Silverton
It was nothing like a dream the second time the tires lifted, spinning above the hot tattered asphalt while the world shifted.
The stale, dusty day-old smell of weed smoke hung lightly in the air, tossed around by the deep rumble of tree-sifted, mountain fresh morning air. Damp milky fog lit up above the hood by two heavy yellow parallel beams obscured the tree-blanketed slopes and rocky outcroppings they framed, but we all squinted for them anyway as if to clear the path by sheer force of will. The air hadn’t quite emitted its late morning accumulation of moisture and stung us with thick, choking humidity, but we could all feel the heaviness pressing on our lungs. We’ve never been too old to love that pressing feeling, that perpetual sting of sweat. Not yet.
*****
The dreamlike fractals of memory that make up my childhood tingle with a warm spark. The memory of the first time isn’t like that. Cold and black as the night itself, the memory flickers with the dreary light of the night sky alongside sharp intermittent jabs of pained crimson.
The half moon glared down on my solemn face as I watched everything I had known for the past six years, my only six years, grow smaller and disappear around the bend in the dirty rear view. Dad smiled his big wide grin, reached a strong hand back towards me and tussled up my hair. He told me to look out at the stars as he drew his hand back to the steering wheel, his other letting go to press down something to his left. A rush and a pull of wind poured in at me as the glass window gave way to furious howls and the sweet scents of gasoline, pine needles and faintly tangy saltwater. I pulled my head out the window and twisted my body, letting the back of my neck rest on the space that had eaten the glass pane, my eyes pointed straight up to the endless sky. Dad fumbled around, reaching across to the glove box while I watched the black canvas with its pinpricks of white dots and the translucent, sweeping scar of the Milky Way curving overhead. As he lit a cigarette, his elbows holding the steering wheel steady, his eyes shifting from it to the road and back, he told me as he always did that each dot was a sun. A sun, just like our sun, and he asked me if it made me feel small. I said it did but it wasn’t true. Leaving home made me feel small, like the parts of me I knew, the parts that made me feel big were pulled out from underneath me. Watching the tiny sun at the end of his cigarette flicker and grin at me, flashing off of the shining edge of his silvery flask on the dash as he moved it to his mouth and back with the confident motions of someone ready for the new adventure while I was terrified, made me feel small. His tattered storybook shirt and weathered hands made me feel small. The stars made everything possible. They made me big and invincible so I kept watching.
A pressure on the back of my neck pushed my head up. I squirmed as the glass window lifted me, craning my head up at an awkward angle. I pulled myself free and as the wind cut out I heard Dad’s deep, bellowing laugh echoing through the car, nearly vibrating my seat. It twisted around my high-pitched shrieks of laughter in a dissonant symphony, and I scrambled across the backseat as he reached down again, cracking the far window with a deep earthy chuckle. The window snapped shut again before I could jam my fingers in the gap to pry my way to crisp thundering air and invincibility. I threw myself left and right as Dad shifted the buttons and the windows, me trying desperately to reach the open air and wheezing from exertion and wild gut laughter. Dad peered at me, his crooked white teeth shining bright as the moon in the mirror above him. He reached to open his flask and looked back at me again. His left hand rolled the wheel around like a clock, his right clutching the sparkling silver as we drifted past the head of a turn. He was about to say something when the flask, a book full of maps, bits of loose change and everything else jumped up, flew to the right and smashed against the passenger side window as the tires lifted and the world shifted.
*****
By the second time, we didn’t feel invincible anymore. Inevitable maybe, but not invincible. We knew too much for that. The rattling of empty beer cans and odor of smoke stained sweaters lingered around us as we sifted through thoughts, cataloguing the stories we would keep and the feelings we would soon forget. A harsh wind drew the fog away and I held my breath, scanning the steep slopes and meandering, winding bends of road ahead. I gripped the steering wheel and checked behind as they got into position, grass stained jean shorts and thrift store baseball caps shifting around in a flurry abstracted by the strained reflection I saw in Dad’s rusted silver. I set the flask upright in the center cup holder where it rattled against the bumpy road. As we rounded the first corner, the top-heavy van lurched and clattered, harmonizing the buzzing rattle of a broken speaker cover in the passenger door. Papery sounds of shifting luggage mixed with chatter and laughter as everyone fell to the side of the van, holding its edge down with the strong arm of gravity. The wind whistled past the windshield as I glanced back at the cacophony of bodies holding us down, and I called out as I pushed down into the next turn. Calls of bubbling laughter became cries as the papery sound turned to dry thuds, the world-worn flask jumped up and hit the roof, spewing acrid brown liquid across the dash, the tires lifted and the world shifted.
When I opened my eyes the bent remains of the flask glared at me, sunlight glancing off its side and into my eyes. I took one ragged, shallow tingling breath, and then I didn’t feel that heavy pushing feeling on my chest any longer.