You may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
And you may ask yourself, “Am I right? Am I wrong?”
And you may say to yourself, “My God! What have I done?”
- David Byrne
To Dad, for writing this book with me, for teaching me everything is possible.
ONE DAY, Daniel left home without saying a word to his father. It wasn’t a plan he had been scheming for weeks, days, or months. If anything, it was an impulsive decision, a culmination of nighttime dreams, customers at work, and conversations with his best friend. He had always wanted to leave. He just never thought he could, or that he would. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing he had the power to jump, but the fear of what lay beneath always kept him rooted in place.
But something shifted that day. Instead of retreating from the cliff, he turned back around. His feet carried him forward, walking, running, sprinting, until he was airborne—falling feet-first into a blue unknown. It all started with a vivid dream, one that clung to his memory like wet sand.
In the dream, he was driving a green 1973 Pontiac, the newest model. All the windows were rolled down, and the radio blasted loud enough to drown out the world. His eyes were closed, yet the car drove perfectly straight. The leather steering wheel smooth beneath his fingertips. It was as if his hands knew the way better than he did. A wide smile stretched across his face. He didn’t know his destination; the road was endless, and the sky the bluest of blue. His heart beat fast, not from fear or excitement, but a third unexplainable thing.
Then he woke up to the spinning ceiling fan in his room. Birds chirped outside as he buried his face in a pillow, trying in vain to return to the Pontiac. There was no use. Soon, the alarm clock would ring, work awaited him. Dreams, after all, always gave way to reality.
Daniel got dressed and entered the living room. There was a plate with a half-eaten ham and cheese sandwich and three empty cans of beer on yesterday’s clean table. The clock on the wall read eight thirty. In fifteen minutes, he had to be at work, not leaving him much time to make breakfast. He hesitated, reached for the sandwich, and took a bite. The cans of beer he cleaned up; they clashed against each other as they landed in the trash can. Even from the living room, he could hear his father’s snores. He didn’t worry about the noise. The man could sleep through an earthquake.
Work that day was uneventful, save for a group of lost passersby heading to Seattle. They were students, clearly drunk or high, jittery in their movements and conversation. The trio consisted of two guys and a girl, each doing everything they could to impress her.
They were one of the four customers that day. The group bought some chocolate bars and asked Daniel for directions for Seattle. They were lost, driving in circles. During his three year-job at the gas-station, Daniel had helped hundreds of people. The town was a dead end, there was only one road that led anywhere and that road was the one they entered town with.
“Maybe we’ll look around,” the girl said with a big grin. “Got any shops around here?”
“Plenty,” replied Daniel. “This town has everything you need. They like it that way to keep people from leaving.” Nobody laughed at his joke.
After ringing up their chocolate bars, they thanked him for the help and drove into town in a Pontiac. In the mean time he managed to restock drinks, snacks and magazines. He’d made a bet with himself that it would take five minutes before the group would drive out of town. In the end it took fifteen, which he decided was because of the drugs.
Every now and then he looked up out the window to see if the group would come back. He imagined offering to come with them to make sure they wouldn’t get lost again. Or maybe they were criminals and wanted to rob the gas-station, surely they’d have to take him with them, he was a valuable witness.
In reality they never did come back. Daniel continued his shift listening to the radio and counting the chips of paint on the wall.
When his shift ended, Daniel went to the town’s edge with Bobby. The place had always felt like the end of the world to him. Bobby and he would always sit on the wooden fence until their butts were sore. This time Daniel took a couple of beers from work–what Russo couldn’t see wouldn’t hurt him–and they discussed their week, or well, Bobby’s week. In a few months Bobby would be off to sunny San Francisco for college.
“I don’t think I’ll be home a lot,” said Bobby. He swept a hand through his shaggy blond hair and looked up at the sky. “My mom will kill me if I don’t. But home’s so far away, you know? And by then it’ll hardly feel like home, anyway.” Right before this they were talking about their summer plans. You know, before Bobby moved away and all that.
“Gas is expensive,” he added after Daniel didn’t say anything.
“Your mom pays for that,” Daniel said.
Bobby grinned sheepishly. “I know,” he said. “I just don’t want to be tied down anymore. You get that, right?”
