The Collision
Dane Eastergaard had only driven her deceased grandmother’s sunflower Volkswagen bus on half a dozen occasions in the year since she’d inherited the creaky, stoop-shouldered blue Victorian home on the outskirts of Oxbow, Maine.
The bus had horrible suspension, which made for a supremely uncomfortable ride when navigating the hole-pocked dirt road on which her home resided. The gas mileage was ridiculously poor, barely edging above ten miles per gallon. The engine had hacked and sputtered like an aging, three-pack a day smoker the rare times that Dane had driven this aging relic of the 1960s hippies movement that her grandma had revered.
The ancient bus could break down at any time. A motorist in a metropolitan area could reasonably expect a tow truck to arrive within an hour of calling for help. In Oxbow, Maine, given the population of less than a hundred and its remote location, help might not arrive for three or four hours or longer.
Consequently, Dane had only used the bus in a few situations. Three times she’d driven it was when her sedan was in the repair shop in Presque Isle. Twice she’d used it when she was dating, if that’s an accurate description, the artist John Nabors and he needed help in transporting his paintings to the Northern Maine Community Center for his exposition. And the other time was the first week she’d moved in and decided to see if her grandmother’s vehicle was still operational.
This voyage fit none of those profiles. Clad only in her nightgown, she climbed up into the driver’s seat. She felt the beads in the seat cover massage her back as she turned the key and felt the engine rumbled to life underneath her butt.
It had been a disastrous week. She’d received an e-mail terminating her remote position despite her having always received stellar performance reviews. It was fitting that her tech employer fired her without any human interaction—no in-person meeting, videoconference or even a short phone call. She only received a completely impersonal “thank you for your service” e-mail containing no explanation, but instead a pdf attachment containing the severance terms and required legal notices.
It’s one thing to lose a job in an urban center where there are tons of options. However, she’d had this job for four years and was making great money. It would be difficult if not impossible to replace it, especially given the move of employers away from the pandemic era “work from home” dynamic. She’d heard increasing whispers about her company’s financial challenges. It’s just hard, damn hard, to lose your livelihood based upon factors beyond your control. Do I have to sell this beautiful home in a natural paradise and move to Boston now? she’d wondered after the e-mail landed in her inbox.
She’d also been dumped by Nabors. He’d heard from friends about her leaving a Presque Isle bar late at night with a paving contractor’s arm draped around her shoulder, and that was enough for him. Her reputation, which she’d never cared about before, sunk to new lows in the community.
She knew she was now extremely toxic, and only the most desperate men would have anything to do with her. She had nothing against desperate men. She’d bedded more than her fair share of them. But now, as she moved into her late twenties, she’d recently, to her own great surprise, started entertaining the thought of actually having a meaningful relationship with a guy, rather than continuing the long string of almost exclusively physical relationships with men. Attending an occasional art show or a concert with one of her lovers was as far as any of her relationships had stretched beyond soiled sheets.
While that id-driven side of her continued to dominate her interactions with men, she’d determined that Will Northcutt would be the perfect man to try to build an actual relationship with. He lived alone just a half mile down the road. He was self-sufficient and not needy. He was skillful with his hands. He was intellectual, and she’d been secretly been reading his Substack posts at night and found them to be deep. He was ruggedly handsome.
And perhaps most of all, he’d rebuffed her previous attempts to seduce him. She’d tried to do so during the very first time they’d met. And later on, she’d snuck into his cabin while he soaked in his bathtub and waited—stark naked—in his bedroom as he entered, Adam to her Eve, when he emerged from his hot soak. The rejections intrigued her. A man who could spurn her advances must be a worthwhile companion.
Unfortunate timing had frustrated her attempt to bed him as his girlfriend Nadine had entered the cabin with an armload of groceries and encountered them just at that Garden of Eden moment. When Will had returned from running au natural after a fleeing ashen-faced and crying Nadine Nadeau, Dane had attempted to hug him in her pink-and-white natural state. To her shock, he’d pushed her away and told her to go home.
