I’m not really sure what to say. His gun is here in the Leisure Seeker, but I know he doesn’t know where it is. I made sure of that. Anyway, it’s really our gun and we’ve always traveled with one, especially the last twenty years. It’s quite illegal taking a firearm across state lines, but we need something to protect ourselves.

I suppose that I should explain right here that sometimes John, in his more lucid moments, wants to kill himself. He has not said this to me in so many words, mind you, but I know that is what he is thinking.

Decades back, John’s mother had the same disease he has now, only then they called it “hardening of the arteries.” He was not terribly close to his mother, but her illness made a huge impression on him. Truth be told, she was an unpleasant woman who believed that the world owed her much more than she ever received. I don’t believe that she was ever really close to anyone, not her two husbands, not her son or daughter, and she certainly wasn’t close to me. Even still, it hurt John terribly to watch her turn into something that was much worse than his unhappy mother. Toward the end of her time at home, she would be up and down all night, wandering her neighborhood, prone to fits of rage and apoplexy.

We started getting late-night calls from her second husband, Leonard, a gentle, easily defeated man, pleading for our help. After she ended up in the nursing home (and this was the early days of nursing homes, where they had the genuine look of hell to them), John said he would never end up in one of those places, made me swear that I would never put him in one, no matter what happened to him. He told me that he would kill himself first, if he ever thought he was going senile.

It was about a year ago when I started finding the gun stashed in strange places in our house—sock drawer, kitchen cupboard, magazine rack—I was terrified. I’d ask him about it, but he never knew how it got there. The problems were getting worse then, and I knew that people in his condition tend to think everyone’s after them, so I hid the gun for good. He kept asking me if I’d seen it, sometimes three or four times a day. Then he just seemed to forget about it. I was relieved until a few months later when I found a half-written suicide note stuffed between the pages of one of his favorite Louis L’Amour books, The Proving Trail. I couldn’t decipher a lot of it, but I got the gist. As you can imagine, it was pretty upsetting. But how upset should you get over a suicide note where the person seems to lose interest in the middle?

As I’ve said before, these days, John only occasionally realizes that he is losing his mind. I think that’s when he asks about his gun. This is the evil, damnable, and lucky thing about his sickness. By the time he finds the gun, he has forgotten what he wanted it for.

“I’ve seen it, John, but I just can’t remember where it is.”

“Is it in the van?”

“I don’t know, John. I just can’t remember things like I used to. You know how that is.” I glance at him, and he seems satisfied at this explanation.

“Look at that, John,” I say, pointing to the side of the road at the telephone poles, splintered and crooked, that have been following the road for some time. This line of drunken soldiers has suddenly veered off to the right out of sight.

“Where do you suppose they’re headed to?”

John says nothing. I know he’s still thinking about that gun while he can, before his mind hits the reset button. Stiffly, I chatter on, trying to fill the air, fill his head, with words. “I read about those poles in my guidebooks,” I say. “The telephone lines are following an old alignment of Route 66, but there’s no road there now. There are a lot of different old stretches of the highway. They kept changing it over the years. Sometimes the road goes though towns that don’t even exist anymore.”

John nods, but not at me blathering on about forgotten roads leading to phantom towns. He is having one of his arguments with himself, telling off whomever it was that stole his gun. He’s following his own forgotten road.

I’m wishing the wandering line of phone poles would return because I want to follow them, find out where they would take us. A ghost town sounds good to me, a fine place to set up shop. I roll down my window a little farther, pull off my cap, and drag a brush through my hair. The bristles scratch my scalp, but it feels good. I pull the greasy strays, the opaque flecks of skin from the brush and release them into the wind. I rummage through the glove box until I find a rubber band, which I use to make a short pigtail. This is how I will wear my hair now, I decide, thinning or not. I put the hat behind the seat. I’m tired of looking eccentric. I have not lived an eccentric life.

 

“Mother, where are you?”

I’m talking to my frantic son this morning. I had John stop for a moment in Miami, Oklahoma, to take a quick look at a beautiful old theater there, the Coleman. (It put me in mind of the Vanity Ballroom off Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, where I used to go dancing during the war. Me and three girlfriends along with dozens of other girls and their girlfriends, and a few 4-F fellas pleased with the odds.) When we drove past, I spied a phone booth and decided to call.

“We’re in Oklahoma, Kevin.”

“Everyone is so worried about you two. I’m going to fly out there and pick you up.”

I have steeled myself for this battle. “No, you’re not. Your father and I are having a wonderful time, but we don’t wish you were here.”

Kevin takes a long breath and exhales loudly through his mouth. I can feel his shoulders slump, right over the phone. “Mom, we are very close to calling the police and filing a Missing Persons report.”

“Don’t you dare, Kevin!” I mean it, too.

He sighs. “Mom. This is crazy. Why are you doing this?”

“Dear. Because we want to. It’s so nice to be traveling again, I can’t tell you.”

“Really?” he says, his tone changing, allowing a hint of enthusiasm. But a moment later, his voice grows frantic again. “Wait, wasn’t there some kind of problem with the van? Something with the exhaust manifold?”

“Oh, we got that fixed ages ago, honey.”

“Are you sure?” he says, not quite believing me. “That could be dangerous.”

“Don’t worry, Kevin. Everything’s working just the way it should be.”

He sighs again, even louder this time. I don’t mean for this to be hard on him, but Kevin is forever upset about something. Even when he was a child, he was always sad or guilty or crying about something. Cindy took care of herself. Kevin was the sensitive one. You learn these things about your children: their personalities reveal themselves the moment out of the womb.

I suppose he was a mama’s boy, but I can’t say I cared. I wished he didn’t cry so much, but I was glad when he came to me for comfort. Yet John would get so upset with him. He was afraid the world would eat him alive, and he was right. Bullies could spot Kevin six blocks away. He was always coming home with something broken, something stolen, something thrown in the mud. John tried to toughen him up—pep talks, boxing lessons—but it never seemed to take. He kept trying to get Kevin to not be afraid, to put up his dukes, but it was no use. Those dukes were down.

Even now, Kevin tells me stories about the company where he works, a place that distributes replacement engine parts for one of the Big Three, how his coworkers take advantage of him, bully him. Some things never change.

“You gotta come home, Mom. Are you taking your medications?”

“Of course I am.” This is mostly the truth.

“Oh Mom.” Another sigh.

