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Snowdrifts billowed across acres of frozen farmland, all dormant under snowdunes and pale moonlight. The headlamps of Curly's sedan cut through the haze as he rounded another bend. It was slow-going. The roads stuck to the contour of the bluffs detonated to flatten the terrain decades ago. The winding was unnecessary, but it made the most out of the usable farmland.
Curly was loosely situated in the driver's seat, one hand on the steering wheel as he gesticulated with the other. His face was pleasantly warm despite the drafty interior. A warm orange glow came from the infotainment system playing American pop holiday music. The signal was poor, sometimes better but never good, though neither he or Jimmy was really listening anyway. His bleary eyes were set on the road, but he wasn't paying attention to that either.
"So, it goes, and he picks up speed fast. The sled is a plastic piece of rubbish, right? For kids."
"He hits a rock, doesn't he?" Jimmy grins from the passenger seat. Like usual, he wasn't wearing his seat belt, and every ten minutes the car would play a cute little jingle to remind him. He pointedly ignored it every time. Jim was tasked to hold a tin of scraps from the dinner party. It was more important.
"He hits a rock. Sled gets split down the middle into two halves. And, it's Ceol, right?"
"Hold on, it's Ceol?" Jimmy pauses, and he's laughing again. A deep, fruity laugh. Jimmy smokes less with tuition eating into their wallets, inadvertently clearing the phlegm that used to stick. Curly thinks it's healthy for him, but any mention of that and Jimmy would be snarling all over again. So he keeps it to himself and nods animatedly. "Yeah, so the sled is split and he — "
He's looking at him and not at the road. Jimmy's face falls gravely. "Hey, is that a — ?"
Curly's attention snaps back. There's something like a stubby tree on the gravel shoulder of the road, and Curly was already drifting away from the median line. He spins the wheel and reflexively taps the breaks, but their stomachs lurch as the back tires struggle to follow the front tires. The form silhouetted by his headlamps against the snow does not give as much resistance as he'd expected; it bounces off the hood underwheel, and thuds once. Then twice.
It is a miracle they don't go into the gutter. Jim is cussing, holding the side of his head, then sharply cusses again when Curly stamps on the breaks to put the still-rolling vehicle into park.
Adrenaline buzzes in Curly's ears, chasing away the inebriation but not enough to clear him of the vestigial fuzziness. He exchanges a look with Jimmy, his astonishment mirrored on his red face.
Then Jimmy laughs. It's uncertain at first, like a trickle before a deluge, before it all comes out. Then Curly and Jimmy are laughing together again. It's not funny because his radiator is probably cracked now and he hates asking his parents for money. It's incredulous. Curly should have known better to watch for wildlife out here. Maybe it's a little funny. It's bad luck.
Curly falls back in his seat with a shotgunned huff and puts his face in his hands. That little noosphere that Curly and Jimmy shares sees the shitty radio station switched off without Curly even reaching for it. The wind beats against the vehicle, louder now without the music.
"I think you hit a fucking deer. Dixon or Cupid, maybe." Jimmy slides down in his seat until his knees touch the console. At least the airbags didn't deploy.
"Fuck... naughty list this year again?"
"Figure we should go out and check?" Jimmy sets the tin in the footwell and throws a glance out the rearview window.
"Might've ran off... " Curly studies the reflection in the mirrors. He couldn't see the body of a deer laying anywhere. "Yeah, we ought to."
They step out of the sedan, Curly more languidly than Jimmy. He winces as the cold wind shears through his sweater. His coat was in the back seat, but he didn't imagine this would take too long. All he could ask for was to limp the vehicle for another hour and a half until they were back to their dormitories. Then he'd sleep. Yeah, he'd sleep for a long time.
"Curly ... "
The blood rushes out of his face and he stops. Jimmy stood across from him, a few paces from the mound of nylon in the road. They were a couple car-lengths away, so only the moonlight and the red glow of parking lights gave illumination. That was enough to see it clearly for what it was.
Curly tries to speak, but only a little wheeze leaves him. Adrenal glands ignite again, driving blood into his fingers with a buzzing sensation. Blood thumps in his ears. Holy shit. He just hit a person.
Jimmy talks for him. "What the fuck was he doing out here? Trying to signal us? Dumb... motherfucker... " the last word serves the dual purpose of a cuss and an insult. Jimmy shakes his head, like it was the pedestrian's fault for getting hit at all.
