Upside Down Sky
by Michael Weems
Just as he started to roll up the Jeep’s window, she handed him a twenty dollar bill. He smiled with eyes lowered and graciously took the money. “Thanks, Mom” he said and leaned out to kiss her cheek. The departing twenty had now become tradition. He didn’t need the money but it helped her feel like her part as caregiver was being fulfilled. “It’s nothing.” She smiled. “You can get a burger and a coke at that diner you took me to. Keep the change.” She winked and continued. “Remember baby, you should always take breaks when you’re driving.” He knew this exchange of dialogue by memory, just as he had learned the names and numbers of each exit on his way back to campus. As he pulled out of the driveway, he looked back and waved until his mother was out of sight. He would remember to call her once he returned to campus, an effort to assure her that out of state college wasn’t that bad of an idea. His mother knew the trip would take exactly three hours and thirty minutes when he drove the speed limit. The first few times he made the required call home, he was blindsided by the ‘speed demon lecture’ and inspired him to wait until the exact time to phone again, regardless of when he arrived. It was all together possible that she knew of his deception, but even this effort alone showed that he cared.
The trip was a laborious one, requiring only three left hand turns from his front door and the campus gates. What lay in between was the massive interstate–blandly leading north for over three hours. While the fall drive with its foliage and green fields was alluring, the spring drive was often a grayish thaw–buds barely poking through the remaining snow. As he kicked the jeep into gear, he wished the day had started earlier, as it was now already dusk. The mountains blocked most radio stations, leaving him with a paltry selection of public radio talk shows or country music. Every other hour, he switched between the two, hoping for a distraction from the road.
Since getting his black Jeep Cherokee during his freshman year, he’d only made this drive alone. When the road grew too long and his eyes glazed over, he’d pull off at the only diner off of exit nineteen. He’d once exited a few stops prior, desperately low on gas, only to find the entire town’s businesses dark by five pm. He drove further in vain and as he pulled into the Peach Pie Diner, was forced to use his AAA card for the first time. He shamefully lied, saying his gas gauge was faulty, when in fact he had noticed the light beckoning him for the past ten miles, an irritating orange beacon of irresponsibility. The diner was entirely average in every aspect of the word, while the diner’s irritable truckers with their tables of food and the drunken locals singing along to the 50’s radio station provided bleak amusement. It’s greasy food and cheery waitresses were just enough to carry him the remaining fifteen miles to campus.
As he drove along, a talk radio panel quietly hummed and his mind went back to the life at school. By all accords, he was still a good kid. He drank on weekends and smoked cigarettes when the mood struck him. After an early college dalliance with a young girl, whose name currently escaped him, he had a steady girlfriend who lived in the dorm next door. He missed the occasional class, but still held a 3.0 grade point average. A good mood soon found its way into his car as some blue grass music twanged on the public radio’s song hour. He envisioned coming back to a quiet evening with Kristi. She graciously understood his want to visit home and had accompanied him once, much to his chagrin, striking it up wonderfully with his Mom. Now when his Mom called it felt like more than half the call was comprised of her and Kristi’s chats. His mood faded, as what was left of the light evening sky now reflected a dark gray. He’d done the drive in light snow before and wished never to try again. The winter drive was a true test of endurance and concentration as he navigated well below the speed limit and witnessed countless cars skidding helplessly, or worse, stuck on the guard rail. His face turned dour, as the radio station started to succumb to static–just as it had before the last storm. With a sigh, he prematurely turned to a sports radio channel and cracked the window, a last chance for background noise. As the two hosts filled the air with banal chatter, he became acutely aware of the number of cars pulled over to the side of the road, but smiled at the site of the diner. As he stepped outside the Jeep, he locked the door and turned to find snow flurrying in his face. Fat, beautiful snowflakes soon covered his hair and jacket as he stared in dismay towards the prospect of an even harder drive than before. This was only compounded when he noticed the diner’s lights shutting off. A waitress shuffled past him, her stocking legs scurrying towards her sedan–slowly covering with snow. She brashly pushed snow off the hood and windows and looked after to him, shouting “Sorry, love. We’re closed. Nor’Easter coming.”
With his quarter tank of gas and increasingly bad mood, he glared at the traffic. The road was wide open but he wished for a reason to not have to re-enter, but slowly hit the gas and entered the right lane, now entirely covered with snow. He began to prepare for battle – the windshield wipers strode back and forth across their terrain, barely providing him with a line of sight. He cracked the windows further, allowing the cold air to blast his face and snow to flutter quickly into the car. As per tradition, he started to see the toll the storm was taking. Cars assumed positions that only further explored the storm’s wrath, lying backwards, sideways, and forwards, littered across medians and poorly lit breakdown lanes. Eventually, he spotted the first real warning. Red lights of an ambulance flashed, alerting him to a single car that had flipped near the middle of the road. He drove by at a slow pace, but kept his gaze fixed firmly ahead to avoid any connection to the situation or that he might be at risk.
