The Driving Lesson

by Ben Rehder

  “That sounds serious. I hope she’ll be okay.”

  “My dad says it’s fairly routine surgery. She should be fine. But we’re kind of in a hurry to get out there.” Hint, hint. “My uncle is expecting us later tonight.”

  Now I wondered if that was realistic. How far was Phoenix from Santa Rosa, New Mexico? I didn’t even know.

  The library lady said, “Well, you’re really supposed to have a card to use the computers, but you go right ahead.” She said it with a smile, as if it would be our little secret.

  I went straight to the web site for the Abilene Reporter-News, figuring they would be as well informed as anybody. There, listed third under the top stories, was a link that read: Local man and grandson missing.

  My heart was beginning to race. This was so surreal. I clicked on the link and, when the page loaded, I saw two photos: one of Opa, probably from his driver’s license, next to the shot of me in my football uniform. The article was short and to the point:

  A 63-year-old west-side man and his 14-year-old grandson have been reported missing by the man’s son, according to the Abilene Police Department. Henry Dunbar suffers from health problems and is on medication that might cause confusion. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs about 145 pounds, with gray hair and brown eyes. The grandson, Charles Dunbar, is 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. Investigators have reason to believe the pair could be headed toward Washington state or Oregon in a green Honda Civic. Anyone with information is asked to call the Abilene Police Department.

  I glanced at the librarian, but she was at her desk, reading a book, so I read the article a second time. Could be worse. At least it didn’t say anything about us having been in Lubbock or Amarillo. Then again, maybe the article hadn’t been updated in a couple of hours.

  The part about Opa’s medications possibly causing confusion pissed me off. Okay, so it was true — the medication did have the potential to cause confusion. I knew that from reading the label. But Opa wasn’t confused. I could vouch for that firsthand.

  I did a quick Google search and checked a few other news sites, but none of them had any additional details. So I cleared the browser’s history, logged off, and said a quick thank-you to the librarian as I hustled out the door.

  Opa waited until I’d pulled away from the library and gotten back on the road before he said, “And?”

  I told him about the contents of the article — including the part about the medications. But instead of looking angry, he actually looked relieved.

  He said, “To tell the truth, I was worried they might be treating it as an abduction.”

  “You mean, like a kidnapping?”

  “More or less, yeah.”

  “But that’s not what happened.” I was amused by the idea that Opa could kidnap or abduct me, because I was bigger and younger and stronger than he was. And healthier. Plus, this was Opa, for crying out loud. He wouldn’t abduct anyone.

  He said, “I know that and you know that, but they don’t know that.”

  “But I sent Mom and Dad that text message.”

  “For all they know, I could’ve sent that message myself from your phone. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. If they want to think I’m some loopy old man, that’s fine with me. That’s probably for the best.”

  I stopped at a red light. “But it still doesn’t completely make sense.”

  “Which part?”

  “Well, if the cops think you’re confused or loopy or whatever, but they know I’m with you, wouldn’t they think I’d take you home or call Mom and Dad? Because that’s exactly what I’d do if you were confused or loopy. But since I’m not doing that, isn’t it sort of obvious that you know exactly what you’re doing and that I’m helping you do it?”

  He thought about that. The light changed and I pulled forward.

  Opa said, “Here’s a possibility. What if your parents didn’t show the cops your text message?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I’m not saying they didn’t — they probably did — but I’m guessing the police would make the search a higher priority if they thought I’d coerced you into going with me. That text made it clear that you were doing it because you wanted to. The cops might not get too worked up about that. They might think it’s a simple case of a kid going on a road trip with his grandfather, albeit against his parents’ wishes. So they’d still take the complaint seriously, but it might not seem like such an urgent situation. Hey, pull in here for a second. Last stop, then we’ll hit the road.”

  He was pointing at a small drugstore on the main street through Santa Rosa. I took a right into the parking lot.

  “What do you need here?” I was hoping he wasn’t going to fill a prescription, because that would leave another clue for the cops.

  “You’ll see.”

  I parked to the side of the building. Before I could offer to go inside for him, Opa was already opening his door, swinging his cane onto the pavement for support.

  “Remember not to use your credit card,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. Cash on the barrelhead.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind.”

  He was in and out in less than five minutes, holding a plastic sack as he got back in the car. He was grinning as he pulled his purchase from the sack. It was a battery-operated hair clipper or trimmer or whatever you call it. The thing the barber uses to give you a buzz cut.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  Opa, still grinning, looked at the blond mop on my head. My most identifiable feature.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  9

  It was getting late in the afternoon and Opa was sleeping in the passenger seat.

  Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop rubbing my head. It felt so weird with all of my hair gone. Well, not completely gone. It was maybe half an inch long now. About thirty minutes outside of Santa Rosa, we’d pulled into a rest stop along the interstate and Opa had sheared me like a sheep. It took about two minutes, tops.

  Now, every few miles, I’d catch myself glancing in the rearview mirror just to see how different I looked. And it was a big change. If I were to walk up to Matt, it would probably take him a minute to figure out who I was, especially if I was wearing sunglasses and a hat.

