50% Sometimes we simply are who we are...

50%

I'm not much of a passenger; no matter if the driver is driving slowly or fast, cautiously or recklessly, I can't help but condemn his or her abilities in my mind.  I'm sure it's got more to do with control than anything else.  In any case, his driving was making me nervous  and I wanted out of the car bad.  Arnie was oblivious to my plight and kept zipping through the 'S' curves on a rural Kentucky highway.   I tapped my finger on my knee cap and stared out over the Ohio River.  Arnie started talking about something off color and I feigned interest, I even managed to coax out a nervous laugh. 

Lately, I just wanted out.  It wasn't just my job, or my wife, or the new responsibilities that came with fatherhood.  It was everything, and it was nothing, it was me.  The one thing I constantly yearned for that always seemed to be in diminishing supply was sleep.  If I could just find a place to sleep for a month or so, unbothered by another living soul I might be able to recuperate enough to continue on.  Alas, that would be nothing more than a sweeping fantasy.  Meaningful rest was my white whale, constantly submerged in a deluge of futile endeavors meant to keep me sustained.

We pulled into a small town and Arnie stopped for gas.  He left the door open while he pumped.  The console of the car continuously beeped in my ear.  Pulsating bursts of anger flowed through my brain until I felt like the only thing that could make my headache subside was stabbing something living until it died.

Arnie jumped back in the car and off we sped through town.  We passed by a funeral home and I saw an elderly man walking slowly to the entrance.  He looked beaten, as if age and missed expectations and extracted all the good from him and left him with the rot.  Internally my brain without notice prompted me to roll down my window and yell at him, "Haha! Someone you know just died!"

I rolled the window back up and calmly lit a cigarette.  I was a few drags in when I remembered I was in the car with someone else. 

Arnie looked at me with disgust, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I'm not really sure."  I pondered that for a minute and Arnie managed a chuckle.

I looked down at my phone and saw some text messages from my wife.  I closed them without responding and started playing solitaire.  I won 3 out of 6 games as we made our way back to the hotel.