U-Haul 

Paul Hostovsky 

I was glad to. After all,

it would be just him and me in the cab

together for eight whole hours,

talking. He’d been away at college

for four whole years, text-messaging

every now and then, and now

I expected some full sentences.

That was the deal. In return

we’d use my credit card and I would drive

him and all his worldly possessions

home. Somewhere around Delaware

the mirror on the passenger side

starting turning inward against the wind

and I couldn’t see, and it wouldn’t

stay when we opened the window

and readjusted it. I told him

to take off his shoes and give me his laces,

and I’d pull over and tie the mirror

to the antenna to keep it from drifting.

He asked me why his shoes and not

my shoes? It was a good question,

the kind of question you might debate

in a sociology class in college

if you were still in college. But we were

speeding down I-95 in a U-Haul

with one functioning mirror, a resourceful

father at the wheel, a credit card

in his pocket, his thumbs keeping time

to an old-fashioned song in his head

that only he could hear, and a son

drowning out that song now, turning

the radio on. Loud. Louder. Silently

bending down to untie his shoes.