David Gates: The Wonders of the Invisible World

I’ve got the blubbering stopped now. “Plane make the plane,” I say, meaning We’ll never.

“Well, Lew, I don’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ll leave the motor running so you can have the heater.”

I don’t turn to watch her walking up the driveway for fear it’ll set me off again. I put the radio on, just in time to catch the end of some bouncy tune from way, way back. Can it have been “The Dipsy Doodle”? But then the announcer comes on to say the time is 10:08, and I turn it off. The last thing I need is to be hearing the time every two minutes. The dashboard clock says 10:07. I take a glove out of my pocket and drape it over the dashboard so that it blocks my view of the clock. I stare out the windshield at the road we should be on and listen to the motor humming away. We’ve been very satisfied with the Lumina.

An idling engine consumes a gallon of gasoline an hour. Or used to years ago. (It said so in the owner’s manual of some car we had, and it always stuck in my mind for some reason.) An hour. It would be a good hour before anybody got here, if they ran true to form. Oh, brother. Well, there’s not a thing you can do about it. I go back to the hum of the motor.

But wait now. Sunk in mud, motor running: couldn’t this clog the tailpipe, making carbon monoxide seep inside? Isn’t this what they do, trapped and Godless men going out to the garage with the hose from the vacuum? In fact, it’s beginning to seem to me that I’m starting to feel sleepy, that something’s woozy with my thoughts. You better reach over, turn the ignition key.

I let it run.

Before shutting my eyes I decide I’ll take a last look around at things. And when I turn my head I see somebody pulling up in front of the Paquettes’. I see them sit there a second, then pull out again, coming right at me. If it’s a car full of roughnecks I’m helpless out here. I spot Alice, but she’s far away, she’s on the doorstep, opening the door. They’re still coming. I stretch over with my good hand and blow the horn. But she’s already in the house. They’re halfway here, coming fast now. And now I see it’s something too high up off the ground to be a car. Oh, I’d rather the roughnecks than what’s going to happen now. It’s the mail lady in her moon vehicle. And we are saved.