Sesame Street

Sparky clicked on channel 19 with a soft vibrato.

If I gave you my love

I tell you what I do-ooo-oo-oooo

I’d expect a whole lot of love out of you

Ha

20 miles out of Chattanooga, he tugged backwards at the coiled CB chord and waited for a voice lost in the soft noise. Third overnighter this week, his coffee sloshed over into the half-opened bag of mixed nuts. Gretta, the Mrs., was concerned about his health, so he promised to eat better on the road. Typical trucker wife, sad and soft spoken woman, concerned with worries of lifestyle choices and faithfulness.

Have I ever given you reason to doubt me? He had.

No. Yes, he had.

Then why the hell do you get on my case like this? She just doesn't know.

I just don’t know Mel, it’s the industry, and you hear all these stories of… I mean, I hardly ever see you anymore. I feel like I don’t know you. These are things for the asphalt and long hauls.

Fucking mixed nuts, he scoffed as he palmed the package at the check-out counter. With a skeptical look, he tossed it in with the rest of his purchases: two packs of Marb Reds, two ready-made microwave burritos, a large coffee, and a package of mixed nuts.

Fuzzy silence enveloped Sesame Street and poured into his truck, drowning pictures of his wife and family in the midnight heat. Two sons in soccer uniforms, taking a knee and beaming with pride. Gretta and his daughter swallowed by snowsuits in the Porcupine Mountains. A family Christmas portrait taped overhead. It had been a week and a half since he’d seen them, long haul from Michigan to Louisiana and back to Ohio. Then a voice clicked on.

That you Sparky?

Sleepy Jo: he’s been moving a load from Choo Choo up north. Younger fellah, one of the good guys who don’t like to ruffle feathers. The new guys never know how to speak CB without stumbling on something or another. They always go on full force, saying shit that no one says anymore, botching their codes, a bunch of morons. Sleepy Jo is one of the few newbies in the industry. He’s one of the even fewer that’s careful about where he walks.

S’me Jo. What’s your 20?

10 out of Athens. Keep it comin’ Spark

Even more of a rarity, Jo was one of the only guys who liked Sparky’s voice. Said it had that calming sensation, helped him stay inside the zipper when he was feeling weak. Said it reminded him of his brother who would sing to Jo whenever he was sick as a kid. Said it kept him alive on these long hauls. Mel smiled. Finding company like this helps the hours slip away. He picked up the mic.

You got to be good to me

I’m gonna be good to you-ooo-ooo-oo-oooo

There’s a whole lotta thangs you and I could do

Huh, hea hea

Oooh, babe, yeaaa

His voice trailed out and weakened into a violent cough. These hot nights were shit air, all muggy and thick. Got him sick every time. His doctor says he’s gotta quit smoking but he said, Doc, a man can’t rip everything from home away from him all at once. Feeling over to the cold passenger seat he felt the half-smoked carton of Reds, and then thought twice about it. Better wait for a stop, he was due a break anyway.

Can it Spark, I don’t need your sissy shit tonight.

Hey, where’d that sexy side voice uh yours go?

Big Blue: a trucker from Nebraska who picked up the same north-south route two years ago. Crude man, like most of these guys. Gets off to the sight of anything with tits. Not a shred of respect for any woman, not even for his grandma. He’s talking about Leslie again.

You scare her off Spark?

Couldn’t give it to her like a man right? Right Spark?

She didn’t like them sissy songs uh yours huh?

Blue spoke too close to the mic every time, fucking licking the thing, so most of what he said came out all mangled. It was for the best either way since the boy was always talking shit.

            Let it go Blue, not like you’ve seen any tail

           

            Not that he didn’t pay for at least

Mel tuned his squelch way up to drown out the trucker chatter. These guys – what a bunch of assholes. Every one thinkin’ they’re better than the rest, handles plastered on the side of the car and tattooed on their biceps. Think they’re more entitled or some bullshit like that; like they earned something. Their voices shrunk away, leaving Mel alone with his song and thoughts of Leslie. It had been about a month ago when he picked her up. Young tanned girl with legs from her toes to her chin. Her calves were shaped something spectacular. Looked like she’d walked straight outta the birth canal and just kept going, thumbing her way around since before she could shit sitting upright. Her bag was a dirty blue-green, streaked with oil and dirt, toppling overhead. And strapped on the back was a lined piece of paper reading CINCINNATI in bold block letters.

She never stuck a thumb out. Instead they just dangled, pointed slightly inwards to her fantastic thighs, striding down the emergency lane as the sun began to rise. Mel saw her from a mile and a half down – images of tear-streaked cheeks and ripped clothes filled his brain. She’s gotta be running. She’s gotta be shit out of luck. I should pick her up, take her somewhere, get her a bite to eat. It’s the right thing to do. I have to. Glancing up at the glossy picture of his family all seated around a cozy couch, Mel paused, then exhaled, then ripped the picture off the roof and shoved it in his jacket pocket. He tugged on his horn softly and flipped on the four-ways, sliding off the road.

“Need a lift?” Mel asked, leaning against the restraint of his seatbelt. He hated the thing, all grayed and smelling of his own sweat. But some habits are hard to kick. She wasn’t crying. Fine, in fact, smiling as she tugged on the straps of her bag.

“You heading north? I wouldn’t want to put you out or anything.”

“Straight to Ohio,” Mel smirked and then immediately tucked it away, fingering the edges of the family photograph in his pocket. She ripped at the passenger handle and was settled before Mel could clear the burger wrappers from the seat.

“Leslie,” she said, extending her right hand as her left reached over and buckled herself in. The girl smelled like grass and cigarettes and a hint of laundry detergent. Clothes hung off her body in the peculiar way that Christmas lights droop off an awning, clinging desperately to some spots and escaping others at an even spread. Her feet lost the sandals and nestled quickly into the crux of her bag, hiding curled toes in the canvas. As she squirmed them deeper in, her calf muscles flexed and turned, making the dirt marks on them dance like tattoos on cartoon characters. She puffed out a hard breath and looked back at Mel. “And yours is?”

“Sorry?”

“Your name,” she stared straight at Mel’s face without a hint of analytical thought.

“Oh, sorry, Sparky. Well, Mel, but Sparky’s my handle, that’s what the boys call me.”

“Right, she said and wriggled down to face forward, “trucker shit. You’re gonna have to fill me in, I’m not exactly acclimated to the world of the motorvehicle. So is this lovely piece of machinery your ride Sparky? Proud owner?” smacking her hand on the passenger side door.

“Huh? Oh yeah, yep this is me. Call me Mel actually.” He didn’t know why he said that. Mel was reserved for family and stationary things. His mother called him Mel, his wife and her cribbage friends too. Postal addresses and cold callers and the ladies at the pharmacy but not here. Here, in this hot metal tank, he had always been Sparky.

Leslie ran her hands along the window to the dash, sweeping fingers up and inspecting them for dust or grime, and then with a quick curious sniff, she gave them a lick and an approving nod.

“Alright, Mel.”

