Smear All The Lights

Dorge's shoulder presses painfully into the side of the car when he loses his balance, squatting down in the dust and tightening the lug nuts. The back of his white button-up shirt is a dark stain of wet and his eyes burn red from the heat and sweat. He rested his weight against his shoulder, against the car, knowing that when he presses away from it, he would be pressing into the missing lug nut situation. He wanted to cuss, but instead let the words just press black away from the white center of his mind and against all that space between.
Adver was drinking coffee from a thermos and staring out along the road. Did you mean 'back' there? Because you said black.
Dorge's response was a whistle of breath from clenched teeth as he shoves away from the car and shakily gets to his feet. There's a lug nut missing.
Adver considers this and says that he knew he should have changed the tire, should not have trusted some homicidal monkey to do it, in the slim hope that he might have just a little bit of coffee, after the whole incident that is referred to in the book as Chapter 8: The Flat Tire.


Later, back on the road, Dorge will shove  a foot up under himself and tell Adver it reminded him of the time he and Heeb had been stuck on the side of the road in that old car of Heeb's. About how they had no idea what could possibly be wrong with the car because it was not in their nature to know those things. Dorge's eyes will be closed as he tells the story of that late afternoon, cool and still light out, stuck out in the middle of nowhere when he gets the big idea that the car must have over-heated. Heeb was convinced, so they start filling up empty soda bottles in the creek they're next to and splashing water onto the engine block- the effect of the hissing and the steam billowing up out of there is so dramatic that it's enough to convince them they've solved the problem and should pretty soon be well on their way, grinning like idiots there on the road and dumping water onto the engine like they should be handed the Nobel Peace Prize. Some of this last bit of story is repeated a few times because Dorge is laughing so hard the words sound like wet squeaks and even when he does open his eyes the tears smear all the lights. It will feel so good later, when he laughs. And then Adver will say Why did you call him Heeb? and Dorge will say Because. One time a teacher asked if anyone in the class was Jewish, and he raised his hand.


But that's later and right then the lug nut was still missing and Adver was tightening the cap back onto his thermos. Dorge was walking his fingers into the grass, trying to keep his knees up out of the gravel. Adver tossed the thermos back into the car and sqatted down beside Dorge and asked what his first memory of her was.
It was sweat gathering into Dorge's closed eyes just then and he said it was, or it must have been Halloween. She was holding me and reaching up into the hall closet into this bag and pulled out an eye-patch, like a pirate? Then she laid me down on the bed and she was wearing this patch and tickling me and I remember being so scared, she was just cackling. It makes me feel good now, but at the time I remember being scared. I think that's the earliest. I think that's the first. I don't remember a lot.
How long do you think this is going to take? Adver doesn't look irritated when he asks that, but Dorge knows he's not talking about the flat tire and feels like a straight-up answer is expected and so wipes his face on his arm and says I don't know. I feel like we'll be there soon but I don't know.
And then Adver asks if he made the flat tire because he didn't have anything else to write about, and so needed something to happen, needed to draw out getting there.
Dorge smiles and squeezes the bridge of his nose and says that no, he wants to get there, he wants to get there and get out of there. He adds that it's true he writes this because he doesn't have anything else to write about but that's always been the case. Once this is done it'll be done and that's a promise, but he doesn't think it's done quite yet.
Adver tosses the missing lug nut to Dorge's feet and shrugs I didn't think you'd get it changed that fast and I wanted to drink my coffee.
Dorge presses the lug nut into his palm and rolls it back and forth, standing again and rolling his shoulders saying You think I'm crazy about getting back into that car?