AAA
Martine Bigos
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” - William Faulkner Reed stopped the Caddy close to the border near East Stroudsburg. The engine was steaming. We bought a gallon of water at the gas station a few miles back to try and cool down the radiator. Steam only continued to rise into our line of sight as we moved closer to the Del Water Gap. It was late, around nine o’clock. My brother got us to Pennsylvania from Green Bay, but the car began to act up in the home stretch. “Goddamnit!” he shouted, banging the steering wheel as he found a spot on the shoulder of the highway to stop the car.
“Can you call Triple A?” I asked.
“Yeah, ” he replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I’m gettin some air.” He shut the door hard enough to shake the entire car. There was a thunderstorm, so I stayed inside to keep dry. I could hear him over the sounds of traffic and raindrops hitting the roof. He opened the door, wiping his face with a rag in his back pocket.
“They’ll be here in twenty.”
“Ok.”
I grabbed my baseball cap from the duffle bag in the back seat and placed it over my eyes to try and rest for a bit. Reed smoked a Pall Mall next to me. He cupped it in his hands and coughed each time he let out a breath. He stomped it out on the ground after what must have been a while, waking me up as he shut the door to get back in. I opened my eyes and wound open the quarter glass to my right.
“How long was I out?” He stared.
“Don’t know, couple of minutes?”
The tow truck pulled up in front of us. A young man 31
