Steering Clear

by Alex D.

They say that at any moment a thousand thoughts are going through the human mind. So in just one of these thoughts, each moment, there are bound to be the perfect descriptive words for our lives, the perfect inspirational phrases needed to motivate the unmotivated to do great things.

What one could achieve by grasping these near subconscious thoughts and bringing them forward!

As I sit here, caught between boredom and weariness, and an unconscious dreamland, my mind couldn’t be more alive. My head rests lazily against the cool glass window, cheek in hand, elbow on the armrest below. I gaze drearily outside, bored, and thinking.

Hey, that’s kind of good! Okay, anyways where was I? Oh yes…

Just thinking… One of my headphones hangs loosely below me while the other plays loudly in my ear. I’m not listening. I look outside, the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. My dad announces something to his passengers. He announces it again. I mumble an incoherent acknowledgement so he shuts up. He says something else and looks around the car, trying to get a smile or laugh from his uninterested audience. No one does.

He’s always trying to better his relationship with us. That when he’s not fucking it up, picking arguments and never taking responsibility for when something is his fault. But he tries. It’s kind of sad I guess, because at this point we don’t really give him anything back. He just tries, usually making bad jokes, or taking jokes too far, and most of the time no one laughs or cuts him any slack.

Anyway, I’m not really concerned about that; it’s all an old story. I just want to get home already to try to work things out some more. I miss her. I know I’m supposed to be mad after what happened; I have to be mad; I am mad. But I just can’t stand being angry with her. It’s the worst feeling. This whole situation is some bullshit that just keeps getting worse. I want it to go back the way it was before things went bad, before he came into the situation, before the party, and the…

Shit, I just need to do something, anything; I can’t stand being stuck in this car. These long drives make me feel sick and noxious. I’m getting a headache.

I set my gaze out across the bay. The horizon has fogged over since I last checked. How long has it been? Damn. We’re probably not even half way there yet.

I look around the van and try to grab at the words I know are in my mind to describe my environment. My dad is in the driver’s seat. He’s clearly still trying to recover from his failed joke – overly focused on the road and looking side to side at his surroundings with a nervous attentiveness. My grandpa is on the passenger side peering excitedly out the window at all the sites. I’ve never seen him this awake; he’s like a puppy, that Nounou. My brother is sitting behind my dad, ‘plugged-in’ as my parents would say. He’s got both headphones in his ears playing loud enough that even I can hear… ‘Drive’ by Incubus, obscured yet still audible, projects through the car. He’s asleep, resting his head against the window. My mom is sitting in front of me staring aimlessly at the seat in front of her, patiently awaiting our arrival.

She’s probably the most patient member of our family. I don’t think anyone else could sit there quietly without sleeping or listening to music like that, although it is a miracle she’s not talking on her cell phone. She’s one of those people that will never hang up a phone call, no matter how hard the other person is trying to end the conversation or how busy they are. I haven’t had a phone call under five minutes with her in… ever, excluding the times I cut her off. I hang up on her a lot these days. I usually feel bad about it; I don’t mean to hurt her or anything. It’s just that I’ve been stressed out and the only times she talks to me is to question me on schoolwork.

It’s hard to deal with family issues on top of everything else. The family issues are just some icing thrown lazily onto my huge shit cake.

When I met her in September I had my life on track. Sure, I didn’t have it the best, but I had everything I needed. I was attending my classes and getting good grades. I had my friends to hang out with and a relatively problem free household. I first saw her across the courtyard at school. She was alone and struggling with her bike lock. She was easily the prettiest girl I’d ever seen on campus. Right then I knew I had to say something. I was having a good day so I thought ‘why not?’ and without thinking twice began to walk over to her. I was confident. However, to my horror when I got up to her the only words that I could muster were rather perverse “Hey pretty thang” and an awkward head nod. She just laughed though, emitting her adorable sound, and introduced herself: Jewel. Everything about her was cute. The way she smiled when we talked, and always knew what I was trying to say when I couldn’t come up with the words to say it, her little ski jump nose and always-soft wavy hair. We were always laughing when we hung out. We used to run around the play structure at the park screaming. We had to look ridiculous and probably scared away all the little kids, but we didn’t mind…

Ugh. I never knew that happy memories could become so sad. Life used to be so good before—

“Ow! What the fuck dad! Learn to fucking drive better.”

