Radio Static
“Can I change the radio?” I asked.
“You don’t like static?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You always drive around with the radio on static?”
Yes,” he said.
“Can I change it to music?” I asked.
“I don’t like music,” he said. “Or listening to people on the radio talk.”
“Can I turn it off then?”
“Then you’ll have to talk,” he said. “I can’t stand the silence.”
I knew anything I said would be no better or different to him or to me than the radio’s static.
“How about you talk,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “But I don’t like it. It’s just the same stuff.”
I turned off the static.
“Go head,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “I get up every day and have two cups of coffee.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I love my coffee.”
“Okay,” I said.
A quarter mile of silence followed.
“This is why I keep the radio on,” he said.
“Go ahead. Tell me more,” I said.
“I already told you,” he said.
“There’s no more? Surely, there’s got to be more.”
He took a deep breath. He clutched the wheel. He thought hard.
“I’ve been drinking coffee for years,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
Much more silence followed, except for the road noise.
“What?” he finally asked.
“That’s not much,” I said.
He breathed deep again. He thought really, really hard.
“I take it with cream and sugar,” he said. “Always.”
“Okay,” I said.
He drove a while longer, in more and more silence.
“Can’t we turn the radio back on?” he asked. “Please.”
“Sure. I get it,” I said, pressing the button for more static and waiting anxiously for the end of our ride to come.
mrobins71 