‘When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all,’ thought Roy Robinson to himself as he drove west on Route 17. His mind had been wandering all morning. He chuckled grimly as he considered how his lack of higher education hadn’t really hurt him. He was still able to read the writing on the wall.

As a teen, and throughout high school, Roy had been instilled with the concept that honesty, loyalty and fidelity were admirable traits everyone should admire and toward which people should work. Those ideals appeared to be biting him on the ass, now.

Donna had been acting a bit distracted; perhaps distant was a better word, since their son had left for college three months ago. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on what exactly was different, but it had become obvious to Roy that he and Donna hadn’t been on the same wave length, lately.

Everything had crystallized when Ben Miller called him from work. He and Roy had been friends since middle school, when they had actually engaged in a fist fight over some trivial matter. Neither had been able to inflict much damage, but they came out of the struggle with newly earned respect for each other. Within weeks, they were best friends, and so they had remained.

Ben worked for the same large insurance company as Donna. He was an actuary, while Donna worked in the IT department. Ben’s office was several floors above Donna’s, so the two seldom interacted at work. That fact didn’t stop Ben from overhearing a conversation one early afternoon.

“Roy, you’re not going to like this, but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you what I heard,” stated Ben as soon as Roy answered his cell. “I had to drop some papers off at the front desk a little while ago. The tacos I had for lunch decided to revolt about the same time I reached the front desk, so I hurried into the bathroom on the first floor.

“While I was in the stall, two guys came in and I overheard their conversation. A guy named Jim was telling the other guy how he was going to be banging a woman named Donna the next two nights. She had some kind of seminar to attend in Corning, New York, and he had talked her into taking him along and sharing her room, and her bed.

“That was all I heard, Roy. I have no idea if he meant your Donna, or if anything he said was true,” admitted Ben. “I’d want to know about the conversation if my wife was named Donna.”

“That’s quite interesting,” admitted a surprised Roy. “Donna’s driving to Corning tomorrow for some kind of training. She’ll be gone two nights. Now I’m concerned.”

“I don’t see what you can do,” replied Ben. “If you make her stay home and tell her why, she’ll simply claim I’m full of shit, or maybe the two guys I overheard must have been talking about some other Donna.”

“I guess I’ll have to take a couple sick days off from work and follow her tomorrow. I need to know if she’s stepping out on me,” replied a determined Roy.

“Why don’t you take my Camry,” suggested Ben. “It looks like one of a few million other Toyotas on the road. Donna won’t realize you’re following her.”

The next day Roy was up well before Donna. He drove to Ben’s place and switched vehicles with him. Ben couldn’t help but comment on Roy’s rebuilt Mustang with the Chevy engine and Dodge Hellcat front end.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” demanded Ben as he looked at Roy’s ride. “Who in hell does crazy shit like this with a car? God made them to get you from one place to another, not to fawn over like it was a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.”

“She is sweet, isn’t she?” beamed Roy with pride. “You’re right about swapping cars. Your piece of shit Camry doesn’t stand out like Martha does.”

“You named your fucking car?” asked Ben in amazement. “How the hell old are you? You’re still crazy, even after all these years.”

“I feel like I’m young again when I’m driving around in Martha,” insisted Roy.

“Yeah, I remember all the girls you had in high school, when you really were young,” retorted Ben sarcastically. “Did you ever have a date?”

“If you took all the girls I knew when I was single and brought them all together for one night, you’d be doing a hell of a lot better than I did,” admitted Roy with a laugh. “Just be careful with my car. I don’t want any scratches.”

“Not a problem. I’ll drive my Beamer to work. Maybe we should put this Camaro-Hell-Stang piece of shit in the garage, so I can avoid embarrassment,” offered Ben.

Roy drove back home and parked down the road from his house. He sat and watched for Donna to leave. Shortly after ten, her car drove down the street with Roy following a half mile behind her.

Roy was feeling pretty miserable about following her. He had always trusted Donna and it simply felt wrong to spy on her, but it was something he had to do. Five minutes into the trip, Donna called his cell.

“You left early this morning and didn’t even tell me goodbye,” she groused. “You know I’m going to be in Corning for two nights. It seems like you’d want to kiss me goodbye, at the very least.”

“Not only the very least, it would have been the very most,” retorted Roy. “You’ve pretty much ignored me for the past few months. A quick kiss is the most I can expect from you.”

“Are you sulking like a little boy?” demanded Donna. “All you think about is sex. You never consider how I feel. Women like to be wined and dined. Your wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am, just doesn’t cut it. I need to be in the mood.”

I see,” replied Roy sarcastically. “Let me know when you’re in the mood, and if my mood matches yours, we’ll fuck like bunnies.”

“Not with that attitude,” snarled Donna. “It’ll be a long time before you get any. I don’t have to...”

Roy disconnected the call. Why would he feel like he had to listen to her shit if she was cheating on him? Why should he care about anything she said? He realized he had already bought into the theory Donna was running around on him. His attitude toward her had changed dramatically in less than a day. If a woman withholds sex and treats her husband like shit, what the fuck reason does he have to even bother with her? Their son was in college and would be fine. If Donna refused him sex and companionship, why stay married?

