The Neutral Gear

In the autumn of 1999, I was living in a small coastal town in Oregon, working the night shift at a fish cannery. My parents, Eleanor and Frank, were driving out from Kansas to visit me for the first time since I’d moved. The plan was simple: they’d take two days, stop at a few landmarks, and arrive by Friday.

But on Tuesday morning, my phone rang at 6 AM. It was my mother, her voice thin and stretched over static. She told me my father had collapsed at a rest stop outside Flagstaff, Arizona. He was gone before the paramedics arrived. I remember the silence after she hung up, the hum of the refrigerator, and the smell of brine from my work clothes.

My brother, Sam, and my two sisters, Dana and Ruth, drove up from San Francisco to pick me up. We left in three cars—my old Honda Civic, Sam’s truck, and Dana’s minivan—to make the long drive east. We had CB radios to keep in touch, a relic from Sam’s trucking days.

We drove through the night, taking turns behind the wheel. I was in the last car, a rented sedan, following the red taillights of the others. Around dawn, we crossed into New Mexico. The sky was a bruised purple, and the desert stretched out in all directions, dotted with scrub and distant mesas.

We stopped at a gas station in Grants, filled up, and bought stale coffee and packaged pastries. As we got back on the interstate, the sun was just cresting the horizon, painting everything in amber light. I was in the back seat, trying to sleep, but my mind kept replaying the last time I’d seen my father alive—him waving from the car window as they left Kansas, his grin wide and his hand raised in a cheerful goodbye.

We’d been driving for about an hour when the engine of my car died. There was no sputter, no jerking—just a sudden, total loss of power. The dashboard lights flickered, then went dark. I coasted, steering to the shoulder, and pressed the gas pedal again. Nothing. I grabbed the CB mic and tried to call Sam. Static. I tried again, adjusting the squelch, but the channel was filled with chatter about a truck stop ahead. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

I watched the taillights of Sam’s truck and Dana’s minivan grow smaller, then disappear over a rise. The radio continued to crackle with voices, but they weren’t talking to me. They were talking about ‘the neutral gear’ and ‘the long downhill’ and ‘the place where the road forgets.’

I got out of the car. The air was cold and smelled of dust and creosote. The road was empty. To my left, a few hundred feet away, there was a fallen sign, its letters weathered and unreadable. To my right, a fence line stretched into the distance, and beyond it, a vast expanse of nothing.

I walked back to the car, tried to start it again. The engine turned over but wouldn’t catch. I popped the hood, looked at the engine, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. I sat back in the driver’s seat and tried the CB again. This time I heard a clear voice: ‘Last car, you’re drifting. Pull over and wait.’ I clicked the mic to respond, but the voice continued, ‘No, don’t wait. Keep driving. The road will hold you.’ Then static.

I started the car again, and this time the engine caught. The dashboard lights flickered back to life, glowing a sickly orange. I pulled back onto the highway, pressing the accelerator. The car moved forward, but something felt wrong. The steering was heavy, and the engine hummed at a pitch I’d never heard.

As I drove, the landscape began to change. The mesas grew taller, their flat tops casting long shadows. The sky turned a strange color—a muted green, like old bruises. I tried to raise anyone on the radio, but all I got were fragments of conversation, always about ‘the neutral gear’ and ‘the long downhill.’

I passed a road sign that read ‘AMARILLO 120’. That was right, we were heading to Amarillo. But the road didn’t feel like Interstate 40 anymore. It felt like a forgotten strip of asphalt, one that had been abandoned and reclaimed by the desert. There were no other cars, no truck stops, no billboards.

After what felt like hours, I saw a lonely gas station ahead. It was a relic—a single pump with a faded brand name, a small shack with a porch. I pulled in, hoping for a phone or a mechanic. An old man sat in a rocking chair, whittling. He looked up as I approached.

‘Car trouble?’ he asked, his voice dry as the wind.

‘It’s stalling,’ I said. ‘I’ve been trying to catch up to my family, but they’re way ahead.’

