Dead Reckoning

The screen on the dashboard mount died in the middle of a turn, the blue line disappearing before the voice finished telling Roy where to go. He tapped the black glass once with his thumb, then again harder, leaving a smudge where his thumb had been, while the little mount rattled against the vents. The radio had been caught between two stations for several miles, and now even that had gone silent. Roy pressed the button on the side of the phone and held it down until his thumb began to ache, then let it go and watched the screen stay black.

In the back seat, Dana had stopped scrolling through her own phone. She held it toward a streetlamp as they passed, turning it slowly in her hand before lowering it again, and when that failed she tried the button along the side. She tried it twice more, then put the phone beside her thigh and looked at the back of Roy's head. He kept driving, leaning closer to the windshield whenever the road divided, as if the streets ahead might become easier to understand if he looked hard enough.

The light changed, and Roy waited through most of it before moving forward. A horn sounded behind them, then another, and he pressed the gas and took the sedan through the intersection. Once they had crossed, he slowed again and looked from one street sign to another, trying to place himself. Dana leaned forward between the front seats and looked at the dead phone on the dashboard before asking how much farther they had to go, and Roy told her he couldn't tell her because he had been following the directions on the screen. She said she understood, though her voice carried the kind of strain that meant she understood very little.

"You've never been out here," Dana said after another block, and Roy looked at her in the mirror before saying that he had been there once, years earlier. She wanted to know how many years, and he told her he couldn't remember, which made her sit back and cross her arms across herself. After a moment she leaned forward again and asked if he knew where they were, and Roy said they were somewhere close to where they had been headed. Dana gave a small laugh and looked toward the side of the car, watching buildings pass in the dark.

A man stood beside a pickup holding his phone over his head, while farther down the street a woman sat on the hood of a car staring at a dark screen. Two teenagers stood beneath a streetlamp passing one phone between them, each taking a turn pressing the same button, and a man in a work shirt walked along the sidewalk with his phone held against his ear even though there was nothing coming through it. Roy slowed as he passed them, then looked at the dashboard mount again. "Everybody's having the same problem," Dana said, and Roy told her that seemed to be the case.

He pulled into a gas station a few blocks later, though the pumps were dark and the sign above the store had lost most of its letters. A clerk stood behind the register staring down at his phone, and three people near the entrance were doing much the same thing, each waiting for a screen to come back to life. Roy parked along the side of the building and left the engine running while Dana opened the rear door and stepped out. She went inside, came back several minutes later with a pack of cigarettes, and climbed into the back seat without saying anything.

Roy looked at the pack and asked if she smoked. Dana told him she had quit three months earlier, and when he asked why she had bought cigarettes she said tonight was different. Roy opened the glove box and found a lighter, which he passed back to her, and she lit one before lowering the glass beside her. He lowered his own glass and watched the people outside move around the station, each person occupied with a problem that had suddenly become too large for a phone to solve.

A car alarm sounded behind the store and stopped after a few seconds. Nobody went to see what had happened, and the clerk came outside, looked toward the dark pumps, then went back in and returned to the register. Roy reached beneath the driver's seat and pulled out a bag of pretzels, opened it, and passed it back to Dana, who took several before holding the bag between the seats so he could reach it. They ate in silence for a while, listening to the engine and the tires of passing cars.

Roy eventually asked where she had been going before the phones died. Dana looked at the cigarette between her fingers and told him she had been on her way to see a divorce lawyer, then added that he did appointments late because most of his clients worked during the day. Roy asked if this was her first lawyer, and she said it was the second. When he asked what happened to the first, she said he had taken another client and stopped returning her calls, then looked toward the store as though she regretted telling him even that much.

"How many times did you call?" Roy asked, and Dana counted silently before saying four. Roy said four wasn't very many, and she told him the first three had been about the divorce while the fourth had been about money. She had paid the lawyer already, and now she wanted some of it back because he had done almost nothing. Roy nodded and told her that sounded fair, and Dana looked at him in the mirror before saying that fair had stopped being very useful to her.

Roy started the car and pulled out of the station. The road ahead had fewer businesses, and the houses were spread farther apart as they moved toward the highway. Dana put the cigarette out and slipped the pack into her bag, then asked where Roy had been going before he picked her up. He told her he had been headed home, and when she asked if his wife was there he said she worked nights at a hospital and usually came home around seven in the morning.

"How long have you been married?" Dana asked, and Roy told her seventeen years. She asked if they were happy, and he gave a small smile while keeping his eyes on the road, saying that was a large question for a ride that had started with a dead phone. Dana laughed and told him he could give her a small answer, and after a moment he said that some days were good and some days were harder. She looked out at the passing houses and said her marriage had been eleven years, which Roy remembered because she had already mentioned the number.

