“I will tell you the whole story, Mr. Roegenberger,” said Steve. “It won’t take long.”
That’s me, I’m William M. Roegenberger, although I can tell you for a fact that I hadn’t told Steve that. I never introduced myself with my last name, my last name is just too much of a mouthful for customers to deal with. “I’m Billy” is what I’d said, same as I always said, when we were getting into the Odyssey for the test drive.
But here we were, him calling me by the name I’d never told him, and we were on the 405 barreling northward in the HOV lane, and my tight-lipped test driver had started talking at last and now he would not stop. He gunned that engine and gunned it again, taking the Odyssey up past ninety miles an hour, his hands still driver’s-ed correct, leaning forward and talking nonstop.
“We were on the way home from a soccer tournament. This was our car. This exact car. 2010 Honda Odyssey LX. Same color. This exact same car.” He lifted one hand off the wheel and made it into a fist, punched the steering wheel three times: exact...same...car. Exits for Mar Vista and Bundy Drive flew past outside the window. I looked at them with longing.
“Sean played in a lot of tournaments. That’s my boy, Sean. Thirteen years old. And I don’t know if he was the best player in the state, but I do know that this was the highest-scoring middle-school soccer team in the state of Indiana, and I do know that Sean was the best player on that team. By leaps and bounds.” He did it again, made a fist and punched the wheel. Leaps...and...bounds.
I looked at the odometer. We were inching up toward a hundred and ten. Where were the cops? I thought helplessly. Where were the darn cops? Rousting hard-luck cases for public urination down on Skid Row. Pulling over black guys for busted taillights.
“Now, this particular tournament, this was in Iowa, and this was the first one to take place out of state, you see? He had been to tournaments before with this team, all over Indiana, but this was special, and so we all went. Me and Katie, and the girls. Three little girls.” He took one hand off the wheel, showed me three fingers: three little girls.
What if I just...jumped out? I mean, really, I was thinking as the minivan bounced and flew, what would happen if I jerked open the door of the car and rolled out onto the highway? Well, Christ. I would smash into the road at a thousand miles an hour and my body would burst open and I would be hit by a series of cars and I would die. That’s what would happen. I would die.
“Steve,” I said. “Steve?” But he wasn’t listening. He was lost in his story.
“Now, the problem was, Angie did not want to come to that tournament. All of seven years old, and with a mind of her own. Lord, did Angie put up a stink about that one. Said she could stay at her friend Kristi’s house for the weekend. It was Kristi’s birthday, and Angie was gonna miss the whole party, but I said we all had to be there. We all had to support Sean. Even Katie said, ‘You know, maybe if she’d rather stay,’ but I said no. Absolutely not. I said she had to come. I said that. I made her.”
“Well, you know,” I said quietly. “Kids.”
“And then, of course, the twins,” he said. “Gracie and Lisa. Lisa and Grace.”
Steve had to stop talking for a second. A hitch in his voice. A spasm in the tense line of his throat.
What if I punched him? was my next thought. Just smash a hard right into his jaw, bounce his crazy head against the driver’s-side window? I formed one hand into a fist. But then what? What? Grab the wheel? Get my feet on the brakes? I had literally never hit a person in my life, and what did I think, I was going to knock this man unconscious? Was that even possible?
I let my fist relax. I focused on not vomiting. The car hurtled along the HOV lane, passing Lexuses and Beemers, passing Expeditions and Hummers, roaring past Santa Monica and Culver City, past all of twilight Los Angeles.
“Sean was the star of the tournament, he really was,” said Steve when he was able to speak again. “I mean, you know, they don’t give an MVP or anything like that, but that boy was the star. Always the star. And then on the way home...on the way home to Indiana...”
Tears were wet in Steve’s eyes. I knew what was coming, right? It had to be a wreck. They’re driving home, it’s late, Steve’s eyes drift shut...or there’s a sudden storm, Midwestern floodwaters. I was waiting for Steve to tell me about it, about the sudden squall, about the slick of rain on the road, waiting to hear how he lost control...
This was going somewhere bad, I knew that it was, I felt that it was, but there was no escape. There was just the road ahead of us, just us and the empty backseats: two captain’s chairs in the middle row, and then the third row behind that. For one crazy second I saw them back there, Sean in his headband and cleats, petulant Angie playing with a plastic pony, the twins strapped into their infant seats...