I heard they take it real slow, out west.
I was excited about it. I’m an excitable person, so I know I need some slow in life. That’s what my doctor says.
Brandon, your heart might explode if you don’t find a way to slow down. I listened to her, I packed up my crap. Said goodbye to Jersey… cramped, crappy Jersey. Came out west. I’m living the dream, I thought to myself. I put an American flag on the bumper of my rusty white Honda and I made the trek, well, the drive. I stayed a few days with my buddy in this hole in Illinois, then went on again. To LA.
Boy, but once you’ve left Chicago behind …
You can feel it when there’s not enough humans for miles around. It creeps me out, I can’t handle it. Power through till the coast, I thought.
In any case, I didn’t take in much, on the first leg of the drive from Illinois. I was on phone calls. My brother called, wanting to complain about his cramped, crappy job. He carefully did not make any mention of my shiny new job, and I didn’t either. Then I had to call my new roommate and landlord, a guy called Cerulean, who my friend Kristy knew through another friend when she used to live in Austin and that was how we connected. He seemed alright, this Cerulean, except he rambled right off the bat on all kinds of little stuff – weird little things like if I bought the same brand bottles that he did, I better mark mine with post-its, because it wasn’t on him if the bottles got confused, and if I left the lights on in the inner courtyard with the hot tub all night when I wasn’t using it there would be a fee reflected in my monthly bill in addition to the cost of utilities because it was bad for the environment. It wasn’t that I wanted to dispute the terms and conditions right there, but I hadn’t yet agreed to live with this guy. We’d agreed that I’d come and visit. See if the place worked for me. I hadn’t even met him in person. But I tried to be agreeable, I did – Uh-huh, Uh-huh, I went – because the phone call had already been going on for an astonishing thirty-eight minutes. Luckily, though quite sharply, he let me know he was late on a deadline for work. He wouldn’t have time to talk like this every day. Okay! Bye! said I. He went on to let me know that he might not be able to be home when I arrived in two days because he might still be at work or in traffic, so he’d let me know. It depended on if his boss needed him to stay late. Leave me a key? Okay! Bye! I said. He couldn’t do that, he snarled, he couldn’t just leave me a key, because there were homeless people and drug addicts who were swarming the place and it wasn’t safe. I’d have to wait in the Starbucks around the corner if I still wanted to come as early as eight pm. Got it, see you tomorrow, I said. I hung up on him. A strange, trembling tension filled the interior of my car. A dark, invading spirit. I felt a pang. Something like dread. The night was falling around the highway, and car lights were turning on; my eyes felt as if they might be red-rimmed, and the sky was streaked salmon and grey, like the underside of a big flabby fish. A dead fish. The phone lit up again: my sister was calling. I let it go to voicemail. Then I called her back so I could recount in great and exaggerated detail the strange mannerisms of Cerulean, and as I ranted I felt the demon in the car dissipate away.
After all these calls I drove for a while in the quiet and dark down the highway. When I started to feel like I was floating outside of time, like I’d float right into the headlights of the oncoming cars, I stopped at the closest motel to sleep the night.
The next day dawned bright. The morning in that comfortable, anonymous motel had no conscience, no memory or guilt for the day before. California – only a day away. The air was cool and my coffee was hot. The highways were so easy here.
Truth is, I like driving. It’s a way of making progress, but it’s not working on the laptop, it’s not texting in a dating app, and it’s not talking on a Zoom call.
I had that brief stint as an Uber driver, you know. It got boring and I didn’t like making small talk, but it was easy work for me. I drive smoothly and defensively, and people liked that.
My phone rang a few times. A few texts from Cerulean came in. No, I didn’t check or answer … my words were gone.
Around the mountains of Utah, the air seemed to lighten, perfumed and sweet, billowing from some corner of the world that was bigger and cleaner and more abundant than I’d known the world could be. I let the windows roll down.
Just breathed in that signature of wealth on the wind.
Smell that? That’s wealth.
The next day, as I neared LA with the warm wind in my hair and coke in my hand, I saw traffic darkening the route on the phone screen to orange and red. Well, what could you do? There’d be no avoiding it. I went off-highway to piss and load up on pretzels and water.
From the convenience store, I joined a two-lane road that wasn’t quite a highway. Speed limit 45. I settled into cruise control at 55 and fiddled with the radio to hear what played around here. I was feeling magnanimous, my good mood expansive, and my mind opens to receive the love of the west. An enormous, gleaming black pickup turned into the road ahead of me at a snail’s crawl and didn’t speed up. That’s okay. Drive at your pace, baby. The road was utterly empty and abandoned, so I started to pass him using the opposite lane. But he sped up as I moved to his left, revving up to 30, 40, 60 miles an hour. I blinked and slowed down to pull back in behind him. I slowed cruise control to 50, to let some distance pile up between us.
