Somewhere Getting Gone

Thursday, 1/1/15

1:32AM 

In retrospect, I don’t know why I thought that eight months of delivering pizza was going to make me an expert on the highway interstate system. I mean, I’ve memorized the backroads of Williston damn near as well as I know the winding valleys of freckles spotting my face and limbs. I know North from South; East from West. I know who Dwight D. Eisenhower is. What else is there to know, really? Wrong. 

It’s not a convenient moment to be humbled, frankly. I don’t have the time. 

I waited until the grandfather clock struck twelve before I left (how poetic of me). Wren was knocked out in a cold puddle of beer and perspiration, per usual, but I wanted to make sure the midnight melody wouldn’t kick him out of his stupor before I had the chance to make headway. It didn’t - per usual. 

I took a loaf of bread, an oversized jar of Jif, a bar of Sally’s chocolate, three cans of beans (I don’t even like beans) and a bag of pretzels. For safety; my pocketknife, and Wren's (he just so happened to leave it out on the kitchen table - thanks, fucker), Cole’s old baseball bat, and some mace. For otherwise; a map of America, a wool blanket, pillow, headlamp, six-hundred and twenty-four dollars, and my Jack Daniels bottle full of change. 

I feel like the beginning of a shitty horror movie.

Don’t ask me why I waited until the first of the month to leave. The first of the year, at that (again, how poetic of me). I could have left last month, or the month before, or this past summer when the days were longer, the weather and the people warmer and brighter, and I wasn’t going to be freezing my ass off in the back of the Camry, like I am now. But I didn’t. 

“Move along, Chicken, tomorrow is closer than you think,” Cole used to say to me, on bad days. It certainly feels that way now, with both nothing and everything left in front of me to start over with; uncomfortably free and painfully uncertain.

1/1/15 

7:08AM, Somewhere in Upstate New York 

When I went to sleep last night all I knew was that I’d driven an hour and a half south on Route 7. I didn’t know where I was or where exactly I was headed, just that I needed to head south until I hit I-90 W.

Wren wouldn’t be up until seven. It was a holiday, which meant he didn’t have to go to work (not that he went half of the time, anyways). He probably wouldn’t notice I was gone until eight. That meant that by eight-thirty the cops would be called, and Wren himself would be in the truck, fuming and led-footed, barreling towards wherever the hell he thought I was. 

Regardless, I only let myself sleep until five.

Despite the circumstances, morning felt like bliss. I was alone and more or less lost, the Camry bare-naked in a roadside nook meant for anyone but a young girl. Yet, as I scraped off the frost methodically and urgently from the windshield I realized with a strange suddenness that I felt safer this morning than I had in years. I got a laugh out of that. 

I tried to make a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. No silverware. I didn’t want to stop - still too close to home. I ate two pieces of bread and a finger-ful out of the jar before peeling onto the highway. 

I soon figured out via road sign that I was leaving a town called Paradox. I laughed again, and decided not to think too hard about whether or not that was an omen. 

1/1/15

9:16AM, Still Somewhere in Upstate NY

Pottesville, Wevertown, Speculator, Liverpool, Weedsport, who the fuck thought of these names? 

I’m stopped in a McDonald’s parking lot somewhere off of I-90 W, eating beans out of the can with a plastic spoon (I managed to score some silverware from a Cumberland Farms). I hate beans. I should have brought salt and pepper. 

1/1/15

2:33PM, Cleveland, OH

Cleveland is simply not the place to be. I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone actually wanting to visit Cleveland. But here I am, in the sweet, sweet home of the Browns and of Rock-and-Roll, staring blankly at a still and solemn body of water off of the edge of the city. Maybe it’s Lake Erie, I honestly don’t know - and I’m too damn tired of looking at the map to care. 

The Camry is parked parallel on the street behind me, resting. If I could fall asleep on this bench, I would. It took me nine hours to get from Paradox to Cleveland, with a few breaks to eat and for gas. Until today, the farthest I’d ever travelled from home was an hour and a half - from Williston down to Rutland - and I wasn’t even the one driving.

Cole and I used to go to the Rutland Fall Fair to sell Ma’s honey each year on the first weekend of October. Ma let us skip school on Friday so that we could go all three days - not that Cole was going to class much then, anyways. 

I think it was one of the annual highlights of my year. Ma would pack us a cooler with sandwiches and sodas and we’d pack up the truck with a folding table and crates full of her jarred honey, taking off in the early morning so that we could get a good spot on the grounds. 

On the drive down Cole would say, “Chicken, I need you to smile big for the folks again this year. We’re gonna win big.” And we did. We sold it all, every trip. Maybe it was because of my round-faced, dimpled grin. Maybe people just like honey. 

