DEREK ANDERSEN

Road Rage

A few months after my father passed, he spoke to me through his pickup truck. His voice came in over the radio while I was channel surfing. I didn’t usually mess with the janky old receiver, but I couldn’t stand the way the wind howled through Amotken Gorge—I swear it was the loneliest sound on Earth. At first, I could barely hear Pops over all the static. There was poor reception in those precarious switchbacks, bends cutting sharp as knives over the abyss. I turned the dial, perverting my father’s words into garbled tones.

“J.D.! That’s right, I’m talking to you, boy!” he said, once I’d caught the right frequency.

“H-hi, Daddy,” I said.

“I never thought you’d answer, for Christsakes. What, you got your goddamn AirPods in?” His gravelly voice reverberated like he was trapped in a chasm.

“N-no, sir.” It occurred to me that I might be losing my mind. I contemplated this possibility while I trailed an old woman in a battered Buick. To my annoyance, she crawled at half the speed limit. I wanted to pass her, but there was no room—one side of the road was flanked by a sheer cliff face, the other the gorge, encircled only by a rusted-out guardrail.

“Really? You’re gonna let ol’ saggy tits slow you down?” My father said as if reading my mind. “Did you forget everything I taught you?”

On the contrary, his lessons were burned into my memory. While the other kids on the block played Hot Wheels, my old man sat me on a stack of phone books and taught me how to drive stick in his pickup. Between instructions, he spat chew into an empty Lone Star can, the dark brown mucous making my stomach churn. Never the most patient teacher, he screamed at me every time I stalled out, raising his hand threateningly, a hand laced with his class ring. I was intimately acquainted with the contours of said ring—on more than one occasion, they’d been imprinted on my cheek. I was terrified not only of my father, but of the growling engine, the six cylinders of raw power beneath me.

“I know I didn’t raise no Nancy boy,” my father said, voice crackling through the speakers. “Give granny a taste of your goddamn dust.”

I used to have a thick skin against my father’s insults. He could only throw so many profanities at you before the words lost all meaning. But his death had broken down my defenses, and now they cut like rusty razor blades. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles ached, trying not to capitulate.

“Come on, J.D., cup those balls and own the road,” my father said, goading me. This was the mantra he drilled into my skull growing up. His driving philosophy could best be described as a form of Darwinism. The road belonged to the strong; there was no room for pussies.

I was twelve the first time I took my father’s mantra to heart. We were weaving through these very same switchbacks when we came upon a slow-moving Pontiac. Just like Pops taught me, I rode the Pontiac’s ass—you couldn’t fit tissue paper between our bumpers. Adrenaline surged through my veins. Feeding off the energy, I laid on the horn, earning a pat on the back from my old man. Our reverie was cut short when the Pontiac stopped on a dime. I slammed the brakes, narrowly avoiding a rear-end collision. Before we could process what happened, a man with a wild mane of hair leaped from the car, brandishing a tire iron. He was so cut and bronzed, he must’ve been a wrestler or something. We cowered in fear as he raised the glinting steel above the hood of my father’s truck. Just before he slammed it down, he caught a glimpse of my innocent, apple-cheeked face. The manic gleam vanished from his eyes, leaving shame in its place. The tire iron clattered to the asphalt.

Looking back, the maniac with the tire iron hardly phased me. What truly terrified me was the dark urge my father awakened inside me. It wanted to dominate every pussyfooting bitch doing twenty-five in a fifty. In the years following, I managed to suppress it, to ease off the horn, adhere to posted speed limits, and turn the other cheek when assholes cut me off. But my old man’s ghost rekindled that familiar feeling. It smoldered inside me like an ember while I sat on the old lady’s bumper. It took everything I had to keep it from igniting.

***

When it came to his truck, my father was a purist. He was hell-bent on preserving his Chevy C-10 in the golden year of 1979. Through the seasons, he battled Father Time by sandpapering away rust, tinkering with the sputtering engine, and applying fresh coats of cherry red paint. He spurned all advances in automotive technology—rear cameras, GPS navigation, and power windows. They would only taint his precious baby. Instead, he kept it classic: egg crate grille, chrome bumper, wood-paneled interior, coil-spring suspension, 135-horsepower V-6 engine. See, his truck was more than a mode of transportation, it was an homage to a bygone era. In his day, he often reminded me, there was none of that AAA pussy shit. There was just you, your toolkit, and your big swinging balls. Getting your hands dirty was a rite of passage.