I found a top hits station with decent reception and settled back, pleased.
Ahead, the pickup had braked behind a car that was turning into another road. The oncoming lane was still abandoned. I passed them.
Baby, I hollered with the radio at the top of my lungs, don’t leave me –
The pickup roared by me on my left and swerved to take back its position ahead of me. He didn’t give me enough space and I had to slam the brake. My mouth fell open. Okay, okay.
I didn’t fall back again. I stayed several car lengths behind him as we drove at nearly 60.
It was inevitable, I suppose – at this rate we ran up against a train of cars going around 40. The road was still straight and empty. With a thrill of pleasure, as the pickup slowed behind the train, I passed them all, staying steady at just under 60.
I couldn’t really relax anymore. I looked in the rearview. Yeah, he was coming up behind me, hurtling past the train of cars. He had to be going at least 100. I winced. This wasn’t worth it. This wasn’t smooth or defensive driving. I slowed to 50, to make it easier for him to pass.
Once he had, though, he swerved into the right lane and braked hard. Luckily I was already slowing down. I’d have crumpled like an accordion into him.
But he skidded. No wonder. He wobbled sideways and came to a stop halfway onto the grass, perpendicular to the road. I swerved around him as my heart rate accelerated. I saw in the rearview that the other cars had slowed too and there wouldn’t be a crash. Holy shit. With jittery fingers I hurried to change the route on the map, to rejoin the highway now instead of later as I’d planned.
It had changed, the highway, in the time I’d been off it. It was wider. Uglier. Resigned to more lanes and cars.
It had the look of a space you weren’t supposed to see, a well-trafficked space to be sure, but still – only a space between.
And yeah. Traffic.
As I merged in, a guy in a Lexus cut across two lanes, without blinkers, to land in front of me. I’d only been going around 15 but I still had to brake, annoyance returning and more easily this time; there was plenty of space behind me. Then a woman in an Audi tried to cut in front of me too. Without signaling. There was still plenty of space behind me. An absolute abundance of space. She didn’t have to take the measly space before me. I accelerated. Her car swerved left and right and tried again to move in front of me. I held firm. My teeth were grinding. Yeah, I could see there was an exit coming up ahead, but she could come in behind me. Was there toxic gas spewing from the trunk of my car? Did her brakes not work? She actually lay on her horn. I held firm, hating the half-car distance between me and the Lexus. It wasn’t safe. She steadied, and I tried to relax. Fuck’s sake. I fell back to a car’s distance from the Lexus. She veered in front of me and I slammed on the brake, my heart leaping into my throat. She parked. We were at a standstill. On a six-lane highway.
This was as slow as slow gets.
The cars in the lane to the left were a little too fast and close together for me to try to merge into their lane.
She got out of her car. She was an older white woman, I saw, good-looking, well-kept, with sensible clothes and a long, heavy fall of dark hair. She pushed her sunglasses up as she marched to my window.
I didn’t roll it down, so I couldn’t exactly hear what she screamed at me. I could guess, though.
She rapped sharply on my window. Her face was strained, the veins painfully visible in her reddened neck. Yeah, I was going to open the window. I’d get right on that.
As I stared up at her, her expression contorted into a show of rage and fury like none I’d ever witnessed. Beyond ugliness. Beyond comprehension. She shook her fist at me and turned, trembling, back to her Audi.
That demon was back. I could feel it breathing down my neck.
I tried to roll my shoulders down. Breathed deep. I’d better get out of the right lane. I slipped slowly into the third lane from the right.
A spectacular sunset was spreading over our heads. A sunset like you wouldn’t believe, deep and rich in blood-orange and grapefruit-pink. They wrote sonnets for sunsets like that. I calmed down some as I looked into its hot eye, like the runny center of the world’s most perfect breakfast egg.
Traffic grew worse.
That hot eye was looking down at hundreds upon thousands of shiny beetles, I supposed, crawling at 5 miles an hour in a long and winding river.
And then we came to a total standstill.
My phone rang. I blew out a breath and answered. My brother’s sarcastic drawl filled the car.
You ignore your phone yesterday? What’s your problem?
I’m battling in the wild west, bro.
He laughed. What?
Worst traffic I’ve ever seen.
That’s what you get, he said.
I heard a hint of unsarcastic amusement in his voice. Whatever made him happy. I did feel bad about leaving like I was. I knew he didn’t want to find a new roommate, didn’t like change.
Look, he started. Look, I want to tell you something.
What?
