“Going to Lebanon”

For John Darnielle

The traffic on Wedgewood Avenue, in the hottest part of a summer day, can be as lethargic as lazy old Helios himself, reclining in his chariot in the high part of the heavens; this occasion, humidity seeped in through Jacob’s down windows, and he sweat a lean ley line connecting one knit eyebrow to its twin. The light refused to change. In the Subway parking lot, a corpse-thin man was shouting, and a policeman was failing to calm him. The light turned green. Jacob slid forward a foot before his direct predecessor, the trucker, mysteriously stopped. The policeman was shouting now. The light turned yellow.

When it was red again, Jacob looked over at the scene to his right. The policeman had swung, and the homeless man was on the ground now, unmoving, while his assailant spoke calmly into a radio. Crimson pooled. The light turned green again. Jacob turned left, hard, onto Eighth Ave., toward the Kroger. Looking down quickly, he realized he was going the wrong way; his instructions had been to go forward at this light; his left was intended for Fifteenth. He cursed, a loud long stream of linguistic abuse, toward himself, toward his car, toward the app and the customer and the light itself, and any possible deities who may have opted to listen in. He slammed the brakes, flipped on his emergency lights, and attempted a U-turn. Two women, standing in front of a comedy club’s marquee, watched him. One pointed. Jacob gritted his teeth, and forced his way into a gap, and rejoined the ranks of the great line, trapped, waiting on permission to move. Torqued, kinetic, potential energy, behind that scarlet, in the forms of near-fifteen automobiles. Jacob felt tension radiating off the road, entering his pores and prodding him, like a lion-tamer whips his charge, goading its hunger and fear. Jacob knew if lost time went unmade-up, his tip could be forfeit. Green.

Jacob flew. He curved left again, hard, and tore across the coal-colored asphalt like a demon from the lowest hell. Onlookers saw his car as a mere sapphire blur, a streak of blue arching semi-randomly like heat lightning. Immediately behind they saw another blur, this time bone white, topped with a strobe and a banshee wail, which echoed. Jacob had not counted upon government presence, as they had not counted on his. The policeman exited his car. He seemed young, roughly Jacob’s age. He looked through the window, and their eyes met. After a pause that seemed hours, the officer spoke, squinting in the sunlight.

“Did you have any idea how fast you were going?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, sir. I didn’t.” The officer looked pleased at the entrance of the deferential. Jacob felt defeated.

“Why not? I could book you for driving with intent to kill, with how fast you were going. Heck, I could probably search your car.” Jacob gulped. He became rapidly cognizant that this was the same officer from the Subway scene; the man grinned without mirth and leaned in the window. “What’s that I smell, hm?” He laughed.

“A burrito.”

“What?”

“What you smell. It’s a burrito. I’m delivering it to a kid at the college. I’m running late, that’s why I went so fast.” Jacob lifted the bag and showed its contents, and its branding with his employer’s name.

“Huh.” The officer had not accounted for this possibility. Coming off the high of successfully enforcing justice, he had assumed that all his criminal targets today would be ne’er do wells. He looked with contempt upon the bottom feeder below him; a low, simple rat, mere inches above the standing of the shouter he had bludgeoned before. But that college was a good school. A burrito had been paid for by the child of good citizens; some upstanding young man or girl had paid, and deserved to eat.

“This is a warning. Get out of here. And if I ever see you again, I’ll find something in your car.”

Jacob did not need repeat instructions. As soon as the policeman backed away, the driver was gone. He made the correct turn, and drove into a parking garage to wait. A knock came to his window from a scrawny, pimpled youth, whose hair hung down to his shoulders, pulled back by clumps of grease.

The boy said, “You were late.” Jacob handed him the burrito and left. No tip.

...

Jacob’s next delivery was close. He found himself on the other side of Eighth, delivering to some tall and skinnies that had sprung up like Wisteria the year before. He delivered here often; the tourists which choke the city’s sunlight love sleeping in this part of town—one third of why Jacob hated it here.

The second were the college kids. Between the trio of private schools in the area, there was always construction clogging the roads; there was always bad music floating through the air on beds of smelly pot smoke and perfume. The kids ordered extravagantly, and did not tip well, if they bothered at all. He hated their youth, their relative beauty and charm. He hated the sterile, clean religion which he always felt on their campus. He would never admit it, but he hated their confidence, their determination that things would work out. He hated that he possessed it once, and hated his current reflection in every one of their glassy, uncynical eyes.

