Stuck in Neutral Read Free

Dodge Caravan, burgundy. I sat strapped in my wheelchair, which in turn gets locked into these big bolts that hold the chair in place. Cindy sat up front, riding shotgun.
    The road shone wet; Seattle drizzle made the windows on the sides of the van all steamy and beaded with raindrops. I happened to be focusing out the front, through the clip-clap slapping of the windshield wipers. In front of us was an older car, an ugly junker, beat-up, dirty, a brownish color.
    Suddenly, streaking in from the right side of the road, a dog flew into the path of the brown car. I watched as the dog, twisting and turning under the car, seemed to bend up, flip over, and turn inside out.
    In another horrible moment, the back left tire of the car seemed to spit out the broken body. The dog rolled and tumbled along the road several times, tried to right himself, running a couple of awkward, horrible steps to the side of the road, but then collapsed.
    Cindy screamed and burst into tears as Mom slammed on the brakes and whipped over to the roadside, sliding in the loose gravel and almost running over the dog too.
    Before the van even stopped, Cindy was out of her door and running toward the dog.
    â€œCindy,” Mom screamed. “Cindy!”
    But before Mom could even open her car door, Cindy already sat at the dog’s side, lifting his head gently onto her lap.
    Mom got out of the van. My eyes were only partially focused through the steamy side window. I watched Cindy sit there on the wet, muddy side of the road. As she stroked the dog’s face, I could see Cindy’s lips moving, speaking into the dog’s ear. It looked to me like tears streamed down Cindy’s cheeks.
    After only a few seconds the dog began to jerk. Blood gushed out of his nostrils and mouth. Cindy held him still and steady, stroking the side of the animal’s face through all the blood.
    Suddenly, directly in front of my view, a thick stream of rainwater let loose from the top of the van window, and for a second the glass cleared where I happened to be looking out. In that second I saw, perfectly, the brown eyes of the dog. They were streaked with blood. And in that instant the dog stopped squirming. His body caved in, changing from something terrified and hurt and suffering into—nothing. The dog died. His eyes seemed locked onto mine at that moment when life left him; I wasn’t watching a dog then, I was looking at death looking back at me.
    Cindy knew it too; in that exact second, her hand stopped stroking the bloody black fur, her lips stopped moving. Cindy let death alone, sliding away from the dog’s body, carefully easing his limp head down onto the wet gravel.
    There was nothing more to do.
    Cindy and Mom got back into the van. We turned around and began to drive back to our house. Cindy sat smeared in blood, mud, her white Pearl Jam T-shirt soaked, stained, and ruined.
    Mom said, “I’m so sorry you had to see this, sweetie.”
    â€œNo,” Cindy answered.
    â€œI mean—” Mom began.
    Cindy cut her off. “No, it’s all right,” her voice low, emotionless. “It was just like I thought it would be.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œI mean—death, you know, being so near it. It was just like in that novel Barabbas when Lazarus tells Barabbas about death. It was just like that.”
    Mom said, “A lot of people believe in life after—”
    Cindy cut her off again. “No. It’s like Lazarus says. Death is nothing, just a big, empty nothing.”
    Cindy began to cry again. So did Mom. We rode along in silence.
    Nothingness, I thought, emptiness. My body breathed evenly, my heart beat slowly. I felt the leather straps on my legs and across my stomach and chest. I remember the sound of the rain, of the tires over the wet pavement, and the feel of the damp air in my throat and nose—emptiness, nothingness.
    The thing is my life has always been just in my head. If you