Driven Distractions

The back seat of Dad's car is full of newspapers and discarded memos, some of them crumpled with shoe marks. There is a spot where I melted a crayon on the seat once, a long time ago, and I pick at it absently with my fingernails as he starts the engine.

“So she needs a car, we’ll get her a car for graduation,” Dad says, turning to Mom in the passenger seat.

“It’s not that simple, Julian. We don’t know where to get it – she needs a license for whatever state – is it going to be bought in California? Is it going to be bought in Pennsylvania? Is it going to be bought in Texas? How are we going to get it from one place to the other?” Her voice rises for the final word of each sentence, as if she’s annunciating for a small child or foreigner.

“Any of the above sound like wonderful options.” It’s hard to tell sometimes whether dad’s actually certain, or whether he just wants to end the conversation as soon as possible.

"Don't you hae anything productive to add at all?" she asks.

“I would be more than happy to buy a one-way ticket to The Woodlands and then…” Dad makes a left turn at the same time as the pick-up on his intended road merges left into his intended lane. “…drive the car for her – or with her, even – back to California.”

Mom looks at him incredulously. “Have you been listening at all? We’re talking about the beginning of the summer. You’d need to …”
“Dad!” I yell.
“…fly to California and then drive to… Julian! What are you doing?...”

Mom has become aware that we are solidly on the wrong side of the double yellow line, driving toward an unladened tractor trailer and just about the right distance from it to start imagining carnage. Dad waits for the pick-up to finish passing and then switches smoothly to the conventional side of the street.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Mom stares at him for a few moments. He rolls his eyes and looks incredulously into the rearview mirror.

“Llllighten up,” he says, drawing out the L to show that he’s only playing at acting defensive.
Mom shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s funny,” she says.

“Aww, he didn’t really have a choice,” I chime in from the back.

“It’s not how I would drive,” she says, her mouth a grim line. There’s no way she was even watching when it happened. How would she know?

“Why do these things always happen to me when you guys are in the car?” Dad says in a stagey whine, now feigning incredulity. We sit in silence for a moment. “I mean, I think you bring trouble upon me.” He looks right, his eyes wide, one hand spread theatrically. When the silence continues, he snorts a couple times, half laughing. This usually cracks me up, but I won’t let it this time. He’s taking this too far. I’m not amused. Mom is less amused than I am.

She shakes her head and continues planning my future. “So anyway, the car’s one issue,” she says. Then she begins a long, one-sided discussion on whether I should come home to Pennsylvania between Texas and California, and whether Dad should take the divers that they coach to their summer competitions, which leads to a diatribe on how they both can’t leave, and how dad gets to go on most of the trips while she stays at home and holds down the fort, and how she’d like to get out more and… I don’t know. Other things.

“Fine.” Says Dad. “I’ll stay at home. You go on all the trips. You do whatever you want. I’m happy either way.”

“Julian, that’s not what I want. I want to talk about this civilly together. I know there are things that you want, and there are things that I want, and we should be able to make them work together…”

“I don’t know why you ask me for my opinion – I put in my two cents already, and it was shot down before I got the words out.” The anger, I think, is an unstaged emotion.

It’s time for me to chime in again. “But that’s because it was a stupid idea. And it was like, five minutes ago. You weren’t even listening,” I whine from the back. I don’t know why I like egging him on so much. Dad turns into the Hilton parking lot.

“So I guess we better go up to my room and figure all this stuff out,” I say to the car.

“Brilliant idea,” says dad. “You two figure it out – I’ll just be in my room.”

“Dad, aren’t you coming?”

Dad sets his face to confusion and blinks, shrugging and twitching between confusion, stubbornness, and blank idiocy. He likes behaving childishly to prove points. “I’m completely out of it. I’m useless. What use could you possibly have for me?” He pulls into the parking spot and turns off the engine.

“I don’t know why he fells like he should get out of this,” mutters mom to me as she closes the car door. It is, by no means, shut gently, but at least she doesn’t slam it.