The Drive Read online

  ‘I’m different now.’

  No. You’re still a pig, and still a boy. A little pig-boy.

  I told her that was bullshit. After what she’d done, I’d overcome the need to eat. My metabolism had shut down, and everything inside me had ground to a halt. She’d turned me into some kind of tin man, my guts and heart rusting away.

  ‘Now I don’t need food, and I don’t need you!’ I was shouting at an empty seat, swerving all over the road. ‘All I need is this!’

  I brandished my whisky cup. Like the seat, it was empty. I tossed it on the floor and took a slug straight from the twixer instead. The clouds were getting darker, turning black. Somewhere behind them the sun must have been going down, but I couldn’t see it.

  chapter 20

  The first thing I needed to sort out was the brothel. I didn’t know anything about brothels, so I looked them up on the net. I Googled ‘brothels in Nevada’, and found a map. It was a handy map. Red pins marked all the hotspots. There was a scattering of pins around Vegas, and a smaller grouping near Reno. There were also a couple of pins in Northern Nevada, on the outskirts of a town called Winnemucca. It was on the way to Reno. I stared at all the pins. My pointer hovered on the screen.

  ‘Trevor?’ my stepmom called, from the top of the stairs. I could see her feet up there, in dirty pink slippers. I was using their computer, since I’d broken mine. I’d been breaking a lot of things. ‘Are you still up?’

  ‘I’m writing a script.’

  In a way, I was – the script of my road trip.

  ‘I’m making tea. Would you like some?’

  ‘Sure, Amanda,’ I said, still staring at my map. ‘Tea sounds good.’

  I clicked a pin by Winnemucca and a second browser window opened. This one had pictures of what the brothel looked like. It was called the Pussycat Ranch. It had a bar, a strip club, and a few pool tables. It even had a hot tub. Apparently you were allowed to take the prostitutes into the hot tub, which sounded pretty rad. By scrolling over the thumbnails you could view the various bedrooms. Each bedroom had a woman in it, wearing glossy lingerie. They were stretched or draped or bent over the beds like strips of flesh-coloured taffy. The tagline in the sidebar read Come visit our sex-kittens. Mreowr. All the kittens looked like models. I couldn’t believe places like this existed. It was like the Playboy Mansion, only better because any asshole could go there. Even me.

  I clicked on the ‘directions’ link. It took me to a map of Winnemucca, with street names and addresses. The brothel was near the northeast corner of town, on Riverside Street. There was a banner at the top of the page: Private and discreet – a place for everyone to cum. The perfect stop on your way through Nevada. That clinched it. I selected print. As our printer whirred to life, I heard footsteps on the stairs. My stepmom. I’d forgotten about her and her tea.

  I clicked all the windows to close them. Then I opened a word document and typed: INT. HOUSE – NIGHT. It wasn’t much of a script, but it was something.

  ‘Here you go,’ she said, placing the mug of tea down by the keyboard.

  ‘Wow. Camomile.’

  I stared hard at my imaginary script, as if trying to figure out what came next. What could be happening in this house, at night? Amanda sipped her tea and hovered. She has a tendency to do that. Hover, I mean. The printer was still printing. Then it made a whining sound and spat out the page.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked. She picked it up and peered at the picture, trying to read the small print without her glasses. ‘Pussycat Ranch? Is that some kind of pet store?’

  ‘Yep – in Nevada. I’m doing research for my film.’

  ‘How are you going to film in Nevada?’

  ‘We’re just going to pretend it’s Nevada. We’ll cheat the location.’

  ‘Oh. That’s nice.’ She put my map down, and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll be upstairs, in the kitchen. I was about to call your grandpa – unless you need the phone?’

  She kept hoping that I’d phone Zuzska and patch things up.

  ‘No – go ahead. When’s he coming again?’

  ‘On Wednesday.’