But these buildings, on Eighth, he harbored a greater loathing for, more than any tower of academia could ever inspire in him. Years old memories welled as he approached building 103, and he shuddered. His hands shook as he handed off the food to a middle aged woman and her small daughter. The child thanked him, lisping. Jacob just nodded and left, almost tripping down the front step in his haste to escape. Once in his car, he sped away, without even checking his tip.

He dwelled on a life he lived once, when he had seen those townhouses built. Their architect, the luxury developer offering them online for makeshift hotels, was also his then-lover’s father. He used to take them driving, showing off his properties, as peacocks show their tails. Jacob had not minded them then; but then one night things came to a head, and she had expelled him from 102 at midnight, in the pouring rain, and threw his guitar out on the street behind him. He cringed at the thought, and pushing his foot down hard, accelerated away.

He drove around awhile, to clear his head. He took the roads which weaved past the college’s campus, resolving to go downtown. Business was often booming in that area; and if it held no bounty, he could always drink. West End was surprisingly lightly trafficked, and he made it through without incident, stopping briefly to pickup Indian food for a Vanderbilt Nurse on his way. He dropped it to her outside the Children’s Hospital, one section of the Maze-like Medical complex, and continued on his path.

After that, there were no orders for a while. The early afternoon lunch rush was dying down, and what few orders there were would be snatched by other drivers before Jacob had time to think. He drove down Broadway, watching the intoxicated crowds of shouting tourists mass themselves into a mess, and was about to surrender, park, and find a beer himself, when a notification appeared. He took the order, and the details displayed themselves. Rachel S. was the displayed name. The address was 38 minutes away, past the city borders, in Lebanon. Jacob knew a Rachel S. that lived in Lebanon.

“No. No, no, no, no, no!” He yelled. “Fuck!” First the plastic homes her father built; that was plenty on its own. But now SHE, herself, in the flesh. Jacob could have cried. He grabbed the phone, preparing to cancel the order: let someone else do it, the money was inconsequential! Just do not let HER bother him.

But he stopped himself. The face of his landlord appeared in his mind’s eye, the face of his debts. Jacob suddenly cared about the money. It was far from a paltry sum; the restaurant was out East, and expensive. By the time he collected the food and delivered it, more than an hour could pass. That alone would be a large payout. If Rachel remained as good a tipper as she had been when they were together, he could make well over a hundred dollars on this one trip. Jacob sighed, and set down the phone. He waited for a gap in the traffic, and set out for East.

Pulling off of Broadway, going north on First, Jacob felt an oppressive silence in his car. Three years ago, the radio broke. He never had enough money to get it serviced. He came upon a light at Gay Street, and stopped for it. On the corner, a panhandler waited for him, with a cardboard sign and a trucker hat, both claiming veteran status. The panhandler knocked on Jacob’s window. Jacob responded by honking his horn. The panhandler spit on his car. Jacob rolled it down and threw a piece of trash at him; the light changed, and both moved on.

Jacob rolled on, making good time. Streets passed easily before him. He looked at the time: 2:30 pm. The homegoing traffic would start soon. From the clock, his eyes drifted to the dash, where he saw his gas reader was getting low. He began to keep an eye for refill stations. Crossing the Cumberland on the Woodland Street Bridge, he was struck, as he always was, by her majesty. The shadowy river sparkled in the sun; he thought of all the chemicals in the water, then of Rachel’s own wine-dark eyes, and then of the woman herself.

Or had her eyes been brown? No, no, dark blue, set in her thin face, almost even with anaquiline nose; but her nose was not really aquiline, and her face was actually somewhat round, now that he thought about it. Her face shifted about in the soft waves beneath the bridge. His thoughts turned over and through each other, forming her outline but not her form. It suddenly felt so very, very long since they had been together. He caught himself wondering if it was even her he was delivering to. Plenty of people live in Lebanon, he thought. There must be more than one Rachel.

But no, he thought again. It must be her. The circumstances were just too perfect—an order from Lebanon should not have been able to reach Jacob in Downtown Nashville. The distance was beyond his set parameters. In spite of better reason, he found himself taking the coincidence seriously, as though a greater force than gasoline pushed his car forward. Yet he did not forget metaphysics alone would not aid his journey. Reunited with land on the other side of the bridge, Jacob began looking earnestly for a gas station.

