Hick (22 page)

He doesn’t talk while he drives. He just leaves it to me to look around and entertain myself. You could just sit here and look at the road for hours and pick up thought after thought, like pebbles on
the riverbank, pick one up, put it back, pick that one up, throw it back, for hours. I got one stirring up I’m about to throw back.

This one’s about my mama and all the late nights and all the jingle-jangle of the wind- chimes slamming into the screen door at four in the morning, giggling silly on the porch. When I think about all the flirty looks at the boys working at the service station or the Hy-Vee or the Alibi . . . the shamey, desperate shaking of the hips on the way out the Piggly Wiggly . . . I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t fill up somewhere near the front of my cheeks with shame and blushing and redness. I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t have at the bottom of it the most deep-seated, unavoidable, scared-to-smithereens feeling of dread that, one day, that is gonna be me. That somehow, I’m designated by fate to become all of the things that make me cringe and shiver and look away.

And you could be one of those people that sit around, sipping lemonade on the porch, saying right or wrong, yes or no, black or white, and pointing fingers, making grandiose statements about the way of the world, the way to heaven and the way to tuck in your shirt on a Sunday morning. You could be. But maybe you could look at it like this, maybe you could see it like maybe something happened somewhere along the way, something mean and unforgiving, like watching your baby boy turn to ice or getting knocked to the ground or getting tied up to the bedpost for three days straight.

And maybe it wasn’t just one thing but a whole lot of little things, strewn together, like oil stains on the asphalt, telling the story of some broken-down beat-up old car, sputtering and coughing,
making its way slowly, hopelessly, over the blacktop and into the horizon.

And you could say that maybe even if some kind old stranger came out from the middle of nowhere and gave you a shiny new engine, new pistons and a whole new set of tires, fixed the air conditioning and gave you a last-minute Turtle Wax car wash, that even so, even though now you’re brand-spanking new and ready to take on the world with a smile, just the memory of that beat-up old broken-down old time would make you, inside, just a little different from those other brand-new shiny swanky cars, passing you on the road. They might look like you, sound like you, drive like you, but somehow, deep down, they would never be like you. And with this kind of back of the mind, bottom of the belly knowledge, you just might not be able to drive right. You see what I mean? You just might not be able to drive smooth.

And I wonder if now I get to be that beat-up old broken-down car, no matter how shiny and new you make me. I wonder what you can do to me, how you can gussy me up, how you can put me back in myself or if that’s just like some dream you used to have about being a girl before a Hot Stuff necklace and sweet words and watching yourself getting moved up down up down from the rafters in the corner.

The road gets icy and it starts to snow two miles outside a lonely little town called the River of Souls Lost in Purgatory and I throw that broken-down car back in the river and I wonder if Glenda is down in there, too.

By the time we get to Denver, it seems like we’ve been driving for three hundred days past row after row of endless aspens spreading out into the horizon and past, on and on, into eternity.

We pull up to the station and it looks too classy for the likes of me. it’s got stone this and stone that and three arches you got to walk through, just to get in. Beau and I sit staring forward in the stopped truck, not knowing what to say. He reaches behind him into the cab and pulls out an envelope, crumpled and beige.

“Here, Luli, you might be needing this.”

I open it up and there it is, all that’s left of me and Glenda and our short-lived career as High-Plains criminals. Two grand. All that’s left from a million miles away before bacon and eggs in the piney woods for breakfast.

“I reckon that’s yours.”

And I look up at him and remember about all those people that put in a nightlight and read you a bedtime story and scruff you on the head before sleeping. I remember that there are people in this
world who would hold your hand before crossing the street and pretend Santa was coming for Christmas. And I think about Glenda looking down from her bubble and I bet you anything, I bet you anything, she put this whole thing together.

“Thank you, Beau. Thank you.”

“C’mon, now. You think I’m gonna take your money?”

“Still.”

“Okay, well, here’s that number, in case you ever need it.”

He hands me a piece of paper with a number, a name and a map.

“Don’t lose it, kay?”

“Okay.”

I nod. I’ve got that two grand now, carrying it, wrapped up and sealed. I’ve got a new way out and I can put it in my pocket and keep it with me no matter how not-invited I get. I’ve got a new way out now and you just wait, you just wait and see how I can throw myself through the clouds.

