Drive

A car splitting Autumn at sixty clicks. John at the wheel driving zigzags through darkness. His heart sporting the blunt arrow of loss. A thick thick thick forest walls him in and stones pulse against the floor like an errant heartbeat. He hurdles himself through night in search of a crash, his own, tree catching hood, torso crushing dashboard radio elbow fracturing songs pouring out like blood and parts of himself in every corner of Ontario. He winces at smell of gas and rust flowing through air vents fast hot. And then things slow again.

He wonders how he ended up there, here, hurtling himself dully through night with thoughts of his daughter prodding him deeply. The thought of his lost future strikes at the heart of something, his heart, a piece of it. How does someone become so very very very precious? He wishes there were no precious things, or that Ontario were a haunted place. If only there were apparitions and vectors for communing with the dead. Into still darkness, he had voiced his daughter’s name in anticipation that she'd call back, but nothing did. Echoes of crickets in the darkness and winds creaking between maples and birch and rock.

And then his mind clears at the sight of it. A sedan, four doors, white smoke rising spirited from its engine, hood open in alien pose, man faceless waving, birch and black sky background, Autumn cold, dying grass, forest’s gaping mouth, an awful Ontario quiet that suggests there is nothing worth saying. He looks himself in the mirror again and wonders about the road that led to here, the way his face has been cut by wind and age and hurt and how thoughts of his daughter run rough across the horizon of his mind.

He stops his car behind the sedan and grips the wheel and shifts noisily among the smell of gas and rust and the obnoxious hum of his car’s engine. There are tools somewhere in the trunk he has no earthly idea how to use, had bought a box of screwdrivers and wrenches in case he ever learned what to do with them. He steps out with difficulty and adjusts his hat with zigzag motions, his senses roughened by chugs of Labatt 50. He is a coarse man now, dented by beer and hurt. He dreams of the past constantly, imagining some act, cosmic or karmic, that would strike him many years before now, before her, forcing him on a path away from loss, away from its possibility, but every dent had done nothing to compel a new trajectory. He is like everyone else. Morally entangled. Knotted by age and time.

The man moves out from the white smoke pouring from the sedan’s engine, revealing thick eyebrows and a sharp nose. The forest washes up against the black sky. Liquid bleeds from underneath the engine and soaks into the dirt and pools in places where the earth recedes. It seeps into the ground and coalesces with all the other fluids that pump the world full. As John walks past the sedan, he sees the outline of a small person in the driver’s seat but the man with the thick eyebrows and sharp noise captures his attention with a wave and a robotic hello. The wind rises and then calms and he can hear a throbbing noise, his own or theirs or some lurking creature of the night obscured in the surrounding forest. He stops and stands erect and peers over the sedan’s roof into the unlit space between the trees convinced the beating heart he hears is not his own, for his own had stopped when his daughter died. He sees nothing and not even his drunken vision can manifest the fuzzy contours of his daughter or some other figure that would rescue him from this scene. He continues walking and catches the man’s hand in a limp shake, the name “Larry” on a name tag forgotten on his chest, some gathering of strangers they must have come from. Larry lifts and then lowers their clasped hands once, twice, three times in a formal gesture that suggests they have either initiated or concluded business. John then studies the peculiar geometry of Larry’s face, the harsh lines and angles of his mouth and nose and eyes and the lack of softened contours typical for human beings. The straight line of his mouth ends at the stubble of a bad shave. Larry is a stranger, for now. A jigsaw piece that fits somewhere but not here. Him and John make eye contact for the first time. Larry shifts his gaze to the passenger and then quickly back to John. Words flow hoarsely from Larry’s sharp face but John doesn’t hear them through the cloud of his own drunken thoughts. The man repeats, “Hi there. Hello. Glad you were out driving tonight. We got a head-scratch of a problem here. It’s a Taurus. Do you know engines?”

John peers into the darkened cab of the sedan in an attempt to see the small person in the passenger seat, but they are obscured by darkness. With clumsy zigzags, he adjusts his hat “Engine?” John says.

“Yes. Do you know them?” Larry says.

“What noises did it make?” John says. “Prior to its failure.”

The man with the sharp face rubs his chin robotically as if he had been told the gesture was something humans do when thinking. “Grrrrrrrr pop pop pop errrcht pop sput sput errrcht pop pop pop,” Larry says. “And then smoke.”

“Hmmmmm,” John says.

“Do you know what it means?”

“Hmmmmm,” John says.

“Nineteen ninety six,” Larry says.

“What?”

“The model year,” Larry says. “Nineteenth ninety six. A Ford Taurus. I’m not sure if that helps. We bought it used many years ago with one hundred thousands kilometres.”