It took him a couple of seconds to gather himself together, the lick was disarming to say the least. But after several blinks he dropped his hand to the stick and shifted back onto the road. The voices started piping out of the speakers, warning the crew nearby about a Bear in the woods, followed by a string of explicatives foul enough to make your cream curdle. Embarrassed, Mel fingered the volume to turn it down when Leslie's hand stopped him, resting her palm on his rough skin. His shoulders prickled and tensed up.

“Wait,” she laughed, “keep it on. What did they say? What’s a ‘Bear in the woods’?”

“Oh, that just means there’s a cop car waiting on the side of the road. We use this to warn other drivers, mostly truckers, you know, about speed traps and traffic and stuff.” His throat was wet, soaked in fact, drowning in his own spit. Usually nervousness dries him out quick, but this morning was washed out by a cascade of saliva. He tapped a cigarette out of the carton and put it to his lips without thinking. Then he looked up and over at her to ask if she’d mind. It felt strange, how cautiously he had to go about his own habits with company in the car. It’s his truck for Christ’s sake. But here he was, tiptoeing around his own fucking living room afraid to wake the stray pup drooling on his sofa. Leslie however didn’t seem to notice and had already grabbed a cigarette from his pack. She pulled out a light, cupping the flame and reaching over to light him up. He took a drag and rolled down the window, letting smoke trail out into the early morning air.

Wind grabbed at her hair violently and whipped it into a tornado of red-brown like an Arizona dust storm atop her scalp. Leslie hung a thin arm out the window, using fingers as a sail to direct her hand every which way. Elongated pauses thrashed in and out of the truck until Mel couldn't stand it any longer.

“So what do you do?” Mel asked. Leslie let her head tip to the side and reeled her arm back in, slipping knuckles just above her ear to support the weight.

“I move, I guess. But I haven’t always. Before this I was working as a check out girl at the HEB in Fort Worth…” She seemed terrifically bored with the topic of her own identity but had clearly rehearsed these answers before. Youngest of four brothers, spittin image of her old man, mom passed when she was seven but she and her step-mom get along just fine. She finished high school barely passing all her classes except English Lit and Carpentry in which she was a “fucking rockstar”. She showed Mel her palms, speckled with tiny fragmented scars from splinters and a couple heavy machinery wounds. Mel set up all the appropriate conversational milestones, following the strict narrative of two strangers meeting, and Leslie answered dutifully, never once breaking eye contact with the solid white line of the emergency lane.

Her left hand rolled the half-smoked cigarette in between two fingers and smoke lingered around her lips as she spoke. She was in no rush to finish the thing, unlike Mel who suddenly realized that he was burning his fingertips and abruptly flicked the butt out the window. He brought his middle finger to his lips and sucked on the rapidly forming blister.

Leslie’s attention was broken and she surveyed the car, fixating on a glossy cover peeking out from under the stereo. Several pictures of Mel’s family that he had forgotten about. Shit he thought, although he didn't quite know why. His shoulders prickled again and he stretched his neck left and right to ease the ache.

“This your family,” she asked. Or rather, stated, knowing the answer

“Yeah. That there’s Ryan, and the little guy is Chris. He’s pretty good on the field, fast as all hell. And there’s Julie, she’s 15 now, going through that mess of teenage girl years, you know.” He’s voice descended an octave. “How old are you?”

“20,” said Leslie without regard to the significance of the number, “but ain't it all wildly conditional?”

Mel looked at her not understanding.

“Like,” her eyes rolled up and she puffed at a rogue strand of hair hanging over her nose, “sometimes I’m sure I must be 32. With all the qualifications that 32 gives you. The travel alone, right? Alaska to New Hampshire to California and everywhere in between. And the dating, and the eating, and drinking and drugs. Plus let’s not forget about the aging effects of all those classic stupid mistakes. The only difference is I’m not old enough to know they’re stupid yet.” She cracked a left-heavy smile and dragged her eyes back to the pictures, folding the others under the image of his daughter. Her middle finger traced her tiny figure engulfed by mountains.

 “But, of course, I’m not 32. I’m not even 20 in terms of my commitment or dedication or feeling of responsibility. I’m sure my mom would give me a good old talking to if I had one. I haven’t been in the same city for over 3 weeks since I was 17, you see. So people, places, jobs, hobbies, all disappear into the fucking wind, right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I color it freedom or learning or adventure whenever I fill my glass half full. But I’m still running. And you want to know the shitty thing Mel? You ready for the kicker? I don’t have anything to be running from. Or to.”

Fingerprints smudged the photos cupped in her torn hands, swirling oil marks accenting odd spots on his daughter’s and wife’s faces. The CB was still singing a garbled mess of chatter and codes in the background. Mel turned it up to check the upcoming traffic.

“Do you ever dick around on this thing?” asked Leslie twirling the cord.

Mel smiled, relieved that her investigation of the family photos was over and produced no worrisome results.

“Sometimes at night, I sing.”

Leslie laughed, accidentally whipping the mic from its hook. “Will you do it? Now?”

He asked for a request. “Should I toss you a quarter? Anything in there by Al Green?”

Slipping the mic out of her hand, warm and rough with undisturbed splinters, Mel cleared his throat and clicked on.

If I gave you my love

I tell you what I do-ooo-oo-oooo

I’d expect a whole lot of love out of you

Ha

Laughing, Leslie pulled on the edge of the car, lifting her whole top half out the window and picked up howling where he left off.

You got to be good to me

I’m gonna be good to you-ooo-ooo-oo-oooo

There’s a whole lotta thangs you and I could do

Huh, hea hea

Oooh, babe, yeaaa

Her thin frame pressed unwaveringly against the rush of wind and the counterweight of the locked seatbelt and Mel couldn't help but devour her body for a couple of generous seconds. It could happen again, just like it had months before. A side-road bar, a girl with one too many drinks under her belt, a motel room, a silent morning without goodbyes, and a long shower at the nearest truck stop. But he scanned her, laughing atop her carved calves, a girl erected from dates and drinks and the interest of a thousand other men. This road triples in loneliness when you’re on the run. For several hours, the girl was home. Mel glanced at the finger printed photos scattered across the floor. What would she look like all bundled in winter clothes, he wondered. The Porcupines would suck her in, drawn by the magic of a woman in snow. He pulled her back in by a belt loop.

“You’ll fall right outta here if you’re not careful.”

Rolling up the window, Mel tossed her the CB mic and toggled the volume up so they could hear.

“We use code on the road, to protect each other, let each other know the conditions, keep each other company. Truckers can get a bad rep, always away from home. Some of these guys are vulgar men, but lots of us are just guys on the road. Christian men, family men, dads, brothers, you know. It’s hard being away for so long. So we keep each other company.”

He tossed her the mic and she looked at him nervously. With one firm nod he turned his head back to the road. The mic wavered in her hands, switching left to right as she eyed it curiously. Then she clicked on and asked about traffic conditions.

Men shot on to the sound of a female voice, hooting and hissing in their derogatory code. Mel tried his best to contain his frustration and concern. From miles away people tuned in, listening to Leslie grin into channel 19, flooding the band wave with a world of shameless curiosity prevalent in rough-skinned women. She brushed off the approaches and passed cryptic answers back into hundreds of trucks moving north-south across middle-America. And the two sailed north.

