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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Reaching for the Stars” Down in the Dirt, v201 (11/22)  Order the paperback book: 
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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Paths Less Traveled the Down in the Dirt September-December 2022 issues collection book
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get the 422 page September-December 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book: 
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The Scenic Route Bill Tope Riding in a car when my friend Jodi is at the wheel is always an adventure. One day, motoring down the road on a mission to buy a book, we approach an intersection. There, standing like a glittering mustard sentinel, is the inevitable traffic signal, its green light blazing away. So Jodi, as is natural for her, gently taps her brake, until which time we are almost in the intersection, moving now very slowly. When the light turns amber, she floors the gas pedal. I’m thrown back against my seat, like an astronaut under sudden acceration. The safety belt tightens like a tourniquet around my waist. “Oh, dear,” fusses Jodi, distressed. “I need to make a left turn up here.” She looks around anxiously. “Here, get into the turn lane,” I tell her. “But that’s a yellow line,” she protests, scandalized. “I can’t cross a yellow line!” I roll my eyes, settle back in the leather seat of her massive red Cadillac, as she needlessly proceeds three blocks down the road, till she can negotiate the turn in accordance with her own principles. “Where are we going to find this bookstore?” I ask a few moments later. “We have to go to Edwardsville,” she replies, indicating a small town fifteen miles from Alton, our present location. “That’s a straight trip down Rt.143,” I note. “You won’t have to make a single turn. And we can be there inside twenty minutes,” I add. As I say that I catch a decided gleam in Jodi’s green eyes, which makes me worry. “Where are you going?” I yelp as Jodi swings the steering wheel hard left and tears off down a side street. “I’m driving!” she reminds me and abruptly executes two more swift turns onto streets I’ve never even been on before, and I’ve lived in Alton for more than a decade. In fact, I’m not certain they exist even on a city map. “There’s where I used to live,” comments Jodi breezily as we pass a ramshackle building at nearly ninety miles per hour. I look but it’s all a blur. I glance around but none of the streets or landmarks are familiar. Where are we? I wonder for perhaps the fiftieth time. By now, we have traversed nearly every navigable street in Alton, in a bewildering, psychedelic excursion throughout the city. We careen down alleyways, zoom across parking lots and terrorize unsuspecting pedestrians tentatively entering clearly marked crosswalks. Children run screaming from a playground that we enter and then quickly vacate. I hold my stomach, grateful we haven’t yet eaten lunch. My mind swims. Haven’t we been on this street before? I wonder suddenly. Glancing back through the rear window I croak out, “Where are we now?” “Oh!” exclaims Jodi, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. She glances inexplicably at the dash clock, then replies, “we’re still in Alton.” “Still in Alton?” I exclaim, unbelieving. “We can’t be.” The car, meanwhile, as though with a mind of its own, crashes through a white picket fence, enters the yard of a private residence and proceeds apace across the lawn. The big car bumps along like an aircraft carrier caught in a storm. We narrowly miss a lawn jockey, but do take out a birdbath, robins and cardinals fluttering away in alarm. The water splashes onto the windshield. Not missing a beat, Jodi snaps on the wipers. They zip back and forth with metronomic intensity, the blades making loud squeaking sounds where they touch the glass. The Cadillac slams down off the curb and onto the street with a “whump!” and the tailpipe is instantly severed. I watch through the side mirror as it skitters down the road in our wake in an explosion of rust and carbon. The unmuffled exhaust rumbles beneath the car like a roll of distant thunder. Jodi is oblivious. I decide to hold my tongue. “Here,” says Jodi at last, now somehow buoyant with newfound confidence. “I’ll Just get on Rt.143 next. It’ll take us straight to Edwardsville!” she tells me. “We can be there in just twenty minutes.” We speed merrily away. And things go generally downhill from here. |
