Free In the Path of Falling Objects by Andrew Smith Page B

played “Run Through the Jungle.” I didn’t like the song. It sounded too much like the things I’d read in Matthew’s letters, and I was thankful when we lost the signal again and Lilly couldn’t find another station.
    Simon drank a second beer.
    My hands were sweating, but I couldn’t loosen their grip on the wheel. This was the farthest we’d ever been from home, the fastest we’d ever gone, and I felt so incredibly small on the road. The desert seemed so big, and I realized that until we’d gotten in that car with Mitch and Lilly, there was almost nothing else in our lives or world besides just me and Simon.
    The morning wore on to the afternoon on that lonely and quiet road, overly decorated with signs hoping to attract carloads of travelers to roadside curio shops selling pecan rolls and Indian souvenirs. Black clouds billowed above the flat heat of the land, the road sending up blurry snakes in the distance. It looked like rain coming. I was getting tired at the wheel, and I watched in the rearview mirror as Mitch started to fall asleep, then jerked his head up suddenly, shook it clear, and unbuttoned his shirt and took it off.
    “That air feels good,” Mitch said, and fumbled with his pants,removing them and waving them out like a blue flag. He sat there in the backseat completely naked.
    “Oh brother,” I sighed.
    Lilly laughed and slapped her hand down on the top of the seat.
    “Don’t be a prude, Jonah,” she said.
    “Let the sunshine in,” Mitch chuckled. “Ahh . . .” and he stretched his arms out over the folded top of the cream convertible canvas so that he was hugging Don Quixote.
    A truck passed us, honking twice at the foolish Mitch.
    Simon was drunk. He could see me watching him in the car’s mirror; he held the meteorite up between us to hide his eyes from me. But I saw him bend forward, taking off his moccasins and pants, heard him giggle when he put his bare feet up against the back of my seat, and touched my head with his toes.
    “Put your clothes on, Simon,” I said. I felt myself getting angry again, tried fighting against it.
    “No.”
    “My brother, Simon!” Mitch shouted and tousled Simon’s hair, smiling his big yellow teeth.
    “Take your clothes off, Lilly,” Mitch said.
    Lilly looked at me, gently lifting her blouse, a slight smile on her tight lips, and I just glared at her and quickly turned my attention back to the road. This was ridiculous.
    “Jonah doesn’t want me to.”
    “You’re no fun, Jonah,” Mitch called out.
    Lilly turned around and looked at the two of them in the backseat, grinning. Simon made no movement to cover himself. He never was very shy about anything.
    “Put your clothes back on, Simon,” I repeated.
    “They stink. They smell like you,” Simon said.
    “You’re acting like a damned hippie,” I said.
    “What’s wrong with that?” Mitch laughed.
    “I like hippies,” Lilly said, still turned back, eyes shifting from Mitch to Simon, to the road receding behind them.
    “You going to beat me up again, Jonah?” Simon asked.
    “No. I said I was sorry.”
    Simon bent forward and lit another cigarette.
    “I have a black eye.”
    “I know,” I said. “You want to hit me back?”
    Simon picked up the meteorite, reflecting the sun. “Not right now.”
    And I pulled my head away when Simon put his foot over the top of the seat and brushed my ear with it.
    I scowled. Simon and Mitch began laughing, and I thought,
I’ve got to find a way to get that gun out of the pack.
    I looked at Lilly and she pulled her glasses down, smiling, and winked at me.
    I stared down the road.
    “Where are you going?” I said to her.
    “I told you. To California.”
    She was playing with me, I was sure. I glanced back to see if Mitch was listening. His head hung over the side of the car, drugged, tuned out to the blur of the desert.
    I whispered, “I’d think there’d be a better way for you to get there.”
    “Just let me know when you find