a conversation, part 1

i've been wanting to post pieces of this for a while. written sometime in july.

i'd never been the driver of a car during a conversation like that. i was accustomed to being the passenger; it was rare enough that i drove at all.

it was distracting, but not so much that i was driving unsafely. after a while, even your conscious mind goes on autopilot. you know, when you're driving, if you've been doing it for long enough, where all the cars around you are and how long you have to stop if you need to. how fast you're going. whether your speed is steady. you start to see without looking. you don't have to concentrate on any given part of the landscape, or make your eyes focus.

she was silent for a long time. she stared out the window, drumming her fingernails on the plastic of the doorframe. the part just behind the handle she always grasps when i take a corner, whether it's too fast or not.

the thing about talking in cars is, you always have a captive audience. no matter how often, anybody jokes about it, they're never going to open the door, tuck and roll. my mother used to talk to me about sex and drugs in the car. i'll probably do it to my own kids too, even though i hated it then. we both knew it was coming, so it was just a question of which of us would break the silence first.

she opened her mouth and there was a sharp intake of breath, like she was preparing to say something, but it turned out she was just gasping at the idea of language, like a fish taking its first breath of air. it knows there's something to be done with this strange substance, but it's not sure if it can do it. the idea generally dies.

"yes?" i opened.

"hm? nothing," she replied, casually looking out the window, drumming. she was a great actor. or, we both thought she was.

i sighed and flipped down the sun visor. driving west at sunset, nobody is ever tall enough.

another minute passed. "you know . . ." i started, and my voice caught in my throat. she turned.

"we can't keep doing this." she spoke my thoughts.

this happened quite frequently. it was part of why conversations like this were so hard; we were so in tune, and we thought so often so much the same, that for us to struggle to understand each other was unfathomable.

i exhaled. "you're right," i said to her.

"i know i'm right." she was looking out the window again.

i don't know what it is people think they can avoid by looking away, even in cars. even if you're not looking at each other, the words are still going to hang there, like stars on the thin wire of a mobile, sparkling between you and strangling you if you neglect to pay attention.