Chapter Text
15 Hours Driving Time Remain
“Are we really gonna drive all the way to Obama in this ancient thing?” Bart looked at the large orange and white U-Haul truck suspiciously as Max closed the hatch and locked it.
“It’s Alabama, and yes. We are.”
“But why?!” Bart asked under a flash of yellow and he was gone from Max’s side.
“Bart?” Max looked for Bart - one side of the truck and then the other and found nothing. “Bart?!”
“We can just run there in like less than a hundredth of a second!” Bart’s voice came from the top of the truck, he was holding a little red and white paper food tray piled with fried green tomatoes that he enthusiastically munched on - a souvenir from his rapid travel to their destination to make his point.
“Bart, get down. And don’t just… Jump,” Max sighed as he watched Bart take a fantastic leap from the top of the truck to the ground. The way he landed made his knees hurt. Somewhere between Bart’s leap to the ground and landing he had devoured all of the tomatoes leaving little crumbs on his chin. “Come on, I want to be on the road in five minutes.”
“But why Max? I’m serious! We can just take everything there ourselves and be done in less than a minute! Why do we gotta drive?!”
Max was starting to wonder that himself. “Because it’s how people move, Bart. And my job is to teach you how.”
Bart looked at Max, his thick eyebrows knitting together. “I already know how to move, Max.”
“That’s not what I meant, Bart,” Max said and there was an edge of a sigh to his voice. “I have to teach you how to control yourself, which also includes how to be normal in this time.” The old time-traveler hadn’t had many encounters with Bart and there was an undeniable part of him that doubted his decision to take him on as a ward.
Particularly when he barely had any control over him anyway.
Bart became a cyclone of hair as he whipped around Max and vibrated through the truck back and forth, each time he appeared he had a different item from within. “I have great control! See! Wally can’t even do- hey!” Max seized hold of the book Bart had removed and quickly put it back.
“Yes, you can use your powers, but your subtlety is as blatant as a grenade in a barrel full of oatmeal.” Bart glared at him petulantly, a stare-down for whoever was more stubborn. Then finally Bart blinked.
“Why would someone put a grenade in oatmeal?”
“Why would someone who has a secret identity casually use his speed in front of normal people?” Max bantered back just as a young college student ran by them. Bart and Max both watched him until he was on the far end of the block.
“He wasn’t even looking!” Bart argued. “I always make sure no one is looking!”
“Oh really?” Max said in hyperbole.
“Well, most of the time,” Bart finally admitted. “Why does it matter anyway? Everyone knows who Wally is!”
“And that’s the thing, Bart. Everyone knows who he is, and where he is at all times. Do you ever have moments when you just want to be alone, Bart? He can’t. ”
Bart’s hot eyes relaxed a little. The truth was he had been so terribly alone for most of his life, except for his dear friend Dox and the few scientists tasked with ‘observing’ him, he craved… everything. However, even then there were times when he desperately wanted the scientists’ voices to go away. “Fine. I’ll look twice before I use my powers.”
Well, it was a start.
“So Max, how long is it gonna take us to drive to Alabama in this thing?” Bart kicked the tire then looked at him.
“Fifteen hours.”
“How many hours?! ” Bart squawked
Max smiled but it was not in joy, it was wry resignation. This was going to be the longest fifteen hours of his life.
13.5 Hours Driving Time Remain
“Bart, you’re vibrating the entire truck,” Max said for the third time in the hour since they hit the interstate. The vibration stopped as Bart sat in the seat and groaned.
“This is so boring! Why do we gotta drive? Come on, Max. Let me run there and I’ll have everything unpacked and set up in the house and you can drive!” Bart pressed again. “Since you’re so obsessed with doing things the slow way!”
They had this debate five times already and Max was out of ways to tell Bart why they were driving. He took a slow breath and started again. Maybe Bart just needed persistent consistency for anything to stick. “This is your first lesson with me as your mentor, Bart. Doing things at normal speed. Not everything we do has to be done with our speed.”
