text: The words on the sign didn't stick to her until after she had passed them at a clip. *NEED A LIFT ACROSS THE BRIDGE?* When she whipped her head over her shoulder, she hoped they might be etched on the back of the metal sheet just for her, shrinking as they drew further away like everything else left in the rear view mirror. It was only a few miles back that it had dawned on her how close she was to the bridge. The pit in her stomach had swelled some since then, but not enough to stir her from the trance one enters after an hour of driving through the wholly nondescript. It was because of this spell that she wondered if she had imagined the sign entirely. So, for what had to be the first time in her life, she pulled onto the shoulder with the sole intention of back-pedalling. The cars turned to rockets the way they always do when you’re still on the shoulder and after a slow roll through the celestial blur, she was able to crane her neck across the passenger seat and see, once again from the front, the bright orange sign: *NEED A LIFT ACROSS THE BRIDGE?* *DRIVE OVER SERVICE* *24/7 · 365* *EXIT RIGHT* *Since when?* She sat in her head for a second, probing the likelihood of a strange man getting in her car and never getting out. *LOCAL COMMUTER KILLED BY BURLY, BLADE-BRANDISHING, BAY BRIDGE BACKUP BOY.* She shook herself and moved her hand to switch the car back into drive. The morning glare felt especially prickly on her arm as she glanced to her left to join the other cars, shifting gears until she was one of them again. The lane lines began to blend. She thought of the bridge and its rails and the water below it and service pamphlets and liability waivers and kidnappings done in broad daylight and then the bridge and its tall beams some more until suddenly it was in front of her and suddenly she was turning the wheel. A gangly teen waved her over as she returned to the shoulder again, rolling the window down with her free hand. “Good morning ma’am, need assistance crossing the bridge today?” She eyed the boy for a beat before swiveling her head and coming to realize the flagrant sparsity of the operation at hand. No booth, no table, certainly no waivers, just four cars lining the grass and a gaggle of neon-vested youths to boot. She turned back to the twig who, in all his pubescence, had somehow managed to age considerably in the time it had taken her to assess the scene. The excitement in his smile said she might be the first of the day. “If you’re nervous or need assistance for any reason crossing the bridge today, one of our drivers can take care of that for you. We also offer general messenger and delivery services...for the delivery of your parcels, packages, and documents.” He stumbled slightly on the last line -- perhaps not enough sleep the night before. “Who paid for the sign?” The words rushed out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop them. A pause. “They’re not as expensive as you’d think.” He and all his eagerness swayed slightly with the passing cars. “Would you like a lift today?” “I guess that’s what it’s going to be, isn’t it?” she said quietly, glancing back at the guys in the distance, trying to figure out which one seemed least capable of harm. She settled on the shortest of the bunch, though he was a bit stockier than she. The host had settled on a different one, however, and had already called him over. He saluted his friends and half-jogged, half-trotted over, awkwardly. “So, it’s going to be $20, you can pay your driver directly. And unfortunately we don’t take card yet, I’m sorry about that.” She rolled up the window and began digging through her wallet. **···** A muskiness followed the man into the car, but not the kind that assaulted the nostrils, rather the kind that felt familiar, the kind that made her want to lean closer to catch a stronger whiff, but she didn’t dare make that move in this tight a car. “Morning,” he said softly, earnestly. She hadn’t realized its tightness until her stomach unclenched slightly at his word. He was stocky like his friend but he didn’t look to feel squished -- in fact he didn’t bother to adjust the seat when he sat down -- of course she couldn’t’ve known whether or not he was just being polite unless she’d asked or maybe even offered, but they had already started driving. She’d adjusted herself enough so that she could look at him without being obvious. He was handsome but not overly so, more brutish with broad shoulders that she thought might be softer than they looked or at least softer than the bones in his face. The sleeves of his flannel were rolled to his elbows. The blond hairs on his arm matched neither the black mop on his head nor the thick beard he wore; an oddity she’d only noticed when he’d reached for the gearswitch to put the car into drive, but now with his right hand on top of the wheel and his left resting by the door handle it was unclear if this was actually the case or if the sunlight had just caught him at a funny angle. He seemingly toed the line between rugged and delicate better than anyone she‘d known. She