Jimmy nudges the body with the toe of his sneaker. It was splayed out, thankfully face-down, with its limbs like the points of a star. It groaned.
Curly turns and throws up on the snow, retching out bile and a half-digested dinner. Now his face was hot, dripping with tears that could freeze on his skin. Disgust and guilt and worry ran tracks around his head, but Curly managed to pin one thought down and — oh god. This will ruin him. He falls to his hands and knees, shaking like a jelly. This will ruin him. Then, guilt shoots through him at that, because he just nearly killed a person and he's worried for his own future. Fuck, what future? He was going to go to jail for DUI-ing. He will never be an aviation pilot.
He feels like he might throw up again. He can't even turn to look at Jimmy because it's there and he will definitely throw up if he sees it again. Then a sob breaks out of him, and the force of it on his diaphragm makes Curly gag again.
Hand on his shoulder, his name hissed into his ear. "Curly! Get the fuck up."
Curly doesn't know what else to do, so shakily, he does. Jimmy pulls him around to face him. His body blocks out the thing laying on the asphalt.
"What's the matter with you? It was an accident." He holds Curly by the arms, his bare hands cold from the weather.
"Jim — " he manages a weak breath. "I hit a bloke."
The wind whips Jimmy's hair around his face, but Curly can see his eyes flicker away. He had just arrived at the same conclusion as Curly did.
"Go sit in the car."
Curly shook his head frantically. Was Jimmy going to make the phone call? He realized it now that he was trembling. "But Jimmy — " he pleads.
Jim shoves him into the direction of the sedan. "Sit the fuck down! I'll take care of it." The warm glow inside was inviting, but to sit down would mean to forfeit everything. His scholarships, his future career, the sleep he sacrificed, the connections he missed. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Curly stumbles to the driver's side door, unable to restrain his sobs. Snot and tears dripped into the snow. This is what he deserved, wasn't it?
He shouldn't look, but he does. He checks the front of the vehicle. The black aluminum is smooth and as spotless as he remembers. Snowflakes whirl around the headlamps, both of which were in working order. Jimmy knew more about cars than Curly did, but the engine sounded fine. He climbs into the cab and shuts the door behind himself, sinking miserably into the fabric seat. Curly put his head in his hands again. Fuck, what would his parents think? They'd kill him for being so stupid, for throwing his life away when it just started. Maybe disown him, more realistically. The shrill voice of his physics professor who he was particularly close with, shouting at him until her voice gave out. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That's all Curly could think about. He was way too volatile to even begin to regulate himself as more emotions bubbled to the surface, so he just cried into his hands.
He doesn't know how long he sits there, but eventually, he stops trembling. He's calm enough to answer Jimmy in a complete sentence when he opens the door, but he doesn't look at him.
His breath comes out in puffs against the cold. "Curly, I need your help out here."
"Help? With what?" he pushes his disheveled blonde hair out of his face to peer up at Jimmy. Expression grim, but soft. Tired, most likely, but determined.
"Just come out."
He follows him out. Before he rounded the sedan, Curly could see that the trunk was open and wagging in the breeze. Premonition told him to steel himself, and he was glad he did. The body lay on the ground, the snow around it scraped away but steadily growing covered again. The hood of its pillowy parka was zipped over its face, and the sleeves were tied to keep the arms folded over its chest. He swallowed thickly. The hood was brown and wet.
Jimmy sighs, sounding out of breath. "Help me put her in the trunk." He was already stooping over to lift it— her? —by the arms, leaving Curly the legs. Curly didn't move.
"What do you mean? Why didn't you call an ambulance?" he felt his chest growing tight again with that familiar panic.
"She died," Jimmy shrugs. When he sees that Curly still isn't budging, he continues. "The... concussion," a dismissive wave of his hand. "She stopped breathing. Her head probably filled with blood and she stroked out."
"So why are we putting her in the trunk?" He stared at Jimmy, his blue eyes searching. He didn't want to come to terms with this. He didn't want to believe this was the only way.
"Well, as I see it," Jimmy stands and stretches, spine decompressing after his earlier efforts. He returns to his usual slouch. "She's already dead. There's no use in killing two futures, hm?"
Curly knew that look; the rhetorical cadence, the singular pitch of his brow. Gaze turned up from a lowered head. He swallows and nods. "Yeah."
Jimmy steps over the corpse of the woman they killed and stands nearly chest-to-chest with Curly. His voice softens. "You've worked too hard for this to follow you, Curly. You don't deserve to lose it all to one mistake."
