Just Drive

It's not where you are; it's who you're with.

"Now it's time for the traffic report-"

I silenced the body-less voice with the twist of a knob. Driving with Jake was too much fun to be ruined by traffic reports. We didn't even really need to have the radio on, anyways. The sound of the wind rushing through all four open windows was music on its own, making the truck seem like an extension of the road, an extension of the beautiful August afternoon, rather than an intruder.

Jake turned and looked at me, right hand at the top of the steering wheel, left arm resting on the door, and smiled his famous mischievous smile. Baseball hat on, t-shirt sleeves cut off, as usual, I suddenly felt like I'd been living in this moment for my entire life, like it was the only moment I'd ever had, playing on a loop. Jake was like a mountain. Looking at him, worry lines barely overshadowed by laugh lines on his slightly sunburned face, you could tell he'd been through a lot of change before. Erosion. But in the present, he always seemed still. Years to go before he crumbles, you don't have to witness it now.

Now Jake was trying hard to contain his smile, staring straight ahead but clenching his jaw with the effort of keeping a straight face.

"What?" I giggled when I couldn't wait any longer to see what he had planned.

"Nothin' " 

"Pfff, sure."

Nothing was ever 'nothing' with Jake. He has this barely noticeable way of doing everything he possibly can just to make someone smile even a little bit. Sometimes you don't even realize what he's doing until you're laughing and he's laughing and the world feels right again. Other times you know as soon as you open your front door and see him on your porch that he's not gonna let you sit around listening to Modest Mouse and being depressed. And you kinda just let yourself be cheered up even though you knew every little joke and smile was part of a game of sorts.

Like this, this drive. We were driving just to drive, just to get away from the things we saw through the kitchen windows every day and instead watch a new day creep through the windshield. We figured if we burned enough rubber, enough gas, that we'd somehow burn away our old selves who've gotten so bored with life and emerge baby-faced and wide-eyed.

We were still on a familiar street, though. Still on the same stretch of battered pavement that plowed through the middle of grazing fields and farmhouses, past basketball hoops on garage doors and shells of cars abandoned under blue tarps. The same things we passed almost every day to go to school, work, stores, friends' houses, basically anything that was in the opposite direction of home.

It was agreed upon, but never discussed, that we both wanted to drive and drive and drive, until our butts were sore and our heads were spinning from watching the wildflowers pass by on the median strip of the highway, until we reached someplace interesting, someplace with adobe houses or fjords or at LEAST people with different accents than ours. It was just a lazy Sunday afternoon dream, but it was how we got through the rest of the week. It was worth it, even though these summer drives through two, MAYBE three towns never lived up to our dreams.

Summer is for exploring, no matter how old you are. Little kids explore backyards and attics, college students explore faraway villages with their towering backpacks and their language skills.

And, as fun as it may be, staring into the flames of a backyard fire pit won't get you very far. Sure, sometimes it's easy to pretend you're watching flames climb up your latest catch as you set up camp for the night in the jungle, or the embers of a beach bonfire ignored by mingling beach-goers. But once you blink the smoke out of your eyes, you're still in the same old backyard, with the same old neighborhood people that reek of bug spray and forgotten dreams.

Maybe that's why I felt so alive when Jake gave a trio of bicyclists a wide berth by driving in the left lane....and stayed there even when the bikers were nothing but little dots in the rearview mirror.

I knew without asking, without even thinking, that this was his version of the European vacation that Jake on his landscaper/handyman salary, Jake who spends his money almost immediately on cigarettes and car parts, would never be able to take me on. 

For the record, it's not like I begged to go to Europe. I never quoted guidebooks lustfully about some old church or city. Europe was somewhere exciting simply because it was somewhere ELSE. 

Simple as it was, stupid as it was, it was pure fun, undiluted by judgement from anybody. It was just the two of us, the way it should be. And as long as nobody was coming, we could drive on whatever side of the road we felt like driving on.

In that moment, between those flashes of gray car seats and yellow-green fields and bright blue swimming pools, if I squinted and made my eyes water so the hills and curves in the road that were so known to me that they were like an extension of my mind seemed like any old winding road, I could pretend, and almost truly feel like I was away from home.

Author's Note

I just realized there was no clear way of determining this from the story, so I'll just tell you now that the narrator is female. I don't really know what I want to do with these characters yet...

Reviews

[Alex Thomas]

Such a lustful feeling of freedom. The reader really gets a feel for Jake's carefree personality and happy demeanor. There were a few run-on sentences and while some of them were necessary for the mood of the story, others got to be a bit annoying. Try to add in some shorter sentences. I love the description and the emotion in this piece. They both help convey the mood. I only wonder why Jake and the narrator wanted to get away so badly. Are they just being teenagers? Or is it something deeper? If you continue this, I'd definitely read on. Great job.

[Rosalyn Marie]

very good, captures the feeling of summer very well.