Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [30]
At high speed, in snow, the houses fan by him on either side, visually glazed and impacted into smears of windows, doors, roofs, unremoved Christmas lights, chimneys, and, again and again, interior lights, the lights of domesticity left on late at night to ward off prowlers and intruders. Where is the street? It has not been plowed. He continues driving. Continuous motion is important. A dog rushes out in front of the car. It is about the size of an enlarged rat and has a narrow snout. It stops in a seizure of panic. Harrelson hears no thump and feels no impact. He opens his window and looks out into the street receding behind him. The dog stands motionless, watching Harrelson’s car as Harrelson watches the dog, tire tracks imprinted on either side of it in the snow.
“Run over,” Harrelson says aloud, “but not run down.” He laughs to himself, feels the need again to doze off as the heater gradually warms up the car, but resists. He decides to recite poetry. “ ‘Fie, fond desire,’ ” he quotes from Fulke Greville, “ ‘think you that love wants glory / Because your shadows do yourself benight? / The hopes and fears of lust may make men sorry, / But love still in herself finds her delight.’ ” Harrelson hits a parked car. He knows he has hit it from the sound and the impact, but he hasn’t seen it because the windows on the right side are coated with snow. After hitting the car, Harrelson’s Buick bounces back into the middle of the street and begins to skid toward the other side. It hits another parked car, slides for twenty feet, then stops. Glass and plastic have been heard, breaking. He puts the car into first gear and continues down the street, which now looks darker than ever. “Uh-oh,” he says aloud. “I smashed the other headlight.”
I’m not funny, I’m a risk, he thinks.
Other cars are around him; some are moving, others are not. The ones that are moving honk at him and blink their lights. “I am a hazard to myself,” Harrelson says, passing a large building lit up on each floor, as if people are still working. He thinks he sees someone on the third floor looking down at him, an expression of pity on the stranger’s face. The thought of a stranger’s pity makes Harrelson’s eyes smart. Studying the dashboard, trying not to cry, Harrelson steps on the gas, hurrying down the street toward an area where the overhead lights are not so apparent. Sudden darkness: the car plunges into it. He passes two garages and a butcher shop with sausages hanging in the window, the glass lightly covered with snow. What if I hit a child, he thinks. What if I do that.
Now, having made a circle, Harrelson is back under lights in the business district, his car out of control, advancing down the street sideways. He grabs the seat, ready for a collision, and feels the foam under his hand. In front of him is a department-store window, moving from right to left, in which a bald dummy sits wearing a blue polyester leisure suit. He turns the wheel in the direction of the skid, and the Buick straightens out. He feels a sudden elation. He can control himself, the car, the weather conditions. He slows down, steers the car toward the curb, and shuts off the engine. He is drowsy. He will take a brief nap. He bends his head down on his chest and within thirty seconds falls asleep. Instantly a dream starts up. In the dream he is driving the car through a blizzard on his way to get Meredith.