15 May 2011

"The Crossroad"

“Whoa man, you’re reeling.  You okay to drive?”  I only ask because Dwayne is, in fact, having a bit of trouble unlocking his door.
“I’m good, man,” he assures me, and I have to admit he isn’t slurring any.  Once he unlocks the car I climb into the leathery passenger seat, feeling rather good and slurry myself.  The iron beast purrs to life and we’re off, avoiding the staggering folk caught in the general exodus as we slowly roll through the parking lot.  One guy is propped up against his trunk, sloppily pissing on its bumper.  Another guy and his gal are making out by the road, practically afire in the blues and reds cast by the sign they press against.
Dwayne honks his horn at them as we turn off down virtually deserted 8th Street.  “Get a room, you two,” he mumbles to nobody in particular.  He’s seemed more melancholy than usual, and I ask him what’s up.  “Oh you know me, man.  Same old, same old.”  I figure he means Angie, and leave it at that.
The streets, as I mentioned before, are fairly lifeless.  The odd car carefully - soberly - makes its way home, creeping past the darkened street-lit apartments of downtown.  Even the main avenue - Main Street, they call it - is unusually sparse, given the bars have only just spewed out the last of their clientele into the gutters and dimly-lit alleys.  Not even the prowling white cop cars are about; when the bell strikes one, they’re usually out in full force.  We drive a ways unmolested and unnoticed, and turn off again onto the darkened backstreets of town.  It’s an unusual evening, and not at all unsettling as my thoughts skulk about in different directions.
I’m thinking about Easter baskets, actually.  Wondering what awful trinkets children might sometimes find in them that most joyous of Sunday mornings.  I have to wonder if anything could top the year my brothers and sister and I all found little plastic fetus replicas planted amid the jelly beans and coated chocolate eggs in the paper green grass.  Each came with a little card, facts and appalling figures on the one side and a particular prayer on the other I presume was meant to ward off unexpectant mothers.
“What are you thinking about?” Dwayne asks me.  “You’re god-awful quiet tonight,” which is a bit like the pot and the kettle, I suppose.
“Fetuses in my Easter basket,” I tell him.
“What, you mean like eggs?”
“No, I mean plastic ones with fingers and toes.”
“You’ve got a fu-” he starts to tell me, when he has to hit hard on the brake as another car roars on through the yield with wild abandon.  “Jackass!” Dwayne shouts, and I have to say I added a few things of my own.  I’ve more or less been a bit blue around the mouth, since middle school.  It’s developed into a bit of a bad habit actually, precluding what most people would consider a properly professional type manner.  Many an eyebrow raised, like.  But getting back to the intersection, the car roared right on past, slowing only once before disappearing up the road.
“Are your lights on?” I ask him as my heart resumes skipping to its regular rhythm.  In no uncertain terms he lets me know they’re on, have always been on, will never not be on.
“I’m in control!!” he roars as he puts his foot down on the gas.  “You sound like Angie sometimes,” he tells me in a very annoyed fashion, but again it’s best I leave it at that.  He flies off on his own tangent; about how he knows these streets by heart, how he feels great and very sober, how he is an excellent driver and how he doesn’t understand why girls can’t let a good thing simply be.  And all the while the car picks up its pace. 
“Chill, man,” I tell him, feeling a bit uneasy what with the speed and all.  I’m not so much afraid that he’s going to hit something, or even someone.  Rather, I’m still thinking about the unusual lack of police about; at some point there’s bound to be one or two floating around, waiting for the likes of us to speed on by.  I can’t remember, but I’m thinking that drunken passengers get into trouble in a DUI situation as well.  Accomplices to the fact and all of that.
We’re roaring up the street - he talking about boundaries and responsibilities, me thinking about jail - when we nearly get sideswiped by what at first glance looks to be the car that we’d nearly run into earlier.  “Oh hell, yield!!” I shout, but they come to a halt and we zoom right on.  It’s funny, almost like a reverse déjà vu.  The car, the intersection, et al.
“Bleedin’ Zarathustra,” I say, downright awestruck.  “I think we just passed ourselves.”
Dwayne slows down a bit, craning his head around to catch a glimpse of the other car.  “You think so?”  But the car is out of view and we carry right on.  “Is that sort of thing possible, passing ourselves?”
            “I’m not exactly sure.  I wouldn’t think so,” I reply, at the same time unsure quite how to know for certain if it was or was not so.  If I’d paid attention to the time on the dash, for instance, I could verify if we’d transcended the bounds of time and space.  “How did we get onto this road?”
“I don’t actually know,” he says, biting his lip.  When he makes to hit his blinker I can see his hand shaking.  “We’re more or less still going in the right direction, though.”
“I thought you knew these streets by heart, et cetera and so forth.”
He shrugs.  “I’m a bit tipsy, you know.  Cut me some slack.”

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