The pale streetlamp flickered, a group of teenagers leaned on their cars, looking oh so cool and suave as they sucked on their nicotine death. My automobile cruised past them, bloodshot eyes staring me down as I tried to keep my composure behind the wheel. A quick glance at the clock, twelve oh-five, just in time. We were on the wrong side of town, the place where we never should have gone, where a quick flash of steel could mean five boys lying in a pool of their own crimson blood. But that would not happen tonight, I would not be the subject of some six o’clock news segment read off the teleprompter by a hungover Brian Williams, milking every penny out of his multimillion dollar contract. This was a night for glory, for rebelliousness, a sudden change to the sedentary norms of the North Shore.
A cop car’s sirens breaks the eerie silence, leaving us frozen in place, not wanting to breathe until it was gone. Slowly, cautiously we walked past those tough guys smoking their cigarettes in the darkness of the parking lot. Through the glimmering glass doors we went, on to greatness, for a chance to go down in the history books.
“‘Hi, welcome to Steak and Shake, how may I help you?”
“Table for four...please.”
We sat at our booth, felt the slippery plastic coated seats, covered in who knows what slime and grease from the previous customers. Shuddering at the mere thought I delved in the menu, filled with heavily edited pictures of spray painted hamburgers and fries. Towards the corner table, a mysterious group of teenagers with the munchies gazed perplexingly at a spoon, in a deep, trance-like state of thought, as if trying to make something intellectual come out of that shaped piece of stainless steel. Red blood vessels and bags under their eyes were illuminated by the hazy fluorescent bulbs. In the center of their table a monstrous mountain of french fries piled nearly ceiling high, slowly being demolished by their grubby hands, shoveling the fries into their malnourished mouths.
Twirling the straw in my Coca-Cola, my eyes fell upon Ron, our server. He scrambled around the restaurant like a bat out of hell, desperately needing assistance, but help was nowhere near. He cleaned up the crusted ketchup that some spoiled child spilled all over the table, counted out the pennies, nickels and a stray button that the wasted wanderers tried to pay with, and dealt with the rest of that night’s disasters.
Waiting thirty minutes to get our beverages, then another forty five for our entrees, our initial excitement was quelled to a minor bubbling of emotions. I checked the time, twelve fifty-five, I still needed more time. Thin pucks of formerly frozen patties sizzled on the grill, reheating the burgers that would soon enter our stomachs. Whirring and whizzing went the milkshake machine, whining at each new batch of milk and condensed chocolate flavoring, hastily thrown in by Ron. Another sack of old potatoes, straight off the farms pre-Y2K, were thrown into the fryer, bubbling on contact. Yet somehow, like hyenas attacking a freshly mutilated carcass, we went along leaving nothing left but bones for the buzzards when our waiter finally arrived.
Our cash slid across the counter, a jumble of crumpled up Washingtons and some loose change, like a shady drug deal in an open restaurant. Twelve-fifty, our bill was paid, then into the obsidian abyss we went. Feeling the cool rush of a sweet summer breeze we meandered over towards the car. A sudden fizzle of electricity left sent the streetlamp to its grave, leaving us with long shadows as we made our slow steps towards the car and into those squishy seats. Checking both ways I pulled back into the street, going towards the glimmering lights of the highway. My heavy eyes snuck a peek to the back of the car, no survivors of the night’s frivolities. Mops of hair rested on car doors, jostling with each lane change.
One oh-five, time for my hidden agenda. Fumbling for the radio in this darkness I finally got on whatever I could find, some slow smooth jazz to fill my ears with whispers of a nocturnal lifestyle, filled with liquor and women played out by the sweet notes of a saxophone.
My foot slid down the pedal I saw the needle rise to sixty, seventy, no, eighty, topping out at ninety-five. Cruising past exit after exit, the only other cars on the road were of people with no place left to go but forwards, on to who knows where, without purpose. Our purpose was gone, left back at that restaurant, but I had another, to break my previous record of rebelliousness. One thirty-five a.m., that’s what I had to reach to be past my previous achievement. It was meaningless and petty, but deep inside I felt a need to do this. Not to be the rebellious James Dean, though I was without any real cause. I needed to have a few more minutes of freedom, a few more seconds before I was subjected to the rules and regulations that my parents set for me.
The washing machine hummed, rumbling inside the house as I entered the mudroom. Stray beams of light came in through the window, enlightening strips of the kitchen in a half radiant luminescence. Socks muffled my footsteps, a light beat of my feet on the floor. A methodical tick-tock of the clock alerted me to the silence of the room. I looked up, one fifty-five, a sigh of relief. Wandering past a dirty pile of dishes I went into the family room. The floor was covered in video game discs and little scraps of food, a constant reminder that I was home alone, with nobody there to tell me when to clean and when to not.
On the couch, potato chip crumbs falling on my shirt I pulled out my phone, trying to remember this night as the sandman dragged me off into a deep slumber. I woke the next morning to a picture of a cheeseburger, and memories of rebelliousness.