“But this way is so boring! And cars are passing us! Can’t we go a little faster?!” Bart complained as he watched a teal station wagon zip by them.
“I’m going the speed limit. There are rules for normal people that we have to obey. I’m also supposed to teach you what they are.” Bart threw his head back dramatically against the brown seat.
“I already know the rules, Max!”
“Mmm,” the old man grunted. “I’m also supposed to make you care about them - but I suspect that might be a hopeless cause.”
“We break the rules just by suiting up, Max,” Bart justified to him. “So do we obey all the rules or not?!”
“Bart, that is different. There are some rules that we do operate within a gray area, and some we must follow. And yes, there are some that should be broken - like when your grandmother rescued you from that facility,” Max explained and Bart looked at him and for once he didn’t have an immediate quip but it looked like he was actually thinking about what he said.
“So, how do you decide which is which?” he finally asked.
“Well, that’s a little harder to explain. But with some hope, luck and maybe cosmic intervention you might be able to understand them one day.”
Bart scowled. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I like you just fine,” Max said and it was the truth, for now anyway. “Whatever gave you the idea I didn’t like you?”
Bart shrugged. “You sorta talk to me like you don’t like me. Wally does it too.”
“I don’t dislike you, Bart,” Max explained and he found that he had inadvertently gone over the speed limit and he reined back. “This is a new adjustment and it’s going to take mutual patience.”
“I’m trying but it’s so boring!” Bart flailed in his seat. “What did I do to deserve this?!”
Max privately wondered that himself. “Bart, just, look out the window. You might see something interesting. Count how many blue cars pass! Let me know if you see horses just, be still and quiet for an hour.”
“Fiiiine!” Bart sighed and then snapped his head to his window and began counting. “1, 2… no… that’s not blue. Does teal count as blue?”
“Quietly.”
Bart immediately complied as he counted to himself each blue-ish car he saw and secretly wished Max said to count the red ones. There were a lot more red ones. Or white. Or silver. God, there were so many silver cars. Oh! Another blue one.
Max briefly glanced at Bart, quiet, sitting still with his head turned towards the window and he finally felt tranquility between them. This could work. He smiled and looked back ahead at the road.
Then Bart felt it, then he heard it, and then finally he saw it.
It wasn’t a car, no, but it was the biggest brightest blue motorcycle Bart had ever seen, gilded with silver and six mufflers trailing back like fins as the rider sped by them in almost a complete horizontal position, rumbling with power. It looked more like something from his own time with all of its sleek edges and space behind the driver for at least two and despite its size it threaded through traffic with such ease like water through rocks, the sunlight glittering across it far in the distance.
It was utterly irresistible as Bart became instantaneously gripped by an instinctual pull and he rushed after it, because he knew he could.
One second he was there next to Max, and the next he was like a ghost - gone, incorporeal as he vibrated through the truck and zipped ahead after the motorcycle to perch on the spare seat, the driver completely ignorant to their new passenger as they wove through traffic.
“Ahh, now this is more like it!” Bart said but the rumbling of the machine drowned his voice out. He enjoyed the feeling of the wind in his hair and the world around him as they sped past the teal station wagon. Bart waved to the driver who did not wave back. It was still slow, too slow, but it was better than being stuck in the truck with Max.
Meanwhile the U-Haul truck was suspiciously quiet to the old man.
The realization that Bart was not in his seat hit Max approximately twenty-two seconds after he had already left. “Bart!?”
One thing that Max always presented of himself was that he was a calm, rational and logical individual, wise well beyond his years - it was something he could always retreat into just as surely as his own speed. But when he finally saw Bart riding on the back of the blue motorcycle he felt a cloying wave of panic that he had not felt since the 1940s.
The worst part was Max knew he had limited options and most of them made him feel like he was going to have an actual heart attack with at least 6 cars separating them and growing the longer he spent staring at Bart’s auburn hair whipping in the wind.