So now, I’ve had it. “Damn it, Kevin. Stop being such a sad sack. We’re not coming home. What do you want me to come home to? More doctor appointments? More treatments? More drugs? I take so many right now, they’re going to turn me into a dope addict. No. There will be no coming home. Do you understand?”

One final sigh. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good. Now, how’s Arlene and the boys?”

A pause. “They’re good. How’s Dad? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, honey. He’s driving great and he’s doing really well. Don’t worry so much about us. We need to do this.”

“Okay. Just be careful.”

I see John futzing around with something in the van across the street and think I need to get over there pretty quick.

“Bye-bye. Give our love to everyone.”

“Mom—”

I hang up in time to watch John start to put the van in gear. For the love of Christ, I think he’s going to drive away without me. The Leisure Seeker lurches forward a few feet, and I scream John’s name as loudly as I can. People on the street stop and look at me. I want to run, but I can’t run. My knees won’t do it. I wave my cane at the van.

“Someone please stop that truck!” I screech.

A young man wearing mechanic’s overalls comes up to me. The patch over his right pocket reads MAL. His hands are filthy, but he’s got a kind smile and he speaks gently to me. “Do you need help, ma’am?”

“Yes. Could you run up to that van and tell the man to wait for me?”

Without even looking both ways, the young man runs off into the street toward the van, which is moving slowly down the street. But before he gets around to the driver’s side, the van stops. He disappears around the side, so I can’t see what’s going on, but I hightail it across the street, as much as I can hightail it.

Once I get to the passenger door, the young man is talking to John through the window. “It’s fine, ma’am,” he says. “He wasn’t going anywhere. May I give you a hand?” He opens the door for me.

“Thank you so much, Mal. You’re a doll.”

Mal smiles at me, offers me a filthy hand, and I gladly accept it. I notice the patch over his left pocket as he helps me up. It’s a Phillips 66 insignia. I guess The Road provides. I step up into the van, close the door, and wave. I wait until we’re a good ways down the street before I speak.

“What are you, nuts?” I scream at John. “You going to take off without me? Where are you going to go? What are you gonna do? You’d be lost without me, you goddamned idiot.” I feel my blood pressure rising. “Where were you going to go? Huh? Tell me. What? You stupid asshole.”

John looks at me, a mixture of anger and befuddlement. “I wasn’t going anywhere. I just thought I heard a noise, so I drove forward for a couple of feet. For Christ’s sake, I wouldn’t take off without you.”

“Well, you goddamn well better not. Crazy old man.”

“Up yours,” says John.

I grab a Kleenex from our dispenser and wipe my hand. “Up your own.”

No one says anything for the next dozen or so miles. After that, John turns to me and smiles. “Hi, honey,” he says, putting his hand on my knee.

This little greeting is something we’ve always done, shorthand for “I’m glad you’re here,” “You’re dear to me,” or something to that effect. Whatever it means, I am not in the mood for it right now. I move my knee out of reach.

“Go to hell.”

“Why?”

“I’m still mad at you.” I cross my arms. “You almost took off without me.”

“What?”

God, how I hate it when he does this. We get into an argument and start screaming at each other, then five minutes later, he’s forgotten all about it. He’s all lovey-dovey. What do you do when someone forgets to stay mad? How do you fight with that? You don’t. You just shut up because it’ll make you crazy.

“You were gonna take off without me, dumbass.” I guess knowing what you need to do is different from actually doing it.

“You’re crazy. Go screw yourself.”

That makes me feel better. We’re both angry now, the way it should be. There’s another silence for about a minute, then John turns to me.

“Hi, honey,” he says.

I sigh. “Hi, John.”

 

It was my granddaughter who first noticed the changes in John’s behavior. During a Christmas celebration at our house about four years back, she found John downstairs in our rumpus room, where we keep all the memorabilia of our vacations, including a mounted map of the United States where John has marked the routes in color-coded tape. According to Lydia, he was walking around, bewildered, looking at everything and muttering to himself, “It’s going to be hard leaving all this.”

Lydia walked up to him and said, “Grandpa, are you all right?” She said that he looked at her as if he wasn’t sure who exactly she was. When she repeated the question, he just nodded.

Then she asked him, “Where are you going, Grandpa? You said you have to leave all this.”

He just said, “Nowhere. I’m not going anywhere.”

By the time Lydia got him upstairs, he seemed all right, more like himself, but she took me aside and told me what happened.

When I asked John about it later, he denied it. He was sure that he hadn’t even been downstairs, but I had seen him come up myself. Nothing happened for a couple of months after that, so I managed to push it out of my mind.

Then we went to Florida. We were headed to Kissimmee to visit friends who had a condo down there. All along the way, John had indigestion and light-headedness and shortness of breath. He kept saying he was all right, but I didn’t believe him. Midway into our second day of driving (we were trying to make it there in two days, always the big rush), he pulled over to the side of the freeway, panting. Then he opened the door and threw up.

“John, what’s wrong?” I was really scared by this time.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” He was coughing and wheezing by then. “I can’t breathe, Ella!”

I thought he was having a heart attack, but he wasn’t holding his chest or his arm or anything like that.

John held his hands over his mouth, breath shallow, eyes welling, voice trembling. “I don’t know if I can drive, Ella. I feel so light-headed. I’m afraid.”

It was the only time I ever heard him say that to me.

Around then, another Leisure Seeker pulled up behind us. A man in his fifties came up to the window and asked if everything was okay. (Leisure Seeker owners stick together that way.)

“I think my husband’s having a heart attack,” was what I said.

The man looked at John and saw he was truly sick. “Can you drive your van?” he asked me.

“I haven’t driven a car in thirty years, much less this thing,” I said.

“Okay.” He ran to his RV, then ran back to ours. “I’ll drive you two to the next town, and my wife will follow us.”

We ended up in some podunk hospital in the Florida panhandle. (It’s worth saying here that if you can ever avoid being in a hospital in Florida, do so. Instead of “the Sunshine State,” the state motto should be “Land of Unnecessary Surgery.”) Some greasy quack admitted John, got him into a bed, examined him, and proclaimed him a candidate for open-heart surgery within ten minutes.

“Bullshit,” said John, who was feeling better by then. “No way.”

After that, they put the pressure on me. “It’s for his own good. He could go at any time.” They basically scared the bejesus out of me. I told them I had to call my children. Cindy said the same thing as John. Kevin volunteered to come down the next day. I told the hospital that there wasn’t going to be any surgery, not for a while at least.

