Tim - The Excuse
Really, you don't know what came over you when you told him he could drive.
It was a bad fucking idea, that's for sure. He's got his hands in the ten-and-two position, a speckle of mustard on his collar, and one of his shoelaces is untied.
In front of you, there's nothing but an empty strip of highway, no other cars seen for miles, and the accelerator should at least be above eighty but it's not and for the third time (more like the fourth) that morning, you regret not letting them take the train. Because if they had, you wouldn't be in this mess right now, wondering how much bleach it's going to take to remove that hideous stain from your fucking T-shirt (which he just happened to think was his when he picked it up off the bedroom floor, for fuck's sake).
God.
You rub your temples. Your head's starting to pound, and you need a drink; the cheeseburger you ate was too greasy and now it's sitting at the bottom of your stomach, waiting for the appropriate time to come back up. It makes you sick just thinking about when that's going to happen, but it's not like you haven't had a hangover before.
Last night was a complete blur of cigarette smoke and whiskey-fire in your throat. All you can recall is the most nonessential things, like how the phone felt too heavy in your hand as you hung it up and the way your brother looked at you when you turned to face him, not with pity but with something else, something darker… sadder. Worse.
What happened?
The kitchen light was too bright, and you'd closed your eyes. Uncle Al had a heart attack. The funeral's on Wednesday, at noon. Even as you said this, the words sounded thick coming out of your mouth, wrong.
What happened… that was what your mother said, too, when you came in and woke her up. You couldn't breathe as you told her, and twelve hours later you're still not sure if you can. There's a weight sitting in the middle of your chest, shoving itself against your lungs and your ribcage and your heart, wanting out, out, out.
You roll down the window, waiting for some air to blow in, but nothing does; it's just clumps of goddamn dirt. Next to you, Curly twitches, and you sigh. Jesus Christ, you really need a fucking –
"Tim?"
Curly?
No, the pitch was too high. Angela.
You turn your head, the seatbelt digging into your hips. "Yeah, kid."
"How much longer do we have till we stop?"
"Another hour or two, but the way Curl's drivin' it might take all day."
From your periphery, you see the corners of his mouth curve up, barely, then him biting down on his lip, trying to salvage what's left of his pride.
"Fuck off," he says, but there's no emotion in it. You're safe, for now; whatever happened back at the Dairy Dream – or didn't – is gone, hiding beneath the suitcases in the trunk. It'll come out later, of course, as it always does in the dark, when he is too close to you and you are simultaneously too far away from him. Maybe, just maybe, Angela will let you sleep in her bed...
"Fuck you, too." To her, you say, "Think you can drive better than him?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"Damn right." You smirk at her. With so much open road ahead, you tell Curly to pull over to the shoulder. As long as he's practicing his driving skills (or lack thereof), why not let Angela practice hers?
Fifteen minutes later, you find out why.
"Shit!" your brother swears as his head slams, again, into the back of your seat. Dumbass isn't wearing his seatbelt, and if the red welt in the middle of his forehead is any indication, each time Angela comes to an erratic stop he's thrown forward from the momentum.
"God, Angie," he says, glaring at her in the rearview. "Don't you know how to drive in a straight line?"
"So what if I don't?" she responds. "Least I don't follow Tim around like he's a goddamn saint."
(The pressure you've felt all day has burrowed itself behind your eyes, locked your jaw in place, tightened your skin over your muscles and made it look white. Soon, it will find its way inside of your lungs, and will stop your heart from beating, and you will die just like your uncle did, desperate and depressed and alone.)
Her lips are moving too fast for you to read them, apologizing, and Curly isn't taking any of it. Oddly, his face is expressionless, and it reminds you of the day your father left, how he'd been trying so hard not to cry that his skin had turned purple, the same shade the bruise on your sister's cheek would be a few days later.
Then, out of nowhere, there is the noise of sirens behind you, a sea of red and blue lights, and all too well you know what happens next.
You're fucked.
xxx
You don't remember finding him, or bringing him home, or even the visit to the hospital, all antiseptic and metal and too much hairspray.
Just the blood, so much of it, on your hands and your T-shirt and your jeans, a pool of red at your feet. If you hadn't gotten there on time, the doctors said he could have bled out. That's the nicer way of saying, He could have died.
Sometimes, you stare at the back of his head, trying to find the crooked scar underneath all that hair. You wonder what it felt like, and how much it hurt; how, when you found him, you were sure it was already a memory, or a dream. But mostly, you wonder what he was thinking of, and pray that it wasn't you.
xxx
The cop has a handlebar mustache and a gut from pulling late-night shifts at all those lonely bars after work. As he raps his pudgy fingers on the window, tap tap tap, Angela turns, panicked, to look at you, a deer caught in the headlights.
You put a finger to your mouth, signaling her to not say a word, and motion for her to roll down the window.
Up close, the cop looks older than you first thought. There are wrinkles around his eyes, grays in his hair, and he has a double chin – whether that's from the restricting shirt collar or just plain laziness, you're not sure and definitely not about to find out. You've become so good at getting your way out of situations like this it's a damn shame you can't make a career out of it.
You clear your throat and force yourself to sound polite. "Afternoon."
"Mind telling me what we got here, son?"
"Just reckon I'd let my sister practice her driving, sir."
"Off the interstate?"