“Bye, Beau. Thanks for being so nice and all.”

“Aw, well, no big shakes.”

Beau squints into the sun and I don’t look at him. I grab my bag and jump out the door in one move, cause I know if I break it up it’ll be impossible. If I break it up I won’t even make it out the cab. I’m halfway to the station when I hear his voice.

“Hey, Luli?”

“Yeah?”

“When you turn eighteen—”

“Yeah?” I say, expectant.

“Don’t forget to vote Libertarian.”

He winks and starts the engine. I watch as he turns down the road, back to Nevada, somewhere between Elko and Jackpot.
Somewhere I saw a movie with slippery rocks and a rag doll, somewhere with a fly trapped up in the corner, looking down at nothing left.

I swallow hard and find my resolve, turning back to the station for a moment.

I stand paralyzed. But then I remember Glenda watching me from her bubble, my new way out, and, like a magnet, she pulls my head up. Like a magnet, she pulls my head up and tells me to forget about Elvis-style cowboys and getting swept off my feet and waiting for a hero on a palomino horse cause he’s not coming, no way, no how, it’s all on you now, kid, don’t forget it.

I walk up to the station and there’s too much hullabaloo to know your way round and you could just run right back out and run into the street and that’d be that. Everything here is gray and big and stone and crowded but I make my way through to the tickets and wait wait wait until there’s a big pink face in front of me talking.

“Where to?”

“Omaha.”

“What?”

“Lincoln?”

“Well, which is it?”

“Well, do you got a bus that goes to Lincoln?”

“There’s a three-fifteen to Omaha, drops you off in Lincoln seven a.m.”

“Leaves right now?”

“Three-fifteen.”

“Oh, okay. Well, okay. I’ll take that.”

She sighs and I feel like everybody heard me say Lincoln and now I’m just a hayseed from the sticks shuffling. Put your head back up, Luli. Glenda’d have this place cased by now. Stop sulking.

I count out the money, low, keeping it out of sight. You never can tell. Be like Glenda. Keep it hush. Keep it secret.

The lady hands me the ticket and I go searching through the crowd for a payphone. I find one in the back and dial the Alibi. It rings and rings and I’m just about to give up but then Ray answers the phone and it’s like the Lord himself just dialed them up to say grace.

“Oh, Luli, Jesus!”

Oh, boy, here we go.

“Tammy! Tam! it’s Luli. it’s Luli on the phone!”

Now there’s a scuffle and too much noise and glasses clanking.

“Oh my God, Luli! We been worried sick. Just sick with this. When you coming home? Where’s your daddy?”

“Um, Mama, I don’t know where Daddy is but I’m coming home soon. I’ll be there tomorrow. Tomorrow morning at seven.”

“Oh, that’s great. That is the best thing ever. Oh my God, Luli, you are never gonna believe this. . . . I sold it! I sold it all to Lux! And now they’re gonna build a Wal-Mart! Can you believe it? They’re gonna build a Wal-Mart, right here in Palmyra!”

“But what about—”

“I’ve got money now, Luli. Hey, maybe you could even work at the Wal-Mart! They got real good jobs there. And when your dad gets home maybe he could work there, too. Hell, we could all work there! Cept me. I ain’t working there.”

“Mama, can you get me at seven?”

“Huh?”

“Seven a.m. The bus leaves me off in Lincoln.”

“Oh, well that’s a little early, honey . . .”

“Okay.”

“Speak up, Luli, I can’t hear you—”

“I gotta go, Mama. The bus is leaving—”

“We’re having a little bit of a celebration here, Luli, so—”

“I love you.”

“What?”

“I said, will you pick me up?”

“Ray!” Tammy laughs. “You are such a stitch—”

“Mama?”

The phone goes click and that’s that I guess.

If I could make Tammy young again, if I could make her not hate me, if I could make us like the people on TV, if I could bring my dad home, if I could bring her baby boy back, if I could hold her in the palm of my hand, gently, gently . . . I would.

But that would be like pulling the sun out of the sky and begging it to leave the moon.

