The Authority of Middle Age

 Amber Alerts, on I-83 heading north ─ an orange-dotted description of a Pontiac or a Sonoma with a license plate and a firm, instructional punctuation; Call 911. A child with a car, a teenager making a break for it with their elf bars and puff bars and penjamins and vuses and maybe a stolen Home Depot gidget burned through the top of a plastic water bottle lid and filled with trim, loosely donned on the half-filled, year-old water bottle in the console cup holder, to be lit and pulled and sucked on. Or maybe a child with less agency, in the trunk of a man's car, no ideas for escape, having been born too late to see The Call starring Halle Berry. Yes, more likely a child with less agency, strapped safely in the booster seat in the back left being driven somewhere, who knows where, Six Flags, by a guardian who was maybe too mentally ill or too oft drunk to be awarded custody in a sordid divorce. She just wants to take him to Six Flags, to be the mother she wants to be, without the judges or the patrol officers or her husband watching her every move. Ex-Husband. She grew him, she birthed him, he is hers. Silver Alerts, on 83 heading south ─ the same baseball scoreboard-style banner with its precise vehicle description and firm punctuation; Call 911. A man who was thought to be gone, mentally, misremembering the story he has told 1000 times about how he got the authentic “Indian” buffalo hide vest hanging in his study, or how he met his first wife and stole her away from her Varsity-Lettered boyfriend, trying to tell it again and again until he just sputters, until he's just silent, until they take his driver's license, until he's deep in a dream with his neck unsupported in his favorite armchair. Dreaming of his first wife, who could just never be pleased, who wanted a clean house and clean, smooth skin, and to put on lotion and a matching pajama set, whom he loved until he didn’t anymore, until he left.
“What’s wrong? Why are you upset?”
“The house is in horrible disarray, I want to be clean!”
“But dear, who cares? It will get clean eventually.”
Unsupported neck in his favorite armchair, dreaming of forcing her hands at her sides, so she doesn’t hurt herself again for God knows why, dreaming of driving away. He wakes up and goes to find his keys, his body remembers they are where they have always been and he goes for a drive. Nobody thought he could, or they didn’t think that he would. “C A L L 9 1 1” broadcasted to those in the county and maybe the surrounding counties, in case you see a man driving, unsupported neck, in a white Ford pick-up 9CF4324. Someone escaped, someone too young or too old escaped. They have no one to Care. Call 911. When you’re young you want to drink and smoke and party and fuck... you want to escape the company of the middle aged and do as you please. And then you have to learn how to care. The middle age gets old... you have to care. And you have to care for the young. And then you want to escape again. Young women escape their mothers to drink and smoke and party and fuck, and they keep from getting pregnant until they can’t keep from getting pregnant any longer. So they stop drinking and smoking, and maybe fucking, until they have a baby, and then they definitely stop fucking. And then they want to be clean. They want to have a clean house and a clean, smooth body; and they want to wear matching shirts and pants to sleep. But they won’t be clean and smooth anymore, because now they have a baby and now their body is getting very old very quickly. And everything’s dirty. And when they can clean the house and wear matching pajamas, that’s the only thing that matters anymore. But nobody understands. They’re hated by the men that love them and even by women, the women who are still drinking and smoking and fucking a lot, anyways. They won’t remember that they want to drink and smoke and fuck until their daughters start doing it. But the dissatisfaction will be there, and when the house is clean and they are in their matching pajamas and they still feel the void, when her first husband has to fight the vodka or the cigarette or the razor blade out of her hand again, she’ll go back to Caring until she is old, too. And then they’ll remember that they want to drink and smoke and fuck, and they’ll try, but they’re old. They get chlamydia in the retirement home. The nurse named Shadyea or Ashley won’t let them smoke, but she won’t let them leave, either. And her daughter will visit with her daughter, sometimes, and her daughter’s daughter will roll her eyes. And you know she doesn’t want to be here, she wants to escape and drink and smoke and fuck just like you do, just like your daughter does, but doesn’t know that she does, and won’t know until her daughter does, and until it’s too late. And you can’t do anything. Maybe you can’t even say anything. You wish you had vodka or cigarettes or a razor blade. So they’ll display descriptions of cars in a sea of cars, and I’ll take a brief look around while I’m going 83 North, or 83 South, because I care.