If You Save Me

It went like this: The orange trees flashing past like rays of the sun reminded me of a word my mother says sometimes when she sighs—Aztlán. It means this state of mind, I told the car. It means something lost that you keep looking for. Like a child.

No one listened. We were where it starts, Orange County, all of us except Derek asleep in the nest of blankets behind the front two seats. In a heap. Something about the way we fell on top each other made us innocent. Like someone had arranged our limbs and left us sleeping.

            From Big Sur's yellow hills and blue sea we drove to the gray part of California. Tim drove, and punished all who were not driving with his dad's Best of the Banjo 2004 album. Tim's Dodge minivan balanced on the tightrope bridges of Highway 1. We passed Carmel and Marina. We passed the point of not insulting Tim's dad. 

~

            And lo, the sun through the windows meant Godspeed and our caps and gowns, crumpled in the trunk, meant Onwards.

~

            Derek's left turns were lacking. He managed to turn left into oncoming traffic, drifting helplessly, and we all woke up to honking, the car shaking from the cars swerving around us in both directions, Derek shrieking: jesus take the wheel, take it save my babies, until we got him two 7/11 chamomile teas one for each hand. So Tim drove, then Tina, and there were fights in the nest, gummy worm fights that ended in our being crop-dusted with sour sugar.

            Tina played slam poetry when she drove, and moved to it with her whole upper body, curly black hair frizzing into knots against the seatback. Until Derek realized he could read highway signs in the inflections of her poets we             are            now passing WatSONville mun-ic-i-pal aer                        oport

            You tool, Tina said, you absolute tool, but Derek was into it, was with his words. They moved him, the unspeakable tragedies of Watsonville Municipal Airport.

            I have something to say, Tim said, and silence reigns in the good court of the Dodge Minivan. Before I shook Mr. Swenton's hand, I touched my penis.

            Over or under the gown?

            Under.

We pondered this.

            Weren't we all planning to be like, more memorable than that?

            You guys, Derek said. I think I lost my diploma. Nona. Did you steal my diploma.

            I start peeling my fourth tangerine. Yep. Sorry. I need two if I want to drive garbage trucks.

~

            On my ninth tangerine, we entered San Francisco. Tim hunched down in his seat, shoulders by his ears. On the sudden uphills we frantically tried to get the blankets out of the way and all the seats up, failing each time, so that the downhills involved us being thrown towards the front of the car.

            Then there was one long downhill in which none of us drew breath and then Tim straightened up and said Lombard Street and we untangled and reassembled in the rush hour traffic.

            Up ahead we could see the orange sign of the Marina Motel, and Tim decided to try and pull into one of the tiny garages so Derek got out of the car, waved and shouted a lot, and then Tim yelled, not loud, just steady and turned, the car blocking a lane of traffic. He told us later that he just closed his eyes and aimed, to which Derek said,             Sounds like my first time.

            Something sharp caught me.

            It took me awhile to realize that I was bleeding a lot from my arm. We were half in and half out of this garage, at a strange angle. Tim looked back at me. Derek somehow pulled him out of the driver's seat and into the nest. He took off his shirt and laid it on my arm like a very large Band-Aid.  It was Derek who backed us out, taking a piece of the garage out with us, and Derek, on his third day of owning a license, who drove us all to the nearest hospital. Through Tim's t-shirt, I thought I felt my arm bones. I smiled at him the whole ride over.

~

            It went like this: the triage nurse gave us a motherly look and said to me, Listen, kid, you're behind a broken member and an anally-inserted meat thermometer but I'll be with you right after. She patted my cheek. I never thought I had the kind of cheek that could be patted. She left me with two pills and a paper cup of water. I just looked at them for a while, on the table. The waiting room looked like it had never been empty enough to clean properly, but there was a big fish tank, so I focused on that. Then I watched Tina wresting Tim's phone from his hands, and Derek trying to calm him down, petting his head. He looked dizzy, though. Worse than me, probably.

            It was a really busy street it's not your fault you know she'll make you pay for the car yourself, just tell her you were hit by another car and then insurance'll cover it, not your fault

            Tina it was on the right side you can't be hit from the right side at that angle by another car

            Look Derek this is San Francisco and people are crazy drivers, I think Sid killed Nancy here, things just happen, we'll just make something up, just don’t call your mom until we do

            No it was New York, I said.