She’d grown to regret her initial approach. She’d wrongly thought he’d be easy picking. How could she have been so tactless and clumsy? He was a goddamn part-time roofer, after all. Living alone. In the woods. All the animals, birds, and insects were fornicating like mad. She could hear them out there all night long, trilling and rubbing and clicking. She and Will hadn’t trilled or rubbed or clicked even one little bit.
When she’d heard that Nadine had unjustly concluded that Will had been unfaithful to her during that Adam and Eve encounter at the cabin, she should have seized that opportunity to make a more conventional approach at seduction. She could have dressed conservatively and knocked on his cabin door and offered an apology and a gift. But she’d been too busy completing a big work project for her now soon-to-be-ex employer and banging John Nabors and several guys that she’d met at bars, and blew that golden opportunity.
She only decided to take action when she heard that Will and Nadine had gotten together again and he was no longer available. In the tiny unincorporated township of Oxbow and the nearby metropolis of Mapleton, which has 1,948 residents, life moves at the pace of an injured snail but news travels at the speed of light. Somehow, the fact that Will Northcutt had not exited Nadine Nadeau’s apartment when night fell and later the sun rose became the major news story of the day.
Dane decided to give it one more shot despite receiving that news bulletin from one of her friends. She showed up at Will’s apartment, conservatively dressed, in blue jeans and an Oxford shirt, with a tuna casserole in hand.
He came to the door rather quickly when she knocked.
“Hi Will!” she said enthusiastically, as she smiled broadly.
“Evening Dane. What I can I do for you?” He hadn’t completely opened his cabin door, and looked down at her as he still held his muscular right arm diagonally across the opening, striking a defensive posture so she couldn’t enter.
Dane grinned again, and looked up into Will’s eyes. “Just here to apologize for the past, and brought a peace offering so we can be friendly neighbors in the future.”
“I appreciate this gesture, Dane, I really do.” Will didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown either. He also didn’t budge.
Maybe I have a chance, Dane thought as the silence enveloped them, and all she heard was the chatter of fornicating insects. “Well I was hoping you’d ask me inside, and we can eat some of it together, and chat a bit,” she said, flipping her long, blonde hair to the side with a toss of her head and staring at him with her green eyes.
“Umm, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Will remained on guard at his cabin door. He’s like one of those human toy soldiers at freaking Buckingham Palace, Dane thought.
“I don’t bite,” Dane laughed. “At least things beyond casserole.”
Her joke fell flat. “Nadine and I are a couple, and I ask you to respect that,” Will answered. He shifted his feet, but his arm remained braced against the upper corner of the door frame.
“Oh, I do. I do. But everyone makes mistakes. I’m no danger to you or her,” Dane replied.
“You’re absolutely right that we all make mistakes, and I don’t doubt what you’re saying. It’s nice of you to come by. But given the, ‘em, history, Nadine is real sensitive and if I invite you in…” Will paused.
“I’m just a girl with killer tuna casserole, and you look like a hungry guy,” Dane purred and flipped her eyelashes at Will, a move that had served her very well for many years.
“I’m still afraid it might be unwise,” Will said. “I’ll be a good neighbor if you ever run into trouble. But I’m just gonna say good night. Please understand.”
“Oh now, c’mon Will. You’re not afraid of me, are ya?” Dane teased, pushing out her chest to display her cleavage.
Will averted his eyes, and looked up at the moonlight, which also had exposed itself.
“G’night, Dane,” he said as he abruptly pushed the door shut.
She heard the raspy sound of a rusting iron bolt slide across the uneven heavy oak door.
She wasn’t at all used to being shut out by men. She couldn’t recall that it had ever happened before—except with him. As she turned away, her heavy glass tray of casserole cooling and feeling ever weightier in her hands, she first felt weary and frustrated. By the time she arrived back at her house, her frustration had began to morph into something else.
A few days had passed since Will had rejected Dane’s attempt to seduce him with her “peace offer.” She tried to process her failure by saying it didn’t matter, and she could go into Mapleton or Presque Isle and easily find male company for the evening if she wanted to. It didn’t really matter who it was if she just wanted to spend the night with a male of the species. She lived the entirety of her twenties experiencing the thrill of the hunt and enjoying the variety of subspecies that she’d bagged.
