The Back Seat

This car looks like a hearse, I thought. We were parked on choenbar Road in front of a house, which looked a lot like a drug den. I kept my mouth shut at the risk of blowing it. I had cool points, because I had somehow was in the presence of a couple of older kids in Ketchikan. My friend ______ was driving. Out of boredom, he picked up a couple of other kids from random places. Carlanna Lake. Tongass Avenue. Now Schoenbar Road, a road that snaked through a part of town that sat closer to the foot of Deer Mountain. Staring at the house and processing where I was, I noticed that there were different types of people walking in and out of it. I had been new at this type of joyride, one that was unlike the routine back-and-forth that my father had followed during the work week. I relished in the type of freedom I had from him, because it meant that I was breaking away, even if it meant dirtying my hands a little. I sat in the back not making so much as a peep. That was until a familiar person had climbed shotgun, replacing the kid who was initially sitting in the passenger. It was a kid that I had squared up against during a basketball game during my first month of living in Alaska. I had feared him, because on the court he made sure to make me aware of the type of aggression he could unleash if I defended him. It was strange and intimate, to see him in that passenger seat with a pair of sweats that were now probably stuffed with illicit substances. Sooner or later, he looked back to where I was sitting and scoffed. As I squirmed in my seat, I realized how much I had wanted to desperately just go home. I looked through the window wondering when the car would start moving. I looked at the carpet. I looked at the broken in leather. I smelled the fumes of the gas creep up from the exhaust pipe. It was strange really, how that town had a way of making you face your fears. The car started and my friend drove away. Inside I panicked, having no idea where I was headed.