Daniel thought of his father, of his work at the gas station. Why don’t you just leave? Bobby would ask Daniel a dozen times a week. And every time, Daniel said, “You know I can’t.” Bobby then sighed and shook his head. Yes, you can. You just don’t want to. He’d said it even after knowing Daniel for fourteen years, knowing his father for just as long.
“Daniel.” Bobby waved a hand in front of his face. “Always zoning out.”
“Sure. Sure. I get it. You’re an adult now.”
Bobby smiled and took a big sip of his beer.
“When are you leaving again?” Daniel asked.
“Sometime around August,” he said. “Mom wants to tour through Los Angeles first.” Bobby shook his head. “She thinks she’ll run into Robert Redford on a normal Sunday.”
“Even I'd like to run into Robert Redford,” Daniel said.
“Who wouldn't?”
The sun had started to set, and if you focused hard enough you could hear the wind blow between the tree leaves. June was nearing, and summer was coming whether you wanted it to or not. You could never escape the seasons and the moods that came with them. Back when they were still kids, it felt like they were the kings of the world during summer. No responsibility except for eating ice-cream, playing in the woods, swimming in the lake. Now summer meant the end of all innocence. No more school to count down to. No breaks from anything. Work went on in summer, and it would go on after summer, and after fall, when Bobby was fully enjoying his life as an independent adult.
Daniel pictured himself at fifty, still ringing up customers at the gas station. A shiver went down his spine. He jumped up from the fence before Bobby could come up with an excuse. “I think I better go. I have an early shift tomorrow.”
“I’m already late for dinner,” Bobby said.
Neither of them moved. Daniel’s eyes lingered on the chipped brown fence, while Bobby squinted into the distance. He wanted to get out of the town as soon as yesterday. Who could blame him? This was their last day sipping beer together at the edge of town, and neither of them cherished the moment as much as they should have. This would soon become a distant memory.
Daniel was the first to start walking. He crushed a can of beer in his hands and shook his head. Yes, summer was coming and there was nothing he could do about it.
His father’s armchair was empty when he got home. There was no one in the kitchen. The TV was turned off, same for the radio. His father wasn’t in his room, either. The door was wide open, and his bed was still made. He couldn’t be getting the car fixed like he promised he would, because said car was still in the driveway.
Daniel sacked his shoulders and dropped his keys on the table. A whisk of cool air washed over his face when he opened the fridge. He locked eyes with leftover casserole, patiently waiting for him. Next to it was a cold bottle of beer belonging to his father. He took the plate of casserole and after a second of hesitation, the beer.
Daniel couldn’t be bothered to turn on the lights. He mindlessly switched between bites of cold, chicken casserole and sips of beer. He had devoured about half of it when he couldn’t get the dense chicken texture off his mind. The sauce was creamy and flavorless. It was like eating slime and rubber. He chewed slower, which didn’t reassure his tastebuds. Once you think of your food as junk, it’s hard to swallow. He tried to wash away the taste with beer; it only left a bitter, alcoholic taste in his mouth.
A few minutes later keys started to struggle in the lock. The door opened and his father came stumbling in. He tried to throw his jacket on the coat rack, but it fell to the floor. He looked at the jacket, then at Daniel, squinting his eyes as he slowly started to point.
“Is that my beer?”
He couldn’t even stand still without swaying back and forth. He was looking right through Daniel, as if the wall had stolen his beer instead.
“You're drunk,” Daniel said.
His father’s eyes were still squinted. His lips were pressed together and there was a drop of sweat on his forehead. He shook his head, licked his lips and said, “And that's my beer.”
“I thought you were getting the car fixed,” Daniel said.
His father waved his hand around and clicked his tongue. “Ah, no...” he slurred. “I was just having a drink with- with, uh—you remember Jeremy, don't you?”
The worst part was the lack of effort. If he had only said, I was helping Jeremy with some chores and he gave me one drink too many, Daniel would have believed him. And then his father would go to bed, sleep it off. And Daniel would go to bed, and they’d live to the next day.
“You're going to a job interview hungover?”
His father pinched his forehead and raised his voice. “I had a drink!” he moaned. “One drink—now stop being such a pain in the ass!”
Daniel wanted to say, You know, people don’t hire drunks. Last time he said something along the lines of that he had to seek refuge with Bobby. Instead, he gave his father a cold, disappointed stare.
His father’s hand swept his graying hair. “I’m not drunk—get over yourself.” That smug smile was swept off his face in seconds. He walked toward the table, took Daniel’s beer, and changed the TV’s channel. He plopped down on the couch and leaned his head back.
