Joyride by Mary Ann McGuigan

       vivek jena CC




 Joyride
​
I don’t know how fast we’re going, because I can’t see the speedometer, but it has to be twice as fast as the law allows on Pelham Parkway. I’m in the backseat, directly behind my brother-in-law Brian. He doesn’t have a death wish; he’s just drunk, playing chicken with his brother Conor, whose big black beat-up ’54 Dodge is racing alongside us. Brian has his arm stretched out the window, ready to toss another paper cup full of Pabst Blue Ribbon at Gloria, Conor’s girlfriend, sitting in his passenger seat. She’s armed with her own full cup, and the Dodge is moving perilously close to the side of our Chevy. My hair is already tangled from the wind and wet from the beer because I rolled up my window too late.
    I want to scream at them, tell them this game is dangerous. But I’m only eleven years old, with no say about anything that happens in my life, no matter how close it comes to hurting me. The back of Brian’s neck is red and so is Gloria’s face as they bark their laughs into the wind.
    I’m not the only one in the car not laughing along. My sister Irene, two years older than me, is cursing under her breath and gripping my knee each time the car swerves. Just when I think my kneecap is ready to pop off, the car jolts and she can’t take anymore. She leans forward over the front seat and pleads with our sister Kathleen, “Tell them to stop. Please.” But the radio is blasting and the pounding beat of “Maybellene” is so loud I don’t think Kathleen even hears her, because she doesn’t answer. She leans toward the passenger side door to avoid getting wet as Gloria sprays another twelve ounces into Brian’s face. His T-shirt gets soaked, so does the steering wheel. “I can’t grip the fuckin’ wheel,” he shouts at the Dodge, his head out the window.
    The air rushing in feels even colder now, and I reach for my blouse to put on over my bathing suit. We’re on our way to Orchard Beach, at least that was the plan, but I’m scared we’ll wind up flying over a guardrail instead. I glance over at Kevin, my little brother. His face has no color, and his mouth is partly open like he can’t make up his mind whether to scream or piss his pants. Maybe he figures Brian decided to skip Orchard Beach and head out to Coney Island instead. Maybe this is a Steeplechase ride. It sure feels like one, because I’m ready to puke.  
    My niece Erin is bouncing happily in her spot between Irene and Kevin. She’s pulling at Irene’s ponytail and looks pleasantly mystified. She’s just a toddler, maybe the only other person in the car besides Brian who doesn’t understand how close we are to getting killed. Kathleen usually makes a stink if Brian drives too fast when Erin’s in the car. But he was already feeling good when we left Bathgate Avenue an hour ago. Crossing him when he gets to that stage isn’t a good idea, not for Kathleen, because he’ll show her who’s boss again, and it hurts. Brian is always jolly at first, the kind of drinker who can fool you into thinking he won’t get nasty if he has a few more. Everything is a joke. Until it isn’t.
    Brian pours more beer into the cup between his legs, spilling a lot of it, then firing what’s left at Gloria. His brother slows the Dodge down, lets Brian pass him, then speeds up next to him again so his bombardier can try for another volley. Neither one of them seems to be watching the road. They’re too busy honking their horns, cutting each other off, cursing out the window, and laughing their lunatic laughs, baring their teeth like inmates let loose from the asylum. That’s the way men laugh when they’re drunk, when the drinking erases the rules, makes them feel like they can cross the double line, ignore the speed limit, bloody women’s faces.
    Kathleen moves both hands through her hair and says something to Brian. But I can’t hear what she’s saying because Chuck Berry won’t stop pounding, won’t stop singing about his Cadillac, how it’s racing and rolling, bumper to bumper. 
    Every muscle in my body is tight. My jaw is locked, my arms are heavy and so are my legs, like they’re stuck in cement. Everything hurts. Powerlessness does strange things to me. And it’s always the same. Like the nights when Daddy comes home drunk, knocking over tables, searching for enemies. At first I watch him throw things, my fists clenched, stomach burning, but then a kind of surrender takes over. I know I have no control, no way to stop anything from happening. Even my prayers end in mid-stream and after a while I’m suspended in a place where the pain—or the fear of it—loses its edge. It isn’t acceptance or anything like that. I know what’s happening is terrible and dangerous, but it’s as if something else is holding me up, something outside of me, outside of that moment. 
    So I watch the trees blur as we speed ahead of the Dodge again, hear Chuck Berry pleading with Maybellene, feel Irene’s grip again on my knee, and I see Kathleen crying, shouting, and this time I hear what she says, pull over. The car lurches, slows, then speeds up again then pulls sharply toward the shoulder. We come to a stop just past an exit ramp and Kathleen gets out, slams the door behind her. The silence is sudden, explosive. No more Maybellene, no pounding beat, not a word from anyone. For a moment I wonder if she’s going to keep on walking, head up the highway, abandon us to the insanity. But Brian slides over to the passenger side, muttering something about a fuckin’ bitch, and Kathleen gets into the driver’s seat. “You used to be fun,” he mutters, but she doesn’t take the bait. She adjusts the mirrors and gets us to the beach.
    There aren’t many times anymore when I’m as afraid as I was in that car, so that feeling of being insulated has become mostly a memory, certainly nothing I can summon. Meditation offers promise. But sitting still is torture, no matter how much incense I burn, because the nervous energy you acquire when you grow up the way I did can never be subdued. But I’ve had glimpses of it, when I’m sitting still as the candle flickers, or playing blocks on the floor with my grandsons, watching them thrill at how tall the tower rises, at the anticipation of knocking it down. I may be unsettled, worried about things that may happen or things that never will, but I keep breathing each breath, keep listening to the boys giggle. And there it is, that merciful suspension, that sense that no matter how close the danger is, it isn’t all there is. 

​

Mary Ann McGuigan’s creative nonfiction appears in Brevity (forthcoming), X-R-A-Y, The Rumpus, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. You can find her fiction in lots of journals, including The Sun, Massachusetts Review, and North American Review. Her collection PIECES includes stories named for the Pushcart Prize and Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. THAT VERY PLACE, her new collection, is due out in 2025. Mary Ann’s young-adult novels are ranked among the best books for teens by the Junior Library Guild and the New York Public Library. WHERE YOU BELONG was a finalist for the National Book Award. She loves visitors: www.maryannmcguigan.com.

---