The father had been driving all day and into the night. He was the only one who remained awake in the car; the child and the old man were fast asleep in the backseat, and the young man was in the passenger seat next to him. There was no sign of the next town. The father seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
“Michael’s gone,” the old man sat up in his recliner in the corner of the room and shook the room awake with his voice. The father bolted awake from sleeping on his back, and to his feet in a scramble. He first checked the child’s bed where he was certainly not, and all the way looking out the window to see the car was no longer in the parking place he left it in.
He motioned to the young man, “let’s go,” and he switched the TV on before the old man as the two of them left the hotel room. He didn’t want to call the police, and he was even too embarrassed to tell the front desk clerk that the child had taken the car.
The two of them wandered down the sidewalk further into town. The first person they came to, the father pulled his wallet with Michael’s picture from his back pocket and showed it to him. He shook his head in shocked concern, looking the father dead in the eyes.
The second person seemed almost disgusted, looking back and forth between the father and young man. He walked away from both of them, continuing to shake his head with averted eyes.
The third thought it was a joke and became very angry. He told them they both needed help and the father nodded in agreement, but the man was hostile. He felt threatened, though the father and especially the young man remained oblivious. This man spat as he walked away.
The two made it back to the hotel room, where the old man sat catatonic in the chair, before the TV, which presented a breaking report about a car accident. It was the child, who had rear ended another vehicle and emerged in flames. The father glanced maybe once at the TV before he was on his knees, in tears, by the side of the old man. It was getting dark out, so the young man went to sleep.
The next morning, the young man woke up to the father still by the side of the old man, weeping and mourning. The old man had died. The TV was still on but now fizzled with static. The young man tried to shake his shoulder but became angry in the father’s lack of response. He had seemed to lose all touch. The young man took his things and left the room.
When he got outside, the car was parked out front with the child sleeping in the backseat. The young man got into the driver’s seat, turned on the radio, lit a cigarette, and continued in the same direction.
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