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Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sometimes, the road is not such a lonely place. You flip on the CB, find out why the cars are backed up a mile ahead of you. Or maybe you pull off to help a couple of college age kids change a flat. But when things flow smoothly, when there are no wayside coeds and the Citizen's band is humming silence, the emptiness of it all can creep up on me. Like a big white noise, a hypnotism formed with the running, swerving, rising and falling lines of white and yellow smeared on black asphalt or mud brown county roads. I don't look for being alone, but it finds me anyway. Independence Day and Christmas, the family gathers around and we drink to much and eat too much, respectively. They're all gone within a day or two, like traffic jams and kids whose dads should have taught them how to change a tire. Then it's back to that ceaseless whir, back to days of work and sleep or mile after mile of cigarettes and truck stop caffeine.
I tried not to think about it like that. I never liked to feel self-defeated and I wasn't fond of self-pity. This is your lot, I'd reason it away. The truth was that life, like the road, was only lonely as long as I was willing to allow it. Choices - some good and some bad - had lead me to my latest set of miles sitting behind a wheel next to an empty passenger's seat.
It was the middle of the end of the year. The smell of burning leaves comes in with the crisp of Autumn air. A few minutes, and it's gone. Another two or so miles down the road and it's back again. It was the same every November, no matter where I found myself in the wide sprawl of highways and interstates and county roads and little belt-line streets that skirt around towns too small to have a twenty-four hour diner.
I wasn't exactly sure where I was headed. Hell, I never had plans when I'd settle myself against the cold leather seat and feel my hands grip the wheel. This time, though, something felt different. The smell of burning leaves, or pine logs smoldering in the fireplace of a passing farmhouse, was more peppery and the taste of the maduro cigarillo between my lips was more sweet and muddy. A lot of choices had built up over the years and determined, without my conscious say-so, that things were bound to change. One thing was certain, in terms of where I was headed. I knew this time that, when I finally decided to stop running, I wouldn't be alone by the end.
I'm not sure what possessed me, really. Maybe it was the song on the radio. Maybe it was the way the sun broke through the clouds and cast long-fingered shadows out across the road from the leaf-less trees hanging over the side of it. Maybe it was the way the raindrops started to fall and lit up in the sunbeams.
I'm not sure what possessed me, really, but I pulled over and stopped on the side of the road. The buttons intoned her number and a second later it was ringing. I told her I was about three hours out of Independence and that I was tired of being alone. I asked her if I could turn around and turn back time. It didn't surprise me that I was begging. I'd do anything and I told her that. I told her I'd decided to turn around no matter what, suggested maybe we get a cup of coffee and talk about it, she didn't have to say yes right away. She said yes, right away. Well, she said,
"Yeah. Yeah, all-right."
I think I heard a smile on her words.
The key turned and the ignition kicked up. I didn't have to may much attention to the road, I'd been that way a thousand times. Still, it felt like it was shorter than before. The drive back to Independence was, for all I knew, uneventful but admittedly I didn't pay much attention. My mind was just a blur, you know, all these thoughts just sifting through my logic. They weren't flying around inside my skull or bouncing off one another or confusing me or making my head hurt. They were just this soft glow, this warmth that started at the nape traveled down the spine, spread to my fingertips and flowed through my legs.
I called her ten minutes out from her apartment and she was waiting for me when I got there. She climbed in and the passenger's seat wasn't empty anymore. We said "hey," it was kind of awkward. We went on in silence to the coffee shop down the road. When the girl there asked what we'd have, we both said "just a cup of coffee," at the same time and I think I saw her smile a little smile. We sat down at a table for two in front of the window and we talked.
She said she missed me. She felt confused, but she missed me. I told her I was heading to anywhere west of Denver. I told her, again, that I was tired of being alone but I didn't beg this time. I just said that I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather have beside me on the road. I couldn't think of anyone other than her, really, that I could even begin to want. I still can't.
She smiled but it was brief. I saw that confusion in her eyes again. She asked questions. I answered them, truthfully. After a while, the coffee was gone, and we were back in my truck and I was going to drop her off back at her apartment and head toward anywhere west of Denver.
You know, looking back, you never expect the happy ending any more than you expect the tragic conclusion. You just expect life to keep on going on. Sometimes, though, something happens that just completely shocks you. I never expected the happy ending, that's for sure. I'm not sure I was surprised, though, when she told me she changed her mind. She already had some things packed, I guess she'd changed her mind a couple of times that day. We were only at her place for a couple of minutes. I'm not sure what she told her boyfriend when he asked where she was going. I never bothered to ask. All I know is that I finally really felt alive, with her sitting beside me and the long road ahead of us both together. The truck stop coffee tasted better, the cigarillo smoke was more awake on my tongue. Her hand was warm on my leg and the silence was never awkward, or the conversation dull.
Sometimes, I thought to myself, the road is not such a lonely place.
The End
these are the thoughts of the badger
12:48 AM
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