Max made a quick decision and swore before tearing into his speed and bolting after Bart. He was right next to him instantly in crackles of bright white. “Bart!”
“Gah!” Bart squawked.
“Get back in the truck! Now!”
“But Max!”
“Now Bart!” The way Max said it had enough threat and authority that Bart complied under a shimmer of yellow all the while the motorcyclist was oblivious to the exchange behind them.
The winnebago next to their U-haul however was not oblivious to the ghost riding truck going 75 miles an hour due East. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened that made the passengers think they might have lost their entire sanity, what really gave them a story they told for generations was when Max suddenly blipped into existence as if nothing unusual had ever happened and then waved at them when he noticed their open-mouthed staring.
Bart put his feet on the dash and crossed his arms over his chest. “I dunno what you were so mad about, I was totally safe!”
“The driver was not!” Max snapped. “What would you have done if the driver suddenly saw you and panicked then lost control of their vehicle?! You could have caused an accident!”
“But I didn’t and if that happened I’d just grab them and take them to safety! See? No big deal! I was in total control!”
Max merged onto the first exit he could in crackling silence and there was a small voice that told him to call Iris and tell her that ‘destiny be damned’ he was not the man for this undertaking. Max thought very hard over what his next move was going to be, what his next words were going to be and he fell into that level-headed plane he took comfort in.
Bart was in need of help. Bart was a very unique and special child with needs no one else on Earth could understand. Max was the only one with who shared the same powers, with the added uniqueness of having been also slingshot through time. He was the only one capable at this moment in time of undertaking him, lest he allow Iris and Wally to leave him with ‘Indian Mumbo-Jumbo Johnny’ and he was not going subject the kid to that.
It had to be him, no one else could, and he was not going to let Bartholomew Allen II beat him in a battle of patience.
Bart could sense the tension and he put his feet down from the dashboard and sat properly in the seat. He hated that static-sickly feeling in the air tinged with something that was related to hate and anger but wasn’t either. He had the distinct feeling it was all his fault it was there in the first place and there was something he had to do, perform, to get rid of it - but what? He wanted to bolt.
“Bart,” Max sighed, tapping the steering wheel as he formed his thoughts after thinking. “So that happened, no one was hurt, this time . We have powers and abilities that no one else does, but just because we can does not mean we should even if we have control. What you did was dangerous, Bart.”
“I’m not in trouble?” Bart asked and his voice was actually smaller than it ever had been in the entirety that Max knew him.
“No, not this time,” Max relented. “Don’t do that again. My heart can’t take it.”
Bart looked like he was really thinking about it, the static feeling in the air was almost gone and he was relieved. He never wanted to feel that feeling again. “Okay, I won’t. Promise.”
Max believed him somehow and it dispelled the final edges of anxiety that had gripped him. “Good.”
The truck was no longer on the interstate but cruising past dozens of fast food places, rest stops and gas stations; Bart felt his stomach grumble. “Hey, I’m really hungry, can we get something to eat?”
A fine idea. Max turned into the first place he could and was thankful they did not need to leave the truck.
Maybe speeding a little to Manchester wouldn’t hurt after all.
11 Hours Driving Time Remain
Bart tried to leave the truck while it was moving only once after that, the only reason why he didn’t was the millisecond he broke ambient speed Max’s hand was slapped on his shoulder halting his progress entirely. Bart understood then how a Vulcan Nerve Pinch could technically work and he never wanted to experience it again because it made him immediately tense and remember very clearly his promise.
“You gotta teach me how t’do that,” Bart grumbled as he rubbed the spot. “Wally said it was fiction and it didn’t actually work - it worked pretty sprocking good when you did it!”
Max had no idea what the hell he was talking about but didn’t let Bart know that. “Skill comes with time and patience.”
Making a face, Bart settled back against the seat and watched as they passed what he was going to rush out and look at - a giant teepee on the side of the road. He was really starting to hate that word; patience. He sighed and began vibrating - whoop! He couldn’t do that, and he stopped immediately.
