Young Writers Society

“I don't want to do this.” My hands rest on the steering wheel, my feet on the floor, not touching the pedals.

Ben is sitting directly behind me, and he leans forward with his hands on the seat shoulders to put his face right next to mine. “Jeez, Marta, why didn't you tell me before?”

The problem was that I did. I told him that what he did with his friends was his business, and that I didn’t want to be involved in it. I told him that there are other ways to get money, that the Taco Bell I work night shifts at probably has room for one more. But in the end, I know that Ben will never find honest work, that we really need the money, and that it’s hard enough as it is keeping him from illegal substances without keeping him from this too. In the end, I am the only one who knows how to properly drive Mom’s battered old red stick shift.

I put the car into first gear and sigh. I pull the parking brake down and we slowly, slowly start to drive downtown.

We don’t live far from the city, really just far enough to be suburban, live in our own named town. We call it Chicago anyway. Everything here is called Chicago. Still, driving our narrow neighborhood roads is nothing like traffic in the city. My hands clench up on the steering wheel and my shoulders squeeze inward as a semi truck passes us on the highway.

“Should’ve done a test drive,” Jay mutters from the front seat. He’s leaning over, just slightly, and looking pointedly at my speedometer. The needle’s hovering just a notch above sixty, the speed limit on a road where no one goes below seventy.

Ben shifts forward from the backseat and swats Jay on the shoulder. “Cut it out.” The movement isn’t hard, but it’s not playful either. A warning. No one messes with Ben’s sister. Still, I look grimly at the road before me and slip into fourth gear, giving me some power to push to sixty-five miles per hour, sixty-eight. I put the car back into fifth and maintain my speed, even though I feel plastered to my seat. The humid Chicago summer probably isn’t helping. It’s too noisy to open the windows, but the air conditioning is pretty much shot.

In the rear view mirror, I catch Lawrence’s eye before he looks back down at the black backpack between his feet. He’s wedged in the back between Angela and Ben. His fingers are beating an irregular pattern on his knees, and I wonder if he plays piano. I wonder if he’s nervous, too. I never speak to Ben’s friends, and he never tells me too. It’s as if he knows that I don’t trust them, as if he wouldn’t trust them either if he had the choice. Still, it’s as if I get glimpses some times. Bits of lives I shouldn’t be looking into.

A second later and my focus is snapped back to the road, looking for the green exit sign I needed. I didn’t look to the side, but I could feel Jay rolling his eyes as I flip on the turn signal and edge into the right lane. Still, he’s in the passenger seat for a reason, and I keep one ear to him as he begins rattling off directions I have to ask him to repeat at least twice.

Somehow, miraculously, we get downtown. We’ve gotten off the main roads, and I had no idea where they were going. I didn’t know quite what they were going to do, either, only that it required a getaway driver. Hence my presence. Somehow, if I knew, it would only be worse than it already is.

“Pull over here,” Jay says suddenly, and I do. The place is nondescript, so I’ve no idea why he picked this spot.

“Where should I park?”

Jay looks at me like I’m stupid, despite Ben’s warning hand on the back of his seat. “Right here, of course.”

I glance nervously at the sign which clearly says service vehicles only, but pull the parking brake nonetheless. Jay hops out immediately, and I feel sure he would’ve slammed the door if not for those noise it would’ve made.

“Keep the car running,” Angela comments as she climbs out after him. I nod along to her words, but I’m going to turn it off anyway. Gas money is too scarce to waste, and besides, Angela doesn’t scare me. Lawrence follows before she can close the door, but Ben stays a second.

“This is the last time,” he tells me. The words mean nothing and we both know it. “Hey, Marta.”

I twist in my seat to look at him. He has Mom’s eyes — I just wish he had her caution as well. I swallow, seeing that he’s covered his blue dyed hair with a dark hood. I pull it back, just to make sure he’s still my brother.

“Someone’s going to recognize me if you do that,” he tells me, annoyed, but he doesn’t push the hood back up just yet. “Look, if you’re worried about people seeing you here, just duck down under the seat. No one will see you. I can take care of myself. You worry about you, alright?” He smiles at me, like saying that it’s alright will automatically make it so. It doesn’t. I smile back anyway, and think I catch relief in his eyes. As if I wasn’t the older one.

“Ben,” someone calls from the outside. Jay again. “Get your butt out here!”

Ben flips his hood back up and steps out of the car, closing the door without looking back. He doesn’t say goodbye. I breathe slowly, in and out, and count five seconds after they turn the corner. I turn off the car, unbuckle my seatbelt, and slide off the seat. There’s not much room for me on the ground, but below steering wheel level, I have to admit that I am hidden pretty well. It doesn’t do a lot to calm my jangled nerves.

I hear the noise of another vehicle entering the narrow alleyway. Probably one of the service vehicles that it’s actually for. My heart pounds, sounding loud in the cramped space. I wish I had locked the doors. I wish I had armed myself, with a weapon or a backstory or something.

My breath hitches as something bumps up against the car. There’s silence for a long moment and I curl further into myself, never so grateful for my small stature. When I was younger, I used to play hide and seek with my brother. He’d already had a growth spurt, but two years older, I stayed the same. He would complain that I got all the best hiding spots because I could squeeze into tight spaces. I denied it, but it was always funny to watch Ben trying to squeeze himself into the kitchen cupboard. This doesn’t feel anything like that kitchen cupboard other than how my knees shove up against my shoulders.

