Young and Reckless

Two

With my hands gripping the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles are so white that their brightness stands to rival the feathered wings of an angel, I need to escape from the slow-moving traffic. I have watched several cars turn off to a little road to the left, no doubt trying to escape the sea of vehicles and waste gases too. I take the turning when we reach it and drive towards a gas station. The tank’s two thirds empty, it wouldn’t do any harm to fill it up again.

I look to my right. The man-boy is asleep, with his head leant against the window, his warm breath has caused a patch of misty condensation to appear on the glass. His brown beanie hat slid off of his head some half an hour ago and sits on his shoulder, rising and falling with each time he inhales and exhales. In the backseat is the golden goddess. She’s still asleep or still watching me, I can’t really tell and I’ve given up on trying to guess. With her honey curls framing her face and her freckles across her nose, she’s the very picture of perfection. Just now, I hate perfection.

“Wake up.” I shake the man-boy. “Wentz, wake up. I’m gonna get some gas.” The man-boy mumbles in reply and lazily swats me away. There’s only one thing for it. I unbuckle my seat, silently open my own door, tip-toe out and slam the door as loud as I possibly can. Both the man-boy and the honey-haired goddess jolt awake. I smile at them, trying to look charming and innocent and menacing all at once. I can only guess how terribly the smile failed.

As I fill up the gas tank they stay in the car, taking a while to fully wake themselves up. They exchange words that I cannot hear through the rolled up windows. I watch her lips enviously. I can bet a million dollars that whatever she’s saying is far from monosyllables hiding a world of emotions and statements standing in front of questions. I imagine flirtatious suggestions hiding nothing at all slipping past her lips, rolling off of her tongue. The tank is full and I walk away from my 1971 Plymouth Valiant towards a poorly lit store.

The store’s interior is as plain as the exterior, save for the mass of products inside. The interior has been painted off-white by some colour-blind fool and I think that the off-white paint is as tasteless as the unpainted redbrick on the building’s outside. The counter is yellow and off-white and cream, greatly resembling a slice of lemon meringue pie. An acne-afflicted male stands behind the counter with his elbows rested upon the lemon yellow countertop. His head sits in his cupped hands and his eyes are cast downwards, reading an article in some magazine. Here is a real man-boy. I guess that he’s twenty-years-old and still lives with his parents. They’re good people, hard-working people. They’re the kind of people whose day-to-day lives never change. Each room in their house has a colour theme. They have family photos on the mantle and along the staircase. In the upstairs hallway, the downstairs hallway and in the kitchen, paintings painted by long dead artists hang on the walls. There are several potted plants throughout the house and his parents own two cats, a dog and several fish that reside in a large fish tank in a room on the second floor. His room is unchanged from when he was thirteen-years-old. It’s still lined with Star Wars posters and action figures and models of airplanes that he put together himself several years ago. The cashier catches me staring at him and straightens up.

I approach the counter, pay for forty-two litres of petrol with as few words and possible and try to walk quickly out of the store in a way that doesn’t suggest that I am purposely walking quickly.

When I get back to my car it is empty. I assume that the man-boy and the goddess have gone for a walk in an attempt to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. I sit alone in the vast car for a forever. It seems even larger with no one else there to try to fill the space with me. There’s no honey goddess in the backseat, sprawled across the three seats with her eyes closed or ears open. There’s no boy pretending to be a man with a stubbly beard sleeping in the front seat. I hug myself. Look at me, feeling alone.

It’s only a matter of time before my mind wanders. I move my car out of the way to distract myself and to let other cars get gas. I tap the beats of songs against the dashboard. I whistle tunes from childhood. I turn on the radio. I turn off the radio. I listen to a CD. I listen to the next CD and the next and the next. I run out of CDs. Eventually I run out of distractions and my imagination gets the better of me. The man-boy and the goddess might be around the back of that poorly lit store, groping each other and whispering sweet nothings. His lips against her breast, his hands on her hips, fingertips only just beneath the top of her jeans.

“Alright, Em-Bo?” The car door swings open eleven minutes after I push the images of Man-boy and Goddess from my mind.

“Pete. I hate it when you call me Em-Bo.” I hear the goddess giggle from behind me. The car feels less spacious now. A part of me is glad and a part of me wants the insanity that being alone brings to come back.

Pete slides into the front passenger seat and flashes that toothy grin at me like he always does. “But Sian doesn’t mind it when I call her Sian-La.”

I want to say, Sian-La doesn’t mind it when you call her anything, but I keep my mouth shut, bite back my tongue and smile that same failed charming smile.
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