By now Max could start to guess when Bart was at his limit which was phenomenally little and he flicked on the radio. “Here, we only have a hundred miles left and we’ll stop for dinner. Find a station you like on the radio and listen.”
The speakers crackled with static and the first music that came on was a slow but buoyant stringed classical station. Bart stared at the dial and the speakers but didn’t move or change it as the song continued.
Max looked at Bart staring at the console. “I know I told you not to touch anything in the truck, but you can change the station.”
“I don’t know what that means Max,” Bart finally admitted.
“Change the station?” asked Max.
“Yeah, I don’t know what a radio is.” The classical music continued as Max processed that then a little smile spread on his face. Of course Bart would struggle with some of their technology being from one thousand years in the future. He remembered experiencing a radio for the first time too and his own bewilderment at the voices from within after ripping into the 20th century from the 19th.
“It’s a device that plays only sound,” Max explained. “There are stations, like television stations, that play different things. This is classical. Mozart Symphony no. 40.” Max looked at Bart as he looked like he was really listening to the music. “Did they have this music in the 31st century?” Max asked, it was the first question he had asked Bart about his birth time and Bart looked surprised.
“Uh, I dunno. Maybe? If they did, I didn’t hear it.”
Oh.
“Do you like it?”
Bart listened a little longer, the sweeps of the low bass and rise of strings that stirred something in him and he nodded. “Yeah, it feels like running.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
They listened to the station for a while then the program changed and Bart turned the dial until a very fast song played on old electric guitars hit them and Bart stopped. “Woah! This really feels like running! What is this Max?”
“It’s Johnny B. Goode. An old classic,” he explained - the only reason why he knew the song was because of its popularity and not through any choice of his own.
Bart was enthralled with its fast pace and lyrics and the song stuck with him for a long time, even after the song ended and others followed he found himself humming it perfectly despite only hearing it once.
At least the radio kept Bart entertained and inside the truck, and maybe his music choice wouldn’t be so bad once he really started learning to live like a teenager.
Max tried not to think too far ahead and appreciated that Bart found something to be interested in that didn’t require their powers, and as he watched Bart look out the window vibing with the music he couldn’t help but see a normal happy teenager.
9.45 Hours Driving Time Remain
The delusion that Bart was normal shattered once the radio stopped being viable and the stations were no longer consistent. Then Bart’s attention began to wander again, and he began vibrating, squirming as he tried to remain inside the truck.
At one point, he completely stopped speaking English and went straight into a long rant in his birth language where he also enunciated with his hands passionately. Max didn’t need to know the language to know he was cussing out every person he had ever met in his life.
At the twenty minute mark was when Max decided he let Bart have enough. “English, Bart. In English!” Bart stopped his tirade in Interlac and snapped his head to petulantly glare at the old man.
“The United States doesn’t have an official language, I can speak whatever language I want!”
Well, Max didn’t expect that. “How do you know that?” Bart crossed his arms over his chest and bounced both legs.
“Hartley. He told me lots of stuff.”
Well that explained that little nugget of wisdom even Max couldn’t refute or discourage. At least Bart had been derailed from his ranting. “He’s right, but no one else speaks that language and what are you going to tell them if they ask you what you are speaking?”
“Whatever it is I just said, duh,” Bart quipped.
“No, Bart. What language are you going to tell them you are speaking?” Max clarified and Bart went from haughty to suddenly perplexed as he thought.
“I guess… uh… I guess I’d tell ‘em it was Interlac.” Bart saw Max’s face and he patted his legs rapidly, fidgeting. “No good, huh?”
“No good. You can’t let normal people know you are from the future.”
“Soooo,” Bart drawled as he pieced together what he felt was the correct answer, what the new rule was for the game he was playing. “I can’t speak Interlac in public?”
“You can’t speak Interlac in public,” Max confirmed.
“I wasn’t in the public though!” Bart defended suddenly.
“Your window is down, Bart. Anyone could have heard you as they drove past. It’s those little details you need to pay attention to.”
