“Why’s it called that?”
“Some crazy white lady killed and beheaded this other white lady and sometimes teenagers go over to where it happened. The woman who got killed had her fourteen-month-old baby with her when she got killed. The baby made it out okay. They say you can hear that woman calling out for her baby at night.”
“Yeah, right,” I say.
“Ghosts aren’t what you have to worry about out here,” Geraldine says.
“I brought a box cutter from work,” I say to Geraldine, and pull it out of my jacket pocket and slide the plastic clip up to show her the blade—like she doesn’t know what a box cutter is.
“This is where they get us,” Geraldine says.
“Safer out here than at home,” I say.
“You could do worse than Paul.”
“I should go back then?”
“Do you know how many Indian women go missing every year?” Geraldine says.
“Do you?” I say.
“No, but I heard a high number once and the real number’s probably even higher.”
“I saw something too, someone posted about women up in Canada.”
“It’s not just Canada, it’s all over. There’s a secret war on women going on in the world. Secret even to us. Secret even though we know it,” Geraldine says. She rolls down her window and lights a smoke. I light one too.
“Every single place we get stuck out on the road,” she says. “They take us, then leave us out here, leave us to dim to bone, then get all the way forgotten.” She flicks her cigarette out the window. She only likes a cigarette for the first few drags.
“I always think of the men who do that kinda thing like, I know they’re out there somewhere—”
“And Paul,” she says.
“You know what he’s going through. He’s not who we’re talking about.”
“You’re not wrong. But the difference between the men doing it and your average violent drunk is not as big as you think. Then you’ve got the sick pigs in high places who pay for our bodies on the black market with Bitcoin, someone way up at the top who gets off on listening to the recorded screams of women like us being ripped apart, knocked against the cement floors in hidden rooms—”
“Jesus,” I say.
“What? You don’t think it’s real? The people who run this shit are real-life monsters. The people you never see. What they want is more and more, and when that isn’t enough, they want what can’t be gotten easily, the recorded screams of dying Indian women, maybe even a taxidermied torso, a collection of Indian women’s heads, there’s probably some floating in tanks with blue lights behind them in a secret office on the top floor of an office building in midtown Manhattan.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” I say.
“I meet with a lotta women,” she says. “Trapped by violence. They have kids to think about. They can’t just leave, with the kids, no money, no relatives. I have to talk to these women about options. I have to talk them into going to shelters. I have to hear about when the men accidentally go too far. So no, I’m not telling you that you should go back. I’m taking you to the bus station. But I’m saying you shouldn’t be out here on the side of the highway at night. I’m saying you should have texted me, asked me for a ride.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought I’d see you after work.”
I feel tired and a little annoyed. I always get this way after a cigarette. I don’t know why I smoke them. I yawn a big yawn, then lean my head against the window.
* * *
—
I wake up to the blink-blur of a struggle. Hector has his arms around Geraldine—he’s reaching for the wheel. We’re swerving, no longer on the highway. We’re on Reno Avenue just across the bridge over the Oklahoma River, not far from the Greyhound station. Geraldine’s trying to get Hector off of her. I slap Hector on his head over and over with both hands to try to stop him. He grunts like he doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing. Or like he’s woken up from a bad dream. Or like he’s still having it. We swerve hard left then harder right and go over the curb, over some grass, and then into the Motel 6 parking lot, right into the front of a truck parked there. The glove compartment comes in and crushes my knees. My hands fly toward the windshield. The seat belt pulls, then cuts into me. We stop and my vision blurs. The world spins a little. I look over and see that Geraldine’s face is a bloody mess. Her airbag is out and it looks like it might have broken her nose. I hear the back door open and see Hector fall out of the car, then get up and stumble away. I turn my phone on to call an ambulance, and as soon as I do I see that Paul’s calling again. I see his name. His picture. He’s in front of his computer at work wearing that I’m-a-hella-hard-Indian-dude look, with his chin lifted. I pick up because I’m this close to the Greyhound. He can’t do anything to me now.