Free Highways to Hell by Bryan Smith Page A

it when Jack came back from the airport that time.
    It was a good life lesson.
    When you get another chance to do things right, grab the fucker.
    Lorene poured herself a cup of French roast, sipped from the steaming mug, and began practicing grief-stricken widow faces.

My best friend growing up was this guy named Mark Angel. Mark flaked out in college, ran away with the circus, and eventually dropped off the radar screen. I got postcards from him for a while, mostly from points south. The postmarks were from backwater burgs in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The postcards arrived intermittently over a period of several months, then they just stopped coming.
That was fourteen years ago.
    Mark was just a memory—a long-forgotten one.
    Until Resurrection Week, that is.
    Check this out.
    Saturday morning. The alarm was trilling inches away from my ear. I reached for the snooze button, then it dawned on me the sound I was hearing wasn’t the alarm—it was the telephone. I rolled onto my side, blinked away the last vestiges of sleep, and stared at the blatting monstrosity.
    Then I looked at the clock.
    “Aw, shit.”
    The time was 9:07 a.m., too early by far for a sleep-in Saturday.
    But the insolent device kept on ringing. Fucker.
    “Jesus Christ, Craig, pick up the goddamn phone.” A pillow thumped the back of my head. “Or I’ll be forced to wrap the cord around your neck.”
    The assailant was Jenny Hollis. Her presence there was a sign that a sort of sea change was underway in my life. Jenny was no dubious barroom conquest. I’d known her nearly half my life. She was the second girl who ever consented to have sex with me, when I was barely nineteen. We were together intermittently over the next several years. We experienced periods of great passion, and I suppose she should have been the great love of my life. It just didn’t happen.
    Now, however, we were together yet again. Reconciliation No. 123,000, give or take.
    I picked up the phone. “Yeah?”
    “Is this Craig McTavish?”
    My first thought was, Bill Collector.
    “Ah...”
    Remember, I hadn’t heard Mark’s voice in over a decade. The caller paused a moment before speaking again. “Um...McT?”
    I almost dropped the phone. “Mark?”
    No one else would call me “McT.”
    Mark chuckled. “McT. I knew it was you, man.”
    I glanced at Jenny. “I’m think I’m talking to Mark Angel.”
    “Only I’m the one doing all the talking,” I heard Mark say.
    Jenny’s eyes widened. “Mark Angel is alive?”
    “Evidently.”
    Mark said, “I’m alive and well, old friend—though I understand your skepticism. I’ve been gone a long time.”
    I grunted. “Huh. Yeah. A long time. Where the hell have you been, Mark?”
    He sighed. “You’re angry, sure. I’ve been on a long journey. You gotta believe me when I say I never meant to be gone so long.”
    A long journey?
    What do you say to an understatement of such epic proportions?
    Mark kept talking. “We’ve got to hook up. There’s so much I need to tell you, things I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about over the phone.”
    Things like Jarhead—but I didn’t know that at the time.
    I ultimately agreed to meet with Mark just to get him off the phone. I returned the receiver to its cradle, went to Jenny, and we made love with a fervor I’d never felt with anyone else.
    Later, when we sat down to a late breakfast, Jenny began her interrogation. Naturally, she wanted to know everything about my conversation with Mark. There wasn’t much to tell, but she perked up when I said I’d arranged to meet with Mark.
    “Oh! You have to take me!”
    I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
    I had agreed to meet Mark at a nearby state park at around three that afternoon. By the time we hit the road, I was close to eager to see my old friend. We stopped at a convenience store for a twelve-pack of Corona, a Styrofoam cooler, and a bag of ice.
    We talked about Mark during the drive to the park. A familiar