Truth or Consequences

Beatrice was beginning to wonder if leaving home “prematurely” was the best idea. So far, things had been going from okay to bad to worse. It was like the world was telling her, “Go back home little girl, you aren’t ready to be away from the nest.” She, however, wasn’t going to back down at the challenge at hand: flagging down a driver so that she could get a tow truck.

Her car broke down about an hour after she left Las Cruses, New Mexico, leaving her somewhere south of a small town called Truth or Consequences. She wasn’t exactly sure what caused it’s temporary death, since there were quite a few different reasons a car would die, and she was pretty sure that there was a book listing all of them. She hoped it wasn’t the fuel pump. She’d had problems with it in the past, and now the fact that she had decided to baby it instead of replacing it was going to bite her in the ass.

Her new cell phone sat useless inside of her car. Beatrice had left her old phone at home, to make sure that she didn’t receive five hundred phone calls a day from her mother. The last thing she wanted was to be found. Though the problem was, that without her old phone she wasn’t able to call a tow truck. If she still had it, she would be able to use an app to get a number. Beatrice’s new phone was the no contract, pre-paid type that you could buy from Wal-Mart. It didn’t have the same capabilities as her old phone and required to be closer to a cell tower for use. What use was it when she didn’t have a number to call, or barely any reception to even make a call?

“Oh, come on,” she growled to herself after a car passed her without a single glance back. She had been out in the hot sun for what seemed like hours. She had gotten used to the heat in LA, but even that for a native of the Pacific Northwest was ridiculously hot. There was nothing Beatrice could compare to the heat that existed in the middle of the desert. Standing outside made her feel like she was slowly melting. It was better than sitting the car, which gave a feeling of being slowly boiled. Everything here seemed slower than usual, like when the VCR broke and the tapes would only play in slow motion.

Beatrice had always thought that deserts were flat, dry places with little plant life, but she was quickly finding that her perception was quite wrong. Not only was it not flat at all, it was also covered in shrubs. Most of the shrubs were small, brown, sad looking things that made Beatrice wonder if they were even alive. Everything around her was in various shades of brown and tan, with the occasional deep green shrub to bring in some color. The sky was clear, cloudless and a brilliant shade of light blue.

It was very different from LA, and the complete opposite from Seattle. Seattle for one, was cold most of the year. If it got above sixty degrees it was considered a hot day. It rained most of the time there, making it so that the sky was a constant grey most of the year. Seattle, in Beatrice’s opinion, was a much nicer place than southern New Mexico. It didn’t have dust, shrubs, or the abundance of the color brown. Everything was grey and green there, which Beatrice would have preferred any day when it was compared to this.

Why she didn’t go North, and headed East is because of the same reason her mother took the job in LA. Neither of them could stand to be in that house without him. It wasn’t the same. Beatrice was sure that if she ever went back to Seattle, she would end up finding herself standing in front of her old house and see his ghost standing on the front porch. He would look at her with disappointment. He would know that she didn’t apply to any colleges. He would know that she ran away from home and left her mother alone. Then she would feel the guilt. If only she had tried harder in school, they wouldn’t have had that argument. If they didn’t have that fighting, he wouldn’t have been distracted and would have noticed that the car was hydroplaning. If only it wasn't raining. It was her fault he was dead and that’s why she could never go back.

It was the sound of an approaching car that snapped Beatrice out of her thoughts. She looked left to find an old, dirt covered, dark blue Jeep Grand Cherokee pulling up behind her. Finally, she thought as she turned to watch the driver get out of the car. A young man with tousled dusty blond hair stepped out and began walking towards her. He was tall and dressed in a t-shirt, jeans and a pair of cowboy boots. The way he walked had a slight swagger, which made him look like he had come straight out of a western movie.

“Car trouble?” he asked. Beatrice wondered if there was a “How to Properly Flirt with a Damsel in Distress” handbook that every guy read, that told them to ask the girl if she was having car trouble, even though it was obvious that she was.

“Yeah, I think it’s the fuel pump or something,” she said, leaning against her car.

“Hopefully not, because that’s a rather expensive tragedy. Have you called a tow truck yet?”

“I would have, if I knew the number to one,” she told him.

“I can call one for you on the CB.”

“CB radio?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Most everyone in around here has one, though most don’t have them in their cars anymore. It’s how most of the ranchers communicate.”

“Okay.” Beatrice felt like she was in another country and she didn’t know the language. She didn’t know much about the country. She grew up in a city, lived in a city, and hadn’t been too far outside of the city.

It was as he was walking back to his car, that Beatrice realized that he must be one of the only males left in the world who wore jean that fit them correctly. Most of the guys she new in high school wore jeans that fit in the legs, but sagged in the butt. This guy, however, wore jeans that fit right everywhere, which gave her a nice view of what he had to offer. Beatrice tried to make it look like she wasn’t staring at him. She didn’t want him to know that she found him very nice to look at.