The old man nodded, as if he understood. ‘It’s the neutral gear,’ he said. ‘That’s the problem. This road, it’s a long downhill. You gotta shift into neutral and let it coast. Don’t fight it.’

I frowned. ‘I can’t just coast my way across Texas.’

The old man smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. ‘You’re not in Texas yet. And you won’t be, unless you stop trying to accelerate.’

I went inside the shack to call my mother. The phone was rotary. I dialed her number, but all I heard was a strange buzzing, like bees trapped in a jar. I hung up and tried Sam’s cell phone. Nothing.

When I came back out, the old man was gone. The rocking chair still moving slightly. There was a piece of paper on the porch, weighed down by a stone. It read: ‘Go east on the old road. Don’t stop until the engine stalls again. Then wait.’

I got back in my car, feeling a growing unease. The engine started easily, and I pulled out onto the highway. The sky was getting dark, despite it being only mid-morning. The clouds had gathered, thick and low, the color of ash.

I drove for a long time without seeing any signs. The road became monotonous, a gray ribbon cutting through a gray world. The radio was silent now, save for a faint hum. I began to feel drowsy, my eyelids heavy.

Suddenly, I saw a figure ahead. It was a man, standing on the shoulder, hitchhiking. As I got closer, he turned, and for a moment, I thought it was my father. But when I passed, I saw it was a complete stranger, his face blank and pale. He didn’t wave or try to stop me. He just stood there, watching.

I pressed the accelerator, but the car began to slow down on its own. The engine sputtered, then died. I coasted to a stop at the side of the road.

The engine wouldn’t start again. I sat there, the silence pressing in on me. I looked in the rearview mirror. The hitchhiker was gone. Ahead, the road curved out of sight, and beyond it, a cluster of lights that could have been a town.

I got out and started walking. The air was cold, and my breath fogged in front of me. I walked for what felt like an hour, the lights never getting closer. Then I heard a sound—a low, rhythmic thrum, like an engine idling. It came from the direction of my car.

I turned back. The car was still there, but now it was running. Its headlights were off, but I could see the exhaust billowing in the cold air. A figure sat in the driver’s seat, silhouetted against the windshield.

I walked back, slowly. When I got close, I saw it was the hitchhiker, his face pressed against the glass, grinning. I reached for the door handle, but it was locked. He rolled down the window a crack and said, ‘You should have stayed in neutral.’

Then the car drove away on its own, leaving me alone on the empty road. I stood there for a long time, watching the car disappear. The lights ahead had vanished too. The sky was now a uniform black, no stars.

I walked for days, or maybe hours. I don’t know. Eventually, I came to a small town, a place that felt both familiar and utterly foreign. I found a payphone and called my mother. She answered, her voice confused.

‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘We’ve been waiting in Amarillo for you.’

I told her I didn’t know. She gave me directions, but they didn’t make sense. She said they were at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, the one with the big sign. I asked her what year it was. She laughed, but there was no humor in it. ‘It’s 1999, honey. Same as always.’

I hung up and walked into a diner. The waitress handed me a menu. It was dated Thursday, March 14, 1999—the day my father died. I looked outside. A car was pulling into the parking lot. It was my father’s car, the one he and mother had driven from Kansas. My father got out, looking just as I remembered him, alive and whole. He saw me through the window and waved.

But something was wrong. He wasn’t driving—he was standing outside the car, looking at me, and then he disappeared. The car sat there, empty, its engine running.

I ran out of the diner, but by the time I got to the parking lot, the car was gone. The town was empty. The streets were deserted, and the only sound was the wind.

I’ve been trying to reach Amarillo ever since. I keep driving, and I keep the car in neutral whenever I can. But the road never ends. And sometimes, when I look in the rearview mirror, I see my father’s face, not smiling, just staring back at me. And I know that the engine will stall again, and I’ll be back in that place where the road forgets, and I’ll be the one waiting for the next driver to pick me up.