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.
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