was left befuddled, and honestly amused. What a way to start this less than perfect day, a chance encounter with an exotic dancer. I stood flabbergasted too long, and the steel doors started to
close in front of me. Luckily, I jammed my hand between them at the last second.
...
My deep-red, Buick sedan sat eagerly in its parking space, awaiting my presence. I felt shaken from the strange encounter, but I stuffed her business card into my wallet as a sort of keep-sake. As I slid my keys into the passenger-side door, fleeting glimpses of the rocket returned. Simply by sitting in the gray, polyester amalgamation that was my Captain’s chair, my eyes could close softly to let me remember the pull of Earth’s gravity, and relive how it broke away around me.
The traffic wasn’t bad on my way from the side streets onto the interstate. Lucky me. I merged onto a barren highway without a second thought. As always, I checked around my shoulder, even though I knew there couldn’t be a car there. My Dad, and later my flight coach, was so strict about knowing my surroundings. Every time I peek over my left shoulder, I think of him and my first times behind both yoke and wheel.
Back then, in the 90’s, my Dad wasn’t so gentle. He was tough, you either did it right or you did it again, but in hindsight I'm grateful for that. It was good for me. I guess since I was the only child, both my parents needed to get it right the first time, so to speak.
The top mirror needed adjusting, but I left it where it was. Its arm was worn-out and the mirror was barely hanging on. Through it, I saw my duffle bag sitting in the backseat instead of the departing city skyline. And after all that time, the weather still hadn’t gotten any sunnier.
An overpass swooped overhead, and I felt its shadow for a blink. Farther in front of me, the off ramp spat out a slow moving sun-burnt pickup truck. I couldn’t stare at the two men inside long enough to study them, but I did have time to notice that the reddish-orange Ford they were driving was infected with rust, and not a panel had been spared.
They pulled in behind me, and caught up quicker than expected. I scrutinized my rear-view mirror since the road ahead was empty, but the figures in the Ford were too small for my eyes to explain. They passed me on the left, and sped off with a dirty, noisy exhaust that sounded like some
kind of dying, mechanical, animal. By then, even the tallest building from the city had long since vanished behind the us.
The truck pulled farther away, and I lost sight of it going over a hill. Finally they’re gone. Now the road will be more peaceful. I remember thinking to myself. Peaceful might have been an understatement though. The road was dead! And decaying too, If I weren’t flying past at sixty miles per hour, I’d have had to endure the marshy, standing brown water on both sides of the crowned highway. Not to mention the mosquitoes
passing between.
It seemed like the closer I got to Sedalia, the taller and more frequent those cattails on the roadsides became. It made sense when I saw young
soy and corn crops in the ground, though. Agricultural runoff and such. I only pretend to know what that means, but in my head I’ve always envisioned a farmer with a firetruck hose flooding his land with a lake’s worth of water. Surreal right? The same thought made me chuckle out loud in the
car when I first thought of it.
My little outburst gave way to silence inside that speeding metal death-trap. At least the Space Shuttle had a parachute, all I had in there
was a seatbelt and an airbag. A cheap airbag that the guy I bought it from told me not to worry about. Good thing I’m not still driving that car.
Even my eyes felt quiet, and I caught myself dropping in and out of consciousness while operating the motor vehicle. So, in order to avoid a
horrific traffic accident due to my drowsiness, I humored my inner child. I turned every knob, button, and selector to the “On” position, and then
smiled at the novelty. The wipers swept wildly and out of sync, my lights barely appeared on the black tarmac, and the radio played loud static. But
the real fun had yet to begin.
After a deep breath, and a glance for traffic in my rear-view mirror, my right hand started to flick every switch off again. One thousand one, one
thousand two, one thousand three... Within six seconds or so, the car had ceased its ruckus, and everything was back in the off position. You might think six seconds is quick, but for me that’s not even a slightly good time.
Back at NASA, I used to play this game all the time with Lucas. Those cockpit training pods had twice the number of controls that my crappy Buick had, and back then, I could flip ‘em all off in the same amount of time. We had a millisecond timer and everything. What a stupid way to get in trouble.
...
The “On Off” game was fun until I saw some cherries in the distance, just over the top of the horizon. Thank God they were in front of me. If I ever have to explain my dumbass game to another authority figure and get that “Act your age” glare again, I’ll just save them the time and explain
that I’m a recovering Meth addict.
Of course I’m not, but sometimes I feel like if I had just said that to Captain Verner when he caught us playing in the pod, the expensive, delicate pod, he might have just kept his responsibility speech to himself. That man was born to be old. I do wonder how he’s holding up though. He’s
probably someone’s hard-ass grandpa by now.
It was a state trooper, in one of those newer, all black muscle cars. He had already stepped out, so they must have been sitting there for a while. From behind, I noticed that the car he pulled over was a tall, familiar, burnt orange. The closer I got, the more I suspected that it was the same truck from before. And as I sped by, a vindicated, Grinch-like joy swept over me.
What event in our collective history caused this feeling to evolve? I’m not sure, but to see someone who had previously slighted me flip and flail in the peril of their own actions, what a rush of satisfaction. It should be bottled and sold in Walmart.
The two passengers had their heads turned in anticipation of the officer’s arrival, and no doubt had been fumbling around for insurance documents moments before. I wouldn’t bet that they had any, that truck was rusted just enough to seem sketchy. After I flew by them, I replayed the scene over and over again in my head, trying to piece together any missed detail. Anything to get my mind off the unwaveringly straight road.
Maybe I let my mind get too far away from the present, because the next thing I knew, I was daydreaming, back in the simulator, being hurled
around at four g’s with sensors on my temples and chest. That first time in, it was like a roller coaster from Hell.
“One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. Breath in.” Called the instructor through the radio. Audibly, I sucked in what felt
like a gallon of air through my nostrils.
“Agh, I’m losing it.” I called back.
“No you’re not, you’re fine. Just focus.” He replied.
I don’t remember blacking out. The only lasting impression was the headache, and I stopped getting those after three more attempts. But, when the spinner slowed back down, and I came to, I felt like my body had been crushed under a tractor. Back in my car, in the real world, I blinked myself awake and inhaled the same way they trained me.
“I’ve got to stop reminiscing so often. At least while I’m in the car.” I said out loud to no one.