I'm Thinking of Ending Things (4 page)

“If I'd known you then, you could have told me about it. I missed out.”

“That's the thing; no one seemed to care,” he says. “It was so strange. A chance to see Venus, and most people were watching TV. No offense if that's what you were doing.”

I know Venus is the second planet from the sun. I don't know much about it beyond that. “Do you like Venus?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Why? Why do you like it?”

“One day on Venus is like one hundred fifteen Earth days. Its atmosphere is made up of nitrogen and carbon dioxide and it has an iron core. It's also full of volcanoes and solidified lava, sort of like Iceland. I should know its orbital velocity, but I'd be making it up.”

“That's pretty good,” I say.

“But what I like most is that apart from the sun and moon, it's the brightest object in the sky. Most people don't know that.”

I like when he talks like this.

I want to hear more. “Were you always interested in space?”

“I don't know,” he says. “I guess so. In space, everything has its relative position. Space is an entity, right, but also limitless. It's less dense the farther out you go, but you can always keep going. There's no definitive border between the start and the end. We'll never fully understand or know it. We can't.”

“You don't think?”

“Dark matter makes up the majority of all matter, and it's still a mystery.”

“Dark matter?”

“It's invisible. It's all the extra mass we can't see that makes the formation of galaxies and the rotational velocities of stars around galaxies mathematically possible.”

“I'm glad we don't know everything.”

“You're glad?”

“That we don't know all the answers, that we can't explain it all, like space. Maybe we're not supposed to know all the answers. Questions are good. They're better than answers. If you want to know more about life, how we work, how we progress, it's questions that are important. That's what pushes and stretches our intellect. I think questions make us feel less lonely and more connected. It's not always about knowing. I appreciate not knowing. Not knowing is human. That's how it should be, like space. It's unsolvable, and it's dark,” I say, “but not entirely.”

He laughs at this, and I feel silly for saying what I said.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I'm not laughing at you, it's just funny. I haven't heard anyone say it like that before.”

“But it's true, isn't it?”

“Yeah. It's dark, but not entirely. It's true. And that's kind of a nice idea.”

—Some of the rooms were vandalized, I heard.

—Yup, paint on the floor, red paint; some water damage. Did you know he put a chain on the door?

—Why did he do it in here?

—To make some selfish, twisted point, maybe. I don't know.

—He wasn't a vandal type, was he?

—No, but the strange thing is he'd started writing graffiti on some of the walls. We all knew it was him. People saw him doing it. He denied it, but volunteered to clean it off every time.

—That's weird.

—That's not even the weird part.

—What?

—The strange part was that he wrote the same thing every time. The graffiti. Just one sentence.

—What was it?

—“There's only one question we need to resolve.”

—There's only one question we need to resolve?

—Yup. That's what he wrote.

—What's the one question?

—I have no idea.

“W
e still have a while to go, right?”

“Yeah, a bit longer.”

“How about a story?”

“A story?”

“Yeah, to pass the time,” I say. “I'll tell you a story. A true one. One you've never heard. It's your kind of story. I think you'll like it.”

I turn the music down a little.

“Sure,” he says.

“It's about when I was younger, a teenager.”

I look over at him. At a table, he often looks slouchy and uncomfortable. Driving, he looks too long to fit comfortably behind the wheel, but his posture is good. I'm attracted to Jake's physical stature through his intellect. His sharpness of mind makes his lankiness appealing. They're connected. At least to me.

“Ready,” he says. “For story time.”

I clear my throat super dramatically.

“Okay. I'd been sheltering my head with some newspaper. Seriously. What? Why are you smiling? It was pouring. I'd grabbed the paper from an empty seat on the bus. My instructions had been
simple: arrive at the house at ten thirty and you will be greeted in the driveway. I was told I didn't need to ring the bell. You're listening, right?”

He nods, still looking out the windshield at the road ahead.

“When I got there, I had to wait for a while—minutes, not seconds. When the door finally opened, a man I'd never met poked his head out. He looked up at the sky and then said something like he hoped I hadn't been waiting long. He held out a hand palm up. He looked exhausted, as if he'd been awake for days. Big dark bags under both eyes. Stubble on his cheeks and chin. Bedhead. I tried to glance past him. The door was open slightly, a crack.

“He said: ‘I'm Doug. Gimme a minute, take the keys,' and he flipped me the keys, which I caught like a punch, both my hands against my stomach. The door slammed shut.

“I didn't move, not at first. I was stunned. Who was this guy? I really didn't know anything about him. We'd talked on the phone, that's it. I looked down at the metal key chain in my hands, which was just a large letter
J
.”

I stop. I glance at Jake. “You look bored,” I say. “I know I'm including lots of details, but I remember them, and I'm trying to tell a proper story. Is it weird that I remember these details? Is it boring because I'm telling you everything?”

“Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.”

“I'm not sure I agree with that, about memory. But I know what you mean,” I say.

“Keep going,” he says. “I'm listening.”

“It was another eight minutes, at least two watch checks, before Doug reappeared. He fell into the passenger seat with a big exhale. He'd changed into worn blue jeans with holes in the knees and a plaid shirt. The seats in his car were mottled with orange cat hair. There was cat hair everywhere.”

“Mottled.”

“Yes, mottled to the nth degree. He was also wearing a black baseball cap, tipped back on his head, with the word
Nucleus
embroidered on the front in white cursive lettering. He seemed better suited to sitting than standing or walking.

“He didn't say anything, so I started into the routine I'd been practicing with Dad. Slid the seat forward, adjusted the rearview mirror three times, and ensured the parking brake was released. I placed my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel and straightened my posture.

