Taut: The Ford Book

I can see the first lights of the Village off in the distance. It’s a miracle I can see anything in this weather, so that means it must be very close. I squint out the front window, trying to get my bearings. Our house is on the east side of the village, thank God for small favors, so I’m gonna make it.

I believe this even as I coast down the off-ramp in first gear, the engine protesting each time I step on the gas. Because no matter how hard I wish it, the tranny is shot.

I pull off to the side of the road as far as I can get without actually plowing through a snowdrift, and then the Bronco just stops.

Fuck.

After all that, I’m stuck in a blizzard on the f**king off-ramp, two miles from my family’s mountain home. If I had a coat, I could probably walk there. But I’m in a tuxedo and that’s it.

I laugh a little and pick up my phone from the seat next to me.

No f**king service. Awesome.

I rest my head on the steering wheel and then jerk up when a horn honks at me from outside. Squinting through the snow I can see a truck, so I roll the window down and some guy is yelling at me.

It’s hard to hear him over the wind, and at first I figure he’s pissed because I’m still kind of in the middle of the road. But then the wind dies and his words are more clear.

“—a tow?”

“What?” I ask.

“I said…” He jerks his thumb behind him and I look at what he’s pointing at. A car on a flatbed truck. “You need a tow?”

I look back at the man and this is when I notice there’s another person in the cab with him. A girl who is doing her best to shield herself from the wind and snow. “Yeah,” I reply back. “But—”

“OK, look. Let me drop her off at Jason’s, then I’ll come back for you. It’s just right there.” He points up ahead on the frontage road where there’s a small strip mall-type building. Or as close to a strip mall as you can get in Vail. I know the place well. Hell, I even know Jason—we took skateboarding lessons in the same f**king summer camp one year.

Real ass**le. He bullied me a little, thinking I was weak just because I was quiet and smart and no one was allowed to touch me. But then I electrified the urinal flusher in the boys’ bathroom at camp, watched him go inside, and then proceeded to laugh my ass off when the ambulance came.

I never officially got caught, but everyone knew I did it. And my dad was not happy about that. Not one bit. He made me clear a fifty-foot radius of brush and pine needles around our house that summer. Forest fire precaution duty, he said. But it was really no-electrocuting-kids-at-camp duty.

The garage’s a family-owned place, Jason is really Jason Junior, and there’s a Travel Saver Motel next door with a blinking vacancy light that they own as well.

Wonderful.

Before I can answer the tow truck is gone, so I have two choices. Get out and walk the two miles up to my house in a raging blizzard, or wait for the driver to come back and tow me over to Jason’s and see if he’ll swing me across the freeway to the bottom of my driveway after he drops the Bronco.

It doesn’t take a genius. And the wait is not that bad, since I can practically see him dropping the car he had on the back of the truck. It must belong to the girl who was in the front seat with him.

I get out, painfully aware of how underdressed I am for the mountains in January, and then catch the exasperated look from the driver that he probably reserves for stupid tourists from the Tropics.

“Nice coat,” he says as he grabs his chains from the flatbed and lowers himself down onto the snow to hook up the Bronco. “You can wait inside the truck if you want. I don’t need help, ya know.”

He’s an ass**le. And he looks familiar so I study his face when he comes back up from the ground and goes over to the controls on the truck. Dakota. Dillon. Dickhead.

“Dallas,” he says like he’s reading my mind. “I’m surprised you don’t remember me. Jason’s cousin. I fingered you right away. Of course, who can forget this hunk of shit.” He points to my dilapidated truck. The drive train whines as the chain tightens and starts to pull the Bronco onto the bed. Snow is coming down so hard now, it might be piling up on my head.

“Right. Dallas. I think I almost blew you up on the golf course with an exploding golf ball.” I laugh.

He doesn’t.

“Sorry about that,” I continue. “My antisocial and psychotic tendencies have mellowed over the years.”

He glares at me.

There is no way this guy is taking me any further than the f**king garage five hundred yards away, so I resign myself to getting a room at the Travel Saver. I’m not walking into the Village and I highly doubt a cab is available. This is Vail, not Denver. There are no public safe driver programs to keep the drunks off the road on New Year’s. Besides, almost everywhere you need to go is within walking distance here.

Of course, there’s that little detail about the blizzard. But that’s why hotels have ballrooms. So partygoers can stay the night at the party. I doubt there are any rooms available in the Village anyway.

This whole thought exercise is pointless. I have a f**king house two miles away that I can’t get to. Why the hell would I walk the opposite direction to get a room?

I jump in the cab and scare the shit out of myself when I sit on something that squeaks. I brush the seat off and a little yellow duck toy goes flying onto the floor.

“Oh, shit,” Dallas says as he gets into the cab with me. “I bet that belongs to that chick’s baby. Pick it up, will ya?” He pulls out onto the road as I pick up the toy. It’s all muddy from my wet shoes now, so I stick it in my pocket. We drive down the frontage road, pass the hotel, and then turn into the parking lot. The girl is still in her car, the interior light on as she fumbles around with something. I see the baby now, tucked inside a seat, bundled up with blankets. Dallas backs up the truck and positions it so he can drop the Bronco off in a snow-covered space not quite next to, but near, the girl’s brown Honda.