The Road To Nowhere

two - eva

We left early on Friday. I took the day off of work, prying myself from my bed at five in the morning. Leftover sleep dripped from my eyes.

I ate a humble breakfast of coffee and a slice of toast, then packed a leather messenger bag of clothes. I brought a black dress for the funeral, the edges scalloped with lace, and my heeled boots to pair with it.

I went outside to wait for Neil to pick me up. The sun was peeking up behind the rolling hills, streams of orange and violet spilling across the vast dawn sky.

There was a morning-time nip in the air when I opened the door of my apartment, sharp enough to prompt me to grab my aviator jacket before leaving. I stuffed my hands into the woolen cavity of my coat pockets.

Neil arrived in his old Toyota, which looked like he could have dragged it from a scrap yard. It was dented, and painted the color of a mound of dog excrement. He'd had it since he was eighteen. He bought it with his own money, he told me, after working tirelessly at some greasy pizza joint back in Idaho.

The seats were a ghastly gray polyester, scattered with coffee stains. A strip of duct tape covered a gaping hole in the fabric, and the windows were filmy with dirt. Miraculously, though, the car ran like it was fresh off the assembly line.

"You can put your bag in the trunk, if you want. Sorry it's such a mess," he said when I approached his car. I opened the trunk and tucked my messenger bag inside before climbing into the passenger seat. Neil was bleary-eyed and pale, his lips withered and flaking, skinny hands chapped a violent magenta as he clutched the steering wheel. His mousy hair was still unwashed, and the stench of his sweat was rather potent.

"You have everything you need?"

"Yeah," I replied. "You look exhausted. Do you, I dunno, want me to drive or something?"

I wished I hadn't said that after I did. Of course he wasn't sleeping soundly. His father had just died. Not to mention, I had no clue where we were going.

"No, no," he mumbled. "I'm fine. I can't fall asleep in the car, anyway."

He pulled out of the parking lot of the apartment complex, idling down the road. A silence settled in between us. The wheels whirred, radio on the minimum volume. I couldn't make out what song it was, but it sounded like it might have been Radiohead.

"Are you hungry?" I asked. He examined the rear view mirror and scrunched his eyebrows before replying, his forehead creasing.

"No," he said. "Are you hungry?"

"I just ate," I said.

I stared out the window at the loaves of rolling hills over the horizon, the bundles of cypress trees on lawns, pink clusters of clouds floating across as the sun rose higher into the California sky. Melancholy stirred in my stomach as he drove, a tired sadness sometimes accompanied me with car rides. Acres replaced the feet between Neil and I as I peered out the window.

I stared at his forehead, wondering about the chaos that must have been thrashing around in there at that time. That was, until he spoke, low and raspy.

"Do you believe in life after death?"

The question surprised me. In reality, I hadn't given the subject a terrible amount of thought. I was young, then, and believed I didn't need to think about it.

"I mean," I pondered, "I don't not believe in it."

"What do you think happens when you die, then?"

"I dunno. You rest. You're at peace. All your pain is gone."

"I don't believe in the afterlife," he said. "Or God, or Heaven, or whatever. I think everything goes black and you fade away."