“The car won’t be of any trouble.”
"How are you so sure?"
His father started to laugh. "What's up with you today? I'll get it fixed tomorrow if it's such a big deal to you. It works perfectly fine, anyway."
"It'll be too late tomorrow," Daniel snapped.
His father turned around and raised his arms. "Then what do you want me to do about it?!"
Daniel walked over to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He looked at his father, hunched over, once more absorbed in the football game. He chugged the water down and put the glass on the counter with a heavy thud.
At the same time, the opposite team scored, and his father slammed the bottle of beer on the end table. "I'll get the damn car fixed tomorrow, after the interview."
They were the same age when Daniel’s father was in Korea, fighting for his life, his country—whatever the hell they were fighting for. He hardly knew anything of his father's time there, but he sure as hell knew that he wasn't just sitting in the barracks with a beer saying he'd kill the damn Chinese tomorrow.
Daniel took his plate and washed it. Hot water slid off his hands. It reached a temperature where he should have added cold water, but he kept his hand under the sink until it jerked itself away in reflex; it was still tingling from the heat. He dropped the plate, which shattered into pieces.
"Shit."
"Did you break something?" his father called without looking away from the game.
"I burned my hand." Daniel turned the water back to cold and tried to soothe his burning skin.
"If you broke a plate, you'll have to pay for a new one," his father said.
"What the hell does it matter?" Daniel was looking at his burned hand, now clenched into a fist.
His father didn't even hear him. He jumped from the couch and cheered as his team scored a touchdown. "That'll teach 'em!" he said.
Daniel went to his room without saying another word. He wanted to throw himself on the bed, but there was a pile of books on top of it. His father hated it when Daniel let stuff lay around. He was many things, but a slob was not one of them. One by one, Daniel took each copy and flung it off the bed. There went his father's copy of The Old Man and the Sea; right above it landed his own Crime and Punishment.
He took off his jeans and shirt and fell back on the empty bed. He closed his eyes. And that's when he dreamt of the Green Ford Pontiac: How let go of the steering wheel and raised his arms in the air. His cheers of joy. The car kept going. He kept going.
And then he woke up. And he had to go to work. And his father had his job interview in thirty minutes. Daniel jumped up from the bed and made his way to his father's room, it was made and empty.
"I'm right here," his father said from the living room.
He sat at the table in a clean shirt and black tie, his hair brushed back and face clean-shaven. You wouldn't have thought this was a man who got drunk almost every night, who had been out of a job for months. He was eating eggs and bacon.
"Don't you have to go?" Daniel said. "It's nine."
"It's only a fifteen-minute drive," his father said.
"If there's not much traffic." Daniel sat down in front of him and took his cup of coffee. He didn't ask if his father was hungover. “And if the car doesn’t break down,” he added.
"You don't need to worry about me." His father smiled. "They'll be fools if they don't hire me."
His father could be charming when he wanted to; he would land a job like this one, only to get fired later. Today was a good day, until tomorrow.
"You better go,"Daniel said. He took his father's plate right from under his nose. If he’d done that yesterday, his father would have given him a black eye for it. He shot Daniel a pretend angry look before he stood up.
"Alright," his father said. He fixed his tie and made his way to the door. Then he turned left to look into the mirror one last time and smiled. "Wish me luck," he said.
Daniel muttered a weak, "Good luck."
The clock ticked on the wall. He could hear the sputtering engine start outside. His father's plate was yellow from the yolks. Daniel could still taste yesterday's flavorless casserole on his tongue.
In dreams, you fly; you drive cars without your hands. In real life, you go to work so that the bills get paid. You listen to your boss complain about his wife and pretend that wasn't the most depressing conversation you've had in your entire life. You go home and cook your dad a meal. You don't want to know whether he's drunk to celebrate or to console himself. You don't want to see him lose another job and yell about it.
Daniel knew perfectly well the difference between reality and dreams. Yet, he stood up from the table as if in a trance and made his way to his room. He took his backpack and stuffed it with clothes. He opened his shoebox from under the bed and took all his savings.
He walked out the door and made his way to the bus stop. He was walking straight off a cliff—running, sprinting. It was maybe the most impulsive decision he had ever made.
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cant waaaaaaaitttt to read more
It's exciting. I look forward to the next chapter.