Sparky shook his head and focused back on the road. He had put a couple hundred miles of pavement behind him since he let his mind wander with thoughts of Leslie. Avoiding the temptation of a fruitless wonder where is she now? he pushed down on the accelerator and passed a slow moving trailer. The late night voices of men alone piped softly through his stereo, keeping each other company.

What about the way you love me, huh

And the way you squeeze me, yeah, heyey

Simply beautiful, yeah yeah

Beautiful, yeahhh

It’s a different view from Sesame Street, all transient and encoded. No homes lining the edges of the road, no rest stop, no establishments. Nothing stays on CB, just floods in and sails out, disappearing out the windows of other people moving through the world.

noisenoisenoisenoisenoiseGOOSE

The humming is incessant, antiquated southern torture device, just barely off beat of the heavy-moving tread of my grandmother's final swirl around the kitchen. I clench my teeth and push my top lip into my bottom in ape-like protest. I'm sure she knows it, she can sense my brow push up and eyes widen in frustration. She's just trying to get me to really commit, follow through, like she always says. From Ape to Planet of The. I think about flipping over the table and cursing at her in italian; about tearing her jewish book collection to shreds and shoveling the remains in my hampster cheeks; about running across the street and buying enough bud just to light up in the middle of the fucking living room, about shaving their dog and leaving trails of fur running down Calhoun. But I dont. God damnit, that fucking humming, it's all old tunes from musicals I don't know, ballads of love and other bullshit. I think about how Anna used to hum making coffee in the morning. I liked that, or maybe a half-dressed woman wrapped in the smell of espresso will cloud any annoyance. Dafna used to hum too, all the time actually, and generally there was no detectable song within the humming, but I liked it just the same. And my mom, yeah she hums, more of a singer though, even when ad-libbing lyrics was necessary, but it still felt like an exhale. I liked that too. Even grandma, yeah, now I remember her humming. Old and romantic and still so alive. It's not her tonight, really. It's just the lack of silence.

With this realization, I pocket fantasies about reenacting Katrina on this well-furnished house and instead I shuffle my shoulders down into the couch, pulling my father's book closer to my face. Second round in reading it. I was definitely too young the first go - didn't squirm at the nuances or moments of intergenerational beauty. Didn't get that we're not in fact one in the fucking same like i used to swear us to be. See extensive-game-show-and-trivia-knowledge for details. He has a Wendy too. First chapter, right there, quite a bitch of a character i might add, for the little i know about her. She's not like Chris' Wendy, who i imagine is reserved and brilliantly kind and uses her sparse words like a fucking bludgeon and will marry someone else in the end. She'd never babble like i do, and dad's Wendy may sell-out but at least she was an artist once. These are worlds of women i'll never be, wrapped in men i don't quite know. Shit's all in the name i'm sure.

I've been surrounded by words and noise recently, TV and authors and eavesdropping and that fucking relentless humming. Plus an ooh-shiny-thing mentality only exacerbated by my run-away life hasn't helped with any of the writing. There's been a recent insurgence of sayanythingeveryoneelsehasalreadysaid. Perhaps the dirty underbelly of impending revolution? Perhaps just a lack of all things creative. But I think the real itch is rooted in spending too much time window shopping for vulnerability and never buying. Lots of fantasy you see, makes a woman all goofy and muddled up on her insides. There's been a whole lot of gowithits and leaveitbe a-la-cartes and the whim-special just maybe ins't cooked all the way through, still frozen and bloody in the center. And, to pile it on, I found myself sleepwalking again, which, when I'm feeling overly analytic and freudically introspective, I take as a sign of my emotional discontent (and when I'm not feeling those things I find that I'm generally feeling drunk - the actual cause of my semi-conscious a'wanderings). Ended up in my aunt's bed this time. Wish I slept with more clothes. But discontent, that's gotta be the source of it somehow, no matter how deep-seated or generalized I have to make it. Oddly enough, while backstroking the dead center of this pool of discontent, I start to notice something. I notice that the humming and the strings of words and the muffled voice of my aunt talking to herself and the clever conversations of their sexy across the street neighbors and the TV and the whoosh of page flips shove my lips, ape-like or not, into a smile. Been that way all along. I laugh and hum a bit, out of tune, and grandma says good night.

Thanksgiving Blues

My thanksgiving meal was a sham – double  patty cheesebuirger, extra onions and jalapenos, mustard, no ketchup, smacked down on the chipping red paint of a picnic table. I didn’t order it sans ketchup, of course; they just gave it to me that way and I was in no position to complain. It was quite a shabby sight, if you don’t mind me saying. My bag passed out in the backpack equivalent of a fetal position at my feet, canteen upright replacing the soda I refused to get for an extra 75 cents (no, no drink, yes I’m sure, no not sprite either, muchas gracias). My overalls hung wrinkled on my body, bunching up in the crotch when I sat down. Happy thanksgiving to you and yours, I grumbled.

The young woman behind the counter had a ponytail that looked oppressive. It was the kind of ‘do that tugged so tightly on her hairline that sections of her forehead started to stream into the center of her skull, forming ditches from her eyebrows to her ears. She seemed much too hurried for the pace of the day with that hairdo. I picked up my burger and shoveled a quarter section into my mouth. Thanksgiving and Brownsville: streets dead, shops locked and gated, no cars, no foot traffic, just me, wandering up to blackened convenience-store windows salivating at the pre-packaged donuts. Chris says I’ve been spending too much time on buses. Astute observation, jackass.

It would be more enlightening to say I’ve spent too much time alone while surrounded by dozens of people. I’ve spent too much time apart from the familiar – too much time away from family and friends. I’ve spent too much time spewing the banal, redundant witticisms to strangers, too much time telling truths about myself and not enough lying voraciously just for the fuck of it all. I’ve spent too much time in transit, too much time in motion, too much time as a timeless bitch; that would help clarify things.

So inevitably I get locked in the dankest caverns of my mind, talking to myself, playing with my thoughts, prodding and poking at my inner sensitivity with hot rods and pointy sticks. And as a side effect I don’t end up doing much of anything at all. Mostly because I don’t feel like it. You really have to be in the mood for that kind of thing.

The second quarter of my thanksgiving repast finds its way into my jowls. I gnash and look up at the taught-haired woman staring with sorrow. Usually I can smell the source of melancholy on a person. Shit job, shit day, shit husband, shit hangover. Regret, faithlessness, sickness and death. But her sorrow is all confused and wishy-washy. I can’t quite pin it down. Licking grease from my lower lip, I try to look into her eyes. They light up as she turns back and chats with her co-workers. And then back to me – that flood of sorrow once more. What is she trying to show me? Where does this pain and devastation come from, how did it become so sodden, why all the weight?

And then I smelled it, sniff, a definite terrifying whiff – shit. The sorrow’s for me. She grieves for my bag, down for the count, shuffled under my sandals. For my double patty cheeseburger all garnished and sweating on thanksgiving day. For my patronage in dead streets while Brownsville is on lock-down or cozying up with family, and my own sad sorrowful eyes. So she serves me a side of fries, with a bottle of ketchup from the back, to feed my Thanksgiving Blues.

