"Willow's asleep. She's laying across your mum's bed."
"Wake her."
"She has to drive in like 4 hours, let her sleep."
"I need cigarettes."
"Well then, let's go."
Neither Stevie nor I has a license. In just four hours Willow will be driving us both to my new university in south west Ohio. If we don't get lost it should take us 15 hours.
"Where's her keys?"
"Check her pockets, I think she's wearing her coat and everything."
Stevie slinks in to lift the keys. Willow mews in her sleep. I look around the darkened apartment her mom has been fixing up for the past 6 or so years.
They rent from their Grandma. I basically lived here all through high school. It was easy to never go home when you wear the same stupid plaid skirt every day.
I trace my finger along the new wood trim. H
ow long till my clothes smell like this place again?
"Got'em." Stevie dangles a shiny set of keys up to eyes, impishly. Willow just leased the Focus about a week ago. Driving me to Ohio had seemed fun, at the time, and was talked about for the second half of the summer, once she knew which car she wanted.
Stevie and I walk across the creaky porch where our madness and repose held court all throughout those long sophomoric summer nights that always seemed to stretch on into fall, holding back the cold breath of winter until at last came the first snap of spring, on and on again like a great song on repeat.
"Which key does the lock?"
"Uh, use the button."
"Eureka!"
"s'Castle."
We fumble aboard. Stevie adjusts the driver's seat and mirror. I tap the dash, breathing in the new car smells of plastics and foam. The stereo still doesn't have presets yet, so I fiddle with it trying to find our station. Once a good song is playing, Stevie lights her last cigarette and makes the tip glow orange so I can see her eyes behind her horn rimmed glasses.
The streets of West Medford are newly paved and vacant, orderly in a way that demands an inner quiet. As we pass, every third or forth house has a statue of Mary and babe staring out at me from behind a white washed chain linked fence. They they might as well be pink flamingos, what with how tacky they are.
"Who leaves Jesus in a bathtub?"
"What?"
"Nothin. Just nothing."
The song is different now. It's pulling a sadness out of me that doesn't exist in its chords. The trash is on every curb. This is my yesterday.
"What's open?"
"Only Store 24."
The blinker taps out a march as we turn.
"But it's so close," I say as I jerk my head to the right.
"To the police station? Yeah."
We pull right up to the door. There are no other cars in the lot. I get out and check my zipper. Furtively I glace back. Nestled under the bridge behind us is the Medford City Municipal Precinct.
I press in on my pocket, checking it's contents. The warped rectangle of my passport is still there. It's my only ID: scribbled with lyrics, covered in propaganda stickers, signed by my favorite rock group and been through the wash twice. Guess, I haven't really had the same rights of passage as other kids my age. Stevie either.
Her only ID is a paper permit that says she can drive if someone over 25 is in the car. If pressed I could always say I left my licence at home. But I just turned 19 and I usually test younger. She stubbs out her Marlboro and I follow her inside.
The new thing right now is energy drinks. Supposedly they have cow testicles in them or something.
I don't know which ones are good so I take five different kinds off the shelf. They all have hyper masculine labels and aggressive fonts.
I nod judiciously,
bull testicles indeed.
Next, we'll want Slim Jims, jerky--road foods: peanuts, salts and chocolates, packs of gum, two kinds of chips, diet sodas for Willow and just 821 miles between now and my next life. I start to get romantic, but I push the future from my head and waddle up in line behind a brick wall of a cop. He's got neck fat, the number one indicator that I could outrun him. I smirk at the back of his ugly puckered skull.
"Thirsty?"
"Easy, you'll make me drop these things, sneaking up like that."
"Sore-y, Alistair."
"What kind of m and m's do you like?" I ask, glancing back at her as she shifts through her wallet looking for her permit. Four cops are in line behind her. I look down at my arm load of treats. Two more cops come in. Stevie suddenly notices all the blue suits and her eyes go wide. I look back down at the supplies.
I can hear her thinking, i
f the cops see me use this permit to buy my butts and then see me driving away....She looks down at everything I'm carrying, appalled.
"It's too much."
"Yes."
"I'll put some back."
"Put it all back."
"Yes."
"Cigarretts can wait?"
"Yes."
We all but run from the store.
"Holy Fuck."
"No, calm down."
"No, holy fuck, Launny. Fuck."
"You'll be fine. You can do it. Just get in."
"They fuckin' boxed us in. I won't be able to do it."