I close my eyes and start to count, like when Ben was safe asleep and Mom and Dad were fighting. I open them when, with a lurch, the car begins to move. I hit my head on the steering wheel — curse it — as I scramble onto the seat. It’s lighter up here, and I look around in bewilderment at the familiar car. Then I turn, and look out the windshield. The little alley is slowly retreating.

Suddenly, the car turns a corner on its own and I clutch at the dashboard to steady myself, both internally and externally. As the street comes into focus, I look at the rearview mirror and suddenly everything makes sense. I’m being towed.

Dang it! I rage internally. Years of telling Ben to watch his language has rubbed off on me. I wish I could say it rubbed off on him as well, but some things never change. I knew I parked illegally. This is what I get for listening to Jay. I try not to think that it’s my brother’s fault, too. It’s always harder on the two of us when I think of it like that. It’s better if it’s just Jay’s fault, or Angela’s. If they’re the bad influences.

Idea fly nonsensically through my head and I quickly dismiss them. Jump out at a red light! And abandon our only car? Heck no. Call Benjamin’s cell! He left it at home specifically to prevent me from calling him during their… job. Yell at the truck driver! And have him yell right back at me for parking illegally? What a thought. It seems that my only option is to wait for the car to be towed — me and all — to wherever tow trucks tow cars to. Where is that, exactly?

It’s essentially a large parking lot, I discover. As we enter, gates are closed behind us. I guess there’s no getting out of here without talking to someone. Or paying someone, a little voice nags me. I swallow and push it away. I don’t have the time for that kind of thought — or the money for that kind of freedom. We slow to a stop, and my car is detached from the tow truck. I forgot that I should be hiding, but a startled exclamation promptly reminds me.

I start to shrink down in my seat, but someone wrenches the door open, sending the heat floating in in waves. A sharp face is staring at me from the doorway, incredulous. “What are you doing here?”

“You tell me; you’re the one who towed the car,” I tell him, wondering where the words come from. I’m not even entirely sure he was the one towing the car. But one look at his face tells me I’m correct, at least on that count.

His mouth drops open for a second before he shuts it. “Well, it’s hot as 1871 out here, may as well talk inside. Come on.” My face lights with a bizarre smile for a moment at the history reference, and without thinking, I take his hand and step out. When I close the door behind me, I lock it too, and the man makes a face at me.

“No need to worry about anyone taking your car — it’s sort of already been taken,” he comments with a shrug. I shrug back defensively. There’s no way I’d leave without locking the old thing.

He leads me to a long, low building. It doesn’t have any remarkable features except for the air conditioning within. I breathe a sigh of relief as the cold rushes towards me. I’m in a sort of waiting room, with a bunch of cheap chairs and a counter which no one stands behind.

I flop down in a chair, and the man pulls another chair over so that he faces me. “So what now?” I read his name tag and add, “Casper?”

His hand reaches up to scratch his head before he catches my stare and stops. “I’ve never picked up a car with a person in it,” he admits, “but I imagine the procedure is the same… I’ll have to wait for my boss to come back so I can confirm.” Despite the nervous gesture, his eyes seem to hold something of a challenge.

I don’t have time for that! something inside me screams. My brother may be up to no good, but it’s better to get him back home safe in my car than to leave him on some desolate street corner to get arrested. I lean forward in my seat, trying to be casual despite the sticky sweat I can feel on the back of my neck.

“Listen, Casper,” I start. Nice and easy. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“Don’t we all?” I want to snap at his tone, but the corner of his mouth is lifted in a smile, as if he expects me to laugh.

I contemplate how to approach it. I can’t say the outright truth, but… there has to be something important. Something to make him realize that I really do have to go. “I made a promise,” I say quietly, and I imagine Ben’s big brown eyes. The way they flashed with pain when I broke my promise. Like when he realized that Mom wasn’t always going to be there for us. You promised. “I can’t go back on it. And look, I promise you that I’ll come back here tomorrow and pay a fine or whatever. Just… not right now.”

Casper watches me, and I can almost see his mind processing the idea. “I’ll tell you what,” he says, “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“Great! Then I’ll just come back tomorrow and —”

“No. That was your deal,” he reminds me pointedly. “️This one’s mine. Make this the last time you drive into Chicago for that reason.”

“What reason?” I ask, though my heart beats a little faster.

Casper laughs, and it’s a good laugh. There aren’t a lot of those anymore. “Saw those kids walking around the corner just before I found your car. Besides, I live in the city. You think I don’t know a getaway driver when I see one?”

Though I’m mortified that it was so easy to be spotted, the fact that he acknowledged it takes some of the weight off my shoulders. I laugh with him, a little shakily. His proposal, though, is something different. If I stopped driving, would my brother stop committing crimes? Or would it just be worse without me there to protect him? I fear that if I stop, he’ll see it as a rejection. I don’t want him to be estranged. We’re all that we have left of our family.

Casper holds out a hand. Shake his hand, save your brother, my mind whispers. Maybe lose your brother. Don’t shake his hand, and you’ll lose him for sure, but he’ll be somewhere you can’t get him back. I put my hand out, meet Casper’s eyes, and shake. 

——

Note: I’ve never written anything like this before. I know nothing of towing cars or getaway cars or anything, so sorry if I get those things wrong. It’s also been ages since I’ve written a short story, so hopefully they will get better as I go.