However, two days out from Will’s bolt barring her entry to his cabin, she’d gotten that obnoxiously impersonal termination e-mail from boss—a male. She’d made the rare move to reach out to her father for support, despite his track record of being aloof. And he’d not answered her yet, and the odds were growing that he wouldn’t reply at all.
In her green nightgown, Dane kicked her feet up on her recliner and started drinking Allen’s Coffee Brandy while channel surfing. Even though the sun was beginning to climb over the horizon, the daytime summer heat had not returned to the heavens and sweat dripped down her forehead to her neck and painted a clinging portrait of desire on her chest.
She came across a documentary about the Battle of the Bulge in World War II or the Ardennes counteroffensive as the Allies called it. She normally didn’t like war documentaries, but in her current situation she became entranced with the images of large platoons armies of men killing and maiming each other by the tens of thousands—and in the natural deeply forested beauty of eastern Belgium that had some similarities to Maine.
As she grew intoxicated, she watched the grainy footage of scores of German tanks trying to push their way through the forest in winter to catch the Allies by surprise, but getting stuck in the rough terrain. I could drive better ‘en those soldiers, she slurred out loud.
A few hours later and several more glasses of coffee brandy later, Dane drove her own tank—the Volkswagen sunflower bus—down the road as the dying sun slipped over the tops of the towering pines on the dirt road. She imagined herself with a dark green helmet on as she drove toward the battle. She swerved unsteadily but managed to stay on the road until she spotted the turnoff and managed a shaky left turn into the driveway.
She slowed looking for enemies as she rumbled down the incline toward the Aroostook River. Just like in the Battle of the Bulge, she figured that surprise was her friend so she cut the lights as she passed through the corridor of trees. The forest was almost completely dark, wish just random wisps of weak light filtering through the pines that allowed her to safely navigate the trail despite her impaired state.
As she exited the forest and entered the clearing, she saw lights radiating from the cabin window. She squinted, making out the outline of Will’s Buick Skyhawk and Nadine’s RAV4 parked at the side of the cabin. Rage filled her as she recalled how he’d rebuffed her and closed the door in her face and bolted it several days ago. Why should they enjoy happiness and fulfillment when she had nothing? They were probably in there trilling, rubbing and clicking right now!
Dane stomped on the accelerator and her sunflower Volkswagen bus lurched forward at a greater pace, huffing and puffing like an enraged bull seeing a red matador’s cape. There was still some distance between the bus and the cabin, enough so that Dane was able to build considerable speed, accelerating before the point of impact with the cabin door.
Dane’s beautiful face smashed into the windshield and the impact knocked her unconscious. A split-second later, the gas tank in the ancient vehicle cracked. The fuel ignited and the Volkswagen bus exploded into undulating, towering spikes of reddish-orange flames. The front end of the bus had caved in, and while Will’s cabin door buckled, the heavy logs survived the impact in surprising good fashion. The flames leapt from the car to the cabin and the fire quickly started consuming the structure like a famished man wolfing down dinner at the end of a long day of work.
There was the sound of smashing glass as Will kicked out the panes in the cabin window and lowered himself out of the cabin, and then reached in to help Nadine climb out. Nadine grabbed his left shoulder and upper arm to restrain Will as he began to move toward the bus in order to try to save Dane. Luckily, she managed to significantly slow him because at the moment he broke free, there was a large explosion which blew Will off his feet and spit flaming fragments across the clearing.
Nadine cradled his bleeding head with her hands as she called 911 and waited for help to arrive. It seemed like day all over again to her as the burning cabin illuminated the woods with an eery red glow.
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The Battle of the Bulge parallel is the best move in the chapter... drunk logic that's also completely coherent character logic. Dane has spent the whole story treating men like territory to take, so of course she narrates herself into a tank when the strategy fails. What makes her work as a character is that the vulnerability is always there just under the surface. The father who doesn't call back lands harder than the job loss. That detail does a lot of.
Dane seems unable to make a good decision, even when her life depends upon it.
By the time I reached the fiery bus/cabin explosion scene, I was reading at a speed that might have exploded itself. I can picture it all.