Night Ride
by Titus Daniel Gee
Jimmy liked to ride at night. Liked the steady whir of going somewhere; the expectation, like a tension in his chest. It didn’t matter where they were going. He would sit in the first bench seat of the old van. The seat they had turned around to face the backseat with a table between. But Jimmy wouldn’t face back. He would sit half-twisted around, looking forward over the back of the seat at the dim windshield and instrument panel glowing green and seeming bright in the darkness.
The girls and Billy and even Tom, the oldest who didn’t want to be called Tommy any more, would all go to sleep. But not Jimmy. Jimmy would sit and watch the straight yellow lines in the headlights jumping now and then into dashes and back into smooth lines. He liked the feel of the still air inside the car when the air outside was whipping by all cool with the night and the speed. And Mama and Dad talking quietly in the front seat – sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, and very grown-up. Dad’s arm would lie across the space between them, disappearing into Mama’s lap. Dad always talked facing straight forward over the steering wheel, only glancing over at Mama now and then, his profile sharp in the green light. Jimmy could not see Mama from his perch behind her seat, but he could feel she was there. He could hear her quiet talking.
Jimmy would listen to everything. Not trying to spy, but just awake and listening. Yet it felt a little like spying, like peeking into the world of grown-ups. Somehow he knew not to laugh out loud, not to ask questions or say the things that came to his mind while they talked, but just to listen, to hear and remember and think of the things he would have said if he were grown, too, and not just borrowing a bit of the grown-up world. And in those dark, quiet conversations he would feel like a part of it. Part because he was awake while the others slept. Part because they were his Mama and Dad and he was a part of them. Part because they shared the moonlight and the green glow and the rushing air outside.
Then there were the long, quiet times when it was just the radio playing to keep Dad awake and Mama asleep against the window. Then Jimmy would get to thinking and listening to the wind and … it never felt like sleeping, in the car. The hum and rush of riding simply carried over into dreams, then disappeared all together when he woke up in a world of light with everyone awake and the car already stopped. And it felt like losing something, something nice that he had been carrying the whole day and could not remember dropping.
Sometimes on long trips, he would get Billy to try and help him stay awake. They would plan it out after bedtime, whispering in their room while Dad finished the packing. Together, they might have a better chance. So when Mama came to take them and their pillows to the van, Billy would sit next to him on the backward seat. But the lights were off and Mama wouldn’t let them talk very loud. Billy would get grumpy and lose interest in the game; curl up with his pillow and say he wasn’t going to sleep when really he was. Then it would be just Jimmy again and the warm, rumbling darkness that somehow always turned into a dream.
Then one time on the way to Grampa’s house, Jimmy really was just listening to the wind and thinking when Mama went to sleep against the window. Suddenly he felt that it was just him and Dad, but Dad thought he was alone with a whole car full of sleepers. Jimmy watched him quietly, watched his shiny eyes moving, hands restless on the wheel, sometimes shifting in his seat. Outside the highway signs flashed past all big and green with white letters that Jimmy couldn’t read yet. And Dad was quiet and intense, lost in his own Dad thoughts. Then Jimmy took his seatbelt off and leaned way over the seatback next to Dad and spoke.
“Dad.” It was just a quiet croak, his night voice swallowed by the muffling roar that had seemed quiet until he tried to talk. Then a bit louder.
“Hey Daddy?”
Dad’s face softened as he turned.
“Hey, Jimmy, you awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Anybody else?”
“Nope. Just me.”
The motor hummed and the road whirred past.
“Where are we, Dad?”
And Dad named some little town in Pennsylvania or Maryland that Jimmy didn’t know about because he really didn’t know one town from another. He just wanted to be part of the driving.
“How much farther is it?”
“Oh, about six hours.”
“oh.”
Soon Dad pulled into a station to put gas in. Suddenly it was all bright and alive outside the dead, sleeping car. And Jimmy sat in the strange, bright silence of stillness, with the echoes of motion in his ears, and looked out at the big trucks and the big truckers going in to pay. Then Mama stirred and decided to go in to the ladies’ room. And Jimmy whispered he had to go too and climbed over the seat and got out the front door so they wouldn’t have to open the loud sliding door and wake the others. On the bright, greasy concrete Jimmy felt stiff and groggy; and strange also in the clean, porcelain glare of the restroom – at gas stations and restaurants it was a restroom, not a bathroom, and you had to flush the toilet with your shoe because it was probably dirty.
Back at the car, Mama said, “You ready to go back to sleep, honey?” But Jimmy shook his head. He wasn’t tired and he didn’t even look sleepy, so Mama said,
“You wanna keep Daddy awake for a while?”
And Jimmy said, “Ok,” with a little shrug, but really it was the best thing he could think of because then Mama would climb in the back and stretch out and go to sleep, and Jimmy would climb up in the big front seat and Dad would buckle him in and shut the heavy door. And then Dad would get in too and roar the engine. And then they would be back on the highway, only now Jimmy really would be in the grown-up world and Dad would let him hold the map and share the cookies that he bought at the station to keep him awake.
And that is just what happened. And now the hum and swish was even more exciting and Jimmy stared out the windshield with bright eyes and the seatbelt feeling tight across his chest. And now it was just him and Dad and everyone else asleep. And they talked about how many sisters and brothers Dad had and what made the radio play and what kind of candy there might be in Heaven, and sometimes they laughed. And Jimmy knew these were kid things, but they were with Dad in the night and the front seat, so they seemed like great things and important things. And Jimmy was big and could hold the map and watch the signs in the headlights and talk to Dad about anything, or just listen to the radio making music out of invisible waves in the air.
And slowly the night faded, and then it was morning all at once and the gray line of light was spreading over the sky, and it felt like waking up, only he was already awake.
Then there was the odd, familiar slowing and turning and stopping that meant they were almost there, and the steady glide of the highway was gone. And it felt weird to go slow and to turn. Then there were other cars on the road, and things started looking kind of familiar and Mama woke up and looked over the back of the first bench seat. But Jimmy was up front and he had seen the day get born, him and Dad. They saw it together.
Then here was the road itself and Jimmy knew it for sure and they pulled into Gramma and Grampa’s driveway and all the others woke up and soon it would be hugs and hellos and cousins everywhere and Jimmy would be ‘one of the kids’ again.
But there was that moment, just before the engine went quiet. With Jimmy sitting in the front seat, the seat of honor, and holding the map and Dad so big beside him and everyone else in the back. And he looked up at Dad and Dad looked down and Jimmy smiled and Dad smiled and gave a secret wink. And it was just for him. For Jimmy, the One Who Stayed Awake.