“That’s nearly a third of the way to the Moon.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Larry says.

“Let me see what I got,” John says.

John walks back to his car, looking into the sedan again to see the small person still shrouded in darkness and holding what looks like an even smaller person in their arms. The thudded chug of a heartbeat loudens as he passes them. At his car, he retrieves a toolbox from the trunk and then brings it back to the sedan under the sharp gaze of the man. John wonders how far this performance will go on, this lie of omission he’s sustaining. Underneath the hood, Larry has dangled a weak flash light from the top to illuminate the engine, but instead of the component parts that produce motion, all John sees are the issues he’s created for himself, the potential for his undressing and humiliation. He caresses his hands across nobs and divots and angular metal hot to the touch hoping the engine will fix itself.

“What do you think the problem is?” Larry asks.

“Maybe a lose gasket,” John says, reaching for words.

Larry nods. “Do you believe in fortune?” he asks.

John looks up at Larry from the mouth of the sedan. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you believe in fortune?” Larry repeats. “Or do you believe in chance?”

John wipes his greasy hands on his pants. Though feeling queasy on bad beer, he suddenly has a strong desire for another bottle. “I did not know there was a difference.”

“Between chance and fortune?” Larry says. The sharp ends of his mouth curl upwards into an unnatural smirk. “Plenty. Do you think it is by chance or by fortune that we have met tonight? Here. On the side of the road.”

“At this point, neither,” he says. “Because I can’t fix your engine.”

Larry chuckles. “That is true.” The car rocks slightly from the passenger still in the front seat. “Just a moment, honey,” Larry yells. He looks back at John and sniffs the air again. “I have a question for you.”

He can only smell the hot liquids of the engine. “I’m all ears,” he says.

Larry’s smirk flattens into a sharp line across his face. “Have you been drinking?”

John lifts his head out from underneath the raised hood, nearly falling backwards.

“Have you?” Larry asks.

Wordless, John shuts the toolbox and heads back to his car.

“I ask for a reason,” Larry says catching John’s shoulder. “You have a look of hurt on your face.”

John puts a hand to his mouth and tastes the hot grease from the car’s engine. He faces Larry and tries to remember if he has a knife in his toolbox. If he does, its probably as dull as his own mind.

“Maybe the fortunate thing that has happened here tonight is that I’m here to save you,” Larry says. “Save you from yourself.”

John snorts. “You can’t un-hurt what I have,” he says.

“I can try.”

“Do you have my daughter in your car?”

Larry’s eyes drift to the sedan before returning to John. “Is that what you lost?” Larry says. “Your daughter?”

John can feel Larry’s breath on his face. He nods weakly.

“How old was she?” Larry asks.

John shakes his head. “I didn’t get to meet her.”

Larry runs a hand over his face. “Issues with…pregnancy.”

“I’m not gonna talk about it. I don’t know who you are.” John abruptly turns and continues walking, throwing his toolbox into the trunk of his car.

“Drinking is not the answer,” Larry says, raising his voice.

John turns back to Larry. “Who’s that in your car?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who’s in your car?”

Larry clears his throat. “My daughter.”

“Then you can’t possibly understand what I’ve lost.”

John steps into his car and starts the engine. The passenger door of Larry’s sedan opens and the thud thud thud of a heartbeat suddenly grows louder. John puts a thumb to his temple and tries to rub it away. A girl steps out of the sedan holding a doll. She looks in their direction, her face drawn with confusion in the way all children wear their thoughts plainly. John tries to discern what few details he can through the muddied waters of his drunken vision. Dark hair and dark eyes, maybe six or seven years old, a crease between the eyebrows, and many other features he recognizes in himself.

“Honey, return to the car,” Larry says.

“What’s your daughter’s name?” John says. He raises his voice trying to overcome the incessant thud sounding through his skull.

“Honey. Car. In. Now,” Larry says.

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Eliza, do not ignore me,” Larry says.

Eliza takes a deep gulp of air and says, “Buuuuutttttttt Daaaaaadddddddd. I need to go to the toilet.”

Larry looks towards the forest. “Go in the bushes.”

The girl huffs and squeezes her doll. “But its scary in there.”

“I’m right here.”

Eliza shakes her head vigorously.

Larry walks up to John’s car, that peculiar smirk on his face again. “Do you know if there’s a house nearby?”

“Eliza,” John says to himself. “Eliza was what I was going to name my daughter.”

Larry’s smirk evaporates. “Is there a house nearby?” he asks.

“Not far. I can drive her.”

“We’ll walk,” Larry says.

“It’s too dangerous. Night time. Cars come through here fast.”

