My mother took the
wheel of the Suburban. It was perhaps the biggest car she had ever driven, at
least to my knowledge. From my
view in the back seat, I saw her look from left to right, slowly scanning the
layout of the driver’s seat, and necessary controls. She had refused to let
anyone occupy the passenger seat. There was a long silence, followed by several seconds of
inaction.
“Mom are you sure
you want to drive, one of us can if you're not up for it,” I offered hoping she’d take the bait.
She ignored me, and began to pull
out of the parking space at a snail’s pace. I looked at my father, my brother
and my girlfriend in that order, my doubt was on full display. However, their faces seemed resigned to the fact that there would be
no stopping her from driving. Slowly and precariously she backed the Suburban
out of the spot. This whole process took about 5 minutes.
“Mom, really you
seem a little uncomfortable. I can take over--”
“No! David you just sit back and relax I am going to
drive!” She checked every mirror two, and three times over, “We had a nice day
shopping and now we are going to go get something to eat. And I am going to get
us there.”
“Mom you seem a little lost driving this thing. Really its okay. I can
do it.” My offer
was met with a lecture.
“You know you need to have a little bit more faith in me. Just because
I'm old does not mean I can't do it myself.”
Again I looked around at my family
members within the car, but they gave no responses. “Alright fine do whatever
you want, just be careful.”
My mother’s progress and driving the vehicle was slow. But it was progress nonetheless. A few painstaking minutes of quiet followed wherein my mother
continued to navigate the large SUV down each level of the
parking structure. I relaxed a bit and began to look at my phone
checking a few emails and other menial tasks.
It took only a few
more minutes before my concentration was ripped away as I heard the sound of metal meeting metal. I looked
up from my seat in the rear of the Suburban only to see my mother finish
driving straight through a rolled steel gate.
I looked around at everyone else in
the vehicle and if they took any issue with this driving tactic, it didn't seem
to register on their faces. “Oh my God! Mom what the fuck are you doing?!”
“Oh David, I figured you'd be upset
with me. Don't blame this on me, you know I'm getting older but you let me
drive anyway.”
I was livid at the words, but didn’t
say so. The car was now stopped, fully outside the gate. As I looked around us it seemed my mother had not only driven through a closed gate,
but she also missed the actual street exit of the parking garage, as the vehicle, including as its occupants, were now in a service alley of some kind behind the mall we had just
visited.
“Turn off the car Mom.” I heard a
dating jingling of keys and the engine was quiet. “Is everyone okay?” I said almost absently as I stepped out of the car.
Surveying the Suburban’s exterior,
I noticed some minor scratches around the front side panels. “Ok it doesn't look too bad actually.” I turned to look at the gate, it however hadn't fared too well. The Suburban had made it look as though a bomb had went off from inside, removing it completely from its guides on one side. I took a
breath and reentered the SUV, “Okay we need to find the office so we can tell them what happened.”
“I'm not going to
do that, we’re going to go eat.”
“Mom, are you kidding you drove
through a their damned gate! What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” she snapped back, “How dare you
talk to me this way!”
“Are you insane? You
had an accident; the right thing to do is report it.”
“No, I’m hungry- we
are all hungry, and we need to eat.”
I turned to my
family, and girlfriend, looking for any support, but they were all quiet, Their
faces nearly blank as a matter of fact, I took at as no one wanted to pick this
battle as worth fighting.
“Sit down and get
your seatbelt back on.” My mother ordered, “Just focus on something else if you’re
so nervous about my driving. You typically multitask when I talk to you anyway.”
“Ok fine, but after
we eat, we come back here and tell them what happened.”
“Agreed. Take a nap
or something until we get there, as you might say, with the way I drive it will
be awhile.”
I did as I was
told. Eventually, I dozed deeply, jostling awake only when we hit a hard bump.
Once I got my wits about me after waking, I feared the worst. Dragging my chin
up from my chest I asked, “Oh God, what happened now?”
I looked around me
and everything had changed. Well almost everything. I was still in the Suburban’s
rear seat, but seated around me were faces I didn’t recognize. Three blonde
children that were maybe ten to twelve years old had replaced my father,
brother and girlfriend. Their blue eyes gleamed eagerly at me, but the looks on
their faces showed only distain.
“Who the fuck are
you?”
“Hey don’t cuss in
front of my kids jerk.”
