Shadowbahn(28)

sound check


Speedometer set to the haste of moonlight, fifty miles of silence later Parker and Zema turn off the sound system, only to still hear music. They stare at the powered-off receiver, the music faint as though from another car or passing house. Parker turns the receiver back on, back off. “I don’t get it,” he says, glancing around the interior of the car for an answer, across his shoulder into the backseat. “Just watch the road,” says his sister. When she has fallen asleep he can almost swear he hears an old nineteenth-century folk song his father used to like, except with different lyrics: Oh shadowbahn, I long to ride you. Roll away.

? ? ?

Parker says to his sister, “Don’t you hear it?” Growing louder ten miles south of the Dakotas, the song announces their afternoon arrival as the Camry rolls into the outskirts of Valentine, Nebraska. With a field on one side of the street and an Assembly of God church on the other, a pack of forty boys not a lot younger than Parker immediately engulfs the car. Crowds are becoming less friendly, Parker and Zema have concluded silently and independently of each other. With a baseball bat, one of the bigger boys taps the window on the driver’s side.





off / on


The brother and sister look at each other. The boy outside the car with the bat taps on the window again, more forcefully. Finally Parker rolls it down. “Hey,” he says.

“Get out,” says the boy.

“You’re stealing our car?”

“Don’t, Parker,” murmurs Zema.

“They’re stealing our f*cking car.” Parker turns to her, then back to the boy outside his window. “Don’t hurt my sister. You hurt my sister, I’ll run you motherf*ckers over,” he says, pointing at the people in front of him.

? ? ?

The boys’ leader peers in. “Your sister? If you say so. We don’t care nothin’ about her. Get out.”

“What are we supposed to do without our car?” says Parker. In the distance, overturned satellite dishes skitter like toadstools across the plain. “It’s them,” the boy outside confirms to the others gathered, waving the bat.

Parker looks back at Zema. “Are we getting out?” she whispers.

“I guess we either give them the car,” her brother answers, “or they start smashing it up with us in it.” He opens his door, and Zema opens hers.





on / off


The cell phone with their father’s songs sits in the cradle beneath the car radio. “Don’t forget that,” Parker says to his sister, nodding at the cell, but Zema leaves it. “You hear me?” he says.

“Leave it,” she whispers, and grabs Parker by the wrist when he reaches for it. She looks at him more pointedly than he can ever remember. Over Parker’s shoulder, the boy with the bat says, “That what’s playin’ your tunes?” indicating the cell. “Yeah, you leave that the hell alone.”

“The f*ck,” Parker says, leaving it.

? ? ?

Brother and sister back away from the car. Parker stands in the street with arms folded, glaring at the crowd of boys, as Zema turns and heads in the direction of the church.

Music fades from the car and then is gone.

The crowd stares stupefied at the now silent car. The boy with the bat looks at Parker. “What did you do?”

“We got out of the car like you told us to,” says Parker.

“You turn it off?”

“I didn’t turn anything off.”





calling out around the world


Laying his bat in the passenger seat next to him, the boy sits in the driver’s seat. He searches the dashboard. “You turn off the car?” he asks again.

“The car’s still running,” answers Parker, “it’s a hybrid.”

One of the other boys puts his hand on the car. “Still runnin’, Ray,” he says to the one behind the wheel. “One of them city cars that don’t make noise.”

In the driver’s seat, Ray says, “How come we don’t hear nothin’?”

“Like I said,” Parker tells him, “it’s a hyb—”

“The tunes, not the f*cking car! Why don’t we hear the tunes?” Ray picks up Zema’s cell. “Is this on?”

“Oh my God,” Parker mutters under his breath.

? ? ?

Ray jumps from the driver’s seat with his baseball bat. “What did you do?” he says, starting toward Parker ominously.

Parker can see Zema in the far distance by the church. “You said get out of the car,” he replies, “we got out.”

Ray cries, “You turned it off!”

Parker spreads his arms and opens his hands. “I haven’t turned off anything.”

“Then where’d they go, dude?” Ray asks.

“They . . . ?”

“The tunes!”





ready for a brand-new beat


The other boy who had his hand on the car’s hood looks at Parker. “Music was playing when you got here,” he says. “Are you guys really Supersonik?”

Ray is adamant. “They are.”

“Why not now? The music,” says the other boy.