Art: untitled by James Metelak
DRIVER AND PASSENGER
Michael Strahler, seventy-two years of age, backed his car out of the driveway. The car was equipped with a backup camera and an optional autonomous reverse control, but he eschewed them in favor of using the mirrors. He used to turn his head, supporting himself with his arm on the back of the passenger seat, but he was too old for such contortions and scared of twisting his back.
He stopped at the end of the driveway and looked up and down the street before backing all the way out. It really didn’t matter if he did or didn’t. It was just the force of a lifetime’s habit of driving that made him do it.
Michael put the car into drive and pressed the accelerator, bringing the car up to five miles-per-hour over the speed limit. That was always a safe speed. It was a speed that projected a devil-may-care attitude toward being stopped. Cops appreciated that, and he’d never been called on it. At least, it used to be. Michael had only gotten two speeding tickets in his whole life, and both times he got them because he wasn’t paying attention to how fast he was going and not because he was deliberately going too fast. Sure, he could have used the cruise control and saved himself some hassle, but he liked the feeling of the vibration of the engine coming up through the pedal too much.
He knew where he was going. There was no need for the GPS. He guided the car expertly, very much aware of the performance tolerances and staying beneath them, if only just. He whipped through turns, made rolling stops, and even managed to cut a few people off, which took some doing.
Driving on muscle memory, Michael remembered his first car, a used 1981 sky blue Volkswagen Rabbit four-door manual with one mud flap that had a bunny on it. It had rack-and-pinion steering and a moonroof that he enjoyed cranking open at night in the summer, and it kept him cool better than any air conditioner ever had. He loved that car – the high Volkswagen pitch of the engine, the factory Blaupunkt cassette player, the Michelin tires. He even loved it when it started falling apart, with knobs, buttons, handles, mirrors, hubcaps, and the cigarette lighter assembly coming off in his hands one by one.
Right after Michael got the car, he and his friend Damon had been hanging out at Michael’s house when Damon suggested they go for a ride.
“I know a place where there aren’t any cops,” Damon said. “You can open it up and see how fast it can go.”
“Cool,” replied Michael, game to drive anywhere, just because he could.
It took about forty minutes to drive to Damon’s special stretch of road, way out north of Pittsburgh in an Amish community in the middle of the night. The moonroof was open, the music was blaring, and the two of them were shouting to hear each other. Michael was conscious that they could get pulled over at any time, but they weren’t drunk, so he didn’t really care. He felt freer than he ever had.
When Damon gave the word, Michael put the hammer down. They buried the needle at eighty-five miles-per-hour, but they later generously estimated that they’d been going at least a hundred.
Michael missed Damon and wished he knew what had become of him. He wondered if the drive was as special to Damon as it had been to him. He hoped it was. He would have liked to do it one more time, but he knew it was the kind of moment that could be lived only once.
Michael took an on-ramp to the highway and accelerated briskly as the road straightened out. He gave a token look back over his left shoulder and flew onto the road. He reveled in the speed for a moment before lifting his foot and coasting back down to five miles an hour over the speed limit.
Ten minutes. It was all Michael had left.
Despite his modest speeding, he passed every car on the road, getting funny looks in the process. He turned off the air conditioning and rolled all the windows down, enjoying the roar of the air and the feeling it made on his face. He turned on the radio. The first song he’d heard in the Volkswagen was “Helter Skelter.” He didn’t recognize the song that was playing, but at least it had a beat and a decent baseline. Damon would have liked that.
Eight minutes later he exited the highway, speeding down the ramp and applying the anti-lock brakes at the last possible moment, pushing the front of the car down as he came to a stop. The light changed, and he turned left. He saw his destination down the road and drove toward it, this time slowly.
He pulled into the lot and parked. A saleswoman was on him almost immediately. She was young and cute and reminded Michael strongly of his granddaughter.
“Is that a manual?” she asked.
“Automatic,” Michael replied.
“I mean, is that a non-self-driving car?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. So I’m guessing you want to upgrade?” she said.
“If you can call it that.”
“So what are you looking to buy?”
“I don’t know. Something comfortable, I guess. It doesn’t matter. Something I can nap in.”
“I can help you with that.” The saleswoman led Michael onto the lot. He turned to his car and said a mental farewell.
I’m a passenger now, Michael thought. I’ll be a passenger for the rest of my life. This next car will drive me to the hospital. If I die on the way, the car will be my hearse.
After a teaching career, Jason began writing, with works published in journals, anthologies, and collections. When not writing, he reads, keeps house, is a husband, raises a son, chases dogs, and volunteers as a Guardian ad Litem in his North Carolina home.
