Milk(18)

            He took a bite with his all too white teeth and nodded at the fridge; the door was ajar. I wasn’t hungry so I went upstairs to see if Morten was up there reading his comic books; that’s what he normally did after school. It was none of my business, but for whatever reason I couldn’t let him be. Maybe it was because of Rose, maybe it was because he was my brother, or maybe it was because of what happened—or what didn’t happen. All we were doing was waiting. Morten wasn’t in his room, so I went downstairs again.

            The blue Rover was in the driveway. All the doors were locked, but the right front window was not rolled all the way up. I put my hand then my whole arm inside and down to the door lock. The radio was one of those kinds that could be turned on without the key, so I sat for a while listening to the radio and forgot all about Morten. It was late in the summer, and there were stubbly fields in every direction. In other years Dad had allowed us to drive down to the bog and back. The first years he’d helped us with the gears, but after a while we did it ourselves.

            I snuck from the car and went into the kitchen. Grandpa sat still on his chair draining beers, which he picked up from one table leg and set down at the other. The keys lay on the table between us.

            —Where’s Morten? he asked. Didn’t you come home from school together?

            —He’s sitting in the car, I said.

             Grandpa stood, a little shakily, but he stood.

            When he’d gone out the door, I grabbed the keys and followed slowly behind. We met halfway.

            —I don’t want you two messing with my car, he said.

            Then he disappeared inside the house again.



            Morten fanned his arms wildly as I drove across the yard. I stopped the car and picked him up.

            —Did he let you drive it?

            —Yeah, I said.

            We continued down through the yard and into the field. We had just come out onto the stubble when I caught sight of the neighbor’s dog. It was sniffing around on our side of the property line. It had once bitten Morten, so I turned sharply to the right and started after it. At first it stood staring at us dumbly, but then it took off running along the dirt road on the other side of the property line. Morten said something or other as I continued into the neighbor’s field, but I ignored it. The dog was right in front of us, with its tongue wagging from its chops, bolting away, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left of us. I jerked the steering wheel from side to side; it was not something you did unless you had such a dog in front of you. We had reached a good way across the field, so far that nobody could’ve seen us from home. That’s when I looked at Morten. He opened his eyes wide and covered his face in his hands. I looked ahead and saw the creek. I heard Morten shout something I couldn’t make out, and I could tell from the steering how the front wheels had lost contact with the ground. Suddenly we hung suspended in air, floating, but only for a moment. Then we landed on the other side of the creek. I caught the wheel in my gut, but Morten braced himself against the dashboard, so nothing happened to him. The front of the Rover didn’t look so pretty, but the motor still ran.

            The dog hadn’t made the jump across the creek, and now it strutted on the other side, big and dumb and aggressive. We sat for a while catching our breath.

            —What do you think Grandpa’s gonna say? Morten asked.

            I shrugged my shoulders and put the car in gear. We rolled through the grass until we found the road.



            On the main road we turned right, driving away from town. We were going at a good speed when we reached the driveway to the disused gravel pit. I hit the brake, but the car braked funny and went off course. I got the car stopped and backed thirty feet; then we drove down into the pit.

            We made a few passes down there, but we didn’t see Tommy or Tommy’s brother or anyone else.