Dearest Rachel –
I can still remember your shriek from the night Aki-san was mortally wounded. I had come downstate to visit you while you were back home at your folks’ house over one break or another. The date escapes me at the moment, I confess; I want to say Christmas or late January, but there wasn’t any snow on the ground that I can remember. What I can remember was that I wanted to take you to see Beauty & the Beast, which was just winding down its run (and had already, if memory serves, been nominated for an Oscar, but not won it yet). The nearest place showing it, however, was out in Keokuk, requiring us to cross two counties (well, a county and a half or so) and the Mississippi river to get to.
It wasn’t that big of a deal, though; just a straight shot across route 136 to the Keosippi Mall. And while I don’t recall what specifically you had to say about it, I’m pretty sure we had a good time together. I mean, we were together, we were looking forward to our upcoming wedding in a certain number of months; how could we not have a good time?
But somewhere on our way back, in the pitch darkness of rural Illinois, with the only light out there being that of my little stick-shift Toyota Starlet, we encountered a deer standing in the middle of the road. And just as the cliched saying goes, it just stood there, staring into Aki-san’s headlights. Naturally, I made to turn so as to avoid it, but wouldn’t you know it, the fool thing proceeded to jump in the same direction I was turning. I guess it wanted to stay in the light, for reasons I’ll never understand.
There wasn’t anything to do in that instant; I’d rolled my initiative by trying to dodge it in the first place, and there wasn’t any more reaction time left for me to work with. I hit the deer, and we went spinning, thankfully toward the side of the road where the ground rose up, as opposed to dropping us off into a slope, or worse yet, a ravine – it was so dark, I couldn’t have told you what was off the road toward that other side, but the way we’d ended up, we were able to illuminate the hill off the shoulder we’d spun toward. You’d screamed as we spun, and while I didn’t, I was probably too focused on getting out of that spin, and to at least a reasonably safe stop before anything worse happened.
Speaking of which, you probably remember the rest of that night’s activities. When we went to check on the wounded deer, it immediately got up and bounded away, preferring to run on three legs than to deal with the monsters that had just tried to kill it – never mind that we’d literally gone out of our way to avoid doing just that. Meanwhile, the rear tire on your side had been thrown out of joint to where it was scraping against the wheel well, but we cautiously limped our way back through, I think, another fifteen miles of stygian darkness before arriving at the regional Illinois state police center to report the accident, at your insistence, despite the lateness of the hour. I don’t believe anything came of that; the officer on duty simply suggested we get the vehicle looked at as soon as possible (which I think we did the next day, with some stopgap body work from a local mechanic), but otherwise, it wasn’t as if they were going to press charges for the busted headlight or other now-nonfunctional aspects of the car.
It wasn’t too long after that that my uncle Dave found the old Mercedes diesel (that was about as old as you, if I’m not mistaken) that became Rocinante, because it wasn’t worth driving that battered Starlet around any longer. But I do remember you screaming for all you were worth in that moment, a reaction you really didn’t give to too many circumstances throughout our lives together. Maybe it was because you were a horror aficionada; it took a lot to really scare you, as a general rule.
Anyway, I’m writing you this to tell you about our trip back to the auto dealership yesterday afternoon. After walking to my ‘office’ at the folks’ house, Dad offered to drive me back over to pick it up once they’d done what they felt they needed to in order to bring it up to “brand new” standards. It should have been an uneventful trip; we’ve both made the trek a number of times.
Somehow, however, this wasn’t a particularly normal day. Along Rand Road, there was a vehicle coming out of a shopping center that had its nose out to jump into traffic just as we passed it; it really felt like it was about to pull right out into us. At an intersection, as cars began to back up because an ambulance was charging through it going full pelt across our bow, some fellow several cars back hit his horn, as if that was going to instantly clear the layers of traffic in front of him (or even leave them favorably disposed toward him; “oh my goodness, I was hoping to sit here forever until that nice young man woke me up”).
And in the most egregious moment of all, we were at a four-way stop, we’d stopped at the same time as a truck stopped to our right, and after waiting a moment or so, just as we pulled forward, he pulled forward from his position, so that we were both heading into the intersection simultaneously.
In that moment, I think I head your scream coming from my own throat, as I yelled for Dad to stop – which he did, without even a hint of irritation at my reaction, to his credit. The driver of the truck didn’t so much as slow down, in comparison; I don’t know if he even noticed we were headed into the intersection just as he was, in fact. As a mercy, I suppose that meant he didn’t give us “the look,” either. He just expected to own the road, given that he was bigger and stronger than everybody else, I guess.
I’m not sure, though, but I think we had the right-of-way after stopping. This wasn’t a case of my dad ‘driving while old,’ as the expression goes. But one doesn’t want to be dead right in an argument with a truck (even if it was ‘only’ an F-150 as opposed to a semi), and my shriek brought him to a stop, and given the other guy’s complete disregard of us, it was just as well. The inmates were out in force yesterday afternoon, is what I’m saying, and it brought back an old memory.
I’m hoping that was just an anomalous day, honey; I still have to drive every day, and I’d prefer not to be dealing with as many “nuts behind the wheel,” as the saying goes. So with that being said, I’ll make my usual request for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. As you can tell, I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 