Amygdala: The Deluge

"If I needed you,
would you come to me"...

Lyle Trenton maneuvered the Old General into that cold and dark space along Highway 80. There was a time when he would not have considered stopping and shacking up in his rig over night, back in the day when there was someone there that was waiting for him. Hell, when he actually some place to be.

..."Would you come to me
and ease my pain"...

And he sure as hell would not have stopped at a place such as The Pit Roadhouse. He had heard of it, sure enough. Anyone that had been through the state of Alabama on the long and lonely 80, and put enough miles on his truck to at least strongly suggest that he should know what in the hell he was doing by now, knew about The Pit. Dang near-bout anything you could do wrong was willing and waiting, provided you had the scratch to cover just whatever you might be looking for to happen, at The Pit.

"If you needed me,
I would come to you"...

He had rolled out of Galveston with an empty trailer, which had went relatively smooth. He really didn't have much of a concern as to when he got back. There would be more work, more long runs, and really no one to ride down his back if he decided to alter his own time-line a smidgen. There were most times, when work was flush, that he could actually afford to do something like that, whenever he so chose.

... "I'd swim the seas
for to ease your pain."

Lyle shut the Old General down slowly, and the radio was always the last to go. It was not as if he particularly cared, or even knew who Townes Van Zant was. It had been a fair-while since he had cared so much about whatever came on down through the box and into the cab. The noise really didn't distract him so much. There was a point and time that he knew every damn song and singer that the radio-man might care to play, and more.

Back in the wonderin' and wanderin' days after he had left the Army, he'd always kept his guitar close. He'd not really done so much, in the grander scheme of things. There was a point that surely sounded like a chance at the time. He'd been playing at this old honky-tonk, which may have been the end of the line for most. It certainly was for Lyle, though the ol' boy that had come down from Memphis had insinuated otherwise. He had done a little combat time o'er in Tikrit Iraq, and been somewhere near enough to in love a time or two, before he had actually taken a pause to wonder at it a little beyond what his circumstances could afford him at the time.

Emily St. Clair surely was no saint, but she also really wasn't just some another guess-so event that had come along of time's own accord. Lyle had acquired him a short list of friendly places that would put him up for a night or a weekend gig. As often as not, a bed and breakfast came as a part of the package. Nowhere he might have cared to stay for long, as was his likened to his evil ways at the time. Memories were often enough, and the theory that it was always going to be this way was just really starting to set in when he had happened across The Lariat Lounge in Montgomery. It really didn't seem all that long back, but the LL had closed up its doors once the economy had hit the bottom of the tank.

He had heard, somewhere, that there might be some new management, looking to buy into some country & western mediocrity. Not like that really mattered to Lyle much. He hadn't even so much as bought a pack of strings for his old Fender-guitar in more than five years. It was at the LL that he had met Harlan Glass as well, who had offered him a shot at something. He probably should have taken it. There was just something that made Emmy seem a little better than all of that mess. Neither would have been a particularly easy road, but the two great loves of his life were in a bit of a conflict--at the time. Country music sure as hell didn't need him, but Emmy did--at the time.

She had never been particularly keen when he called her Emmy, which was mostly about funnin' at her in the early times. Emmy really never did have much of a playful nature, at least not when it came to common ground of life and living. The girl was kind of a mess, as for handling her own affairs and trying to make some kind of turn around. Emmy had been hauling the Ox around, as they trend to say. She'd settle for a little pot in a pinch, but she had spent quite a bit of her youth chasing the dragon's tail. She had been looking to kick, which was near enough to the point where Lyle had showed up, as to make it an out-standing issue. Well, at least one near the top of the list.

There was more to Em than she would ever let be, with just enough legal distractions to keep her head and heart out of the game. Lyle was probably not her best decision, but it didn't turn out to be an entirely wrong one either.

Lyle had kind of surprised himself as well. He had been fairing-along for so long that he really had no clue as to what he might be able to do, if he actually put his heart back in it. Once he had gotten them both clear enough from their troubles, after picking up this rig from an old Army buddy and tuning her clean; what was left of who they once were had went kind of thin early.

Emily had tried going back to school, and Lyle kept his truck moving well enough to put up a down payment on some property. He wasn't an independent back then, so the booze cruise was pretty much all that he had left of his old ways to assure himself that he wasn't quite dead yet. It was never really the same, though he didn't miss the drugs so much as he had thought he might. What came kind of ominous to him was that the both of them seemed to have some inner need for their troubles, and Lyle was the first to succumb to them.

