“Make a right back there,” Joanna says. “You were supposed to turn.”
U-turn over the median? You win, you lose, it’s the same old news. Andrew does it. A cop turns his sirens on. “Shit!” Joanna says. She leans forward and looks at Andrew’s face. Andrew looks at her. She has a pretty nose, a small mouth. (“Don’t rape her, or we’ll know.”) Andrew looks away, parks the car. If he were Sara he would call the cop a motherfucker. Don’t call the cop a motherfucker.
“Tell me what happened,” the cop says. He shines a flashlight in back, at Joanna.
“He’s giving me a ride home,” Joanna says. “I’m in high-school. We’re co-workers at Domino’s. We just left there.”
The flashlight is on Joanna’s face; the cop is looking at Andrew. It’s a little confusing. ‘Complex.’
“I made a U-turn,” Andrew says, and makes a kind of shit-eating grin.
“You made a U-turn,” the cop says. “Other people got off work and you will kill them — put them in wheelchairs, hospitals. What are you thinking about, boy?” He wasn’t angry before. Now he is very angry. He called Andrew a boy.
“I know I’m wrong,” Andrew says. He is thinking about marshmallows a little. It is October. “My co-worker’s family ordered a pizza.” He has an image of himself drunkenly resisting arrest; being shot in the back of the head while running away. He is afraid there are kilograms of illicit drugs in the glove compartment. He will fight the cop in hand-to-hand combat. Don’t make sudden movements; not yet. The cop leaves. Andrew promises to himself sarcastically — it is impossible for Andrew to make a sincere or unselfconscious promise to himself — to never make a U-turn again. Not even a legal one. It’s good he wasn’t wearing a bike chain. The cop returns with a $180 ticket. “Thank you,” Andrew says, grinning. He will plead insanity in traffic court. The cop, He did seem demented. The judge, What does it mean that he’s grinning right now? Courtroom psychologist, Look at that shit-eating grin. Andrew, I’m against capitalism, I’m against being against capitalism, and I work at Domino’s pizza. Denny’s waitress, He said I was against capitalism.
“Should I sit up here?” Joanna says, and climbs up front. “Why did I sit in back? The cop thought that was illegal. He wasn’t sure.”
As a kid Andrew was always climbing around in cars. His mom liked it. Andrew kind of likes Joanna. Andrew likes Sara. Sara, laughing. Joanna doesn’t laugh or smile. Andrew looks at her. Joanna looks at him. Andrew grins a little. Joanna looks away then ahead. She is afraid. At work she talks nonstop; does she? Andrew never paid attention. He puts on very sarcastic and depressing music. She used the window instead of using the door /now I’m alone up on the fourteenth floor. Sarcastic; or polite? Joanna is afraid of this music. Andrew will drive them into a wall. Joanna will make a face of agony. Before they die she will shriek and Andrew will get a headache. The cop will be very angry and shine his flashlight at a tree while talking about the car. Matt will stare, then walk slowly and backwards into a forest. Sara won’t ever know. She never thinks about Andrew; hasn’t ever e-mailed or called. Andrew never e-mails or calls either, really, just has imaginary conversations with her almost constantly; his idea of her. Maybe he will e-mail her tonight. She will respond with a form letter. We thank you for your submission but are unable to use your work at this time. Unfortunately, the volume of submissions we receive makes a personal reply impossible. She’ll say she’s moving to Florida and Andrew will pet his dogs, e-mail his mom, and buy Steve a present. She won’t respond and Andrew will lie on the floor with a blanket over his face and body.
Joanna is saying something.
Andrew turns down the music. He feels bored. “What did you just say?”
“I know this. My sister listens to this. It’s I Hate Myself.”
“No one listens to I Hate Myself,” Andrew says.
“I just said my sister listens to I Hate Myself.”
Andrew wants to meet Joanna’s sister for dinner.
“I live here,” Joanna says.
