Read Online The Speed Queen by Stewart O’Nan - Free Book Online

reached forty-five in second and blew through the yield sign. Third pressed me into the seat. I laughed and recovered and slammed it into fourth. In the mirror, traffic was dropping back. I was hunched over the wheel, gritting my teeth from the speed.
    "How's it feel?" Lamont asked.
    "Fast," I said.
    "Go ahead, take her up."
    I checked the tach and punched it. It was my first time over a hundred. It was like a video game; you had to move over so you didn't run up the backs of the other cars. The wheel shook in my hands; a drop of sweat rolled down my ribs. If we lost a tire, we'd fly across the median and mow down the wedge of oncoming cars like bowling pins. I started giggling.
    "Yeah," Lamont said. "That's how it feels."
    He reached over and felt me up, and I thought I'd lose it.

    "You cold?" he said. "Just happy," I said. That's when we passed the trooper.
    One Saturday, my dad drove us out Route 66 to Depew. He put a jacket and tie on, and my mom gave him a hard time. He had a pillow to sit on so he could see over the wheel. He pointed things out like we couldn't see them ourselves. There was nothing to see really, just the old house and a few barbecue places on the way — Bob's, the Pioneer, the Rock Cafe. Between them were miles of barbed wire, a few head of cattle, dry creek beds, red dust. On the fence posts hung old tires with NO HUNTING or WILLIAMS FOR SENATE painted on them in white. Behind the weedy tourist courts, the stripper wells nodded like they were tired. It was dumb, but my dad had grown up there. We stopped for a barbecue sandwich about every hour. My dad was loving it. He had his sunglasses on and his elbow out the window, his finger drumming the steering wheel.

    Now you go through Saint Looey,
    Joplin, Missouri,
    Oklahoma City is oh so pretty.
    You'll see Amarillo,
    Gallup, New Mexico,
    Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona,
    Kingman, Barjtow, San Bernardino.

    "Is this fun or what?" he said, and my mom looked up from her book like he'd said something. She'd grown up there too but didn't seem to care.
    I sat in back, waiting for the next stop. At every new place I got another cherry Coke, and by the time we reached Depew, my teeth were gritty and I wanted out of the ear. My dad teemed to be driving slow on purpose. My thoughts kept knocking into each other.
    "Quit kicking the back of my seat!" my mom said. "And stop bouncing!"
    "She's just having fun," my dad said, and started bouncing on his pillow.
    My mom used the Lord's name. "Help me," she said. "I'm surrounded by lunatics."
    My dad slowed and pulled into our old drive. There was a car there, an ugly old Nomad with Texas plates. Beside the chicken house leaned our old furnace. My father stopped and we all got out. I'm sure there was some wind. My hair was long then and always got in my mouth. Jody-Jo's house was still there, and his chain around the tree, but the glider was gone. There were two bikes on the porch with banana seats and tasseled handgrips.
    My dad went up the steps ahead of us and rang the bell, and a minute later a lady came to the door. She was older than my mom, and shorter. In one hand she had a wet paintbrush. She looked at us like we were lost.
    "Hello," my father said, and while he was explaining everything, a man in an OSU sweatshirt came to the door. He opened the screen to shake my fathers hand.
    "Terry Close," he said, and everyone said hello.
    "And this is our Marjorie," my father said.
    When Mrs. Close shook my hand, the paint left a white streak on my palm.
    They had two girls about my age, I forget their names. They said hi and disappeared up the stairs.
    Now there's something you could do —like in The Dead Zone or The Drawing of the Three. I could touch Mrs. Close's hand and see her in the trash bag. Would that be neat? Or Natalie in the living room, or the fire.

    At the time, all I saw was their furniture covered with drop cloths and the bare bulbs of the lamps. The fresh paint made me sneeze.
    Mr. Close was