Leaving Unknown (4 page)

I nodded tightly. Facial control was essential.

“You ready?” she asked. I nodded again.

She smiled. “Love you.” She paused, then smiled more broadly. “And I know you love me back.” And she drove off, one hand fluttering out the window.

I waved back, good-bye to my friend, good-bye to my boots, and good-bye to the small kachina I’d tucked into the box. It was one of an egg intertwined with what looked like a tadpole and it was the first one I’d had an immediate reaction to. My reaction had been gratitude. To Jules, for putting up with me, for understanding me. And most of all, for being around to say good-bye to
me
. I was down to nine pairs of shoes. My journey had begun. I went to bed, ready for morning and for my new adventures to arrive.

M
y first adventure sucked. I stared at Darryl from Okay, Oklahoma, in disbelief.

“You’re kidding, right?” I willed him to crack a smile and tell me he was “jes’ joshin’.” He didn’t.

“Nawp.”

I rubbed a hand over my face, praying it was a dream. When I opened my eyes I was still staring at a John Deere cap and a mechanic named Darryl. Darryl had a deeply lined, tan face and repeatedly deposited chewing tobacco spit into a can of Dr Pepper. Darryl also had very bad news.

The trip had started out fine. Our routine was set from our first night camped outside Sweet Lips, Tennessee, I in my tent, Oliver cozy in a little birdie fleece-lined Snuggle Hut that hung from a hook at the peak of my tent. We’d followed back roads across North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, snapping stylish pictures of Elsie in front of landmarks like the sign that
proclaimed, W
ELCOME TO
S
WEET
L
IPS
! T
HEY’RE
S
MILIN
’ ’C
AUSE
Y
OU’RE
H
ERE
! I ate a lot of boiled eggs. After a few days of pouting silence, Oliver adapted to the new routine and started complimenting me again. Elsie guzzled gas. Our journey had been adventure free. Until today.

We woke in Toad Suck, Arkansas. The day was hot and sunny, and I was eager to keep going. After forcing down a heavily salted egg, we visited Paris, Arkansas, before pointing Elsie towards Okay, Oklahoma. Leaving Charlotte farther and farther behind felt miraculous. Like I had superpowers—the power to shake off great weight, the power to give the gift of life, the power to let the day take you where it would. Freedom. Savoring it, my superfoot unconsciously pressed the gas pedal too far, causing Elsie to wobble precariously as she picked up speed. I eased up.

“Sorry, old girl.”

Nothing could shake my optimism. I improved the tan on my left elbow. On either side of the deserted country roads were endless fields of something agricultural. Corn? Soy? Alfalfa? I’d stopped and taken a picture to figure it out later. I couldn’t tell you if alfalfa was a tall yellow stalk or a mossy green carpet. If you were very convincing, I’d believe you that it molted from pupae. Whatever it was, instead of finding the unchanging landscape boring, I found it soothing. As had become my routine, I didn’t play music in the first hours of the day, preferring to let my mind wander. Mostly, I let it wander into wholly unrealistic but highly entertaining fantasies of my new life in California.

John Mayer was just bending on one knee to propose, when Elsie started wobbling in earnest. I frowned at the speed gauge (then rubbed out the furrow). She shouldn’t be wobbling at 45 mph. That usually started at 60. I tried accelerating all the way to 60 before slowing down, as if to reset her, but the
shaking became violent, steering wheel yanking at my hands. I slowed. As long as I held it to 40 mph, there didn’t seem to be any problems.

I considered this. I considered Elsie’s history of “surprises.” I considered the endless rows of unidentified plants and complete lack of humans surrounding me. I made a decision. After consulting the map, I decided that Okay was a suitably sized city and I could continue my course. Which brought me to now, here with Darryl at Okay Body.

“How far can I get?” I hoped my desperation didn’t show. Never let a mechanic see your fear.

“Fronts could go anytime.” Spit.

“You’re telling me I have suicidal front tires?”

“Guess so.” Darryl wasn’t big on pronouns.

I closed my eyes. “How much?”

“Cain’t just replace two. Ya gotter change all four.” Spit.

My eyes popped open. “What’s wrong with the back two?”

“Cain’t have two new tares and two old tares. Getcher wobblin’ that way. An’s hell on th’ axles. Gotta replace all four.”

“How much?” I repeated, bracing myself. When he said $320, I started breathing very fast and my heart went feral.

“Installation’s ’nother two hunnerd fitty.” I fought the impulse to break into a run, sprinting wild and free away from Darryl and his numbers. Instead I held up my hand to silence him, pressing the other on my chest to keep my heart inside it. My bad-luck curse giggled somewhere.