I take a hot, dry swallow of air. So close that we can barely open the doors on both sides of us are cop cars.
"We're fucked." Stevie states definitively. "Really, actually fucked."
"Fuck you. Drive." I point across the roof of the car at her. She takes my dare and gets in.
I talk her out of keeping her eyes closed to back up. We arrive at her mom's place without incident. I'm mad at us both for taking Willow's car. I slam the door and stomp up the steps. We're suppost to be on the road in just under three hours now.
"Why'd you slam it?"
"Just cuz. Get some rest."
"I need a cigarette."
"Do as you like."
I squeak open the front door, leaving her on the porch. The four stroke tattoo of dog nails on parquet greet me as Stevie's ancient border collie shoves her damp nose into the palm of a hand accustomed to fending her off. "Go to sleep, Louise," I say as I scrape my own tired feet across the room to the body pillow on the floor. I would prefer the couch, but that would mean waking up someone, or a bed, but that would mean sharing, and I only want a few hours rest before it's time to carry on. "Go to sleep." I say to no one in particular. If Stevie comes in, she does not rouse me.
The soft padding of feet back from the bathroom into her brother's room is the first thing I hear. My skin is clammy, and my under arms need a rinse.
The light from the front room's window is coming in white. It's still early, but we have overslept.
I step over the dog on my way to the bathroom. Her tail thumps against the ground in greeting. If I stand in the door way, right across from both Stevie's room and her mom's I can see Willows feet hanging off the bed in the same position she fell asleep in. Her shoes are still on. It is time to go, she's known it for hours.
"Willow. Willow, wake up."
"I'm uh-mmm, hmmp."
She rolls on to her back. I go into Stevie's room.
"Time to get up, Steve."
"Fuck off."
"Cigarettes."
"Where?"
"Easy. Get up."
With her eyes still closed, she feels around for her glasses.
I go to put on coffee but there is none. Willows key's are on the table. I pocket them and head back to her bed side.
"C'mon Willow. Up." I kick the bed, once.
"Fuck you."
"Yeah. C'mon."
"I just, I..."
"Stevie said she'd buy you butts."
"We need directions."
"I'll print them. Get up."
Back in the front room I heft my trunk up by it's handle. In my other arm I grab my comforter and pillow and make for the door. The boot on this car is unusually large for a 4 door compact. I am able to stack my trunk, trash can, blow up couch, and wall hangings, no problem. I grab her atlas and toss it up into the front, and put my pillow and blanket in the back.
Stevie is up. She's wearing a Howie Day shirt and pajama pants. Her slippers have rabbit ears. When she sticks her tongue out at me in annoyance I see she has a new light blue bulb on her tongue ring that is a mirror shade to that of her eyes.
"Get Willow up, grumpy. I'll buy breakfast."
I leave her to it and head off to print off the directions. It only takes a few minutes, but the dog makes a fuss by the printer and someone from the living room's couch yells about it.
Suddenly they're being over shouted by Willow and Stevie from her mom's room. Louise rushes past me into intervene.
"Willow, you said you'd take her. Now fucking get your ass in gear and lets move it."
I walk back slowly. Willow hates doing anything, but she agrees to everything. Normally she'll say she'll pick you up at 8 or something and get there around 12. I could have flown, if I bought the tickets a month ago, or hitched if I didn't pack a trunk, but this was suppost to be my big send off by my best friends and our first road trip, besides.
"I can only put so many miles on it a month, Stevie. That's part of the lease."
"Big fuckin deal, Willow. It has no miles on it."
"I have to do all the driving myself."
"I can do some, that's not true."
"I'm not 25, Stevie!"
"You never gave a shit with the Jimmy."
I make some noise at the door.
"You don't want to come anymore, Willow?" I ask.
"No, it's not that." She flops down on the bed, looking exhausted. "It's just that I have never driven for that long before."
"I'll be right there beside you. I'll read the map the whole way."
I hold up the directions.
"Well, neither of you can really help me."
"I'll be right beside you, Willow. It
will work. I need you to do this for me, though and it needs to happen now. Orientation is already over, classes start on monday. I have to go, to-day. ...Is it cuz of gas? Cuz..."
"No, it's not gas. Never mind. I'll take you. Just shut up and get in. Where are my keys?"
"Right here."
"Everything ready?"
"Yeah, just gotta find my hoodie. I thought left it right by my trunk..."
