The Bonneville
The Bonneville drifts over the double yellow line. “Stop it, Lyle,” she says. “Do you want to get us killed?” She turns to look at him, feeling a wave of disgust from the undulating movements of the wind rippling through his body hair. She gives him a solid push on the shoulder, and watches his limp body hit the door. His heavy, unsupported head slams into the window, sending his hat fluttering into the motionless air outside of the convertible. Recoiling into the seat, she registers the severity of her situation. The car, about to careen off the edge of Mulholland, has no driver. As she quietly blames herself for getting involved with Lyle, the tires thump over the orange reflectors of the median with a terrifying rhythm.
She’d met him six months ago at a retreat for community organizers. He was the hairest man she’d ever seen, and he wouldn’t leave the hottub. She felt uneasy around him from the moment he introduced himself. With the cacophany created by popping bubbles and the water pump, the discomfort got worse after he wadded through the completely vacant hottub to sit beside her. She felt repulsed by his appearance, but he had a hypnotic charm that escaped through the felt-like fur covering his body. Their conversation continued for an hour before she got up to leave. He drank some more wine from the paper cup and invited her to his room to “continue the conversation”. “Sorry, Lyle. Not now,” she said. He reached into between the folds of his towel, and handed her one of his business cards. What eventually led to the drive on Mulholland was the persuasive simplicity of his response.
“It can’t be now all the time,” she says, wishing she had never heard it. Lyle’s unconscious body creeps down the leather seat, increasing the weight on the gas pedal. The engine growls. She calmly looks through the windshield and sees the highbeams reflecting off an aluminum guardrail that runs perpendicular to the road. In 300 feet the road reverses direction, turning back up the hill. She looks at Lyle’s limp, drunken body, and says “This isn’t what I had in mind.” She unbuckles her seatbelt, opens the door, and falls out onto the road. Through the dust filling the air, her vision is filled with images of asphalt, intersparsed by red flashes of brakelight as the Bonneville exits the road, taking all that hair with it.
