Driving With the Brakes On
Driving With the Brakes On
by Linda Seaton
The soft squeak of
the windshield wipers against glass is lost to the ebb and flow of static from
the radio and then a low voice. Chloe Sullivan mutters to herself as she squints
out at the dark and rainslick roadway, "Tired and stupid and late and stupid and
likely to drown in a ditch."
She swipes at the windshield with her sleeve
but her battle for visibility is a losing one with the car's heat, the fogging
windows and her own frizzing hair. A trip from Metropolis back home to
Smallville had taken her nearly eight hours instead of the normal three and a
half. Now she is so exhausted all she wants to do was cry.
"If you tear
up, Sullivan, you'll never be able to see."
She turns her attention back
to the radio and jabs at the buttons. The AM selector jerks up and down the dial
a few times before it finally catches a trace of a voice. She tunes like her
sanity depends on it and after a few murky moments a relic from the 70s starts
to play.
"Bread. I found a Bread song."
Way beyond being picky,
she starts to sing along enthusiastically, "Dreams they're for those who sleep /
Life is for us to keep /And if you're wond'ring /What this song is leading
to..."
The answer is lost to a fresh onslaught of static. Even though she
knows it is hopeless, she lifts her cell phone to her ear and hits redial. She
gets the sharp beep that there is no signal available.
Talking to
herself to try to stay awake she murmurs, "Well, in another twenty-five minutes
I'll be home, it'll be 3:00 in the morning and everything will be fine. It
cannot get any worse."
Just then, she spots the headlights of the car
cutting diagonally across the roadway. Having slid off the road and down a
slight embankment, a tank-like Mercedes rests buried up to its trunk in the
muck. Chloe instantly recognizes the figure flagging her down - thin form,
trench coat, mullet.
She brakes and Lionel Luthor moves over to her
window. "You need a lift, Mr. Luthor?"
"Thank you, young lady!" He
flashes his broadest smile which makes Chloe remember an illustration from a
storybook of "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf".
Lionel
strides around the front of the car, opens the passenger door and slides into
the seat.
"How long have you been stranded?" Chloe asks as she resumes
her brisk thirty-five-mile-per-hour pace.
"A little over an hour. The
storm seems to have swept not only my car off the road but knocked out my cell
phone as well." He lifts his hands to the heat vents of the car and settles back
into the seat. The car seems too small to contain Lionel Luthor.
"Are you
hurt?"
"No, nothing that a hot bath won't cure." Lionel
enunciates.
Every syllable is charged with a weird sexual vibe that Chloe
chooses to ignore. "I'm assuming you are headed for the castle?"
"Yes, I
am." He turns to study Chloe and she keeps her gaze directed on the road the
whole time wishing she had a "No Trespassing" sign hanging around her neck.
"Have we met?" Lionel asks as he shoves his wet mane back on his
shoulders.
"My father is Gabe Sullivan. He's one of your plant
managers."
"A good man to have on payroll."
Chloe wonders how many
times he has used that description for someone he does not really know. She
watches as he shifts and turns to examine every nook and cranny of the car.
He turns his full attention back to her, "And your name?"
"Chloe
Sullivan."
"Chloe. A Greek name. Do you know the origin of
it?"
"It's one of the names the Greeks used to describe the goddess
Demeter."
"Yes. Demeter, Mother Nature. She was 'Chloe Demeter' in the
spring when she was happy and the earth was alive. I take it you've heard the
story of 'The Rape of Persephone'?"
The sharp popping of the 'p's' seems
to reverberate in the small car for a moment.
"Persephone, Demeter's
daughter, was out gathering flowers one day and was carried off to the
underworld by Hades."
"Yes, and Demeter plunged the earth into winter and
famine until her daughter was returned to her. To keep all parties both
miserable and happy Zeus ordained that Persephone had to live for part of the
year with Hades and the rest of the time with her mother."
"Kind of
serves Persephone right. What kind of nature goddess goes around killing
flowers?" Chloe murmurs as the car glides through a particularly deep current of
water on the roadway.
" 'The Rape of Persephone' is one of those tales
that the Greeks do so well. A battle of wills in which there is no real
victor."
Chloe starts to speak and then settles for, "I
suppose."
The two lapse into a mildly uncomfortable silence before Lionel
finally asks, "Do you know my son, Miss Sullivan?"
"Sort of. Clark Kent,
the guy who fished him out of the river, is one of my best friends.
"
"Boyfriend?"
Chloe starts to laugh and Lionel gives her an
inquiring look. "Sorry, it's just a little strange to be asked about my social
life by my father's boss. And no, Clark is not my boyfriend. He only has eyes
for Lana Lang."
"An almost unnaturally pretty girl." Lionel drums his
fingers against his knees. "Something soulful about her as well. But that could
just be because of the beauty." He shifts in his seat and examines Chloe's face,
"You are not beautiful."
"How nice of you to notice. I'm not particularly
soulful either - I don't write poetry or enjoy the ballet but I do own a few
Aretha Franklin CDs."
He chuckles, "Not afraid of me?"
"A little
wary but before you came into my car, to further steam up my windows, I was
half-asleep behind the wheel. I'm grateful for the conversation. Even if you are
probing for weak spots. A little heavy-handedly I might add."
"You'll
have to forgive me. I did run my car off the road and stand in a torrential rain
while several cars passed by without attempting to help me."
"You get
their license plates?"
"Of course." He pats his suit pocket.
Chloe
turns the wheel hard as she reaches the spar road that leads toward the Luthor
manse. "Does Lex know you're coming?" She spots a few lit windows on the upper
floor of the still distant castle.
"No, it will be a
surprise."
Chloe straightens a little imagining what it would be like to
be woken from a sound sleep by the booming voice of Lionel Luthor.
"My
son sleeps with a nightlight."
Chloe laughs, "Is that all? I sleep with a
nightlight, a flashlight under my pillow and a baseball bat beside my bed.
Smallville is a scary place."
She brakes and the car stops at the end of
one of the winding walkways leading to the entrance to the house. "And you're
home."
"Thank you Miss Sullivan for the lift. And the conversation."
Lionel swings open the door and swings his entire body out in one fluid motion.
Chloe hesitates and then offers, "But Hades won."
He leans back
into the car and Chloe continues, "Hades got to keep Persephone for part of the
year but he also managed to turn the world into a kind of hell-on-earth where
everything died and nothing would grow. Hades manipulated Demeter into
destroying what was most important to her." Chloe takes a breath and plunges on,
"Hades made Demeter act against her nature. A lot of people would call that the
ultimate victory."
He smiles at her and Chloe has a sense that she is
seeing Lionel Luthor at his most human. She feels vaguely nauseous.
He
begins to laugh as he slams the car door behind him.
Chloe watches him
for a few seconds as he marches up the drive to the house. With a soft exhale,
she bumps the car into gear and smashes her foot down on the
accelerator.
Driving with her gaze fixed on the road, Chloe hears
something and it takes her a moment to realize her cell phone is ringing. She
scoops up the phone and presses it to her ear. "Yes?"
Her face relaxes.
"Hi, Dad. I'm almost home. It's been slow going with all the cats-and-dogs
action." She listens for a moment. "No, I'm fine. It's just been a strange
journey. I'll tell you once I'm home. See you in five." She starts to move the
phone away from her face but she suddenly leans back in, "I love you,
Dad."
