Goodbye. I am going away. Look at me drive my bacon car. I eat the steering wheel.
Oh darn.
This will be the fourth steering wheel I’ve eaten this year.
Jump says I will never learn and hands me a spare steering wheel. He says when we get to where we’re going I am going to beat your ass. I feel scared but also guilty because, well, it is the fourth one I’ve eaten.
I am driving the bacon car away somewhere silent. I hear static. It is the wind or the fear.
Jump is no saint. I see him eat the handle that rolls up the window. Slowly, like a full hunter.
Like any worn-down woman, I make excuses for him:
Jump has a goatee, plays Xbox Live, and sleeps in tattoos.
We get to there and Jump pulls me by the hair out of the passenger side. The car is old; the seat is cracked vinyl. The lighter in the dash is missing—I slide like a seal.
Jump says clean yourself up and throws me a tire iron.
The bacon car blows up and he dies.
(This doesn’t happen.)
Jump happens.
Hands on his knees, head down; his stringy hair greasy with sweat, he moves side to side like a car wash curtain. Panting from the hard work on my face.
I take the tire iron and clean myself up.