Bart blinked as he looked out the window. He wasn’t confident anyone could hear him over the velocity of the truck, the wind disturbance and the low roar of noise generated by the friction of the tires, but he was tired of arguing. “Okay, Max. Got it.” He filed it away as yet another rule for the game and he sighed.
Five hours on the road and so far they were both alive, not killing each other or on opposite ends of the Earth despite its bumpy start and Bart’s occasional loud complaints. Max took solace in that and he felt hopeful that this agreement would work.
It could work.
9.25 Hours Driving Time Remain
“Why is that person giving us a thumbs up?” Bart asked. They passed the hitchiker immediately after he finished the question but Bart couldn’t help but turn his head out of the window to look at them.
“They’re asking for a ride,” Max explained.
“Oh so they didn’t think we’re in the coolest truck ever?” The hitchiker was swallowed up in the shadowless twilight of the freeway and Bart pulled himself back into the truck. “Why don’t we stop and help them?”
“Because they’re not in imminent danger and this truck only holds two, Bart.” Max looked at the clock, it was almost 8pm and they had not stopped for dinner yet and he refused to take Bart to another fast food place. Under the glow of the truck’s light Max saw an exit with a charming diner logo under it and felt that fate had decided to be merciful to him.
“You know Impulse could just pick them up and carry them wherever they needed to go, it would only take like a minute,” Bart suggested. “That’s what we do, right?”
“It is what we do. But there are some times when you have to let others help themselves,” Max took the exit and Bart looked at him as if he was trying to solve a rubix cube in his mind.
“You’re making my head hurt again, Max.”
“Consider that a good sign. It means you’re giving your brain an exercise.”
Bart didn’t know what he did to deserve this but arguing never worked, at least not at the game level he was at now. Maybe if he just went through this scenario long enough he would finally have enough points to be able to say something that was in contradiction that would be taken seriously; such as he used his brain all the time and despite Wally’s claims he was in fact very smart. Stupid stupid stupid! The memory of Wally shaking him and yelling at him was intrusive, it made Bart frown but he waved it off, literally, like batting a fly away. At least his headache was gone now. “Where are we going?”
Max found the little ‘50s style diner and turned into its gravel parking lot slowly, the welcome sign rimmed in neon pink and aged yellow advertising ‘endless rootbeer floats’ and ‘best strawberry pie for 500 miles’. “We’re going to get dinner, and then we’re going to find a place to rest for the night.”
“You mean we’re not going to drive all night?” Bart said with some terror. If they stopped, it meant it would take longer for them to reach Alabama and he had been counting down the hours mentally until they were supposed to be there.
“Of course not!” Max parked and turned the truck off. “We should be in Manchester tomorrow afternoon. Until then,” Max looked at the welcome sign. “Dinner and strawberry pie.”
Bart grumbled something in interlac under his breath and got out of the truck.
“I could drive while you sleep, y’know. I’m not even tired!” Bart cut in during one of Max’s long yawns as he looked over the laminated menu. The waitress filled Max’s coffee mug and she smiled amusedly at Bart’s comment.
“You will not,” Max said and he gave him a firm look, the sort of look he gave him when he was doing something compromising and Bart looked around.
“What? I can learn how to drive pretty quick, it can’t be that hard! Come on, you’re old and tired and I’m-”
“Fourteen years old, sorry Bart. You have another two years before you can sit behind the wheel.” The killing strike to Bart’s suggestion was as swift as a samurai and he sighed as he looked at the pictures of the food on the menu.
“Hang in there kiddo, you’ll be sixteen in no time! The time will fly by faster than you know it!” chirped the waitress.
Bart did not believe her. “So far it’s been slower than mole-asses!”
“Be grateful for that too. What are you boys having tonight?”
“Something home cooked and not fried,” Max said as he pretended to read the menu carefully, he had already decided what he wanted when he read the thing five times while the waitress was pouring his coffee.
