NUMBER NINE: Random Chance

FADE IN:

INT. TELEVISION SCREEN – NIGHT

The Beatles’ EVERYBODY’S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY MONKEY (White Album) plays as we see a boxed photograph of Ruby Daulton displayed alongside a talking head with the CNN logo and scroll bar below. The caption reads: "Person of Interest."

EXT. DAIRY QUEEN PAY PHONE – NIGHT

Ruby talks on the phone. We hear bits of her conversation.

RUBY

I can’t do that … Listen, I need some help …

EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD, RUBY – NIGHT

Jake in the passenger seat, top down beneath a bright moon, Ruby drives up a winding road as the radio blares WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD? (White Album).

INT. CABIN OF AN 18 WHEELER

A trucker, barreling down the same mountain road, steps on the brakes with no effect. We hear REVOLUTION 9 ("Number 9, number 9, number 9…") as the truck picks up speed and the trucker sounds his HORN.

EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD, ABOVE

A runaway truck veers into the middle of the road as Ruby’s convertible approaches the same curve ahead. They appear destined to meet.

Ruby sees a white post reading: Mile 9. She pulls off the road at a lookout just as the truck barrels by and smashes into a sandy runaway truck ramp down the road.

In the microcosmic world, entities swim about in a gelatinous muck, moved by their liquid or gaseous surroundings, guided by unseen electrical impulses and unknown encoded tendencies. The patterns are beyond our grasp, like the courting dance of jellyfish, seemingly random and without intent, but when an entity nears its perfect mate, the two are drawn together like yin and yang, Orion and Sirius, Anthony and Cleopatra, or Tristram and Isolde. Two become one, forever interwoven, joined at the hip in a perpetual dance of destiny.

If not for the cerebral cortex, as it is in the microcosm so would it be for human nature. We would all find our perfect mates and claim eternal bliss.

So it seemed for Jake Jones and Ruby Daulton: If ever a match in heaven was made, at this moment in the cosmos, they were it. Her perfect breasts, nipples erect from leather thoughts, were soft and white. He caressed them in his mind though his thoughts were pure with wonder. He caressed them in the flesh and his spirit left his body, soaring through the ectoplasm of electromagnetic dreams.

She moved to him until their bodies locked like the socket and the plug, an electromagnetic coupling, matter and antimatter, like the final chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses.

Jake lived in the moment almost completely. It was not the result of a conscious decision but a birthright and one of many eccentricities that accentuated sensual-sexual pleasure. Their bodies tingled with an excitation of a kind Ruby had never before experienced. From the caverns of her mind reemerged the song that spurred the lust of Tony’s boys, sealed their gruesome fate, and turned the wheel of destiny.

When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun …

"Forever!" she cried out from the summit of delight. "You and I will live … forever!"

Was it true love? It is a question neither Jake nor Ruby could ever answer but it was a moment of pure bliss and it would pass for love as long as they let it be so. For all they knew – for all any of us know – that is what love is: a willingness to suspend logical belief in favor of the eternal heart.

Exhausted, they lay side by side, basking in the scent of their liquid love, when Ruby turned to him.

"Ruby," she said. "Ruby Daulton."

It was only then that Jake realized he did not know her name. He could not recall having heard or seen it written but it was as if he already knew.

"And it’s my birthday."

Without a second thought, he pulled a turquoise stone on a leather thong from around his neck and handed it to her. He had purchased it from a gift shop in Santa Fe.

"Happy birthday, Ruby Daulton."

Holding the stone in her hands, it brought tears to her eyes for reasons she could never understand. For the first time since she was a child, she cried without apology or remorse.

"Baby," she said finally, "I’ve got to level with you and after I do, if you want to turn your back and walk away, I swear I won’t say a word."

Leaving nothing to the imagination, Ruby explained what had happened and why she was on the run. Jake listened quietly before offering the obvious advice.

"You didn’t do anything," he said. "Turn yourself in."

"I’ve got history, baby. They know me at the LAPD. Tony knows that. He was counting on it. He’ll set me up."

Jake fell back on the hitchhiker’s code. It did not matter that they had entered a new and yet to be defined relationship, he was still a hitchhiker, a visitor, a mere guest on a random highway. He could get off the ride any time he wanted and, as long as that was true, he was bound by the code not to interfere. He wanted to know everything but he was bound by the code not to ask any questions beyond: Where are you headed?

Ruby knew the code as well as anyone. All her life she felt as though she had lived in other people’s homes, depending on the generosity of men. Her most recent vocation gave her a sense of freedom but, as it turned out, even that was an illusion. So she was acutely aware of Jake’s dilemma. She believed they were bound together by forces that could not be denied but she wanted him to have free choice. She wanted him to sign on with his eyes wide open. She was a woman on the run, hunted by criminals and cops alike. The road ahead was uncertain and dangerous. He would have to balance the risks against the rewards – however sweet those rewards might be.

"Have you got a plan?" he asked.

Ruby smiled. It was as close to a commitment as she could reasonably expect.

"I’m working on it," she replied. "I made some calls. I know some people in Vegas who can fix me up: Fake ID, paint job, license plates, even a credit card. After that, I’ve got to put some miles between me and LA."

"That’s a pretty good plan," said Jake.

Ruby wrapped her legs around him. "Thanks," she replied. "Are you in?"

Jake nodded and welcomed her embrace, dissolving at the scent of a woman in full bloom.

"You should get some sleep," she said with a kiss. "We have to leave in a few hours."

Under a bright, golden moon, they headed out over the southern branch of the Sierras. The path would take them through Death Valley to the city of neon lights where the gods of chance reign supreme. Ruby loved driving by moonlight and it seemed a good idea, under the circumstances, to take the road less traveled. It was a rough road but everything depended on reaching Vegas undetected.

Climbing a mountain road by the silver, moonlit waters of Lake Isabella, she thought of Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits and felt her passions rise. Her dark skinned hero by her side, she flipped on the radio and found an independent station on the FM band transitioning from jazz to nostalgic rock. Jake was moonstruck until she cranked it up as a Beatles medley came on, beginning with I Want You from Abbey Road. Ascending a steep grade near Walker Pass, she nearly lost control when the first chords of Why don’t we do it in the road? from the White Album came roaring out of her speakers. She looked sideways at Jake and sensed that he was as aroused as she was.

She pulled off at the next lookout but before they could climb into the back seat an 18-wheeler came barreling by with its tires screeching and horns blaring. They watched in dumfounded awe and then listened as it crashed into a runaway truck ramp down the road.

A tall, thin Latino came jogging up the road, looking dazed and confused but otherwise unharmed.

"Are you kids alright?" he stammered.

"We’re fine," replied Ruby.

"Wow!" he said. "Another second and you’d have been splattered. It’s a miracle there was a turnout here."

They shared various expressions of relief and acknowledged that what had happened was indeed miraculous. In fact, with the music and the rising passion of the moment, neither Jake nor Ruby had seen or heard the approaching disaster. They didn’t ask why he was driving an 18-wheeler down a narrow mountain road. They assumed it was the same reason Ruby had chosen this route: to avoid contact with the law.

Assured that everything was under control, they made their departure but not before Jake pointed out a marker by the side of the road. The white paint was yellowed and peeling, leading them to believe it was remnant of a former time. It read:

Mile 9.

Number nine, number nine, number nine…

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, THE ALBION MONITOR, BUZZLE, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE AND COUNTERPUNCH. GHOST DANCE IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM. SEE RANDOM JACK: www.jazzmanchronicles.blogspot.com.