Debbie Does Dayton

I start to cry on Lake Shore Drive.  I’m moving at sixty miles per hour, well above the speed limit, and I’m listening to a 90s rock music mix CD that an old boyfriend made for me, like, 15 years ago.  I’m alone and I’m driving and I don’t have a destination; I just need to get the fuck out of this city.  There is too much pain in Chicago.

Hours later, I’m in Ohio, Interstate 75, I’m still speeding, but I’ve stopped crying.  I’m listening to a different CD from a different ex-boyfriend, though a couple of the songs on the compilation are the same.  Apparently, guys want their girlfriends to listen to the song Black by Pearl Jam.  I guess it’s romantic, what with the stars in the sky metaphor and all.  I hate to admit this; I sing along and that I love the song.  I’m thirty-eight years old and I haven’t listened to any new music since I left college.  Why bother?

I pull into a rest stop because I’m thirsty and I find a vending machine and I give it a dollar, but machine thinks that the bill is too wrinkled and doesn’t take it.  So I go out to my car and I search the seats for change.  As I bend closer to the passenger seat, my necklace gets caught on a lever near the steering wheel.  It snaps and small pieces of plastic fly everywhere.  Goddammit.  My eight year old niece made that necklace for me.  It was one of those pieces of jewelry that is made of beads and fishing wire.  My name was in the center of the necklace, each letter on an individual bead.  Now my name is somewhere on the floor, I guess.

I go back to my task and I find enough money for a bottle of pop.  I put the money in the machine and I hit the button for a Diet Coke and nothing happens.  Great.  I shake the machine and, again, nothing happens.  I hit the change return button and, of course, nothing happens.  Dammit.  I search my pockets for another dollar, but I only have that same crumpled bill.  I straighten the dollar out as best I could and I try to slide it into the machine.  The machine spits it back at me.  I try it again and the machine spits it back at me.  I try it again and the fucking machine spits it back at me.  Motherfucker.  I shake the pop machine and I kick it and I shake it once more.

“Thirteen people die each year from vending machines.”

I glance behind me and see a man sitting on a bench.

“What did you say?” I ask him without facing him.

“Thirteen people, on average, die every year from vending machine accidents,” the man says.

“Where were you last week at trivia night?”  I hear the snarkiness in my voice as I speak.

“Vending machines tend to kill more people than sharks do.”

“I’ll try not to say anything disparaging about Coke products then.  I don’t want to piss the thing off and have it bite my leg off.”

Still looking at the six foot, halogen lit Coke logo; I dig into my pockets, hoping that I had an overlooked dollar bill.  As I’m fingering through my pants, I see the man approach in my peripheral vision.  I look up at him.  He is aged and wrinkled, but the lines etched on his face are kind and, after he smiles, I feel less hostile toward him.  The man lifts his palm and offers a handful of change.  I refuse and he shakes his hand.  I sigh and I thank him and I take the money and I buy myself a regular Coca-Cola.  Fuck diet.

There is a large map mounted to the wall, and I scan it for a marker that will indicate where I am.  The man returns to his bench and lights a cigarette as I run my finger across the map.  “Those things kill more people than sharks do,” I say to the man.  Then I follow with, “Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“I’m sorry,” the man says, “I wasn’t thinking.  It’s cold outside.  I’ll put this out if it bothers you.”

“No.  No bother.  I’m just giving you shit.”

“Are you lost?” the man asks.

I think about everything that happened back home and I look down for a moment.  “You could say that,” I say.

“You’re about thirty miles outside of Dayton,” he says.

I look back up at the map.  “Thank you.”

“Have you ever been to Dayton?” he asks.

“No,” I say, turning around, “I have not.  Is it nice?”  I open my bottle of Coke and sit next to the man.

“I like it well enough,” he says.  “I grew up Yellow Springs, which isn’t too far from there.”

I nod and I sip my drink and I stare forward.

“Where’re you coming from?” the man asks.

“Chicago.”

“Beautiful city,” the man says.

“I suppose it is,” I agree.  I feel myself want to cry again, so I stop talking.  The two of us sit next to one another in silence.  The man sucks on his cigarette while I sip my pop, enjoying the bubbles as they wash over my tongue.  I finish half the drink and then I ask the man if he will keep an eye on the rest of my beverage while I go use the bathroom.  He agrees and I promise that I won’t be long and I leave.

When I exit the bathroom, I see the man before he sees me.  He is slumped, head down, with a burnt-out cigarette in his hand.  He looks old and he looks tired.  Next to him, on the bench, on the opposite side of my Coca-Cola, rests a bouquet of red roses.  He hears me and he lifts his head and the folds of his face invert and he smiles.

“Your pop is still here, safe and sound,” he says, motioning to the bottle.