“ ‘I never like the rain,' Doug said. It was the first thing he said in the car. Nothing about instruction or how long I'd been practicing. I could tell how shy and almost nervous he was now that we were in the car together. His knee bobbed up and down. ‘Is there somewhere you want me to start?' I asked. ‘It's this rain,' he said, ‘sort of throws things off. I think we'll have to wait it out.' Through the use of hand signals alone, Doug directed me to pull into the first lot on our left. It was a coffee shop parking lot. He asked if I wanted anything, a coffee or tea, and I told him I was fine. For a while we just sat there without talking, listening to the rain on the car. The engine was still on to keep the windows from fogging up, and I had the wipers set to a low speed. ‘So how old are you?' he
asked. He thought maybe seventeen or eighteen. I told him sixteen.

“ ‘That's pretty old,' was what he said. His nails were like mini surfboards; long, narrow, dirty mini surfboards. His hands were those of an artist, a writer, not a driving instructor.”

“If you need to take a break from the story to swallow or blink or breathe, go ahead,” says Jake. “You're like Meryl Streep, fully committed to your role.”

“I'll breathe when I'm done,” I say. “He mentioned again that sixteen wasn't young, and that age was a strange, inaccurate umpire for maturity. Then he opened the glove box and took out a small book. ‘I want to read you something,' he said, ‘if you don't mind, since we're waiting and all.' He asked if I knew anything about Jung. I said, ‘Not really,' which wasn't entirely true.”

“Your driving instructor was a Jungian?”

“Just hold on. It took him a moment to find the place in the book. He cleared his throat and then read this line to me: ‘The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world's answer.' ”

“Do you have that memorized?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“He gave me the book. I kept it. I still have it somewhere. He was in a giving mood that day. He said experience wasn't just good for driving but for everything. ‘Experience trumps age,' he said.
‘We have to find ways to experience because that's how we learn, that's how we know.' ”

“Such a weird lesson.”

“I asked why he liked to teach driving. He said it wasn't his first choice for a job but that he had to do it for practical reasons. He said he'd grown to appreciate sitting in a car and talking to others. He said he liked puzzles. He said he liked driving and navigating with another person as a metaphor. He reminded me of the Cheshire Cat from
Alice in Wonderland
, except he was a shy version of the cat.”

“It's funny,” says Jake.

“What?”

“I was into Jung for a bit there, too. To really know ourselves we have to question ourselves. I always liked that idea. Anyway, sorry. Go on.”

“Right. As we were waiting, he reached into his pocket and fished out two strange-looking candies. ‘You keep that one,' he said, pointing to one of them. ‘Save it for another rainy day.' He took the other candy and twisted open the shiny paper. He snapped it between his fingers, breaking it in two. He handed me the larger piece.”

“Did you eat it?” asks Jake. “Wasn't it weird that this guy was offering you candy? And didn't it gross you out that he touched it?”

“I'm getting to all that. But yes, it was weird. And yes, I was grossed out. But I ate it.”

“Continue.”

“It didn't taste like anything. I moved the candy back and forth over my tongue, trying to decide if it was sweet at all. I couldn't tell if it was good or bad. He told me he got the candies from one of his students. He told me she'd been traveling somewhere in Asia, and that they were one of the most popular candies there. He said his student loved them but he didn't think they were anything special. He was chewing his candy, crunching it.

“Suddenly, I started to taste it. An unexpected tang, a tartness. It wasn't bad. I started to like it. He told me, ‘You still don't know the most interesting part.' He said, ‘All the wrappers on these candies print a few lines in English on the label. They've been directly translated, so they don't make much sense.' He took the wrapper back out of his pocket and unfolded it for me.

“I read aloud the words that were printed on the inside. I remember them word for word: ‘
You are the new man. How delicious cannot forget, special taste. Return the turn flavor.
'

“I reread those lines a few times, to myself, then once more aloud. He told me he unwrapped candies every now and then, not to eat, but just because he liked reading the verses, to think about them, trying to understand them. He said he wasn't a poetry man but these lines were as good as any poem he'd ever read. He said, ‘There are certain things in life, not very many, that are real, confirmed cures for rainy days, for loneliness. Puzzles are like that. We each have to solve our own.' I'll never forget him saying that.”

“It's memorable. I wouldn't forget it, either.”

“By this point, we'd been in the parking lot for more than twenty minutes, and we still hadn't done any real driving. He told
me that the student who'd given him the candies was unique, that she was hopeless behind the wheel, a terrible driver. He said it didn't matter what tips he gave or that he repeated all the pointers over and over, she just couldn't get it. He said he knew from the first lesson that she was never going to pass her driver's test, that she was the worst driver in the world. Giving her lessons was pointless and borderline dangerous.

“He went on to say that regardless, he really looked forward to those lessons, and that he would have long, long chats with this girl, full-on discussions. He'd tell her about some of the things he'd been reading, and she'd tell him the same. It was a back-and-forth. He said she would sometimes say things that blew him away.”

“Like what?” asks Jake. I can tell that although he's concentrating on driving, he is listening and alert. He's into the story, more than I thought he'd be.

My phone rings. I grab it from my purse, which is on the floor near my feet.

“Who's that?” asks Jake.

I see my own number displayed.

“Oh, it's just a friend. I don't need to answer.”

“Good. Keep going with the story.”

Why is he calling again? What does he want? “Right,” I say, putting my phone back in my bag and turning back to the story.

“Okay, so. One day, out of the blue, this student told her driving instructor she was ‘the best kisser in the world.' She just told him, like she thought he should know. She was so sure of it, and he said she was very convincing.”