Free Rearview by Mike Dellosso Page B

with the things Sue cared about. She loved photographing the boys and organizing the pictures into ornately designed and decorated scrapbooks. She had a knack for visual beauty and symmetry but only ever succeeded in capturing Dan’s halfhearted interest.
    A lifetime would not be enough to make up for the time he’d squandered; seven hours didn’t touch it.
    Dan shut his eyes tight to dam the tears threatening to break loose. Time trickled away while he sat in a stranger’s truck.
    â€œA penny for your thoughts?” Pete’s voice was an uninvited hook pulling Dan back to reality.
    Dan opened his eyes and looked around, squinted into the light. The snow had slowed some, making the roadway a little more visible.
    Pete had taken off his gloves and turned down the heat in the cab. He’d removed his hat, too, revealing a crown of wispy white hair. He looked at Dan and smiled. “You looked like you were lost in some thought.”
    Dan rubbed his eyes, massaged the thudding behind his temples. “Yeah, I guess I was.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the bottle of aspirin, emptied two in his hand, and swallowed them without water.
    â€œYou ain’t runnin’ from the cops, are ya?”
    â€œDo I look like a man on the run from the police?”
    Pete glanced at Dan’s lip, cheek, eyebrow. “Never can tell these days.”
    â€œI guess you can’t.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWell what?”
    â€œAre you on the run?”
    â€œNot from the cops. Nothing like that.”
    â€œThen you’re runnin’ from your memories.”
    Dan wondered if his white-bearded, rosy-cheeked savior possessed the same innate knowledge of boys and girls, men and women, that the real Claus did. “I was just thinking about time and how fast it goes.”
    â€œAnd thinkin’ hurts your face that much?”
    Dan tenderly touched the gash above his eye, then the lump on his forehead. “Oh, this. It’s a long story.”
    â€œWe got a long trip.”
    â€œNot nearly long enough.”
    Pete shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He motioned toward the dash and the AM/FM radio. “Radio don’t work and I hate drivin’ in silence, just the sound of the engine and tires on the road. Drives me nutty. I usually provide my own music but I’ll spare you the torment of hearin’ my warblin’ and talk instead. That okay with you?”
    It wasn’t. Dan craved silence. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts; he wanted to get to New York. He massaged his temples some more and said, “Sure. It’s your truck.”
    Pete chuckled. “I guess it is, ain’t it?”
    A big rig silently passed by going the opposite direction, kicking up a feathery plume of snow in its wake.
    â€œTime’s a funny thing, ain’t it? Sometimes it flies by like a freight train blowin’ by a hobo. Other times it moves along in slow motion. Lookin’ back, my life’s been full of long days and short years, you know?”
    â€œAll too well.”
    Pete paused and rubbed a hand over his beard. “In ’53 I was in Korea. Ever hear of Pork Chop Hill?”
    â€œI saw the movie as a kid. Does that count?”
    â€œWell, I guess that’ll do. I was in the 31st Infantry, a twenty-two-year-old kid, corporal, already with a wife and baby girl at home. We were told to take that hill ’cause the Chinese had it. Fought most of the night. There was no moon—I remember that—how dark it was ’cept for the muzzle fire of the rifles and fire from the flamethrowers. And the screams of men . . . sometimes at night I still hear ’em. It’s why I hate the silence so much. So many times I was sure I was gonna die. When we finally got to the summit and the trenches, I huddled down and covered my head and just cried. And that’s when it happened.”
    â€œWhat