“Mm, we get everyone in for some of that hon. Everyone loves the pot roast or the turkey sandwich.” The waitress waited, pencil poised for their orders.
The pot roast was in fact what Max decided on earlier. “Then I’ll do that, with the baked potatoes and carrots.” Then he remembered the neon sign from the driveway and one of his greatest weaknesses revealed itself. “And a slice of strawberry pie.”
The waitress was delighted with his order and then she stared at Bart. “And what about you, pumpkin?”
Bart blinked at her, and he looked around himself looking for a pumpkin. Did she ask if he wanted to eat pumpkin? “Uh, no thanks. I’ve never eaten that before.” Both the waitress and Max looked at him like he started strobing different colors.
“He’s a little tired from the ride,” Max quickly covered.
“Bless his heeeeeaaaaaaaa—” the waitress suddenly drawled and then stalled as the diner deafened.
Bart looked around himself before he focused on Max. “Why are we speeding up Max, I thought you wanted to do all of this at ‘normal speed?’”
“Can you read, Bart?” asked Max, bluntly. He had a nagging suspicion after the first time they stopped for food that Bart could not read the menus but was ordering by the photos.
“Of course I can read!” Bart sipped at his soda, irritated.
“Oh? Then what are you going to order?”
Bart pointed at a picture of a bacon burger with fries on the menu. “That, it looks good.”
“Oh? What does it say below the photo?” Max challenged and he watched as Bart’s yellow eyes shifted to stare at him, then he rolled them.
“Okay, fine. I can’t read English. But I can read Interlac!” Bart defended. “It’s no big deal though, I can learn in like two seconds.” He wasn’t exaggerating, the waitress was fully suspended in motion next to their table oblivious to Max or Bart’s very private conversation and she would be until they stopped.
“So let’s learn now.” Max grabbed the waitress’s pad and pencil and began writing on a blank piece of paper the entire alphabet.
“You’re joking. Right now?”
“No, I’m not.” Max finished and he turned the paper to Bart. “It’s my job to teach you. Consider this another one of your first lessons, and most important.”
Bart looked very hard at him then the paper and then back at him as he took one long gulp of soda from a straw. “Hit me with it then, er. Not really though. It’s just a saying.”
For Max and Bart it had been just barely under an hour as Max taught Bart the alphabet from a tiny pad of paper. Max thought Bart would get frustrated somewhere between H and O but the boy was remarkably attentive… when he wanted to be.
Max remembered Wally mentioning that Bart seemed to either remember ‘nothing’ or ‘everything’ and he stressed each emphatically with some recollecting horror. It was during their impromptu lesson that Max came to the startlingly clear realization that Bart did in fact remember everything but not only that, he could recall it in perfect clarity. What Max thought would take several sessions was done and it only took a single sheet of paper from the waitress’s tiny pad.
He would have been lying if Max said he was not utterly amazed. “Well, then. Now, what will you order? And don’t look at the pictures.” He hoped Bart would retain everything he had just learned tomorrow.
Bart read the menu as Max put the pad of paper and pencil back in the waitress’s hand then tucked the little piece of paper he used into his pocket.
“-aaaaaaaart!” The waitress came back to life with the rest of the world, oblivious to what had transpired right in front of her.
Bart was ready for her. “The triple cheeseburger with onion rings and a strawberry shake.”
Well it might have been fried but at least it was something Bart had full control over ordering instead of relying on images. Breakfast would be healthier, Max promised himself.
Two things impressed Max the most that night; the first being how quickly and enthusiastically Bart had taken to reading and the second was that the strawberry pie really was the best strawberry pie he had in a very long time. It was so good that while Bart had been distracted with reading the back of the ketchup bottle he had ordered a whole pie to go.
The waitress could sniff out a pie addict from another dimension and she had one already wrapped in tin foil waiting for him complete with a personalized note; for the silver fox.
When she put the pie down on the table Bart immediately read the note. “What silver fox?” he asked as she turned and left. Max felt the bite of awkwardness at the flirtatious note and he quickly grabbed it and crumpled it.
