She just walked away from the car. I kept looking back and it was still there. Mom just kept walking down the road so I followed close. She didn’t seem to be at all worried about the car, like I was. When the car sputtered out on the off ramp, she tried the ignition a couple more times. It just clicked, clicked. She grabbed the keys and her smokes and started walking.

“Piss on it,” she said, and waved me to follow.

“We just leavin’ it?” I asked.

“You know anything about engines?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so. I sure don’t!” she said as we crunched gravel under our feet. She was tall and took such long steps I had a hard time keeping up, but she’d reach her hand back every few yards, let me know she hadn’t forgot me.

“Will Dad be mad?” I asked.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

I giggled at the curse word. Mom loved cursing when Dad wasn’t around—it was like our secret thing. She let me say hell and damn and piss.

“Your dad will pitch a goddamn fit, say I was probably speeding or I let the gas get too low. You’ll back me up though, right?” Mom said. She pointed to a diner on the other side of the four way we were approaching. She snatched my wrist and bolted across the road. Cars were still coming down on us fast. I didn’t understand why we didn’t just go to the cross walk but I didn’t have time to ask her that question. She ran at lightning speed like she was “Neon” Deion Sanders. I clung to her, flapping in the wind behind her like a receipt stuck to her shoe with gum. When we made it to the other side, Mom was laughing and catching her breath. She terrified me but I needed to be near her.

We sat in the diner while Mom held down that sticky red booth and smoked so many cigarettes. The smoking ban was going into effect at all restaurants in the state soon, so she seemed to be really savoring the act of smoking in a diner. She and the waitress both grumbled about the ban. There was a cloud in the diner. My grilled cheese tasted like smoke. I didn’t mind the impending ban, though I felt I had to protest as well in solidarity with my mother. And, she gave me some singles to feed the cigarette machine. That was fun. I pulled the lever and a pack of Parliaments fell into the slot in front of me. She was very proud of me for being able to figure out the machine on my own, so she gave me a handful of sweaty quarters to pump into the Pinball machine in the corner.

When I ran out of quarters I came back to the table and Mom was still smoking. She was talking to a guy about how her husband wanted her to quit. Piss on that, I heard her say. She was laughing with this guy and he lit another smoke for her. I went over to the window by the door and looked down the road and our car was still there. I stared at it, smoldering in the heat. Were we just going to leave it? After the guy left my mom alone I came back.

“Are we going to leave soon?” I asked.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “This is like an adventure. How often do you get to spend an afternoon in a nice diner like this?”

“What about the car?”

“Who cares? Here, I’ll buy you another Pepsi. Live a little.”

She smiled at me so I smiled back and sat down in the booth. We played hangman on some napkins. I wasn’t great at hangman because my vocabulary was still in its formative years, so I just showed her some of my drawings instead. She oohed and wowed at the right moments even though it seemed like she wasn’t paying attention. That was one of her greatest mother skills. The sun started getting low and I started getting antsy and annoying. I kept looking out the window at the car, dead up the road. Eventually, Mom let out a sigh and asked the kind waitress if she could use the phone. Sure thing, hon, the lady said. Mom went over to counter and dialed a number. You could see her body tense up as she talked—hand on her hip, foot tapping. She hated asking for help or admitting things. She came back and lit up her last square.

“Nice little afternoon,” she said.

Dad showed up a few minutes later in his work truck. He didn’t say anything to us as we drove up the road to the car. Didn’t say anything to us as he fussed with the engine and dumped fluids into it. He followed us home just in case. Didn’t say anything to us when we got home. I kicked some rocks around in the street while he idled in his truck behind the car in the driveway. She walked up to the driver’s side and leaned in, said a few things. He rolled his eyes at some bad joke or something and cut the engine. He got out of the truck and waved at me so I waved back and he went inside. Mom smiled at me so I smiled back and she went inside. And I kicked around some more rocks in the street.

# # #

Lanny Durbin lives in Springfield, Illinois, plays in a few bands and drives a Buick. His work has appeared in Hobart Pulp, Maudlin House, X-R-A-Y, among others. He can be found on Twitter @LannyDurbin

Photo: Anastasia Vityukova