He found one on Interstate Drive, passing the titanic football stadium on his way. He took in the concrete in a new way; the great height, set drab against the clouding sky, disturbed him. The banners along its side seemed gaudy and prideful, comparably unreal to the water and woman in his mind. He pulled into the parking lot of the station, and pulled into pump number 3. Directly in front of him sat the skeletal white vehicle of an MNPD officer. Jacob walked by it unconcerned, until he stole a glance inside. Its driver was familiar to him: the very same officer as earlier that day. The same high-and-tight, the same harsh stubble, piercing eyes. Then Jacob saw more. A split lip, which the man’s tongue slid up to lick every minute or so. Cuts beneath his eye. The tightness of the man’s skin, looking like a piece of ill-fitting clothing wrapped around his head, over-accentuating all the boniest features of his face.

Before the policeman looked up from his phone, Jacob was already gone. He pulled up his hoodie, tied it to block his face. He nodded to the clerk upon entering, grabbed a bag of chips, and put twenty dollars down on 3. The clerk obliged, and Jacob left as quickly as he came. He kept his head bowed as he passed the cop, then pumped his gas as quickly as he could. The white car did not move. The sirens sat silent atop; the officer immobile inside. Jacob’s sense of foreboding only grew. He felt toyed with, a caged animal in his ancient blue Subaru, while the eyes of condemnation watched him through the rear-view mirror.

When he left, the cop car followed him six feet behind. When they chanced upon 5th Ave., Jacob took the turn; the officer did not. He could have sworn he saw his pursuer wave as they parted.

...

The sun moved behind a thick layer of clouds, and the heat began to fall; rain, Jacob knew, would be coming soon. Rachel had always loved rain. Once, in the bitter cold of a winter sleet, she had dragged him outside to dance. He resisted at first. He always did. But Rachel won him over, and he found himself freezing in the middle of an empty street. On their way back, she gave her jacket to a homeless man. Then he wore his coat over both of their bodies, until they finished walking home.

He was going slow now, in one of the many confusing streets of East Nashville. The homes here were both old and new, wealth and impoverishment within blocks of each other. Gentrification spread like rot along the main highway. Jacob found his gaze lingering upon the people he went by. Couples walked dogs. A slender young woman and her presumed boyfriend, blonde locks falling past his shoulders, sat, hands clasped, on the sidewalk. She lowered her cigarette and waved at Jacob’s car. Jacob found himself waving back, and smiling. Despite the promise of precipitation, he decided it was perhaps a pleasant evening, or life, after all.

He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. As he approached the door, he was approached by a man in dirty clothes.

“Sir,” the man said. “Can you spare a couple dollars for the bus?” Jacob saw he was wearing a beaten cap reading “US Veteran.” Without thinking about it, he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and gave it away. He almost turned away, before turning back and awkwardly offering his hand. They shook.

Jacob went inside the Burger Joint and found the order, emblazoned with Rachel’s name and his own. He found himself pausing for a moment, just staring at her name. Indecision beset him. There was so little chance it could be her, he thought. And even if it was his Rachel S., why would she be happy to see him? She was his no longer, so long indeed that she had almost certainly moved on. She could be married, for all he knew. Three years is an eternity; they had been apart now longer than they had been together. Maybe she would not even remember his name. Maybe it would not even be her.

He grabbed the bag and went out to his car, and pulled out, bound in his mind for Lebanon; but bound in his heart for nowhere.

...

Jacob had not cried in what felt like a decade, but he wanted to sob. All his joy and certainty seemed to have crashed through the floor and left him. He felt like when he was five years old, lost at the mall, feeling forgotten by his panicked Grandmother. As I-40 flew underneath his wheels, his mind raced faster than the car did, dashing from memory to memory, from hurts he received to hurts that he caused, diving back and forth until he settled on Rachel’s dorm room five years before, receiving the news his mother was gone.

As the wind picked up, he recalled the comfort of her arms, then the abruptness of his leaving, and the way she had welcomed him back the next day. Then the icy cold of the winter night she threw him out, two years to the day after, and then the shame of waking the next morning on a strange sofa somewhere in Inglewood, the home of a friend he barely knew. Rain began lightly tapping his windshield. Her voice echoed from the dark recesses of memory, saying “call when you’re ready to be better.” He thought of the high he used to get from driving wasted at night, then the day he threw his phone in the dark, coursing Cumberland, sinking his old contacts and old life with them.

