Short fiction: “Western Shirts”
1.
He’s looking better than he has in a long time — slimmed down, and with a clarity and focus in his eyes rendering him almost unrecognizable. Sure, there’s lines in his face, the slight tremor of his hands, and those moments where the world starts closing in, but overall, not too bad for someone who should be dead.
Yet, he is still very much an addict. Nowadays his drug of choice is isolation, consumed in extended binges of night driving through the desert. Sometimes he stays on the Interstates, other times he wanders off on side roads through forgotten pissant towns. Tonight is one of the latter.
He doesn’t mind me riding shotgun, as I tend to keep to myself and only speak when there’s something worth saying. And because I haven’t known him personally for that long, I’m not one to judge him against past performance. He wants to just be, and wants his traveling companion to feel the same way.
As we speed down a long stretch of neglected road, I steal occasional glances at him in the ambient dashboard glow: full unkempt beard, hair slicked back as a counterpoint, and sunglasses, which he wears while driving, even at night. The beard and the sunglasses are meant to be a wall for him to hide behind, as if they make him invisible. Of course, they just mildly alter his appearance, rather than completely obscuring…
