The Rear-View Mirror

The Rear-View Mirror 

By Damon Decker

I turn up the heater in my electric Mercedes. The engine is so silent you could drive this thing through a library. Everything around me is layered in snow. Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs twinkle in every window. Colorful lights hang on every street lamp. The road is crunchy with salt, and thick hedges of snow line every sidewalk. My GPS tells me I have arrived. Under the murky glow of a street lamp, outside of a bar that had just closed, I see my quarry waiting patiently on the sidewalk. The girl caught my gaze like a majestic painting to an artist. She wore a leather jacket, white T-shirt and dark washed, painted on jeans. I roll down my window upon stopping at the curb. “Justina?”

“That’s me,” the woman confirms. I haven’t met someone with that name in a very long time. 

The girl climbs into my backseat with a big purse and shuts the door. I gaze at her through my rear-view mirror. Brunette hair that fell to her shoulders, dark brown coffee eyes, and a prominent nose. Once she is inside, I roll back onto the road following the blue line on my phone. The ride wasn’t going to be long, but I decide to start some polite conversation. “So where are you going, Justina? Something tells me you’re not going to the bus station for the sandwiches in the vending machines.” My quarry giggled. How she responded did not come to me because it was drowned out by my immediate thoughts of, “Wow, where did that voice come from??” She sounds like she’s from the bayou of Louisiana. I look into my rear-view mirror to see if I can somehow match the voice with her face. My eyes narrow. Was she always blonde? Did the dim street lamp make her hair look darker? No, her eyes are a different color, too. They have gone from coffee brown to ocean blue. Her nose is now narrower, her chin sharpened to a point that could break through glass. This is a completely different girl. Now she is in a cocktail dress? But as my eyes take in more of her, my heart does a backflip in my chest because now she looks way too familiar. How did I not recognize her when I picked her up? She isn’t supposed to be here. She shouldn’t be here. I keep my eyes on the road, hoping that this is just my hyperactive imagination. To be safe, I pulled my hood over my head.

“How long have you been a driver,” the woman asks. My heart does another backflip in my chest when I realize the girl’s voice has changed again. Now she sounded as if English was not even her first language. Despite my resistance, I look into the rearview mirror again and see a millennial Japanese woman, who also resembles someone I once knew, in a blue pantsuit sitting in my backseat. A black briefcase sits next to her. Her jet black hair is tied in a pony tail. Her cheekbones are very narrow. Her green eyes are now the shape of almonds. “About 10 years now,” I say, returning my eyes to the road. My momentary loss of focus comes at the cost of driving right through a red light, multiple cars slamming on their brakes as I speed through.

“Jesus Christ, asshole. Pay more attention, can’ya?” said the scolding voice of a black woman from the backseat. Another glance into the mirror and I see a girl with milk chocolate skin and a bob cut wearing a sports bra and leggings speaking with the mouth of a truck driver. A ratty gym bag sits next to her. This girl isn’t supposed to be here either. “Sorry,” I said. 

After a silent minute or so, she seizes on my need to distract from my racing thoughts. “What do you do for work besides ride sharing?” said a Spanish voice. In my rearview I now see a Latin woman with short, black hair with a neon green stripe through it. She sports an orange tube top underneath a jean jacket and jean shorts.

“Flooring Contractor,” I responded. “What do you do?”

“I work at my father’s auto body shop.” Somehow, I already knew that which throws gasoline on the fire of my ever growing trepidation. I close my eyes, almost certain this is some kind of twisted dream. 

The voice of the same Hispanic girl speaks in my ears, “Wait, don’t I know you? Have we met before?”

I shook my head, “No, I get that a lot. People think I look like a movie star.”

“No, no, I know you,” she insisted, seemingly terrified, “Where did you say you were from?”

“I just moved here so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“But you said you’ve been an Uber driver here for 10 years.”

I start to shout, “Look, I have never seen you before in my life! Just leave me…” Out of frustration, I shoot another glance into the mirror but what I see now is pure horror. I see the same girl, but her face is now plastered with bruises. She has two bloodshot black eyes, her cheeks a dark red, and her nose is broken. I gasp. Looking back at the road I realize I have drifted into the wrong lane and I am staring straight into the headlights of a semi-truck that wails on its horn. I swerve back into the right lane, coming mere inches from colliding with the truck’s grill. I speed through a stop sign, the destination now a minute away. This is all a dream, I tell myself. This is all just a twisted, sick dream. These girls are not here. They are not here. They are all in the past. That was the moment the girl started screaming uncontrollably. I keep my eyes shut, refusing to look into the mirror. I can’t see where I’m going but I don’t care. The girl keeps screaming and screaming, spitting words I can’t understand. What terrifies me most is that her screams sound so familiar. I’ve heard these screams before. It was like listening to an old tape recording. 

I wonder now if I should take her to the hospital. I wonder if I should jump out of the car and run for it. I wonder if I should just drive the car right off the road. The girl’s screaming continues, echoing through the car like bad, claustrophobic opera. My ears burn red hot as tears stream from my eyes. “Make it stop!” I beg, “Make it stop! Please! You’re not here!” 

But in the blink of an eye her screams stop, cut off by the soft and polite voice of a white woman, “You can stop here,” I slam on my brakes way harder than I mean to. The tires scream in protest as I stop next to the sidewalk right outside the bus station. “Get out now,” I said, more of a demand than a request. My heart races.

I shift my eyes to the rear-view mirror one last time and this time I make direct, unbroken eye contact with my quarry, now a co-ed girl with curly red, almost brown hair, a rounded chin, her amber eyes holding so much fury that if a bird flew in front of them, it would burst into flames. This girl I recognize. Her name is Justina Harding…my college roommate. You never forget your first. “This is for all of us!” she shouts with as much fire in her voice as the fire that follows from the muzzle of the revolver she pulls out of her pink backpack, points at the back of my head…and fires.