Week without a wife-Day 2

So here we are at day 2. So far, the battle between neurosis and muse is at a standstill, but here comes the Muse out swinging

Continued from yesterday……

The silence outside was almost as thick as the silence inside as I drove. It was a five hour drive from Ann Arbor to the suburbs of Chicago, and I figured it’d take about two of them before Frida exploded on me. It only took  one.

“God damn it, Grey, what are we doing? Since when do we listen to, let alone, take orders from your crackpot little brother?”

You can’t really tell your Catholic wife that your brother is somehow psychic and a hacker on steroids, so I said the only thing that came to mind.

“My gut tells me to listen, honey”

This led to a two hour explosion of Spanglish , recanting my horrible record when it came to trusting my gut. From my job choices to my piss poor investment strategies Nothing like having your manhood eviscerated in front of your children to make Chicago traffic even better.

Snow began tumbling out of the sky. Weird, this early in the season. By the time we hit the north side of the city, traffic is reduced to a crawl, the defrost is on high, and every nerve in the car is on edge.

Then the sirens went off. I glanced up, the same reflex anyone who lived through the  Cold War has when they hear them out of season. I  looked over at Frida, her eyes wide with fear. My son Marty started crying, a natural reaction for a stressed six year old boy. Oddly, his sister Sasha, should be crying as well, but she stares back at me from the rear view, unblinking. I turn on the radio, searching for a news station.

“This is WBBM, News Radio 78. Our top story:the activation of air raid sirens all across the Chicagoland area. Reports from outside the area indicate this is a national occurence, and we are now trying to get someone from the military to explain what’s going on.  We’ll let you know more as we know more.”

Unsure, we drove forward. We’d gone too far to turn back. Was this why Dave had told us to come here? I flipped open my cell, hoping to get Dave. After thirty minutes ,all I got was an no longer in service message and a lump in my chest. Was it the end of the world? A nuclear war?

Folks sped up in panic, turning a bad traffic day into a nightmare. The last hour turned into two, as we passed wreck after wreck . During that time, the sirens howled, cutting through the blanket of silence the snow had formed. The radio told us nothing. Frida had her smart phone out, but was getting nothing. I was trying hard not to panic as Marty sobbed in the back. He’d cried himself to sleep, but slept fitfully. Frida and I both tried to reach back and rub him, but it just made him twitch more.

I inched us forward into the darkening whiteness, wondering what the fuck had happened to my world in the last few hours…..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *