[friday evening] car crash ending your day at the side of the road.
You hardly ever take this road. It's crowded with commuters, there aren't enough traffic signals, and it's not on your way to anything. But today they've got your normal route blocked off by some kind of construction - on a sewer main, apparently, something it seems like they should have the decency to let you know about in advance. There are other roads to take, and you would, too, if you weren't late getting Sammie from school and starting dinner.
Between the grocery store and home you are caught in slow traffic, all four lanes meandering almost idly, like no one really has anywhere to be except you; the hamburger thawing into a melty mess behind you as you speak, Sammie restless, chewing a piece of her hair and staring out the window. When you get home before you can even think about starting dinner you'll have to settle her in with her work, so much of it there is these days! When you were seven homework was maybe 'draw a bug' or 'what's 4 + 6' but now it takes hours every night and more often than not you and your daughter go to bed with at least one of you in tears, or having been. Brent says you just have to ease up a little, and you want to say 'why don't you take a turn with the goddamn homework then,' but you don't.
"Mommy-"
Your daughter's voice startles you, and you look back at her in the mirror. (Your reflection is a thousand years old, portrait of Dorian Gray old, and that startles you less, which almost makes you sad.) "Mommy."
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Mommy, that man- is he mad?"
You follow the direction of her pointing- "don't point, Sam, honey, it's rude," to one of the other cars caught in the opposite lane, facing you. It's a silver Subaru Outback; you notice this because you and Brent thought of getting one before you went with the ubiquitous minivan case there were more kids, both factors in all good suburban cliches. (You suppose you are, really.) "I don't think so, baby, I hope not- "
But you're really not sure what he's doing, this stranger in another car only a few hundred feet from you and your daughter, and it makes you nervous. Talking to himself? - No. No, it's like he's listening to a voice from somewhere over his head ... or in it. "Maybe, but I don't think he's mad at us. Sometimes grown ups just ...have a lot to deal with."
Sometimes grownups have a lot to deal with even if they are just stay-at-home moms, a term that makes your friends cringe. They're never the ones who ask 'what do you do with all that time, Joan?' - no, that's always some asshole friend of Brent's. Your friends may not be in love with your chosen place in life all the time, but they get it- up before he is, to make coffee and breakfast and make sure his shirt and tie match, to put the remains of breakfast away and the coffee in a travel mug when he doesn't have time, then wiping off the lipstick you put on for no reason (just in case he ever really looked at you), and go back upstairs to dive into the long, frustrating process of rousing Sammie, in a phase where she hates school, at least in the mornings. It is only when all of this is done you begin to tackle the thousand tiny pieces of minutiae that comprise your day - minutiae sounds kind of like mutiny, which is what you think of doing often. Like right now; you could get out of this car and just start walking. To the bus station, to the airport, to- out of here. Out of here would be enough.
Maybe you'll have an affair. You're pretty sure the guy who cleans the pool or rotates your tires or weighs your meat - one of them would probably fuck you, that's how it works in every disaffected suburban tale of malaise and the perils of apathy, isn't it?
But you're probably never going to do that. An affair just sounds- tiring, and so does walking anywhere. So you stay in the car, noting that the traffic opposite is moving now, a little. The guy in the Subaru isn't mollified; whatever argument he's having is gaining velocity, and now he looks- wrong, more wrong that having a casual argument with yourself in traffic- he looks Michael Douglas in Falling Down wrong, wrong like animals look with they have rabies. He half disappears against the steering wheel for a second, then spasms back into the seat and even from here you can tell he's screaming, some kind of fit not brought on by anger but the kind of pain that steals all breath, sharp enough to stop the heart.
Some kind of allergic attack? Spontaneous hemorrhage? Embolism? You have never encountered anything that seems even remotely like this; surely someone else in another car has noticed, but - no, they are all absorbed in each of their own tiny lives and ...really, so were you. You only looked up because of Sammie (Mommy, is that man mad?) and you said no, but now you're not sure. Certainly he needs help, (shit shit shit if you get out of traffic now you'll never get back in, but- fuck it). No one else is looking, and that side of traffic is definitely picking up the pace. If he loses control even at this speed there'll be a fenderbender, and you'll never get home.
It's kind of funny how you have to justify doing something for all the right selfish reasons.
"Mommy is going to lock the doors, okay, baby? So don't touch the handle for a minute." You fumble for your cellphone and dial 911, where you are immediately put on hold. Maybe you don't sound white enough.
So you're on hold and there's this genuine emergency going on across from you; someone else finally notices and you hear the bray of some Volvo's horn, but more than that you hear another scream and he seizes, twists, this stranger you can't save; he snaps back up, hands clutching at his abdomen like something is falling out, Jesus, and the last sound he makes sounds like nothing so much as sobbing.