He imagined her smiling, happier now beside someone else than she ever was beside him; he focused so intently on the space between his misery and her joy that by the time he looked up, he knew not where he was. He looked out into the rainstorm and pulled over, waiting to be rerouted by GPS. Jacob realized he must have taken an exit when the highway split. The sky had full opened now, and the Boreads whipped Jacob’s car violently. While he waited for his route, a white vehicle parked beneath a streetlight behind him. The car pulled forward and around him, and as it went by the window rolled down.

Jacob looked as the very same policeman gave a little wave. Jacob noticed his eyes seemed sunken into his skull. In the rain and the light they appeared red. The cut corners of his split lip seemed deeper, somehow, and his tongue probed them, and Jacob noticed his uniform was covered in red and brown stains. Lightning flashed overhead. It illuminated the cop’s hands; they were scabbed, wretched things, pus seeping from the cracks in his skin.

Jacob tore away. Once again, the officer neglected to follow him. He turned the corner up ahead, looking for his exit, when he noticed a woman with her thumb stuck out. He was about to keep driving, delayed enough already as it was, when he recalled Rachel cajoling him once over a similar failure. They had passed a hitchhiker in an early morning fog, and began telling each other stories about him. Then she had grown quiet, and pointed out he may have needed help, and would it not be the right thing to help someone in need?

Would it not? Jacob shook his head, and pulled over to let the woman in.

“Where to?”

“Airport.”

“BNA?”

“Yeah. Can you take me or not?” Jacob nodded. The woman opened the door and stepped inside.

Jacob plugged the Airport address into his phone, and the pair went off. They were silent at first; Jacob lacked anything to say. The only sound was the woman’s hair, dripping water down onto her seat. She was obviously not dressed for the weather—a now-soaked black dress hid her form, and her feet were exposed in what had once been sandals. Down from her left eye, a smudge of mascara had been displaced by the rain. His hoodie felt inappropriately casual. Eventually she spoke up.

“So what’re you out in this weather for? You were the first person I saw for a while.”

“I’m a delivery driver.” He pointed to the bags in the backseat.

“And you stopped for a hitchhiker? Aren’t you people timed?”

“It was a far order anyway. I figured I could help somebody out on the way.”

“Huh. Weird.” Noticing immediately how she sounded, the woman caught herself and blushed. “Sorry,” She said, quietly. “I’m very thankful, really, I’m just surprised is all.”

Jacob did not speak, for a moment, then opened his mouth carefully, haltingly, slow; he said, “It’s no problem, really. I was going to be late anyway. And she’ll wait.”

“You say that like you know her.”

“Well, actually, I do. We used to date.”

“Really? You got your ex’s delivery?”

“I think so.”

“You think? You either do or you don’t.”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure.” Jacob’s mind set again, and he said, this time more solidly, “Actually, I’m certain. It’s got to be.” The woman’s eyebrow raised.

“You weren’t so sure a minute ago.”

“I mean, I’ve got some doubts. There’s a lot of Rachels in Lebanon.”

“I’m sure. Did you just say Lebanon?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s far. You’re probably spending more money on gas going out there than you’ll make. And you don’t even know if its her!”

“But I just feel, you know, like it’s her.” He became more solid in his belief as he spoke it, until suddenly he bore an unmatchable convert’s zeal. “Not just feel. Know.”

“Fascinating.”

“Like, I dunno. The coincidence. It’s too much. It’s gotta be.” Seeing the woman’s lifted eyebrow, he felt the need to keep speaking; he had a vague feeling of being not merely misunderstood, but illegible entirely, his conversant a brick statuette. “I normally wouldn’t take this far of a delivery, actually, normally the app wouldn’t give me this far of a delivery in the first place. So that’s a weird coincidence, right? And it’s like, I dunno. A part of me really needs it to be true. I haven’t had anything good happen for a while, and this is good, you know? It’s just nice to see her.”

“You’re really not over this girl, are you?” Jacob looked over at the woman in surprise. She continued. “Listen. You seem nice enough. But taking a delivery for your ex, maybe and then traveling all that way for maybe nothing, just to see her? That’s weird. Kind of stalker-y.”

“I’m not trying to be weird about it, man. I just feel so certain, and I think she’ll be happy to see me. It’s been forever.”

“Then why put it off by picking up some rando from the street? Why not just dash there, like some knight in freakin’ armor?”

“I figured she would want me too.” He was surprised by the honesty of his admission. Apparently, so was the woman, because she simply looked at him with curiosity, and said nothing for a while.

“You’re a weird guy, Mr. Delivery Driver.”