After eating salads with Joanna’s sister they will listen to music and kiss. After eating salads with Joanna’s sister they will avert their eyes. To be polite she will swear to God she’s having fun, and take a lie detector test. She won’t be Sara. Sara is better. Sara didn’t listen to I Hate Myself. ‘Complex.’ ‘Shit-eating grin.’ Shit-eating grins are complex. Why would you grin if you just ate shit? A neighborhood is passing on the right. Joanna’s neighborhood. Andrew in his head has an image of a mouth larger than Andrew’s head and the mouth is laughing. Sometimes reading or watching TV Andrew recognizes that a thing is meant to be funny and hears this laughter, in his head, then feels that his face is very calm and neutral, like a hamster’s. At night sometimes Andrew’s heart beats fast and his thoughts are illogical and wild. In bed he looks at the ceiling and feels excited and alert, and can’t understand why he, or anything, exists.
“You passed it,” Joanna says. “You passed the first turn too; when we left Domino’s. That’s why you made a U-turn and got a ticket.”
“The first turn you didn’t say anything; how could I know?”
“I did,” Joanna says.
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
“I swear I said, ‘Turn here, Andrew.’ ”
“You didn’t say my name.”
If Joanna were Sara, Andrew would tickle her. He mock jerks the steering wheel to the left. He looks at Joanna. She isn’t looking. One time a kid was roadside on a bike and kept glancing over his shoulder as Andrew approached; Andrew mock jerked the car and the kid fell off his bike into a ditch. Sara liked that story. Sara called a guy at Duane Reade a motherfucker. Sara’s tongue was very cute, licking her blue Popsicle. Sara Tealsden. Stop thinking about her. Drive Joanna to Joanna’s house.
“I’ll turn up here,” Andrew says. U-turn. Another promise not kept. Of the two people in the car Andrew is the one without a future; the other person, Joanna, will go to college, make myriad friends and life connections, join clubs, get internships, and even marry someone and have children. What was Andrew doing the entire time in college? Everyone was constantly busy and partying, or attempting suicide. Andrew was always telling people how he’d just slept fourteen hours. He joined a water polo club. He had leg cramps and got out of the pool and winced. The instructor said, “You won’t be coming back again, will you?” Andrew said, “Yeah I will.” At a deli Andrew saw the instructor and walked up to her and said, “I’ll see you next week.” He did not go back. He turns the music up, puts it to a different song. Pick a happy one. There are no happy ones. There is no future. It goes to a very depressing song by Samiam. I don’t want to spend another long and lonely weekend by the phone without anyone to call / I’ve had a lot of time to think and I’m so tired of thinking I know why he put that bullet in his skull. Sincere, at least. Andrew does not know the meaning of the word ‘sincere.’ That can’t be true. Talk to Joanna. Meet her sister. Kill Joanna, her sister, and Steve. (“Kill me and my siblings.”) Suitcase full of cash; high-fives on a diamond boat. Andrew feels sorry for Samiam’s singer who is probably currently listening to I Hate Myself. Andrew feels sorry for anything, even inanimate objects and moments in time. He once recorded a song in his room; he feels sorry for those moments in time when a person named Andrew recorded a sad song in his childhood bedroom by dubbing drums with guitar then singing a poem over it. He should put the song on the Internet. Name it “Jhumpa Lahiri.” Her Pulitzer Prize would slide into the night and be run over by a car. Sara would laugh. Steve would comprehend that it was funny but not laugh. Joanna probably would not laugh. Joanna’s sister, maybe (she listens to I Hate Myself). Matt would stare at Andrew for ten minutes. It’s depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat. The chance that Andrew and Joanna’s sister would like one another is probably two percent. Einstein, God doesn’t play dice with the universe. When Andrew hears something like that his face becomes very neutral and a sarcastic voice in his head says, “Profound.” He doesn’t want to drive anymore. What will he do tonight? (“Go fuck yourself.” “I will. Tonight.”) He wants to drive into a mountain and make the mountain explode. Florida has no mountains. Florida has no Sara. No Sara; no future. No marshmallows. Andrew stops thinking.