“She must have been mistaken.”
“O-okay.” Bart didn’t fight it and he slurped the last bit of his milkshake, his eyes wandering the diner for anything with lettering on it. When the jukebox lit up in neon at the far end of the bar met his gaze, he stopped and stared. “Woah, Max. What is that?”
Max finished his coffee and turned to look at what Bart saw. “Oh, a jukebox,” he explained and Bart’s face was blank, the word meaning nothing to him. “It’s a music player, like the radio. But you can select the song. Here,” he said as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, finding a few stray quarters. They glittered in his hand as he held them out for Bart. “Go select some music, I need to make a phone call anyway.”
Bart held onto the quarters as he watched Max get up and leave to stand outside, phone pressed to his ear only a few moments later. Max was a man of complete mystery and Bart was curious who he was talking to; from what little he knew of Max he doubted he would tell him even if he asked.
The jukebox waited for Bart in all of its bright neon pink and yellow and blue lights and he walked, at normal speed, to meet it. Bart truly had no idea how to operate it but he had encountered enough puzzles in his virtual reality world to know everything had a solution. In no time at all he found the quarter slots and inserted them, marveling at the sound the jukebox made in response as the black lettered song selections lit up brightly. None of the titles meant anything to Bart as he read them except for one as he smiled.
Johnny Be Goode by Chuck Berry.
The song had been stuck in his head ever since he first heard it in the truck with Max. With curious fingers Bart pressed the song title and it made a soft plastic clicking noise as he watched the record inside lift and place itself in the center. Grinning, Bart noticed he had nine more selections to make.
Bart pushed the same button nine more infernal and damning times.
“Oh I love this song!” the waitress broadcasted bubbily as the music kicked on. “You got some good taste, kid!”
The whole diner was unaware that the next half hour was going to be cursed.
When Max jumped from the 19th to the 20th century and saw the night sky for the first time again he was certain that somehow, some way the stars had been destroyed.
The truth was somehow far more depressing.
Max stood outside of the diner waiting for Wally to answer the phone. As he waited he looked up at the night sky and mourned for the stars that were consumed by the metastasizing scattering of malignant city lights. Wally’s voice was quick to dispel Max’s melancholy.
“Hey Max, is everything okay with Bart?” Max could feel Wally’s anxiety through the phone.
“He’s fine.” Max even looked through the window and saw Bart sitting at their table, reading the back of the tabasco sauce as he rocked in beat to the music from the jukebox. It made him smile. “He’s doing good, actually.”
There was a longer than usual pause before Wally answered him. “Oh. That’s good then. Are you sure everything is fine?”
Inside the diner people were starting to question how long of a song Johnny Be Goode really was.
“Everything is fine, we just finished supper, and we’ll stop for the night at the next motel I see.”
“He has trouble sleeping,” Wally revealed. “Linda lost count of how many times she caught him wandering the house at night. You might be in for a long one yourself.”
“Mmm. I knew what I was getting into agreeing to take him on.” Max had actually said no three times because he knew exactly what the job would entail, and now that he was in the trenches he was stubborn to see it through.
“Well, let me know if you need to tap out, I know I’ve said it before but, I cannot thank you enough for what you are doing,” he said and there was sincerity in his voice. “I know I had my doubts about you, but heck, if you were able to keep him in the truck for that long without incident then you must have a way with him no one else does.”
Max was absolutely not going to correct him. “You know I will keep giving you updates during our trial run. I’ll call you tomorrow when we reach Alabama.”
“You never mentioned why Alabama. Granted some Southern culture will do the kid some good, but it wasn’t my first choice,” Wally admitted and Max easily slipped into an explanation that was not a lie, but not quite the full truth.
“I have history there and was feeling nostalgic. The smaller town of Manchester and slower pace will be good for Bart. Not much happens down there.” Max wasn’t sure why but he felt like he cast a curse by saying that.
