Driving After Dark

Story 1: Keeping Up With the Joneses

Sarah nervously put her phone on the magnetic holder and started the car. She opened the app and her index finger hovered over the button for a few minutes before she finally pressed “GO!” She waited. Nothing. Her shoulders started to relax. The tension left her face. Bing!! The app went off, and all the stress hormones flooded back into her body. She pressed accept and put the car in drive. She was grateful to have an opportunity to make extra money, and she loved to drive, but the idea of complete strangers getting into her car was for sure a big unknown. At family functions, everyone knew to look for Sarah in the corner with her nose in a book or looking at her phone. She wasn’t anti-social, not exactly. Just extremely awkward socially. As for parties, well she would show up late, half-drunk, and leave early having spoken to probably a quarter of the people that she knew.

“The car will be here in 5 minutes,” Karen shouted up the stairs.

Usually it’s the wife who is the last to be ready, she mused, but Ben was such a dawdler. She was always waiting for him. It was probably the scarcity of hair on his head, she decided. He needed to make sure each hair was placed exactly right so his head didn’t shine through. She didn’t mind his balding head, but he did. She walked through the kitchen, closing cabinet doors and drawers. How the house got to be such a mess with only two of them, she had no clue. They didn’t have children or pets, but they still managed to make the house look fully lived in. She looked down at her phone; the car would be here any minute.

“Honey, we can’t keep the driver waiting. Hurry up!”

Ben appeared in the kitchen doorway, “I’m ready. How do I look?”

She smiled at him. “You look great.” The app chimed – the driver was in their driveway. Perfect timing.

Sarah watched the couple walking up the driveway. They seemed normal enough. Probably not mass murderers or sex slave traders. Although she supposed she didn’t really know what sex slave traders looked like, come to think of it. The woman was a few inches taller than the man, who kept looking back at the house. They opened the back door and got into the car.

“Are you sure you turned the oven off after dinner?” he asked his wife.

“Yes, I’m sure. I checked it when I went through the kitchen the last time.”

“OK, good.” He looked out the window at the house one last time as the car pulled out of the driveway.

“Hi, what’s your name?” the driver asked.

“Karen,” the woman answered.

“And you’re going to 5917 Walker Drive?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Karen leaned back after she buckled her seat belt. She really wasn’t looking forward to this game night with Ben’s family. It was a monthly event. The house would be packed with pre-teens and teens gathered around the video game console or staring at their phones. As they played cards, her in-laws would brag about their children’s exploits on the soccer field, on the school debate team, or whatever endeavor they were now shining at. Funny how none of her nieces and nephews ever seemed to fail at anything, or do poorly. Ben would say it was good genes; she thought it was just not discussed. A failure was quietly brushed under the rug. That’s why her in-laws declined to talk about her and Ben’s lack of children. In their eyes, it was a failure. How could anybody not want children? Look at what a joy their children were. That should be plenty of motivation.

“Is the temperature OK?” the driver asked.

“It feels perfect in here, thanks.” Ben replied. Karen looked at him. He was looking out the window, probably counting something – streetlights, fences, or maybe even red cars. He absently reached over and squeezed her hand as if he knew she was looking at him. She smiled. They had been together so long they could almost read each other’s minds.

“Have you been driving long?” Karen asked the driver.

“I suppose I should tell you yes to put you at ease but the truth is that you are my first passengers. I’m glad that I got some nice people.”

“We don’t drive, so we use the service a lot. It’s amazing how many drivers don’t even keep their car clean. Yours is spotless. What was your name again?”

“I’m Sarah. Thank you – I usually keep it fairly clean but I made sure to give it a good scrubdown before I started. Is there anything you want to listen to music-wise? I have a music app that can play anything. Sorry I don’t have anything playing – I forgot to turn it on when I started driving.

“It’s no problem. We don’t listen to a lot of music honestly. We read and play games and that’s about it. You can leave it off. My husband is hard of hearing in one ear and the music actually bothers him and makes it harder for him to hear.”

“Oh, sure, I can do that. What’s your husband’s name? I remember you’re Karen.”

“I’m Ben,” he piped up, still looking out the window. “I can hear just fine unless my wife is talking.”

They all laughed. Up front, Sarah relaxed a little. This wasn’t so bad. She was even talking – to strangers!

“What’s your favorite game to play?” She asked to the back.

“Oh, we play a lot of different card games. Hearts. Spades. Euchre. Poker.”

