Linda’s Last Flight
By: Einstein Shrugged
Tags: Suicide, Death, Dark Fiction, Fiction

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

He’d started the letter to his brother twice now. He opened the bottle of Southern Comfort an hour ago and already it was half gone.

Jesse Wagner lived in a squalid ground floor apartment so old the floorboards were the color of dirt. He never cared much about the place. It didn’t matter to him where he lived, he was out on the road most of the time.

Normally.

None of it mattered now anyway.

Jesse took another long pull from the bottle before shrugging into his coat and heading out the door. He needed to buy some more before the liquor store closed. He made his way down the uneven sidewalk not caring how steady his walk appeared to passers-by.

None of it mattered now anyway.

Shep was behind the counter when Jesse finally made his way down the street and into the distressed storefront. He bought another bottle of Southern Comfort and added a bottle of Scotch. Shep raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he wrapped the bottles up in paper bags and handed them over. Jesse recognized two other men loitering off to one side but said nothing. Usually, he enjoyed his trips down to the store when Shep was there and had spent more than one long afternoon in the company of the other customers there. But today Jesse said nothing and the other men treated him with arm’s length compassion, watching him quietly as he skulked out the door and into the early evening street. No one had said much to Jesse since he’d returned from the bike show.

Since the accident.

Four days earlier he and his girlfriend, Linda, had jumped onto Jesse’s bike for the ride back into the city after spending a weekend at a camping site along with dozens of other bikers. The weekend had been drenched in alcohol and laughter. The show had been a particularly good one and Jesse had been relieved to see Linda laughing more than once, something she hadn’t done in the months preceding the rally. Jesse had tried to get her out of her funk several times, but no dice. She kept insisting she was fine, that she was just distracted.

Jesse let himself back into his apartment and tossed his keys onto the nicked wooden table inside the door. He shuffled back to the wooden bench he used as a worktable and sat down, placing the bag down with a heavy thud and staring out the window. Linda loved sunsets. Often, they’d wander the streets together as the sun went down, circling the sprawling city blocks well into the night. Jesse sighed again and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes with a shaky hand. He realized his first bottle of Southern Comfort was empty and he set about opening the one he’d just brought home. Once he had the cap off and another pull, he got out a piece of paper and, for the umpteenth time that day, started the letter to his brother.

The brothers had been born to a tough woman who’d grown up in the dusty slums of West Virginia before moving to the gritty streets of Detroit. She’d named both her sons after famous outlaws, christening them Jesse James and William Hickock Wagner. They’d been a surly pair as youths, graduating from terrorizing neighborhood girls with worms and snails to terrorizing them with fast cars and fistfights. Jesse had elected to go to a Vo-Tech school and had fallen in love with mechanics, eventually earning a degree and securing steady, albeit hard, work in a local garage. William, called Billy by most, had never lost his love of crime, the temptation of an easy buck proving too strong too often. He was currently serving a three year stretch in prison for a botched burglary he’d carried out in a drunken stupor. He had no idea what had happened.

Linda and Jesse had met soon after he’d landed his job. She had come in to have her bike tuned up and she and Jesse had gone off together to a rally two weeks later. As they were getting ready to leave it began to rain. Jesse had his leather jeans but Linda hadn’t brought any and the prices the vendors were selling them for were nothing short of highway robbery. Linda had solved the problem by wrapping her jeans in several thick layers of duct tape. As Jesse watched her rolling the tape over her legs he knew he’d found the woman of his dreams.

That was two years ago.

Jesse took another long drink and began writing.

This past weekend had been perfect. They’d explored the woods together and made love near a small stream they stumbled upon one afternoon. They sat up all night watching the stars and lying happily on the grass. When they were preparing to leave Linda had hugged him tightly, kissing him on the lips and smiling into his eyes. Jesse had been thinking of getting home and into bed.

Jesse had always loved riding with Linda snuggled close behind him, her legs gripping him around the hips, her arms crossed tightly over his chest. She leaned into him until they were almost one person. He never worried about going around tight curves or dodging in and out of traffic when she was on the bike. She leaned with him around turns, tightened her legs around him as they dipped around cars and swerved around trucks. Jesse often got lost in the sensation of her body against his, gripping him tightly, literally holding on for dear life as the needle of his speedometer wavered past 100. Fuel-injected exhilaration, she called it.

As they got on the bike Sunday, he’d felt her hands sliding over the back of his jeans, tucking her fingers quickly into the waistband. Jesse had smiled, happy to feel her soft flesh against him, if only for a moment. As they set off she braced herself around him as she always did, squeezing his body tightly for a moment as the bike roared to life.

Jesse drained the bottle of Southern Comfort down to the quarter mark and steadied his hands. He stood and stretched, walking over to the stereo and flipping it on, letting a stream from the local radio station fill the apartment. He walked into the kitchen and searched for the bag of dry roasted peanuts he knew he had. He finally found them in the refrigerator. He ate a handful without thinking about it as he walked back to the table and sat down again.

Around five miles or so before their exit on the highway, Jesse had felt Linda squeeze him tightly. Her strong thighs pressed against him and her surprisingly strong arms seized him tightly for a moment. Jesse smiled to himself and wished he could return the gesture. He squeezed the accelerator instead, eager to get her home. But then, in an instant, everything changed. He felt Linda’s legs pushing down, felt the resistance of her arms spreading open, and then the bike fishtailing, the sudden absence of weight. A morbid symphony of squealing tires and honking horns exploding behind him.

Jesse managed to control the bike long enough to pull over and throw a desperate glance over his shoulder. Behind him a truck had come to a squealing halt, throwing its back end across the other lane of traffic. Among the cars stopped in front of the truck, stood a small, yellow VW Beetle.

Linda was sprawled across the dented hood and shattered windshield.

Jesse could see nothing else. He stumbled off his bike, letting it crash onto the ground as he made his way through stopped cars and people running towards him. He barrelled through them, shoving them out of the way. By the time he made it to Linda, he could already hear the approaching sirens. He took his helmet off and fell to his knees beside the small car, his chest heaving, his mind blank.

Other motorists gave the description required by police. Linda had launched herself off the bike in one fluid movement, spreading her arms wide and pushing off with her legs. The wind had picked her up and sent her sailing directly into the windshield of Robert Mitchell’s VW Beetle. She’d never looked behind her, never waved her arms. Robert had described it as a bird taking off into flight to the investigators as he shook under the scratchy green blanket an EMT had placed around his shoulders.

Jesse sat with an anxious looking patrolman, watching as medics zipped Linda up into a long, black bag. Eventually, he was taken home in a patrol car, his bike delivered later that day with silent condolences from his boss.

Jesse hadn’t spoken to anyone since the day of the accident and he didn’t feel much like starting anytime soon.

But he wanted to tell Billy what had happened. Linda had sent Billy regular letters updating him about the rallies they went to, complete with pictures. She’d been the one to remember the care packages on his birthday and at Christmas. Jesse wasn’t sure how to tell him those regular acts of thoughtfulness would be ending.

Jesse opened the Scotch.