Road Trip

THE DRIVE:
It’s so damn hard to stay awake when everyone else is asleep. The drone of rubber on asphalt doesn’t help. Occasional THUMP THUMP THUMPS from the reflectors set into the white stripes catch me as I zone out. I glance around the Chevy at my passengers. Three women. All different as seasons. The one is Spring; full of life and beauty and creativity. In the backseat are Summer and Autumn. Summer is temperamental in all the ways that make it the most American of times. Autumn changes thoughts at whim and lets them fall at our feet to be sifted. I stare after the cars stretching into the North, realizing that I must be Winter. I feel cold. I will Spring to wake and end my silence.

CHINATOWN:
He had the mismatched clothes and scraggly beard of a homeless man, but was too clean to have been on the streets long. The tourists and Asians rattling closed their security gates didn’t faze him. He stared, unblinking, eyes drying, at the pieta in the shop window. It was cold white marble. Mary held her torn Son carefully. The man stood against the night tide of humanity. As still as the marble just out of reach.

THE APARTMENT:
It’s big. Much bigger than my home. I buy them whiskey to pay for a night of rest, but I look at the broken sofa and know I won’t sleep much. I miss my sheets. I miss my bedside table and try to remember what I’ve stored inside.

2AM:
I write this, wishing someone would ask me what I’m working on and knowing full well I wouldn’t tell them. This is the exorcism I perform when the others are dreaming. I don’t recall the last time I dreamt and wonder if I’ve finally gone crazy. I’ve heard crazy people don’t dream.

CRASHES:
I finally fell off to sleep at three. Seconds later, the slamming of the front door brought me back. Thunk thunk went the hiking boots kicked off. Rough bare feet on the floor. Loud greetings from a bedroom. ‘Is Caleb awake?’ ‘No.’ Lie. I’ve no idea how the thin bathroom door didn’t split down the middle when he threw it shut. Loud, dramatic yawns. More talking; the annoying talk that’s not loud enough to be coherent and not soft enough to ignore. Spring flexes her legs, knocking me off the broken sofa. I find a pillow and my coat. I never sleep on hardwood floors when I’m sober.