"You still live with him?" Roy asked, and Dana said she had left a month earlier. She had gone back twice, though, once for clothes and once because she had nowhere else to sleep, and each time she stayed longer than she planned. Roy asked where she was living now, and she told him she had been staying with a friend who had started asking when she planned to leave. The friend had a second bedroom, though the room belonged to the friend's daughter, who was coming home at the end of the month.

Roy said that sounded difficult, and Dana looked at him in the mirror before saying that difficult was a word people used when they wanted to avoid saying something worse. He asked what word she would use, and she told him she hadn't found it yet. Roy nodded and kept driving. After a while she asked why he had started driving people around at night, and he told her the warehouse where he worked had closed two years earlier and the bills had kept coming. His wife had picked up extra shifts at the hospital, and he had started driving because the house payment had fallen behind.

"How far behind?" Dana asked, and Roy told her two months. She looked toward the windshield for a while before saying that two months could become three pretty fast. Roy said he knew that, and she asked what happened after three. He told her he didn't know, and Dana smiled a little and said he used that answer often. Roy said he preferred it to pretending he knew, and she looked away before telling him that her husband used to say something similar whenever she wanted an answer from him.

They drove for another few miles before Dana leaned forward and pointed toward a side road. She said she used to live near there, and Roy asked how long ago, which made her tell him about two years. He turned where she directed him, and she began pointing out places that seemed to belong to an older version of the town. A closed laundromat stood beside a row of small houses, and farther along a church sign had several letters missing, leaving a message that made little sense.

"My sister lived around here," Dana said, and Roy asked if she still did. Dana told him her sister had moved last year, and when he asked where she had gone, she said she didn't know. They hadn't spoken since Christmas. Roy looked at her in the mirror and asked if they had been close, and Dana said they had been until her sister told her to leave her husband and Dana went back instead. She went back twice, and after the second time her sister stopped answering her calls.

Roy kept driving while Dana watched the road ahead. She said she had spent years thinking her sister would eventually understand, and Roy asked what she meant. Dana told him she had spent those same years waiting for her husband to become someone else, and she had finally begun to wonder whether waiting had been the whole problem. Roy said that sounded like something a person would figure out after midnight, and Dana smiled because she knew he was making fun of her.

The road narrowed, and Dana pointed toward another turn before pulling her arm back. She said she thought they had passed the street, and Roy offered to turn around. Dana said she didn't want to go back, and he kept moving. They passed several dark houses and a small store with plywood over the front entrance, then drove another mile before Dana told him to pull over. Roy eased the car toward the side of the road and stopped with the engine running.

Dana looked through the windshield for a long time before saying she didn't want to go to the lawyer. She also didn't want to go home, and she had nowhere else to go for the night. Roy said he could take her to a motel, and she told him she didn't have enough money. He offered to cover it, and she shook her head. When he asked what she wanted, she looked at the back of his head and said she wanted to go somewhere she didn't have to explain herself.

Roy sat there with both hands on the steering wheel. The dead phone remained on the dashboard, and the mount rattled whenever a car passed them. After a while Dana said, "Take me to your place," and Roy turned slightly in his seat to look at her. He reminded her that his wife would be home in the morning, and Dana said she understood. He asked why she wanted to go there, and she said she didn't want to spend the rest of the night alone.

Roy started driving again. Dana leaned back and looked through the side glass, while he watched the road and kept the speed steady. After several minutes she leaned forward and rested her arm along the top of the front seat, and when the car crossed a rough patch her knuckles brushed his shoulder. She pulled her arm back and waited, though Roy kept both hands on the wheel and said nothing.

"You don't know me," she said after a while, and Roy told her he knew that. She said he could take her anywhere, leave her somewhere, or turn the car around, and Roy said he could. Dana waited for him to explain why he hadn't, though he only said he didn't know. She laughed softly and told him that seemed to be his answer for everything, and Roy said it was the only one he had.

The highway appeared ahead, and Roy followed the entrance ramp. The road opened in front of them, and the headlights reached across the pavement while everything beyond them remained dark. Dana settled back and closed her eyes, and Roy reached toward the dashboard and turned the phone facedown. A few minutes later he turned it faceup again, though the screen remained black.

Dana opened her eyes and watched him. She asked if it had come back, and Roy said it was still dead. She looked at the phone for a moment before closing her eyes again. Roy kept driving, following the highway toward the part of town where he believed his apartment was, while Dana stayed in the back seat with her bag beside her and the dead phone between them.

Neither of them talked about what would happen when they reached his place. Roy kept driving, and Dana remained in the back seat, listening to the tires move along the road and watching the dark pass beyond the glass. They had started the night as driver and passenger, each headed somewhere for reasons the other knew very little about, and now they were going somewhere neither had planned.

Roy reached toward the dashboard and turned the phone facedown again. Dana opened her eyes and saw him do it, then looked toward the road as the sedan continued through the dark, carrying them toward a place neither of them had discussed and neither of them seemed ready to face.