Kevin arrived the next day. By then, John felt fine. He was ready to resume our trip.

“I’m driving the van back to Detroit,” said Kevin, with as much conviction as I’d ever heard from him. “You two are flying home.”

We both pissed and moaned because neither of us liked flying, but eventually we relented. It was the first time that we felt a real shift in power, how our kids now felt like they were in charge of us instead of the other way around. It’s not a good feeling, let me tell you. Watching the Leisure Seeker pull up in our driveway three days later made me feel like a scolded child banished to home. Grounded.

Our doctor at home, after hearing what happened and a thorough examination, told us that John had what is commonly referred to as an anxiety attack. An anxiety attack. Can you imagine?

John laughed it off. I personally didn’t really think anyone of our generation could suffer from such a condition. Anxiety was for our children and their children, but not for people who had grown up during the Depression, who had fought in the war. Who has time for anxiety when you’re trying to fill your belly or keep your head on?

I see now that the doctor was right. I believe this was when John was starting to truly understand what was happening to him. We have always been worriers, both of us. I’m just more likely to worry out loud. John keeps it in, like a man tends to do. I imagine him realizing with a horrible finality that he was indeed going to end up like his mother. Who knows what triggered it? But I imagine him running it through his head over and over as we drove along. That was enough to leave him breathless and heaving by the side of the road. And that, as they say, was the beginning of the bad times.

 

We eat lunch at a little barbecue joint called “The Pits” in Claremore. Both John and I feel better now, but then barbecue pork sandwiches will do that. John is an unholy mess with orangey-red sauce and grease smeared on his face and fingers. I look much the same way, I imagine.

This is our trip to eat anything we want. You have to remember, after you achieve a certain age, there are always people telling you what to eat and what not to eat. We start off in this life on milk and pablum, and they’d like to finish us off that way as well. (But without the milk because, you know, the cholesterol.) I say all this now, but I know, even with the Pepcid we took in the car, there will be gastric hell to pay later for this barbecue sandwich.

“You two look like you’re enjoying yourselves,” drawls our waitress, a rangy middle-aged redhead with too short a skirt, who appears from nowhere.

I smile, wipe the sauce off John’s face, then my own.

“More tea, dear?” she says to me, her voice thick and low pitched, already refilling my glass.

I have never been deared and darlined so much in my whole life as on this trip. If you’ve experienced that first middle-aged shock when you become “ma’am” or “sir,” it’s nothing like when you become “dear.”

“No, thank you,” I say, smiling back. It doesn’t really matter because she has already filled the glass. “My back teeth are already floating.”

“Heh, heh.”

Normally I wouldn’t say anything like that, but I don’t seem to care lately.

When she leaves the check, I grab my purse from down between my feet (away from pickpockets and sneak thieves and such) to fetch my wallet. I give the money to John and let him go up to pay. Meanwhile, I hunt down the ladies’ room. As I sit there on the pot, I look up and see that someone has written something in a delicate script on the stall door.

 

Love Always, Charlie

 

Who the hell would write something like that in the ladies’ room toilet? The world just keeps getting stranger. As I wash my hands, I worry that John has taken off on me, but when I exit the restroom, he’s waiting for me, nice as you please, polishing off a Hershey bar and talking to Red like it’s old home week.

“We’re headed back home to Michigan,” John says to her.

“I’ve never been to Michigan. Is it nice?”

“It’s wonderful,” says John. “We’ll be back in a day or two.”

I don’t bother to correct him. As I approach, he holds out his arm for me to take. It makes me glad to be married.

 

We pass on the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore. I never much cared for the man. A big phony, I believe. Anyone who never met a man he didn’t like just isn’t trying hard enough. I roll down my window all the way and hang my arm out. The wind tries to push my hand back, but I flatten my palm and hold it strong against the flow for a moment, then dip my hand horizontally, then cup it as if I were swimming. I weave my hand up and down, a reverse sidestroke through the air. There is a strange freedom to this gesture, a childishness, I know, but it feels good to be silly. There is so little silliness at this period of one’s life, but it’s the time when you need it the most. I cup my flowing hand and keep swimming in the wind and to my surprise, water soon appears along the side of the road—a long swimming hole, with a fringe of bulrushes, and a giant blue whale smack in the middle. Bright as the sky, mouth open and smiling, squealing children diving off his concrete back into the water. I sweep my arm forward and am suddenly swimming with the whales.

Sometimes when you least expect it, your life becomes a National Geographic special.

Before Tulsa, I direct John onto the I-44 bypass. We pick 66 back up at Sapulpa. Suddenly, I’ve got some considerable discomfort. I want to take a little blue pill, but I don’t want to do it until we’re settled.

“John,” I say, trying not to sound too weary. “I’m tired. Maybe we should find somewhere to stay for the night.”

“What time is it?”

The clock in the van has been broken for years. My watch says it’s only 3:05, but I don’t want to get into it with John about not traveling long enough.

“It’s after five,” I say, lying to my husband. “Let’s keep our eyes peeled for a place.” I go into my purse for my little blue pills. I try to break one in half, but it won’t break. Against my better judgment, I take the whole thing and wash it down with a sip of Faygo Root Beer.

Within ten minutes or so, I feel a little better, but start getting drowsy. Up ahead, there’s a billboard for a gas station in a town called Chandler. I remember something from my guidebooks about a good place to stay there. No sooner do we enter town than I see the sign for the Lincoln Motel.

“John, turn in here. I’d like to sleep in a real bed tonight.”

John does what he is told, I’m happy to report. We turn in and park by the office. Even feeling as rotten as I do, I have to say that the place is just darling, an old-time motor hotel from the ’30s. Luckily, there’s a vacancy.

When we drive along the back to park near our cabin, I notice something. “John, look at all these old cars.”

“How about that,” he says, giving a little whistle.

I point to one bulbous, bullet-nosed, gray-green car in particular. “John, there’s a 1950 Studebaker. Remember? We had one like that a few years after we got married. You taught me how to drive in that car.”

“I’ll be damned,” he says. “That was a good car.”

“God, did you scream at me that day. I was so mad at you.”

John shakes his head. “You were an awful driver.”

