June gets into the car...

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June gets into the car because she’s terribly brave.

She gets into the car because she’s even more terribly afraid.

She gets into the car because she’s a nice Jewish girl, even though she knows that nice Jewish girls don’t go these places, don’t do these things, not even when asked nicely.

She gets into the car in New York to drive uptown to Harlem. To listen while the engine idles and Sidney slides into the large back seat with Edgar so that they can perform their monthly exchange. And then, a few moments after the money has changed hands, Sidney gets out of the car and Edgar unwraps the stuff and after a while becomes quiet again, relaxed, not angry the way he was on their trip uptown.

She gets into the car in Memphis after collecting Edgar from the alleyway. Her mother and Ruth are passed out in the back seat, from fright and worry and alcohol. She collects all of them, cleans them up and keeps on driving forward, even though she’s the only one awake and conscious enough to know where they’re going in the first place. And she’s only just turned 16, only just learned how to drive.

She gets into the car in Los Angeles and drives longingly past the city college on her way to Tijuana, but she slows, lingering to admire the women and men on their way to class. June liked school, she did well, graduated early. She could be there, too, would be there, if only they didn’t need her to drive.

She gets into the car in Oklahoma after the police car has left the gas station and Edgar is safely in the back seat, again, not anxious or angry or yelling any more.

She gets into the car in Texas, outside the ranch where she wishes she could stay a while longer, linger with the cowboys who don’t speak much, and when they do their accents and words and patterns and meanings are so different from those she’s known anywhere else.

She gets into the car outside Albert’s store in Tijuana, straightens her skirt and pretends what she just saw didn’t happen, that she wasn’t here, didn’t participate, that this whole country is just a dusty dream that she can wake up from one day.

She gets into the car and feels fifty pounds heavier even though her dress size hasn’t changed at all. She feels like she has lead inside her, weighting her, getting heavier each time until one day she won’t even be able to lift herself out of the car.

She gets into the car and thinks about that woman, Miranda, with her dark makeup and pale, pale skin that reflected in the light. Miranda, with the scars up and down the insides of her arms, scars that matched Edgar’s.

She gets into the car and thinks about Ruth, sitting alone at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, head in her hands, softly sobbing when she thinks no one can see.

She gets into the car and wonders how you let yourself start down that path, the one that you can so clearly see leads to nowhere.

June gets into the car because they tell her to, and she hasn’t yet figured out how to say “no.”