  She padded back upstairs. I picked up the map. The paper felt thin and flimsy in my hands. I folded it once, twice, and slipped it in my pocket. My screenplay document was still open, the cursor blinking at me. I started typing: Trevor sits in his parents’ basement, sipping the camomile tea his stepmom made him, planning a trip to a faraway brothel. I typed that, then immediately deleted it.

  chapter 21

  There was no moon and no stars – only a sky smoked black by clouds. I drove along with the twixer squeezed between my knees, and took a swig every few miles. I hadn’t passed another car for a long time. It was just me and my Neon. The headlight beams dug a tunnel through the dark for us to follow. Cat’s eyes winked from the roadside, and on the centre line striped lane markings zipped by, each one blending into the next.

  Ever since Seattle – ever since the border, really – I’d sensed rain coming. You could feel it hanging up there, like a guillotine waiting to fall. Every so often I would hear a distant rumble, as if America was letting me know that she wasn’t particularly impressed with me. I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out.

  ‘If you’re going to rain on me,’ I cried into the night, ‘then rain, damn it!’

  And it did. The sky split open, like a water bladder slashed by a razor-blade. All the rain fell at once. It splattered across my windshield, my hood. It pounded down on my roof. Fat drops pummelled the blacktop, bursting apart like small grenades. The road flooded and became a flowing river. I almost expected to see frogs dropping from the sky, limbs spread like parachutists. It was that kind of rain: torrential and epic and biblical. Apocalyptic rain.

  I threw the whisky on the floor and grabbed the wheel with both hands. My wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour. A permanent glaze coated my windshield, blurring the world. I hit a deep patch and hydroplaned for a few seconds, slowly drifting towards the ditch, before the wheels found tarmac again and straightened out. I probably should have stopped, but I didn’t. I kept ploughing ahead, trying to out-race the rain. The highway had narrowed to two lanes. I must have turned off the interstate somewhere, but I don’t know if that happened before or after the rainstorm started.

  From out of the murk, I saw a dark shape emerging. It was a car, to the right of the road, overturned in the ditch. The tail-lights were still on, glowing red. That was all I could make out. I slowed down as I drew level with it. There was nobody standing by the road, and nobody else around to help. There was just this car.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, and pulled over.

  I got out my dad’s cellphone – an old Nokia brick – and thumbed it on. It took a while to power up.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, smacking it.

  There was a signal, at least. I wasn’t that far off the beaten track. I dialled 911 and held the phone to my ear, waiting. I could hardly hear the other end ringing over the rain.

  Then somebody answered.

  ‘911 – what’s your emergency?’

  I think it was a woman, but it was difficult to tell. Her voice was a deep contralto.

  ‘I’d like to report a car accident,’ I said. ‘A crash.’

  ‘Where are you, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I had to yell over the rain. I felt like a soldier reporting in a war zone. ‘I was heading east from Seattle on the I-90, but I think I turned off at some point.’

  ‘Were you involved in the accident, sir?’

  She sounded unnaturally calm. I guess they’re trained to be like that.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s another car. In the ditch. I was just driving by.’

  ‘Is anybody injured?’

  ‘I don’t know. The first thing I did was call you.’

  ‘That’s good, sir.’ She spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a child. ‘I’ve notified an emergency crew. I’d like you to stay on the line wi
th me until they manage to find you.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  I held the phone away from my mouth, so she would think the signal was fading. If the cops came and found me in that condition, drunk out of my mind, I was fucked.

  ‘Please stay on the line, sir.’

  ‘I can’t hear you. What?’ I was shouting now. ‘I’m losing you…’

  Then I hung up.

  I opened my door. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I was drenched. That’s how hard it was raining – so hard it got in your eyes, your ears, even your mouth. It was like falling into a swimming pool.

  The blacktop was covered in puddles that spat and popped, simmering with raindrops. I splashed through the puddles, making my way towards the wreck. The car was wedged in the ditch, resting on its roof, at a forty-five-degree angle to the road. It was a mid-size sedan, with four doors and a square trunk. One of the headlights was broken, but the other was still on and pointing at the surrounding forest, illuminating pine trees, fallen logs and old stumps. As I got closer, I saw that the car was a Dodge Neon, like mine. It was exactly like mine, actually – only black instead of red.