I want to tell him to cram it, but the fact is, he’s right. I was an awful driver. I never really got the hang of it. I was always afraid of going too fast. I hated freeways and left turns and parallel parking. I was constantly getting yelled at, either by John or people in other cars. Still, it’s hard to live in Detroit if you don’t drive. Yet as soon as the kids were old enough, I let them drive me everywhere. I gave it up for good right after Kevin got his license.

“There’s an old Imperial. That’s a beauty,” says John, checking out a gaudy lavender boat with gargantuan fins and ringed taillights like gun sights.

Yes, we are definitely from a car town. We park next to a shiny red Ford Pinto with a license plate that says:

IBLOWUP

Our cabin is small, but clean and comfortable and all I want to do is go to bed, but I have to make sure that John is settled in as well.

“Let’s take a little nap, John. Then we’ll bring in our things.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Well, I am.” I turn on the television to distract him. We start watching an old rerun of M*A*S*H and John is immediately absorbed. I swear, he’s seen every episode a hundred times, but he still loves to watch them. I think that’s why he can still enjoy them. They’re familiar, but new. I lock the door, then settle into the too-soft bed, deeply weary.

 

When I wake up, John is gone. It’s only 5:25 P.M., so I haven’t been sleeping long. I pray that he has not wandered off somewhere. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and raise myself, using both my cane and the night table. Standing somehow makes me feel better, as if I am fooling my body into vigor. I open the door of our cabin and am relieved to see John sitting on a lawn chair, just staring into space. On a little table next to him is our slide projector.

“John?”

“I set up the projector.”

“Good for you, but it’s too light to show slides.”

“I can see that, Ella.” He can still remember to be sarcastic when need be.

“Well, good. We’ll set up the sheet in a little while. Come on, let’s go rustle up some sandwiches. I’ve got ham and bologna. What sounds good?”

“Bologna.”

Why do I even ask? He had a bologna sandwich every day for thirty-five years when he was working. Bologna with one slice of American cheese and a smear of mustard, cut top to bottom, not diagonally. I could make them in my sleep.

We walk around back to the van. I hope the projector will be all right because I don’t feel like moving it. I make us sandwiches and potato chips and root beer. My discomfort has subsided and I decide to whip myself up an old-fashioned. I dig out the booze, find a couple of desiccated sugar cubes in the cupboard, and I’m in business. I top the whole kit and kaboodle with a skewered orange slice and a cherry. It’s not an old-fashioned without. John just gets another glass of pop. The sun’s going down and he’s a little less sharp now.

“Is this home?” he says, as we settle on lawn chairs outside our door.

“No, honey. We’re not going home. We’re on vacation.”

“Oh.”

I know this trip is hard on him. The only things that tether him to the world are our house and me, and I’ve taken away our house. But no one, not our doctors, not our kids, not even our congressman, can convince me that this vacation is not a good idea. Hell, it’s the only idea we have left.

 

At first, all you see is a dense forest: sky and earth both mottled with brilliant gold and crimson and orange, a bonfire of color. It’s as if fall itself has seeped into the film. Then when you look closer, deep into the blazing trees, you can see something else—the outline of the Leisure Seeker. And next to it, another camper that looks just like it, owned by our friends Jim and Dawn Jillette. The two vans are parallel to each other, their extended canopies almost touching. We used to do that to create a common area, somewhere we could move a picnic table, a place to play cards. Sometimes if it was raining, Jim and John would throw a tarp over the gap between the two canopies so we could walk freely between them.

In the next slide, the two of them are at a picnic table playing pinochle. Jim, smoking a pipe, his wire-rims wedged above his eyebrows, is frowning at the cards in his hand. Dawn, auburn hair held back with a mauve kerchief, is laughing at him. At the bottom of the frame is John’s freckled hand, fanned on the gingham oilcloth.

“There’s Jim!” says John, with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen him display this entire trip.

“And Dawn,” I say.

“Old J.J.”

For an instant, John sounds like his old self. J.J. was his nickname for Jim. They worked together for many years at GM, which is how we all got to be friends.

“Boy, how is Jim? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

I sigh and turn to John. “Dear. Jim died eight years ago.”

“He did? Jim’s dead?”

“Yes, honey. Don’t you remember? We went to the funeral.” We’ve been through this before. John has forgotten all that he doesn’t want to remember.

“Aw, damn. Is Dawn still around?”

“I’m afraid she died a year before him.”

“Aw, Christ,” he says, clutching his hand over his mouth.

The fragile look on John’s face makes me regret choosing this tray of slides. I should have known better than to tell him the truth, but I get so tired of lying to him. I just keep hoping some of this information is going to stay put. But it never does.

I click forward. In this one, Dawn and I are walking down a road, both carrying gorgeous bunches of brightly colored leaves. I remember so well that we displayed them in an old milk carton on our communal picnic table.

The next slide is just that, the bouquet of leaves on the table, and I realize that this is the problem with photographs. After a while, you can’t remember if you’re recalling the actual memory or the memory of the photograph. Or perhaps the photograph is the only reason you remember that moment. (No, I refuse to believe that.)

I click the remote again. There’s a picture of us all around the campfire that John must have taken with the self-timer. The images of all of us are dim, blurry from the long exposure, while the fire glows bright and harsh. This last slide disturbs me, especially with Jim and Dawn gone, so I pull out the tray. A retina-searing whiteness is projected on the sheet hanging from the side of the cabin, but I can’t turn it off or it’ll be even harder to get in the next tray.

“Damn it, that’s bright,” John says.

I push in a new tray, yet it doesn’t want to catch. “Just a second,” I say. John used to handle the projector, now he’s left it to me. He watches me fiddle with it for a while, then walks over to the table, gives the new tray a push until it clicks into place. He smirks.

“Don’t be so pleased with yourself,” I say. Sometimes I think his disease is more laziness than anything else.

The first slide of the tray is projected onto the sheet and around us I hear hushed chattering. I turn to see that we’ve attracted a crowd, gathered near a streetlight about twenty feet away. At first glance, I gasp—hoodlums! Then I see that they are not like the hoods of today with their baggy clothes and stocking caps and stone faces. These kids look like what we used to call juvenile delinquents. The boys wear tight white T-shirts with packs of cigarettes wedged in the sleeves, dungarees rolled at the bottom, and motorcycle boots. Their hair is greased back into carefully sculpted waterfalls and duck’s asses. One of the girls is dressed in jeans and a tight blue bowling shirt and clunky black shoes. Another one wears a long felt skirt and Mary Janes, with Fire and Ice lips and an ink-black flip with bangs.