“Really? We played euchre all the time when I was growing up. I love to play, although I don’t know anyone here that plays. I’ve only been here a couple of years.”

“You must have moved from the Midwest. That’s where we came from about 20 years ago, and us and our family are the only people we know that are familiar with it as well. As a matter of fact, we’re on our way to play with his family.”

“How fun! Good luck. Do you play with the same partner all the time, or do you switch off?” Sarah was genuinely curious and very excited to find a connection to a game that reminded her of happy times in her childhood. God knew they were few and far between. She turned on her left turn signal.

“Oh we switch every time, but we play with the same person all evening. It’s kind of a family tournament. We have a little bracket and we draw names, but you can’t play with the same person two months in a row. Don’t want any power teams building up,” Karen laughed.

Sarah nodded from the front seat. “That makes perfect sense. That’s a good way to do it.”

“Yes, when Ben and I end up playing together, we are unbeatable so they try to do their best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Karen explained.

“We can read each other’s minds,” Ben added. He winked at Karen and turned his head back to the window.

“Wow, that’s really cool,” said Sarah. “You must have been together for a long time.”

“We met in elementary school,” said Karen. “Let’s just say that makes it officially a long time.”

Karen recalled the little blond-haired blue-eyed boy who was caught daydreaming as often as Karen was raising her hands and answering questions. She was a teacher’s pet, and Ben was a student that teachers wrung their hands over. He didn’t participate. He was unfocused. Still, he managed to pass every test with flying colors and the teachers did not understand how a boy who would not read his assignments or take notes could do well on exams. Karen knew, now, that Ben was probably on the autism spectrum, and that he had a truly amazing memory for anything that he read. He could read a book that took her a month to read in one or two nights. And, he remembered everything about it. He knew almost every answer when they watched Jeopardy every night, and she made sure he was always on her team during any trivia game because chances were he was going to win if he could get his teammates to listen to him. Funny how often people thought they knew better than somebody who came up with the answer the minute he heard the question. Ben did not forget facts that he read.

Sarah eased onto the highway exit ramp and turned toward their destination. “Do you have children?”

The car was very quiet. Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror. Ben and Karen were looking at each other. She swallowed nervously.

“We can’t,” Ben said.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Karen rushed to answer. “You couldn’t know. We’ve been battling infertility for a long time and I’m getting to be of an age where we just have to decide whether we want kids at all, whether we want to adopt, or whether we want to try to figure out a way to keep paying for the infertility treatments. We don’t talk about it a lot except among ourselves because our family thinks we’re not having kids on purpose. We’re tired of explaining it to them.”

“That’s terrible,” said Sarah. “It would be nice to have your family’s support.”

“Yes, it would, but that’s not going to happen.”

“It’s a tough decision. When I was in my teens and 20s, I said I never wanted to have children. Then when I got close to 30, I decided that I did. I had some minor infertility issues that were easily fixed with serophene, but I still had a miscarriage before I got pregnant the first time. I remember the hopeless feeling and I’m so sorry that you’re having to deal with that. What do you think about adopting?”

Karen said, “I guess everyone always wants to have their own child, so we really have been focused on the treatments and haven’t really explored that as much as we should.”

“My company offers adoption reimbursement services, which is nice. I have some friends who are foster parents. They’ve had a beautiful little girl for about a year and are in the process of adopting her. Have you thought about trying something like that?”

Karen thought for a minute. “You know, that’s a really interesting idea. We really hadn’t thought about taking a child that wasn’t an infant in at all. What do you think, Ben?”

“I have to think about it, but it actually sounds like something that could be very rewarding. Let’s look into it.”

“Here we are,” said Sarah. “Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed driving you.”

“Thank you. We really enjoyed the conversation as well and we will look into foster care. Thanks so much for suggesting it.” Ben and Karen climbed out of the car and waved goodbye to her as they headed into the house.

Sarah ended the ride on the app and rated the passengers 5 stars. That had gone remarkably well other than her gaffe asking about children. She really needed to try to remember not to pry too much into her passenger’s lives so as not to make them uncomfortable. Her app dinged and she saw that they had given her a generous tip. She guessed she hadn’t offended them too much. She headed out of the neighborhood. She had seen a grocery store coming in where she could park until she got her next ride. The app sounded. So much for that idea. She followed the GPS towards her next destination.

Karen’s mind was churning as they walked in the house. They were a long-time married couple with good jobs, a nice home and the ability to offer a nice home to a child in need. Why hadn’t they considered foster parenting? She looked at Ben. He looked at her, and she knew they would be doing some research the next day. She smiled and laughed and hugged all her in-laws tightly.