Lot 41

Transcribed note:

Dear Jordan,

You helped me cry today, legs buckled at 35 degrees, spread at a tilt on patchy browning grass. No marker or tombstone in sight - but why would i have known? I paced for an hour or so through the lives and expiration of other people, everyone else, until eventually, I gave in and collapsed in my spot. I bent my head down into the cemetery grass and breathed in its dry earth. Five days before this i had stood perfectly tall, just inches away from the full length mirror hanging in the 3rd floor restroom of Austin's Public Library waiting to cry. Drought. All flood gates dusted and barricaded off. No fucking tears. And yet there I stood, without a blink, waiting like a teenager to watch myself break down. Not one fucking tear for my own humiliation - biding hours on hold for a stranger that i knew wasn't coming back for me - or for my own disorientation - alone for nearly two months now without 24 hours actually to myself - or for my flailing confusion - how the fuck did i get here? So after what seemed like days doubled over the cemetery green, I threw my head back to stare up at the freezing blue Fort Worth skies, and i laughed.

"Well... this is about to be trite." I choke and feel tears well up behind dried lids.
"I have no idea where the fuck you are Jordan... or where I am for that matter. Ha. Maybe I'm right on top of you, in which case, well, i'm terribly sorry. Damn. These things are fucked - do you know that? Words never pour out the way you'd expect them to in a cemetery. It'd like they gag you with freshly cut flowers and black veils the moment you stroll through those ashy gates. Or you get a terrible case of the social hiccups causing you to spurt out insignificant bursts of words, either incoherent or totally unrelated to whatever you intended to say. Kind of like now." Hic

I tell you about Candice and Will and Steph and Ajooni and Poonam and Ian and Hannah and Alana and Megan and Leslie and Lawrence and Andrew and, fuck, the list goes on forever. It's cliffs-notes upon cliffs-notes; menial but at the moment seemingly vital basics about the lives of those people... us... the people who you flipped around with your first smile. I stutter and laugh and hiccup some more. 10 minutes trail into 40 and by the time i'm finally out of things to say I perch my elbow on my hip and slide my hand under my chin - my cheeks are soaked, streaked with 40 minutes worth of tears that had gone unnoticed. I grab for my phone and pull up your mother's number, seeing it glow on my screen. My thumb shakes over the dial key but i can't seem to press down, afraid that I'll hiccup and she'll hear my tear-stained cheeks and broken posture.

Dear Jordan, your city is beautiful and very much alive. People here are laughing and moving and suffering through it all. It's the reason i'm here and traveling, to watch this kind of motion and get pulled into the cement current. And as much as i remind myself to avoid the act of wishing, I find myself wishing now, for the first time more than ever, that i could just call, pull you out for drinks, tuck the two of us into a corner and watch your eyes scan my face. We could detail old developments of our lives and others'. We could eat and laugh and avoid heavy topics. We could say too much and take deep gulps of brown beers but  instead, I just run my fingers over damp cheeks and babble on about everything but. Everything but the glaring blue skied truth of it all which is, here, on this freezing Fort Worth day, I, like the rest of the world, miss you.

"I have to go," I swallow raspy remnants of voice. Leaning forward, I hesitate, then press my lips to the scratchy ground. I push my palms down and lift my body up onto unsteady feet. I laugh at how badly i suddenly have to pee and flag down an employee on golf cart. He waves me on board and floors it to the nearest restroom. Tears dry quickly with the flow of this air and I know it's time to leave this place. Move on from this city and let the passing wind take loss and fear and humiliation and hiccups in my exit. Always, missing you.

Love,
Rachel

addendum

Thought experiment (for me to chew): if no one is quite as exceptional as you believe yourself to be, should it make everyone outstanding or just plain ordinary?

The Odd Days

It was an aberration; an anomaly in the birth canal, but boy oh boy if you could have been there, if you could have seen it! The child came shooting out with a skull enough for two of them – screams and rips, the lens of each frame is painted translucent red and dripping. Yessir, the doctor swore it was the biggest head he’d ever saw on a critter, “whoo,” exhaling as he mops his brow with the pale blue and brown speckled sleeve of his scrubs, “what a show.”

The waiting room was packed, haggard reporters smoked cigars and downed miniature cups of vending machine coffee, filling the role of the absentee father; good for nothing schmuck. They all waited, clucking and murmuring about the newest freak show in town.

But the mother kept him and coddled him, cooing like every new mother must, swinging the ballooned baby in the crook of her arms. Before she released him to the world of gawks and stares, she sat rocking her precious baby boy, cheeks wet with joy at the beauty of what she held. It was hers, a piece from her ripped out from inside in violence and bright lights. She made him, the repulsive little thing. She licks her lips to ease her tongue, dry and cracking; they taste of salt, whether sweat or tears she cannot tell. Her cries thicken in either joy or fear or possibly both. As the hospital filled with ooh-ers and onlookers, the mother sat coddling her boy, whispering fantasies both near and far of unlikely heroes to welcome him gently into this world, wondering how he’ll possibly fare.

Still, the real show was to watch him grow. Parents and teachers and strangers all stared collectively in awe throughout the years, worried or possibly waiting for that giant head of his to teeter over and bring the tiny fleshy frame crashing down with him. It was a freakish baby balancing act watching him learn to stand and walk. His massive head sprouted fine blond hairs, wisping around his skull like cloud patterns on a distant earth, moonside window view looking down. The thin fibers of his jacket, like those on his head, shake terrifyingly with every gust of wind. But the boy would move on, stepping gingerly as any toddler might, completely unaware of his own bobbling head.

Neighbors would bring their kids to the park for play, hoping to get a look at the beast move with astounding elegance. Their necks would crane and women gasped, grabbing their collars outside on fall days at the thought of the precious boy tumbling down and never getting up – they never dared push him, but they all dreamt of it. Still the boy pressed on, indifferent and unaware; his feet would bound to the sound of his mother’s fairytales rushing through his memory.

The danger years were three to five, years clad with desperate denigrating braces and outrageous DIY solutions. Grandma pasted popsicle sticks into the collar of his baby gap shirts. Grandpa was often found whispering lectures late at night, suggesting he figger this whole head thing out before he hits puberty. The neighbor Jan swore to pete’s sake that a spoonful of pure maple syrup and just a drop of artists cement would harden that neck right up. His older sister joked that they should just drain it of all the air before he floats away. But late at night she would peer into his bed imagining the best place to drill without seriously hurting her stupid airhead brother. Sometimes she ran into Grandpa there. Uncle Al was even seen once dangling the boy by only his head, shaking slightly with the spins of too much Jameson. He was sure that with the right taps of his plumber hands, he could unclog whatever it was that was fillin that baby boy brain uh his.

But then one day he straightened out, just like that, about age seven and a half. He came home from school with his head down an inch and body up. And the day after that and the day after that until the boy’s bulb was indistinguishable from the rest of his 2^nd grade class. The kid was a medical marvel, no longer cursed with that massive, obtrusive head. His mother threw a big party and everyone was invited – the ladies wore sequined cocktail dresses and the men rented tuxes, and they drank champagne until five in the morning. The party was better than New Years and lasted twice as long. The reporters swarmed, now with open invitations. They sucked on Lucky Strikes and downed flutes of bubbly, taking quotes from an inebriated mother about happy endings and unlikely heroes.

