Silencio

 

It took us the whole winter to plan the trip because Molly kept changing her mind so many times. She wasn’t sure how far north she wanted to go.

In the end, her dad helped to settle things for us. Tucson to Phoenix, then down Route 93, as far up north as Molly wanted, before we turned and drove home again.

He also gave us a bunch of his friends’ addresses on Route 93 whom we could count on for a hot meal and bed. Back in the day he’d made a lot of pals on the route and he’d kept in touch with every single one in true trucker style.

Mr. Beak, Molly’s Dad, warned us not to drive the nights. I figured he was worried Molly wouldn’t be able to take the strain of it, so we had to plan our trip meticulously to get to ‘safe-havens’ for the night.

Route 93 was Molly’s idea. She had read this December 1992 National Geographic magazine at her grandfather’s place in Montana, where the writer Michael Parfit had covered life on the highway. He had written so melodiously about it, it obviously got to Mols’ imagination.

She couldn’t believe that something as mundane as Route 93 in Phoenix, close to home in Tucson, could be made to sound so magical. She said she wanted to go.

She pestered Mr. Beak to take her. But the old man couldn’t face another drive down the route and her brothers weren’t willing to leave their families behind and hang out with her on the highway for weeks.

So I offered to go.  

That spring Molly and I got our driving licenses. It’s an understatement to say that we were excited. We were finally free. We could go places. Or so we thought.

We also had to prepare mentally to take the trip because Mr. Beak had warned us about the ‘el silencio’ of Route 93.

I laughed when I heard the phrase.

He gave me strange look. You’ll know when you get there, he seemed to say.

“What do you mean?” I asked jokingly.

It was going to be just us on the highway. No parents. No friends. Just us and the road. We had to get used to the long hours of driving in silence and seeing absolutely nobody for miles.

“You’ll hate it,” he muttered.

My dad allowed us to borrow his old truck and Molly and I were thrilled that we would be driving the same way both our dads had done before us. We were the next generation of truckers, carting things up north and then back home to Texas again.

We were packed and ready by Sunday, May the 1^st,2022.

I drove up the front drive of Molly’s house.

Her entire family was there to see her off. I shook hands with her older brothers and their wives. Her mother kissed me on the cheek, and Mr. Beak slapped my back. I was among good, old friends.

Molly took one look at me and grinned a half-smile.

Then she got in the front passenger side, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet up on the dashboard. Nobody told her she could do that. She just did. And I think she believed it would be all right with me.

Her dad took my hand. “Mark, I’m indebted,” he said, “If, at any time, you want to call the whole thing off, you ring me. We’ll drive over and meet you wherever.”

I smiled a reassuring smile that I hoped would convey to him that there would be no need for that at all.

“All right, sir,” I said, “We’ll be going now.”

The sun streamed in from the passenger side and Molly’s brown hair glistened blonde.

“Bye, Mom!” she cried with faint excitement, “Bye, Dad!”

“Bye, Mr. Beak,” I said, trying to make my voice sound more jovial, “Goodbye Paul! Bye Ryan! Goodbye ma’am.”  

As her family slowly faded out of view, I turned my eyes from the rearview mirror to the windscreen. The sun beat down on us, and I felt a nervous thrill flow through my body like electricity.

“Mols,” I asked, “want some music on?”

She shook her head and then put on her earphones.

We started the journey in absolute silence.

I could almost hear Mr. Beak telling me that it would take us 4 hours to get from Tucson to Phoenix. And, already, el silencio had descended.

*

Molly’s mom had given me strict warning not to let her remain quiet for long, so I made up my mind to get her to talk every fifteen minutes. We had only just begun. There was still a long way to go. Our first stop would be Phoenix.

I put my hands on the steering wheel with the lightness of a butterfly. The engine throbbed beneath my feet, and hummed a merry tune. I glanced across at Molly.

A wave of sadness washed over me. The poor…

I distracted myself quickly and focused on driving. But my thoughts kept running back to her with the surety of summer waves slapping an ocean shore. I could tell that Molly’s mind was roaring, roaring with doubts, questions, pain, and sheer disbelief. All she wanted was to be alone on the road, by herself, trying, like a cat to unravel the massive tangle of thoughts that were slowly taking her down.

Her mother was worried.

“No good comes from thinking,” she would say, “You have to get her to talk.”

But I didn’t want Molly to talk, if Molly didn’t want to talk. I wanted her to heal, on the inside, before she could tell the rest of us what had happened to her.

I stole another sideways glance at Molly. Her blue eyes were glistening, and I could tell it had begun. She was rummaging, sorting, picking, investigating…all on the verge of tears…

“Mols,” I said, “Excited about Nevada?”

She didn’t respond. I don’t think she even heard me.

“What about the Grand Canyon?”

There was a deathly pale look on her face, but she kept her face firmly fixed on the view outside.

“And Montana?”

I wondered if anything I was saying was even entering her head.  

In frustration I decided to talk out aloud.

“Sometimes life just happens Mols. Bad things happen, I don’t think we ever get answers. There isn’t cause and effect and consequence and…and…legitimacy…sometimes there are random things that happen. And it may have just happened to you. Now, now…”

I was afraid that my pep talk was going too far, that Mols might lash out, that the sky would open and it would pour down rain on us… I was afraid…

“Besides, you’re safe now…. Can’t you let things go?”