They’re all covered with tattoos—arms and legs emblazoned with flames and hearts and naked ladies and skulls. Now that I focus on them a little more closely, I see that they are not really kids at all, but well into their thirties and standing there in the streetlight like walking, inky advertisements. I soon realize that they pose no threat to us. When they see me looking, a couple of them wave timidly at us and smile. They’re also very fascinated with our slide show, so they can’t be all bad.

Up on the screen now is a shot from our trip to Montreal for the Expo 67, yet another vacation with the Jillettes. Behind us, the sight of the Geodesic Dome has them all oohing and aahing. They’re really enjoying themselves. I click to the next slide. It’s one of the exhibits, I can’t remember which, but the main reason John took the shot was because of the young woman in the foreground wearing a miniskirt. She has stopped to adjust something and John caught the shot as a little joke. All those mod styles had just come out and were causing quite the stir. The men certainly didn’t mind. John and Jim were just about getting whiplash that trip from all the short skirts flitting around. Dawn and I put up with a lot that week.

From the Peanut Gallery behind me, I hear hoots and hollers and wolf whistles from the boys at the sight of the Canadian girl. Which proves to me that nothing has really changed. I also hear one of the girls say “cute skirt.” I turn around and smile at them all.

One of the boys yells out, “Is that you, ma’am?”

“Hardly,” I say back to him.

Another one steps forward. He’s got the same getup on as the others, but he’s the only one with a jacket on. Even though it’s just a gas station grease monkey jacket, he’s obviously the only one with a lick of sense. It’s nippy out here tonight. He keeps walking toward us. John stands up. I look at him and shake my head.

“Everything’s fine, John,” I say.

“Howdy, ma’am. Hope you don’t mind us enjoying your slides.”

I smile. He seems very polite. I don’t care what you look like as long you can show some manners. “Not at all,” I say. “Enjoy yourselves. I’m Ella and that’s my husband, John.”

“Hello, sir,” he says to John as he walks over and shakes hands. John smiles. “We’re just here in town for a hot rod rally.”

“That sounds nice,” I say.

“Yeah, we’re driving the old Route 66.”

I brighten at the sound of this. “Well. That’s what we’re doing, too.”

His eyes widen at my comment. “Really? Cool.” He turns to the others and yells, “They’re driving 66, too!”

They laugh and nod their heads with approval. Now I know this whole thing hasn’t been such a crazy idea.

Little by little, the party moves up. They seem shy, like they don’t want to scare us. I can’t honestly say they wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gotten a chance to give them a good eyeballing first.

“I’m Big Ed,” says the first one.

I nod. “Yeah, I could tell by that patch over your pocket that says ‘Big Ed.’”

He grins at me, smirky but sweet. “Helpful, ain’t it?” Big Ed then points to the girl with the ink-black hair. “That’s my wife, Missy.” He then points out all the other young men and women in his group. They have names like “Gage,” “Dutch,” “Betty,” and “Charlotta.”

I say hello to them all. “You’re welcome to have a seat if you want.”

Big Ed looks at the others with raised brows. “Really? If you wouldn’t mind, that’d be swell.” Most of them park it right there on the ground. Big Ed is about to sit, then he thinks of something. “Would it be okay if I got us all some beers? We’re just up the way. I’ll be right back.”

“Knock yourself out, Big Ed,” I say.

“Care to join us?” he says, tipping an imaginary can up to his mouth.

“Sounds good.”

So Big Ed picks up and runs off down the road. We are all quiet while he’s gone, but within a minute I hear his boots on the asphalt again as he comes back dangling a couple of six-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He throws one six-pack to the group on the ground. From the other, he pulls one off for me, then John.

Big Ed makes a big show out of cleaning off the top with his sleeve, then pops it with a little flourish, as if it were a Zippo lighter.

“Madame,” he says, handing me my beer. “Sire,” he says, handing John his. He’s a card, this one. He then raises his can to us. “Cheers, y’all. Thanks for your hospitality.”

“Thanks for yours,” I say.

We all take a drink.

The kids love the slides. We polish off both six-packs as we watch all of the Expo 67 slides and I give a little running commentary about each of the exhibits we see. Over here’s the Japanese exhibit, look at that beautiful art; there’s the American exhibition, have you ever seen anything so big? More miniskirts, more hoots from the boys.

“Looks like John couldn’t keep his eyes off the sights,” says Dutch. We all laugh. I do believe that I’m having fun. Somehow this reminds me of old times, though I’ve never watched slides with tattooed strangers in a hotel yard in my whole life.

A slide of the four of us in front of the Main Exposition pops up. We are all standing, smiling, before an endless row of flags from every country in the world. I tell the kids about Jim and Dawn, how we used to pal around and travel with them all the time. “We four went on quite a few trips together,” I say. “Had a lot of fun.”

“That’s nice,” says Big Ed. “It’s good to go places with your friends.” He turns to his wife and friends and raises his beer again. They do the same, then they drink. He then turns back to me. “Hey, so do your friends still, uh…?”

He stops himself from finishing his sentence. The gang gets quiet all of a sudden.

I ignore his half question and just click to the next slide. It’s Jim by himself near the GM exhibit, in front of a futuristic sedan. That’s when, of course, John asks his question.

“There’s ol’ J.J.! How is he, Ella? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

I look over at him. “He’s doing great, John. Just great.”

The hot rod kids all smile. And so do I.

 

I don’t know if it was the beer or what, but that night, John and I both sleep like logs. There is no waking and wondering, no early morning clipping of the bread bag or filing of battery ends by John; no eyes snapping open, full of the horrors, for a 4:00 A.M. crying jag by me. It’s a good night. We both wake refreshed and alert.

John turns to me, opens his eyes, his old self. “Hello, dear.”

“Good morning, John.” He’s back. “How are you?”

“I feel good,” he says, yawning.

I lay my hand on his cheek. Though the years have lightened and lowered his face, it retains a kind of strength, an angularity that I have always found attractive. “You’re not hungover?” I say, smiling.

He doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I’m joshing, anyway. Between the two of us, we barely had three cans of beer.

“No, I’m not hungover. Do you want some breakfast?” he says to me.

I keep my hand where it is. I don’t want to do anything to disturb him at this moment. “No, let’s just lie here for a little while, all right?”

