The Last Customer by Daniel Coughlin

everything she desired. But she didn’t understand that this lifestyle was it for him. He didn’t know how to do anything else and, truthfully, he didn’t want to do anything else. His brother’s chop shop was the compromise. She would have to respect that because that’s the way it was. Plus, his brother’s chop shop was a steady job. It wasn’t legal, but it was structured and organized.
     
    2
     
    Cherri woke up when the low rumble of the truck’s engine grew louder and the cab began to shift. The tires juggled over the jagged shoulder of the highway. Small rocks kicked up under the floor panels. The pebbles sounded like marbles on wood. The current terrain was bumpy, indicating, the roads were in desperate need of maintenance. There were potholes scattered everywhere. In the dark, you couldn’t see where the road ended. The paint markings were faded, almost non-existent.
    Cherri focused on Timmy. He pulled a brown paper bag from beneath his seat. He dug into the bag, pulled the tab off a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and sipped from it.
    Terrance was asleep next to Cherri, on the right. She was seated in the middle, and being cramped was an understatement. She wished that Timmy would have boosted an SUV or even a car. That would have been more comfortable, but Timmy liked trucks. Now, they were stuffed shoulder to shoulder inside of this heap-on-wheels. A dumpy Chevrolet with rusted everything.
                “Where are we headed?” she asked, knowing that he didn’t like to be bothered while he was driving.
                “Saw a sign for a liquor store. It’s about thirty miles ahead. I think we should hit it.”
                She looked to the digital radio face. It was ten o’clock. Most liquor stores closed up at this time of night. In places like California, you could buy alcohol until two o’clock in the morning. The laws varied from place to place. But around these parts—the Midwest—you usually had to purchase your booze before ten o’clock. In most places you could still buy liquor to take with you, after ten o’clock, if you were in a bar. Bar time was two-thirty.
                “If you think we can do it.”
                “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Timmy snarled. He stared at the road, never turning his head toward her. He continued sipping from his beer.
                “I just meant that it’s late. Liquor stores usually close early around here.”
                His jaw was sliding back and forth. His teeth faintly chattered as he ground them together. He chugged the rest of his beer and tossed the can out the window. “I guess we’ll see.”
                This was her cue to shut it.
    There was nothing else to say. She adjusted, slumping back against the cloth seat covers. The seat cushions were held together by shredded padding. The truck was old. They’d stolen it from a farmer who probably didn’t know it was gone yet. It smelled musty like a stale fart.   Cherri closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, her dreams, too often, took her back to childhood. A place she’d rather forget.
                Cherri’s mother, Dawn, was a nice woman. She was pretty and she loved Cherri. But she loved her abusive husband more with booze coming in second. On more than one occasion, Dawn was taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Dawn drank in extreme when she needed to ignore what her husband was doing. She needed to ignore him because he often ventured into Cherri’s bedroom. Her husband was doing things to Cherri that he should have been doing with Dawn. On those nights, Dawn would suck down a fifth of Jim Beam, sometimes more. She would sit at the crappy wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. There was a huge crack running down the center of it. She’d slump down over her elbows, lean into the bottle, and wait for the sting of alcohol to dull her sorrows.