And as years went by the boy slipped into normalcy, walking and talking and playing with toys and memorizing multiplication tables and pulling the pigtails of crying girls like all his friends. The only mention of his former head size was when Uncle Al would knock back too much of the golden juice at family get togethers and slur some lines about, “Remember yur boy had a head like a library globe?? Damn, shur was big. Whatever happened to that head?” and then Mom would slap him one good, straight into sleep. The world shirked it off, the garish impressiveness of baby boy, the story of miracles. But late at night, when he would rest his head on newly purchased kid-sized pillows, he could still hear grandpas lectures or his big sister mumbling to herself. Night was when he remembered himself as he truly was. He could still hear the cooing of his mother’s fairytales about broken heroes and peculiar gentleman with fantastical endings.

And people began to forget about the odd days. Mom burned the photo albums and said she lost them in the move. Grandma died and Grandpa took up woodwork. Neighbor Jan moved to Greenwich Village to try her hand at sculpting and his sister went to college for nursing. Only Uncle Al and the boy himself seemed to cling to a recollection of the odd days, but what did Uncle Al know, he’s a drunk. His childhood memories were shaky, maybe from the wear of passing time. But when he was alone, he’d spend hours with them, seeing that the visions themselves were always unfocused, what with the years of wobbling under the weight of his massive skull.

In those days he never once cried about it, back when he didn’t know any better. But these days the fairytales were the only things to still soothe him to sleep. He’d toss and turn at night thinking of the plight of the outcasts, the loner life. He’d elaborate on banal works of fiction, making them more disparaging at first and more fantastical in the end. The broken heroes, they spent years alone, crushing great things in their awkwardness and fumbles. But they deserved much more than that, they just couldn’t contol it, couldn’t know better, and every time, one day, they find their glorified place, unique and celebrated in a world that never quite fit them.

Time is oft spent in the memory of the middling folk, dreaming of years passed, the odd days or the exceptional ones. The less the world learned to gawk in awe at his now unremarkable form, the more he swore it to be his. Uncle Al died of alcohol poisoning. Finally, the tears would come, but only at brief, when shaky memories took hold of shaky hands. Alone, they shattered picture frames and ceramic figurines lining his shelves. Broken records and torn books scattered across the floor of his adult home. The scene would zoom out and he’d see it, crying in fear for the things he lost and joy at his own heroic fumblings. Curled on the floor, among the ruins of all his precious things, he’d breathe in stories of unlikely heroes. And for a brief moment, he’d lick his lips and taste the salt like that of his mother, confused and lost in what exactly he was crying for.

Fairytales in Fort Stockton

“Coffee?” The Indian man behind the counter reiterates.

“Yes, coffee. Is there a place I can grab a cup of coffee here, or anywhere in Fort Stockton?”

“Coffee,” he lets his brow furrow. He guides his bifocals up a notch on the bridge of his nose, letting the frames cover his thinning eyebrows. He rubs his head where sparse hairs tickle rough palms. He must have rubbed this spot clean before the last time a visitor came through town. I want to make sure we’re on the same subject – there is far too much confusion in his parted lips to be answering the question I believed I had asked. “Coffee.” He says again, speaking the word with a harder O than I’m used to, like that used in oaf or showoff or good-for-nothing-nomad. I shift with the weight of my bag, looking around to see if anyone else is as puzzled as either one of us.

“Yes. There is restaurant across the street.” He gives in. “And other restaurant here in pink building.”

“…and they have coffee?” cawwwfee, I let it draw out as if I interrupted the middle of a Rosetta Stone recording.

“They ah Mexican restaurant.” What am I asking?

I notice my voice is softer than usual, partially swallowed by the gravitational force of sitting semi-upright for hours as I move deeper into texas. I clear my throat to thank him but can’t bear to continue the conversation even for a wrap up. Fort Stockton is too easily stumped and I’m worried about the further damage I could cause. I cinch my backpack around my waist and head out the propped door. ‘The pink building’ – although usually a useful descriptor, in this case it was pure excess. ‘The only building’ would suffice. I slide past the other three customers and up to the counter.

“Can I get a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee?” the waitress repeats after me. I stop breathing temporarily, my organs all following the baited breath, turn their top halves to the aproned woman in front of me and wait for my next move. Really? What am I asking??

“Yeah, I can make you some,” she throws in craning her head toward the stale quarter pot from this morning. I exhale and my body starts ticking again. Pointing to a corner table near the window, I nod in gratitude and weave my way through chairs. The fake cloth pattern of the plastic is washed out by residual pink bouncing through the window.

I set up home for whatever amount of time a coffee will buy me in this joint and start typing away. Catching up on journal entries that I rationalize away as blogposts for the curious types in my midst, I knock back tepid mugs full of translucent brown water, tinged with the zing of the underside of a Mr. Coffee burner. Hours flow and I move to another food joint to get the best of Fort Stockton’s tex-mex smothered in cream. I tap in again and take a moment pause to wonder if I’m missing out on this city’s gems. The rowdy group of cowboys bear the brunt of my curiosity.

“So fellas, what’s good in Fort Stockton?”

“Oooh we got a live one!,” the tan wrinkles bunch like wadded leather underneath his wide-brimmed hat. They hoot and laugh and make side comments, eventually turning back to me with a twangy, “Darlin… you found yourself in the unofficial truck stop of West Texas. Ain’t much you can do, before we get to want.”

I smile and turn back to spooning my cheese sauce around the oblong ceramic plate. 

Time streams by and I find myself with only 80 minutes to kill before the bus pulls in. Trekking back to the convenience store where I was dropped off not eight hours earlier, I wave in response to the honks and ballcap tips that pour out of 18-wheelers. I survey the crowd casually to check my fellow bus riders – a couple pressed against the side of the cement blocked building, and two men doubled over with their hands covering their ears speaking in one-word answers on each side of the corner – I break left.

His name is undue salvation tucked into an army bag. Christian Resurrection. That, my dear readers, is potentially the only direct truth of the rest to follow, so feel free to dump your own grains of salt into the screen. Apply liberally. His eyes skirt over as I pathetically attempt to carve aluminum earrings out of a favored beer can. Smiles and conversation, winking innuendos and dexterous evasion of topics I find uncomfortable. I scan my brain for those familiar guards I set up with charming men, but traveling has left them eroded and in need of serious repair. Instead I loosen up and let him work his way into my memory; for the first time on my journey it’s not just the other way around. In several days I’ll be back at this same truckstop city, six beers deep at the local bar 8 blocks down the way. The men swarm at the novelty of a woman in this testosterone filled town. They call me Molly Ringwald in slurs and stumbles. They touch my lower back as they hand me another round on the house. They follow me at 3 mph in their bulky trucks and text me absurd offers of cash to stay the night. It’ll cover my meals and room, no mention of what it’ll cost. They compliment my hair and smile and mouth and survival style; my boldness, my laugh, my age, my temporary presence. Unraveling at an exponential rate with each bottle drained, I no longer need to search for hidden intentions – they are all festering and multiplying along the countertop, spilling onto the floor, crawling up the legs of pool tales and barstools. And I wonder why my guard here is full force allowing me to laugh off the prostitution proposals, violations of space, neglect of my words. Why charm slips through weathered cracks while machismo throws itself against stone walls, and whether there is in fact a real difference between an ogre and a prince.