My dumbass dad just swerved hella hard on the freeway. I hate his driving. It’s not so much that he’s a bad driver that bugs me; it’s that he’s a hypocrite about it. He’s always speeding, not paying attention and on the phone, throwing his passengers around the car like a bunch of rag dolls. But when I’m driving anything less than perfection, no actually, even perfection, gets torn apart by his unconstructive criticisms. My 2.5 second stops at stop signs are all of a sudden ‘unsafe and reckless’ although he continuously runs through them without even slowing down. He’s completely unaware. My 5 mile per hour pre-signaled turns become uncomfortable and illegal, although I haven’t seen him use his blinkers in years, and he’s always entering his turns speeding. And if I ever tell him to signal a lane change or even wear his goddamn seatbelt, well… I end up walking. It’s whatever though, I’ve gotten used to it and learned to just not talk to him.

I shift my gaze outside, watching the exit signs and call boxes whish by. The thin white line separating the paved freeway from the shoulder squiggles left and right, occasionally disappearing under the car only to reappear a few frightening moments later. I dare not say anything, but I swear to god if we crash I’m never gonna let him live it down; if we live. I better live.

We’re driving passed vineyards; we must be getting close to Napa. I could go for a nice glass of Merlot right now. A glass of anything would do actually; even a crappy wine would lighten things up a bit. My eyes focus on a distant post, following it as it nears and discerns into a row in the vineyard, then jump to another post. I uncontrollably repeat this process. I wish I could just zone-out and fall asleep, but my mind won’t let me. My vision is trapped in this seemingly never-ending cycle. I’m tired.

And I’ve been sleeping a lot lately too. Everything happening has really been taking its toll on me. I can’t believe she would cheat on me with an underclassman. Well, technically it wasn’t cheating. I don’t know; we never officially went out. But we were hooking up and hanging out 24/7 for almost 5 months. Either way, that’s really low of her.

It’s been 2 months since I found out and we’re still dealing with it. Neither one of us could be the one to walk away so she just kept leading me on. We tried to work things out, and she said she was going to stop and be completely done with that dumbass, Rex? I think. I don’t know, he has some stupid dog’s name like that. It suits him though; he looks like some sort of furry animal. She said I come first but she kept doing it and kept lying to me. And I thought things were bad then but that’s before—

“Really, dad? Really? You’ve swerved twice now. That’s not normal, go get checked out.”

I used to be able to put up with his bad driving, but not since I talked to him. I decided to tell him about my situation with Jewel and of course he made things worse. He told me to fight the kid and to give up on Jewel. I was and am completely opposed to bailing on her, and I wasn’t the fighting type, but I still listened. He convinced me to let him teach me boxing. He used to box in high school until he got expelled for street fighting. I guess I should have seen that warning sign right there and not listened to him. Woops. For a couple weeks we trained and I was getting pretty good. Boxing quickly became my outlet for most of my stress and anger, but it was never quite enough.

I ran into Rex at a party a little while back and snapped. He was there with Jewel. I was not gonna let that slide. I pushed him back into a wall and cussed him out while a couple of his friends tried to pull me off. But I’m too strong to let that happened, I’ve been training! I managed to throw him on the ground and land a few punches before I finally got dragged off and thrown outside. I didn’t know how good I got him till my friend told me he was out of it the entire night. Hell yes!

