Story: Certifiable

Joshua leaned against the hood of the camouflage-colored Jeep Wrangler. “I don’t know if I should get in the car,” he said, turning to Alex, his fingernails tapping in metallic consideration. Looking at Alex, he shrugged, a sly smile on his face.

Alex folded his hands across his chest. Joshua mock surrendered. His raised arms twisted into a grotesque dance as he swayed his way to the passenger’s side.

Alex snorted and took the four cans of Heineken off the hood of his car. When he got into the driver’s seat, he dumped the cans in the backseat, where they crinkled introductions to the other cans already there. Joshua made a face, and palmed his ears.

Alex ignored him, and shoved the key into the ignition slot. After he revved the engine twice, he leaned over Joshua to pull at Joshua’s seatbelt. Joshua didn’t move an inch, and Alex could feel his friend breathing on his neck.

“Sorry,” Joshua said, when the seatbelt cinch was secured.

“No problem,” Alex replied. He pulled the shift stick into gear, kept both eyes on the rearview mirror, and slowly reversed the car out of the garage.

The tarmac before them was flooded in yellow fluorescent light, but beyond that the road shivered in an orange glow latticed by shadows. As they glided down the highway, Joshua leaned into the dashboard, twisting his head this way and that to look at the stars. Alex jabbed at the radio buttons every few minutes.

It was a long time before Joshua laid a hand on Alex’s fingers. By then they were already on Medway Drive. “Great song,” Joshua said, taking Alex’s fingers off the buttons and wrapping them around the steering wheel.

“Whatever,” Alex said. Joshua was already drumming on the dashboard with both his index fingers. For the next two and a half minutes Frank Sinatra crackled New York, New York to Joshua’s beat.

When they finally pulled up outside Joshua’s house, Alex switched the engine off. “It’s good,” Joshua insisted, as he fumbled with the seatbelt. Alex watched him go on for another minute, and then released the cinch for him. Joshua rolled his bloodshot eyes and muttered something.

And then they sat there, neither one of them moving, for a few moments. And then Joshua got out of the car, and then he slammed the door closed. One hand ready to push his car door open, Alex watched Joshua stumble up the tiled path.

After the front door closed behind Joshua, Alex pulled closed his own car door. Then he turned around and counted the beer cans in the backseat. Six cans of Heineken, four cans of Tiger, and eight cans of Bud. He shrugged, and was about to turn back when two red cylinders glinted in the light of a passing car.

Alex reached into the backseat and took the two cylinders. When he settled back in his seat he tossed his into the passenger seat, and twisted the cap off Joshua’s.

The graduation certificate was curled up, and he had to smooth it across his lap several times before it would stay somewhat flat.

Rooting in the glove compartment, he found the red marker pen. Then he scribbled diagonally across the certificate, “Stay jack-assy in New York.” Then, in smaller letters, his e-mail address underneath. He rolled the certificate and slid it into the cylinder again. He screwed the cap back. Then he switched on the engine again.

He leaned and rolled down the window on the passenger’s side. “Josh!” he shouted. After a few moments, the front door swung, he pitched the cylinder at it, and then he slid back into his seat and floored the accelerator.

In the rearview mirror, the red cylinder gleamed in the moonlight as Joshua picked it up.