Bailing Out Father

When you wake suddenly, it is sunset already, and Jimmy is rolling a joint on the dashboard. The potholes on Highway 69 are as bad for sleep as they are for fine motor activities. Jesus, Jimmy, let me do it. Mother says, but she is driving, so she can’t actually do anything. It’s too fucking quiet in here, Jimmy mumbles, and turns up the radio so none of you can hear your own thoughts over your mother’s silence. There were cornfields when you left, and you thought it would look different the farther you drove, but it turns out there are cornfields everywhere. Mother doesn’t notice cornfields just like she didn’t notice father’s drunken footsteps on the carpeted floors, or the ages of the boys on his computer, or Jimmy’s grades slipping. You hand Jimmy a lighter and one of your headphones because he doesn’t need to hear Pearl Jam’s “Better Man,” and you’re afraid of not being able to hear. Jimmy and Mother share tokes, and you watch everything. You’re always making a mess, says Mother, and she means the weed, but she doesn’t, and you watch the cornfields and wonder how many more miles to the courthouse in Saskatoon and how you ever fell asleep, and how anyone ever fell asleep, and then Jimmy passes the joint to you in the backseat, and you look away from the cornfields and inhale.