At the tollbooth, there was finally some chance to stop and think about the choices he’d made in rage. Breathing, sighing — rubbing his face to keep his hot eyes from welling up, Elliot sought a way to turn his red truck around. His tank was low– down to a quarter or less and he had not seen any stations coming up along the road behind him. Out ahead, orange lights, like beacons for another world, cast a pale promise of gasoline and maybe a rest stop. A big wooden arm blocked the road at the booth.
There at the tollbooth, was a halo of light cast by the neon trim canopy. Here an old man crossed his arms at his chest where there was a nametag fixed. The toll taker’s name was simply: Bud. He had a gaunt face and spotting skin. Elliot rolled down the window, waving. “Can I turn around?” Bud shook his head and said: “There’s nothing back that way. If you try you’re going to break down before you make it to the nearest pump. I can’t tell you about the road out there. I haven’t been up that way in — oh — forty years. Something happens with the time. You think you’ve got a firm hold but then you realize that it might actually have the hold on you. I can pay the toll if you’re willing to make the run.”
Then, Bud took two quarters from the pocket of his pressed work shirt and he put them into the color-chipped toll receptacle between them so Elliot could watch them slide away into a clicking dark forever. The arm in Elliot’s headlights lifted. A parallax perspective of road and trees stretched on . . .
And those orange lights. And those orange lights.-FM
El Golpe Avisa 