The sunset spread its vibrant hues above the crawling beetles, but it was dying now. The light was thinning.
Congratulations on your new job, he said. He spoke loudly. I’m proud of you. I hope it’s perfect.
My heart twisted. It’ll be a shitshow, I finally said. But maybe less of a shitshow than –
A horn blared behind me and I just barely stopped myself from jumping. A car’s length had opened up in front of me, the traffic inching forward, and I hadn’t taken it. The Hyundai behind me pressed close. It looked like it was about a millimeter from making contact.
Curses burst from my chest, now that there was someone to hear them, as I slid forward and put on my blinker. I’d get out of the Hyundai’s way before it actually hit me.
Woah! Take it easy.
I heard it too, how much more harshly and discordantly my voice came out than I intended.
Man I can’t, they can’t drive here, I moaned. Look, they’re not even letting me switch lanes. We’re going about 2 miles an hour. No one’s letting me through.
My sister called. I joined her in the ongoing one.
Well, are you in Movieland yet? she asked. Hollywood, I mean?
We’re in traffic, my brother answered.
I cursed some, for her benefit.
Think happy thoughts, she suggested. Think of the new job. I still have a hard time thinking of it as work. It just isn’t.
Yeah, they’ll be paying you to sit around drinking bubble tea, my brother said. You won’t know what to do with yourself. There’ll be nothing to do.
Come in at ten, listen to a lecture, have a late lunch, go to a meeting, bike home, my sister mused. Was that how he described it, yeah?
Pretty much, yeah, I muttered. I finally gave an old man the stink eye, shaking my fist, and he let me into the lane. I let out a shaking breath. I had to calm the fuck down. But you guys have to get a load of the potential new roommate, I said aloud.
Why? they asked.
First, guess his name, I said. I didn’t think I’d told either of them yet, though I’d already complained to my sister about him. When they couldn’t guess, I said, dramatically, Cerulean.
They fell into gales of laughter. I grinned.
But I like it, my sister said. It’s artsy. Our names are boring.
Sure, sure. But listen to this text he sends me yesterday. He – Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. The woman in the car to my right, who I’d been behind before, was gesticulating and shouting at the person in her passenger’s seat. She looked like she was crying. Stabbing her finger in my direction. She looked like she was gonna blow. Curiosity got the better of me. I rolled the window down.
She gave me a glare from the side of her eye. She cried that I’d been tailgating her.
I was not, I said, shocked. I kept a normal distance.
My siblings whispered something on the call, but I couldn’t make it out.
The lady slammed her hand down repeatedly over her wheel, her shoulders shaking. She cried about how she couldn’t take it anymore. I closed up the window and stared determinedly ahead. She doesn’t exist. Doesn’t exist.
Curiosity flared again. I glanced to the right.
Her middle finger trembled at me. Then she closed her tinted window. I got a last glimpse of her red, teary face.
My siblings were quiet, waiting for me to talk again.
Take it easy. Back up. Slow down. Or your heart might explode.
Where was I? I asked, rather cheerfully, I thought. Oh yeah. I navigated to Cerulean’s texts. Hi there, I read aloud. So I just wanted to go over a couple of quick things with you that we didn’t get to yesterday. I come home between 6 and 12 am and I leave for work between 9 and 12 pm so I would really appreciate it if you kept quiet hours from 8 pm to 11 am because I can’t have people making noise when I’m sleeping or trying to unwind. Quiet hours do include quiet light, meaning please keep lights off in shared spaces and if you’re going to be making noise or using light please do so in your room with the door closed. I would appreciate it if you used earbuds for Netflix. You work too, I’m sure you understand where I’m coming from when I say it’s exhausting to come home to disruptions in your personal bubble and if you don’t know what it’s like I’m sure you’ll learn after you’ve been with us for a while. Boundaries are a huge issue for me. I’ll write up an agreement we can sign. You’re always welcome to hang out with my friends when they come over but then you will be asked to chip in your fair share for drinks and don’t gaslight me that you didn’t drink or eat with us. I have a cleaner come twice a week and we will split the cost, this is nonnegotiable because it’s very stressful and triggering to come home to filth –
You’re making this up, my brother said.
I can’t listen anymore, my sister laughed.
Look, it’s simple, don’t move in with him.
I have to visit and meet him, I feel invested now, I said. But yeah.
How old is he? my sister asked.
He’s a little younger, I think. But I don’t know.
Drive safe, yeah?
They bid me goodnight.
Now it was just me and the demon in the car, the demon who hadn’t left, though it had fallen quiet. The sun was almost gone.
At least we had sped up to a hiccupping 10 miles an hour.
