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inane annals
Car Tag, pt.3
by Neil Sholer | 10 May 2007, 0:00

In a few weeks school would be starting again. It was early August and everywhere I went I saw the next batch of high school girls tentatively wearing the latest styles.

After complaining about sinus headaches for days on end, I finally went to the store for some Sudafed. The mid-morning sun was so bright it felt almost vulgar.

As I crossed the parking lot to Fry's Supermarket I saw Will leaving the store. His typical outfit of baggy corduroys and torn shirt had been utterly erased by slacks and a dress shirt.

"Will?" I couldn't tell if he saw me or not.

"Hey Neil."

I squinted at him under the sun. "You have a serious business-casual thing going on, man."

"Yeah, you know, it's for that new job I told you guys about."

"Where? A jewelry store?"

Will chuckled abruptly, then stopped himself. "Bank of America, actually."

"Your stepdad get you the job?" I asked, looking at some washed out fast food wrappers in the planter box.

"Hey, let's, ah... Never mind. He's done a lot for me and my mom, you know? I have this kind of respect for him."

"Even with that goofy accent?" I asked, grinning.

He smiled back. "Yeah. Look, there's something I didn't tell you and the guys. I took the job at the bank for the experience. It looks, um, good on a resume, you know, for when I apply to business school."

He looked me in the eye for several seconds. "I'm going to college this fall."

I swallowed. "A good one?"

"Dartmouth. It's in New Hampshire."

I nodded, mutely, thinking of stone buildings and lush grass and all things improbably far from the desert.

He continued. "I wasn't sure how, or when, to tell you guys. Nathan and Bobby especially. I don't think they'll understand."

"Maybe not. I don't know." I scratched my cheek. "We all have different paths, you know? And if this is the right one for you then I'm... I'm happy for you. I mean it."

"Thanks." Will put his hand out like he wanted to shake, then retracted it even faster. "I don't know what I'm doing," he said, laughing awkwardly.

"No problem."

"I'm, uh, starting to get pretty sweaty out here in the sun. I'm gonna take off." Will rubbed his lower back, clearing his throat. "You won't tell Nathan and Bobby?"

I think I tried to smile. "Nah, I won't."

"Alright, man. Take care." He turned and walked deeper into the parking lot.

I felt invisible, stung by Will's new-found respect for his stepdad, his new-found respect for money and decorum. Maybe it was there all along, but maybe it grew when the rest of us were glib and unaware.

*

Tropical theme tonight, everyone drinking Mai Tais and Blue Hawaiis and Mojitos. A group of drama students from another high school, infiltrating the crowd and spreading their glamorous antics.

Somebody trying to cook hotdogs and burgers on the outdoor barbeque but they mess it up. The whole patio area reeking of histrionics and char.

A tall Asian guy saying "and that's why I'm a vegetarian."

Bobby thrusting a Mai Tai in my hand and it looks delicious but then I immediately drop it all over his shoes. Me saying "Sorry man." Him shouting "No worries, that fucking thing was intangible!"

The door to the master bedroom opening and that same blonde girl hurrying out. Eyes, cheeks distorted with tears and eyeshadow. Shoulders hunched forward, carrying a small backpack. She's stumbling down the stairs and then colliding with some guy I don't recognize as she opens the front door. Slamming the front door, out there in the night, gone.

Nathan emerging from the darkness of his parents' bedroom in just his boxers. Swaying in the doorway, raising an arm. "What? I thought she was OK with it. I mean we'd been talking about it all week."

Will shaking his head. "Man, not that. I can't believe you would even try that."

*

"So I'll be, ah, leaving the middle of next week." Will looked in the general direction of Bobby and Nathan, not meeting their eyes.

He had just told them about his job at the bank, his college trajectory. We were sitting in a semi-circle on the landing of Nathan's stairs and even the several Mai Tais that we'd each drank couldn't take the edge off.

"New fucking Hampshire?" Nathan shook his head.