“Thank you,” I say.  I sit down next to him and continue on my drink.

“What is your name?” he asks.

“Debra,” I tell him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Debra.  I’m Brad.”

“Brad?  Brad’s not an old man name,” I say without thinking.

The man laughs.  “Old man?  How old do you think I am?”

“Shit.  I don’t know.  I suck at guessing people’s ages, but I’d estimate that you are somewhere between eighty and three hundred-forty-five years old.”

The man laughs again and then coughs.

“Sorry, Brad, my humor is a little crass.  There’s nothing wrong with being old.  I’m no young chick myself.”

“Don’t apologize.  I appreciate your spunk.  It reminds me of someone I used to know.  I’m seventy-four.  And, by the way, I went by the name Bradley most of my life.  I only adopted the shortened nickname when my grandkids started calling me ‘Grandpa Brad.’”

“I didn’t know they had people named Brad back in your day.  I thought everyone was called Chester or Rutherford or Fredrick or some shit like that.”

“Well, what about Bradley Ayers?”  the man asks.  “Have you never heard his name?”

“Uhm… No, actually.  I have no idea who the hell you’re talking about.”

“Military man, collaborated with the C.I.A., trained a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, spoke out against the Vietnam War; he was born in the 30s, just like me.”

“Okay.  I still have no idea who you’re talking about.”  I recycle my line from before, but this time with less sarcasm and more smiles, “Dude.  Seriously.  If you’re ever in Chicago, there is this bar called Paddy Long’s that does trivia on Tuesdays.  I’m taking you.  We’ll clean house with all this useless shit that you seem to know.”

The man smiles.  “So, how old are you?” he asks.  “I’m going to guess twenty-seven.”

“Good guess,” I lie, glad that he guessed low instead of high, wondering if I would actually be able to pass as a 27 year old.

“You have something in your hair,” the man says.  I run my hands through my thick black curls and I feel a small and solid object.  I pull it out and see that it is one of the beads from my broken necklace, a white square with the letter E printed on it.  I hold it in front of me.

“What is that?”

I hand him the bead and he examines it.  “A little girl made me a beaded necklace, but I’m a clumsy idiot and I accidently broke it.”

“Oh no.  Will you be able to fix it?”

“Maybe.  Probably not.  I probably lost too many beads.  I may be able to make it into something shorter, like a choker or a bracelet, if I really try.  But I don’t need to.  The little girl will make me another, I’m sure.  Shit, she’ll probably be happy that it broke just so it’ll give her an excuse to string another one together.”

“That’s cute.”

“It is.  When she gave me this first one, she said something like, ‘Aunt Debra, I made this for you.  It’s a friendship necklace.  It means that we’re friends.’

“That’s a very special necklace then,” the man says.

“I suppose it is.”

“So the little girl is your niece?”

“Yeah. My niece.  Brother’s daughter.”

“Do you have a picture of this little girl?” the man asked.

“Why?  Are you a pedo?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.  Bad joke.  Yeah.  I think I got a pic in my phone.  Hold on.”  I take out my cell and I open the image gallery.  The first picture is not of my niece.  The first picture is from a different time, a happier time, and I feel a sharp ping of depression, but I move past it and I find a shot of the little girl.  The man looks at the picture and he closes his eyes and he says, “Adorable.  She reminds me of my granddaughter when she was younger.”

“How many grandchildren do you have?”

“Four.”

I notice a gold band on his left ring finger.  “Are you married?” I ask him.

“I was,” he said, his face turning towards the highway, “but she died in a car wreck many years ago.  Fourteen years ago.  Fourteen years to the day.”

I look down at the flowers on the bench and I understand.

The man takes out, and lights, another cigarette and I return to, and finish, my pop.  I get up from the bench and I dispose of the Coke bottle.  I turn to the man and I tell him that it was nice to meet him and he says the same to me.  I return to my car and I sit in the driver’s seat and I sit and I think of the pain that the man, Brad, must have faced in his life.  I decide I that I have to go back to Chicago.  I decide that I have to accept pain of my own.  I slide my car key into the ignition and I see another bead from my broken necklace sitting on the dashboard.  I take the key out and I start combing the area for more beads, specifically looking for the letters that spell my name.

When I get out of my car and go back to the rest area, about ten minutes later, I find that Brad had barely moved.  Like before, his head is down.  The roses are sitting across his lap.  As I near, he looks up at me.  His eyes are red and he wipes them with his fingertips and he smiles.  I don’t say a word.  I walk to him with my hand extended, offering a gift.  He takes the bracelet and rests it in his palm, the lettered beads facing up, spelling the name BRAD. He clutches the bracelet in his hand and he thanks me and I nod and I walk away.