Curly has to believe it, because there isn't any other way. He nods, then nods again. Lets it really sink in. He suddenly feels his heart squeeze, almost bursting from the sheer wall of emotion. This is what loyalty really is — what friendship really means.
Handling the body is more repulsive than it is difficult. To look at her is one beast, but it is a ghastly difference to touch her. Her clothes are partly shredded from the asphalt, but they look to be ruggedly engineered and coordinated; not a motley assortment of second- or third-hand items like Curly would expect a homeless person to wear. He tries not to think too hard. Was somebody waiting for her to come back?
They kneel on either side of her, bony ankles in Curly's hands and Jimmy's hands under her shoulders, and swing her into the trunk onto a tarp bed. They stare at her under the yellow courtesy light. There was already a little bit of blood pooling by her backpack and the tire iron.
Jimmy shuts the trunk.
Curly takes the passenger seat. His nerves are too shot to hold a steering wheel, no matter how sober he may be after emptying his stomach onto the road. Jimmy sits in his place, taking a moment to warm himself. The cold seemed to have sucked the heat out of his face, leaving only scarlet blotches under his eyes and over his nose. The wind was less fierce now and only rocked them gently. Jimmy adjusts the seat and pulls the seatbelt across his chest.
They pull off the shoulder and begin driving again. Jimmy releases a shaky breath.
"Curly."
Curly was curled in on himself in the car seat, legs folded by the door and his head resting on the window. He looks over at Jimmy.
"After tonight, we will never talk about this. Never bring it up. Bury it. You won't forget it, but bury it."
Curly nods. Jimmy throws a glance at him. "Say that you understand."
"I understand, Jim."
That seems to work, because Jimmy untenses enough to sit properly with his back against the seat. "This will be our dark secret. Only between us — us and god. Forever."
"Where are we going to put her?" Curly doesn't want to ask but he does.
Jim gives him a sheepish smile, eyes not letting up on the road. He drives faster than Curly does, especially for the weather. Flash of canines. "I was hoping you could help me with that. Maybe a lake?"
The warm air and the sudden nervous, juvenile smile on Jimmy dredges up a memory. Curly blinks it away. "What about the quarry?"
"The one by my old house?" The look on Jimmy's face is unreadable now, his lips drawn into a thin line. Eyes forward. It makes Curly feel almost voyeuristic to look at Jimmy when Jimmy can't look at him. "Yeah," Curly continues. "It's flooded now."
"I always told you it was a body dumping place, with that fucking sink hole." Somewhere in there is a lilt of a laugh.
Conversation lapses after that, the two men too absorbed and exhausted to bring word to their thoughts. It was a comfortable kind of quiet. Curly knew that Jimmy was not poignant enough to use his voice, but his body often did it for him. It was akin to— and Curly knew he wouldn't hear the end of this if he let it slip —reading a dog or a reptile. Flattened ears or a flicking tongue, narrowed breaths or a bouncing leg. With most people, Curly couldn't stand the silence, because silence meant tension and Curly could never fight the urge to fill it with whatever he could think of on the spot. It used to annoy Jimmy to no end. It still does.
They drive like that for a long time, only the lull of the engine and the back-and-forth of wiper blades for music. Despite the dark, the roads grow more familiar and less snow-laden. The plowed fields gradually grow lumpy, bare snow now studded with ice-encrusted knee-high grass. Now, the road cuts through two outcroppings of rock. In the summer months, the canopy from the numerous twiggy trees flanking the road would blot out the sky. It's bare now.
They're close.
Jimmy follows a generous dirt track for as far as it takes them. The incline brings them closer to the moon and stars. Less of them now, with the satellite-choked exosphere, but still more than what they'd see on the university rooftop. The vehicle finally slows to a stop, and Curly's stomach drops. Apprehension perspires on his forehead.
The engine shuts off, bathing them in darkness. "Get your coat on, Curly. We're here."
The sight of the woman isn't any easier, but there is only a minute twinge of repugnance in Curly's gut. "This was a good idea, actually. If she gets found, they'll think she slipped and fell in the water. It's not frozen but it's definitely freezing."
Curly didn't want to hear how good of an idea his suggestion was, but he nods along mutely. This was the only way. The only way. The only way.
"Carry her, in the tarp. Moon is bright enough to navigate by, and no telling who might be out here with us. You know how Pomona is."