Why am I doing this to myself? I suddenly thought. Why don’t I stop for a rest somewhere, stretch my legs, and get out of the car? It’s fine if I get there at 10 pm. He doesn’t want me there at 8 anyway.
I merged right, and right again, and right again. There was an IHOP nearby, the map said. I exited the highway and found it, and it refreshed me.
The odd thing about these roads was that they had four or five lanes, even when they weren’t highways. And they were utterly empty and abandoned. It was as if there was too much space, too much concrete, so the road had expanded for no reason other than to use up all this concrete and space. Like hacking scientists using up a government grant because the money was there and it had a deadline. Like rich kids taking hour-long showers because at this moment, the water was there and no one to stop them. I exited the IHOP onto the rightmost lane, intending to continue to take the freeway exit.
A derelict intersection sprawled up ahead, the light still green for me.
A shiny white Honda exited a gas station across the intersection and cut across every single lane, almost hitting me as it reached my lane. Uh-uh, I couldn’t take it anymore. I swerved right, passing by the asshole with inches to spare and shaking my middle finger at him. I glimpsed a heavily bearded guy in wraparound sunglasses.
I stopped at the next red light. The ramp to the freeway was right after it.
How long was this freaking light?
Suddenly, driving the wrong way in the rightmost opposing lane, the guy in the white car came screeching up to the intersection and spun around to drive up to me. He was gunning right for me. Adrenaline surged in my blood. I accelerated forward, through the red light and onto the ramp.
I merged onto the freeway.
Maybe I shouldn’t have flipped him off. But he’d been in the wrong. He could have killed me. These people didn’t know how to keep normal distances and boundaries. How hard is it to be careful to keep a safe bubble of space around every car? I was only letting off a little steam so I didn’t blow.
A car horn howled behind me. It was him. He was really close, on my tail, I could see him in my mirror, just barely over the bright headlights in the darkness: blaring his horn and weaving left and right and shouting something like a maniac. I sped up. There was a truck ahead of me. I veered around it, forgetting to signal, so I could move in front of it. He was still on me. I sped up more, putting another two cars between us. He kept coming, on my left.
His window rolled down and he stuck his head as far as he could to the right, pounding on his chest and shrieking me a death sentence.
He looked like an anthropomorphic ape in an apocalyptic movie. He looked like a hitman in a mafia movie. He looked unhinged.
He couldn’t keep to his lane. Cars were scattering and honking.
He shook something shiny in his right hand – a beer bottle – threw it – it hit the side of my car. My heart beat a deranged tempo in the top of my throat. He hit me. He hit me with a bottle. He wasn’t actually going to turn into me, was he?
He swerved right into me.
I fell onto the shoulder to avoid him and passed the car in front from their right, missing them by millimeters. They honked. Justifiable. But he wanted to kill me. I hit the gas even more, praying, for the first time in my life, that a police car was around.
There were none.
He chased me.
It was like a video game.
Only one option. One of us had to get off the highway. It would be him. There was an exit up ahead. I made to take it and he followed me, his headlights blinding my mirrors. At the very last moment that I could, I turned back onto the highway. I felt something clip the back of the car. I stayed on the shoulder, almost crashing into a truck. It honked like a psycho but slowed to let me pass back into the right lane. I glanced back.
I’d lost him.
I waited to exit for as long as I could. Staying on the highway was the best way to put maximum distance between us.
I couldn’t breathe. I was fine. But I couldn’t breathe.
Two-lane exit up ahead. I’d take it.
Some jackass was already taking it, in the exit’s left lane, slowing down to a ridiculous 40 or 30 miles an hour. I lay on the horn. Get out of my fucking way. The car signaled right, slowing even more, to ease over into the exit’s right lane.
I blew past them, making sure to give them the stink eye.
The driver was a kid. Sixteen, maybe. He looked scared. A large woman who might have been his mom was in the passenger’s seat, clutching at the sides of the car.
A horrible feeling seared into me.
I stopped at the first gas station I saw.
I parked.
I just sat there for a while, my heart hammering. I just took these deep, gasping breaths. When I felt like I’d calmed the fuck down, I got out to check on the car.
Yeah, that was burnt rubber. And that was a vicious dent in the side, and a deep scratch on the back.
I returned to sit in the driver’s seat, my legs out and the door open. Paranoia seized me. I sat properly and closed and locked the doors.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Cerulean. The preview of the text read Where are you? I came home specifically
That kid’s scared face. I did that.
I don’t cry often. But I started crying.
It helped.
My heartbeat slowed. I wiped my snot on my sleeve.
It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.
I restarted the car. Moved it into a lane of the gas station, so I could fill the tank.
Then I turned around and headed home.