  Now it was nearly five hours since Santa Rosa and we had passed through Albuquerque, Grants, and Gallup, then crossed the state line into Arizona. Opa had been asleep for three solid hours, his seat tilted, his head back against the headrest.

  He was sleeping so deeply, I was starting to wonder if he’d taken one of his pain pills when we were at the restaurant, or maybe when I’d gone inside the library. Not that I’d blame him. I’d broken my wrist when I was eleven — a compound fracture of both bones — and I knew something about pain. The funny thing was, breaking the arm didn’t hurt as much as you’d think. It was a few weeks later, when the arm began to heal, that the pain really kicked in. It was a horrible throbbing that wouldn’t let up. I remember that I had to take pills to get through the day, and especially at night, if I wanted to sleep at all. I don’t know what the pills were, but I couldn’t have gotten by without them. Mom doled them out every four hours, and not a minute sooner. She said she didn’t want me “getting hooked.” I didn’t even know what that meant at the time. Now I wondered if the pain from my broken arm was anywhere as intense as the pain Opa was experiencing, or what he would experience later, as the days went by.

  An eighteen-wheeler rumbled past and Opa finally began to stir. Just a little at first. Then his hand came up and wiped a bit of drool that had leaked from one corner of his mouth. He opened his eyes, adjusted his glasses, and sat up straighter in the seat.

  “Where are we?”

  “About an hour into Arizona. We passed a town called Holbrook about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I need to take a leak.”

  I gestured backward with my thumb. “We just passed a sign t
hat said Winslow is about twenty miles away.”

  I drove another mile and Opa said, “You’re going to have to pull over. I can’t hold it.” He was sounding desperate.

  “Here?”

  There weren’t any nearby trees to hide behind. The landscape was almost as flat as in west Texas, with just the slightest hills in the distance. There wasn’t even any scrub brush, at least not the kind of stuff we called “scrub” back home. Here it was mostly just dirt and rocks and some wimpy little plants that weren’t more than two feet tall.

  “Yes, here, Charlie. Here.”

  I slowed and began to pull to the shoulder.

  “Oh, hell,” Opa said. “I’m pissing myself.”

  As soon as the Honda came to a stop, Opa had the door open and was getting out as quickly as he could, not even bothering with his cane. He stayed close to the car, one hand on the roof for support, and did his business. When he zipped up and turned around, there was a wet patch in the front of his pants. He looked at me. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

  I shrugged, doing my best to act like it was no big deal. “When you gotta go, you gotta go. You want to change pants?”

  “Yeah.” He looked toward the rear of the car. His suitcase was in the back.

  “I’ll get it.” I hopped out of the car and opened the hatch. Then I looked through his suitcase and found a pair of khakis and some fresh underwear. When I came around the fender, Opa was trying to kick his shoes off. I knelt down, untied them, and slipped them off. Then I helped him put the clean clothes on, with Opa keeping one hand on my shoulder for balance. At one point, a car went past on the interstate and the smart-aleck driver honked his horn several times in rapid succession.

  “You know,” Opa said, “I’ve never been a very modest guy, but this is ridiculous.”

  We both laughed.

  Opa buckled his belt, then held his arms out in a how-do-I-look gesture.

  “Good as new,” I said.

  We both got back in the car and I eased back onto the highway. We were about a mile down the road when Opa said, “Bud, you are one hell of a grandson.”

  We continued on Interstate 40 through Winslow, Moqui, Dennison, Two Guns, and Winona. The sun was just setting by the time we reached the outskirts of Flagstaff, where Opa said, “I think we should grab a motel room. What do you think?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty tired, but I think we should get one a couple miles off the interstate.”

  “Probably a pretty good idea. Might as well look for one off Highway 180 going north.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s the way to the Grand Canyon.”

  “We’re going to the Grand Canyon?”

  “We’re sure as hell not going to drive through Arizona and skip it. That’d be like going to Paris and skipping the Eiffel Tower. I don’t believe you’ve ever been there, have you?”

  “The Eiffel Tower?”

  Opa laughed. “No, you big goof, the Grand Canyon.”

  “Uh-uh, but I’ve seen pictures.”

  He shook his head. “Pictures. Man, that’s not even close to the same. Just you wait.”

  I’d just gotten out of the shower when Opa said, “Get in here, Bud!” It sounded urgent.

  We’d stopped at a Dairy Queen drive-through for burgers, then found a motel on the north end of town. Not a chain, but what Opa called a “mom and pop” type of place, with very few cars in the lot. Like last night, in Amarillo, Opa went into the office while I stayed outside, in the dark, where nobody would see me. Opa paid with cash, but the manager asked for a credit card anyway. Opa said he didn’t have one, because credit is a dangerous and predatory concept that devours the poor, and the manager finally gave in.

  Now, thirty minutes later, Opa was calling out to me. I hate to say it, but my first thought was that he’d fallen down or something. But when I came out of the bathroom, tugging my shirt on, I saw that he was sitting at the foot of the bed, focused on the television.