Story 2: A Long Tradition

The shopping center was dark, which made Sarah a little nervous as she put the car in park and looked around trying to find her passenger, Susan. A tiny figure materialized out of the darkness under the canopy for the Lucky Yu Chinese restaurant and walked towards her car. Sarah hit the unlock button when the person got closer and she could see it was a young woman.

“Hi, how are you, Susan?” Sarah asked as the young woman got into the car.

“Very well, thank you. Do you mind driving me so far? The last driver cancelled the ride.”

Sarah checked the destination. It was about 45 minutes away, but all by a four lane road with minimal stoplights. “No, I don’t mind at all. That’s why I drive – so I can take people where they need to go.”

“Thank you so much. I’m just going home from work and I really can’t wait to get there.” Susan clicked her seat belt and sat back. Sarah glanced in the mirror. Susan was a beautiful young Asian woman with short black hair and a sad look on her face.

“Are you ok? I don’t mean to pry, but you seem sad.” Damn it, Sarah thought. I always have to try to get too personal. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after driving for two weeks. She turned out of the parking lot.

“Yes. I am OK. I am just tired. I work at my grandfather’s restaurant and the days are very long. I’m also a graduate student and so if I’m not working, I’m studying.”

“Wow, that’s a lot. What are you studying, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“No, I don’t mind.” Susan thought back through her day. Getting up at 7am, finding a driver to bring her all the way in to the small but extremely popular restaurant. She generally served as a hostess, but she basically did whatever grandfather told her to do. Today had been especially busy and she had been on her feet all day, and had two assignments to do when she got home. She replied, “I’m studying Graphic Design. I have an art degree, but I wanted to add some design skills.”

“Oh, do you get to use your art at the restaurant?”

“Well, I did design a new menu for grandfather, but he hasn’t decided whether he wants to use it yet or not. It’s fine, either way, because I did it for a school project, but I would be so proud if he would use it.”

The menu had been quite a source of contention in the family. She had done the school assignment without telling anyone what she was doing. When her professor had given her high compliments, she felt confident enough to bring it to the restaurant. Her mother had cried when she saw it. “It’s so beautiful, Susan. It is too beautiful to use here.” Grandfather nodded in agreement. She had known it would take a lot for him to decide to spend the money to do a new menu, but she had hoped maybe the design would be compelling enough to convince him. She had drawn sketches of her family members’ faces in a subtle design with red and gold to go with the décor in the restaurant. The sketches looked like faces, but also like graceful curves among the flowers she had intertwined between them. She sighed.

“You seem tired.” Sarah checked the mirror again. Susan was teary-eyed. “I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that my family doesn’t want me to get my Master’s. They didn’t even want me to go to college, and they certainly didn’t want me to study art. They think it’s a waste of time. They barely acknowledge any of the work that I do unless it’s to say how clean the kitchen is at the end of the night, or how shiny the floors are. I’m expected to be at the restaurant from open to close, every day that it’s open. They pay me enough to have my own place out in Sinclair, but not enough to buy a car. If it weren’t for grants, I wouldn’t even be able to do any classes at all.”

“You have to be exhausted, working all those long hours and then doing classes. Have you asked them if you could work fewer hours?”

“You don’t understand. I can’t ask them that. They would be devastated. They barely tolerate me living alone and getting my education. Asking to do less would be like a slap in the face to them.”

“I see. But surely they want you to be happy?”

“Only if it is under their terms. They want me to work at the restaurant, and marry a nice Chinese man, preferably one of grandfather’s friends, and then when I’m ready to give them grandchildren, I can take a little time away from the restaurant.” She burst into tears. “I don’t even want to get married, ever, and I’m way too young to be wanting to have kids. But I can’t talk to them. I can’t. Disappointing them is my biggest fear.”

Sarah pulled over to the side of the road, and reached in the glove box. “Here are some tissues. I don’t blame you for crying. It sounds so frustrating when you have your own ambitions. You know what will make you happy, but they seem to think that you can only be happy under their terms?” she asked.

“It’s not even that. I don’t think they care if I’m happy. They just want me to follow in their footsteps and be like them.” She blew her nose and sniffed. “Sometimes, I just want to go to the airport, get on a plane, and disappear.”

“They’re your parents. Surely they love you. And it sounds like you love them, to be so worried about what they think.” Sarah eased back out onto the road.

