Stephen Dixon - Interstate

Little later he thinks maybe he can get to the rink in time for her to skate even if they stop for a short break, and drives a little faster, for he slowed down last time, soon after he’d speeded up, to what he’d been doing, and reaches seventy-five, more than he likes to and had got up to last time, slows to seventy-one for he doesn’t want to get stopped by a cop for that would end it, no party, he’s only trying to do something nice for her, hundred- to hundred-fifty-dollar ticket and who knows what else, humiliation, explaining to his wife why he was speeding and with a fine so high and just endangering the kids she’d really be pissed, and what’s four fewer miles an hour anyway in what’s left of this trip, five minutes, six? when he sees a car ahead in the fast lane, doesn’t like passing on the right and why the hell is it in that lane if it’s just going to putt-putt along at sixty? so he gets behind it, a man, and judging by the back of him, pretty old, now down to sixty, fifty-eight and the man probably thinks that’s speeding, and stays about thirty feet back but it doesn’t move over, and he flashes his brights, okay, it’s so, he gets a little pleasure or some power thing forcing the cars in front to move over, flashes the brights repeatedly and waits and again and waits and then says “Oh the hell with you, you putz, for what’re you doing there, dreaming?” and Julie says “What, Daddy?” and he says “Nothing, I meant some thing else,” and checks his mirrors, no car behind in the center lane, none in sight in any of them, and darts into it but same time car in front does and he brakes and honks and hears a thump from the backseat into the front and one of the girls screams and the other car goes back into the fast lane and speeds off and he yells “Margo, girls, you all right?” and Julie says “Yes, that was scary, I thought that car would kill us,” and he says “That noise — the bumping sound I heard,” and Margo says “It was my hands against the back of the front seat here, I was pushed forward, my seatbelt must be on too loose, but I’m okay,” and he says “And who screamed? — but forget it, I’m sorry, it was my fault, I never should have tried passing him like that,” and has slowed down, other car’s already a few hundred feet ahead, and thinks that’s enough, too fast, no sense in speeding up and taking chances, and that’s crap you don’t like passing on the right, do it from the slow lane then if there are three lanes and you feel you have to pass the car in the fast, and you’re not tired anymore and that power thing before about forcing the guy over is just ego-building horse-shit you’re going to have to can, for think what could have happened if that man had cut into the center lane just one second after he did, your car would have been clipped, yours doing seventy or so, his, sixty, it could have been disastrous, you could have crashed, turned around, spun around, smashed, gone off the road, over the shoulder, rolled over, kids killed, all of you killed, car in flames, worst of all, them killed and not you. Oh brother, someone’s watching over you — not that, luck and maybe that man’s skillful driving in pulling to the left so quick and good brakes on your part and so on, and stays in the center lane and tells himself to stay in it rest of the trip, though first get off at the next exit even if it’s not a rest stop but only a regular highway exit with those little picture signs that say a restaurant’s near, but don’t hurry your stay there, coffee, maybe a sandwich, where you can sit tight and rest your nerves and eyes, and sees a sign for a highway rest area coming up in three miles, another answer to his prayers if he believed in them, and says “Hurray, rest stop’s heading our way,” and Margo says “We’re really going to it?” and he says “I’m sorry, I know what you’re thinking, my darling — we’ll worry about your party after, but for now I absolutely without question need a break.”

