The Backroads

The last time I found myself on a backroad in the Midwest, I was lost. 

“Losing your way is the easiest thing to do on a backroad,” Dad would slur between sips. Sometimes, he’d beat lessons into me with a belt: “Don’t let me catch you out driving at night on a backroad,” he’d shout, but I never heard him.

I was young enough back then not to listen to the advice I’m repeating now. And, because it came from my old man, I didn’t even bother heeding his warning of getting sleep the night before I pulled his pickup truck out of the yard, and drove out of his life. 

If you decide you will not be pulling over and going to sleep after dark, don’t let yourself believe you know the backroad better than it knows its travelers. And you may have your phones now and they might even be smart, but the backroads could confuse any man or GPS device. It uses the cover of the night to its advantage, showing you enough to keep you driving while hiding everything that could slow you down. Potholes in the pavement, signs warning you of dead ends or inviting you to take the right turn, and even hitchhikers who tried and failed to stop cars with the entire strength of their bodies. 

And the same rule applies to those traveling by foot. Don’t travel the backroads in the Midwest at night. That heavenly light you’re running towards was my headlights the entire time.

I was driving after nightfall after being awake for two sunsets. So the extra second I took to blink was the very second I took a wrong turn. When you’re young, you’re dumb enough not to think of yourself as mortal. Before the woman flew out of the corn and flapped her arms and legs atop my pickup truck, I’d never even crossed roads with Death, but it cut me off and showed itself to me that night. And, as I watched the woman struggle to stand in my rearview mirror with eyes wide open, I thought I might never be able to close them again. 

Now, she drags herself along the road behind my pupils. That night, I watched the heap of limp limbs come back to life on that dark, lonely Midwestern backroad. I was young and dumb enough to believe you could cheat Death. I was witnessing what looked like to my young, dumb, tired eyes the resurrection of a woman after all. This was the miracle Dad had been praying for since Mom got swallowed by the corn. 

I don’t remember my mother. I always carry the memory of her my Dad passed on to me. I was young enough not to have any of my own when she went missing. I was still young when I had to remind myself that the woman I ran over was not my mother. She couldn’t be. Sure, the corn was tall enough during that time of year for her to get lost in, as it had been when Mom went looking for me in it never to be seen by men or God again. And, no, Dad never let me forget that it happened on a hunting trip in her hometown. And, yes, he blamed me for not remembering where she went, because she wasn’t in Springfield anymore.

I wasn’t driving towards Springfield to look for her. I was just young and dumb enough to steal my Dad’s pickup truck along with the hunting supplies he stored in it and drive away from him. And I only stopped at sundown for a refill. I needed water, junk food, and fuel. And the tank needed a refill, too. So when the gas station attendant looked at me from behind his rim-wire glasses and asked where I was headed, I was tired enough not to bite my tongue and cover my tracks.

“Springfield.”

“That’s hours from here,” he looked and saw right through me. “You lost?”

“No,” I snatched the map off the counter and away from sight. “Not in a hurry, that’s all.”

“If you’re gonna drive all night, then you need more than a Coke,” he didn’t let up. 

I looked away from him, my eyes wandering outside, behind the window. The only other car parked there was the sheriff’s and I was a man on the run. I was young and dumb enough to think of myself as a man. “Gimme a coffee then,” I lowered my voice. 

“And one coffee,” he rang me up, right before pushing the glasses up his face and pretending sugar crystals melting into that mud water was a sight to behold. “Now all you need to make it to Springfield before sunrise is to take the sixth exit. After that, you need to take the second left. Then, keep driving. I know you’re not in a hurry, but the scenic route isn’t the same at night.” 

I didn’t swallow my pride along with my first sip of coffee or thank him for the directions. So I paid for the gas and the supplies and bit the sheriff a good night. 

I had missed the sixth exit before I blinked and drove directly into the woman. Or, I thought I had missed it. It was dark enough by the time I either took it or passed by it that I couldn’t make out anything beyond my headlights. It was dark enough for nothing to exist beyond what they could hit. And, before they hit her, there was nothing beyond the corn.