“I’m Jacob.” The woman simply nodded at his name, and did not share her own. As they drove, they passed an accident; two cars were smashed together, and a third, its skeletal white chassis virtually untouched, was caught between them. Standing in the midst was a man clad in blue. A single hand spilled out the window of one of the other cars, unmoving. The rain poured.

As they pulled closer and closer to the airport, the woman gave him directions, first to her drop-off location and then the specific airline. No traffic met them in the rain, and they found the terminal still and empty beneath the thundering sky. As she prepared to take her leave, Jacob asked her, “what brought you here, anyway?” She grinned, as though she had been waiting for this opportunity the whole ride.

“I have an interview in Chicago. Real high paying job. My car broke down on the way here, and I couldn’t afford another ticket.” She shrugged. “Gotta risk it all, sometimes, Jacob. If this works, I win big. I could get set for life. Risking it all, winning double, right? It’s the American way!” She laughed to herself. “See ya. Thanks for the ride.” She swung her legs out of the car, and walked out into her storming future.

...

The sky faded from the false dark of a gray, sickly, raining afternoon, into the true blackness of night. The highway, now a simple sightless sentence of pavement, split and punctuated by the occasional headlight, was ever and all-consuming; Jacob knew nothing else besides the solipsism of thoughts and tires, and the tapping rain. A gale still blew. A single close bolt of lightning lit his face, which he caught in the rear-view. New bags had stretched themselves beneath his eyelids.

The flash illumined also a white car, parked by the side of the road with its lights off. Jacob raced by, unthinking, and then the night was lit with a red and blue rainbow; he pulled off, the cherry-top followed, and then there they sat, in détente. The officer was approaching now, and Jacob caught his breath as the sky was torn again; the thunderclap sound-tracked, and the electricity revealed, the closing in. The man’s hat was pulled low. His wire-legs took their time, sauntering, almost, as he closed in. His steps hit the excited beat of hunters, stalking prey already seen dying. Rain poured down his uniform, making puddles beneath his boots. They splashed up while he walked.

When he came to the window, Jacob noticed a new bruise beneath his left eye. The split lip worsened; pus welled from it. Lightning flashed again, and the officer’s shirt was displayed in full glory. Red, and brown, and black stains decorated it in strange, random patterns. His cocked-pistol smile revealed a missing tooth where his canine had rested hours before. Jacob had never felt this kind of terror before. His body shook without his consent, and he found no thoughts in his head besides the alternating images of the officer’s wrecked face, and that of Rachel, presumably awaiting his arrival.

“So. You.” The cop began. His grin seemed set in stone, more plastic with every passing second. “So. You.” The rain was steady. Water ran in both their eyes—only Jacob flinched. “So. You.” The bones of the officer’s face seemed to almost poke out. A thin film of skin stretched across it like a mask. The cop flipped on his flashlight. Blinded, Jacob found himself tranced by the words which followed. “You know I told you what would happen, son.” As far as he could tell, Jacob believed their ages coeval. “Son, I told you. When you break the law, consequences are bound to happen. What’s that I smell?” Jacob squinted and spoke without thinking.

“A hamburger.”

The flashlight caught him in the eye and knocked him into the wheel. Jacob’s sight spun. The rain poured. Lightning flashed again. In the short-lived light, the officer held up a bag, which seemed to contain something powdery and soft. “No, no, no, son.” The officer said. “I smell this.” He reached down to the radio at his waist. Time slowed as the arm rose to meet the mouth. Jacob thought of Rachel’s face, her smile, her voice calling his name. The rain pounded hard. Her voice. The first syllable of the officer’s next sentence. A thunderclap. And at that same moment, Jacob’s foot slammed the gas pedal, and his car took off.

The officer stood, diesel-fumigated in Jacob’s wake, utterly nonplussed. He kept speaking into the radio, as water fell on his head.

...

Lebanon welcomed him off the highway; the rain ran itself out to a trickle. Jacob’s phone guided him through the small city, through parts he found familiar, and sections which seemed to him entirely alien. His internal sense of direction was off. His memories of Rachel’s apartment were drenched in a fog. He had a sense the door was red, three years before. But now?

He saw instructions to pull toward a building. It was small, smaller than he remembered. He found his hands shaking as he picked up the long-cold bag, and approached the grey door. One last stab of doubt approached his heart, to be parried by a sense of urgency, of promise and prophecy. There was a great, cold indifference in him now, faced with the knowledge that he would know. He approached the gray door, and steeled himself, and knocked. It began to open.

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