Slowly

By Yehezkiel Faoma

A small car riddled with scars roared down the spine of the highway and cleaved the traffic in two, leaving blaring horns in its wake. Behind the wheel Charlie smelled the clutch seeping in from the aircon. He cursed the lengthening shadows of the lorries before slipping into the narrow gaps. In the passenger seat Stephen let the color of dusk soothe the cuts on his face. Far to the north a rocky cliff stood enduring crashing waves and bitter winds, but here, in the jagged horizon where mountain tops met heavy clouds, the sun prepared to set.

“Hey relax,” said Stephen with a nervous laugh. “You’re giving me a stroke.”

“Next time we follow the damn map.”

“Fine, okay.” Something zipped like a bullet and Stephen flinched away. “Yo, slow down.”

“Don’t you tell me to slow down,” said Charlie, holding the asphalt down with his gaze.

Rows and rows of taillights came to fill his eyes, bathing his face a deep red until at the last second the car jerked to a stop and the handbrake cracked.

“It gets slippery at night, you know,” said Stephen, breaking the silence, “and it’s getting dark.”

Charlie pretended to look at something in his side mirror.

“So don’t go too fast.”

Charlie scoffed, laughing bitterly, and said, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Look kid, I’m just—”

“I can drive a car without killing someone, I can do that, alright?”

Stephen fell silent and threw his gaze out the window. The scratches on the glass didn’t mask the ones on his face — some still wet — and the pills didn’t work so well. In the car across there were silhouettes of children asleep, held upright by their seatbelts. A drizzle started to trace lines down the window. Stephen listened to the fine patter, then he heard Charlie wrestle with the steering wheel.

The car swung left and tossed him in his seat and the pain in his broken arm started pulsing again. When the honking was behind them, Stephen saw that they were now on the shoulder, barely enough room even for a car like this.

Something clinked in the back seat. They both turned around. It was fine.

The engine growled and flung them shooting down the thin line between concrete and traffic that grew narrower every inch.

“What are you doing?” said Stephen, clutching the door with his good hand.

“Why, you’re getting nervous now?”

Then a siren blared from behind and strobe lights flashed in the mirror. Stephen sighed audibly, but said nothing. The siren again. Charlie clicked his indicators on and squeezed the brake, very softly, deliberately, and after a long crawl they finally stopped.

As the patrol car crept closer, red and blue began swirling all over the interior, the dashboard, on their arms. The colors were loud and they danced on Stephen’s face and beat into his eyes. His breath caught, barely louder than a sigh, but Charlie heard it. The patter grew louder above their heads. Stephen turned to the window but even the treetops were blue and red and blue and red.

“License and registrations,” said the cop.

It felt strange for Charlie to hear a different voice after so long.

“Your friend alright over there?” The cop nudged at the passenger seat. Stephen’s breathing grew heavy under the sling over his chest, beads of cold sweat glistened on his forehead.

“Uh, here officer. Sorry but…” said Charlie, unsure of his own words, “but could you shut off the lights? Just for a second,” he added hurriedly.

There was a pause. The cop stiffened and straightened up. “Watch it, son.”

“Listen man, my brother can’t—”

“It’s fine,” said Stephen in a cracked voice, “we’re fine, officer.”

A blinding blaze lit up the interior. The cop flashed his light straight at Stephen’s face and made him flinch. Charlie glared at the cop, felt fire rising in his chest and hissing through his teeth, before a hand rested on his shoulder.

“We’re in a bad hurry for something important,” said Stephen, his voice clear again, “so we’re very, very sorry for… you know.”

“Something…” mimicked the cop, slowly, without putting his light away, “important.”

The cop shone his light to the back where a ceramic urn laid on the seat and then back to Stephen. He kept his face straight this time but Charlie felt the finger twitch.

With a click the harsh light was finally gone. The cop took out his notebook, defying the rain.

“I’m recording your plate and your name. From now on you will stick to the damn road, you got it?” The cop stopped his pen, glared at Charlie, and said, “And for God’s sake slow down.”

As soon as the cop stepped away Charlie shook the hand off his shoulder. Time was wasting.