Even light got lost in those cornfields, so someone as young and dumb as myself didn’t stand a chance. Once I missed that right turn or I thought I did, I looked in front of me to see corn. And then I turned my head to look behind me: corn. And when I righted my head to look ahead, I knew nothing but corn was waiting for me once I opened my eyes. So I was startled when that woman blew in like the wind through the fields and across the roof of my pickup truck. And I was scared for my own life when headlights that were not my own appeared out of the night.

I was young and dumb and scared after I hit her, so I ran. When I got feeling back in my legs, I slammed my right foot on the peddle so hard it went numb once again. And when I could blink again, I took the first exit in my line of sight. And then the next one. And the next. And I don’t remember if I ever took the second left, but I kept driving. Corn in front of me, corn behind me, and I kept driving. 

I was on a lonely, dark, Midwestern backroad and it knew me better than I knew myself. It knew I had been there before, back when I was young and dumb enough to lure Mom in after me. And it wanted to let me know what happened to her.

Before the backroad showed me memories of things I never knew I was a witness to, it taught me how to breathe again. I was safe while driving on it, but I had to keep driving. I was at ease between the ears of corn, but I had to keep driving. 

Suddenly, the headlights hit an old wooden building with enough white paint not peeled away to blind me. Suddenly, I was out from under the cover of the cornfields and in the open again. It was the first sign of civilization I’d seen in hours, and it was a ruin. It was also the first church I went to in years.

I shouldn’t have parked, but the memory of my mother showed itself to me in the shattered stained windows. It played behind my lids, in the back of my mind like it had always been there. So I closed my eyes. 

It had been waiting for me right there in the window. Mom was banging on it back when I was young and dumb enough to see her desperately flailing and believe that she was cheerfully waving back at me. And I couldn’t make out what she told me, but I listened. I trusted my mother, so I listened to her. I went back into the cornfield where I stayed hidden and listened. Me and the corn ears were all listening. And when my Dad called out, I listened because I still trusted him. However, when he called out to his wife, she didn’t follow in my small footsteps like before. And my Dad has been calling out to her ever since. And I stopped trusting him then. 

As I opened my eyes and the car door, I was going against Mom’s word. And as I listened to the engine die under the hood and ignored the rising ringing in my ears, I was going against Dad’s wishes. Because I was in Mom’s hometown now, or so the sun stroked letters of the shabby sign read: First Church of Springfield. My legs bucked like a newborn dear, blinded by what Dad’s hunting spotlight had illuminated before my young, dumb, and tired eyes.  

Out of nowhere, a sound rose above the painful slamming of my heart against my aching ribcage: a running engine. And out of the night, a second set of headlights appeared to outshine the ones on the rear of my pickup as it pulled up behind it. Before I could brace myself, the side door swung open and made me jump.

I heard a voice before I saw who it belonged to. “You took a wrong turn.” And he would’ve remained a stranger to me if it weren’t for the taillights shining off the lenses of his wire-rim glasses. 

“Don’t think I did,” I lied. I started lying to him when we were both back at the gas station and was too scared to turn around now. So I slowly shuffled to my car door instead. “Isn’t this Springfield?” I swung the spotlight around towards the sign.

“Used to be,” he corrected me, coming around the front of his car and stopping at the back of my pickup truck. “You’re still hours away from where everyone moved.” He rested his arms on the rear like it was the counter he rubbed his elbows on. “You’ve never been to Springfield.”

“Last time I was here,” I confessed, cornered. “I was a kid.”

“You’re still a kid,” he pushed his glasses up his nose and I could see nothing behind his eyes. “You’re just a young, dumb, lost kid.”

The car horn might as well have been an earthquake. It shook both of us, scared him off my rear, and lured him into his front seat. When he reemerged, he wasn’t alone. The woman I last saw lying in the middle of the backroad was a limp sack of limbs in his arms. 

