C.D. looked at him, then pointed into the back seat where Carol was now reading an ancient, frayed copy of “Curious George” to the kids. “But they didn’t all turn out bad,” he said. “Paul and Joanie turned out fine. And they did just fine with these two.”
“Thanks.” Ed reached over and patted his friend warmly on the shoulder, and let out a long sigh. “You know, we don’t have a future, but they do.” He nodded toward the back of the car. “And I hope it’s something more than getting plugged into a virtual video reality something or other where all you do is make virtual money for virtual corporations. Maybe now they won’t. Maybe after all this, maybe some of the real things will become important to them again.”
“In other words: Maybe the Chinese, or whoever, did us—did them—a big favor.”
“Yeah.” A glint of reflected sunlight from the rearview mirror caught his eye, and as he stared into the mirror, he realized that there were several vehicles coming up in the distance. “Company coming,” he said, pointing to the mirror. “Probably another National Guard convoy running supplies to New Haven.”
C.D. turned around in the seat and looked out the back window “Yeah, or returning empty.”
Ed let the Chevy coast until his speed was low enough to pull over and allow the convoy to safely pass. C.D. played with the AM radio, trying to fine-tune a classic rock station he had managed to pick up out of Cleveland.
But as the traffic drew nearer it became clear that they weren’t National Guard, or any other official vehicles for that matter, but rather a scattered line of older cars.
Fords and Chevrolets, big Chryslers with tail fins and Buicks with seemingly more chrome than glass, even a pair of noisy VW Beedes.
At the wheel of each was someone from Ed, Carol and C.D.’s generation. Baby Boomer survivors of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s; all, like the three of them, refusing to get old, refusing to join the plugged-in generation that followed.
And in each car were the children, waving gleefully at them as they passed. All of them joyous and excited for that rarest of combinations: no school, their parents engrossed in Important Adult Stuff, and, most important of all, an offer from their grandparents to spirit them away for a delightful day of fun and being spoiled.
C.D. looked up with a grin at the sight just as the radio shook with the opening bars of an old song that sent a chill up Ed’s spine: “Rock and Roll Never Forgets.”
Ed waited a moment for an opening in the line of cars, then he put the wagon into gear, pulled onto the highway, and, with the chords and chorus echoing from the radio, joined the great parade down to the beach.