On the last day, Cole would take me out to Wendy’s after for burgers and shakes before we headed home. “Don’t tell Ma,” he’d say, winking. I can still see his face, vivid as a movie in my mind, like time hadn’t passed a day since then; his olive skin still tanned from the late summer sun, green eyes grinning along with his mouth, brown curls hanging out beneath a beaten up Red Sox hat. He didn’t even watch the Sox. 

I was twelve the last time we made that trip. It was four years ago then, I suppose. A year before the accident. Two years before Cole left. 

When we finally ran out of Ma’s honey stash last month, I cried. Wren caught me and threw the empty jar across the kitchen. I swept up the broken glass and decided it was time to leave. 

Friday, 1/2/15

8:41PM, LaCrosse, WI

I wanted to go to Chicago, not East-bumfuck, Wisconsin.

That’s what I decided before going to sleep last night. I was going to Chicago, and I was going to stay there until I figured out where I was headed, and for what. 

Once it got dark I drove around the outskirts of Cleveland until I found what looked like a decent neighborhood. I parked in the cul de sac and rigged up the inside of the Camry with some sheets and duct tape that I’d bought at the Walmart. I felt good about my work, and safer than the night before. I locked the doors, placed my knife and mace within arms reach, got comfortable, and decided on Chicago before I let myself fall asleep. 

Ma always talked about Chicago. She lived there in her 20’s. It was the 80’s - before Cole or me were even a thought. Before Wren, even. 

She said to me once, “I love it here, I do. I love us, and our farm. But the city makes you feel. There’s so much movement, you can almost listen to the rhythm of everyone doing life.” 

That sounded nice. 

I woke up at the crack of dawn, took down my “drapes”, ate a peanut butter sandwich, and took a big pee in someone’s lawn all before the sun had a chance to come up. 

It took me six hours to get from Cleveland to Chicago on I-90 W. The drive was excessively unamusing. I couldn’t tell you what goes on in the northernmost part of Ohio and Indiana, only that it’s not much. Just some half-ass farms and shitty billboards, really. 

The radio stations were shit, too, so I popped in a book-on-tape that I’d snagged from a convenience store yesterday. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was better than nothing. 

I followed the signs for Chicago on I-290 W and soon thereafter took an exit towards the city, mostly because I needed gas. I didn’t realize gas was so goddamn expensive, by the way. I was okay on cash for now. But shit, it was going quicker than I’d planned for. 

Anyways, that’s not the point. The point is that while I was paying for gas, the television behind the big, balding man at the counter caught my eye. Because I was on it. 

A schoolbook photo of me from eighth grade filled the screen. “VT MINOR: MISSING. CALL 1-800...” I grabbed my change and left before anyone had a chance to get a good look at my face. I really needed gas, so I pulled my hood up and stared hard at the numbers changing, willing them to go faster. 

Fucking Wren. Couldn’t even find a recent photo of me. 

Still, that was me. Clear as day. 

I couldn’t stay in Chicago. I had to get lost, somewhere where people only watched shitty daytime TV and didn’t pay no mind to missing kids from Vermont. 

Saturday, 1/3/15

2:56PM, Somewhere on the MN/SD Border

I’ll be honest, I only stopped in Alberta Lea because I liked the name. It sounds like the name of a classy, country-bred grandma who serves you fresh tea and biscuits when you come over, but also knows how to fire a rifle. A woman who grew up in the rough and married into money. 

It had taken me four and a half hours to get from Chicago to La Crosse yesterday, and two hours to get from LaCrosse to Alberta Lea, Minnesota this morning. That meant I was approximately six and a half hours away from where I found my face on the television. 

I left the Camry parked at a Bank of America and walked around aimlessly for a while, stretching my legs and cherishing the fresh air. It was getting warmer the farther west I traveled, but even with the mid-morning sun I was comfortable in my sweatshirt. 

The little city was nice enough for me. There was nothing particularly special about the tan, brick buildings lining the street or the timid river that crept under the bridges. What I really appreciated was that I finally felt like I was somewhere that I could talk to folks safely, without the chance of being recognized.  

I came across Diana’s Diner by a stroke of luck. 

The place was no bigger than a small trailer - a large hut, if you will. It was painted a fading lilac with bright pink trim, and barred a heavily shingled roof that sat upon the building like a hat. To the right of the door there was a black sign dawning white, cursive letters spelling out “Diana’s Diner” next to a blonde-haired pin-up girl dressed in pink. She carried a tray that held the word “Diner” as though she was serving up the name itself. I couldn’t help myself. 

I soon discovered that aside from good food, Diana’s had maps. Lots of them.

I ordered a black coffee, 2 eggs over easy with toast, homefries, 3 slices of bacon, and a cupcake - because why not. While I waited I sipped my coffee and stared at the loot of maps littering the wall.

