WINTER PASSENGER
Bonnie Crarey
January 18, 2018
I had my last car ride with Dad today. This time I drove us from Syracuse to Washington, DC—it was very cold n very snowy. As I drove Dad was sometimes sleepy and silent, sometimes back seat driver, but he was for the most part present.
Dad really loved to drive. Before he had to give up his keys, when he felt troubled or had fights with Mom, he would get in his car n take off and go cruising to who knows where or who knew to whom.
He was a cab driver for a number of years, and he was a human GPS. Whenever I got lost driving in DC I would call him, give him the intersecting streets and he would give me my route.
On this last drive, he kept changing on me though—one time I look over n he’s a scruffy little boy with big ears n damaged knees from biking down treacherous Jamaican hills; another time he’s a cocky, young smart-ass about to head to college in America wearing a suit too small and a hat too large; another time I look at him in the passenger seat, and he’s in an Army uniform talking about dreams of flying planes with the Air Force or some such.
He just keeps getting older, or going back n forth between old man and young.
He doesn’t much like the music I’m playing except for the occasional R&B or jazz. He doesn’t much like country, hip hop, or my folksy music but for some reason he doesn’t mind Paul Simon n Joan Baez singing The Boxer. Sometimes he smokes, wearing his leather cowboy hat and black cowboy boots and I remind him, once again, that there is no smoking in my car.
As I get closer to DC he gets older n sleepier—he seems to shrink into himself; his hair grays, his head bends toward his chest, his breathing seems more difficult, his hands n feet are bloated and he winces every time he moves. Don’t know if he’ll be up to getting out of the car for our last bathroom break before DC.
After the break, it’s like he disappeared and left a husk of his former self. He no longer talks, but seems to sleep—as if he’s disappearing—I can almost see the car seat through him but it may just be the shadows n lights of the other cars going by.
By the time we get to DC, he’s gone, and I’m singing Irma Thomas all alone.