“I think they love me. They don’t tell me they do, but they are always there when I need them. And I think my mom is maybe a little more understanding, but she doesn’t dare say anything in front of father or grandfather.”

“Maybe you should take your mom to lunch when the restaurant is closed and try to talk to her about how you feel. I have daughters, and I would want them to tell me if they were feeling so bad.” Sarah looked both ways at the intersection and made the right turn when the traffic was past. She accelerated smoothly to the speed limit. Why was it 45 on this road? Every car out here was going at least 55. She compromised at 50 and headed towards Sinclair. The radio was playing quietly and she heard one of her favorite songs playing. She used the control on the steering wheel to nudge the volume a little bit. “If you can’t take me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best,” sang Hailee Steinfeld. Machine Gun Kelly continued “I know you’re fed up, you fall get up.”

In the back seat, Susan listened to the song. “Would you mind awfully playing that song again?” she asked.

“Of course not. It’s one of my very favorites.” Sarah pushed the back arrow on the steering wheel and the song began again. “I wrote this song to numb your pain …”

“Who is this?” Susan asked. The voices of both singers were amazing. The song had such beauty and emotion in it. She began thinking of her art, and how she wanted to convey those emotions to people through her work.

“It’s Machine Gun Kelly, and the woman is Hailee Steinfeld.” Sarah explained. “It’s a song off his album called Bloom, which is just really excellent.”

“I’ve heard of him, a long time ago, but I had no idea he had music like this. I will definitely listen to the album. Wow.” The song continued to play and Susan relaxed into the backseat and listened.

In the front, Sarah switched over to her hard disk drive and started playing the Bloom album.

Susan said, “You know, I love creating art. I love it when people look at my work and smile, or cry. I love making them feel something. I guess musicians must feel the same way. I guess all artists have that goal – to move the person who is experiencing their art.”

“I am sure that’s true. I think it’s a mix of doing it as an outlet for your own pain and experiences and then with a goal of helping other people feel your emotions.” Sarah was not an artist, but she appreciated so many forms of art. She enjoyed all sorts of music. Her playlist was so diverse – everything from rappers like Machine Gun Kelly and NF, to country singers like Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood, to rock musicians Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Bon Jovi. She had Christian songs, punk songs, alternative music, and pretty much every genre except death metal. She didn’t care much for bands that screamed their entire catalog. For driving, she had a “clean” playlist of songs that didn’t have explicit words so she didn’t offend any passengers, but her personal playlist had 10 hours worth of songs with the original language intact. Swearing didn’t really bother her – to her, it was just a form of expression. She glanced back at Susan, who was leaning back with her eyes closed. She stayed quiet in case she was sleeping.

Susan wasn’t sleeping. Her mind was racing. She had so many ideas for paintings and drawings that she wanted to do. The music stirred up her creativity. She thought about what it would be like to spend regular hours every day making art. Even two hours a day would be amazing. She took a mental inventory of the supplies she had at home. She hadn’t been buying much since most of her design classes used computer programs for the design element. She enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the same as putting a colored pencil to the paper and beginning to tease out a face or a flower from the blankness of the page. Adding layers and layers until she could see a representation of the vision in her mind, she would often lose track of time, drawing all night. But that had been in school – since she had started working at the restaurant, she had hardly drawn a thing. Yes, she had designed the menu, but that was done on the computer. She didn’t get the same release from the computer work.

“We’re here.” Sarah said softly.

Susan opened her eyes. She smiled up at Sarah. “That was so fast. I can’t believe we’re here already.”

“That’s why I play music when I drive. It makes time seem to go by in a flash.”

“I’m going to buy that album on iTunes and play it while I draw tonight. Then tomorrow, I’m going to tell my grandfather that I can only work until 8 pm, and that I have to have some time for myself. He won’t understand. I know he won’t. But I have to stand up for myself because nobody else will. They don’t know what I need.”

“Well good luck and please enjoy the music. He has a lot more music that is really personal that I think you would enjoy, so check it out if you like.”

“I will.” Susan smiled sweetly at Sarah as she got out of the car. She felt a resolve she had never felt before. Where had that even come from? She knew that her desire to create was stronger than her fear of disappointing her parents. She looked down at her phone. Sarah had ended the ride. Susan added a tip, and then switched over to the phone and dialed her mother’s number.