  I slid down the side of the ditch. The bottom was filled with water, which was warm and came up to my knees and smelled muddy and oddly wholesome. I waded over to the car. Steam was hissing up from the undercarriage. The interior was dark and half-submerged, but I thought I could see somebody in the driver’s seat. I yanked on the door. It was locked, or jammed. I tried the other doors and they were the same.

  I sloshed around to the passenger side and lay down in the ditch, on my back. The ground beneath the water was soft and mucky. I braced myself like that, put my feet against the window, and kicked, using my heels. The glass cracked and spiderwebbed. It took a few more kicks to knock it in completely. Pawing the water from my eyes, I crawled forward to check inside. But there was nobody in the driver’s seat. There was nobody in any of the seats. The car was empty. I stayed kneeling there, making sure, then scrambled up out of the ditch, slipping clumsily on the mud-slick sides. I peered up and down the highway. Nothing.

  I cupped my hands to my mouth and called, ‘Hey! Is anybody there?’

  The only answer was a tirade of rain. I gave up. I slogged back to the car and fell into the driver’s seat. I was soaked, dripping, with smears of mud on my face and forearms, all over my jeans. It took me a while to notice that my phone was ringing.

  I answered it automatically. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is this the gentleman who reported an accident? Are you okay?’

  It was that same woman. They were on to me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I told you – I didn’t crash. Somebody else did.’

  ‘You may be in shock, sir.’

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  I hung up again. But they had my number now, and they could call me whenever they wanted. They might even use the phone to track me down. I was convinced they could do that, via the signal, so I turned it off. Then, just in case, I removed the back cover and took the battery out and shoved the pieces into the glovebox.

  I looked behind me. The wreck was still there, sitting in the ditch. The rain smearing my rear window made the image shift and shimmer, like a watery reflection. I put my Neon in gear and got out of there. I could see the other car’s tail-lights dwindling in the rear-view, as if it was driving away from me rather than the other way around.

  chapter 22

  Money. That was the final obstacle, if I was really going to do this road trip. I couldn’t fund any of it – the car, the brothel, Reno – without money.

  I started by cancelling my flight to Prague. It was harder than I thought. Zuzska had written me a poem once, about the vapour trails you see behind jets. In the poem she described them as threads, connecting me to her. Now I had to cut the thread. It was pleasurable and painful, like tearing off a hangnail. It was also the point when I began to realise that this damage – the damage she had done, the damage I intended to do – was irreparable.

  I only got fifty per cent of my money back, because it was such short notice and I hadn’t bought travel insurance. I had another couple of hundred left over from the film shoot, which would just about cover a rental car. I needed more, though, and my parents weren’t an option. Amanda might have given it to me, but there was no way my dad would have agreed.

  I decided to talk to my grandpa instead, since he was coming to visit.

  ‘When’s his flight get in?’ I asked my dad.

  He rustled his paper. ‘Six o’clock.’

  The two of us were waiting upstairs in the living room. He was reading the sports and ignoring me. We hadn’t been talking much, lately – and I hadn’t told him or Amanda about my road trip idea. I knew how they’d react. My dad would get all cynical and sceptical and tell me it was a total cliché. And Amanda would start worrying, instantly, about all the things that might happen to me: that I’d crash my car or get shot or have some kind of breakdown, nervous or otherwise.

  ‘That’s him,’ my dad said.

  I heard the car in the driveway, the shutting of doors. Then I heard him coming. He’s a big man, my grandpa. When he walks, he kind of rumbles. He rumbled right up our front steps and into the entrance hall, smashing aside the door. His silver hair was tousled, as if he’d been sleeping on the flight. I straightened up, standing taller.

  ‘How’s my grandson?’ he said.

  He offered his hand – a big bear-paw – and we shook. Grandpa doesn’t do hugs.

