My dad’s passed, my dad says. He’s driving to cremate and bury him. He tears one minute further from me. Two. His phone clatters on the dashboard. Horns and curses. He says BEEP fuck, if I could BEEP sign up to die just like my dad, I BEEP would right now, still sharp past 90 then one clean heartstop that holds up no one for years with soft food and medicine and sadness.

To hear my dad drive is to hear violence, but he drives in perfect peace. Light as he breathes, he glides between four choked lanes pushing 90. He hasn’t been stopped once. He says that’s not violence, speeding through everybody’s gridlocked rage. Violence is crawling up a one-lane hairpin turn, or waving everybody past a four-way stop when the right of way is yours. I’ve been my dad’s passenger but not today. He passes a world suspended in its trouble with so little time, three minutes further.

My dad’s driving to burn and hide his dad. Fire, then to be less than what can stop, then to rest, forever and for once, light as breath below the world with my dad gliding over it.

This cocksucker ahead, my dad says. This old man in an old white car. This solid white smoke flooding out his tailpipe. It pours across my dad’s windshield like cream. He says that BEEP bastard’s BEEP going BEEP to BEEP catch BEEP on BEEP fire BEEP any BEEP goddamn BEEP second if he doesn’t stop. My dad speeds up and rolls down his window. He says Hello? Hello? Pull over, asshole! Pull over right now! Please! You’re catching on fire, shithead! Stop! Hell! He’s just waving me on!

My dad passes him, still going on about fire.