” Judith said, lifting her arm to point. George turned and quickly headed over to the midnight blue sedan. “Did you remember your gloves, honey?” said Judith. Out of his pockets George pulled a pair of black leather gloves, holding them in the air for Judith to see as he slipped them on. He opened the door and reached in to remove the keys from the ignition. He pressed a button on the keys until he heard a soft beep and the trunk opened. Judith put on her own gloves, which she had taken from the center console of her car, and together they lifted the girl’s body into the trunk and slammed the lid. George looked behind them and saw no cars approaching. The two began to walk back toward their car. George gripped the blue car’s keys in his gloved fist and entered the passenger-side door. He opened the glove compartment and threw in the keys: a new addition to the collection. Judith stood outside with a puzzled look for a moment before returning. Once in the car, she turned the key and moved into first gear. The engine purred. Before she pressed on the gas, she turned to her husband.
“That truck had no gate. We couldn’t have put the body in there.” She paused, hoping that George would pick up on what her question was. He didn’t. “I mean, I don’t think he could really see us with the brights on, but what would you have done if he had jumper cables in the cab?”
“I’d have improvised.” A wide smile appeared on George’s face.
“That was a nice name you picked. Why Packard?”
“Classic car.” He leaned over and gave Judith a kiss. “I love you, sweetheart.”
****
The doctor called it propranolol. Judith had a hard time pronouncing it, and George didn’t even bother.
“It’s a beta blocker and it’s a bit experimental…,” the doctor said to their blank faces. He shook his head. “Let’s just put it this way. You’ll sleep easier.”
The first week, Judith was unable to sleep. Although she finally had George back at her side after waiting so long, her sleep was disrupted night after night by George’s movements. Some nights he would kick the sheets off the bed. Some nights he would wake up screaming. Some nights he would cry; on those nights, Judith would cry too.
Ten days after George’s return from Iraq, Judith was awakened by a loud crash. Peering out the window, she could see a garbage truck down the street. The driver stood beside it and checked the damage that ramming into a low brick wall had caused. He screamed at his co-worker. Judith turned back to wake her husband, but he was gone. Grabbing a robe, Judith began searching the house for George and found two doors that weren’t supposed to be open: the gun cabinet and the front door. Quickly she ran outside, screaming and crying George’s name. Then she saw him, marching down the street, a rifle pressed against his chest. George was still at war.
George refused to tell the doctor what had occurred overseas, but Judith, her hand on her husband’s knee, described how he had been acting since his return. The doctor explained the frequency of post-traumatic stress disorder in returning veterans and prescribed the medication. George took the medication home and placed the orange bottle on the oak washstand in the bathroom, feeding the morning dose to the sink drain and taking the evening dose to help his wife sleep.
****
Barbara Jefferson, a friend of George and Judith’s from high school, had moved back to the old neighborhood and invited them to dinner with other members of the class of ’89. Contrary to what Judith expected, George was happy to go, anticipating going out for a change.
Rain poured onto the skylight above as the party of ten sat down to a meal of pan-seared filet mignon with sides of asparagus and twice-baked potatoes. Barbara’s husband, Gordon, pulled Barbara’s chair out for her, kissing her on the cheek. Judith turned and smiled at George. They reminded her of themselves.
After dinner the husbands went out to the patio to smoke cigars and George his rolled cigarettes, and Judith sat with Barbara and the other wives in the living room, occasionally peering out the window to watch their men.
“So, Judith, I heard that George served over in Iraq,” Barbara said, turning everyone’s attention to the soft-featured brunette in the red recliner and returning Judith’s attention to the living room.
“Yes, he just got back…” Judith paused to check the date on her watch. “Almost nine months ago.”
“I’ve heard some awful stories from over there,” said Carmen Banks, another acquaintance from high school.
“Uhh, yeah. It… it was pretty bad over there,” Judith said hesitantly. The women peered at her as if expecting something more and seemed disappointed when Judith didn’t deliver.
“He seems to have changed,” said Ms. Banks innocently. “I remember in high school when he spray-painted your names onto the town water tower.”
The women laughed, but Judith didn’t. “What exactly are you implying?”
