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Psycho Sally

P. Keith Boran

    It pulsated and rumbled, making Hal’s teeth clench at first. But after a short tenure, he had grown to love the consistent vibration of an engine gorging on diesel. Hal liked to think of it as the truck’s heartbeat, its way of letting him know it’s there. “Psycho Sally,” he’d call it, gently stroking its dash. And in the early morning hours, Hal would sweep each parking lot at a local shopping mall, cleaning the debris left by those too busy to notice.
    And he rode with this vibration, feeling rattled, feeling alone, feeling desperate. His depression deepening the night Rita left him, the night he failed to perform in the parking lot of Burrito El Grande, the night Rita called the whole thing off, taking the beer, leaving him alone, in his truck, to cry, alone.
    And one night, during his break, Hal stopped at an all-night diner for fish and chips. He noticed her at the vending machine, bent over, purchasing tar and nicotine. She strolled to a booth, where Rita sat on some man’s lap. She whispered in his ear. They laughed. And Hal ate his supper with his head down, trying not to care, and failed.
    She saw him when they left. And they smoked cigarettes in the parking lot, flirting in manner most trashy. She placed her hand below his buckle, and gestured towards her car. And he followed. “Figures,” Hal whispered as he climbed into his cab, “no telling what’s growing between them legs of hers.”
    And as he swept another lot, Hal slowly uncorked the bottle of rage he’d been attempting to stifle since that night at Burrito El Grande. It poured slowly at first, but his anger soon bubbled over, forcing him to stop the truck. “What am I supposed to do,” he demanded as the tears ran down his face and chin, dousing the seat with his sticky brew as they dripped and fell, “I’m a man, dammit, even if I can’t show it.” And with that, the truck’s emergency lights switched on, blinking away. Hal tried to turn them off, but they kept flashing despite his efforts.
    And at that moment, Hal saw Rita’s car across the parking lot, its windows fogged with the heat of sin. Rita’s foot was pressed against the back window, pulsating up and down. The truck started. Hal’s face contorted into fear, for he was no longer controlling his girl, his Psycho Sally. “Rita knew I’d see this,” he whispered, “she wanted me to.” The engine roared just before it attacked. Hal saw the pedals move, the gears shift, the wheel turn. And he felt the metal and fiberglass crush beneath him, like fangs penetrating the flesh, stripping meat from the bone.
    Hal saw Rita’s foot dangling from the heap of crushed metal, lifeless and still. He rubbed Sally’s fender as he waited, trying to find some suitable explanation for the incident, hoping it ruled an accident without much speculation or fuss. But his mind wandered to Sally, for he was grateful to her. Because right now, it was most clear he was a man.

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