was not intent on talking to him, or at least she didn’t think so. She would spend the whole ride examining him discreetly, noting the idiosyncrasies; the kind everyone has when they get in a car. A friend once pointed out to her that every time she turned the ignition, in that split second when the car calibrates, when all the icons on the dashboard light up and beep, she would place both hands on the top of the steering wheel and move them each in a half circle around the wheel until they met again at the bottom. Since being made aware of this, it had become ritual for her; an unskippable moment of caress, checking to make sure every rip and ridge in the leather of the wheel was exactly as it was supposed to be. “Have you done this before?” he asked sheepishly, interrupting her line of thought. Her eyes shot forward. Not only was she not interested in conversation at this hour, but bullshit small talk? She felt sick to her stomach. He followed up, hurriedly: “My bad, I don’t wanna, like, force anything. If you’re not trying to talk that's totally cool. Honestly, I’ve just found that if neither of us say anything at the beginning, we won’t say anything at all, so I guess I wanna give you the option, you know?” He seemed sincere enough. Though she wondered if he said something to that effect to everyone that got in the car with him. In some universe, he might’ve rehearsed the bit to a tee, calculating every word, perfecting cadence. How many “likes” is too many “likes”? He could gage each passenger’s reaction to every detail until he’d come up with the perfectly candid line. Although, then how candid was it really? “I appreciate that.” She looked back at him. “I think, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sit quietly.” “Totally.” He stared straight ahead. She leaned over, resting her head on the passenger window. Had she been too terse in her response? She wondered how many people opt to conversate and how many prefer to sit in silence. Her eyes closed for a moment. Her shoulder blade pressed against the lip of the window, rattling in rhythm with the rest of the car. She never sat in this seat of her car, the standard shake that comes with speed actually felt slightly different on this side. Maybe she’d pumped more air into the right-side tires than she had the ones on the left. The air pump at the gas station near her house gave 2 minutes of air pressure for $1.50. If the last time she’d visited, she pulled up to the left of the machine, she’d have pumped air into the right tires first, leaving her running out of air by the time she walked around to the right side. Her dad once told her that it’s important to not over-inflate because tires can explode if they’re pumped up too much. Was that true? She imagined the horror as her body continued to vibrate. Her shoulders as well as her head felt fragile, rattling against the side of the car like that. She opened her eyes and glanced over at the young man’s shoulders once more. If he were leaning against the side as she was, his body might just absorb the shake, she thought as she watched him lift his arm and move towards his face to scratch his beard. It was full and dark and faded to a lighter red around the outs of his chin. She was really staring at it now. It must be so itchy. A type of itch she’d probably never know. His hand twitched suddenly as a drop of blood fell from his nose onto his knuckle. He quickly moved to cover it, cocking his head back some. “Shit.” He took his eyes from the road, searching frantically for something to cover up. “Do you have a tissue or something by chance? I'm sorry, I-” His voice shook some. Nothing disarms quite like a nosebleed. Like losing your balance -- human beings’ ultimate short-circuit, she thought as she reached for the glove box “I actually might, one second,” she said, rifling through strewn papers and ketchup packets. Her hand brushed over her window hammer. She grabbed a couple loose napkins and handed them to him “Thanks. I don’t know why I get these randomly sometimes...” He trailed off. “I don’t know how long those napkins have been sitting in there, I hope they’re not gross.” She looked back at him. He had leaned his head back so far she was sure he couldn't see the road. The bridge was straight enough. She looked out the window. The spot from which they’d left was already too far to see. She poked her head out some more and realized the end was also not in sight -- a rare stretch where suddenly everything was suspended. They were floating, maybe 100 or so feet. She hoisted herself up some, lifting her butt off the seat, reaching for the best angle at the water but couldn’t know for sure. She sat back down and opened the glove box again. She reached for the window hammer and pulled it out. