Free Turn Signal by Howard Owen Page B

oppressive day has made him smile.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Sometimes, I kind of envy Brady. Well, maybe that’s too strong. How can you envy somebody who’s been abandoned completely by his mother and mostly by his father? He might be worthy of admiration, though. Brady’s not afraid to have people think he’s a failure just because he won’t do what they think he ought to do .
    He might bomb as an actor. Who knows? From what I’ve seen, he can’t possibly be the worst there ever was .
    When I was 18, I thought my life was over. Everything had gone so irrevocably wrong; some days, I wanted to pull the covers over my head and sleep for a thousand years. You’ve had your fun, I thought then. And see what it got you. Now it’s time to be a man. Life is hard. Here’s your shovel .
    Brady, though, he doesn’t see it that way. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have a lot of people lavishing their expectations on him, so he doesn’t think he’s got to pay this high and terrible price for failing. He can just be Brady .
    â€œ If I don’t make it in one thing,” he told me once, “there’s always something else. There’s a lot of jobs. And if I don’t succeed in any of ’em, what the hell? Most people think I’m going to fall on my butt anyhow. At least I won’t disappoint them. ”
    When I tried to scold him, he said, “Maybe I could try truck-driving. Seems like you’ve stuck with that pretty good. ”
    It really pissed me off at the time. He knew how much I disliked driving that rig of mine across the country, to and fro like some lost, homeless soul, how it was already playing hell with my back and my prostate. How I missed all those nights I could have spent with my family .
    But he was right to quit, if that’s what he felt like he ought to do. I mean, there was a time in my life when I thought I had it all figured out. I was set. The only thing not yet established when I turned 18 was whether I’d go on to the pros or have to settle for a career as an English teacher or a writer somewhere, maybe coach the high school football team, too .
    When all that went to hell, though, I sort of lost my rudder. Everything after that was more or less directed by someone else, like I’d forfeited the gift of free will .
    I read a book a few years ago about a guy who went all over the country, taking the back roads, seeing America. The guy called them “blue highways. ”
    Well, the only blue on my highways was on those interstate signs .
    And, then, one day you pick up a little old man hitchhiking, and he suggests to you, without even saying it, that everything you meant to do has been undone, that your life has been determined for you by others. And it occurs to you that others, no matter how much they might love you and need you, shouldn’t be doing that .
    The story of Lovelady and Pettigrew woke me up. Those first pages were like an alarm clock going off in my head. I knew what I wanted to do, what I had to do or go crazy. Of course, maybe I’ve done both .
    I don’t quite understand why the Richmond train station is out so far from the center of town. It’s not even in Richmond. You have to damn near hire a native guide to find the place .
    I’m pretty calm, though, considering .
    The parking lot was almost full, and the over-warm waiting room doesn’t have many seats left in it .
    There’s a mother and two little boys sitting across, facing me. They’re black, like most of the other people in here. It’s not even 7 a.m., and the mother looks tired already, her breath labored like it has to fight to get out of those huge breasts. She gets winded if she has to yell more than a few words at her sons, or grandsons — it’s hard to tell which; she might be 30 or she might be 55 .
    So, I ask the woman, where are you all going?
    And she just looks at me, and the little boys do, too