Roy’s phone rang again. He looked at the ID and saw it was Donna, so he ignored it. She wasn’t going to tell him anything he wanted to hear, so why answer her call?

Once the phone stopped ringing, he noticed Donna was no longer on the road which would take her to Route 17. She had turned down a side street and pulled into a paved driveway. As soon as she stopped, some asshole trotted out of the house. He tossed a duffel bag in the back and climbed into the passenger seat. Then he leaned over and kissed Donna. Apparently, she was now in the mood.

“This is going to be a great couple of days,” effused Jim Gamble as he pulled his lips from Donna’s and gave her right breast a little tweak. “I can’t wait to get you naked and on your back.”

“You certainly are enthusiastic,” responded Donna with a smile as she removed Jim’s hand from her breast. “We’re much too close to home to be copping feels and acting romantic. Wait until we get farther away.”

“Sure, I’ll wait, but it won’t be easy. Those tits of yours speak to me,” stated Jim with a grin.

“That’s interesting,” said Donna with a small chuckle. “May I ask what exactly my girls are telling you?”

“They’re telling me they feel neglected and want me to suck on them and hold them in my hands all night long,” replied Jim. “You really have a nice set. I bet they look great when they’re unfettered.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, but not while I’m driving,” cautioned Donna as she once again removed Jim’s hand from her breast. “You’ll have to wait until tonight.”

Roy had driven down the street a few houses and pulled into a driveway so he could watch. After another, slightly quicker smooch, Donna backed into the street and drove back to the main intersection. When she turned left, she was now going in the right direction for Corning. It appeared dipshit was going to accompany her on the two-night trip.

Roy was numb by this point. He felt no real surprise by her actions, just regret and sadness that things were ending this way. He debated turning back for home. He had witnessed enough to know the score, but felt he had to see it through. Donna might claim she gave the miserable bastard a ride to a bus stop or any of a hundred other places.

Roy was a few cars behind Donna on 17 when she moved over to the right and took an exit. He had enough time to turn off the same exit. She pulled into a gas station and got out to fill her tank. Roy parked across the street in the parking lot of what appeared to be a seedy bar and watched.

Donna had just returned the hose to the pump when her Lothario came out of the station with a plastic bag that Roy suspected contained drinks and snacks. As he reached Donna’s car, two men hurried out from behind the station. One rushed up to Donna, while the other moved very close to her boyfriend.

Donna was caught completely by surprise when the strange man rapidly approached her. He clutched a large knife in his left hand, which he shielded from the station’s security cameras with the flap of his jacket.

“I’ll handle the driving, Bitch. Just get into the back and shut the fuck up,” was all he said, as he guided the badly shaken woman to the back seat.

Roy saw Donna suddenly jerk and start crying. At the same time, her romantic interest shook his head at something he was told and tried to push the man who had accosted him. The guy quickly punched the dipshit in the gut and stuffed him into the back seat while he was still hunched over.

Donna was quickly escorted to the other back seat by the man who approached her. Once she was in and the door closed, the guy jumped behind the wheel and carefully pulled into traffic. It was quite obvious to Roy that things had just gone sideways on Donna and her boyfriend.

Roy managed to gain control of his nerves and began to follow them. He picked up his cell phone to call 911, but the damn thing was deader than last year’s dandelions. He had a charger cable in his back pocket, but didn’t dare dig around for it for fear he would lose sight of Donna’s car as it accelerated toward 17, but on the Eastbound ramp this time.

Following Donna’s car was easier than Roy had expected. It was going the speed limit and remained in the right lane. Apparently the driver realized he would garner far less suspicion by driving in a safe manner.

Roy finally managed to dig the charger cable out of his back pocket. That was when he realized he didn’t know if the older Camry he had borrowed from Ben had a port he could use, or where it was located if it did. He tried to scan the dashboard without taking his eyes off Donna’s car. Just as he located the USB port, the other car headed off exit 86 at Deposit. Roy grinned as he quickly followed. In a lucky coincidence, the men had pulled off 17 just a few miles from his home. He knew the area quite well.

“Where are you taking us?” demanded Donna as she began to overcome her initial terror. “You can have our money. Just let us go. We won’t even call the police. I promise.”

The criminal in the front passenger seat swung around and glared at Donna. She was struck by the intensity of his eyes. They showed no hope, but were filled with anger.

“This damn car’s worth more money than I’ve ever seen in one place. I’m just a poor boy, though you wouldn’t ever take the time to know me, or even care about me. I’ve given up on doing the right thing for a few mumbled promises. They’re all lies! I hear what you’re really saying. You’ll have the cops after us as soon as you get the chance. You won’t get that chance.

“We’re going to lay low, go to the kind of place you’d never set foot in, given the choice. It’s the kind of place only ragged people go. Only poor people know about these places.”

“I have friends in the State Police,” insisted Jim. “You bastards will be hounded to the gates of hell for this shit. Just turn us loose. It’ll go a lot better for you in the long run.”

