|
At the Abercrombie exit, excavators and bulldozers are working in the snow on the northern side of the overpass. But that's not what it looks like. It looks like they're excavating some kind of body, gashes and scars on the hillside where they're moving snow. Dark brown, dried-blood-brown earth marking where the machinery has moved. The bulldozers and excavators are minuscule compared to the amount of snow they need to move. But I do know what they are doing. So much snow this winter. Already more than twice our normal accumulation. More in the forecast. More today. More next week. The machines are trying to create a space around the overpasses that the snow doesn't fill in so quickly. The blowing snow coming off the fields falls into the incisions. It's a good plan, unless the snow keeps coming, which it does.
As I approach the bridge, it occurs to me that are no animals-no cows in the fields watching the cars go by, no deer, no birds on fence posts or in the air. They're all out there somewhere but hunkered down, waiting for this kind of weather to go by. And soon enough I'm back to snow cover, finger drifts, and white-knuckle driving. The landscape where it intersects the Interstate seems violent, jagged. Out in the fields, of course, soft as pillows, a place to lie down and sleep forever.
***
6:00 a.m. at the Perkin's Restaurant in Alexandria, Minnesota, in the middle of October. A small adventure as I try to order just toast-to go. McDonald's isn't open yet, so that's why I am at Perkin's. We can't find toast on the register. The cashier can find just about everything else-this is her first day, and she's still being trained she tells me-but she cannot find the button to press for toast. Rye toast. With butter. Well, she says. At least this is more interesting than the speech she has to give for speech class later today. She's reading an essay written by a friend of hers: on suicide.
***
Seven o'clock in the evening, 50 miles north of Casper, Wyoming, in late September. A curious thing happens. As the sun sets in the west, the light there moves from white, through spectacular yellows, into a kind of brown, and finally to dusk. In the east, however, a kind of response that's closer to poetry or song than anything else. The sky turns pink, and underneath that pink a layer of deep indigo blue. I've seen these colors before, but never this deep, never this rich, never this full. Cows and antelope by the scores line the highway. As I pass them at 75 miles an hour, I'd swear each one looks at me as if they're expecting something. As if something really big was about to happen.
***
On a road-trip, sometimes all you can do is keep a list. You hold the names, wondering how each one came to be attached to the place you speed past more quickly than any animal can run. Sometimes it's the town names that seem dropped from the sky in the wrong place. Melville, North Dakota, for example. Or Voltaire, North Dakota. Sexsmith, Alberta.
For me, however, it's usually the river names. Not because they seem out of place-normally they seem much better suited to the landscape than any Rosemary Drive or West 54th Street-but because they seem so filled with story and history. Each river name seems a promise of illumination. The San Antonio River. The Guadalupe River. The San Marcos River. Blanco River.
***
Four Apache attack helicopters sweep low and fast over the highway sign for the LBJ Library.
***
A couple, walking out of a highway rest stop just outside of Omaha. The woman turns to her friend and exclaims, "What would you do? I mean, really. What would you do?"
***
Walnut Creek. The South San Gabriel River. The North San Gabriel River. Lampasas River. Elm Fork of the Trinity River. Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. The Red River. Hickory Creek. Washita River. The Little River. The Cimarron River. Black Bear Creek. Red Rock Creek. Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. Chikaskia River. Ninaska River. The Arkansas River. The White Water River. The Cottonwood River. The Neosho River. Badger Creek. Frog Creek. Long Creek. Coal Creek. Rock Creek. Tequa Creek. Rock Creek. The Mare de Signes River. Ottawa Creek. Wolf Creek. Bull Creek. Indian Creek. The Missouri River. Todd Creek. Platte River. Bee Creek. Pigeon Creek. Dillon Creek. Hopkins Creek. Nodaway River. Kimsey Creek. Squaw Creek. Little Tarkio Creek. Tarkio River. Mill Creek. Rock Creek. Nishnabotna River. The Boyer River. The Soldier River. The Little Sioux River. The Floyd River. The Big Sioux River.
***
From the audiotape-
Notice how when listening to the radio we always prefer the music to the DJ, always prefer the metaphor to the real life. The music brings us our memories, our hopes, our dreams in ways that are-whoa shit! Now that was a pothole! Damn! Where's the coffee? Oh great, the cup is on the floor and most of what was in the cup is on my face. Shit. Oh well. What was I saying? Oh yeah. We think the DJ's are our neighbors who bring us a different kind of news.
***
Near the North Dakota border, heading home. The highway is a polished sheen of bright glassy ice. There are tracks occasionally on the shoulder of either side, evidence of where cars failed to keep their course. Evidence where stories began, or ended, and where memories were made, or stopped. All up and down this highway the signs that mark death spots rise from the snow. Through snow fog, what appears to be a distant farmhouse can transform suddenly into a truck 15 feet in front of your own. As once again the light begins to dim, the ice becomes difficult to see. The median becomes filled with cars, spinning and then stuck. We all carry winter survival gear.
***
Eldorado Lake is swollen and frozen; dead trees stick out of it as small forests of barren whitewashed trunks. And I'm halfway to Dante when the radio plays American Pie. "Do you believe in rock n' roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And, can you teach me how to dance real slow?" You have to love this world.
***
Just before leaving on a trip, I ask Yahoo Maps what the driving distance is from Fargo to San Antonio. "Driving distance was too far," it says. "Distance 1206, maximum: 1000."
***
Very early on a midsummer morning, well before even the beginnings of daylight, I pull into an Amoco station to top off the tank, check the oil, buy the required bag of hard candy and a cup of fresh coffee. I fill my tank and walk up to the door and find it locked. There is a sign on the front door that says, "Back in five minutes." A young man, college age, wearing baggy pants, a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, sits on the step outside the door. I cannot tell if he's been up all night or if, like me, he has gotten up just a short while ago, beginning this day's adventure early enough to get wherever we need to be. In any case, he filled his car and is now waiting the five minutes.
I look at him and smile. "There may be free gas this morning," I say. He gives me a look like he hasn't thought of this yet.
I walk around back. Both garage bays are open. Tools hang within easy reach. Cases of oil and antifreeze. Radio tuned to an oldies station. The back door into the convenience store is open and I walk in just as the missing clerk is letting the young man in from the front.
We pay for our gas, cash on the counter fast enough that we walk out together and then pause on the step.
"Have a good trip," I say.
"You too," he says. "See you later."
We smile at each other and leave off into the darkness.
Please send us your comments, including the name of the work you are commenting on.
| Welcome |
Contents |
Submissions |
Contact |
Privacy |
About |
Copyright © 1999-2003 by Amarillo Bay. All rights reserved.
Individual works are copyrighted by their authors.
|