"YOU MARRIED?" asks Jake, the Uber driver. We are paused at a light downtown. The Prius hums, and chilly air seeps from the vent.
"Uh, no," I reply. "You mean ever?"
He barks a laugh into the rearview mirror. "No man, like right now." He turns down the rat-tat-tat of DJ Khaled on the radio. Jake is a stocky older dude, with a thick black beard nested around his chin.
"Not now, but once right out of high school."
"For real?"
"Yeah, for just a couple years, because of the kid. He's seven now."
"That's tough. Kenny, right? Okay if I call you Kenny?"
"Nah, that's cool."
"You ever see him?"
"Not much. His mom moved five hours away, to Indiana, so."
"Yeah right."
The light changes, and the Prius swings to the right. The business-people in the crosswalk look bleached by the heat, in the 90s for the sixth straight day. They move slowly, squinting against the sun.
"I been married 17 years. Three kids, two boys and a girl."
"Wow." I shift in the back seat, one of the aluminum crutches digging into my thigh.
Jake glances back at me. "You mind my asking what happened, Kenny?"
"Nah, just a stupid bike accident. I took a corner too fast, and the bike slide out from under me. Fractured my right hip."
"You're lucky your head's ok."
"I guess so. I'm going to St. Luke's now to see about a hip replacement."
"At your age?"
"Yeah I know. I'm gonna be bionic with all that titanium."
"Hah!"
I stretch out my forearm, scrawled with blue ink. "I'm gonna add a tat of that TV dude, the million-dollar man. Whasis name?"
"Six-million-dollar man. Steve Austin."
"Right, right." I look out at the blinding concrete of the expressway cutting through the city and pull my baseball cap down.
"Me and Rosie, my old lady," says Jake, "we fight every Sunday. It's depressing."
"What about?"
"Nothing, stupid stuff. Who forgot to take out the garbage or pick up some toys. It's my one day off, and all we do is yell at each other."
"I know what you mean."
"She says I don't see the kids enough, but I gotta drive like 12 hours a day so we can live. Sometimes I wanna keep driving Sunday too so we don't have to fight."
"You ever try to call a truce or something?"
"Nah, we're too mad."
"I heard this dude on the radio say that when your wife starts to pick a fight, you should ask if they want to dance."
"Dance? Whaaat?"
"It sounds crazy, but it's supposed to diffuse things, like ease the tension."
"I dunno."
"You should try it."
Jake raises his right arm up and pumps along to DJ Khaled, then stops with a cackle. "Hey Kenny, you wanna stop for a cold one? My house is right on the way. I'm dying. Won't take two minutes."
"I don't want to impose or anything."
"No worries. I'll run in, grab two cold Coronas and bring them out to the car. You're wounded, man. You can stay right here."
"Okay. But I gotta make my appointment."
"You will, bro, you will. Promise!"
Jake takes the next exit, and we head into a nice neighborhood. Leafy trees, cute houses with shutters, somewhere a dog barking. It feels cooler already.
The Prius stops at a white brick ranch. A kid's blue plastic pool sags in the front yard. Jake hops out and goes in. I ease back and move my crutches out of the way. I roll down the window for some fresh air. Everything is quiet, still. Just the cheeping of a bird or two. It's beautiful.
Through the front screen door, I hear voices start to argue back and forth. They're guttural, scratchy, so it's hard to tell who's who. After an eruption of screams, the screen door bangs open, and Jake bounds out to the curb, clutching two golden bottles.
He hands me one, and I take a swig. "Thanks man."
"Hey, would you talk to her? She won't listen to me."
"What's the matter?"
"Same old. I come in the door, and she's at me." He hands me a chunk of lime, and I force it down the neck with a plop.
Just then Rosie comes out onto the porch, a mass of red curls tumbling down her shoulders, an infant perched on one hip. "You go now, don't come back!" she screams.
Jake raises his arms imploringly to her. "Baby!"
"Don't baby me! We got enough babies."
Jake turns to me, eyes wide. "Try it," I tell him.
"Try what?"
"You know."
"You got time for beers with a total stranger," shouts Rosie, "you ain't got time for me?"
Jake turns around. "You wanna dance?"
"What the hell!"
"You wanna dance, Rosie?"
"You out of your mind? The heat fried your brain?"
He takes a few steps up the sidewalk. "No, it's just that I'm tired of fighting all the time."
I reach up and turn on the car radio. The rattling snare of a samba kicks in. Jake starts to sway back and forth, sashaying up the sidewalk, raising the Corona up high. "Carn-i-val!"
Rosie belts out a laugh. "You crazy."
He comes up the steps and clasps her hand. "Maybe I am, but let's dance anyway."
They grab each other's hips and start to take a few steps back and forth in sync, shoulders rotating, balancing the beer and the baby between them.
I raise my bottle in a toast. "To the god of stupid stuff." I take a chug and the fizz hits the back of my throat. Overhead, the tops of the trees dissolve in the midday glare.
— GARY DUEHR
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