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I once faced fear.
I looked it dead in its eyes, and it wet itself.

Not really. I, just like any other human-being, often harbor fear. For example, I shudder every time I hear the words "Obama" and "re-election" in the same sentence.

But considering the fact I successfully infuriated half the class with my blog last week, I won't make the focus of this piece something as divisive as politics.

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If you have ever driven the Western Kentucky Parkway late at night, you have probably wondered how any reasonable person can fret about looming over-population. For hours and hours you drive, and see nothing except what the dim starlight and shine of your headlights illuminate. No sound but the hum of an engine. No human-contact save for an occasional passing of a tractor-trailer or the liturgy of a Radio-Evangelist.

For in that span of the loneliest 130 miles, the Land Between the Lakes, the radio-stations, just as the highway exits, are less numerous than the fingers on either of your hands.

My father and I had driven that route too many times to account. Like a familiar dream did the landscape pass by. It must have been the ominous dark of that night or the weighty fatigue of our minds, that made every tree, swamp and creek obfuscated in the most terrific shroud of obscurity. We knew not where we were. But solely where we wanted to be.

Home.

I adopted the pass-time of every car passenger, entertaining the listless whimsies of a twelve year-old boy. I saw a green sign reading "Muhlenberg County". I hummed Cash's Paradise. It was a song about Elysian comforts lost. Fitting, given the apathy towards time that both my father and I in that moment possessed.

High-beams reflected of the mirrors of my dad's Cadillac. We were both blinded. We returned to being aware, shocked, human and real. Deflated weather balloons. My dad, as he does so often, cursed, "God d-----! That ------- guy needs to turn his high-beams off."

Yet he did not. We were in the fast-lane. Doing seventy-five or so. I turned to see who in their right mind could possibly be behind us. Who could be dumb enough to blind the car in-front of them with their high-beams. I craned my neck to see a man with a bull-neck and barrel-chest behind the wheel of a massive F-350. He was right on our tail.

My father accelerated. The needle crept up to eighty.

The truck was still on us.

The needle lept to eighty-five. And if it was possible that huge man still hanging right there.

We kept on driving at this pace. We discussed what could lead a guy to drive like this. At first we thought he was just an idiot. Had not a clue how to drive. Or maybe he raced cars in his spare time. My dad was incensed. Five-foot eight-inches, stocky, and thick. Old. Gray hair. A short fused bomb always ready to explode. His jaw gritting. Veins swelling. For thirty minutes we kept this up. My father cussing, me answering. Wondering.

And what was at first curious frustration soon fermented into fear.

What the hell did this man in the truck want.

My father's apprehension soon outweighed his unmatched haste. He switched into the right hand lane. And slowed down to fifty miles an hour. Surely the speed demon would go on by.

But our friend in the truck followed us too. Stayed on our bumper like stink on excrement.
My father slowed to forty, thirty, twenty.

The driver was there, there, there.

As a bear taught to dance most surely protests in a fit of rage so to did my father cease his crawl of a pace by the flooring of the accelerator. The eight cylinders burnt gas in an American symphony. In the drop of a hat, eighty, ninety, ninety-five.

But the driver read the same score- he too in an act of perversion, in unrelenting force of will, stayed on our ass. For forty minutes we did not drive, we flew.

"Dad, does he want to-"

"I don't know, Bear. Don't worry."

My hurt felt pressure. Squeezed by a vice. My breaths became shallow. It was fall, my dad's car as always cold, but my brow broke with sweat. My clothes uncomfortable, itchy. The seatbelt- a straight jacket. Trapped. Trapped by the dark of that night. Trapped by the highbeams of that driver. Trapped like an animal too tired to continue fleeing a predator's pursuit. Trapped. By fate. By metal, by speed, by physics.

By a bull necked man with a bellowing truck.

Yet my father's face was a rock of calm. Struck not a single time with the chisel of cowardice, his steel gaze did not waiver from the road, or his rear-view mirror. How he managed, I do not know.

The intuitive glint of my fathers iron look told me he had a plan. A last ditch effort, a magnum opus, a tour de fource, of legerdemain, and brazen daring. Surely he would not fail.

Fitting as they say A Calm Before the Storm, my fathers speedometer crept back down to a reasonable sixty. We kept and kept it. And so did our pursuer. For fifteen minutes. Yet I swear to God they seemed like hours.

A sign passed. Beaver Dam Rest Area- 3 Miles Ahead, on Left. We knew it well.

A crescendo. Sixty-five, eighty-five.

The accelerator on the floor, ninety.

Beaver Dam rest area, next left, half mile,

One ten.

Father, feinted right, as if he were to pass the exit, only to swerve through the white lines at one hundred and fifteen miles an hour.

In the moment we passed the threshold from highway to Beaver Dam, my relief tore through me. Our pursuer, a cancerous growth on our back bumper for the better part of two hours, gone. Thank God. Refuge. Safe-haven, I could not have welcomed the truck-stop with any more alacrity.

But those damn high beams! They poured into our car like hideous fire, He was THERE! THERE! Still there.  Right on us. I should've known better! My father wore disbelief. We slowed, down. Entered the parking lot near the pumps. And so did our pursuer.

My father parked. Took out the keys. And said, "Barrett, no matter what happens, don't leave this car. You understand?" I nodded. Fear in my throat strangled me. Yet Dad was stoic. He has this fire. This glow in his eyes. Pernicious. And unwavering. Dad would fight to his death.  He undid his seat belt. Opened his door. Got out. Closed it. Locked the car. And approached our pursuer in the truck in the pumps behind us. I tried watching the scene through the side mirror. I couldn't. I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could to wish it all away. The gas station, the car, the truck, the dark, the stars, the trees, asphalt, concrete, the distance between me and home. I closed my eyes and with the quavering soul of a twelve year old boy I shouted a prayer to God.

God, get me home. Get me home God. Keep me safe. Keep my Dad safe. Let this be over as quickly as possible. I want to be home. Home. Home. Home this very instant. As quickly as possible, let this night be over. God, take me home, as quickly as-

Knock-knock

A fist jolted against the passenger window.

My heart exploded, my wound up spring of apprehension shattered, my eyes flung open to be met by those of my pursuer.

Oakley. Our friend Oakley, from back home. Smiled at me, beside my dad, with that stupid southern brilliance. He had followed us all down that wretched parkway, on his way back from school at Murray, because he had recognized my dad's car. He had shown his high-beams the whole time because he couldn't quite tell if it was us.

What a dumb-ass.

I suppose home had gotten tired of waiting, and met us, in part, 150 miles early.

I thanked God.