They were all advertising National Parks. The pictures were so stunning I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. I picked up one with a name I recognized from my own map. 

“The Badlands, eh? Don’t go roaming around there by your lonesome, girl.”

I damn near dropped my coffee on the ground. 

I don’t know if I was startled because I didn’t know there was someone behind me, because I hadn’t had a human being speak so directly to me in what felt like days, or both. Either way, I turned around like a gust of wind and stared, open-mouthed, at the boy who’s name I now know is Wolfe. 

Wolfe is tall. He’s six-foot-four with a lanky, but muscular build and a big shaggy head of golden-brown curls. (Cole would have killed for a head of hair like that). 

After I regained my balance - both literally and figuratively - I needed another minute to take him in. He was sunburnt and dressed in a plain, white tee and khakis (highwaters). He wore worn, brown hiking boots, and I could smell the faraway scent of a cigarette on his lips. 

I suddenly became very aware of my own presentation and ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the ends of my matted pony-tail. Fuck, I needed a shower. 

Wolfe was from Addison, Alabama, and you sure as hell could tell. His accent was thick and sweet, and seemed to make every joke he made just a little more funny than it might have been otherwise. 

He’d turned eighteen on the first of the month, right when I’d left Williston. He’d driven fourteen hours in two days, and when I asked him why he left he replied, “Doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is we’re here now.” 

Saturday, 1/3/15

10:04PM, Somewhere Outside the Badlands

Wolfe and I didn’t really make a decision to stick together, we just kind of did. 

We shared my cupcake while driving back to the bank parking lot. He drives a 01’, sea green, F-150 that seemed to be holding itself together by the will of God himself. 

We pulled up to the Camry and he put the truck in neutral, slamming on the e-brake simultaneously. “So, the Badlands? I bet we can make it before sunset,” he said while opening a map. 

I was taken aback, but pleasantly surprised. 

I spent the rest of the day trailing behind Wolfe, watching his curls fly back in the open-window wind and staring in awe around me as we tackled the flat, fertile land of South Dakota. 

The thing about South Dakota is that there’s fucking nothing there - and that’s just it. That’s what makes it beautiful. 

Staring out at the open road in front of me is what I imagine looking at the ocean is like - an expanse so vast and never-ending I might just understand now why there are still flat-Earthers out there. 

There were lots of cows and the occasional graffiti-covered train, billowing by on tracks that followed the interstate. Billboards screamed, “Abortion Kills!” and other radical notions you could only see out here, where no one gave a shit enough to say otherwise. 

By the time we rolled up on a sign signaling us onto SD 240-W towards the park, it was sometime around nine. We didn’t make it before sunset, clearly. But that’s okay. We’d stopped a few times to pee, share snacks and breathe in the silence along the way. He let me write and didn’t ask questions. I liked that. 

We’re parked parallel to each other, now, in a dirt lot occupied by a few RV’s and a beat up, white Honda Accord. Wolfe sleeps in his flatbed, and I can hear the truck creek and wine as he tosses and turns. The Camry is locked and my knife sits under my pillow, but I didn’t bother with hanging the sheets tonight. 

Sunday, 1/4/15

7:23PM, The Badlands

When I left Williston, I expected to see things that I hadn’t before. I mean, shit, I hadn’t seen much. 

But what I didn’t expect to see was so much beauty. I mean like, real fucking beauty that the world just… left us. 

Wolfe and I got into the park at dawn, when the sun had yet to rise and the sky was still an unassuming grey. We parked, and walked a short way along a manmade bridge into the first area we saw, where the rock formations spread out around us like a giant, Earth-like playground. 

It looked like somewhere the Dinosaurs would have inhabited - with the rugged, dusty, mammoth rocks all lumped together like those mud, drip castles Cole and I used to make in the riverbank after it rained. 

Wolfe and I ate pretzels and shared a can of cold brew we’d gotten the day before. The sun swelled, a gentle marigold orange over the horizon, and I took my sweatshirt off to feel the cold breath of morning on my skin. 

We stayed there until late evening, hiking and wandering and talking about lives we’d live years from now - half-kidding, half-hoping. Wolfe read the fact-filled pamphlet we’d picked up at the gate, front to back out-loud. I think I knew everything there was to know about the ground beneath my feet by the end of the day. 

I write, now, wrapped in my blanket in the bed of the truck, my sun-kissed skin hot and tired and happy. The day is turning to dusk, and Wolfe is cooking Annie’s mac on a single-burner stove propped up on the flatbed. 

I realized earlier this evening - with a wave of relief, as I stood towel-wrapped and wet-haired in front of a faded, bathroom mirror - that I am no longer uncomfortably free, or painfully uncertain. For now I am simply free, thinking about nothing more than tomorrow.