“A tow truck should be coming in twenty minutes,” he informed her, as he walked back over to her. “Do you want me to hang around until it gets here?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I’m Sam, by the way.” He smiled and held out his hand for her to shake. Oh God, did he have a nice smile.

She put her hand in his and smiled back, “Bea.”

“So what brings you to this nice strip of road outside of T or C?”

T or C? So is that the nick name for that bizarrely named town?

“I was headed to New York,” she answered.

“Ah, another girl with big city dreams,” he said under his breath.

Beatrice heard it, and was vaguely annoyed at the fact he was grouping her with all of other girls who have hopeless dreams and no talent. Besides, she wasn’t going there to get on the big stage. She was just going there to go there.

“So what about you?” she asked. “What brings you here?” She felt lame for reusing is question because she couldn’t think of a better way to phrase it.

“Moving back from Las Cruses.”

She wanted to ask, Why the hell would you want to do that? Instead she said, “Really?” She didn’t know what the town of Truth or Consequences was like, so she couldn’t judge him, yet.

“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate further, probably because he didn’t want to bog her down with unnecessary details after he just met her.

A silence passed between them, and Beatrice didn’t like it. She was never one for silences to begin with, and she wasn’t going to get used to them now. “So why is it called Truth or Consequences? Was it some type of wild west town filled with outlaws or something?”

Sam laughed and shook his head, “God no. T or C is a hot springs town, and mostly relied on the tourism that they brought. It was originally named Hot Springs, like dozens of other towns in the US. Back in 1950, the producer of a radio show called ‘Truth or Consequences’ said on the 10th anniversary of the show, that he wished that a town would renamed itself after the show. The town took this opportunity to get free publicity and separate itself from all of the ‘Hot Springs’ of America, and voted to change the name.”

“So it was named after a radio show?”

“Yep.”

“That’s kind of disappointing.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “How is that disappointing?” he wanted to know. “There isn’t another town with that story, and it’s a hell of a lot better than some town with a couple of hot springs naming itself after them because they are too unoriginal to come up with something better.”

“I don’t know. I guess I was expecting something more extravagant because this is the Southwest.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Because this is the Southwest? I think you’ve seen too many western movies.”

“I have not,” she lied. In fact, she had seen a lot of western movies, though not on her own terms. Her mom was a big fan of both John Wayne and Gary Cooper, and tended to indulge in large marathons of their movies. Since her mom refused to watch anything else during these times, Beatrice was somewhat forced to watch them with her. It was what her mom called “Mother-daughter bonding, with just a dash of sexy cowboy.”

“Uh-huh.” She knew he didn’t believe her. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“LA,” she told him.

“You don’t look like you’re a LA girl.”

“That’s because I’m not. My mom moved us out there a year and a half ago. I’m originally from Seattle.”

“It rains there a lot, must be pretty different,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but more of a statement he said for himself. Beatrice wondered if he ever dreamed of leaving his town. There was probably a point in his life when he did, but know it seemed like he was okay staying where he was.

She was going to ask him about it, when she heard the sound of a heavy truck coming towards them. Sam turned towards it, and waved at it, like he was making sure it saw them.

The tow truck pulled up in front of Beatrice’s car and shut its engine off. The driver stepped out of the cab of the truck and instantly walked over and acknowledged Sam. The driver was a man who was a little passed middle age and dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit.

“Janice said it was you, but I didn’t believe her. I told her ‘No, it can’t be Sam Reeves, he’s off at college, gettin’ himself a degree so he can get out of this town.’ But here you are,” the man said to him. The two of them did a half high five, half handshake type gesture like they were old friends, even though the man looked a lot older than Sam.

Sam laughed, “It’s good to see you too, Earl.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about campus life,” Earl told him.

“I will.”

“So I understand you’re in a little need of assistance?” Earl asked, now turning his attention to Beatrice. Earl’s hair was dark and slicked back, and he smelt of cigarette smoke.

“Uh, yeah, I think it’s the fuel pump.”

“Hey now, I’m not the mechanic,” he informed her with a smile, “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” He didn’t say it in a rude way, but in a slightly joking tone. If he was trying to make a joke, she wasn’t finding it very funny. He coughed then started to hook the truck up to her car.

Beatrice grabbed her purse of the passenger seat before Earl started to pull the front of the car off the ground. Sam started walking towards his car since his job of making sure the damsel in distress was over.

“Hey Earl,” Sam called before he got into his car.

“Hmm?”

“Take her to Michel’s garage.”