The car is drifting onto the shoulder, jerking spasmodically (his foot must be stuck on the gas pedal) mirroring his movements.
Maybe it's just going to go into the guard rail, that's what it's meant to do, isn't it? It won't be the worst thing that could happen to this poor guy, whatever is going on -
"Mommy, is that man gonna die?"
"No, baby, he's- gonna be fine, now hush, Mommy has to think."
Other cars are wheeling around the Subaru, honking and trying to clear a path; the car is not stopping, it scrapes the side of the Volvo who honked, the driver - a college aged girl - going incandescent with panic. It's just an accident, a mess, some kind of terrible loss of control- and then his limbs and head stop their frenetic jerky plunges, and you almost sigh, maybe now the car will just drift to a stop, but his face
You can see his face, and it changes, suddenly melting, ripping, tearing into the kind of smile that could take a heart in its teeth; nothing a face should ever do, and suddenly this stranger is
darker, deeper, the old old rage of people in caves holding torches at wolves (but he is not a torchbearer, he is the thing they're thrown against) and the sobbing turns into a flowing laugh, rich and thick and full of poison, the echo scraping metal on metal (he is too far away for you to be able to hear that, and you are trying to convince yourself it can't be real when you realize the metallic screeching is the dragging clang of the car speeding up, accelerating wildly with a sickening lurch and flying along the shoulder now, speeding speeding
speeding into crash
into the unyielding unforgiving never-taking-it-back concrete mass of the next overpass, chaos spreading all around it like fire
he's dead, he must be
He must be dead.
He must be dead, but you watch a dark shape drop from the driver's side door anyway, watch him crawl laughing out of this great heaving wall of fire, caught in a moment where (he is handsome, you realize) you could almost appreciate this aesthetically if it wasn't so fucking crazy.
Sammie, in the back seat, has started to cry. You are barely hearing here, and later you will have one of those 'what kind of a mother am I' moments, but now you are transfixed
enraptured
He meets your eyes when he stands up, and you want to run away but you can feel, too that your mouth slipped open,soft, tip of your tongue between your teeth. It's stupid and you know this, but you think of mutinying, and you are pretty sure this guy would be the ultimate in that. You forget who he was a minute ago, that he was another man holding himself inside and trying and failing not to become
He walks past your car and trails one hand down the side of it, grinning that mad dog fucking grin, the kind of smile that leaves teeth marks in its wake, in your throat, in your heart
you feel a little like prey
a rabbit in a snare
He walks away and leaves the car burning there, and
now you're going to be stuck in traffic for hours.
Fuck.
Between the grocery store and home you are caught in slow traffic, all four lanes meandering almost idly, like no one really has anywhere to be except you; the hamburger thawing into a melty mess behind you as you speak, Sammie restless, chewing a piece of her hair and staring out the window. When you get home before you can even think about starting dinner you'll have to settle her in with her work, so much of it there is these days! When you were seven homework was maybe 'draw a bug' or 'what's 4 + 6' but now it takes hours every night and more often than not you and your daughter go to bed with at least one of you in tears, or having been. Brent says you just have to ease up a little, and you want to say 'why don't you take a turn with the goddamn homework then,' but you don't.
"Mommy-"
Your daughter's voice startles you, and you look back at her in the mirror. (Your reflection is a thousand years old, portrait of Dorian Gray old, and that startles you less, which almost makes you sad.) "Mommy."
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Mommy, that man- is he mad?"
You follow the direction of her pointing- "don't point, Sam, honey, it's rude," to one of the other cars caught in the opposite lane, facing you. It's a silver Subaru Outback; you notice this because you and Brent thought of getting one before you went with the ubiquitous minivan case there were more kids, both factors in all good suburban cliches. (You suppose you are, really.) "I don't think so, baby, I hope not- "
But you're really not sure what he's doing, this stranger in another car only a few hundred feet from you and your daughter, and it makes you nervous. Talking to himself? - No. No, it's like he's listening to a voice from somewhere over his head ... or in it. "Maybe, but I don't think he's mad at us. Sometimes grown ups just ...have a lot to deal with."
Sometimes grownups have a lot to deal with even if they are just stay-at-home moms, a term that makes your friends cringe. They're never the ones who ask 'what do you do with all that time, Joan?' - no, that's always some asshole friend of Brent's. Your friends may not be in love with your chosen place in life all the time, but they get it- up before he is, to make coffee and breakfast and make sure his shirt and tie match, to put the remains of breakfast away and the coffee in a travel mug when he doesn't have time, then wiping off the lipstick you put on for no reason (just in case he ever really looked at you), and go back upstairs to dive into the long, frustrating process of rousing Sammie, in a phase where she hates school, at least in the mornings. It is only when all of this is done you begin to tackle the thousand tiny pieces of minutiae that comprise your day - minutiae sounds kind of like mutiny, which is what you think of doing often. Like right now; you could get out of this car and just start walking. To the bus station, to the airport, to- out of here. Out of here would be enough.