There was some wide and clear space for wonder in between then and now, but Lyle felt certain that his DWI was where what had once had been going for the good had jack-knifed up. They was cut down to barely breathing by the time that the courts and the attorneys were done with him.

They had suspended his OTR, which turned about to a season in Hell. He sure as hell didn't quit drinking, as that was as near to fun as he could afford anymore. Aside from the fact that it, at least had once, helped him to sleep. Lyle never kept to much of nothing for long, but it seemed inevitable that when they had the opportunity--marijuana was a cash crop, not to mention that the proceeds thereof went to benefit their idle-wile expenses. Worry and strain was not the sort of conditions you needed to maintain the delicate conditions of two old junkies. Lyle had figured that most folk that figured that crime didn't pay was more on account that criminals never reported their income to the IRS. That wasn't to suggest that Em and Lyle were living high on the hog so much as Lyle knew more than a few that were living quietly well on the sly and shady side.

That hardly ignored the potential for something bad to happen. Which was the how and why of once his legal issues had actually cleared up, Lyle cleaned himself up and got the Old General back on the road again. Emily did not seem quite so convinced that the next bend might turn their lives back around again, towards something good. She did set most of her worst habits aside, for a time. Her faith went something like virginity, which was to say that once it was gone, you never really got it back. The fights just always seem to get worse, until they had started trying to avoid one another for fear of the fights that would come.

Whomever had said that absence makes the heart grow fonder was a damn jackass. The time-out to let their tempers simmer back had left quite a bit of room for something else to happen, and it surely did. Lyle was not ready to blame it all, or even much, of what happened on Gus Tilton. The ol' boy was a business man, and at least part of his business involved getting pretty enough gals  to shake their titties on stage.

There was at least two sides to Emily St. Clair. Lyle thought that he knew them both fair-well enough to account for some predictability. It wasn't as if Em were some kind of prude so much as she placed a value upon some-such things. Apparently, Ol'Gus had found and met her price for that, which Lyle might not have even minded in the long run. But Emily had given up on damn near everything, other than those things that she had once let go. Lyle was apparently only a small part of that everything. They may have weathered it through, if Emily still wanted, expected or even needed something from him any longer.

Emily didn't just burn bridges. She nuked them.

It didn't take long before Lyle had had enough. The idea that she had won had never really crossed his mind so much as he sure as hell did not win shit. He took the truck, his clothes and those old guitars that he never played anymore, and never left the road for long. To suggest some good had come of it was really only another round of let it be. It was far from easy at first, but he had already gotten the crash course on sleeping alone. He knew that there was a time in his life when that wouldn't have bothered him so much as it did there and then...

Which wasn't really now anymore. Nine months on the road, and her absence from his life had actually started to show a profit. He didn't ask after her, and he didn't keep the same friends that they had while they were together. He had even invested a moment or two to consider that Gail Chamberlain was friendly and pretty. It was not as if she were fawning on him so much as she was never in so much of a rush to get away from him either. He had mostly just tried to keep brushing it all aside. Gail was young and fresh, which kind of gave him the feel of some ol' pervert. Not that he minded that so much, as he wasn't really interested in ruining some another young thing.

Still, the pondering of it all had set the urges loose, which only partly had anything to do with the most common one. Here, at yet another bastion of contempt, both for your own damn self and your fellow man-- The Pit was not even about recreational love as it was a foreseeable means and end, from nowhere to nowhere else to be. Decent was all he really needed to wash himself clean. He had never actually stopped here himself, but he'd heard enough tales and legends about the place from the other truckers to know what to, and what not to expect. Any interest he may have had in giving a damn, Gail Chamberlain being the specifics, was probably all busted up inside. Gail was a good girl, which he figured was about the last damn thing he really needed to be worrying himself about.

"Whoa there Hoss. You can't be toting that hog-leg here inside." The tall dark and spooky crypting out at the door, checking identifications and obviously for side-arms as well, reminded him that he was even caring the old Ruger Blackhawk .44 magnum under his jacket. It was just one of those things that all men were definitely not created equal. Lyle five foot seven frame, weighing in at just a little over a buck-fifty; there were times that the road-life took him into places that he would not have let his enemies (not like he really had any of those, but it does move the point along) lay their head down. He had come across more than one place like that in Iraq, which made a mind wonder at how anyone could live like some people had to live. At least he didn't have to go knocking on any of those doors since he had come back home.