The methamphetamine and the alcoholism. Curly knew it as well as Jimmy did, even participated in it. Many evenings after high school were spent drinking shoplifted tinnies in this quarry and smoking the cigarettes Jimmy took from his old man. There wasn't much else to do, after all.
Curly tries to carry her, he really does; his arms around her legs with her weight over his shoulder like a limp albatross. They follow the narrowing dirt track, Jimmy a few paces ahead of him. Curly stumbles over roots and weeds, but he hikes on, set with determination despite how his skin crawled to touch the woman he killed with her brains leaking out her ears like a soul escaping the mind and probably dripping down the coat that his grandpa left him and
Curly throws the body down and falls ass-first in the snow. His face was wet and it must be her blood so he turns and retches onto the leaf sod. Nothing comes out but spit.
"Curly! Curly!"
The air around his head grows warm. He opens his eyes and finds himself face-to-face with Jimmy, chestnut brown eyes boring into him. His trusted confidant, his friend, his best friend. Most loyal to follow him here half past two into the winter darkness. It made him feel sick to think he was pulling Jimmy down with him.
"Jimmy, I just can't," he wheezes. "I can't." Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He could see irritation set in his face, but something else. Something intense and good. Jimmy cups his cheek in his hand and buffs away the teeming tear tracts with his thumb. It thaws him.
It was the most delicate gesture Curly has ever seen come from Jimmy. It was a calculated thing to calm a spooked horse. Jimmy speaks similarly. "You have got to get out of your own head, man. Look, I'll carry her. Just follow behind me, okay?"
Curly nods.
"Okay?"
"... okay."
That's what they do. Jimmy has to roll the body back into the tarp, and he carries her bridal style for the rest of the ten minute walk. The quarry really was flooded; they stood at the crest of what once a story-high drop, now only an arms-length into black water. After some deliberation, they estimate the position of the sinkhole. Curly gathers a few squared stones, and Jimmy stuffs them into her parka. They roll her into the freezing water with not so much as a ripple.
Furca and fossa; her arms tied across her chest, fated to sink into the drowning pit. Down, down down. If she made the sinkhole, she would fall even further still. Before the water, Jimmy and Curly would throw random shit down there. They never heard it hit the bottom.
Jimmy's voice pulls him from his reverie. "Don't you feel better now?"
Curly takes a moment to consider this. He draws in a great deep breath and exhales slowly. He does decidedly feel better. "Yeah. I do."
"Good."
Jimmy sits beside him on the cold, stone floor. The quarry was a shallow scoop into the soft calcite limestone, now more like a rough-hewn soup bowl. When it closed, Curly was fourteen years old at the time, Jimmy fifteen. Always five months ahead of Curly. The last time they sat here was in the summer after graduation. They both knew that this would be the very last time they returned.
Jimmy reaches into his coat pocket and produces a packet of cigarettes. Curly watches, hears the disappointment in his grunt at the single remaining stick. He lights up with a brief flare, giving illumination to Curly's crestfallen face. After a long draw of tobacco, he offers it to Curly. Smoke escapes his nostrils before he breathes out.
Curly takes it. Puffs on it the same way he watched Jimmy do. They have to huddle close to keep the wind from smoking the cigarette for them.
"What do you think her name was?"
"Don't know. Didn't have a wallet when I checked, no driver's license, nothing."
"What do you think she was doing out there?"
"Camping, probably. Beats me why, in this weather."
Curly remarks upon how glad he is to not have seen her face. But Jimmy saw it. He saw what she looked like, what color her hair was and if she had freckles.
Jimmy plucks the smoldering cigarette out of his fingers. "Don't think too hard on it," he mumbles from around the filter. The glow illuminates his eyes, giving them a firey orange sheen. "It's all over now."
It's all over now. Soon, the first streaks of a pink dawn will shine from under the horizon. He could already see the blue glow of it under the velvet sky. Curly's thoughts drift away from the woman and to the man sitting cross-legged next to him. Their shoulders were met, with Jimmy's knee against his folded thighs. Curly didn't know the name of the emotion he felt now. It was bitter-sweet; astonishment; gratitude; penitence; camaraderie; adoration. He asked nothing of him, didn't even ask if he was sorry or not. There was no obligation deep enough that could compel Jimmy to help Curly with this. His malefaction. Curly felt his heart erupt again, and his eyes welled up with oxytocin-laden tears.
"Yeah," he laughs. He genuinely laughs, though quiet and subdued. "I'm getting coal in my stocking."
Jimmy chuckles with a billow of smoke from his mouth. "We're both on the naughty list."