In the following weeks, my father’s voice came through the radio clearer. His ramblings eschewed metaphysics; he seemed unconcerned with death and the great beyond. Instead, he complained about the living, the pansies who had invaded Highpine, his once beloved town. These scrawny, oat milk-guzzling Nancy boys came down from Portland, transplants from the tech boom. They couldn’t pop a hood, much less jump a battery. They were too busy writing code and beating off in dark basements. His anger invariably gave way to melancholy as he pined for the good ol’ days. His longing was so powerful it was almost a physical ache. He felt like an outsider in his own home.

No man earned more ire from my father than his nemesis, Rasmus Hansdotter. The Highpine Gazette dubbed him “The Swedish wunderkind.” By his twenty-fifth birthday, he’d opened a string of car dealerships in the Pacific Northwest, the latest of which was down the street from my father’s auto repair shop. The issue, you see, was Rasmus didn’t sell real cars. The herring-breathed motherfucker hocked electric vehicles. He was the owner and CEO of a Scandinavian outfit called Solaris. Slowly, insidiously, Solaris EVs replaced the Fords and Chevies that once proudly traversed the streets of Highpine. Many of the townsfolk dubbed Rasmus’ a visionary, a hero who would save humanity from extinction. But to my father, he was a snake pushing him to the brink of financial ruin. See, the Swede was the only authorized Solaris parts dealer for a hundred miles. My father’s shop couldn’t replace a lug nut on the damn things.

While Dad’s disembodied voice ranted about the sacrilege of Beyond Beef, I spotted Rasmus down the road. The wunderkind’s car was hard to make out in the dark, moonless night. He drove a black Solaris Sport with tinted windows. Every feature of the car was sleek and minimalist—the only indulgence he allowed was his vanity plate, which read, “SKAL.” My old man took his usual digs at the vehicle, calling it a “Prius-adjacent piece of shit.” I murmured in agreement, but, in truth, I thought Rasmus’ ride was badass. And so was the way he drove it: he appeared in rearview mirrors like a specter, electric motor emitting the faintest whisper as he whizzed past.

“Show him who’s boss,” my father said, voice a low growl through the speakers.

I’d had enough of my father’s grievances for one day. Without a word, I shut off the radio. For a beautiful moment, all was calm. I listened to the distant music of the bullfrogs and crickets, relaxing my grip on the steering wheel.

“J.D., did you turn me off?” My old man’s voice came blaring back.

“No, sir. Must’ve been an a-accident.”

“You did, you lying sonabitch!” my father’s voice crescendoed. “If you let that bastard get away, I’ll reach my ghost fist through these speakers and smack the shit outta you!”

I didn’t know if the “ghost fist” was a credible threat, but one thing was for sure: my father’s powers were growing. I felt that familiar fear creep into my belly, my constant companion through his lessons. I was a kid again, perched atop that precarious stack of phonebooks, cowering before that glinting class ring. I complied and punched the gas.

Rasmus was so far ahead of us I could barely make out his tail lights. I tried to close the gap, but the Swede remained elusive, gliding noiselessly through the night. When I slammed the accelerator to the floor, the Chevy’s engine groaned from the effort. The Solaris was clearly the superior machine (though I would never admit this to my father).

I finally caught Rasmus when we reached Amotken Gorge. The Swede had slowed his roll significantly–even he respected the sheer cliff faces, the hungry mouth gaping just below us. I rode his bumper, the hair on my neck standing on end.

“Shine your brights on this cocksucker,” my father said.

I flicked them to life before he finished his sentence, licking my lips hungrily. The dark urge had reawakened in me.

“Good, good,” Pops said, a sick glee creeping into his voice. “Now, give our pal a little love tap.”

I’m ashamed to say I took no convincing. I punched the gas and lurched toward Rasmus. There wasn’t a thought in my head of how dangerous the maneuver was—how, with one wrong move, I could send him barrel-rolling into the abyss. There was only the pounding of my heart, the rush of endorphins through my veins. Just before I made contact with the Solaris, a deer leaped into the road. Rasmus fishtailed into the left lane, tires squealing and churning up smoke. He narrowly avoided the creature, skidding so close he blew back the fur on its face. Following suit, I slammed the brakes and whipped the steering wheel at a violent angle. I managed to avoid the deer, but that became the least of my worries—I was spinning out straight toward the guardrail. In what I assumed were my final moments, I told my father I loved him. My old man, never one for touchy-feely bullshit, pretended not to hear me. My truck slammed the rusted steel barrier, and I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for swift deliverance.