“Kid is going to hate it, he probably hates all of us for doing this to him,” Wally explored with a sigh and there was some remorse in his voice; maybe he should have been more patient, more firm, more like Barry but he just couldn’t.
“Bart has a lot of feelings but I don’t think hate is one of them,” Max said. “One day you will have that conversation with him, for now though, he has a lot to learn.”
Wally had a couple serious conversations with Max about Bart before their agreement was solidified but he wasn’t entirely sold on him until that moment. “Yeah he does. I know he’s in good hands though. But I’m serious, call me if he gets to be too much for you.”
“I’ll keep the line open,” Max promised, eyes glancing back to Bart; he was reading the back of the little loose sugar packets. “Wally, I do have a question for you real quick.”
“Shoot.”
“Did you know Bart couldn’t read?”
There was a lengthy pause before Wally answered. “I honestly hadn’t noticed.”
“Ah.” Max’s response felt like Barry’s disappointment somehow. Before Wally could respond, Max continued. “Well, he knows how to now.”
“You’ve done a great service for his English teacher and us.”
Max really couldn’t refute that, and he hoped Bart would be ready enough for school when they arrived in Manchester. “Well, it’s time I better get back on the road. Goodnight Wally.”
“Tell Bart goodnight for me, talk to you tomorrow.” Max waited for Wally to hang up and when he did he felt like he somehow finished the first chore of a very long, long list.
The quiet of the open night air was interrupted by the diner door abruptly opening, the upbeat lyrics of Johnny Be Goode on its fifth run meeting him. “Sir, I have your check,” the waitress flatlined quickly, the pep from earlier utterly gone.
Max was oblivious to what Bart had started in the diner but when he walked in everyone looked like they had licked fiberglass and he got the distinct feeling that they had overstayed their welcome.
“Can we stop here for breakfast tomorrow?” Bart asked as he hopped into the truck. “They serve breakfast too, I really wanna know what cree-pees are!”
The upbeat tune of Johnny Be Goode could be heard very faintly outside and then it suddenly stopped in the middle when the waitress inside unplugged the Jukebox. Max imagined very vividly the immense relief inside as he closed the door. “You mean crepes, and I’ll think about it,” he lied. Max made up his mind instantaneously that he was never returning with Bart again.
“So where are we gonna go now? Just park somewhere and sleep?” Bart put his extremely large feet on the dashboard and Max started the engine.
“Feet down. I’m taking us to the first motel I see and we’re both getting some sleep,” hopefully , he thought, pulling the truck out the gravel driveway, Wally’s cautionary words in the back of his head.
“I’m not tired though,” Bart countered as he put his feet down with a loud CLOP. “Not even a little bit!”
Max was afraid of that. “We’ll see how you feel when we get to the motel.”
Once they were on the road again Max did not have to go very far before he saw a red lettered motel sign advertising vacancy. Before he committed to it however, he did briefly look it over to make sure it looked habitable. No confederate flags were flying and all the windows were intact and it was enough for Max as he turned and eased into the lot.
“This is a motel?” Bart looked at it, unimpressed.
“What did you expect?”
“Dunno, but not this.” Suddenly, Bart’s eyes lit up. “Oh hey! Can I sleep on the top of the truck? I bet no one will even see me up there!” Bart flickered as he began to fall into his speed so he could demonstrate. Max once again halted him with a firm hand snapping down on his shoulder.
“No.” The look on Max’s face told Bart that idea was going nowhere. “You will sleep in a bed and you will come with me to the room at normal speed.”
“Grife! Okay, sah-ry. I get it, I’ll walk!”
Max released him and felt the deep longing for bed. Even though most of the day had been spent sitting, he had spent that entire time hyper aware of precisely where Bart was and more importantly what he was doing. “Good. Come on, the sooner you sleep, the sooner we can be back on the road.” Max quickly unbuckled himself and opened the door, amused by the look of realization on Bart’s face as he followed quickly, but at a normal-enough speed.