"I'll come back on the holidays."

Nathan spoke softly, staring into his empty red cup. "But still, man. It won't be the same."

"It's something I need to do." Will said. "For myself. To move forward, you know. For the future."

Nathan shook his head again. "To you it will feel like moving forward. But to us, the ones who are left behind, it'll just feel like you moved on."

"Hey, it's not like that." Will drank what was left in his cup. "I'm gonna miss you guys, too. You're the best friends I've ever had." His voice sounded stately again.

Bobby put his hand on Will's shoulder. "We all feel the same way, man."

I nodded, partially looking at Will, partially at Nathan. "This has been a great summer. And it took all of us, all four of us, to make it that way."

Will smiled slowly. "Thanks, man."

Bobby stood up from his crouched position, bringing his hands together in a clapping sound. "Now. I think we're dangerously close to getting way too sappy. It's not like we're saying goodbye tonight."

He began walking down the stairs. "It's Mai Tai time!"

"Alright." Nathan swallowed. "Since this is Will's last Friday in town, and since our scores are dead even, we gotta play one final round of Car Tag."

"You sure?" Bobby, from the foot of the stairs, raised an eyebrow. "I just got my side mirror fixed."

"We have to," Nathan said, "for old time's sake."

"Then it's to sudden death," Will said. "Whoever scores the first point wins."

And then I sensed it. A fissure had opened, sly and inevitable, between the four of us. Even though I wanted nothing more than for my vague dreams to line up with their vague dreams, it was impossible. There was something raw in all of us, and maybe Will was a little less raw. He saw a beacon where the future was while the rest of us, with eyes like Nathan's, saw deep space.

*

Will, hanging crazily out of the passenger side window, slapped the tail of Nathan's truck. Yelling in triumph, Will slinked back into his seat. I saw Bobby clap him on the back as their car accelerated past us.

Nathan slammed his palm against the hood and screamed the word "fuck" so loud I could barely understand it.

I didn't say anything. Nathan took his foot off the gas and let his truck start to coast. Bobby's Honda faded into the North, past the Warner offramp.

Eventually Nathan cleared his throat. He spoke but I couldn't understand him over the air rushing past our windows.

"What?"

"We don't have to lose," he said, looking over at me.

"What do you mean?"

He looked into the rear view mirror for a few seconds. "You only lose if you're 'it'."

"We were playing to sudden death. Besides, Bobby and Will are a mile ahead of us by now."

Nathan looked into the rear view mirror again. "I'm not talking about Bobby and Will." He gave the car some gas.

The cabin lit up from the headlights of an approaching car. The sound of the air started to change, taking on an angry quality. It was coming from our left.

"Wait, man, wait." I said.

Nathan looked in the side view mirror, then stuck his head out the window.

"Hold the wheel," he shouted.

"No." The other car was lazily passing us from the left and now it was almost even with us.

He unbuckled his seat belt and began to pull himself up. "Just hold the fucking wheel!"

Air rushed furiously into the truck. Nathan let go of the wheel and pulled his entire torso out of the window. I grabbed the wheel.

Just as Nathan was extending his arm to slap the passing car, I heard a scream of animal panic. The woman in the passenger seat threw herself against the driver, her arms up as if to protect her head. Even through the chaos she looked somehow familiar.

Nathan slapped the car at the same moment its driver lost control. As Nathan slid back into his seat I saw the other car swerve sickeningly to the left. And then something tearing as it stretched down and into the past, the highway sucking it away.

Nathan and I held the wheel together, hands overlapping like lovers. Then we looked into the rear view mirror.

"There are no other cars on the road right now." His voice was measured, crisp.

I felt dizzy, my hands shook. I wanted to scream and demolish him but I didn't do anything.

Nathan took the next offramp and drove, soberly, back to his house.

*

All the blinds were closed. Bobby and I sat in the kitchen, silent in the early afternoon haze. I kept trying not to remember the previous night.

Eventually, Bobby got up and walked out of the room. "I'm going for a smoke."

