AAA Martine Bigos

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

jumped out of the driver’s seat, throwing a slicker over his head to stay dry. He approached Reed’s window. He was slender, no older than thirty with blue eyes and pallid skin. Light brown scruff lined his chin and a dark green, backwards baseball cap covered his short hair. A faint smile took form as he spoke, exposing a slight gap (between) in his two front teeth. “Hey, man,” he shouted over the sound of the thunder. “Did you say your engine block cracked?” “Don’t know,” Reed responded. “Can you check?” “Yeah, course. Gimme a sec.” He went back to his truck, pulling out a flashlight. Reed popped the hood, tapping his fingers on the gear lever as we waited. He flipped the key in his hand a few times, dropping it twice and sticking it back into the ignition when the operator approached his window. “All right. Nothing’s wrong. Engine’s overheated. Leak in the radiator or something. I wouldn’t worry about it. You got a mechanic, right?” “Uh-huh,” Reed replied. “Ok, then. You can put it in neutral.” “Hey!” Reed shouted as the man began to walk away. “Can we stay in here?” He turned around. “Nah, you gotta be up front.” “Ah-kay.” The man grabbed the tow chains, hooking the Caddy up to the truck. I stepped outside. Once the winch pulled the car onto the flatbed, Reed followed. I watched him stumble on the divot in the ground between the grass and side of the road. He spat on a patch of weeds before hopping into the passenger seat of the truck. I sat in the middle. The operator looked over at us. He only started to drive when Reed put on his seatbelt.

exit.” “Where’re you guys headed?” he asked. “Millburn,” I replied, “I’ll let you know when you’re at the

“Thanks, man,” he said, “I’m Luke, by the way.” “Brian. Thanks for helping out.” “Not a problem.” He paused. “Whose car is this?'' “It’s Reed’s,” I said, motioning to his seat. He was looking out of the window. We were passing the Del Water Gap. Not much was visible in the dark, other than the green signs that lined I-80. “Huh?” Reed said.

“I only told him that it’s your car” “Oh, yeah,” he replied. “Bought it a few weeks ago. Picked her up in Green Bay.” “Nice, nice,” Luke replied. “65?” “Yep.” “Keeping it or flipping it?” “Flipping. First one.” “Ah, ok. So do you want to do this full time?” “Think so,” Reed said, “we’ll see.” He lit another Pall Mall as we drove by the exit, bouncing his leg. “And what about you?” Luke asked me. “Oh, well, I’m in college. I was tagging along.” Smoke began to crowd in my eyes. I saw Luke turn his head to the right. “Hey, man, put that out,” he said. His voice was stern in a way that didn’t make you want to punch him. Reed obeyed. “So, what college?” “I’m going to Denison.” “Where’s that?”

“Got an aunt in Dayton. You guys brothers, or?” “Yeah,” we both replied. He nodded. A few minutes passed. Country music, the modern kind, was playing on the radio. It made me want to talk, or even yell. “I hope you weren’t at the end of your shift when we called,” I said. “Nah, don’t worry, I’m here all night,” he said. I then heard him mumble in a singsong voice, “here all day, here all night.” I noticed that there were two photos taped at the top of the front window. A little girl with wispy curls was smiling in both of them. She was holding a hula hoop at some park in one photo. In the other, she was sitting between Luke and a young woman. She looked as though she were four or five, as all of her teeth had fallen out.

“That your daughter?” I asked Luke, pointing to the family portrait. He nodded. “Yep, yeah.” “How old is she?”

“Turned six on the twentieth, had a party for her last week.” He chuckled a little.

“Princesses?”

“Close.” He smiled. “Fairies.”

“I’m sure she misses you when you’re gone all day,” I said, waiting to hear a response. There was a pause. “Yeah, well, she’s at her mom’s house on Saturdays, so she’s fine.”

Reed began to listen.

