Night messenger
I’m sitting in the passenger seat of an old two-tone pickup that’s barreling along Interstate 5, the highway straight and flat and dark ahead of us.
I hardly know the driver, a friend of my best friend’s family. He and I both remain silent for the hour-long drive. We have news to deliver, in person.
When we get into town, I call my buddy from a gas station, waking him up so he can give us directions to the trailer house he shares with some fellow students from the local college.
He wants to know what’s up.
I tell him we’ll be there in a few minutes.
The trailer is easy to find; it’s the only one with lights on. We knock and wait for the door to open.
Joe can see it in my face — I want him to see it — before I say a word.
“Your dad is dead,” I say.
He sits down.
“It was an accident at work,” I say. “He got caught in one of the machines.”
He nods.
“I don’t know how,” I say. “I don’t know any more than that.”
Then we’re barreling along the Interstate again, Joe in the middle now, squeezing my hand, the highway straight and flat and dark ahead of us.