geographic backtracking - thoughts on phoenix

Coffee is the honey of every swarming  indie bee hive. I perch in a corner comb and watch as beautiful tattooed women zig zag past, into the nest to brew and consume and bring it back into the world. Trails of smoke replace the constant buzz of work to be done. We have found the hip section of phoenix - a tiny cherished enclave sitting within the sixth most populous city in the nation. The Arts District is Portland, concentrated into five arizonan blocks. Screen printing spaces, book stores, vintage boutiques, and record shops. Walls plastered with angry graffiti and/or silhouettes painted by ex-urban outfitters employees in protest of the mass produced. It thrives and is alive in a way that demands a moment of marveling at least, but those who study bees see beyond the random motions and delicious production process. There is routine, patterns in the chaos, common ground among the indie-viduals, similar trends across wide communities. Still, for phoenix this enclave is particular and unique.

Move out a layer and you find corporations reaching glass paned arms towards the sky, Capitol buildings bulbous and lain in brick. Again another layer and your streets begin to widen, your storefronts may seem few and far between. Zoom out further until the names of incorporated cities appear in bolded black Ariel - Tempe, Scottsdale, Glendale, Peoria, Mesa. And smack dab in the middle of these incorporated cities that make up metro-phoenix lies Guadalupe - a one square mile town from mexico, cargo that must have been airlifted and dumped in central arizona due to excess weight. Like day and night, Guadalupe rubs up against the Tempe mall - mass corporate billboards tower over modest colorful houses that have been occupied by the same families for generations. The space is Yaqui and Mexican although the divide is palpable to locals. But to the untrained visitor it all seems to fold into one place. Even within the enlcave there are sub-divisions. Ahhhh the complexities.

My host's car is colorfully chalked on the back - window paint reads "We will not comply! Say no to SB10-70" She explains how the town set up road blocks for the police raids - 80 year old women with canes standing next to the Guadalupe's mayor and judge holding off 100 police cars. She describes the police raid on a sunday; the image of a little girl in confirmation with the military tank in the background. She describes the shift of apathy towards the recent shooting in the neighborhood and the flux of a town that stands so strongly together at some times and turns the other cheek at others. But this is the nature of community, the nature of all enclaves. Just like the Arts District, and Portland, and every other self-selecting "cool" community.

Enclaves - it's what defines the great urban space. They shift and dissolve and are celebrated for their separateness while simultaneously being criticized for their exclusivity. They are spaces that fill you with a constant sense of angst about your role in being there, drawing bold black lines separating insiders from outsiders as if it were the only and ultimate distinction. And the irony of territorialism sits in the front row and throws tomatoes at you during your monologue. At the large scale, it's bullshit. Everyone has the right to movement! they say. And pushing others out is wrong, self-involved, unprecedented, injust. But on the communal level we all sing a different tune. Any group who has been in a space for more than 10 years prints out their own personalized rights to the neighborhood on glossy cardstock. Any changes, whether or not they occur naturally, without the unanimous consent of the rightful community members causes uproar. Outsiders! Gentrification! Attack, Assault, Abuse! Yes yes i know it's always more grey than we can explain, but we see the trend now don't we? How come the most liberal of us don't delve into our own NIMBYism? How can we poke fun at the irony? Or should we just bring our own tomatoes and come prepared to heckle?

south

Unimpeded stretches of yellow and brown scratch across the surface north and south of me. Up ahead the faint shadows of blue-grey mountains start to show. Southern land is rugged and would run wild if not for the crooked posts pinned along every section of land fencing off what belongs to whom. The desert is barbed and tamed. Telephone poles jut into the ground helping hold it in place. If these pins were undone, I’m sure the dust would roll up in waves like a sheet being shaken free of debris and blow in all direction. The landscape of the south itself could rebel and run rampant if only we unpinned it.

Something romantic about stretches of road cutting through the landscape creeps into the air filters of the bus. The man next to me inks a small pornographic sketch of a girl in military garb and gas mask. Biker couples whip into emergency side lanes around us. I imagine they are hooting and hollering, she gets wet holding onto her leathered hunk as he's glued to the throttle. There are inner-state tensions among the solidarity. Like a large jewish family – they all recognize their connections and nod at each others’ accomplishments while whispers and raised eyebrows draw distinctions between each one. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas wrangled and tangled in tough love.

This greyhound is more packed and desperate than others I have inhabited before. A surprise Cocaine bust led the blonde tattooed gentleman to skip out on his court date in Oregon. He sucks on a rolled cigarette and exhales his story – I can be your receptacle good sir, I can be your canyon. “ Yeah, fuck undercover cops,” I echo. His dad promises a job upon his return back south. Martin, the larger latino man with a brother in the military, loved California but hated the trucking industry. He thinks I should get into construction if I pass through McAllen – he swears to hook me up in the hypothetical. The small black girl is yanked up off the floor by her shirt collar – her braid whips up with her tiny frame. No one looks as her mother whispers angrily in her tearing eyes. Don’t be that kid girl. Nobody sides with the bus-crier… I know, I’ve been her. A 40-something white woman clad in Zumies gear screams explicatives at her scurrying children. Two rows behind her is the tail end of an alimony conversation. Pick your poison passengers. This southern bus is rugged and wild and full of tough love.

Still, when I ask, a pebble of pride beams back through. “It’s good to be back south,” they all smile and let their heads pan. "Home." they throw in at the last moment. "It's good to be back home." I allow for their moment of joyous reflection and wait for the inevitable launch into nostalgia. Describing country life and hard life and backwaters, po-dunk, killin rattle snakes and eating Whattaburger and hooting at women and driving real fast. It’s all part of the appeal, they explain. This is rugged and rolling and real. They are home, and ready to put their pins back. Things have been too shaken up the past couple of months.

Virga

My New Mexican skies pour black streaks down into arid brown mountains. The rain in the distance evaporates before it touches dusted ground. Virga. I'm waiting at the bus station 12 miles out of Las Cruces. The new drop off requires that the bus snakes through the southwest of Las Cruces, into downtown, and out the northeastern edge. Passing through without ever feeling soil. Virga. It's odd to slip so calmly through this country, leaving bits and pieces in my path. I have lost four pairs of underwear, two dresses, traded in two shirts, four novels, devoured and discarded a month and some worth of meals and have yet to let my feet sink into the ground. I have yet to fall in love or drown in frustration. There have been no terrible days, zero great tragedies, no stains, no mars, no scars, my clothes wear well, my thoughts move freely, no muck, no blocks, just virga. Is it half as satisfying? Seeing the rainfall but feeling no rain? My sensations are all muddled and no longer trusting of one another, scent and sense making erroneous claims that eye and ear witnesses can't back up. They (who?) say it's about the journey, process, action, movement, stasis be the enemy, but I (me?) get thirsty waiting for the rain to drop. Instead of letting this disappointment seep in and leave that necessary stain to jog my memory, I wait for night where the bare stars come out and force us thinking creatures to ponder the unanswerables as distraction from the things we can. Let's move on.