Maybe you'll have an affair. You're pretty sure the guy who cleans the pool or rotates your tires or weighs your meat - one of them would probably fuck you, that's how it works in every disaffected suburban tale of malaise and the perils of apathy, isn't it?
But you're probably never going to do that. An affair just sounds- tiring, and so does walking anywhere. So you stay in the car, noting that the traffic opposite is moving now, a little. The guy in the Subaru isn't mollified; whatever argument he's having is gaining velocity, and now he looks- wrong, more wrong that having a casual argument with yourself in traffic- he looks Michael Douglas in Falling Down wrong, wrong like animals look with they have rabies. He half disappears against the steering wheel for a second, then spasms back into the seat and even from here you can tell he's screaming, some kind of fit not brought on by anger but the kind of pain that steals all breath, sharp enough to stop the heart.
Some kind of allergic attack? Spontaneous hemorrhage? Embolism? You have never encountered anything that seems even remotely like this; surely someone else in another car has noticed, but - no, they are all absorbed in each of their own tiny lives and ...really, so were you. You only looked up because of Sammie (Mommy, is that man mad?) and you said no, but now you're not sure. Certainly he needs help, (shit shit shit if you get out of traffic now you'll never get back in, but- fuck it). No one else is looking, and that side of traffic is definitely picking up the pace. If he loses control even at this speed there'll be a fenderbender, and you'll never get home.
It's kind of funny how you have to justify doing something for all the right selfish reasons.
"Mommy is going to lock the doors, okay, baby? So don't touch the handle for a minute." You fumble for your cellphone and dial 911, where you are immediately put on hold. Maybe you don't sound white enough.
So you're on hold and there's this genuine emergency going on across from you; someone else finally notices and you hear the bray of some Volvo's horn, but more than that you hear another scream and he seizes, twists, this stranger you can't save; he snaps back up, hands clutching at his abdomen like something is falling out, Jesus, and the last sound he makes sounds like nothing so much as sobbing.
The car is drifting onto the shoulder, jerking spasmodically (his foot must be stuck on the gas pedal) mirroring his movements.
Maybe it's just going to go into the guard rail, that's what it's meant to do, isn't it? It won't be the worst thing that could happen to this poor guy, whatever is going on -
"Mommy, is that man gonna die?"
"No, baby, he's- gonna be fine, now hush, Mommy has to think."
Other cars are wheeling around the Subaru, honking and trying to clear a path; the car is not stopping, it scrapes the side of the Volvo who honked, the driver - a college aged girl - going incandescent with panic. It's just an accident, a mess, some kind of terrible loss of control- and then his limbs and head stop their frenetic jerky plunges, and you almost sigh, maybe now the car will just drift to a stop, but his face
You can see his face, and it changes, suddenly melting, ripping, tearing into the kind of smile that could take a heart in its teeth; nothing a face should ever do, and suddenly this stranger is
darker, deeper, the old old rage of people in caves holding torches at wolves (but he is not a torchbearer, he is the thing they're thrown against) and the sobbing turns into a flowing laugh, rich and thick and full of poison, the echo scraping metal on metal (he is too far away for you to be able to hear that, and you are trying to convince yourself it can't be real when you realize the metallic screeching is the dragging clang of the car speeding up, accelerating wildly with a sickening lurch and flying along the shoulder now, speeding speeding
speeding into crash
into the unyielding unforgiving never-taking-it-back concrete mass of the next overpass, chaos spreading all around it like fire
he's dead, he must be
He must be dead.
He must be dead, but you watch a dark shape drop from the driver's side door anyway, watch him crawl laughing out of this great heaving wall of fire, caught in a moment where (he is handsome, you realize) you could almost appreciate this aesthetically if it wasn't so fucking crazy.
Sammie, in the back seat, has started to cry. You are barely hearing here, and later you will have one of those 'what kind of a mother am I' moments, but now you are transfixed
enraptured
He meets your eyes when he stands up, and you want to run away but you can feel, too that your mouth slipped open,soft, tip of your tongue between your teeth. It's stupid and you know this, but you think of mutinying, and you are pretty sure this guy would be the ultimate in that. You forget who he was a minute ago, that he was another man holding himself inside and trying and failing not to become
He walks past your car and trails one hand down the side of it, grinning that mad dog fucking grin, the kind of smile that leaves teeth marks in its wake, in your throat, in your heart
you feel a little like prey
a rabbit in a snare
He walks away and leaves the car burning there, and
now you're going to be stuck in traffic for hours.
Fuck.