***

The next morning, Rasmus confronted me at my father’s repair shop. The sneaky bastard sidled up on me during my smoke break. In the past, cigarettes were an occasional treat, a 2 a.m. indulgence outside the local dive bar. But ever since I took over my old man’s shop, they’d become a necessity. The mechanics weren’t keen to take orders from some fresh-faced kid who barely had peach fuzz on his pecker. They undermined me at every turn, hiding my wrenches and blasting me with the shop vac. On top of that, we were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The bill collectors could smell it, and they circled like vultures, calling daily to grill me about outstanding payments. Lighting up was the only way I could cope.

Rasmus leaned against the wall beside me, and I offered him a cigarette. He waved it away, instead procuring a vaporizer from his jacket pocket. If my father were present, he would’ve added this to the litany of reasons the Swede was a “candy-ass bitch.” Rasmus asked how things were going at my old man’s shop. In lieu of an answer, I gestured to the open garage door. Inside, all three of my subordinates were snoring loudly, one of them cradling a fifth of whiskey.

“It was the same for me when I took over my father’s lithium mines,” Rasmus said. He spoke with a thick Swedish accent, the intonations of his voice rising and falling. “If you want the men to fall in line, the secret is to garnish their wages. A hungry dog is an obedient dog.” He flashed a toothy grin that made my skin crawl.

“That’s one way to do it,” I said.

A silence fell between us. We each took a pull from our respective tobacco products. The Swede blew his cotton candy vapor in my face, causing me to cough uncontrollably.

“Is that your gas-guzzler?” Rasmus asked, nodding at the Chevy. It was still dinged up from the night before, the left headlight smashed in and the chrome bumper hanging off.

“Yessir,” I managed between wheezes.

“What happened?”

“Just a little fender bender.”

“You know, I think I’ve seen that truck somewhere before,” the Swede said, blue eyes piercing me like a cold Nordic wind. It was clear he knew that I was his assailant, the one he left dangling over the gorge’s edge the night before.

The air was charged with tension; it seemed inevitable that our conversation would come to blows. I balled up my fists and glanced at my slumbering coworkers. Could I count on them to back me up?

“But the human memory can be, how you say, unreliable…” Rasmus said, same sickening grin spreading across his face. “If you take me up on my proposition, it might just slip my mind.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Why not sell me the shop?” The Swede gave me a noogie. “My service center is overflowing with customers—I could use some extra space. And, by the looks of it, you could use some extra rest.” He palmed me his business card.

After Rasmus left, I put out my cigarette and returned to the shop, head still reeling from the exchange. I didn’t rouse the mechanics; I let them slumber like babies sprawled across the concrete floor, portly bellies gently rising and falling. I locked myself in my office and closed the blinds. When the phone rang, I didn’t lift a finger. I was too busy gazing at the dollar figure Rasmus had scrawled on the back of his card. I didn’t stop to consider where the money came from—the scores of men heaving pickaxes in that sweltering subterranean hell, bodies emaciated to the point of ruin. I was blinded by all those beautiful, dancing commas.

At five o’clock sharp, I left the shop, stepping over the mechanics who, remarkably, hadn’t moved. When I unlocked the Chevy, my mood soured. I plopped down into the front seat, its contours carved into the shape of my father’s enormous ass. His scent hung in the upholstery, a mixture of old beer, stale sweat, and halitosis.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” my father said, the instant I turned the ignition.

“What are you talking about?” I replied.

“Come on J.D., don’t play dumb with me. I saw the Swede snooping around this morning, casing the joint. I saw you scheming with him. After he left, you gazed at his business card like it was the golden fuckin’ ticket.”

“Okay, you got me. I’m considering selling the shop. So what?”

“So what?” My father’s voice nearly blew out the speakers. “This shop is my legacy, the only thing I have to show for my whole goddamn miserable life!” He paused. “Aside from you and your sister, of course.”

“Glad I made the cut,” I said. I tried to leave the car, but my father slammed down the pillar locks.

“Don’t you see? This isn’t about business. He’s trying to humiliate me from beyond the grave! If you fork over the shop, he wins.”

I fought to pry the locks open, but my old man held them in place. I was trapped.

***

“If you want to sell the shop, sell the shop,” my older sister said when I called her. It had been half a decade since I’d seen Shelby. At sixteen, she ran away from home, fleeing to Portland. In my father’s eyes, there was no greater betrayal—to him, the city was a godless cesspool of pot-smoking, reusable-grocery-bag-toting sexual deviants. I was sure Portland had changed my sister, but, when I pictured her on the other end of the line, she looked the same as she did before she left: broad shoulders draped in gray coveralls, hair thrown up in a messy bun, palms stained black with grease.

“You don’t have any sentimentality for the place?” I asked.