Earl nodded and held up his hand as to say, “I heard you, but I’m a little busy.” Sam then got into his car and drove away. Beatrice watched him go, wondering if she was going to run into him again.

“Okay, we’re all set,” Earl informed her after he finished attaching her car to the tow truck. He wiped his hands on his pants before he walked back to the cab. Beatrice climbed into the passenger’s seat and put her seat belt on. Earl pulled himself into the driver’s seat, situated himself, turned on the engine, and started driving. It was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive. Beatrice had expected him to ask some of the same questions Sam did. Where you from? Where you going? Either he was waiting to ask, or he wasn’t going to at all.

“So how do you know Sam?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“He used to date my daughter in high school. He was my favorite of all her boyfriends, polite, motivated, not so closed minded as some of the people ‘round here.,” Earl told her. “They broke up shortly after graduation, and then she moved to Albuquerque for college.”

“Ah. And you and Sam stayed friends?”

“Sure we did!”

“But wouldn’t the break up make things weird?”

Earl looked at her, “I wasn’t the one breakin’ up with him.” He laughed then looked back to the road, “Why would I need to stop being friends with him?”

“So why did they break up? Sam and your daughter?” Beatrice asked nonchalantly.

“They were goin’ to different colleges, and they felt, my daughter felt, that it would be easier for them to break up than continue a long distance relationship. They’re still good friends though. I guess the distance makes things less awkward.”

She thought about it for a second, “Yeah, I guess so..”

Earl continued the small talk for the rest of the ride to town, changing the subject to some of the geography of T or C and the surrounding area. It turned out that there was another small town, called Williamsburg, right outside of T or C. He said it was more of a suburb to T or C than a town. Then he went on about a place called Elephant Butte, which was a local hotspot for fishing and boating. It was also apparently the location of the 4th of July fireworks.

As they approached the exit into Williamsburg, the amount of shrubs by the road were increasing. Beatrice was beginning to hope that she would see some normal, green grass soon, and not the dead looking desert grasses that was probably actually related to the shrubs. Everything was flat here. The rolling hills from the highway were gone, and turned into flat, urbanized desert. There were more trees here, but still no sign of grass. Beatrice found herself staring out the window, waiting for a spot of vivid green to pass by. She never knew how much she would miss something that she’d always had. After a while, she gave up her search for grass, realizing that it was probably a foreign entity here. It probably didn’t rain enough for it to grow, or the hot sun made any moisture the tiny, little plants had evaporate out of them. There was one thing she knew for sure: she was probably never going to get used to all the dirt.

“Welcome to the town of Truth or Consequences,” Earl announced when they were in an area of empty buildings, with the occasional feed store and car dealership.

“Is this it?”

Earl laughed, “No, it gets much better on North Broadway. We only passed over town limits.”

“Oh,” Beatrice sighed, relived that there was more to this town than feed stores.

So it isn’t a ghost town after all, Beatrice thought as they got closer to the center of town. There were a lot more cars, buildings and people. She felt kind of dumb for thinking that there would be no one out and about, because this wasn’t a Stephen King book she was living in. She wasn’t sure how much longer it was until they reached the mechanic that Sam had told Earl to take her to was. It seemed like they had been on this road, which was called South Broadway as Earl had informed her earlier, forever and she was beginning to think that it didn’t have an end. There is a difference between driving and riding in the passenger seat: when you’re driving, you’re doing something and when you’re in the passenger seat, you’re not. Beatrice hadn’t realized the difference until now, because she spent most of her life sitting in the passenger seat, then had a few years of driving experience, but never had the comparison of the two back to back.

Eventually, Earl made a turn into a large, dusty lot. There was a building in the middle of the that had two large garage doors open, that exposed tires and all sorts of other mechanical items. There was a regular door to the right of the building, which Beatrice assumed was the door to the office/waiting room.

The truck stopped after Earl backed the truck up so that her car would be as close to the garage as possible. Her got out to unhook Beatrice’s car. She followed, worrying about how much he would charge her for the tow truck. She’d brought only so much money with her, and she had already spent a hundred and five of it on her new cell phone.

She watched as Earl lowered, and unhooked her car. “So, how much do I owe you?” she asked when he was finished detaching the truck from her car.

He looked at her and smiled, “Fifty bucks.”

She was surprised by this, she expected it to be much more, “Just fifty?”

“Well, unless you want to pay me more.”

“No, fifty’s fine,” she said, pulling out her wallet. She pulled two twenties and a ten out and handed them to him.

“Thank ya, ma’am,” he said as he took the bills. “Until the next time you’re stranded on the side of the road.” He waved good-bye and walked back to the cab of his truck.

“Yeah..” She watched the truck drive away before she went into the office. She was a little surprised that no one seemed to notice that she was standing there. Maybe break downs were a common thing around here.