His radio had gone completely to static and he automatically turned it off. The only sound was that of his own car and the gentle howl of the wind whipping past. He thought of the diner. He imagined the one really cute waitress who seemed to always bring him a larger than normal slice of pie and how much he missed that tonight. He fought even harder to keep his eyes straight ahead as the number of flipped cars grew to a point where they were now a commonplace vision over every few miles. His confidence wavered. His only assurance being that each accident had been accompanied by either the car of a state trooper or ambulance. The snow fell heavily and dangerously started to hypnotize him. He became desperate, pinching his thighs and slapping his cheeks. He reached his hand out the window and rubbed the accumulated snow on his face. When he flicked his high beams, the snowflakes appeared to resemble the stars flying past quickly, like they had in Star Wars. He’d taken Kristi to see the movie during a retro movie campus night. Unlike most of the campus population, he had not seen it before and badgered her with questions about plausibility and reality. She, good naturedly, shushed him and kept insisting he just stop thinking and enjoy the movie. Later that night she called his innocence adorable. He started to protest, but was silenced with a kiss. She often used this tactic to defer his irritation and seemingly it always worked.
The green sign ahead indicated only ten miles left until campus. His daydreams from the earlier part of his trip had now just been replaced with mere survival. He had insurance but couldn’t fathom being without his car for any amount of time. He couldn’t let himself imagine the possible injury some of the other drivers had suffered tonight. If all the forces combined to bring him home safely, he would call his mother and apologize to Kristi for thinking too much. He might even reciprocate her precious vow of love to him which now lingered unanswered, into a dangerous two week state of limbo. These thoughts of reparation flooded his head and without thinking, his mind had wandered too far – he started to drift over the double lines and immediately, and as foolish as he knew it was to do, slammed on the brakes. The Jeep skidded back and forth and he desperately jerked the wheel in the opposite direction in a blind effort to stay upright. His last ditch effort had proved successful as the Jeep came to a halt, a safe but startling five feet from the guard rail. He took moment to compose his bearings and looked back in the mirror for any signs of damage. A single car was slowly pulling up behind him.
His hands fumbled for the door as he wanted to immediately assure them of his safety. He stepped out tentatively onto the icy road and kept a hand on the car as he neared the approaching motorist. The man stepped towards him and turned out to be roughly his age. He wore a heavy sweater and baseball hat. A girl, whom he presumed to be the guy’s girlfriend, leaned curiously out the window to assess the situation. “I’m fine”, he said to the approaching stranger. “I know”, he replied. “I’m worried about this dude.” He pointed to a now revealed car, flipped in the center median. Its wheels were spinning and headlights still shone brightly. He desperately gazed down the road, hoping to spy an approaching emergency vehicle of any sort. “Well?” asked the stranger. He extended his hand towards the stranded car in a ‘please go ahead’ manner. He hesitated for a moment – the panic of what lay ahead overwhelmed him. “You’d want someone to check if it were you,” insisted the stranger. At that moment, he knew the stranger was right. Carefully, they crossed the road towards the overturned car. A sick feeling crept from his stomach to his throat as they now stood feet away. Music still played, a pop song that bouncily lit up the proximity and made the situation that much more tense. “Open it”, continued the stranger. He looked back at his girlfriend, eagerly rubbernecking in their direction. The stranger’s eyes turned back to him in a new light–insecure and almost in tears. “Please,” he whispered. No moment in his life to this point could prepare him for the possibilities of what or who lay inside the still lively car. Impulsively, he reached for the door and closed his eyes. He felt the click of the door handle responding and pulled out hard. Eyes still closed, he heard the stranger exhale. Through barely ajar eyes, he tentatively looked inside to find absolutely nothing. He quickly gazed to the stranger and to his girlfriend, happily satisfied that they’d at least done the right thing and taking solace in that the person was healthy enough to walk away and find help. They walked back to their respective cars and shook hands without a word exchanged.
He sat in his car as he watched the stranger drive away and disappear from his sight. He looked back at the still empty road and continued back on his journey. He traveled at practically half his usual speed for the remaining several miles. He maneuvered the Jeep into a parking spot and didn’t bother to unpack. He immediately called his Mom, now worried sick over the delay of usual response, and explained to her the circumstances of his trek. After calming his Mom down, he sat down on his bed and played with the phone–buying a precious moment before he made his next inevitable call.
Thirty minutes later, Kristi was at his door with popcorn, a movie, and dressed for bed. Her reaction was much more dramatic, but altogether much more flattering. She lauded his heroism and kept bringing his actions up time and again in what appeared to be honest amazement and pride. It didn’t help that his story to Kristi included the encounter with the motorist, (a detail he withheld from his Mom), and may have embellished some of his actions as well. A few short moments into the movie, he’d fallen asleep. Kristi carefully turned off the television, locked his door, removed her clothes, and climbed under the covers alongside him. She straddled him, nestling her head near his and wrapped her arms and legs around him. He grunted softly, but happily. She kissed his cheek and playfully whispered into his ear, “Tell me about it again, hero.”