First transit fuck up

I recognized it about 45 minutes ago: the bus was moving south away from my destination, but the fountains of irrigation systems out the window lulled me into a pacified state so that by the time I came to it was too late to get off and reorient myself. So I pocketed my Garrison Keillor – only a social shelter to begin with – and smiled at miles of tilled land. First transit fuck up; it’s always cute at the preliminary haul. It’s only when you number in the teens that you really start to feel the cold irk – like sitting for hours in a puddle of your own urine – of misdirecting yourself yet again. But the sensation is still young and the view is still new enough to keep me pleasantly entertained. Leaving Yuma, through Sommerton, into San Luis. We slide past endless sections of agricultural land – to the left are fields in seasonal use, to the right the ground is an eerie grey-brown. Looking straight ahead is like being hemispherically colorblind – to the left we have a Pink Floyd laser light show, to the right a screening of Gone with the Wind. Occasional oases crop up every two miles or so, lined with tall palms and bushes in bloom. W county 16^th street takes a sharp turn and the bus slows enough to let me peer in-between tree trunks: the houses are roofed with thin metal, windows made of cellophane. Not the vision in royal purple I had imagined.

The other passengers are all crossers, letting their heads slide against the blotted windows for a moment of rest before the 45 minute standing wait to get across the border. Cars pile up for nearly 3 miles in line to customs – 3:45 on a Friday; Satan laughs in his infernal lay-z-boy watching the good people of Yuma County-San Luis suffer so. Rows of white school buses inch alongside us, Growers Union spraypainted in blue, packed with dark sweaty faces. We make our final turn and all passengers (sans your kindhearted narrator) pour off. The busdriver shoots me a perplexed look, I shrug and smile and he turns back to check the new group as they slide bills into the ticket slot. Backtracking through the cities seems to pass quicker than the way there – isn’t that a curiously consistent feature of life? I spend a quarter of the time watching the old woman six rows ahead of me mop up sweat from under her shirt, lifting her long slivered braid from her neck as her yellowing rag works across her neck and back. The other ¾ of the journey I spend laughing with a San Luis native about my fear of horses and his fear of other people – we traded sunflower seeds for 2 minutes of my phone. “No eres de aca” he notes, and I drop my jaw in shock at his astute observation. Bus Route 95 weaves back into familiar territory. Walled off subdivisions and mobile-home parks. Suddenly I pine for other places – all of them that I ever called home. The walkable ones; spaces where I could dance aside a six-lane road and not get mimics or smiles. Spaces with quirk, or places where no one gave a quarter-shit. Places where my whiteness wasn’t novelty, my smile wasn’t sex. My affinity to rain wasn’t endearing and my positivity pissed people off. Places that were bigger and brighter and overcharged for a pint of beer, places with multiple centers and hidden cavernous neighborhoods. Perhaps places where affluence was a standard and abounding urban poverty was tolerated. That liberal elite in my pounds the inner caverns of my heart screaming “let me out of rural quaintness you manipulative masochistic bitch!” Places that birth other places, meta-places, sub-genres festering beneath the subsequent layers. I tug on the yellow cord and descend, heading for a bar. Next stop – city please.

Calexico-Mexicali

Calexico - confounded national identity issues prepacked and served to you at a boil right in the name. Cal.Exico. Not quite here nor there. A different species of cities. Calexico is small and humble - clean and accomodating to the crossers who work their ways through the four-road downtown trip of one dollar clothing shops and pharmacies to get to the Walmart across town. Peddling down E Zapata st on the Barajas' borrowed bike draws a lot of attention. Or is it being a white girl. Either way I get waves and stares as I jam towards the border. The fence is unimaginably tall, rusted and double-enforced. Border Patrol parks every 30 feet or so, resting in the dotted shade of the border wall. They crane their heads as I ride by along the metal, reaching out my hand to feel its presence. I've seen pictures, I've heard stories, all of which unravel into the same metaphysical and often mellowdramatic sensation of being wronged. And now i feel it - trite and popular are just euphemistic sisters-in-law, right? Chilled in 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Goodbumps beneath my dripping sweat. My hair is soaked and on edge.

But the birds eye - there's the real thriller. Calexico is made for Mexicali. A one-bar town adjacent to miles of big-lane highways, malls, a mess of varying neighborhoods rich (errm, comparatively?) and poor. Supposedly known for its chinese food? I'm still digesting the thought. "So, let's talk about crossing," I slide into the conversation over carne asada with the Barajas. Twice a week they go over for date night - no real restaurants in calexico. Elvia is a regular at the music venues, diehard EDM fan. Diego and I moved easily across the border, he ran up to his old house, lifted the gate to the roof entrance and weaved up the spiral staircase. "This is where we used to shoot our BB guns at passing cars." "This is the house we used to ding-dong-ditch. We stuck to her house, she got so mad." A nice duplex, half a block from the governor's house. They send security out while i'm taking pictures - the PRI seems on edge these days. "Ten cuidad eh," they say when i tell them i'm traveling, holding an extended finger up to one eye. The Barajas moved for better schools and border wait times - hours in line in the morning to cross to the United States. And for safety - Diego recounts two friends of his who were kidnapped in Mexicali. His ease and comfort with the words were more unnerving, but he doesn't seems like a man inclined to sensationalism in the first place.

Tensions in each city gurgle over Mexicanity - you're either not American enough or not Mexican enough in either space. The Mexicans in Calexico don't like the Mexicans in Mexicali - too big city, too self-involved, says Elvia. But we are better, she laughs. The Mexicans in Mexicali don't care about the Mexicans in Calexico - they live across the border. They are just fine. People, goods, tech, entertainment all zigzag across the border, tracing a looping infinity symbol of tire marks and footprints. And tensions - shared tensions - among kinship keep the communities neatly knit. 

SD-TJ

7 am - John shoots up. "Fuck. The street cleaners," he pulls on a pair of crumpled shorts and bounds past the couch I'm curled into, scraping keys off the counter and out of the apartment. Time to move the car. The early morning streets are full of pajamed residents scampering desperately towards their parking spots, hearts racing from the high of this weekly alarm. Meanwhile, across the border, vendors roll by neighborhood roads selling milk, water jugs, tortillas and tamales from carts. Jorge saunters out the door to the sounds of bells ringing and radios playing, the music cheery, the streets dance. See, the San Diego-Tijuana divide is thick, strong and clouded. And so many San Diegans smile, letting their eyes roll up as they reflect saying, " Oh yeah. I forget that Tijuana is right there... huh".