I just nodded, feeling too weak for much else. The front door opened, then closed, with a sucking sound that seemed impossibly loud.

I sat there, trying not to register the queasiness in my stomach.

A few minutes later Nathan came downstairs. He walked unsteadily into the kitchen, his baggy corduroys completely obscuring his feet. His hair was knotted and stuck out in wispy clumps.

"Fucking Bobby. Always slams the door." Nathan leaned onto the counter with his hands, his body at a right angle to me. I got the impression he was huddling.

"Yeah". My breathing felt deep and slow and I found that reassuring.

"Hey, I'm gonna fix some Ramen. You or Bobby want some?"

"Bobby might."

Nathan took out three packages of Ramen noodles and started boiling some water. He stared out the window even though the blinds were drawn.

Eventually he sat down in the chair next to mine, clearing his throat a few times. "Does Bobby know?"

I remembered the sound of torn metal. "How would he?"

Nathan bit his lip. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply anything. It's just..."

I nodded. My face felt slack, waxlike.

"Where's Will? Oh wait, he had to work this morning, right?"

"Yeah."

Nathan started tapping his pointer finger quickly and evenly. "I don't know how he does it. On a Saturday."

Neither of us said anything for several minutes. Then I heard the door opening again. Bobby came into the kitchen reeking of smoke and I felt even dizzier. He was carrying a newspaper.

"Hey, what's Will's stepdad's name?"

"Jesus, Bobby. I just woke up," Nathan said, looking over at the stove.

I tried to sound distant, calm. "Something foreign-sounding. De Kooning. I don't know."

"Is it de Kournig? Adam de Kournig?" Bobby had this electric look in his eyes.

"Why does it even matter?" Nathan almost stood up, but didn't. "Why don't you just ask Will?"

I could smell the water as it started to boil, an odor like chlorine gas. Bobby tossed the newspaper onto the table. "Look. Right hand column."

Even in the dim light, Nathan and I could read the headline. TWO DEAD IN PRE-DAWN ACCIDENT. I read the article methodically, hoping to fight back the dread. Both passengers were dead when the paramedics arrived. They suspect the driver fell asleep, crashing his car into the Jersey barrier.

My fingers would not stop shaking.

"Why do you think his parents were out so late?" Bobby said.

"How the fuck should I know?" Nathan's voice quavered in a deep register.

Bobby was electric again, like a zealot. "Man, we must've just missed it. Like within five minutes. Can you imagine if—"

"Shut the fuck up. I can't hear this." Nathan stood up so fast that his chair clattered to the ground behind him.

White spots erupted in my peripheral vision. All I could do was slump back in the chair.

"Neil, are you alright?" Bobby's voice sounded like it was coming from the far end of a cathedral.

When I opened my eyes again, Nathan and Bobby were kneeling over me. I was lying face up on the cool tile floor.

"Man, your lips are fucking pale," Bobby said.

My mouth felt dry and reptilian when I opened it and I didn't say anything.

Bobby looked back at Nathan, resuming. "You were driving. I don't know how it happened and I'm not saying you did it on purpose. But you have to tell Will. You owe him that. As a friend."

Nathan just nodded to himself, not looking at Bobby. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck."

Bobby continued. "What time does he get off from the bank, 2 o'clock? He'll probably be here in a few minutes."

Nathan staggered to his feet and went over to the sink. He started vomiting. Then dry heaving. In between the spasms I could hear him sobbing. Bobby just stared at Nathan and didn't try to help.

Maybe Nathan was beyond help. Maybe we were all beyond help. I realized, then, that parents are people who believe in the future, who must believe in the future. But their children, the objects of their inarticulate hopes, are by no means guaranteed to share that belief. Time may be kind and time may be malignant, but with defective eyes we had no way of forecasting the difference.

So we sat at the kitchen table, wooden, waiting for Will to come through the front door. Waiting for that dry sucking sound to signal the true end of summer.

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