“Five…” I swallowed. So much for not showing my fear. “Five hundred and seventy total?” I quavered. That was half of what I had left. At $4.02 a gallon, it cost me $80 to fill up Elsie’s tank, which I did more than once most days. After four spiffy new tires, I wasn’t going to make it very far. I was definitely voting in the next election. Gas was ridiculous.

Darryl’s voice brought me back from political fervor. Sur
prisingly, my evident panic had the opposite effect from what I’d expected, and his eyes softened.

“Got a deal goin’ where if ya buy three tares ya get the fourth free. Those tares’ll work with yer car. Save ya eighty bucks.”

“Oh.” I exhaled with relief, nodding. It wasn’t much but it was something. “Let’s do that.” I even managed a smile.

“’Course ain’t got ’em.”

“What?”

“Gotter order ’em. Take ya three days, mebbe.” Spit.

“Three days.” My look was blank.

“Yep.” He matched it.

Three days in this town. I had a thought. “If I’m going to be here three days, can you give me some work? I’m really strong—stronger than I look. And I’m a hard worker. And honest. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. I can pitch my tent right here, and I can clean, I can work a register…” I trailed off as Darryl shook his head.

“Crystal does all that.” He said it as if I was supposed to know who Crystal was. Maybe I was. Maybe she was Miss Mechanic Oklahoma, doing mechanical goodwill all across the state. Maybe she could have an “accident” that would take her off her feet for a few days…

“Place up the road might could use some ’sistance.” Darryl interrupted my plotting.

“Really?”

“Rico at the Okay Burrito’s always lookin’ for day labor.”

My face fell. “Oh. I can’t get around. No car.”

“Reckon ya can borrow the bike. Got left when Okay Spoke went outer business. Can pitch yer tent here, if ya want to, too. Get to Rico’s, turn left where Nellie’s Flowers used to be an’ follow on up past Duke’s to the light. Hang a right and carry on ’bout two blocks. Be on yer right.” Darryl seemed to think
I’d spent a past life in Okay, cavorting with Crystal, Nellie, and Duke, but I didn’t care. I loved him. I especially loved that he didn’t ask me any questions about where I’d come from and how I’d ended up this ill-prepared far from the state that had issued my license plates.

“Thanks.” I beamed. “Thanks a lot.”

“No worries.” Spit. “Want them tares then?”

I set up my tent on a charming piece of asphalt behind the garage, fragrant with diesel. Darryl took a shine to Oliver, so his cage was installed in the Okay Body office. I worried that Oliver would develop a mediocrity complex, but there was no other solution. As I pedaled off on the bike, Oliver was wooing Crystal with compliments about her hair and figure. If Crystal had ever been Miss Mechanic Oklahoma, it was fifty years ago, so she was charmed right to the roots of her blue rinse. I was assured he was in good hands.

I found Rico’s with no problem, because I’d made Darryl draw me a map to supplement his helpful directions. Okay Burrito was a generic-looking place with a big marketing challenge convincing people the food was better than the titular proclaimed average. It was run by a short Hispanic man sporting the most precise middle part I’d ever seen and a trim mustache. Rico’s nervous energy made it seem like he was fluttering even when he was standing still. When I explained why I was there, his face split into a huge grin.

“You start now?”

It was three o’clock. “Sure.”

“Good, good.” He actually rubbed his hands together. And then he disappeared, leaving me alone in the restaurant. I was startled. I’d at least expected a lesson in how to make a burrito, and maybe an apron, but I shrugged it off. How hard could it
be? You throw a bunch of stuff in a tortilla and roll it up. It’s not like the customer could see what was inside. I was studying the menu when Rico reappeared.

“Yes, yes. You’re just the right size.”

Size? Oh, right. Apron. It wasn’t the cleanest thing I’d ever seen. It was actually brown. And sort of…furry.

“You can try on in back. I’ll stay here.”

And then he handed me a donkey suit.

“What…” When I hesitated, he shook it at me.

“You pass out these.” He pointed to a stack of flyers. “You get customers into the restaurant.”

My mouth dropped open.

He waggled the donkey again. “You work all day, $50 cash. No tax. And, burrito for lunch and dinner.”

I grabbed the donkey suit. It looked like it would fit just fine.

After an all-egg diet, the burritos were heaven on earth. The work was not. The not-too-hot day was gone. Or, maybe synthetic donkey suits are endothermic. For whatever reason, I was sweating my ass off. I refused to think of my sweaty predecessors. Instead I smiled at passersby and tried to force flyers they didn’t want into their hands. I reminded myself not to take it personally when people crossed the street to avoid me. I did that with perfume squirters at the mall. Though after a few hours as a burro, a spritz wouldn’t have hurt me any.

At 9
P.M.
Rico locked the front doors and handed me thirty dollars and a burrito.

“You come back tomorrow. You make good donkey.” He fluttered at me. I felt more like an ass when I climbed on the bike to pedal home, donkey hanging around my neck like a bad Hercules impersonation, furry legs waving in the wind.