Story 3: Speaking in Tongues

The rain began to fall harder. Sarah adjusted her wipers and kept her eyes focused on the painted stripes on the road. The wind rocked her car gently, and she corrected for it as she moved forward. It was an ugly night. She thought about heading towards home. It wasn’t as late as she normally drove, but it was stressful driving weather. She shrugged her shoulders and neck to try to relieve the tension. Her app sounded. Ah, great. The pick-up was behind her. She went to the next intersection and did a u-turn back towards the pick-up spot. Looking at the map, she figured out it was a gas station – she knew this area pretty well. It wasn’t where she lived now, but she had lived there for a long time when her daughters were growing up. Back when she was married. She sighed.

The gas station sign shone garishly in the dark, the raindrops magnifying the lights and making it look like a beacon. She pulled in front of the gas station. A youngish man came out and got into the car.

“Good evening,” Sarah said. “Your name is?”

“I’m Daniel.”

“Hi, Daniel.” She read the destination to him to confirm and he nodded. He had a lunchbox and a bookbag, and he set them on the floor in the back.

“Your name is Sarah? Did you know that Sarah was the wife of Abraham in the Bible?”

As it happened, Sarah knew quite a bit about the Bible. When she had been young, her parents had sent her to different churches all the time. She had gone to the First Christian, the Second Baptist, First United Methodist, and even the Church of the Nazarene in her small town. The Nazarene Church had a Bible Quiz team, and Sarah had been the youngest team member, and also the one who won every competition. She remembered things. If she read something, then she could remember it. She studied every verse in the Bible that they assigned her, and remembered it all. The adult in charge of the Bible Quiz had submitted an entry for them to a tournament, and they had gone all the way to the state capital to compete. The team hadn’t won, but Sarah had gotten a special award for not missing any questions. So, yes, she knew that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and not only that, she was really good at Bible questions on Jeopardy.

“Yes, I did, actually. I was named after my grandmother, though.” Sarah smiled at him in the mirror to make sure he wasn’t offended.

“Ah, I see. Can I ask you something else, Sarah?” His dark eyes met hers in the mirror.

She hurriedly looked back at the road. It wasn’t safe to be looking in the backseat in this weather. “Sure,” she said.

“Do you speak in tongues?”

“Ummm, no, I can’t say that I do.” Sarah’s mind raced furiously. Was this guy OK? She looked at the app. Only 10 minutes to his destination. Surely she could handle him for 10 minutes.

“You should read Acts 1, 2, 3 and 4. They will explain everything to you. You have to speak in tongues so the devil doesn’t know what you are saying.”

“I see.”

“Yes, even though God is everywhere, and hears everything, the devil is there also, and he hears your prayers and he works against you. If you speak in tongues, then the devil can’t understand. Your prayers will go straight to God and only God. God only wants the best for you. He is in you. He is love.”

Sarah made a sound like “Hmmm.” Daniel didn’t seem to care whether she was listening or not as he just continued on with his . . . his sermon, she guessed.

“God sent his son to earth to die for our sins, but God is the son, and the father and the holy spirit. He is three in one. His son died, and was risen on the third day. The number three is very important to God.”

“I didn’t know that.” Sarah felt like she should say something.

“God loves you more than anything and he wants you to talk to him, but he doesn’t want the devil hearing what you are saying, because then the devil goes out and works against you and takes you down paths where you should not go. Do you ever feel like you are going down the wrong path, Sarah?”

“Sometimes.” Only another mile to go. Sarah assessed the situation. He didn’t seem dangerous, just very serious about the topic at hand. She figured he would invite her to his church to be saved or something along those lines.

“That’s because the devil hears your thoughts and he knows what to do to lead you astray. When you speak in tongues, you also begin to think in tongues, and then you are save from the devil.”

Sarah pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. She hit the door unlock button. “Um, thank you. I appreciate it.” She didn’t really know what else to say even though that sounded pretty stupid. Daniel reached into his pocket. She figured he was going to give her a card with information on the church.

“God wanted me to give you this.” He handed her folded up paper. It was dark so she couldn’t see what it was, but she took it.

“Thank you. I mean thank him. I mean….”

Daniel opened the door to get out of the car and smiled at her. “Bless you, Sarah. Thank you.” He got out and ran through the rain to the front door.

She backed out of the driveway and headed up the street. At the entrance to the subdivision was a streetlight – she stopped to look at the paper. It was a $20 bill. She thought about everything he had said. It wasn’t like he was threatening. But how had he known that she needed $20 tomorrow to renew her license plates? Now that she had it, she could quit driving in this awful weather and head home. In her head, she silently thanked Daniel. And God.