“Fuck no.” She paused. “Well, maybe a little. Crazy as it sounds, I miss the stink of that garage—the exhaust fumes, oil, and coolant hanging in the air like a thick animal musk. I miss the tools clanking in rhythm like a beating heart. But when I left that town, I left for good.”

“And what about Dad?”

“What about him?”

“Is this what he would’ve wanted?”

“Oh, J.D.,” she said, sighing. “The old man can’t hurt you anymore. He’s worm food. He exists only in our memories—the ones we haven’t repressed, anyway.”

“But shouldn’t we honor his wishes? Don’t we owe him that?”

“We don’t owe him shit. It’s time for you to get out from under his big, paunchy thumb and start living your life.”

I envisioned Shelby on the other end of the line, cheeks flushed, nostrils flared, long purple vein snaking up her neck. This was the facial expression she assumed on the night she ran away. She had stared down my father, his face a mirror image of hers. I watched in horror, a helpless bystander. Pops uttered two words he could never take back, four syllables whose weight nearly buckled the house: “carpet muncher.” My sister didn’t deny the label; she puffed out her chest and wore it proudly. My father raised his hand in retaliation, class ring glinting menacingly, but she didn’t flinch. She willingly offered her cheek, daring him to hit a girl. Pops’ hand trembled while he held it there, poised to strike. I wish I could say I intervened to save my sister, but, in truth, I remained paralyzed. I couldn’t muster the courage to place myself between them, the unstoppable force and the immovable object. I was powerless before such titans. I crawled under the kitchen table and squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, my father had withdrawn his hand. The contours of his burly frame seemed to shrink. He looked like an ant standing in the shadow of my triumphant sister. She called him a coward and stormed out, slamming the door for good measure. Its reverberations echoed through our home for years to come.

After I got off the phone with my sister, I needed a smoke to calm my nerves. She’d dredged up too many old ghosts. I went out behind the house, where the pines stood like sentinels, whispering conspiratorially in the night breeze. From the other side of the garage door, I could hear my father talking to himself.

“Lord, I know I ain’t never been the most devout Christian. When I was a youngin, the pages of the Good Book were nothing more to me than rolling papers. I never sang a damn hymn in my life; I just mouthed the words. The only time I got on my knees and prayed was when I needed something from you—a hot meal, a place to sleep, a winning scratch-off ticket.” His voice quavered with emotion. “I know I’m just a lowly sinner, and I can’t hope to comprehend your infinite wisdom. But why did you send me back here? Just to humiliate me? To make me the butt of some cruel, cosmic joke?”

Beneath my old man’s tough talk and hair-trigger temper, there had always been a hurt, a raw wound that he tried to conceal. He pretended Shelby’s absence didn’t bother him, but in the years following her departure, I glimpsed him waiting for her by the window at night, clutching her favorite socket wrench, tears and mucous streaking his face. His pride wouldn’t let him apologize, so, instead, he stewed in his rage, cursing her under his breath while he swung his hammer with the fury of Thor. I don’t know when he started with the pills. Looking back, it should’ve been obvious, the way he shut himself off from the world like a hermit, growing a wispy beard, drawing the curtains, and cringing at the faintest ray of sunlight. But we all knew the man was mercurial—we figured it was one of his moods that would soon pass. Then, on a stormy night, he up and disappeared. Our search party had no clues to go on as we wandered among the towering spruces, soaked to the bone, flashlights casting pathetic pinpricks in the darkness. We joked that he probably tied on one too many at the tavern and took the scenic route home. But beneath our hopeful veneer, we all felt the same sinking dread.

“Please, Lord, set me free. Lemme out of this purgatory,” my father said. If he possessed a corporeal form, I imagined there would be tears.

Our search party spotted Pops’ pickup parked at the edge of Amotken Gorge, headlights beaming into the depths. The engine still rumbled and the windshield wipers still fought futilely against the deluge. When we got closer, we saw the hose running from the tailpipe to the driver’s side window. We saw the cloud of exhaust fumes engulfing the cabin. Frantically, we wrestled with the door handles, but they were locked. We screamed for my father, but he didn’t answer; our voices echoed through the abyss below us. According to the native legends, Amotken Gorge wasn’t a rock formation; it was a gaping mouth hungering for human souls.

While I stood outside the garage, eavesdropping on my father, the dark urge reawakened. I was enraged at Rasmus, at my sister, at the whole goddamn town of Highpine for how they’d treated my old man. How they’d backed him into a corner, until only one escape remained.

