BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 46

1959

DANIEL

Blossom shouldn't be driving. Lines appear wavy, have done so for a couple years now, and there are two big black areas of emptiness in his vision. Occasionally, his vision starts cracking, it looks like the windshield has been shattered. A headache, severe and debilitating, always follows, driving him to bed. Sometimes for hours.

He had ridden with Howard, he remembers that, out to the lavas. After that Howard dropped him back off at the cafe, the sun low on the horizon but not yet dusk, the day heated, his car parked with the keys still in it. When he opens the door, hot air boils out, the car's glass having collected and accentuated every wide swath of light for hours. By the time he hobbles into a seated position, some of the heat has dissipated but his legs still flinch from contact with the seat, and when he touches the steering wheel he pulls his fingers back from the sudden, burning warmth.

The steering wheel has cracked from repeated similar events through the years, as has the dash. He touches the necker knob which, though all metal, is for some reason cooler. Through the windshield, the light pours so harshly that he must close his eyes, reach for the visor, though when he adjusts it to its downward position it fails to occlude any light. He'll be alright, he thinks, once he backs out of the parking lot. He's driving south and the western light will be shaded by the passenger roof in part, though the sun is at such a position that it will cut into the far windshield and reach his eyes. He can just turn his head to the side, avoid much of it.

It is unseasonably warm, but that's not unusual. It might be fifty, might be ninety or even a hundred, on any given June day. Today it's the upper end of the temperature spectrum. Uncomfortable, he rolls his window down. Once he reaches the road the air coming in will cool him somewhat, at least take the sweat off. The wing window he leaves closed, it's barely worth the bother opening now that he doesn't smoke.

He backs up slowly, unable to tell if anything is behind him for sure and hoping any other driver will honk. There shouldn't be any small children, he checked before he got in, and any stray cat or dog knows better than staying in a car's path and can evade him when he's moving at such a slow speed. When he has enough room to turn and go forward, he brakes, looks left for oncoming traffic and seeing none heads out onto the highway.

The glare, worse than he expected, insists on his attention but he raises his hand to shield his eyes from the light, refusing its urge. He cocks his head eastward, shifts his eyes so the empty spots are outside the lane of traffic, allowing him to see any cars or trucks coming his way. Evening time brings out the pipe movers and other laborers doing their final tasks, some going north, others south, depending on the location of their farm and their dwelling. Those behind him he doesn't worry about, they can pass him if they wish, he's going slow enough they can safely do so even at the road's many bends.

A lot of the sprinkler pumps have been turned on in the last week. The grain crop has been under irrigation for a month and the sugar beets even longer, but now the potatoes are getting a drink so almost every eighth mile a line sprays onto the crop. Depending on the lay of the acreages, some fields have north-south lines and others east-west. If the wind changes directions, sometimes the north-south lines end up watering the road, giving a free if amateurish car wash. It's a view he wished he could see more accurately, remembering the silver glinting of the water in the light of near-dusk, a set of lines like a musical staff against a background of green. As it is, it's mostly a blur, something akin to modern art in that it lacks detail, has mostly color and shape.

A white van passes him, going northward, honks as it does so. He steers toward the roadside, until he hears the loose gravel at the pavement's edge. When the road is straight, he has no problem staying on that narrow strip with the passenger side's wheels, but there are four or five curves where rock knolls interfered with the surveyed section lines. He slows when he comes to each, hopes for the best. He comes to the dip that signifies, for many, the end of Rising River and the beginning of the flatter lands that were farmed for decades before sprinkler irrigation. These acreages, though under canal territory, have begun changing over to sprinklers, too.

He sees an oncoming vehicle, its slow speed indicating it might be a tractor or something being hauled. It seems wide, so he pulls over further. It makes him a little nervous as it approaches, enough so that when a splash suddenly hits his window he flinches and jerks, looks over to see the sprinkler tikk-tikking its pressurized stream. Automatically, his hand pulls the steering wheel toward the middle of the road and he doesn't even see when the tractor, pulling a disk, strikes him.

© 2025 Ralph Thurston