“She didn’t mean anything by it, Judith,” Barbara said, laughing. “She just meant that he seems a bit more serious now. Like those clothes…”
Judith had had enough. She rose from her seat. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Barbara, but I’m afraid that George and I have to be leaving now.”
“Now, Judith, don’t be like that. We didn’t mean anything.”
Judith went to the back door and knocked. George looked up and on seeing her, quickly got to his feet and went inside without saying goodbye to the other men.
The rain continued to pour and George brought his wife closer to him as they walked toward the car, wrapping his trench coat around her. They began to drive home, deciding to take the highway rather than the back roads.
The engine simply died, letting out a sputter, and George pulled over to the shoulder on the right side. Rain poured down from a starless sky and hit the newly tarred pavement, causing steam to rise out of the cracks. A mist surrounded George’s feet as he exited the driver’s side door, his coat pulled over his ears. He popped the hood to take a look around, but even with his experience, he didn’t know what was wrong. With the hood balanced on the strut, George retreated to the car while they waited for someone to come by. They didn’t have to wait long; within twenty minutes a man in a silver SUV pulled in front of the car to offer his help. He was just slightly shorter than George, standing at six feet tall with a healthy roundness to his form. George got out of the car to meet the man and exchanged pleasantries, explaining what had happened. The man called George “Mr. Bane,” which Judith knew he appreciated.
While the man’s head was under the hood, George watched from the side of the car, his hand resting on its side. The rain had made the surface of the car slick, and before he could stop it, George’s hand slipped and hit the strut, causing the hood to crash down on the man, the hood latch nearly detaching his head from his body. Judith didn’t see the accident occur, but she saw her husband’s face, the military stoicism that let him reach over and release the body to the ground. The man’s car keys slipped from his pocket and landed on George’s brown loafer. George then reached for something beyond Judith’s sight, but when George rose, his hands were sheathed in black leather gloves.
Judith stepped from the passenger side.
“George, oh my God, what happened?”
“It’s okay Judith, just get back in the car.”
Judith didn’t move. George bent down, took the keys that had fallen on his shoe, and opened the trunk of the SUV. He slid the keys into his pocket, and she watched as George lifted the man into the trunk, his face never showing a sign of effort. Once the trunk had been closed, George returned to the car and after a few stalling starts, the engine revved, and George placed the car into gear. He opened the passenger side door and called to her. “Come on, Judith. We need to go.”
Judith looked at the silver SUV and then up and down the road. She saw nobody coming and replied nervously. “Okay.”
Days passed and each morning Judith looked through the paper, but there was no mention of the silver SUV or the dead body. She began to suspect that George may have done it on purpose. He was always sturdy on his feet; he never seemed to slip. She wondered where the gloves came from. She wondered why he was so calm.
Another rainstorm hit the next weekend. A crack of lightning streaked the sky and echoed through the house, waking Judith to find nothing but an indent by her side. She thought about the morning with the garbage truck. Getting up to search the house, Judith could hear a slight fumbling that sounded like pocket change as she neared the first floor bathroom. George stood before the oak washstand next to the sink and didn’t hear the door open. The top drawer was slightly ajar. After a moment, Judith could see the source of the sound: George was handling that man’s car keys. It was the first time she’d seen him smile since his return. She looked on the top of the washstand where the little orange bottle stood. It was the propranolol. It was still half full after nine months.
“You haven’t been taking your medication.”
George spun around and tried to put the keys back in the washstand drawer, but fumbled and dropped them. Judith reached to pick them up and placed them in his open fist. She said five words: “Is this what you need?”
****
As the car pulled out, leaving the midnight blue sedan on the side of the road, Judith looked over at George. She continued to do so frequently as they drove home. The smile that George had grown never left. It was the smile that nobody else got to see.
She understood that George had changed since he had returned. Nobody could deny that. Something occurred while George was overseas that Judith would never know, and even if she did, she knew she could certainly never truly empathize. She could only understand the fact that he had changed, and now she had to go along with it. She would give her life for him, but it was not only out of love. It was out of faith.
© Eric Eisenberg, All Rights Reserved