"Sorry, my bad. I'll be back in a minute," Lyle said, as he moved back out the door... While wondering that he had even bothered trying to get into The Pit in the first place, let alone to suggest to the big, bad door man that he was going to get shed of his best defense to stroll on back in. You kind of had to not let your head plunge too deep into what was really going on in a place like The Pit. This place was set up here for a reason, which is to say any legal issues that might come along were slim, and more often none. Set away from any other sign of civilization, save for the highway itself-- You really already had to know it was there to find it, as it was set well enough back off along the road, that the woods kind of hid it from the view of the general public.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!" Lyle stopped up short, and turned back around to the dark aside, where he really could not see anything so much as he knew it was there.

Common sense seemed to strongly suggest that he should just keep on moving, as the signs and symptoms of a scuffle were becoming more and more obvious. He had more than enough medals from his time spent in Iraq, and that fact, coupled along with that he carried a revolver did not suggest that he was particularly interested in having to shoot anyone. Not to mention that he was getting really wet, and the rain had started coming down hard again. Hell, he was not even supposed to be here (as if anyone really was; but again, in the interest of moving the point along)-- Lyle only managed a few more steps to the way that he knew he should go, before he heard a woman's voice cry out for help.

'Sucker,' Lyle grumbled at himself, and then sighed as he turned back around and headed into the shadows on the north-side of the cinder-block structure.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, MOTHER FUCKER!" Sure as shit, Lyle had walked in on a two-fuck moment. One fuck was normally good, well enough to convey the sense that you had just made a bad decision. Two-fucks, by contrast, were worse. Lyle could not say precisely what it was that he was seeing, so much as that it involved two fairly good-sized men struggling against a scantily clad li'l gal with a pocket knife in her hand. There was a small bit of light put out by a globe over one of the side doors, which was most likely one that the employees chose to use. From the way that one of the goons was cradling up his arm, suggested that she had at least got one bite in, before the other had snatched a hold of her and sent her back crashing up against a cinder-block wall. She may have been a little loopy from it, but she didn't drop the blade. Trouble as that the biggest gorilla had her up by her arms, leaving her only below the elbow's worth of length to continue fighting back...

Yep, definitely a two fuck moment, bordering near three.

"There's just got to be an easier way to find a date, I figure." Lyle had considered backing down and away, as whatever was going on seemed to be internal to the place that he was, impossible to believe but yet still true, still considering entering. While there were a few times in his days and ways that Lyle had considered testosterone to be a blessing, it was always a mixed blessing at best.

"You just need to get the hell out of here, Countri-fied!"

"I can certainly appreciate your logic there, Son. Still, two wrongs do not tend to make it right." Lyle wondered to himself if either of these gargantuan bastards might be packing any of their own surprises. The pistol and the distance that he maintained between the situation and himself gave just about enough pause, given that there was no chance of a sudden quick-draw contest. Lyle had not played anything like that sort of game since he was a kid, though there were more than one hairy moment spent kicking through the dust-bowl.

There were places in Iraq that'd convince you that the end of the world had already came and went--in the once upon a times of some long ago place. He might not have minded seeing some of Old Babylon, provided that there was no more digging to do during that tour. He'd buried up a few of those that he had come to know well, not to mention that there had always been the chance that he might end up on his back himself.

He wasn't even for certain why that shit had popped back into his head, as if monster-man was going to let him the time for a little flashback intermission. What kind of sonsabitch actually growls when he is coming at you? Sure as shit, he did.

"Let me change the subject here Son, so-as I can clarify my position." Lyle said as he pulled out the .44, but left it hanging low at his side. "You all are going to do whatever it is you do, while I am not around. However, for the time being, can't we all just get-along?"

"You had damn best put that shit away, Countri-fied."

"I'm really feeling your sincerity in that Son, but just the same." Lyle said as lifted the revolver at the man's head. "Let her get her feet back, and a little room to breathe and we have nothing else to talk about--between you and I."

"This isn't any of your damn business, Mother Fucker!" the other barked at him, though he did give the woman a little ground to stand on--literally.