“Have you talked to the kids lately?”

John often asks about the kids when he is in this lucid state, as if he’s been away, which he has, I suppose.

“Yes,” I say. “They’re doing fine. Kevin just got a promotion.” That’s not entirely true. They just gave him more work and a different title, but no more money.

“Good for him.”

“Cindy’s taking an adult education class. Basket-weaving. She’s very good at it.”

“That’s great,” he says, patting my hand, which is still resting on his cheek.

“John. Do you love me?”

He squints at me. “What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I love you.” He moves closer to me and kisses me. I can smell him. He doesn’t smell very good, but he still smells like my husband.

“I know,” I say. “I just wanted to hear it from you. You don’t say it very often anymore.”

“I forget, Ella.”

I forget Ella. This is what I fear most.

“I know you do, John.” I lay my other hand on his face. I kiss my husband. I hold him close to me and I don’t say anything more. Minutes pass, and the half night returns to his eyes.

It’s time to get up.

 

We spend a short time on the interstate, and it’s full of semitrucks that roar past us at full speed. You can sense their annoyance. We aren’t going fast enough for them. As one passes us, the driver, a fat man with a camouflage hat, scowls and flips us the bird. I make a gun with my index finger and thumb and shoot it at him like Charles Bronson.

He stares at me as if I’m insane. Then he hits the gas like a bat out of hell.

We get back on 66. At Arcadia, we pass a well-known round barn, but the town itself is so drab and sad looking, we don’t bother to stop. We just keep going, slow but steady till we hit Edmond, a little college town. From there we meet back up with I-44, which allows us to bypass Oklahoma City.

On the freeway, the trucks are nastier than ever. One of them comes very close to cutting us off. John has to hit the brakes, and I feel my heart jump into my throat as the weight of the van shifts forward for a moment.

Nothing happens. We keep driving. We pass a sign in front of a Knights of Columbus Council that says:

HAPPY ANNIV. DAVIE & PUNKIN 23 YRS

Good for them, I say. At Bethany, after we rejoin 66, we cross Lake Overholser on an old steel bridge, then John pulls over.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

John looks at me like I’m the one losing my mind. “I have to pee.”

“Oh.”

He turns the engine off, then disappears into some bushes. Two minutes later, he returns to the driver’s seat.

I grab our little spray bottle of hand sanitizer. “Hold out your hands.”

John starts the van.

“John. You need to clean them after you pee.”

“Quit riding me, Ella. Get off my back.”

I spray the backs of his hands just to get his goat. He wipes them on his pants, puts it into gear, and we take off. He’s getting ornery again, I can tell. We drive a little farther and I start to feel hungry.

“Let’s stop for lunch, John.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, I am.” These days, I don’t usually have much of an appetite, so I’d like to take advantage of it. For the first time in over forty years, I’m losing weight. Sure, I still need to go to Omar the Tent-Maker for my clothes, but he’s definitely taken me down a yard or two. Too bad I had to get sick in order to lose weight. There’s a diet for you. I can see it really catching on. I’ll be reading all about it in the Enquirer—“Movie Stars Love New Cancer Diet!”

After El Reno, there’s an old 1932 alignment of 66 that we could hop on, but I direct John to stay on I-44. Later, I regret my decision. I scour the countryside for restaurant billboards, but for the first time, there are none. I feel antsy and discomfortable along with my phantom hunger. Maybe I’m just anxious to get to Disneyland. I guess once I know something’s going to happen, good or bad, I’ve never had much patience for waiting. But sometimes you just can’t rush things.

 

“Hey look, Coney Islands! Let’s stop,” says John, after seeing a sign along the road.

Though I was holding out for more Oklahoma barbecue, I’m happy to see something decent to eat. In Detroit, we have Coney joints all over the city. (They’ve always been one of John’s favorite foods. When he had to work downtown, he would sometimes sneak over to Lafayette Coney Island for two with everything before he came home. I could always tell by the onions on his breath.) But once you leave the Detroit area, you won’t find them anywhere else. So it surprises me to see them here. Still, I guess the strangest thing is that both Michigan and Oklahoma have hot dogs named after a place in New York.

We down some Pepcid and head into this little shack in Hydro. It’s nothing to look at from the outside, and inside, it’s no better: dingy whitewashed walls, torn Naugahyde booths and chipped Formica tables. When we walk in, all the regulars turn to look at us. They scowl as if to say, “What are these rogue seniors doing in our greasy spoon?” I’d be worried if they weren’t all as ancient as us.

I have to say that the Okie Coney Island looks absolutely delicious. A plate with two passes by just as we sit down. The chili looks similar to Detroit’s, but they put a yellowish vinegar coleslaw on the top. We order two each, fries, and Dr Peppers (seems to be what they drink here) from a silent, burly waiter in a stained apron. Less than three minutes later, he slaps them on our table without a word.

I’m happy to report that Okie Coney dogs are indeed as delicious as they look. While we eat, an old black fellow, at least in his eighties, in a red-striped sport shirt buttoned to the top, toddles up and watches us eat for a moment. John and I exchange a glance. Not sure what to do, I smile at him and keep chewing.

“Good, ain’t they?” he finally says, sucking at his upper plate.

I have a little hard time understanding him, between drawl and stroke-slur, but I know what he’s saying. John and I both nod yes. Our mouths are full.

“Where you all from?”

I swallow my food and wipe my face, while John keeps eating. “Detroit, Michigan,” I say, with a little hesitance. No point in saying “Madison Heights, Michigan.” No one’s heard of it.

“Been there long?”

“All our lives.”

He paws an ashy cheek as he considers this. I can’t help but notice that his left eye is the color of condensed milk. “I had cousins up that way. Lived there myself for a year. Long time ago.”

I set down my Coney. “Really?”

“Worked in the Packard plant there. Beautiful town.”

Even though the Detroit that he’s referring to is probably sixty years old, I smile again at him, genuinely touched. “Really? Well, thank you. That’s so nice to hear. Usually we say we’re from Detroit and everyone looks at us like we’re crazy. They still call it Murder City.”

He shakes his head. “Aw, folks can be so wrong-hearted. Anyway, it don’t matter what they say, you stay just the same. Know what I’m talking about?”

I nod. “Yes, I do. You stay ’cause it’s home.”