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, her eyes not breaking from the silver spiked head. The boy glanced at it for a second and shook his head, redirecting his gaze to the road ahead. A pause. “Oh wait,” he said, turning back towards her, “does that, like, break your window if your car goes under water?” “I wonder how many people have this, I can’t even remember where I bought it. I thought you might have a better sense...” She looked at him. The light streaming through the side window brought out new dashes of strawberry blond in his hair. He’d left weathered behind for elegance -- if just for a fleeting moment. “When I was little, I used to have this dream -- I didn’t get it that much, maybe a few times a year. Actually that’s too often, I don’t really remember -- Anyway, I would have this dream where I was in a car on a bridge and then, like way down the road, I’d see a car break the lane and drive right off. Like have you seen *Thelma and Louise?* It would just fly over the railing just like that. It was stunning. And in the moment it would take me to collect myself, I’d realize that the car right behind it had followed it right off the edge. And then the car after it and the one after it. And every time I was in the midst of all this...” she paused. “Have you ever had a recurring nightmare?” She said, turning to him. “I don’t think so.” It was unclear if he was really listening. “Well, I always thought what was weird about them is that at a certain point, you’d think that the imagery and the way it makes you feel in your gut -- all of which is the exact same every time -- you’d think that you’d start to recognize it. Like when you’re in one of those half cooked dreams in between alarm clock snoozes and you kinda know you’re dreaming the whole time you’re in it. Anyway that’s never how it actually went. I’d gotten so familiar with this dream sequence over the years and every time it happened It was just as shocking, just as appalling as the first time. I can’t even, like, properly articulate the emotions -- or I guess “dreamed emotions” -- I was just frozen in this car. I’m sure my body would probably even seize up if anyone were watching me sleep. And I’d just be watching car after car after car project itself off this bridge and I kept getting closer to the front of the line and out the window to the right, the cars are falling out of the sky like rain and pooling up below the bridge like some sort of floating junkyard and I’m in my head like ‘Am I doing this?’ And then it’s my turn but I’d always wake up before I had to make the jump.” She stopped for a second and caught her breath. “Anyway, I stopped having the dream eventually and I think it must’ve even been so upsetting that I removed the memory of it because one day I was watching TV and I saw this footage of a car that had fallen off a bridge and I burst into tears. I literally just sat alone in my living room and cried. Like for an hour or more even, I don’t quite remember. I didn’t even know the people. And the next day I went out and bought this thing but it’s so dumb because I didn’t remember I even had it until I opened the glove box just now. I don’t even think I’d know how to use it or work it well enough to actually save myself.” She looked over at him, waiting for a response, surprised at her own air-out. “That’s fucking crazy.” **···** They’d been sitting in silence for some time. She was back against the window, lulled half to sleep by the car’s hum when he spoke again. “Where are you going?” His words stirred her plenty. A story like the one she’d given not long before would’ve surely catapulted them past formalities, past common courtesies, and yet here they were: regressed to tedium. She looked back at him, he didn’t fill out the driver’s side like he had when he first got into the car. “Work,” she said dryly, hoping her tone might wrap up the forthcoming chit-chat before it could even start. “What do you do?” She couldn’t believe this was happening. What happened to ‘do you want a quiet ride or a loud ride?’ She looked out the window again, the end of the bridge was nowhere in sight. She turned back to him, unsure if her expression read as ugly as she envisioned it in her head. His eyes were locked on the road anyway. “I’m a consultant.” “Nice. So you work for, like, other companies?” “Kind of.”“What kind of things do you consult them on?” She paused. “I basically help brands think about how to better market themselves.” He sat quietly for a second. “Did you always want to do that?” Her face reddened. “What?” She said, unsure if she even had the energy to deal with him. A child. Who drives a car back and forth across a fucking bridge. “I meant, like, ‘they’re always going through that,’ like rebranding and stuff. Like companies are always...doing stuff like that. You must be in high demand.” “Mmm, yeah, it’s alright,” she said, praying her slight outburst wasn’t so nasty but mostly embarrassed at her own embarrassment. How easily he’d pulled back the curtain! She’d taken her job right out of college and never looked back. Though she wasn’t particularly proud of what she did the way some were, she was rarely made to feel bad about it. Only if she couldn’t sleep at night would she explore the rabbit holes of dreams deferred; just enough to make the mind race but not enough to launch a depressive episode. She attempted to replay the exchange