AN AFTERNOON DRIVE

by Kai Flanders

The truck came out from under the shade of the bridge and into the sun. The street was narrow and the tires jumped on the cobblestone. The sun came in through the bars in the windows and it was very hot in the holding cell in the back of the truck. For a while there was nothing but apartments, but then the truck turned and there were not only the apartments but also some stores and, after a while, a park. But the truck passed quickly by and there was only a momentary glint of green through the bars. Then the truck was in the center of the city and the buildings were very tall so that you could only the sides of them and nothing else. The driver lit a cigarette and the smoke blew back into the holding cell.

“Could you open a window?” asked one of the men in the holding compartment. He was very tall so that his knees touched his chest sitting shackled to the metal bench. There was also a man next to him.

The driver did not say anything but reached over his shoulder and slid shut a glass barrier between the cab and the holding cell. No more smoke came into the back, but it was still very hot. By this time the truck had passed through the city center and there were no more large buildings. There was only the road and small shops and business and sometimes a restaurant on a corner.

“I’ve eaten there,” the tall one said to the man sitting next to him as the truck passed one of the restaurants. “I think that’s the place. We passed it so quickly.”

The man next to him did not say anything.

For a while the truck climbed up a hill, but then the road flattened out again and there was, on one side, train tracks running out of the city and on the other a steep drop. There was a tram that brought you up the hill for a dollar but it could not be seen from the back of the truck. The driver might have been able to see it, though. The train tracks were seldom used and then only for shipping goods out of the city. Hardly anyone rode the train. The tracks and the arcades over the tracks and the sides of the cars, sitting abandoned on side rails near the station, were all covered in graffiti. The truck passed the station and came down the hill and back into the city. At the bottom of the hill there were two wrecked cars.

“Was that an accident?” asked the tall man.

“I think so,” I said. “I think so, but we passed it so fast.”

“I think one of the wrecks was a Datson,” he said energetically. “I used to have a Datson.”

“Oh?”

“I loved that car; it ran great. It never died on me either, never once died on me. Even in the winter in Minneapolis, that’s where I was living, it always started. What did you drive?”

“I didn’t have a car.”

“What about you buddy?” The tall man turned to face the man next to him, jingling his chains.

The man did not say anything; he was staring at the floor.

“You all are an interesting bunch you know that?” the tall one said.

“Listen,” I said suddenly, “would you mind if we didn’t talk so much?”

“Fine then.”

We were all the three of us silent in the back of the truck as it went over a bridge, with the river running cold and hard beneath us, and continued down the road awhile and then through the bars I could see the big grey building in the distance and then the truck was at the gate and the driver got out and said something to the guard, lit another cigarette, idled the car while the gate opened, and then drove into the main yard. Then two guards came into the back of the truck while another one held his gun on us and unlocked our chains, keeping the handcuffs on, and then led us away.

“Well,” I said as one of the guards took me in a different direction than the other two, “goodbye then.”

The tall one said goodbye but the other one remained silent. He was not really looking at anything anymore, just sort of staring. They were led up a short flight of stairs and into a room with no windows. The building had hardly any windows at all, only some small square ones on the second story.

I was told later by the Warden that the tall one had killed his wife and his son. He had shot them with a shotgun while they were sleeping. I never did find out what the other one had done.

by Kai Flanders