Stuck in Lodi, Again

Don turned the windshield wipers down a notch and then back up on high, as he always did in a hard rain.

            “Why can’t windshield wipers go faster?” Don asked.

            “Why can’t you drive slower?” Mary said.

            The rain came down in torrents. Cars had on flashers and a number of them were stopped in the Garden State Parkway emergency lane to let the storm pass.

            “It’s a contest with you, isn’t it?” she asked. “Driving fast in the rain is a chance for you to pay the universe back for you screwing up your life. You need help buster. Jesus God, see, you almost hit that concrete barrier.”

            He leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel hard.

            “Where are we even going? If we’re going to get groceries, we could have gone to the Pathmark in Lodi. Then we would not have had to risk our lives in this crazy-ass rain.”

            “I wanted to do something different one Saturday morning, ok? Is that so bad? I didn’t know it would be raining like this. I was hoping to drive a little and see a wee bit of the world outside Bergen County.”

            He thought of telling her the thought had occurred to him as he drove home from work on Friday evening and the song on the radio was: “Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again", but that would only make her start in to another theory as to why he was insane. Anyways, it was not true. He had not heard that song for years. He hated the song, actually.

            She slammed her hand on the dashboard.

            “I can see the headlines now, couple killed in car wreck driving over into Essex County because they were tired of Bergen County,” she yelled over the noise of the rain on the top of the car.

            “The only one of us who is going to die is me and that won’t be from my driving, it will be from your mouth,” he yelled back.

            They passed the sign welcoming them to Essex County, NJ.

            “Okay, now you satisfied?” Mary asked. “We are out of Bergen County.”

            “Yes, I do feel a little better,” he said.

            The rain had let up as they made their way into East Orange.

            “You want to go to Seabra?”

            “That’s in Newark, asshole,” she said. “Anyways, what do you want at Seabra? Are you suddenly going to be come an international chef?”

            “No, I thought it might be fun to walk through and see what they have,” he said.

            “Fun, wow, yeah, I can’t imagine anything more fun than walking through a grocery store in Newark on a rainy Saturday morning,” she said.

            “Ok, damnit, what’s your version of fun in New Jersey on a rainy Saturday morning,” he yelled.

            “I have no idea,” she said, “No earthly idea.”

            He drove out of East Orange into Newark and pulled into the Seabra parking lot. 

         He saw no sign of a silver Nissan Sentra.