TJ: The sidewalks are cracked but remain solid under our feet. Peering down streets you can't tell the difference between Playas and Pacific Beach. But its the view of the city on the horizon that seems to mark national distinction. Colorful houses dot the rocked hills; no sidewalks but plenty of pedestrians. The beach roars in the background - more grey and powerful than the blue waters of San Diego. Dolphins crawl closer to the shores of TJ; the leopard sharks circle tamely in the waters of La Jolla shores. Pelicans soar casually across Las Playas; sting rays settle in the san diegan sands. So what natural distinction is there? Clearly the wildlife heeds no such divides. But that same distinction is hardly invented - two cities holding hands, pinkies linked across an international boundary. Their conversations slip easily through the mesh netting of the fences, but the cannot kiss or embrace as they may please. This is not a space for conjugal visits, not a traves de la frontera. And it's hard to try and separate the causes from the roots of the divide - which came first: the chicken or the border patrol? The distinction highlighted by the crossing process itself. I follow throngs of people moving quickly through the pedestrian rat maze out of the US. Mexico plated in silver, blocked only by a metal turnstile, lets me slide in with a smile. There is no dam to speak of that could slow this river of cross-border traffic. But coming back is hardly an upstream - more like spending several hours swirling in a Britta filter. The line wraps up and down both sides of the street - 3 pm moves to 4 pm and I still strain my eyes to see the gates. As you move closer to the US entrance, groups of 20 at a time step through every 15 minutes under the watchful eye of the line of border patrol agents. Those with legal crossing cards move left; their line takes even longer than for us foreigners. I shuffle right through security without a hitch: flash a smile, wait for the customs agent to flirt back... the obligatory small talk with la guera in overalls. And i'm back in the states - trucking further north through san diego country, i see the people become whiter, the neighborhoods more charming, even the tattoos take on a more unoffensive feel - artistic colored flowers take the place of territorial cursive brandings. And in no time, i move from one country, one lifestyle to a next, back in mission beach, watching eyes roll up while a curious smile takes form, "oh yeah. I forget that Tijuana is right there... huh." 

Dear Stranger

Every time I finish a novel I write a note to a stranger and leave it in a public space. This last note is transcribed from the book i'm reading - The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. Admittedly, it is way more for me than it ever was for the stranger (grant it, these notes always are), so i figured it is best suited in the transcribed environment of a self-indulgent blog spot. Here's whats what

Dear Stranger,

The grey carpeted seats are loose in their place, shaking steadily to the sway of this aluminum 'hound streaming down I-8 E. First of many rides on my impending two-month long bus trip - yes, these seats are surely dancing in celebration, rewarding my lasting delay in San Diego. Goodbye idyllic sunsets and tan northern europeaners. Goodbye sarongs wrapped as dresses and beer bongs for breakfast. Goodbye tolerable sunshine and overly trusting strangers. Goodbye to the carefree saunterers, longboarders, surfers, skaters, bikers and other genres of movers and shakers. I'm moving east. And they say (read: i fictionalize and therefore believe) that the further east you forge, the rougher it gets. Desperate for diminishing eye-contact and judgmental stares directed at my unfamiliar presence; for people who show almost as little of an interest in me as their city does; for that sensation of instability and isolation that is hidden in the kindness of western san diego... I pound eastward. And already I'm filled with the tingling sensation of novelty that runs up my legs with every new space I encounter. The faux leather seats glue to my bare thighs like a lover wrapping around you, holding you in bed for just 10 more minutes. The loose seats rattle louder, the highway twists up unexpectedly, my fellow passengers turn their backs to my obtrusive overhead light - groaning and squirming in protest. And instead of sitting in the solidarity of darkness, I let my smile widen as I scribble this note to you, dear stranger, because it's truly only you and me who know i'm moving east. East in my new home. East, being the most intimidating (read: irritating) motherfucker on this greyhound. East for new faces and spaces and conversations. East to be put in my goddamned place already. So despite that this note is increasingly becoming more for me than it was ever for you, dear stranger, just allow me one last indulgence as I remind myself of those important things that I need to remember. And in consolation for your gorgeous patience and applaudable tolerance of my babbling and bad handwriting, I will gift you this breathtaking novel. Pardon the unprecedented foreword, and enjoy the ride.

THINGS TO BE THOUGHT OF OFTEN:

- speaking to strangers

- asking EVERYTHING

- writing for an hour each day

- spending one day in every city walking around

- calling/emailing/stalking city representatives

THINGS TO THINK OF LESS OFTEN:

- your hesitations

- what you could be missing

- yourself

Love,

Rach

stasis be the enemy

Ohhh, the sweet sounds of sliding into that state of regression - post college kid hanging around the university, drinking out of bagged wine, breastfeeding from an easypour spout in the middle of an alleyway. Age is undeniably a bullshit marker of maturity and importance, but there is a notable difference in your actions when you drink and are simultaneously aging inchingly toward 21. It's that classic teen struggle to get as much liquid as physically possible into your body and trusting with courageous naivety that the rest will work itself out. 

Age should be qualified by the way people around you see it. It's impressive how quickly the twinkle and nostalgia of 23 can fade from the eyes of the middleaged man you met on the train, turning into that fear and disdain of 23 that comes from a sophomore in college, crossing her two biggest toes in her wedges hoping desperately she doesnt end up like you.

"But you can always regress then reprogress - stasis be the enemy" Becca tells me. And in this process of traveling, all i could ever hope to do is try on various lifestyles, because thats what festers in the heart of all cities. This is my worlds first glowing opportunity to do and be the spaces that i'll be hoping to study further. The notion tingles inside and gets me all giddy and dances london bridge around my hangover. Must be reminded of those four words, carve them into my skin, eat them with my oatmeal, iron them onto the tag of my pants. Stasis be the enemy. Alright LA, i see you.

Qutting

I've considered quitting breakfast - day three of this parasitic idea sits on my throat while i down a second cup of coffee and finish off a granola bar. Monumental change such as this doesn't come sweeping in by any revolutionary force, no. Like all life-altering decisions, this is based in necessity, and as my wrangled stomach  faces off with my new-found reality of a woman on the road, i start to see myself slip away. Is this the self-discovery that so many twenty-somethings pine for? Is this the self-creation intended for the college graduates of America? Can I dare reinvent myself into a breakfastless type?

I imagine waking up and rolling down the street into a diner. Filling my chipped mug with coffee, the ponytailed waitress without looking up from her pad asks, "Anything to eat?"

"No, i'm quitting," I wave off and leaf to the crossword in the local paper. 

I've seen that Person in restaurants, known them to exist in my day to day life, but never had One as anything more than acquaintance. They are great conversationalists if the subject pleases Their fancy; They hold an attractive yet noticeable scowl on Their face, one that only begins to blur at later hours of the evening; They read nothing trite or trashy, have no interest in the kind of frivolity that could cause an eye-roll or two; They have no drive and so no fear of disappointment; They are already disappointed.

I haven't quite embarked for the unknown yet, still splayed across this green and beige checkered couch in SW  Portland. But it's day four of my journey down south and i'm already seeing the telltale signs of the breakfastless folk weave into my netting. Maybe a big meal will help revitalize me. Maybe hashbrowns and two eggs over easy on a homemade biscuit. Maybe i'm responsible for snapping myself back into the world of wonderment, frivolity, and a sense of purpose, no matter how contrived. The question of whether anyone can really change lingers in the quarter inch of my lukewarm coffee and i wonder what kind of hunger i'm feeling.