I don’t see what did it when I was wary because we slept in hotels and stopped to eat and sat on the road when we could have kept going and it seems all too coincidental to conk out with an hour to go so why laugh it off like we all do because if a coincidence actually has an apparent reason behind its existence then it’s telling of something and that something may be---------------- incomparable for a good stretch of time until it isn’t and when it isn’t you’ll be glad you-- just---- acknowledged that it broke down in East Stroudsburg and not Dearborn but until then you can wonder and wonder and why do I cough instead of breathe when my lungs are strong enough for my age because it can’t be those Pall Malls it can’t be even if Brian thinks that it is and if he looks over at me I have to wonder about whether or not I look like an oaf because if it is my belief that my neck or my beard or my nose gives you a reason to find me unfeeling or hollow headed then it---------------does it matter-----------------------when you happen to wake up in the same spot on the same day and it was dark when you dropped and dark when you rose and there’s nowhere to go but home why does the amount of time that you’ve slept hold any sort of weight if your body wakes itself up because it’s done, you’re through, and time wasn’t important anyway which means that most of our words are a filler in a sense because Brian felt the need to speak and look he’s here at last and young and---------------- smirking--------------look right in the eye------------good-------of course---when did rules even begin to take shape and would we be better off with saying to hell with it all like when dad didn't wear a seatbelt and grandma shattered her leg since it was nice for a while instead of stodgy for eternity----------walk straight don’t look-----------just buckle-----the sky is a place of uncertainty when the clouds take form in the evening because you could be in the same state if the sun were out but something clicks and you’re no longer thoughtless and---------breathe out less------ignore the eyes, the cough----what’s funny about judgement or concern is that it begins with an assumption that our agitator knows that it’s agitating like when the person in front of us stops suddenly on the parkway but they didn’t necessarily care to think of their surroundings

because to them it isn’t surroundings but instead a background and we forget that we’re just a background to everyone and maybe we forget on purpose because who wants to believe that they’re negligible to another------------------- mind---God--------it’s like that, like when Brian says only because the sentence doesn’t need the word and you get hung on a word and a word could mean nothing but how could it because we choose words as they can be controlled and yet they can’t and maybe my biggest problem is that it all has to mean something and he could sound crass solely because he wanted to clear his throat and wipe his eyes from the pollen but it isn’t April and it isn’t May and I could be better I could and I should listen but------don’t respond and don’t look because looking is another form of---------------------it’s only smoke and if you smoke and stand as though you have seen a lot perhaps you can mask any sense that you’ve done nothing and does sitting ruin the effect or am I merely disgusting and why can’t I hate him----Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke-----can an observer hear a heartbeat and how many of us on this Earth know how to speak when it’s hard to because if it were anyone else I would be offended but I’m not and why so could it be because he doesn’t make you feel beneath him or is such an attempt to do so reason for wanting to smack him or smack Brian or smack myself when they’re accomplices but how is this possible yet I’ve managed to get a sense that they are because we establish our territory in new ways now and it starts with a hunch-------------words that are no filler-------------------------------------no life is------ happy---------------------a daughter but he’s young and with a once wife who can’t be thought of fondly and yet he keeps her there with the air freshener and the E-ZPass as though she were still a constant unless she is and it’s a situation where they drink coffee together every Saturday morning yet it can’t be because we aren’t forgiving and we aren’t amicable with those who disappoint or make us feel ashamed but he could be better than the past though so few are and I cannot recall if I’ve ever met a man who looks a disappointment in the eye because most of us hunch and look to the ground but who can blame us today and who can blame her today but why be

merciful for the past is merely a vessel full of could-be screams and confessions and they’re all rising away but they haven’t transcended and they never will because when they rise they die of boredom and want and yes they’re well but they’re not going to be well even though I’m the tragedy ambling into the Other and his eyes make me want to feel but in a manner that they could comprehend and I’m restless and I know it and nothing’s going to happen with my head against the seat and my arm extended toward the trappings of disregard. “Is your daughter in preschool? Or did she just start kindergarten?” The End