Tina eyed me. Do you need a lung, Non?

            A lung? Tina has just asked if I want a lung.

            A hug. I said a hug.

            They probably do have lungs here…

            Why would I ask you if you needed a lung?

            Everyone needs lungs.

Tim dialed. Mom, we're all okay, but something bad happened…we got in a car fight. I mean a car crash. Tina nodded vigorously.

~

            Rainy Day Laundromat had no chairs so we sat in the carts and waited, watching Tim's shirt whirl around emptiness in the dryer. Tim's mom called back and said she called the insurance company and that they would call us to get a report. We all made panicked faces and Tim began to tear the complimentary dryer sheets into smaller and smaller pieces. No one talked. I ran my finger over my stitches.

            Has anyone here ever committed insurance fraud? Derek coughed.

The laundromat owner pokes her head out from behind the detergent dispenser.

            I cheated on the SAT, Tim said, sprawled in his cart, eyes blinking at us through the bars. I just stretched a lot and Marjorie Denton was right there with her fourteen number twos and extra calculator.

Tim's phone rang, two, three times. Tina reached out and grabbed it.

            Hello. Yes. Hi, this is his friend, Tina. I was in the car. Tim's a little upset right now, you know? You understand? You do? OK. He'll talk to you later. It went like this. By the way before I start I just wanted you to know that we all have high school diplomas and we're on a road trip. Thank you. So we're driving, right, and then it gets messy once we get to San Fran. Rush hour on Lombard, just bumper to bumper, this street, these cars just parked. And Tim, you know, we all have been cooped up in a car for eight hours, and he knows that as a human being he cannot take it anymore. I prefer not to and all that.

So out of the van, he builds these wings, right, these beautiful, clunky sliding car door arms, and we fly above the traffic, we fly above everything, and then plan is going so well, we are free, we are far, we have left the nest and then, oh god, oh please, we fly too close to the sun, we hit the side of it, we melt into oblivion…. This is true, and it happened, but we made our own mistakes. Oh. You'd like to speak to Tim?

Derek took the phone.

            Hi. Yes this is another friend. Tim is busy. Hi. I'm Derek. So I have this thing I've been meaning to ask you about. So, I don't have life insurance. But every time I see something…dangerous, my heart just starts going, and I'm sweating, and I can't figure out why. And I think, I think it might be because since birth my parents have always been so careful with me. Don't climb trees, you'll fall. Don't sass your teachers, it'll go on your record. Don't stop and talk to strange people, you'll end up dead. And I think, what all of that convinced me of, is that my life somehow mattered more than everyone else's. Like I look at that picture of Tank Guy, the one from China in the 80s, and I hate that picture, I do, because I know, I just know, that I would've been inside some house, watching, too scared to even take a photograph. But why is that, why do I feel like my life is worth more than that? And maybe it's okay, maybe I am of better use to the revolution alive, but what if my life is worth too much to talk? Can you put a number on it? I know we don't know each other very well but this is your job so—okay I'll put Tim on.

Tim.

            Hi. Yes. I'm sorry. About everything.

He looked at me, wanting, brown eyes big in the fluorescent light.

            I'm sorry.

I took the phone.

            Hi my name is Nona and there wasn't really another car. There was a tiny garage and maybe you should investigate the Marina Motel, M-A-R-I-N-A, because that could not fit a car, it just wasn't going to happen.

            I know the car's not mine, but I think it's kind of cool. I like having been in this with these people. My arm's a little messed up but I have a story to tell. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time me and my high school friends went on a road trip to San Francisco and crashed on landing, and my arm took eight stitches and I never forgot that we stayed up all night in this 24-hour laundromat because we were convinced the motel people would kill us if we went back. And we had to keep doing laundry so they wouldn't kick us out so every two hours someone would wash their shirt or pants. And even though they were my friends, I didn't really think of them as real people before I saw them half-naked, I thought I was the only real one, but maybe I just wanted it to be that way. Or I wanted to be proved wrong. I can't really figure out what I want. Listen, if you could cancel all of this, you would save us. Can you? Go back, I mean? Delete our names? Void?

            Consider it, I guess.