  ‘So-so,’ I said. ‘And you?’

  ‘Still ticking.’

  We sat down in the living room. Amanda put on some music and my dad got out the beer. That’s what we do with important guests: we sit in the living room and listen to music and drink beer. And talk, of course. Amanda did most of the talking. She wanted to hear about her relatives in Alberta, and my grandpa’s latest project. He designs environmentally friendly engines for buses and trucks that they use in developing countries. He was on his way to Peru to discuss some new contracts. For a while she asked him questions about that.

  Then he looked over at me. I hadn’t been saying much.

  ‘How’s that lady-friend of yours? The Czech girl.’

  I stared into my beer. I hadn’t noticed, but there was a bug in it. A gnat.

  ‘Not so good,’ I said, trying to fish the gnat out. ‘We hit a bit of a bad patch.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said.

  In the kitchen the oven timer went off, bleeping repeatedly.

  ‘That’s the chicken,’ Amanda said.

  Since my grandpa was having dinner with us, I was kind of obliged to eat something. I had a few lapses like that during my fast, before I hit the road. It was a fairly casual fast, I guess. After dinner I went to sit on the back porch. It was cool, quiet, secluded. Birds flitted from tree to tree, making little flute-like sounds. The evening air was ripe with the scent of brine and recent rain. I knew that smell so well. It was the stench of Deep Cove, of my home and childhood – rich and sweet and stagnant.

  The back door opened. My grandpa came out. He rumbled over, making the porch quake, and hunkered down on the step next to me. At first he didn’t say anything. From the front pocket of his shirt he fished out a pack of Belmonts. The pack looked small in his hand. So did his lighter. It was an old Zippo that had lost its sheen.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ I said.

  ‘When I hit eighty, I figured a couple a day couldn’t hurt.’

  He lit up and exhaled, squinting through the smoke. When he squinted, the lines in his face were accentuated, like symbols carved into rock.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said, and paused.

  We’d never talked much, Grandpa and I. He isn’t a hugger and he isn’t a talker.

  ‘A rough patch, you said.’

  ‘Pretty rough.’ I wasn’t much of a talker, either. It was all that Nordic blood, running cold through our veins. ‘The long-distance thing caught up to us, I guess.’

&n
bsp; ‘You like this girl?’

  ‘I do. I really do.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ he said, ‘but sometimes these things – they don’t work out. I had a girl, before I met your grandma. We were going to get married when I got home from my peacekeeping tour, overseas.’

  I nodded. I’d forgotten he’d worked with the peacekeepers, back in the day.

  ‘But a year is a long time. Things had changed when I got back. You get me?’

  ‘I get you.’

  We sat silently for a few minutes, in the evening stillness, as the sky faded to lilac. Over the fence one of our neighbours was splashing around in his pool. Every night the guy swims twenty laps, wearing goggles and a swim cap, like a real champion. Down the block somebody was having a barbecue. I could hear music and voices and smell the roasting meat.

  ‘This must all seem pretty cushy to you,’ I said.

  ‘Depends on what you’re used to, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m thinking of getting out of here, going on a road trip.’ I was staring at the deck, worried he’d think I was a total wingnut. ‘Just to clear my head, think some things through.’

  He clamped a hand on my shoulder. ‘Distance is good. It gives you perspective.’

  ‘The thing is, I don’t know how to pay for it. I’m pretty broke.’

  I didn’t have the guts to ask him outright for money. That was as close as I could get.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Do you have any assets?’

  ‘What’s an asset?’

  ‘Something you can sell. When I was getting my company off the ground, I had to sell my Chevy. First car I ever owned. I loved that damn car. But I needed capital.’

  I thought about that for a bit. Then I said, ‘There’s my video camera.’

  I’d saved up for two years to buy that camera. I once calculated that I’d cut over eight hundred lawns to get the money together. But, as far as I could tell, it was my only real asset.

  ‘If you sacrifice something,’ he said, ‘it’ll make the trip more real.’