Mobility

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mobility

The ground came to a stop, finally. I didn't think this old junker possible of making it a mile, much less 900 of them, and it's only a pit stop at the current in a long line of middle-of-nowhere gas stations, but at least the ground isn't moving for a few minutes. I remember my driver's ed teacher, Mr. Spain, telling us that, to make sure the car has come to a complete stop at a light, we should look out the window and make sure the ground wasn't moving. I'd looked out the window to see a grayish piece of chewing gum with a tampon wrapper stuck to one side of it, delicately fluttering in the breeze. Screw looking out the window. I think I can tell when I'm no longer moving, thank you very much.

I feel feverish, but I don't know whether that's real or imagined. All I have the energy to do is stare down at the tamped-down dusty clay and imagine what Rick would say if I told him I'd rather stay here at - where am I? Ken's Kwik Stop? Oh, lovely spelling - than sit in this car for another mile with him. I won't do it, of course, but it's fun to imagine what he'd say. I'm betting on nothing. A shrug, maybe. He might be ticked off that I wouldn't be around to pay for half the gas anymore. I notice he didn't ask me if I wanted anything to drink before he went into the station. Shocker.

Back on the road, the heat of the sun and force of the wind remind me of my high school summers waitressing at the drive-in, only without the radio - and the patrons - half-tuned and blaring. I guess Rick's got his country crap on, but I'm so used to it by now I can almost completely tune it out. Thing about a convertible is you can't hear the radio half the time anyway. The speeds Rick drives, it's like he's hoping I'll blow right out of the car. I think that's why he speeds up around the curves. At the right angle, he could get me with the rear tire, too. Bonus points.

I can see in the side mirror the loose, yellow-sienna earth creeping up to the blacktop, the puffs blowing up where the wheels of the car catch a drift of it that's bled onto the highway. I'm in this car to move forward, grab for difference, find something new, though at present I'd be hard-pressed to identify any particular ambition. That would take more effort than my present lethargic bent would afford. So I can't help embracing the view of what's behind me. The ease with which nostalgia can roll in and over me, as though I'm the windshield of this crappy Buick. Only a few wild wisps wiggle in far enough that I can catch hold of them for contemplation. Guess the windshield and I have that in common, too. Slightly cracked, but still within legal limits.

When Rick told me he wanted to move to Arizona, I couldn't imagine anything worse. At first, I thought he meant he was going alone. Honestly, that part didn't bother me all that much. It was when he started talking like we were going together that I began to think about the heat and flatness of living in the desert. Living in the desert with Rick. The plan gave me as much excitement as filing my taxes. Of course, I wouldn't have that pleasure again any time soon without a job - been looking for one for three months, with no luck. Another reason to leave. Or, at least, not a reason to stay.

The way I see it, Rick's not going to ever live anywhere but a mediocre apartment or a rented duplex in a white trash neighborhood where people leave those damn icicle lights strung up along their roof lines all year. So it's not out of love or loyalty that I'm on this trip. The thing is, when my car died, I just never got a new one. Rick came home with this whale on wheels, and when he decided to move, I didn't have much choice, other than learning to subsist on public transportation, except to go with him. I guess you could say he's my mobility. Sometimes, I think I must be some kind of psycho hosebeast to be this callous, but Rick doesn't hold me to anything more than that. He's not complaining and I'm not asking for opinions.

I glance over at my Mr. Right Now. My ride across the country. I could look at him for as long as I wanted to, wearing these $7.99 convenience store sunglasses, and he'd never know. The guy's got the most beautiful eyes of any man I 've ever met. Eyelashes a woman would die for. I'll bet if he wore glasses, they'd hit the glass, they're so long. I rest my hand against the back of his neck and look back out at the "landscape." As though Nevada had anything worth looking at. Rick's got a nice back of the neck. Nobody ever understands me when I say the back of the neck is my favorite part of a guy. Back of the neck, slope of the shoulders. I used to have trouble keeping my lips off Rick's neck, but now it's hardly more than an armrest and I know he barely feels my hand there.

I haven't got that excitement about Rick anymore, and when there's dead space where caring's supposed to be, and you can't have a good conversation or even an amicable moment of silence with someone you're supposed to love, it's time to step out. Or drive away. Which is what I think I'm doing, except that I'm in the passenger seat and the guy I'm trying to leave is leaving with me. Damn, I wish I had a car.

It's mile 1104 when I realize that, not only do I not desire to be with Rick anymore, I can't stand to be with him. Where, previously, I could look over at his beautiful eyes and his great back of the neck, and be able to tolerate the complete disregard with which he treats me, now it's all I can do not to scowl at him or kick him in the shin, or whip something at his head. I wonder if could throw him out of the car and slide over into the driver's seat fluidly enough to keep from crashing. I'm starting to freak about actually reaching our destination, which we're going to do sometime tomorrow. This guy I called my mobility is going to end up being my ballast. Sure, he's got the car. He's got all but $257 of our combined stash of $1074. If I think realistically, I might be trapped. Screw reality. Rick might be a little unwieldy to toss out of the car, but how much would it really hurt if I jumped?

The desert sun is actually kind of pretty, you know, when it settles down a bit. Lets the horizon halve it, cut some of its brightness and heat. I could maybe be happy here, if I had to be. If, say, I told Rick at the next stop, "Thanks for the ride, man. Keep on truckin'." It's been 18 hours of staring at the road so hard it turns into gray mush and threatens to absorb us into its interior, and something had to give. And I think it just may have been my sanity, but I know what I have to do.

See, Rick might be my mobility, but I know now that he's not my momentum. And I further know that this car guzzles a lot of gas. I slide my fingers up Rick's sexy back-of-the-neck and take a long look at his eyelashes. He's not really a bad guy. The thing is, I think I see a gas station up ahead.

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