  And there it was again, for the third time. My football photo. I couldn’t believe it. Why would a TV station in Flagstaff care about a small story all the way from Abilene? Didn’t they have their own things to worry about?

  Then I saw the logo down in the corner of the screen. CNN. I am not kidding. It wasn’t just some local station, it was nationwide. Heck, even worldwide.

  Now they were showing some other photos — from vacations and birthdays and holidays — photos that CNN obviously had gotten from my parents. Some shots of me. Some shots of Opa. Some shots of both of us together.

  Meanwhile, the reporter was narrating: “...a rare form of bone cancer that is nearly always terminal. Henry Dunbar picked up his fourteen-year-old grandson Charles from school on Monday afternoon in Abilene, Texas, and the pair have not been seen since. Henry Dunbar’s son, Glen Dunbar, told authorities that his father had recently been researching physician-assisted suicide, which is currently legal in only two states — Washington and Oregon.”

  Suddenly I was looking at my father’s face in a video clip. He was standing at the end of our driveway, the house looming behind him. Judging by the shadows, it was shot late this afternoon, just two or three hours ago. The camera was zoomed in tight, so you mostly saw Dad, but I could see an arm of the person next to him. Mom’s arm. Dad, looking somber, said, “We just want both of them to come home. My father is very sick right now, and a little desperate, and he needs the proper care. My son is really too young to understand this situation, and frankly we don’t want him exposed to this sort of thing. We don’t support it at all. I want to make that clear. And that’s not even really the point. My father didn’t have our permission to take Charlie anywhere, and we want him back.”

  Now they cut to a second video clip — this one of a gray-haired man in a suit, standing outside a brick building. The reporter, narrating again, said, “According to Abilene police chief Walter Hoggins, there is an added wrinkle to the case.”

  The police chief said, “Charles Dunbar is alleged to have taken part in a burglary at a home under construction with one of his classmates this past Saturday.”

  I could feel my face growing warm. It was like a bad dream, when you show up at school in your underwear and everybody laughs at you. Very embarrassing. Now the whole world was going to think I was the kind of punk who steals things. Opa glanced at me quickly, looking puzzled, then returned his attention to the TV.

  The police chief continued. “The charges against the classmate have been dropped, and we have no plans to pursue any charges against Charles Dunbar in that incident, but we think it might have contributed to his choice to flee with his grandfather. We have reason to believe they are on their way to the northwest. They could be in Colorado by now, or New Mexico, but we’re fairly confident they are no longer in Texas. We will be working with other law enforcement agencies as necessary in other states.”

  Now they cut to a live shot of the CNN anchorwoman behind the desk in the studio. “Police Chief Hoggins later added that it was doubtful that any charges would be filed against Henry Dunbar, but that he needs to contact authorities as soon as possible.”

  She started on a different story, so Opa clicked the TV off. The room was suddenly quiet. Opa turned and looked at me. Crap. This was going to suck. I tried to stall the conversation by saying, “Well, at least they don’t know exactly where we are. He said Colorado or New Mexico. And at least they didn’t say anything about you being confused.”

  But Opa wasn’t buying it. “Burglary, Charlie?” he said. Not Bud. Charlie. “What’s that all about?”

  “It wasn’t really burglary.”

  “The police chief just said ‘burglary.’”

  “It was stupid. All Matt did was take a drill.”

  “From where?”

  “A house under construction.”

  “How is that not burglary?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  “Did Matt own the drill?” Opa asked. There was something unique about his tone. He
wasn’t lecturing me. He wasn’t angry. He was just asking questions.

  “No, sir.”

  “Was he supposed to be in that house?”

  “No.”

  “So he went into a house that he wasn’t supposed to be in, and he took something that wasn’t his. And you were with him? Inside the house?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you go inside the house?”

  “I don’t know. Dumb, I guess.”

  “No, that’s the easy answer. Did you want to go inside the house?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “‘Not really.’ Does that mean a small part of you did want to go inside?”

  “No. I didn’t want to go inside at all.”

  “So why did you?”

  “It was just a stupid mistake.”

  “Yeah, we know that. But that doesn’t say why you did it.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Okay, then, walk me through it. How did it happen?”

  This was getting painful. I didn’t want Opa to think I was a thief.

  “We were walking down the street and Matt saw that the door was open.”

  “Okay. Whose idea was it to go inside?”

  “His.” It felt good to blame it on Matt. He deserved it. It was his fault.

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. I tried to talk him out of it. I really did. I told him it was trespassing.”

  “But he didn’t listen.”

  “No. He’s stubborn.”

  “So then what? Why did you go with him? Why didn’t you let him go alone?”

  “I tried that, too. I told him to just go in without me.”

  “But he wouldn’t do it, huh?”

  “No.”

  “So how did he talk you into it?”

  It was so ridiculous, so juvenile, so immature, I didn’t even want to say it. But Opa was waiting. “He called me a pussy,” I said. Then I added, “Not just once, but about ten times.” As if that made a difference. “That’s what he always does.”