He grins widely enough to display the pink rims of his dentures, pleased that time has taught us both the same lesson. “That’s right. Don’t matter where you are, if that’s where this is”—he splays his hand over his chest—“that’s home. Sometimes you don’t know why you stay, you just stay. That’s home.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“Uh-huh.” Both eyes close for a moment as he tips his head. “I got to go. You folks have a blessed day.”

“Thank you,” I say. “You take care.”

He shakes both our hands and chugs slowly out the door. John looks at me, shrugs, then starts in on the remaining hot dog on my plate.

I don’t know what that was all about, but it sure put me in a good mood. Back in the van, I’m not in discomfort, I’m not nauseous, my knees don’t ache, I’ve got my wits about me, all of it. John even puts on some music—Harry James, good, jivey stuff from the ’40s. For this moment, I am so happy I could cry. Granted, it has never taken much to please me, but these days, it’s been a little tougher.

I think about what the man at the Coney joint said. He was right. We are the people who stay. We stay in our homes and pay them off. We stay at our jobs. We do our thirty and come home to stay even more. We stay until we are no longer able to mow our lawns and our gutters sag with saplings, until our houses look haunted to the neighborhood children. We like it where we are. I guess then the other question is: Why do we even travel?

There can be only one answer to that: we travel to appreciate home.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re working or taking care of children and a house, your days can’t help but take on a certain sameness. As you grow older, you want that sameness, you crave it. Your kids don’t understand. They’re always trying to change everything, replace the very things that you find comforting and familiar, like your nicely broken-in car or the kettle that rattles when it boils. Yet the sameness is also a trap. It’s part of the narrowing of your world, the tunnel vision of age. When something different happens to you, it’s hard to see it as a good thing. Which means you can’t always recognize a perfect moment or get yourself to a place where one can happen. Or sometimes perfect moments happen and you don’t even realize it.

That is why you need to travel.

About fourteen years ago, John and I went camping at Higgins Lake. The Jillettes had planned to join us but had to cancel at the last minute, so we were on our own. It was an uneventful weekend. I woke up early Sunday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. Or maybe I had been worrying about something. (I could go on about all the time I’ve spent worrying in my life, but that’s for another reverie, thank you.) I was sitting on a camp chair, having a cup of coffee, watching the gold light bleed upward from the earth, gradually illuminating the branches of the evergreens. I could hear the fading final stridulation of a cricket, the muffled hum of a car on a faraway road, and someone pumping water on the other side of the campground.

You’re probably waiting for me to say that I saw something miraculous, a white wolf, or some other exquisite sight that I would have never seen had I not been up so early, but I saw nothing unusual. I just sat there in front of the Leisure Seeker, knowing that this, right here, was my life. I was Ella Robina, wife of John, mother of Cindy and Kevin, grandmother of Lydia and Joseph, resident of Madison Heights, Michigan. I thought that nothing enormously bad or good had happened to me during my life. All the normal things had occurred. I had lived a completely unremarkable life. I wanted only my home, and the love and safety of those around me, nothing else. I knew there was no particular reason why I was put on this earth, but here I was and I was glad to be here, awed by the beauty of it. It was a perfect moment.

At that moment, I knew my life. Soon, I will know my death. Who knows? That could be perfect, too. But I doubt it.

 

“I think I’d like to take a nap,” says John, some miles down the road.

“I’ll get you a Pepsi, John,” I say. “Let’s see if we can get a few miles in before we stop for the day.” Swell. Now I’m sounding like him. Truly though, we have not gone very far. Maybe one hundred and thirty miles from where we started. I would like to make it to Texas by the end of our day.

“All right.”

I reach back to open the old metal Coleman cooler that we keep behind our captain’s chairs to fetch John a Pepsi. The sour smell reminds me that I put a small block of Pinconning cheese in there before we left home. It’s floating in water now. I dry the bottle with an old rag from under the seat. The Pepsi is warm, but that’s all right. Neither of us enjoys things that are very cold or very hot. I hand it to him. He places it between his legs and tries to open it. The van swerves to one side of the road, then the other.

I grab the steering wheel. “Good Christ, John. Just a second. I’ll open it.”

I let go of the wheel and reach between his legs.

“Hey, watch what you’re grabbing there, young lady.”

I have to laugh. I smack John on the arm, twist the top off the bottle, and hand it to him.

“Lecher,” I say, as he takes a big swig.

As if answering, John lets out a big belch and smiles.

“That’s lovely. I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I say, snatching the bottle from him and taking a short sip. The pop is warm and syrupy and too fizzy, but helps my dry mouth and it settles my stomach, which is understandably starting to grumble about lunch. I hand the bottle back to John, and he takes another long pull.

It’s then when I notice the flashing lights in John’s side-view mirror.

“John.”

“What?”

“I think the police are behind us.”

He looks in the mirror, frowns. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or confused.

“John, I think you should pull over.”

John checks the mirror again, then his eyes return to the road. “He doesn’t want us.”

“I think he does, John. Pull over.”

“Ella—”

“Damn it, John! Pull over.”

“Son of a bitch,” he says as he reluctantly eases the van to the shoulder of the road. The police car does not pass us. I feel a tightness in my throat. I pray that the kids did not call the cops on us. Looking into John’s mirror from my side, I see the officer walk toward us.

“John, just do what the man says.” I don’t need him to get in one of his contrary moods with a policeman. I want to make it to California.

“License and registration, please,” says the officer, who looks about thirteen. There’s a nick on his chin from shaving, which he probably does about twice a month.

“Oh, that’s in my purse. Just a second,” I say. He turns and peers at me.

This is unfortunate since my purse happens to be where John’s gun is hidden. I grin toothily at the cop as I fumble around in my massive handbag, looking for the wallet while trying to keep a firearm out of view. The officer shifts his glance back over to John. (The advantage of being an old woman: no one expects you to be packing heat.) Finally, I find the wallet, pull out the license and registration, and hand them to the officer. All the time, John says nothing. That’s good.

“Mr. Robina, the reason I stopped you was I noticed your vehicle weaving between lanes a few miles back.”

I hold up the Pepsi. “Officer, that was my fault. I had given John this bottle of pop and he couldn’t open it. I should have opened it before I handed it to him.”

The cop gives me a pointed stare. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’d like Mr. Robina to answer the question.”

Uh-oh. If John says something crazy, we’re going to both wind up in the calaboose. Or worse, back to Detroit.