a couple of times in her head before settling, somewhat reluctantly, on a delivery of her line that was somewhere between what she actually said and a version of what she said palatable enough to relieve her of some guilt. “Do you mind if I turn the fan up a little?” she asked, having realized that in her fluster, she’d gotten quite hot. “It’s your car.” She leaned forward to move the knob up two spots and was met with a blast of cold air. A long lock of hair fell in front of her face. She moved to tuck it back behind her ear and brushed past her chin. It felt rough. She moved her hand to her cheek and stroked down to the jaw. She took her other hand and did the same on the other side. Her breathing sped up some. She grabbed a napkin from the glove box and dug into her chin but nothing came off. Not dirt. Had she suddenly broken out in some kind of shame-induced rash? Her skin didn’t feel bumpy but more fuzzy. But it wasn’t peach fuzz either, it was more prickly. She turned quickly to the window to take a look at her reflection. Her heart jumped into her throat. *Am I hallucinating?* She thought, racking her brain for an obvious explanation, suddenly unable to remember if she’d eaten or drank anything since getting in the car. “You know what I like to do sometimes when I’m making this drive?” He interrupted. She kept scrubbing, feverishly. “Sometimes I just close my eyes and imagine the cars around me driving right off. One by one.”She snapped her head back to look at him, his eyes were shut. “I think about which drivers would be hopeless. Which drivers would panic. Which ones would remain calm. Which ones would know what to do...Like that red car behind us,” his eyes were still closed, “that red car behind us has been tailing us so close all day. I bet he just goes for it.” “What are you talking about, can you please open your eyes,” she said, trying not to let the shake in her voice take control. “What will we do?” He took his right hand off the wheel and then his left and held each up by his head. “What the fuck are you doing, this isn’t funny.” The car started to veer some. “Dude, what the fuck put your hands back.” The horn from the car next to them blared. “Seriously, Stop. STOP!!!” Her heart was racing. She reached over to grab the wheel but couldn’t. “What the fuck. What the fuck...stop it, what are you doing...” The right wheels popped the curb, jolting her towards him. Through the short strands of hair pulled over her face, she could see him stamping his right foot, flooring it. “Don’t!” She pressed her feet against the glove box, closing it and pushing all her weight through it, lifting herself and punching him. Her knuckles stung against the spikes of his shoulder blade. She hit him again. “We’ll die.” They were right up against the parapet now. Blows of scraping and screeching notes ripped into her ears. A dissonant symphony accompanied by the dizzying stench of burning rubber. She looked back over at him, his eyes were still closed as the wheel in front of him kept turning. She could feel the pressure of the car against the bridge, it would burst at any moment. And like clockwork, the rail cracked. She screamed. The car flew off the bridge, hurling itself towards the water, flipping in the air and pushing the two of them up against the roof. In the side mirror she could see the red car behind them, following them right off the ledge. Then she saw nothing. **···** They spent the rest of the drive in silence. She pulled her phone out for a stretch. Eventually she looked up and saw land. Relief poured over her. She put her phone in her pocket and turned to face him, no longer caring for subtlety. She stared right at him for those final minutes. She watched every itch and every blink. She counted his breaths. He’d traded rugged for ragged. He looked thin. She could snap him in half if she wanted to. When they pulled off to the shoulder right after exiting, he turned to her and looked through her, “Appreciate the company.” She took a twenty and a five out of her wallet and handed it to him. “Fuck you.” He fumbled the money before putting it in his pocket, pulled the lever and maneuvered around the hood so as to not get hit by the oncoming cars. And there he stood, shielded, waiting for a break in traffic. And when one came he jogged across the three lanes and onto the median, where he stood still again, waiting. Still sitting in the passenger seat, she could see across the road a set up identical to the one that had drawn her in before. A group of boys, a couple of cars. She wondered who he might pick up next. She climbed over to the driver’s side and buckled in. Her reflection stared back at her as she reached for the glove box, grabbing another napkin. She folded it, licked it, and put her tongue gently on the corner to wet it before moving to her face to wipe the blood stain running from her right nostril to the rim of her lips. She discarded the napkin and glanced back into the rearview, where there was nothing. The monotony of the work day was a finger trap and it beckoned like always. Off she went.