“I didn’t see her,” I broke down, my voice cracking. I was that young, dumb, lost kid he talked of all of a sudden. “I swear I didn’t. She showed up out of nowhere.” 

“It’s alright, kid.” His voice was cold, and my eyes burned from the salt my tears, and the white light that reflected off his glasses. “She shouldn’t have been out here in the first place.” 

“She needs help,” I cried. “I can help. I can drive her to the nearest hospital. I’ll take her to Springfield.” Through tears, I scanned the cargo bed for a sleeping bag, a blanket, or a tarp.

“There’s no need, kid,” he shrugged his shoulders, hoisting her into his arms. “She’s already home.”

As he walked around his car, away from my truck, and towards the church, my eyes caught hers. And my Mom stared back at me through them. I hadn’t seen them in years, but I recognized them. They showed me fear when I was too young and dumb to know what it felt like. And the backroad knew me better than I knew myself, and it showed me what it looked like. It showed me what happened to my mother.

My dad kept his hunting rifle in the same spot, and I knew I’d find it there. So I hopped into the back of the truck, atop the cargo bed, and whipped it out, threatening to shoot him like the animal he was. And I must’ve been shaking too noticeably, or crying too loudly because he only stopped to turn his head toward me. Nothing but the glow of a predator’s eyes stared back. I could’ve put one right between them, then let God sort it out at His doorstep. And he was lucky the hunting rifle wasn’t loaded, and I cursed him for it. 

His luck was an endless spring well because the sheriff pulled up before I could stop shaking and start loading.

He busted the door open with one leg and led that woman away from my headlights and back into the darkness that threw her in my path. 

“Took you long enough, Pop.” 

His pop was the gun-carrying sheriff, so I never stood a chance. Animals are more dangerous when their young are threatened. Or so Dad kept telling me. Between his drinking binges and my belt whippings, he’d take me out to teach me what he hoped would one day be the family trade: standing corn hunting. But none of those lessons were of much use to me while I had an empty barrel. 

So I did what any prey would do while pursued: I ran. I jumped off the cargo bed, scrambled into the driver's seat, and backed into the car behind me as I swerved out of what was once Springfield and into the corn. The backroad knew me, and it knew what I needed. I needed its cover. 

My body was running on fumes, but the pickup had plenty of fuel for both of us. So I drove deep into the cornfield and hit the brakes in the impenetrable darkness. I let the engine run, left the lights on, and crawled into the corn like my Dad had taught me. And he taught me how to be a predator.

The sheriff’s car did come around because the backroads knew him better than he knew himself. Young and dumb as I was, I was still my father’s son. He taught me how easily men fall prey to the backroads. So I stayed silent as the sheriff started shooting again. He hit the rear window this time and might’ve even hit the back of my head if I had been in the driver’s seat. 

I was waiting for him to come to collect his prey while I aimed my rifle at mine. I know Dad would’ve been proud because I hit him as soon as he grabbed the door handle. He would’ve trash-talked my aim though. It took a second bullet for me to shatter his skull.

Losing your way is the easiest thing to do on a backroad in the Midwest. I had to lose my way before I learned that lesson. The last time I drove on one was the night I killed that animal and went back to kill his young. However, nothing but uncovered memories were waiting for me back at First Church of Springfield. He was gone and so was the woman I damned. And Mom before her. And only the backroads know how many before and after. 

I was young enough to be dumb enough to keep driving West after that. The sheriff was in on it, and maybe the whole of Springfield, old and new, was in on it, too. And that’s why Dad forbade me from going back to Mom’s hometown.  

The blood in my memories washes off easily with a drink or two. Once I made it off the backroads in the Midwest and onto the West Coast, I even sunk as low as emptying an entire bottle. I needed sleep and drinking helped me close my eyes most nights.

I am old enough now to be wise. And I can hear my Dad’s words of wisdom.

“Losing your way is the easiest thing to do on a backroad.”