Travel Day

(photo by Robert Frank)

Riding in my mother's car, the sun shining in the blue blue sky, little traffic in the middle of the day, going drowsy, then putting back the seat and falling asleep.  Suddenly, my hand jerks, does something in a dream and I am awake.  This is what must happen at night, I think, when I come to in the dark.  Here in the car with the sun shining through the windshield, my mother driving her steady fifty-five, I have time to think.  What violent thing brought me back?  It was something I can almost remember.  Saying a few words to my mother, asking if she is doing O.K., dead tired, I fall back to sleep.  The miles hum beneath the car.

I wake when we pull off the interstate.  I want to do bad things.  

"Chick Fillet or Burger King?"  

We see a Wendy's.  No Whopper, but that is O.K.  

A cute, very small Hispanic with schoolgirl English and a heavy accent takes our order.  I get french fries.  She beams into my eyes:

"We just got those in today!"  

What the hell does that mean?  Her eyes are burrowing into mine.  

"What?!" she says with a smile.  

I wrinkle my eyes and shrug.  

The bill comes to $8.00.  O.K.  I am officially a pig.  I had no idea.  I look at my mother.  

"Eight dollars?  Are you kidding?  For two meals?  Shit, I pay that much for bottled water!"  

I feel myself an asshole saying it.  I think about the shoppers at Whole Foods.  I try to eat only organic foods, but I'll admit the people shopping there look no healthier than the people eating at Wendys.  Hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics may not be the big deal we think.  I'm just saying.  Eight dollars.  

Then I see a sign.  The french fries are new that day.  Something different.  They are using sea salt.  I think about the Hispanic girl.  I think she liked me. 

We arrive at my cousin's house.  

"Cockle doodle doo!"  

"What the hell is that!"  

The cousins have chickens in the back yard.  And two roosters.  

"Don't the neighbors say anything?"

"Not yet."  

I ask if they have a hatchet.  

My cousin has a new girlfriend.  He shows me a photograph of her in a sexy pose showing her underwear.  She is as hot as his last one.  What the hell?  How does he do it?  They all look like supermodels and run around with a these violent lowlifes.  What the fuck do I know.  My cousin is working it.  

I take my mother to her sister's house.  Drop her off.  I'm going to the beach.  

I am still tired, my body buzzing with fatigue.  The air is crystal clear and blue and dry.  Everything looks like diamonds.  The whiteness of the sand.  I cannot open my eyes against it.  I take off my shirt, my shoes.  I am fat.  I see some pretty girls.  They do not see me.  I walk and walk.  These are different times.  Every nine year old girl has breasts, hips.  All those Wendy's burgers.  Hormones.  I can't quit looking.  I will be beaten and arrested, I think.  It is odd.  When did this happen?  It is only I who is odd. It is normal to them.   

Mile after mile I walk, the sun low in the afternoon sky.  Everyone is happy, miles of happy people.  My stress is falling away from me, all those problems.  I am not living right, I think.  This is what I used to do and what I used to feel like.  This is that melancholy happiness in which I used to live.  Teenagers on paddle boards, kids building sandcastles, joggers running without shoes.  Yes, oh yes.  

I get back to where I began.  I am sleepy.  I will go to the gym.  

Later, at dinner with the family.  Hamburgers from the grill, macaroni and cheese made from scratch, baked beans.  

My cousin has some medical marijuana from California.  

"Smell this," he exhorts.  It is in big prescription bottles.  I put my nose in and draw it back almost violently. 

"Whew," I say.  It is strong which is why he had me smell it.  

"Hey, man, I've not been sleeping much lately.  Can you hook your cousin up?"  

We talk about life.  He knows the same kind of people I did at his age.  It is bad.  Felons, steroid boys.  Pretty girls destined for things they can't imagine.  My mother and cousins are in playing cards.  It is the night before Thanksgiving.  My cousin is going out to the Turkey Trot, a bar hopping event on the beach.  He does not ask if I want to come.  No, of course not.  He will not be home before four, five.  How will he sleep through the roosters?  I wonder.  I guess he has his ways.

I am writing.  The others are playing cards.  Life won't ever quit being weird.  It just won't.