I walk down the station to the bus, idling. it’s a simple gray bus, just like the station, just like just about everything in Denver. I get in and it’s like everybody’s been in there for a thousand years and plans to be there for a thousand more. We sit there, idling, getting hot, restless, until finally we pull out the station and out the city, you can watch this patch and that patch and that one, too. This place is just spreading out. New signs. New stores. New concrete.

And then it hits me, it hits me like someone screwed the top of my head off and placed a diamond pristine in the center of my brain . . . and I know, I know right then and there, that now comes
the end of the West. Now comes the end of dusty roads and creaky woodsheds and leaning old farms turning gray. Now comes the end of gravel and hay bales and used-up barns smelling of horses.

And I think about that big blue whale of a Wal-Mart with Corn Pops and Crisco and aisles and aisles of new and improved soap.

And I see every moment of my stupid life, from the jingle-jangle of the wind-chimes to the other fella grinning to the click click click of Mama’s heels down the stairs and my dad laughing tipsy up the porch. I see every moment of my cracker-eating, stomach-grumbling, feet-swinging-out-the-barn days and I want to hurl myself onto the ground and kiss the floorboards. I want to wrap my arms around my house and kick off time. I want to throw myself onto the backyard soil and stop the earth from turning. I want to grab each day I burned to the ground up in handfuls. I want to kiss the dirt and beg it to come back to me, come back to me, before that dull machine comes crushing over our house, turning walls into scraps and scraps into dust. Come back to me before the concrete comes bleeding out from the city, past this house and the next, tumbling out, ruthlessly, inevitably, past the plains and into the horizon.

Come back to me.

Somewhere between old Denver and new Denver, I get up from my seat and hurl myself forward past the fat calves and the Frito-Lay wrappers and the chocolate pudding kids. Somewhere outside of Denver I plant myself square next to the driver until he looks up, can’t help it.

“I gotta go back.”

“Look, kiddo, why don’t you—”

“I gotta go back. I left my medicine in the station and if I don’t take it within fifteen minutes I’ll die.”

“Look, kid, you don’t—”

“I am not kidding. I am an epileptic and if I don’t take my medicine I am gonna have a seizure and oh my God, I think I’m having one now . . .”

Before they know it I am on the ground, flopping around like a dead fish, just like Glenda taught me. Think of a lemon. Think of a lemon. Flop. Flop. Flop.

They are swarming round me now, screaming, hollering, praying to the good Lord oh Jesus Christ almighty. I even got a preacher leaning over me, saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over, add in some Hail Mary’s. Pandemonium. Anarchy. Cats are marrying dogs right there in the aisle.

We get to Denver in ten minutes flat and the preacher walks me out to the station. He’s not saying much but I’m still shaking it off. Pretend recover. Pretend recover.

“Okay, Father. I think the worst has passed.”

“That so?”

“Father. The Lord is with me. I thank you for your assistance but . . . God is my copilot. You go back to your . . . flock. And I’ll be safe. I’ll be safe here in the hands of Jesus.”

“Yeah, I imagine you will.” He nods, turns towards the bus. And I’ll be damned cause he starts to chuckle and shake his head. He chuckles himself all the way back to the bus, none too churchy.

Well, don’t that just beat all.

There’s a pitch-black bus that says Los Angeles in bright pink letters, like the letters themselves are having the time of their life and you can come to the party too, just get on. The air’s blowing out the bus, ice cold. I step on board and don’t even have a ticket. Hell, Glenda’d probably just ride the bumper.

“You got a ticket, Miss?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you need to have a ticket.”

“How much is the ticket?”

“Seventy-five dollars. But it’s too late.”

“How bout eighty dollars?”

“Too late.”

“How bout eighty-five and a six-pack of Coors?”

“Deal.”

“Thanks.”

I grab a seat right up front and take out the name Beau gave me. it’s a funny name, too. Bryn Kluck. 2312 Rhonda Vista. 363-821-1539. He even drew a little map, added cab fare from the station and a note of introduction. He put smiley-faces and arrows all over the map and drew a giant picture of the sun with sunglasses. He drew orange groves and a Hollywood sign and a few stars. He even drew that little school with the hobbit huts and a little girl in a beret.