It was past midnight when they turned off the ramp and found the dirt road. Having left the din of traffic and rain behind, the silence between them now started to ring, dampened only by the crunch of gravel. There was nothing in the darkness beyond cables hanging loose between dead lampposts. Charlie switched on the high beams and made sure Stephen heard the click.

He heard it. They watched the headlights pierce the thick night and light up the thin road and the tall grass around them. From the corner of his eye Charlie knew he heard it.

For some time they listened to the churning gravel until the air barely smelled like clutch anymore. Stephen felt the pain pulsating again and noticed how Charlie blinked slower than before. They both needed this.

“Let’s pull over here, Chas,” said Stephen, “you’re tired.”

But Charlie straightened up and revved the engine.

“Dude,” Stephen sighed, “it’s dark out and you’ve been doing this since morning.”

A pebble cracked and popped under the lumbering weight of the car. Stephen studied his own reflection in the window, full of scratches, lit up by the glow from the dashboard. A firefly, or an airplane, flickered once in the darkness.

“Hey,” said Stephen, laughing quietly to himself, “remember when we used to take our bikes, and just ride, from morning till dark?”

Of course Charlie remembered.

“It was Pan’s favorite thing in the world for the longest time,” said Stephen.

“He liked it even more when you taught him to speed downhill.”

“Fine, Charlie!” Stephen shot back, “You wanna go fast? Okay! You hate wasting time, right? Can’t stand it! Picking him up from school and he’s always late? You’re the one he looked up to! Fine, I’ll do it. Give me the fucking wheel, I’ll do it!”

Brakes slammed. The violent stop punched the air out of Stephen’s lungs and seized his seatbelt. Dust rose up and reflected the light back inside, but Charlie’s eyes were wide open.

His knuckles were white and shaking with force on the steering wheel, his jaws clenched until almost numb. He wanted to say it. Blood quickened in his ears. He pictured it: screaming those five words he’d rehearsed ceaselessly day and night awake and crying to sleep when this person next to him was spared by blissful painkillers while he had to scoop up—

Something clinked softly in the back. Charlie turned around and saw the urn laying on its side. He reached out and set it upright, turned off the ignition and turned his back and closed his eyes before he could think of anything else.

That night Charlie dreamed of the day they rode up to the church on the hill again. Pan wanted to play one last time so they laid their bicycles on the grass and ran around the rotting pews until the patches of sky above them grew deep red. Stephen was afraid of the church when it got dark, and so were they. It was time to go home. Charlie still needed Stephen to help him up but he had gone dashing downhill, his calls unheard. So he walked, slowly, the rubber biting into his palm, the sky darkening with every step. But Pan stayed with him, leading his tiny bicycle by his side even though he still had his trainers, trying to offer any big words he could come up with to make his big brother feel better. Perhaps it did, the dream couldn’t remember, but Charlie said it hadn’t. So Pan stayed quiet, still walking behind his brother’s shadow as it grew longer, and longer, and longer.

The heat of the morning snatched him out of the dream but the sinking feeling remained swollen in his throat. Charlie rubbed his eyes. Soon it would slip away and he wanted to hold on to it for as long as possible, but there it went, leaving only an emptiness that made him hate the way the grass stood still.

The car was quiet. There was bread and water in the passenger seat. Shielding his eyes from the sun, Charlie saw a figure approaching in the distance, slightly limping.

Stephen was carrying the jerry can with one hand while sweat drenched his shirt and seeped into the cuts on his face. Exaggerating his breaths didn’t help hide the wincing. He bent down to set the can next to another one, already warmed by the sun.

Charlie took it from his hand. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Saves time,” said Stephen, catching his breath, “this way.”

“Or you wake me up and I drive us there in five minutes instead of limping back and forth for half an hour.”

Stephen disappeared into the car and slammed the door. Some time later Charlie came inside, smelling of fuel, already studying the map on his phone. A pill bottle rattled in the passenger seat. The car tumbled onwards once again.

As Stephen tried to pick out a tablet, he glanced at his brother struggling behind the wheel. The car jerked and bounced ever so slightly whenever he looked down or back at the road.