“I just was saying—”

“Ma’am, please? Mr. Robina, is that what happened?” His eyes narrow as he scans John’s face.

John looks at the cop, then nods. “Yes sir, I was trying to open the thing.”

“The thing?” The cop looks at him.

John clears his throat. “The thing, the, the bottle.”

There is a terribly long silence as the officer scrutinizes us both. John lets out a medium loud belch, then sighs. I scowl at him. The officer leaves with John’s license and registration. There is only the faint smell of Aqua Velva left in the air. From the driver’s-side mirror, I can see him step into his squad car.

“What are you, nuts? You don’t burp at a police officer.”

John smirks at me and belches again.

It worries me what’s going on in that squad car. I’m wondering if Kevin and Cindy have indeed reported us. Both had decided a few months back (at one of their “What are we going to do about Mom and Dad?” meetings, no doubt) that John should no longer own a valid driver’s license. Kevin had already tried to disable our old Impala, but he underestimated us. John opened the hood, I spotted the distributor wire that Kevin had yanked, and we had the car running again in nothing flat. Even beyond the teen years, parents still have to prove to their children that they are not as stupid as they think. After that, Kevin and Cindy both shut up for a while, until a few weeks ago. That’s when the “Dad shouldn’t be driving” talks started anew. Except this time, we took it on the lam.

Right about now, John starts up the Leisure Seeker again. He is about to put it into gear when I reach over and turn the key off. I pull it out of the ignition.

I hiss at him. “Are you off your rocker?”

“Give me those fucking keys,” he says.

“What do you think? You’re going to lose him in this monster? We’re going to have a high-speed chase like they do on the news in Detroit?”

John looks at me with such hatred that it breaks my heart. I think, He’s finally going to belt me after all these years. Then I’m going to have to kill him. The old John knows that I would do that, but maybe not this one. I ball up the keys in my fist, ready for anything. Then I look in the side mirror again.

“Shut up, he’s coming back,” I say, watching the cop get larger in the mirror. He steps up to the side of the van.

“Thought you were going to take off on me for a minute,” he says, smiling. He hands John back his license and registration. “You’re all set. Please be more careful. Stay in your lane and proceed at the posted limits, all right?”

I smile again at the officer, playing up the sweet old dear routine for all it’s worth. “We certainly will, Officer. Thanks so much. Have a nice day!”

I watch him get back in his squad car and drive away. I’m cold and my body feels absolutely limp. I’m so relieved that there wasn’t an APB out on us, or whatever they used to do on Adam-12.

“Where are the keys?” says John, checking all the cup holders and niches on the dash. He could be looking for quite some time. He has the inside of this van so glopped up with gadgets and magnetic contraptions and compasses and dispensers, it’s amazing that we can even move in here.

I drop the keys firmly in his lap.

“Ow!” yelps John, cupping his crotch.

“Let’s go, Barney Oldfield.”

 

No sooner do we get going than we decide to stop again. I see a sign for the Route 66 Museum in Clinton. I am torn between wanting to get to Texas and seeing this museum. As we approach it, I decide that we need a rest after our little run-in with the fuzz.

“We’re going to have a look at this museum,” I say to John, wondering if he’s going to give me any lip.

“Oh. Okay. Looks good.”

It does look good. It’s modern and sleek, with lots of glass block, right in the middle of all this flatness. There’s a bright red convertible in the front display window.

We park the van and John helps me get out. I bring my cane. I’m not feeling tip-top, but decide to ignore it. I haven’t taken my meds this afternoon. Too busy gobbling down Coneys and harassing the authorities, I guess.

On our way in, we pass a monument to the lassoin’ buffoon, Will Rogers. I’ve already had a bellyful of that knucklehead and we’re not even halfway to California.

I’ll give them this. There’s a lot of stuff at this museum. Too much. Every square inch of the place is filled. Antique cars, motorcycles, a dust bowl jalopy with water bags slung over the bumpers, giant photographs, rusty license plates, old billboards, not to mention dinging gas pumps, blinking traffic lights, buzzing neon hotel signs; as well as a Volkswagen hippie van spray-painted in all kinds of crazy colors that hurt my eyes to even look at.

Before long, we’re both walking around in a daze, overstimulated by all the noise and colors and lights.

“I don’t feel so good,” says John.

“Me, neither. Let’s get out of here.”

This is the first museum to ever give us a headache.

 

Once we’re back on the road, I start to feel better. I do, however, notice what must be the sixth half-filled plastic bottle of pee that I’ve seen along the side of the road. I swear they’re all over the place in Oklahoma. What is wrong with these people? It alarms me to think about all these Okies urinating while they drive. Keep your hands on the wheel, I say!

 

Before Erick, we pass a sign:

ROGER MILLER MEMORIAL HIGHWAY

“That can’t be the guy who sang ‘King of the Road,’ can it?” I say.

John starts crooning to me. “Trai-lers for sale…” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel as he sings.

He can’t remember my goddamn name, but he can remember a stupid song from forty years ago. When I see the sign for the Roger Miller Museum, sure enough there’s a big “King of the Road” banner. He must be from around here. Good Lord. Oh well, at least it’s not Will Rogers.

I pull down the visor and examine myself in the mirror. There are long strands of hair—dirty hair, I’m ashamed to admit—all blown and scattered about my head. As much as I gripe about John’s hygiene, you think I’d be more conscious of my own. I pull the elastic band from my hair and attempt to gather the strands back into the pigtail. I extend my neck, try to get a glimpse of the woman I once was, but she is nowhere to be found. I take off my glasses, hoping the blur will help, but I only end up examining the circles beneath my eyes that have grown darker and deeper over the past days. How can someone manage to look gaunt while maintaining a double chin, I ask you?

“I look like the wreck of the Hesperus,” I mutter.

John turns and says, “I think you look beautiful.”

I look at my husband. It’s been ages since he’s said anything like that to me. I think about how I used to crave his compliments, how I used to believe them, how they used to keep me from cringing when I looked in the mirror.

“You’re full of it,” I say, playing a game of ours from long ago.

“That’s true, but I still think you’re beautiful.”

Damn this man. Damn him to hell for still loving me, even now.

We approach the town of Texola. Just off the road, we see ancient cars parked along property lines, rusting hulks with FOR SALE signs fading in the sun, as if they are waiting for some classic car collector to come rescue them from the junk-yard. The grass is burnt brown. The buildings are crumbling. There’s no one in sight.