“That’s what you don’t get,” stated the man in the passenger seat. “There’s no “long run” for guys like us. We tried to find jobs, but got no offers, unless you count the offers from whores. We don’t even have the money to pay them.”

“It was just your bad luck we picked you two,” added the driver. “We made a withdrawal from the pharmacy next to the gas station. It got a little messy and our wheel man bailed on us, so we had to improvise. You’d just finished gassing this car up, and you had the keys in your hand, so we chose you.”

“You robbed the drug store?” croaked Jim. “You’ll never get away with it. The cops will have your asses in jail before nightfall.”

“You’d better hope not,” retorted the driver. “We won’t be giving up, so they’ll have to use extreme prejudice to haul us in. You could find yourself on the wrong end of a bullet.”

Roy had dropped farther behind the car when it had taken a narrow road. It then turned up a gravel driveway, but Roy continued on. He knew the property the carjackers had selected. It had belonged to the Turner family, but some people from New York City had bought it many years ago. They had placed a couple of mobile homes on the property to use on weekends and during the summer

Roy heard the owners had died and their kids never bothered with the place. The trailers had been abandoned for years. The last time Roy had seen them, two years prior in hunting season, the property had looked extremely dilapidated.

Roy knew there were no houses within miles, or at least none he would want to approach. People in this rural part of New York didn’t much care for strangers dropping in. They had little reason to trust the government, or the police. The problem was the cell phone reception in the area was just about nonexistent. The mountains effectively blocked signals from any towers, which were miles away. Even if he charged his phone, it was unlikely he would be able to obtain a signal.

He pulled into an unused log road and parked. The thought of leaving Donna with those men made Roy queasy. He had loved her for all of his adult life. She had given him a son. He couldn’t bring himself to abandon her when she really needed him. Husbands protected their wives. It was their duty.

“What are your names?” demanded the driver as he pulled to a stop next to what had once been a house trailer. Now it resembled a medal and wood sculpture, sinking into the earth.

When neither of their captives spoke, the man wrenched Donna’s pocketbook from her arm and opened it. He smiled when he saw the three hundred dollar bills and several credit cards in her wallet. He pocketed them before pulling out her wallet.

“God bless you, Mrs. Robinson. We sure can use the money,” announced the driver as he continued to dig through Donna’s wallet.

“Mrs. Robinson?” asked his partner as he studied the wallet he had just removed from Jim’s back pocket. “This guy’s name is James Gamble. Are you sure she’s married?”

“There’s an envelope with Yankees tickets here addressed to Mrs. Donna Robinson, and some pictures of her with some dude who sure as hell isn’t this guy.

“Are you a widow, Mrs. Robinson, or are you having an affair with this asswipe? The way you’re blushing and looking at your feet, I think you answered my question,” observed the man with a chuckle.

“We may be robbers and thieves, but you’ve got a little secret, just a Robinson affair. You do know, Mrs. Robinson, Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away? It looks like your husband will be nothing but a memory pretty soon. If you were home with him rather than running around with this loser, you’d be much better off.”

“He’s just a coworker. We were going to a two day seminar in Corning for my work. I love my husband,” insisted Donna.

“Were you going to sleep with your coworker tonight?” prodded the other robber, who was now brandishing a handgun.

“Look at her blush!” pointed out the driver. “They were going to bump bellies tonight. To think they act like they’re so much better than we are, but nothing’s lower than a liar and a cheat. I hope you’ve been able to hide it from the kids, Mrs. Robinson. You don’t want them to know their mom is a slut.”

“I am not a slut, and my son knows I would never cheat on my husband. I never have!” proclaimed Donna.

“This was your maiden voyage, so to speak?” asked the man Donna now thought of as the driver. “Talk about bad luck. Maybe Nick and I can help make it up to you. We’re younger and better looking than James here. As long as you want some strange cock, we’ll see that you get it, in spades.”

“Look guys,” began Jim in a conciliatory voice. “We don’t want any trouble, but this place smells like cat piss. Why don’t we go into town, get something to eat and talk the situation over. I’m sure we can come to an understanding which you’ll find to your benefit.”

“Not going to happen, Asshole. It stinks here because we cook a little meth now and then. That’s why we needed to borrow some shit from the drug store. What we don’t need is your sorry ass in the way,” stated the driver. “Why don’t you take him for a walk, Nick?”

“No! You can’t mean that,” reasoned Jim as he fought down his panic. “That’s murder. What would your parents and friends think if they heard you murdered someone?”

“Are you kidding?” responded Nick. “In my little town, I never meant nothin’. I was just my father’s son. He died when I was fifteen and nobody gave a shit. Start walking.”

Jim glanced at Donna briefly, and then made his decision. He suddenly spun around and took off running. He swerved around a maple tree just as he heard the roar of a gun behind him. The bullet struck the tree not far from his head. Several slivers burned into the flesh of his neck. The stinging sensation merely served as an incentive to increase his speed as he sprinted down a winding path in the woods.