***

Under cover of darkness, I doused Rasmus’ dealership in gasoline. I splashed it wildly, until every sales desk, every promotional wrap, every Solaris vehicle gleamed with the stuff. Until the smell hung so thick in the air I could hardly breathe. I moved frantically, worried that someone would spot me through the giant fish tank windows. Then I thought, let them watch, let them bear witness to the fall of the Swede’s empire. It was a fitting tribute that the act should be carried out with petrol, the mighty elixir, the last remnant of the prehistoric beasts who once dominated the Earth, imposing their will upon the weak.

Once I was satisfied, and not a drop remained in my gas can, I crawled out through the window I’d broken. A shard of glass cut my arm, but I was troubled not by the petty wound; adrenaline surged through my veins. I dashed through the silvery moonlight, cackling maniacally. I stopped when I reached my father’s pickup truck. It was idling at the top of a steep hill, aimed straight at the dealership.

“It’s showtime,” I said, slapping the hood.

“I’m not sure about this anymore, kiddo,” my father said. “I mean, the guy’s a Grade-A douche—there’s no question about that. But what’s the use in stoking old resentments?”

“Are you joking? You made me sneak in there and Mission Impossible that shit and now you’re pussing out?”

“Whoa, who said anything about ‘pussing out’? I’m just reevaluating my plan.”

“Sounds like pussy talk to me.”

“J.D., do you really think this will set me free?”

“Only one way to find out.”

With a murmur of agreement, my father revved the engine. The sound thundered through the night like the roar of a ravenous beast, a bloodthirsty killing machine perched effortlessly atop the food chain, laying waste to all who dared to challenge it. The creatures of the night—the crickets and bullfrogs and barn owls—fell silent before its authority.

“I can’t do it,” my father said, taking his ghost foot off the gas. His voice sounded weary and defeated.

“Is this the same man who told me to cup my balls and dominate the weak? To wrest control over my destiny and break it like a stubborn-ass mule?” I asked, suddenly angry. I couldn’t bear to see my father like this, a pathetic husk of the man he used to be.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. There’s just no more fight left in me.”

“Like hell there is!” The dark urge reawakened in full force. With a mighty heave, I ripped a boulder from the ground. Nightcrawlers wriggled on its slick underside.

“J.D., what the hell do you think you’re—”

“Own the road, Daddy-O,” I said, wedging the boulder onto the gas pedal.

“Get this fucking thing off me!” my father said, pickup rocketing forward. I ignored his cries while he pulled away from me.

As Pops picked up speed down the hill, his wails grew anguished, like a lamb before slaughter. Just before the truck collided with the dealership, Rasmus burst out the front door, brandishing a shotgun. I had no idea the bastard was inside—he must’ve been lurking in some back office. The dark urge released its hold upon me; my stomach plummeted. I cried and waved my hands from the top of the hill, begging the Swede to make a break for it. But he wouldn’t abandon his post; he raised the shotgun and emptied both barrels into the pickup’s windshield. This, of course, did nothing to slow the truck’s roll—to change its grim and inevitable trajectory. Rasmus tossed the shotgun aside and stretched his arms out in a final gambit, a game of chicken with his nemesis from beyond the grave. He looked Christlike standing there with his eyes squeezed shut. It was clear that he didn’t plan to back down; he had made peace with his god.

I don’t know if my father tried to pump the brakes or if he neglected them, rage reignited by the shotgun blasts. In any case, the pickup’s grille slammed Rasmus’s chest, carrying him toward the glass façade. The Swede’s steel blue eyes shot open. In those brief moments, they contained surprise, then rage, then terror, then acceptance. My father and his nemesis struck the fish bowl windows at damn near eighty miles an hour, creating a hail of glass shards that glimmered like tinsel in the night. The pickup slammed the Solaris models in the showroom, unleashing a symphony of crunching glass and groaning steel. At last, the truck came to rest. For a moment, there was only the sound of the engine idling, the Swede choking on his own blood. Then, with a mighty whoosh, the gas caught. I watched in awe as the flames swelled into a giant orange fireball, like something from an action movie. The force of the blast sent scorching debris raining through the night, like some macabre fireworks display. With an earsplitting groan, the dealership collapsed on itself, burying the pickup and the Swede in the wreckage.

I pedaled my bike away from the scene, tears streaming down my cheeks. Somewhere in the night, Highpine’s sole firetruck emitted its lonely, forlorn wail. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care. The faster I pedaled, the lighter I felt. I weaved around the gorge, out of town, the night breeze blowing back my hair. I watched the smoke twist and dance among the pines, rising toward the heavens. I hoped my father’s soul was rising with it.