The first shot was two fingers in a Gravity Hill shot glass. Gravity Hill in Pennsylvania was one of those places my wife wanted to take me to. When we got to the bottom of the hill she was bouncing up and down, smiling like a school girl about to ride a roller coaster, not that she could fit in one of those now. “Let’s see, let’s see, take your foot off the gas,” she says. And I think she’s nuts and give her a sideways glance to let her know as much. 

So I brought my right knee towards my chin in a grand show and, honest to heaven, the car kept going uphill. It was the damndest thing I ever saw.

“Ain’t this somethin’, Gordan? My, the world is a wondrous and mysterious thing.”

“How’s it work?”

“What work?”

“The hill? How’s it work?”

“Cain’t you just accept that there are things in the world that are unexplainable?”

I couldn’t and that drove her crazy. She opened a plastic bottle of Mountain Dew, unrolled the window, and stuck her fat arm out, the can gripped in her chubby fingers.

“Watch this.”

And she dumped the can. I was about to yell at her since we just bought it up the road a piece at the Seven-Eleven, but then the yellow liquid went uphill. 

“You see that?”

She damn well knew I’d seen it. I opened my mouth, shut it, and then opened it again letting only air escape. She giggled, her gerbil eyes looking at me with a gleam. 

After the second shot I got caught up watching some crazy mother fuckers on TV. A woman just shit on the floor. I shit you not. And everyone was walking around, pointing and cursing, blaming one another, and I was thinking they ain’t nothing but animals. 

Then Shiela came in with a grilled ham and cheese, chips, and pickle in one hand and a glass of Mountain Dew in the other. I hadn’t eaten since lunch and it smelled mighty fine.

“What the hell you watchin’, Gordan?” she growled lowering herself into her Lazyboy. 

“Dunno.”

Then she leaned over her plate of food, her breasts practically smashing her sandwich, and she asks, “Gordan, is that shit on the floor?”

“Yep.”

“Human shit?”

“Yep.”

“What’s the hell’s wrong with you?”

I was in my truck when I did my third and fourth shots. I just needed a little peace. I looked at the trailer, well-kept place considering everything, and listened to the wind. The windows were down, my head leaned back on the headrest, my right arm hung along the seat like I was pulling in some woman real close like.

Of course I weren’t out there for two damn minutes before I saw Sheila open up the front door, the blue TV glow behind her, one hand on her rolling hip, the other in some weird salute as if it would help her see me in my truck.

“Whatcha’ doin’ out there, Gordan? We gots things to do.”

This was code for she has chores for me.

A few more shots were done in the bathroom sitting on the shitter. I had been under the sink fixing a small leak that had started to stain the cabinet and who knows what to the subfloor. A little plumber’s tape, putty, and cursing got the leak fixed in no time, but I wasn’t in no hurry to go back out to the living room where I could hear her guffawing through some sitcom rerun. When she called me to tell me I was missing all the good parts, I couldn’t help but agree.

So I snuck out the house as quiet as I could considerin’ I was drunk as shit. I got in my Ford, fumbled my keys into the ignition, and pulled out. I think I saw her wave to me as I drove out of the driveway, her mouth jawing something of course. 

It weren’t but a mile down the road that I figured my lights needed to be on, and another before I could find the bottle to get another swig of Jack. As the whisky burnt its way down, I suddenly remembered what I left the house for: the old Jackson Bridge. 

When the old rusted thing came into view, I didn’t feel like sitting and listening to the water below like I had planned. I didn’t feel gazing down at the black water, letting my imagination picture everything a grown man like me could wish for down there: a beautiful wet woman collecting her clothes.

Naw, I just ran my ole Ford right off the embankment. 

I swear, as I went down the world rushed right up, it was like some great, unexplainable miracle.

___

Chad Rohrbacher has published stories in magazines like Crime Factory, Needle Magazine, Big Pulp, Dark Valentine, and others. He has fiction forthcoming in Yellow Mama, Pulp Engine, and in the anthology CHIVALRY IS DEAD by May/December Press. He’s been awarded fellowships from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and a grant from the Ohio Arts Commission. He lives with his family in North Carolina.