Then I hated myself for saying that out loud. I knew, I knew as Molly’s best friend, that you can’t let things go. You can’t just brush elephants under carpets and pretend that things are okay when they’re not. You can’t have a dead skunk in the house, and pretend there’s no stench. You can’t…. But that’s what we all wanted Molly to do. We wanted her to smile again, to laugh, to be our vivacious Molly, and not this half-alive version of our golden girl. Wasn’t that pure selfishness on our part? Weren’t we irresponsibly putting ourselves first?

“I’m sorry,” I said, and at that point I was sure I was just talking to myself, “That came out all wrong. You’ve got every right to be angry and upset, Molly. You’ve got every right….I’m sorry…”

But I couldn’t remain quiet. I couldn’t stay silent. I couldn’t shut up, I wanted to say something to her, something that would soothe the storm-tossed one, and feel like a ray of hope to her. I wanted to put all the broken pieces back together again and have her say to me on highway 93, “I’m healed now. Let’s grab a burger when we get to Phoenix.” I wanted to fix her from the inside, so she would never have to go through what she was feeling right now.

Why did I want all of that?

Because when you love someone, you can’t see them in pain. But you know, instinctively know, that unless they come to terms with their grief, you can’t either, and as long as they are grieving you will be grieving too… it’s a back-and-forth thing.

“It’s selfish of me, Molly,” I whispered, “I know you’re not the type to wallow. Nor are you the type to pretend, but it’s killing me just as much as it’s killing you. So at some point we have to talk about it because I’m dying as well! A part of me is dying as well….”

And then I loathed myself.

So, I shut up.

I told myself that Molly didn’t owe us answers.

She had to find them by herself first. She had to do this alone.

I could only watch from the sidelines, and be there for her when she wanted me to. I couldn’t… I couldn’t… I couldn’t rush in there like a protective mama bear and defend herself from all the hurt in the world. I couldn’t even though that’s what I wanted to do.

So, we drove in complete silence to Phoenix. I wiped my eyes. Molly didn’t budge from her spot.

I knew better than to poke a hornet’s nest. It was when we both settled down for lunch at a Phoenix diner that Molly suddenly turned to me and whispered, “You don’t even know the half of it, Mark.”

*

Back in Tucson, I knew Molly’s mom would be worried.

So, I called her from my cell.

“Hi Mrs. Beak,” I said when she picked up.

“Hi Mark,” she said and then, “How’s Molly? Is she cheerful?”

“She seems all right, ma’am. Didn’t talk much, but there was no crying either, so that’s some good news, isn’t it?”

“All right, honey, you make sure she takes her pills on time, and if she says she can hear anything, you report it to me.”

I agreed and disconnected the line.

Molly’s pills…and the voices…right, I could remember that.

I went back to the diner and back to our place.

“Mols,” I said, “Want to check out Phoenix or drive through?”

“Drive through.”

“Okay.”

“Are you okay Mark?” she asked, after removing the metal Coke straw from her mouth.

That’s when I want to tell Molly the whole truth, that I’m not okay, that I can’t be until I know she is, and that our lives will never be the same again. But I don’t have the courage to have the “talk”.

I don’t…

“I’m okay, your mom said to take the medicines timely…we’ll be staying with a Matt Rodgers in Wikieup…that’s as far as I’m driving today.”

Molly nodded.

“Thanks,” she said, “you’re a good friend.” 

I felt comforted when she said that, so I plucked up the courage to ask her, “Are you hearing the voices again, Molly?”

She wouldn’t answer.

“You need to tell me if you are,” I said firmly.

Then Molly gives me one of her sass-filled looks and laughed. It’s a full-throated laugh. It’s almost frightening.

“They don’t stop Mark,” she says.

And I know how much pain that answer must bring her. Because I don’t know what it feels like…I don’t want to know what it feels like…I don’t want Molly to live with such an unexplainable disease for the rest of her life.

I asked Molly’s psychologist the same questions that were pounding against my chest now. Why were the voices diabolical? If psychosis was a problem with the nerve transmission, why wasn’t Molly hearing sounds like “La-la-la” or “Badum badum badum” or “poink” or I don’t know…! Why was she hearing actually meaningful words, with an actual meaningful intention, with an actual meaningful agendum? That certainly beggared belief.

The psychologist did not have any answers. Yet he prescribed medication and said the psyche was still unexplored, like an iceberg, keeping most of its secrets hidden. I’m not very stupid nor am I very bright, but I do know what happens when the hardware fails…the software won’t function…but it won’t or shouldn’t function manipulatively, the way the voices in Molly’s head had functioned. Their chief goal, and this Molly had told us then, was to get her to kill herself.

*

We sat on a rock and stared out into the red canyon. The summer sun was setting behind us and we watched the shadows creep up.

“Mark,” whispered Molly.

“What is it?”

“I’m not afraid anymore.”

I turned to look at her. The ice-cream dripped from the waffle cone. What isn’t she afraid of?

“I’m not afraid.”

I didn’t probe her any further. I believed it was important to let Molly talk of her own accord, talk until she wanted answers from her interlocutor, until she asked for them.

“I don’t care if they keep messing with my head…I’m just going to let them. I can’t fight this, Mark. I just can’t.”