The shop was closed when I got back. I could see Oliver sleeping in his cage through the window. I pressed my hand against the glass as if it would bring us closer. It was the safest place for him, but I felt very cut off. My phone was dead—I needed Elsie to charge it—and I was separated from my bird. Both hands on the glass now, I watched Oliver sleep. I resolved never to go to prison. To be permanently separated from what you loved by glass would be horrible. Tears threatened to leak out of the corners of my eyes. Since I’d never been more alone, I could have let them. But with resolute hands I wiped them away and straightened.

“You did good today, kid,” I told myself, and went to get comfortable on my asphalt bed. I didn’t even read a page of my normal nightly reading before I was sound asleep.

“Genie grants a Texan an’ a Oklahoman each a wish,” Darryl started his joke. “Texan says, ‘I wanna wall so high and thick, nuthin’ can get inter or outer Texas. Keep dem Okies out.’ ‘Bam,’ genie says, an’ it’s done. Oklahoman scratches ’is head, thinks a bit, an’ asks, ‘So that thar wall is so thick nuthin’ can get inter or outer Texas?’ ‘Yep,’ says the genie. ‘Right then,’ Okie says. ‘Fill it with water.’” Darryl chuckled loudly at his own joke.

I laughed, though I’d heard six variations on the same basic theme in only a few days in Oklahoma. I suspected I’d hear six more variations in Texas, with the states reversed.

Crystal giggled as she fed Oliver sunflower seeds. Oliver had a fan for life in Crystal. Crystal had a fan for life in me. Turns out she and Darryl were sister and brother, and lived around the corner from the garage in a neat clapboard Victorian. The inside of their house looked like a doily factory had exploded. The lace wheels covered every surface, including the toilet seat.

“I like to tat lace,” Crystal had said with pride as she showed me around, pausing at every indistinguishable doily. It took over an hour.

I was grateful for the meal, but equally grateful they didn’t offer me the guest room. It was creepily filled with shelves of glassy-eyed dolls, all of whom were introduced to me by name: Mary Kate, Angelina, Britney, Farrah, Bo, Victoria, and the incongruously named Oprah Bo Peep. I’d have had nightmares.

After my tour we sat to supper. I was delighted to expand my menu of eggs and burritos with watery beef stroganoff and cherry pie from a box. Crystal said grace, head bowed. “God bless this meal we are about to receive, and God bless Maeve, Oliver, George W. Bush, Nancy Reagan, and the person who invented watermelon jellybeans.”

After supper, we played gin rummy. “Let’s leave the washing up and play cards!” Crystal was thrilled to have a new player. After a few deals I could see why. She was remarkable—she won every single hand.

“I practice a lot on the computer,” she demurred, when I complimented her. Darryl rolled his eyes.

“Cheats.” He explained, when she went to the bathroom. “Have a gander.”

I peeked under the card table where he indicated and was astonished to see several royal families and multiple double-digit cards stuck to its underside with chewing gum. Darryl shrugged. “Winnin’ makes her happy. Don’t bother me none.”

I’d have to call Brick and explain this form of brotherhood.

I lost interest in cards after that, and was relieved when Crystal realized that we were about to miss the beginning of
Shrek II
and raced to the living room. We followed. It was nice to have movie night after being on the road. Darryl made popcorn out of real corn kernels in an old-fashioned iron corn popper with a long handle, and we munched and giggled through the
movie, Crystal most of all. When it was over, I stayed for one more cup of tea, despite the threat of being invited to stay, then Oliver and I wandered back to our Asphalt Sweet Asphalt.

It took five days rather than three to get the tires delivered and installed, but the $280 I earned made it worthwhile, even the criminal drubbings at gin rummy. And I’d come to care for Darryl, Crystal, and Rico. Their quiet kindness reassured that you could venture out into the world and make a new start, that there’d be help along the way. That and my new business plan.

When we left, the most affected was Crystal, who bid Oliver a tearful good-bye, raining sunflower seeds on him. She pressed a box of bacon-flavored gumballs into my hand.

“To go with all those eggs you eat,” she explained.

Once I hit the gas, we paused only long enough to take the obligatory Elsie picture at the town sign. I felt a twinge of guilt as Okay diminished in my rearview mirror. The mirror also reflected the ear of a large donkey. Rico was expecting me at work and instead I’d slunk off in the early-morning light with a newly shod Elsie and his donkey suit. So much for never having stolen a thing in my life. I intended to repay him and return the suit when I was done. I hoped the kachina I’d left on the counter holding down my IOU note made up for it. To him the little statue resembling a fox and grapes would be an odd form of security deposit. To me, it meant ingenuity. And hopefully, the earning ability to never, ever, have to resort to the bacon gumballs.