"Aw, c'mon now Turkey. Two big ol' neanderthals on one little itty-bitty chick doesn't seem fair. Shit, I wouldn't even want you two comin' after me, which I suppose leads me to my second point." Lyle clicked the hammer back, as the urge to reason seemed to be losing some ground with the nearest of the two goons. "Li'l bit and me are going to take a little walk. You let us get clear, everybody can get back to living the dream. It isn't even personal. Not yet leastwise." Lyle shrugged. "Nothing quite says let it be like a .44 magnum, now does it Boys?"

"You're dead mother fucker!" The other said, as he cut the girl loose, and gave her less than a little room to move. Still, she found her way out past them, and then gave Lyle a glance up and down, uncertain that he might take a shot at her or not.

"We're still not communicating very politely. Now what the hell's wrong with you Son? I mean, you didn't really lose. This is just a time out. Not to mention this gun is going with me. Now, I do not really care to be dead any time soon, so you can generally presume that I'll use it... if I have to use it." Lyle said as he started backing away. "Nothing personal Boys..."

"Not yet, it isn't." The implied threat worked its magic, with the only real problem with it being that there was no alternatives being offered to bargain with. He had no idea who these guys were, but that they seemed to know their business and were dressed fairly well suggested to Lyle that this was the single most stupid idea he had taken up with in a long while. Every instinct, down to his bones, said that shooting them would not be the worst of ways to handle it. It would just complicate matters, and his history with law enforcement had not exactly gone off well in the past.

His truck was a long way away. That was not even considering that the fact that he drove an old red and white GMC General damn near made it near to like one of a kind. They would not even need to get his license plate number to be able to track and hunt him down. His damn name and driver number was right on the door, plain for all to see. The small bit of mercy being that the only place that still had his name on it, aside from the truck; nobody lived there anymore, as it was technically in escrow. The logic to paying the tab of back taxes and an overdue mortgage was losing ground by the minute. He had left it for Em, who apparently thought that the bills were still his. The real bitch about that was that they were, but what the hell man?

"Who are you?" the girl asked as they quickly got up into the cab of his truck. Lyle set the gun on the dash, and kept his eye on the pair of them as he started it up.

"I'm the guy with the gun," he said, as he dropped it in gear. "And you're the girl that is getting the hell out of my truck as soon as you tell me somewhere that it is safe to leave ya." Lyle saw the two men start moving about the same time as his truck did. "And that is all that we really need to know about one another," Lyle spun the rig back out onto the blacktop, and gave it just enough of everything, that the men didn't even try to set out after them. Not on foot anyways. Sure as you please, an old, black Lincoln Town Car spilt in behind them onto the road, hell bent for election.

There was some serious miles of nothing much ahead of them. It didn't take them long to catch up, which brought up just how invested was he into this rescue, and how much more he was willing to risk to merely keep moving on.

As soon as they had caught up, they had started moving in for the kill up the right side of the trailer. He seen the short barrel sticking out the passenger side window about the same time he decided to lean on them a little. Even unloaded, the trailer could chew up and spit out the Town Car, but that would most likely lend toward an unhappy ending for everyone involved. He hoped that the threat that he might just do something like that was just enough of a bluff to make the pass, which once the man behind the wheel quickly over compensated-- the shoulder really didn't afford much of a margin for error. The rain had left both the road, and the narrow strip of grass between the shoulder of the road and some lowland hardwoods very slick. Lyle had to put his own weight into getting his rig back onto the road, which left them no road to work with.

Pine trees may look a little cushy, but they really got no give to them. No matter how hard you hit them. A glance back to some empty black, embroidered with red shattered glass told him that at least one of those in the old Lincoln was sitting in an ejector seat. The driver likely took the steering wheel to the chest. While it may have kept him inside of the car, it likely didn't do him anymore favors.

In the movies, this is where the happy endings started. In the real world, it was something else.

"Holy shit!" the girl said, though Lyle was not certain if she was talking about their own near death experience, or the nearer to death experience of the two goons that they had just left hanging in a tree.

"Can't really blame Jesus for that one, but I think I only farted," Lyle said as he slowed the truck into the lane, and tried to settle himself down. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, which seemed to explain why it was that he wasn't near a panic himself. He had ridden the edge for so long that it seemed damn near like an old friend (which he hadn't seen recently, and didn't seem to suffer much from the loss--but it was definitely back, minus all of the shakes and shivers that would keep him up at night.) "Yeah, I'm clean. How about yourself?"

"Are you nuts?" The girl asked, and Lyle sighed.

"Define what you mean by nuts."

Uley