I trail off into the front room to search out my garment, Willow and Stevie bickered more quietly as they both prepared to leave. I was 16 in these rooms. I met Stevie when I was just a freshmen at north Cambridge Catholic. I fell in love with her brother and spent many nights learning how spoons slept, both holding on to our innocence. I was alive in these rooms and in these rooms life was going to go on without me. A deep sigh filled my lungs but my eyes kept searching.
" Louise..." I to put some pretend disapproval in my voice as I pull my dog hair encrusted hoodie from her makeshift bed. Stevie, bored with arguing comes in behind me.
"Oh man, did she take one of your hoodies for her creepy love nest?"
"Bingo."
"That means she thinks of you as one of her sheep."
I pick it up and snap it against my legs, trying to get the hair off.
"I've always fancied myself among those who've fallen out out of favor with the flock."
"How is that any different from what I said?"
Willow tromps into the room. From the drawn way her face is set amidst the cascade of bed tousled blond-brown hair, you can tell she came here to fight. So while her and Stevie go at it about the last of the cigarettes and who-smoked-who's, I bend down and pet Louise.
"I'll be back, Louise. I really will."
One of Stevie's brothers screams at them to shut up. The young man on the couch with his back to us wraps his arms more tightly around himself and pulls in his legs in for warmth. I drop a forgotten sheet across him.
"Come on, guys. Breakfast is on me."
Stevie slams the door loudly as we exit, but runs back in immediately to get her toothbrush and pillow.
I take up shotgun and situate myself, the atlas, and the directions. I pull on my hoodie but think better of it and drape it over my knees.
"So we're really doing it then?"
"Yeah, Willow. We really are. You are, I mean. But I'm here to help."
"The farthest I've ever driven is Maine."
"Northern Maine, or Southern?"
"Kittery."
"Ah. I wanna see the north some time. Hike that 100 miles of wilderness, way up there by Canada, no outposts. You only have what you pack in."
"You've always been the adventurer, Launny. You're the only one who ever leaves."
"It's just a dream. It's nothing, just an idea. Anyway,
this is an adventure."
"What does that make me?"
"I don't know Willow, one does not simply walk into Mordor."
"They do if they run out of gas."
"We'll get some. Honk the horn, we're gunna hit traffic."
"Meh, here she comes."
Stevie half runs, half hobbles out of the house, her hair pulled back in an oily ponytail. She's still wearing her pajamas, but traded the slippers in for chucks. Her pillow is under her arm, and upon the spindle of her pointer finger is a CD. She gets in.
"What's that?"
"A mix, I made it last night."
"Cool, I'll pop it in."
She hands up the disk.
"So where am I driving?"
"Dunkin Donuts, I guess. They have the best breakfasts."
From the back Stevie puts in, "Go to the one on Medford street, it's right by the Cumbies. We can get ciggs and gas."
That settled, we make our way on to Harvard Street and down past McCarthy Storage space. Willow bangs a right onto Mystic Avenue.
"No, Willow, left. We're not heading to the Cape."
"Fuck. fuck, fuck."
Stevie forces her arm up between the seats and points,
"Relax, you can turn down 38 and catch up with 93, but take the parkway first, so we can grab breakfast before I fall back to sleep."
I half turn to face her. I can read a map and follow instructions, but roads of New England run through her veins.
"You sure you don't want shotgun, Stevie?"
"Nah, you can have it. But remember, it's not just a right--it's a responsibility."
"Ha, fuckin' hilarious, ked! If I ever quote you on that, I'm def gunna describe you as grave and beautiful."
"You better. In my fuckin', dead sexy pajama pants."
"Hey, don't get so fancy back there, the only reason I'm wearing clothes is cuz I slept in this."
"Yeah, we know, Willow. "
"Jesus Christ, you know what would make this song great, some cigarettes."
"I didn't know you liked Guster, Stevie."
"Don't be a Douche-ku, you know I put this on here for you. Ya sick fuck."
I turn the music up obnoxiously loud, finally channeling all the morning's frustration.
"THEY WANNA KNOW, IF WE CAN GET AWAY, YEAH--""Shut up, Launny. Jesus Christ, yer gunna bust the speakers."
"What? I'm singing Stevie and lullaby."
"WHILE THE MESSAGERS, GETS THE MESSAGE, TRY TO CAPTURE US--WE'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG.""Let's get her some breakfast. She's such a twat when she hasn't eaten."