Larry studies John’s face. His eyes move up and down from chin to forehead, and he sniffs the air again. “You are too hurt to drive.”

“You think I’m drunk.”

Larry clasps his lips tight. “Yes, I do,” he says. “I smell it. I know the smell well. Your also speaking really loudly.”

“It’s just because of that loud heartbeat sound,” John says. “Do you not hear it?”

Larry looks at him quizzically.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddd!” Eliza shouts.

“So is this fortune or chance?” John says.

Larry walks over to Eliza and kneels down to her level. He says something that John can’t hear over the sound of the thudding heartbeat. Her gaze shifts to John, then back to Larry. She nods weakly and runs over to the passenger side of John’s car. The door opens slowly and Eliza stands there for a moment still clutching her doll, the weak glow of the cabin light casting dark shadows over her eyes and mouth, the heartbeat sound even louder than before. She pulls herself in and shuts the door. Larry comes around to the driver’s side, his face now marked by the redness of exhaustion. “I’m going to try and call a mechanic,” he says. “Please drive her to the nearest house for a toilet. Slowly. And then bring her back here.”

John nods and rubs his temples again.

Larry leans his head further through the driver’s side window, nearly colliding his cheek with John’s. John smells something on his collar, a mix of wood flooring, percolated coffee, and icing sugar. It smells like a church basement. It’s a smell John hasn’t experienced since he gave up on Alcoholics Anonymous.

“Eliza, remember to be polite,” Larry says.

The girl nods. Larry withdraws from the window and pats the car like a pet dog.

John starts the car and cautiously presses the gas and they limp away. He watches Larry in the rearview mirror disappear into a cone of darkness.

John can see Eliza looking at him out the corner of his eye. Her stare lingers on him for a long while before shifting to the doll. “Dad said your hurt,” she says.

John clears his throat and checks his speed. He eases his foot off the gas pedal a little. “In a way, yes,” he says.

“Where are you hurt?” Eliza asks.

John looks at the girl but then quickly puts his eyes back on the road. “It’s a hurt you couldn’t understand.”

Eliza huffs and sits back in her seat. “Where are you hurt?” she says, indignant.

John rubs his temple again and dreams of coffee. “Everywhere,” he says. “I am hurt everywhere.”

“How?”

“Because I lost someone very important to me.”

“Who?”

“My daughter.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I never met her. That’s what hurts,” John says. “I miss them, dearly.”

“How can you miss someone you never met?”

The faint glow of a porch light flickers in a pocket of trees. John guides the car up the long driveway, a house he recognizes. Eliza hesitates, lingering her small hand over the door handle. “You’re not going to come with me?” she says, faintly.

For a moment he thinks Eliza might refuse to get out and soil herself right there instead, staining his car seat. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say. Be a brave girl. There’s nothing to be afraid. You’re old enough to do this on your own. There was a time when he imagined saying these things, and even now he can see himself parenting the girl in a way he had long desired to do with his own daughter. “Do you like your father?” John says, a question he had not intended to ask.

Eliza stares at him blankly, seemingly in disbelief that question had been posed. She doesn’t answer. Instead, she takes a deep breath as if about to dunk her head underwater and unlatches the door and disappears into the darkness. She reappears on the porch under the weak light. A small knock, a doorway opened, a round man with a mustache eclipsing a hallway light. He levels his ear towards Eliza, then looks at John’s car and steps out of the doorway. The girl runs past him into the house, and the thudding noise fades away. She’s left her doll on the passenger seat. Of course I could parent the girl, John thinks. Just look how she reacted to the question about Larry. But could he? Could he find a way? She already looks like him, looks like what his daughter would look like, so who would question it if he did, if he didn’t take her back to Larry, if he drove in the other direction, if he began a small lie that becomes the truth, that he is Eliza’s father, biologically no but emotionally yes, in spirit, the spirit of his lost daughter now in her, what crime would he really be committing, no malice, no intent, accidental, yes, accidental, she just ended up here, there, in the gaping yawn of forest, as if she had no past, ex nihilo, the point he found her, lost in a sense, not kidnapping, no, rescue, she’d thank him for it years later, he’s on good terms with the deputy, if they did ask, an accident, if they didn’t, his true daughter, true in a sense, her spirit, that’s what matters, thud thud thud, its his daughter in her, this girl, surely, yes, the passenger door opens and Eliza sits back in.

“Okay, ready,” she says.

John reverses the car wordless, the heartbeat sound softening as his own heart matches its rhythm. He stops at the end of the driveway and looks to his right in the direction they came, in the direction of Larry, and then left in the direction of his house, in the direction of thicker forest and an open road. Eliza appears uncaring, more concerned with her doll than direction.

He eases out, points the car, and drives.