Can't Catch a Brake

Can’t Catch a Brake

     “Drive.” She slammed the passenger door like we were getting away from a bank in a hurry.
     I slipped the car in reverse and rolled us down the sloping driveway.
     One problem though: as I pumped the brake it hugged the floor but we were not stopping. I twisted the wheel so our white Dodge Ram didn’t hit the light pole behind us.
     “Ow,” she said as we nudged the curb. Her hair’s pointy bob, well, it bobbed a little.
     “We’re on our way.” I pumped the brake again and shifted to drive. A slight shudder choked the gearshift underneath, almost under the car. The vehicle pulled away from the curb at an awkward angle. The brake went down as I pressed it; I turned the wheel, but not enough to clear the mini red car parked on the street.
     She stared at the white streaks grinding away at the red bumper. “You didn’t. How could you?”
     I grit my teeth as I held back the panic I could feel squeezing my chest. “Hold on! I’ll go the other way.”
     I turned the wheel, going faster this time as the car continued to accelerate and not slowing no matter how hard I crammed my foot through the floor, where the brake had stuck. Gears growled as I shifted – reverse, drive, slow – to keep pace with the reckless turn.
     We kept going down the street, around the corner, sharp and fast, moments gaining momentum where the road ended at another road and a red truck parked at the curb buckled around the white flash our car made in a sun-like explosion and then nothing.
     I woke up in time for work. Pretty much the only thing I had time for after jolting away was peeling off my sweat-soaked sleepwear and tugging on a polo and some decent pants.
     But I had to stare for a minute at the seamless bumper, the sterile paint laying smoothly against the sides and top of the Dodge. It was all the time I could spare. I clambered into the driver’s seat and fought down a nauseating sense of déjà vu as the gearshift stuck and gave a rattle before the parking gear released. I tested it again. The brake came up and down all right. I chuckled to myself, hard, as I pulled the vehicle down the driveway.
     I made it to the end of the street before a red reflection picked up the early sun rays and threw them into my windshield. The car jerked back. I jerked forward and back against my seatbelt as it caught me.
      I heard a car whizz by and stuck my head out the cranked window to check out the scene. A sporty fire engine red sedan darted under the shade of the neighbor’s trees.
      The gas works, the brake does too, I told the quick heartbeat pummeling my chest. The dreams were dead. Forgetting was better. I made the turn onto the main road and into the main lanes of traffic. So many cars; what was my hurry, as if I’d be going anywhere anytime soon.
      I glanced down at what I thought might be a hole in a public place of my pants. The queue started to go in spurts. Then my car jerked with my foot deep in the brake.
      A red pickup truck had cut me off. The seat was too broad and tall to catch a glimpse of the driver, but here I was a few inches shy of the bumper I’d never even seen in this life. Yet I remembered it. A sheen of sweat started to trickle down my neck.
      I could have gone faster to get to work on time, but the way I was driving I couldn’t afford any more sudden stops and starts. Well, maybe my car could but my heart couldn’t.
      Just pulling into the lot was therapeutic. Normally the fact that I was so late would have sent me scrambling. Instead I was whistling as my heart eased to a steady, dull repetition. I was going to be late, but I was fine, I was going to be fine. Nobody was going to move their cars here for hours. Especially the jerk who took my spot: I nearly drove into the shining red bumper of the mini car taking up just enough space to fill the white lines.
      Nearly drove, because my foot was only resting on the pedals when the car stopped just off the right rear Italian taillight. Yeah, but my car backed up when I put it in reverse and threw it forward, away from the first lot and to the back way where no one would get in the way.
      Then again, as I rolled into the other lot the car barked with my foot doing next to nothing to stop it. A red pickup – the red pickup – blared its horn and its driver, the woman, the stranger I had only seen once before and not this morning, paused long enough to run her hand through her severe bob and call out her window: “Don’t you see where you’re going? You’re going to hit somebody!”

     Yeah, I could see all right. I just wasn’t going to do much about it. 

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