Groaned in Protest

It was when Phlegmachius shrieked a battle cry and charged at the throng of goblins that the gesticulating started in the corner of my vision. I turned from the side window to the seat in front of me. Ah yes, father: left hand on the steering wheel, right hand gesturing near his own ear, face leering at me through the rearview mirror. He turned sideways and emphatically mouthed something.

Slowly, coolly—the only way to survive in a world so inhumane to teenagers—I pressed pause on my audiobook. Phlegmachius, bravely wielding his whetted battle axes, would have to wait.

“YESSS?” I hissed and removed my headphones.

Father seemed satisfied and turned his attention to my fellow back-seater. The absurd and gratuitous scene was then played for my brother, with some creative variation. Repeatedly whipping his head from the road to Brian and back to the road, father resembled an irritating bird.

Brian yanked his headphones down. “What?!”

“Oh I’m soooorry!” Father began the throes of his one-man act, titled The Cruelty of Teenagers.

“I’m sooo sorry!” He wailed plaintively. “Far be it from me to want to converse with my kids on a road trip! But no-no-no, it’s aaaalright! You probably have something very important to listen to… Michael, what did I so sadistically interrupt for you?”

“Mages of Muckwood,” I whispered, avoiding his eyes as they bulged with sarcastic concern.

“And what about Brian?” His probing gaze shifted away from me in the mirror.

“A book,” snapped Brian.

“Books, books, books,” said father, voice drumming with condescension. “So…” and he grew pensive, “do you guys like stories? Lit-er-ature?” There was something disagreeable in his tone. We felt the warning and did not say a word, glowering out at the falling rain and the moving road. Alas, this could not halt the inexorable.

“So you like good writing? Well… try this one on for size: The wipers groaned in protest… as he drove through furious rain.”

We were mute, not saying a word… not an utterance… not a sound… We knew that to disapprove or change the subject would incur both barrels of father’s creative genius. The best option was to show no emotion and maybe—

“The brakes groaned in protest… as he managed to bilk an accident.”

Father sounded even more proud of this second line. Venturing a sideways glance, I saw his eyes glaze over in admiration as he dug around for his next gem. It did not take long to find it.

“The engine groaned in protest… as he exacted a precipitous climb from his automobile.”

I wondered how many more brilliant lines we would be subjected to. Was there a way out of the predicament that did not involve unfastening my seat belt and rolling out the door of a speeding car? How to break father out of his weird seance…

“The wife… and the kids… groaned in protest,” said our mother, employing a skillful economy of words.

Brian and I chortled and roared with delight. Father kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead but did not say anything. His wellspring of zingers had suddenly dried up.

We drove onward and finally pierced the raindrop veil, emerging and coasting through the golden shafts of a stooping sun. Green hills and clusters of boulders, cleansed deep-red in the wake of summer showers, lay before us. The world flashed and glowed as car tires embraced damp pavement, humming along… in pleasure.