FEATHERS
Erik Wilson
We are jockeying for position, she and I, driving south on Interstate 5 just outside of Bakersfield. It’s an automotive pas de deux that I’ve been dancing off and on all morning, with vehicles of all types and drivers of all persuasions and temperaments. This one just happens to be a blue Toyota, driven by a blonde woman who looks to be about five or ten years older than me, who seems determined to go just fast enough to keep me behind her as long as the other lane is crowded and I have no chance of swooping past her on the right and opening it up again. It’s a rather macho game she’s playing, one that I would not usually expect from a driver that looks like she does, but really not very much surprises me this morning, today, right now.
She’s had a couple of chances to pull into the slow lane and let me pass her, but instead of taking those opportunities, she sped up and stayed just in front of me, looking at me in the rear view mirror. I’d seen it happen before, and I knew that at some point either I’d find an opening on the right, or she’d get tired of looking at my grill about to kiss her back bumper, pull over, and I’d win, zoom away and be shut of her and her kind. Until I got behind the next pokey person with not enough brains to drive sensibly and stay out of my way.
There’s a big semi on the right that she’s using for leverage right now. A big eighteen-wheeler bombing down this straight, brown, boring-ugly highway, that she’s driving next to just fast enough to keep me from passing her on the right. As she pulls ahead far enough to where I think I can see an opening, I realize that there is a car in front of the truck, giving her another shield from being overtaken and making me sigh in frustration.
I ease up just slightly, pissed that I can’t maneuver around her just yet, but knowing that I will eventually. Soon, I hope.
She looks once again in the rear view, and I hope that she can see the expression on my face. I don’t resort to gestures or horn-honking or lights flashing, just a scowl and a slight shaking of my head. I can see what looks like a smug expression on her face, and I imagine that she can read mine as well.
I’m driving south because my life has gone south. My marriage is over, and Teresa and the kids are staying in the Bay Area, trying to pick up the pieces and go on with their lives without me being there to screw things up anymore. I’m heading to my brother’s place in Echo Park, with the idea that maybe I can start over again and not make such a mess of things this time. Try to dry out, give up the booze for a while, like I had promised Teresa I would so many times before. Maybe learn to work on controlling my anger a little better. Learn how to be an adult... whatever that means.
I’m driving south because it’s the only direction I know how to go anymore.
It’s going to be difficult, I know. I think I’ll miss my kids most of all. Artie and little Maddy, Madison, the two sweetest kids on the face of this earth. Teresa is so good with them. It amazes me sometimes how good she is with those two. The amount of love she has for them is boundless, unending. She’d die for either one of them before she’d let something happen to them. And those two kids -- they love her right back. They’d follow their mother anywhere, do anything for her.
Sure, they also love me. When I’m sober.
Teresa used to have that kind of boundless love for me, had it for years, until I finally killed it inside her. I could see it coming, but I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop drinking, even when I knew it was becoming a choice between the bottle and my family. I tried to slow things down, tried to look at what I had and what I was losing, but it seemed that life just moved too fast for me. I could never get a handle on it long enough to commit to staying sober.
It’s been nearly 48 hours since I last had a drink, and things are moving fast right now, but not fast enough for me. I’ve got a woman in a blue Toyota in front of me that’s keeping me from going the speed I want to drive, and I’m not happy. My gut is churning, and I’ve got that gun-metal taste in my mouth. A drink right now would go down real easy... real easy. But I’m trying not to think that way.
My brother says he’ll help me stay dry. Says he might be able to get me a job at the studio in Burbank, if I can keep it up. We’ll see. I plan on making an honest effort, but if it doesn’t work out, well... it wouldn’t be the first time I disappointed someone in my family.
This woman in front of me is really starting to get on my damn nerves. She’s keeping a pace just in between the semi to my right and the car in front of it. I’ve had to drop back to where I’m just slightly behind the truck, keeping up my speed in the left lane. There are two cars behind me now, wanting to pass me and the semi and the car in front of it and this crazy blonde woman in the blue Toyota.
The car in front of the semi speeds up a bit, and I think maybe, just maybe, the woman will take the opening and drop in and let me pass. Before that can happen, though, I see brake lights. The car in the right lane swerves, then keeps going. Both the Toyota and the truck on my right hit their brakes, and I wonder what’s happening. It only takes a minute to find out.
Some ducks -- a mother duck and six or seven baby ducks -- have wandered out onto the highway, and are apparently trying to cross to the median strip in the middle. The mother walks in the lead, and the baby ducks all stay close to her, following her. They are in the middle of the right lane, probably scared by the car that just swerved and missed them, but unable to go anywhere fast enough to avoid the rest of the oncoming traffic. The truck on my right is doing at least 80, and there isn’t a hope in hell that he can do anything about these ducks in his path.
The woman ahead of me hits her brakes, and I do the same. As we brake, the semi plows into the group of ducks, hitting the mother with the front tire and killing her instantly. She is squashed flat, one with the pavement, and feathers fly into the air as the truck keeps moving. He misses most of the babies, as far as I can tell, and in my rear view mirror I can see them scurrying back to the side of the road, away from the highway and their dead mother’s body.
I pass the truck driver, and I can see him shaking his head. I feel sorry for the guy, but at the same time I know that there was nothing he could do. Not a damn thing.
After about a mile, the woman in the blue Toyota pulls into the right lane and lets me pass. I look at her as I do, and I see that she has her hand to her mouth, and it looks like she’s crying. I hit the gas and pass her by.
What a terrible thing to see, I think. Those poor baby ducks. Those poor baby ducks.
