I don’t know why but I read a road sign that says 60mph and instinctively look over. I see the needle throttled and erect, somewhere between eighty and ninety. I wonder if there are any cops. I wonder what my brother Eric would do if a cop pulls out, lights fuming across the night sky like lasers sent down from the mother ship.

Beam me out of here.

“They need to get rid of the pitcher, man,” he says.

“I know they do,” I say. Baseball is the one thing we can still talk about.

He weaves past a purple impala, windows tinted like the visor on Darth Vader’s mask. He stays in the left lane a while, until we see the red break lights all aglow like it’s some kind of trend, like they’re waiting in line to go to the damned beach.

“Shit,” he says. He smacks the steering wheel with his hand. Hard. Where did he get the temper? He didn’t used to have a temper. I’d try to guess at what meds or counter meds or street prescribed ointments he’s been slapping down his trap, but I don’t know a thing about any of that stuff.

“Shit,” he says again. “It’s a check point.” I can see the police cars up ahead, think for a moment that it might just be an accident; some tragedy already occurred and in its clean-up-the-debris stage. The steps that precluded it all--the ambulance, the Jaws of Life, the phone call—all finished.
“Maybe it’s an accident,” I say.

Eric thinks otherwise. “I’m fucked, man. I’m so fucked.” The car’s at a dead stop. He looks at me. I see the thought in his head before he says it. I see what he wants me to do. I think about the amount of alcohol I consumed. I try to tab it all up—divide it by the hours since we started to drink. How did that rule go? One for every hour, but wasn’t that for teens?

“Why not?” I say. I’ve never had a DWI before. For some reason, I’m comforted by that fact. He unbuckles his seat belt, begins to climb over me. His weight pushes down on the headrest. Something strains like a bridge about to crumble—the seat about to give way and snap. I am more scared for the seat than for whatever punishment awaits me. The whole process is awkward; in the driver seat, I can breathe. The car behind us honks, a driver less inebriated than me and my brother, someone who will go home and sleep in their bed tonight and not whatever jail is like. I think about not having a license for six months. Do people sleep in the cell? I have no idea.

“Do people sleep in jail over night?—when they stay overnight?”

My brother doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about. It’s stop and go, stop and go, stop and go. Until we see the accident.