Stephen offered his hand, palm up. “Let me hold that for you.”

“No,” came the curt reply.

“I’m giving you a hand,” said Stephen, his hand still hanging.

“Don’t,” said Charlie, still looking at his phone, “bad things happen when you do.”

“What’s your problem, Chas? Yeah I walk slow, but—”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“What then, yesterday? If you followed my shortcut—”

Charlie felt that fire rise in his chest. The roar of the car grew louder. He twisted the rearview mirror violently. In the reflection, sunlight glinted off the white ceramic urn.

“That,” said Charlie, stabbing his finger into the mirror.

A pothole struck the car like they got hit from the side.

“Slow down!” said Stephen.

“Don’t you dare say that to me!” Charlie growled.

“You’re gonna roll us over!”

“Like this?”

Charlie swung the wheel and sent the car shooting to the side, slamming Stephen into the door, driving off the road and tumbling into the grass. Things fell onto the floor. The engine shrieked. The stink of clutch rose in the hot air.

“Are you fucking stupid, Chas?” Stephen shouted, eyes wide, scrambling for something to hold on to.

“Like how you pushed him to take the wheel, his first time—”

With a rain like this nobody can hear us. Snuff out the lights. You can get in real trouble if the cops see us, kid. They’re gonna put you away and prison is almost as bad as school.

“—and egged him on to ‘floor it’ the way you like it—”

Slippery roads won’t be a problem if you’re not an idiot. You’re not, are you? Ha, but really, just feel the grip and you’ll be fine. It’s in the feeling. Here, look.

“—and sat with him in the car, by his side, and did nothing—”

Seatbelts for what, you nerd? It’s the middle of the night, nobody can see shit. What are you, chicken? Alright fine, fine, I’ll cut it out, stop that.

“—so he can slam a hundred miles an hour into a tree—”

Look Pan, this strip? All yours. Not every day the stars align to keep Chas out of your hair. It’s all straight, no tricks. And I’m right here to take over if you mess up so don’t worry about a thing. Oh? Then I’ll talk him down, no sweat. But he won’t. Relax.

“—and you walk away with a scratch?”

“Stop it!”

“I had to pick his bones from his ashes while you’re high on morphine!”

“Chas!”

“I wish it was you.”

“CHARLIE!”

Stephen tore the handbrake. They slammed forwards, seatbelts biting into their skin. Gravity tossed them around, the clamor of dirt against steel, sky and ground reeling as the car spun and slid across the wet grass, then thumped to a sudden stop.

Charlie tried to rub the spots out of his eyes but found his hands quivering. There was no road. Around him was nothing but grass.

A soft voice came from his side.

“He asked me.”

Stephen’s fingers were white around his own thigh, having found nothing else to hold on to. A few cuts had reopened and his face was wet, and pale, and dripping onto his shirt. His breaths were staggered, and the words came late.

“So he can drive home,” he said, swallowing, “from school.”

Stephen looked up with dull eyes, the same eyes that met Charlie that rainy night, the pupils still under burning flashlight, in a face like a stone mask, wrapped in a silver blanket and swirling lights, all around screaming blue and red and blue and red that had never truly left him.

Charlie felt his throat swell with an ugly feeling.

Stephen blinked. He reached back with a grunt, struggling with his sling in the way, to set the urn upright again, and tightened the seatbelt over it. When he set back down, Charlie was holding the pill bottle.

“You okay?” said Stephen as he put a tablet on his tongue.

Charlie let his hand fall, slowly, and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Stephen, wiping his mouth, “I do too.”

In a small car riddled with scars, in the middle of a grass field torn apart by tire tracks, two brothers looked at the route they had to take to get to a rocky cliff in the north, where the ruins of a church stood above a sparkling sea, when the wind would be still and the tide would be falling and the fireflies would wake. The sun hung high in the sky. They could make it before it would set.

THE END

Author Bio: Yehezkiel Faoma grew up in Jakarta and its rusty skies grew on him. His work has appeared in Variant Literary Journal, Flashes of Brilliance, and Down in the Dirt. At night, you can find him learning Japanese or writing.

Next Page