I looked up to the
driver’s seat and my mother had vanished as well. In her place was a rather
large man in a t-shirt. The t-shirt plainly showed biceps nearly as big as my
head. “Brock Lesnar?”
“That’s right you
little weasel.”
“What is going on?”
“Your mother asked
me to take care of you.” He spoke to me while driving, but was doing little in
the way of watching the road. The children, who I assumed were his, continued
to judge me with their gaze.
“Take care of me? I
thought we were going to dinner.”
“Oh we're still
going, it’s just when we get there I’m going to beat your ass.”
“Hey, language in
front of the kids remember?”
“Shut up you little
twerp, I’m going to knock you into next week for disrespecting your mom. You
should be ashamed of yourself!” The kids nodded profusely for punctuation.
As timing would
have it, we coasted up to the front of a restaurant at that moment.
“Oh, I get it, this
is a dream.”
With these words
the children and my celebrity driver looked at me with confusion. Mr. Lesnar
spoke, “What do you mean dream? You’ll be on Dream Street when I knock your
sorry carcass out cold.” Mr. Lesnar giggled maniacally at his statement.
“No Mr. Lesnar, you
won’t this is a dream and you can’t hurt me.”
“Pshh, you’re rude
and nuts. Just how do you think you’re going to beat me?”
“I’m not. I’m going
to run away.” Even as I spoke, I clamored forward into the seat ahead of me,
over the kids and flung the passenger door open. Stepping on the curb, I began
to run, as fast as I could. “It’s a dream!” I screamed back at the vehicle, laughing
while I did.
I ran for only a
little while before I knew I needed to hide. If Lesnar decided to chase me, it
would be a one way ticket to suplex city. Even in dream form I did not want to
experience that. Looking around I
realized where I was. I was at Westgate, an “entertainment district” in
Glendale, Arizona- or at least it was my subconscious mind’s recreation of
Westgate. Thinking on my feet I past the first few places I saw, running into a
bar there that had a patio on its west side. I thought if I got cornered, I
might be able to flee through there.
However, my plan
was quickly forgotten. Running through the dining area, I pushed my way
through a door with a crash bar and ended up in another service alley. It
looked remarkably similar to the one my mother had drove into earlier. “Really?
Did most of my dream budget go to securing Brock Lesnar as guest star?”
I looked around,
there was no exit. I was surrounded by trash and concrete walls on all sides. “Shit,
I’ve got to get out of here! I need to wake up!”
As I was trying to
figure how to best do that, a classmate of mine appeared before me. We’ll call
him “Will”, because that’s his name.
“David, me and some
of the others from school are here, you ok? We saw you run through the bar. You
good?”
My only answer, “I
need to wake up!”
“Did you have too
much to drink?” he asked, edging closer to see if I was alright.
When I shouted,
“I know I’ll hold my breath!” he shuddered away.
I had no time to
waste to act on my brilliant idea. Immediately, I threw myself on the dirty
ground and forced myself to stop breathing. My subconscious did its best to
simulate my lack of breath, but I was not fooled. The sensation felt more like
a deep clenching in my chest muscles, but I could tell I was still getting
oxygen.
However, when I realized it wasn’t
working as a method to wake me up, I stood up, now covered in murky trash water and grime from the
ground. “Shit!”
In my peripheral vision,
I saw Will still staring like I was a lunatic.
“Try something
else.” I repeated, “Try something else.” Another thought came; I began to
scream, “SAAARRRAAHHH! HEEELLLPPP MEEE!”
My thinking being
that I would force myself to scream in the dream-world, and I would consciously
begin to cry out in the real world, prompting my girlfriend to come wake me up
before Lesnar could reach me.
I looked to the
night sky in my dreamscape, waiting for a sign that my technique had worked. But
the dream world remained.
“Think of something
else,” became my new mantra. If only there were a way out of here, I could
escape and no one could find me.
The thought was
never even verbalized, but as it came and went in my mind I saw one side of the
service area burst open. It started as a warm yellow-orange light, but
gradually I could see shapes; a street, flanked by a sidewalk, glowing neon of
other restaurant and bar signs greeted me. I saw other people walking within
this newly created route. None of them seemed to notice the hole that opened up
in the concrete wall in front of all of us.
I looked back at
the door that led inside, it was closed. Will was gone, and Lesnar had not busted
through while I was distracted.
I smiled and trotted
towards the way out.
