We pretended to be asleep, knew how to breathe, how not to laugh, this was not the time to fight over the invisible line in the back seat of the car, Clint Eastwood’s face, like God with a skinny cigar in mouth, squinting, silently judging us, the music stayed with us for years, followed us into restaurants, family reunions, new bedrooms as we moved from Montgomery Alabama to the Mojave Desert, and we shared an unspoken secret, the knowledge that if we had closed our eyes that night like obedient puppies, we would have grown up to be bankers, counting sweaty one dollar bills late into the night.
Beth Gordon is a writer who has been landlocked in St. Louis, Missouri for 16 years but dreams of oceans, daily. Her work has recently appeared in Quail Bell, Calamus Journal, By&By, Into the Void, Slink Chunk Press, Barzakh, and others.