"You see," you tell him, leaning over Angela, "she ain't all that good" – from the backseat, Curly snorts – "and I thought it'd be best if I took her out somewhere… desolate… before she gets her license."
"This highway gets a lot of use during daylight hours." He pulls out his flashlight and shines the beam in her eyes, then yours, checking for dilated pupils or nervous blinking. Confident with what he sees, he puts it back in his pocket and eases into conversation. "Y'all ain't from around here, are you?"
"No, sir. Tulsa."
He nods. "Got some family down there. What're you doing out east?"
"Goin' to Chicago for a funeral."
"Hmm." His eyes float over yours and to the backseat, fixating on Angela's purse. Curious, you look, too, and immediately wish you hadn't. "Whose are those?"
The contents have spilled onto the floor, all mascara and lipstick tubes and wadded up pieces of gum and crumpled bills – normal stuff. And then, peering around Curly's shoe is one of your old lighters, one you thought you'd tossed away, and, of all fucking things, a box of Parliaments.
Dear God.
You don't know what to think, how to explain. Anger, slow and deep, fills your vision with red, seeps into your veins. You curl your fingers into your palms to stop them from shaking because you know if you don't you'll hit her, you'll fucking snap.
"Whose are those?" the cop asks again.
"Mine," you lie. Your voice is thick with emotion, too sharp, so you try again. "I don't know how they got in there. Must've fallen off the dash earlier or somethin'." You pat it for emphasis and give him an honest-to-God smile.
He stares at you for a second too long, as if he's able to see right through your shitty excuse but doesn't want to push any further, then glances back to his car because you've made him feel uncomfortable. He's tired and sweaty and wants to go back to the station, where the air conditioner isn't on the fritz like it is in his house and no one will judge him if he eats another donut for lunch instead of the leftovers his wife carefully packed for him that morning.
"Alright," he says, nodding. "Have a nice day." And just like that, he's gone, back into his cruiser and pulling ahead of you. Once he's out of sight, you close your eyes and breathe in through your nose slowly, wondering if the entire day was just some sick, twisted nightmare, that he'd never been there, but those cigarettes and the black make-up smudges on your sister's cheeks just prove it's not your imagination at all.
When you open them, Angela has her hands folded in her lap. Twenty seconds out, and she's crying. "Tim," she starts, and her voice cracks. "I –"
You shake your head, disgusted, and she wipes away a tear that's rolled down her cheek. The anger has spread to your stomach, made it bottomless. (At first you thought you'd only feel that – rage – but more than that, you're disappointed in her, in your brother, in yourself.)
"Get in the back, Angela."
She does, and a few minutes later you're driving again, although this time the seat beside you is empty. For once, you're not surprised that either of them won't look at you as the miles stretch and the speedometer inches toward a comfortable seventy. Your chest hurts, knowing that she used to do that, too – idolize you. But everyone has to grow up sometime, right?
xxx
St. Louis is boring, indescribable. At the gas station, as you fill up, Curly heads inside for a soda while Angela leans against the side of the car, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the ground as if it's the most fascinating thing she's ever seen.
The whole way here, you'd found a way to block it out – those cigarettes and that cop – and now, with her only a few feet away, it's almost too much to ignore. It's causing a knot in the back of your neck and the vision of your uncle's body in his recliner, and you want it gone, you need it gone. Because you need to know that she's not fucking her life up like you did; that she isn't you, and will never be you, that instead she will die old and happy and gray and not like how you will, under a streetlight or in a dark alley, completely and utterly alone. Because that is how you came into the world, and that is how you will leave it.
You lean back on your heels, remind yourself to sound normal and not like a cold-blooded serial killer. "What the hell happened back there, Angie?"
A muscle in her jaw jumps. She's not used to you being affectionate – really, you can't remember the last time you'd given her a hug – but the tension in her body loosens at the gentle tone in your voice. Her arms go slack against her sides, and her mouth twists into a frown.
"I don't know," she rushes out, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, Tim, I just…"
"Just what?" You move closer; nudge her arm with yours. "Come on, Ang. Look at me."
But she doesn't, she won't. Why the fuck won't she look at you?
"Angela." Her name sounds loud in your ears, aggravated. "At least talk to me, please."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You won't understand."
"Well, I won't if you don't tell me. I'm not mad at you –"
"Then what?" she interrupts, cutting you off. "What the hell are you, Tim?"
This time you don't care if your voice is rising, or that the person in the next car over is staring at you, wide-eyed. There's a numbing sensation in your fingertips, the way you get before a fight, and you flex them as you close the distance between you and her. One hit, one move, and she's gone.
"Jesus, Angela," you snicker, "stop being so dramatic."
"I don't want to fuckin' talk about it, okay?"
Her back is pressed up against the car, a dirty rat cornered in a lab cage – there is nowhere else for her to go. You lift her chin up so she will look at you and you will see in her eyes that somehow, she hasn't changed, hasn't become cold like you did so many years ago.
"What the hell did you just say?"
She swallows loudly, her throat muscles quivering. "N-n-nothing," she stutters.
"That's what I thought. Don't you ever talk to me like that again, got it? Got it?" You release your grip and take a step back, satisfied as she rubs the corner of her bottom lip. (Don't worry, you say to her in your head, it won't bruise. You may be a lot of things, but you're not your father.)
"And throw those goddamn cigarettes out, too," you add. "Makes me fuckin' sick just thinkin' about them."