Jewel ran outside crying and screaming at me. That was the last thing I wanted. I couldn’t take it and walked home. My DD stayed at the party and got smashed without me. After a few days of not talking, Jewel came up to me at school with a note. That note, filled with lies and more bullshit saying she was willing to try some more and take a step towards being friends and ‘seeing what happens’. Anyways, I believed it.

She came over one day after a talk about our relationship. It was one of those days where we were actually getting along and having a good time. But my dad was being disrespectful; he still believed I should walk away from the whole situation after fighting Rex. When she walked in and said hello he simply ignored her, walking right by her as if he couldn’t see her. When we went to the kitchen to grab some food, my dad was there. He offered me some juice. He never offers me juice; he’s a juice hog! Whenever mom buys any sort of tasty sweet beverage it’s always gone within 24 hours and it’s usually just because of him: whole cartons, just gone. Anyway, he stood there, carefully cradling the carton of juice close in his arms like a newborn baby, and offered me a glass – not Jewel. He even turned his body away from her slightly while he spoke, as if she was going to grab it and make a run for it. I got her some myself from a fresh carton in the fridge and we went upstairs to hang out a little bit more.

We had a fun time until it was time for her to go. The original plan was for me to drive her home, but my dad stopped us.

“You can’t have the car, I need it,” he said in his arrogant voice.

He didn’t need it; he was just trying to make things difficult for her, but this was too much of a step into the ‘being-a-dick-zone’ for me to let slide. He tried to get me to stay but I refused and decided to walk her. She lives 5 miles away, the buses were down, and it was late.

We walked, and talked, and huddled together to stay warm on the way. The trek didn’t turn out to be so bad. We caught up a bit and were even laughing again. It seemed like we were finally putting all the bad behind us. That is, until we got to her house. Rex was there waiting with a couple of his friends posted on Jewel’s front porch. As Rex came up Jewel began to yell, “It’s not what it looks like!”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?

Anyway, I didn’t have much time to analyze that statement because Rex gave me a push. He’s pretty damn strong for an underclassman. I pushed him back and said the most epic thing I could think of on the spot, which I thought was pretty cool, “Am I gonna have to knock you out again, champ?” It had all the elements needed to be an epic quote – it was quickly and smoothly spoken, threatening and dominant, and had a catchy condescending compliment attached, “champ.”

Well… I didn’t quite live up to the line. The next thing I knew I was knocked down on the ground. He’s really strong. I stayed there and blacked out. I woke up to my dad slapping my face. Jewel must have called him. He pulled me up and walked me into the car and didn’t hesitate a second to rub it in my face.

“Come on son, how’d you let that kid knock you out? How hard did he hit you?”

I was too out of it to respond, but I would have cussed him out. He was the one who put me up to fighting in the first place.

I drifted in and out of consciousness as we drove on, occasionally coming to and lazily peering out the window, my vision in a dreary haze. We rapidly sped by a couple streaks of moving light. Cars, I bet.

I come to again and gaze out at the continuous flow of movement outside. We’re driving past a forest of some sort. I can’t make out the shapes. It’s dark.

I shake myself awake as I realize I’m dozing off. I don’t want to crash, but it’s hopeless. We fly through the space ahead of us. Light mixes with our surroundings. Everything’s a blur. I don’t try to stay awake any longer and fall asleep.

How long has it been? I look over at my dad. He seems so far away. He’s staring at me, a look of concern on his face. I have a headache.

“You alright?”

“Yea, I’m fine. Where are we?”

“We’re in Napa, son. Go back to sleep, you could use some more rest.”

I squint and wait as the familiar faces around me to come into focus. My grandpa’s sleeping with his head hanging loosely over his shoulder. My brother is seated a little closer. He pulls his headphone out of his ear and turns to look at me. What’s his deal? He’s staring. I hear my mom on her phone talking a mile a minute to god-knows-who. She sounds distant but her voice still manages to echo through my head; it’s so piercing. My dad turns around again. I shut my eyes and smile.