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Bumper Sticker By: Brian Webber on 6/19/2007; 6:58 PM There were an unusual amount of billboards on either side of me as I drove down the highway. Many of them were so close together that only a few could be easily read from my minivan. I turned my head to crack a joke about bad advertising, only to see an empty seat. I'd forgotten that I didn't have a passenger for this trip. My only company now was the audiobook version of 1984. "Well, I'm sure you would've laughed," I said to myself. Then tears began to well up in my eyes. I was driving this minivan that now felt like a tomb out to Oregon for my little sister's wedding all alone. I sobbed, and I began to replay the incident in my head as if my memories had a mind of their own. In real life flashbacks aren't at all like those in movies. Things happen both much faster and slower than they happened at the time. Things like background noises and smells are lost to memory. Time occasionally skips and certain details are lost. I remember us pulling in to a truck stop to get something to eat while on a road trip to the French Quarter in New Orleans years ago, before Hurricane Katrina. I remember the guy in the ripped flannel shirt and trucker hat with a tattoo of a Confederate flag on one shoulder and a flaming motorcycle on the other. The walking talking stereotype was yelling at my wife for having an anti-war bumper sticker on our van, the one that read Who Would Jesus Bomb? in blood red letters on a black background. and her yelling back, "It's a free country, deal with it!" I remember him calling her vile names, using words I couldn't bring myself to repeat when the police took my statement.. I remember her just rolling her eyes and walking away, muttering "Dumb hick," under her breath. I remember the guy suddenly being there standing in front of her. I remember him saying, "Hey, you pay attention when I'm talking at ya. I own this place, and if y'all wanna eat here you're gonna have to git that anti-American garbage off yer ugly van." I remember saying to him, "Hey, it's a free country, and it's my car." I remember him shoving me, and her being extremely angry, and me going for my stun gun, and her pulling out her phone to dial 911, and him screaming something about "godless commie terrorist queers." I remember her kicking him in the shin. I remember me flipping the on switch on the stun gun. I remember being on the ground, my nose hurting, something warm and wet flowing down my face, and my wife lying on the ground, her neck clearly broken, her eyes wide open and staring at me, and a large group of men, all similarly dressed to the trucker, some pinning him to the ground, one kicking him, another yelling into his cell phone "Get me an ambulance down here yesterday!" The triggered memory played over and over again for what felt like forever. Finally, I managed to stop crying enough to restart the van and get back on the highway. I did feel better somewhat, crying did that for me. It still seems so senseless though, losing the woman I loved over a bumper sticker that wasn't even hers. I was the one who'd bought it. I was the one who ripped it off and threw it away afterwards because looking at it reminded me of what I'd lost. I was the one who'd failed to protect her, or even myself. I still have the scar on my nose. It took surgery to repair the damage. Every time I look in the mirror I see that scar, and then I see her pale face pressed into the tar of the truck stop parking lot. I shook my head, and tried to stop thinking about her. I tried to focus on the road. I looked for the exit sign that would take me to the hotel I was going to stay at for the night before the final leg of my trip. A car changed lanes in front of me. I could see it's bumper stickers from here. One of them read Who Would Jesus Bomb? in blood red letters on a black background. I began to cry again, and had to pull over to avoid crashing. It was the longest road trip of my life.
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