Once they’re out of the restrooms: “Get anything you want, so long as it’s popcorn or something healthy, not sweet, and of course if you want real food too, fine with me,” and gives Margo a five-dollar bill for the two of them, “Can we get soda?” Julie says and he says “Only if it’s a diet or natural-flavor one; okay, we’ll celebrate getting here alive, but I’d prefer just juice — I’ll be sitting over there,” and they get on line at a take-out stand where there’s a popcorn machine and he goes to the Roy Rogers, coffee, sits and thinks Jesus, I still can’t shake what happened. So don’t shake, think why it’s bugging you. One second, that’s all, one, or at the most two. How many times has that happened to him? Too many; half a dozen, full, and he didn’t start driving till he was twenty-five; never hit but lots of near misses. Did hit a bridge railing once on the outskirts of D.C. but that was the car designers’ or engineers’ fault, which the company clammed up about before the car was built rather than redesign the chassis or whatever needed redesigning, or that’s what the newspapers said: rear-wheel lockup that got about ten people killed, or the accident deaths this independent watchdog group said it knew about, and almost wiped them out too: Lee in the front seat screaming when the car spun around out of control toward the bridge railing “We’re dead, we’re all dead,” Margo in her car seat in back, on their way to the National Gallery to see a show of minor French Impressionists: he remembers it all, discussing whether to drive the junkpile the rest of the way or turn back, drinking cappuccino in the East Wing cafeteria there and thinking, while Lee walked around looking at the paintings with Margo in a baby carrier on her back, Damn, now I gotta go around getting body-repair estimates and deal with my insurance company and rent a car while this one’s in the shop. No more taking car chances, as he said. Definitely not with the kids or Lee and not with himself either. For what would they do without him? Eventually they’d be okay, but they’d be devastated for a while and it could wreck them for years, maybe affect the kids the rest of their lives, if he died or was left severely paralyzed. You want to stay healthy and alive for them long as you can. Sixty-five, that’s the max speed anywhere from now on, even in the states where the limit’s now sixty-five but where you can go ten over without being touched. You had the kids late and want to be around to put them through college and graduate school if they want to go, and more — if they need help starting out or buying a home or happen to get stuck with some permanent or chronically progressing crippling disease or such, when he sees those two guys from the Interstate an hour or so ago. Driver’s dumping their used stuff off a tray into the trash can, other’s sticking a cigarette between his lips but making no move to light it, and now they’re heading past him — doesn’t want to have anything to do with them so looks the other way — and passenger says “Isn’t that the fella…?” and driver says “Who?” and passenger says “There, one we almost bashed into on the highway way before?” and driver says “Beats me — you’re talking like I got a good look at him,” and passenger says “Sure, it’s him, you saw,” and comes over, he knows it’s inevitable so he turns their way and passenger’s smiling, cigarette clutched in his fist now, driver’s disinterested, just wants to get out of here and on the road again, and says “Excuse me, but weren’t you the fella on the road before and we got into your lane a little and where we all like nearly collided?” and he says “That’s right, I thought I recognized you — say, I’m really sorry about it,” and passenger says “Why? It was our fault and mostly mine — I felt shitty about it, you had these kids in the car, didn’t you? Boys or something? Where are they?” and he says “Girls, and up front somewhere getting food,” and passenger says “Yeah, girls, but they had short hair,” and he says “Actually, both have long, but it was quick and we were all going pretty fast,” and driver says “Hey, when have you ever mistaken boys for girls, that’s a new one,” and passenger says “Kids. And I know I tried apologizing to you back then but I even told my friend here — he’ll vouch for me—‘You see that worried look on that man? I wish I could tell him more some way how rotten I feel about what we did,’” and driver says “Not in those words so much but something, and he took the blame for he was distracting me. Got me involved in something else where I took my eyes from my driving, which I never do, never,” and he says “It’s all right, lots of close calls, won’t be our last, just a good thing, that’s all it was,” and driver says “But what I told him too was ‘Impossible, no way you’ll see that man on the “I” again for your whole life, or if you do, you won’t know it’s him, it’ll be that far along in years, you’ll have forgotten his face and he’ll have aged like you’ve never seen, so stop mauling yourself over it, and me too with your groans,’” and passenger says “Oh what’re you talking of?” and driver says “I’m being honest for once — you were rattling on like that, making me almost into another close accident shave if there was any other car near,” and passenger says to Nathan “Don’t listen to him — once he starts, never stops; mouth like a runaway can opener. Anyhow, no harm meant, right?” and driver says “Of course none meant, he knows, you can tell by him there isn’t, so let’s get with it, we got to go,” and he says “No harm meant, certainly, and thanks,” and sticks out his hand and passenger says “Hey, good, we get to shake on it, more than I could have asked for — but boy, it’s weird, us meeting up again,” and shakes his hand and driver waves goodbye and they start to go and passenger turns around and says “One last ask, man — let your girls know what I said too, that I felt rotten for them if I scared them, or if we did, but I’m the one who felt bad,” and he says “Will do, thanks again,” and they leave.