So which
way?
East
would be obvious. East was where all the
stuff was, only a half-day’s drive,
that tangle of Boston and New Jersey and Connecticut, places that ached in the guts
of young academics, the longing, the hope, if
only I could end up someplace like that.
And
of course, New York. Right into the welcoming arms of Rona and Sinder. That would be nice, right? They’d be thrilled to receive him, wouldn’t
they, to let him sleep on their couch. If Sinder wasn’t sleeping on it already.
So happy you finally made it out. We always
knew you would.
Gavin
slowed down at the yellow, made a last-second decision, pulled a quick u-turn.
Some guy in a truck honked at him, yelled out the window.
Not
east, he decided. If he was going to run away, he needed to run away. West. Into the great wild frontier, like so many
pioneers before him, the uncharted prairie, Iowa, South Dakota, definitely Wyoming.
Of
course, the end point of west was California. And his parents, which was like
Rona and Sinder but worse.
He
was doing twenty down Lincoln. He’d
never seen all the edge-of-town fields and business parks creep past so
slowly. A couple old ladies passed him.
The radio played some song from the Eighties, I want you to know, ooh, ooh, want you to know. He started singing along—he wasn’t usually
too into singing, but everything was weird today. Ooh, ooh, where should I go?
Not
south. Kansas was south. So that left
north. Perfect. He had no idea what the fuck was up there.
He
turned around again, more honking (it seemed like he might have almost hit a
guy on a motorcycle), and doubled his pace towards the entrance to 231.
South—Bloomington.
North—Lafayette.
So,
towards Lafayette. Weird. It was like,
maybe fifty miles away, but there was totally no reason to go there. He had to
keep chanting to himself himself, north,
north, just to make sure habit didn’t veer him onto the wrong ramp. Had he
ever even gotten on 231 North before? It
was hard to tell. It looked just like
231 South, fields, a little town with a few houses and a gas station, more
fields.
Finally
he saw a sign that said he could go left towards Chicago or go right, which
didn’t say where it went. He’d been to Chicago a few times (he must have taken
231 North then), so he went right.
By
the time he hit Gary, that pack of factories at the base of Lake Michigan, the
sky was starting to get dark. He drove
into Michigan, on a road that followed the east side of the lake, but you couldn’t
see it from there. He cut over to the west on a barely-paved road through flat
fields of grass, parked his car at a beach parking lot, watched the sunset
through his windshield. The lake had movie-blue water stretching to the horizon,
gentle waves, a lot more oceany than the cold grey-green of the Pacific from
his childhood. He thought about walking
closer, joining the wholesome Michigan families and vacationing couples sitting
on towels in the sand, staring up at the rose and gold of the sky. But he wasn’t ready to get out of the car
yet. As long as he was in the car, he was still driving, still going somewhere.
As
soon as the sky was dark, he was back on the road, north, up the coast of
Michigan, towards—what? He wasn’t
sure what happened up there, exactly. The state came to a little point at the
top, he knew that. And then what?
Canada, he supposed. Would he have to go through customs? Because all he had was one suitcase with a
dirty suit and a few clean t-shirts, definitely no passport. It didn’t
matter. He would keep driving, and
whatever was going to happen, he would let it.
He
drove for hours in deep country darkness, using his high-beams whenever there
weren’t other cars on the road, which was most of the time. It was late, and he
should have been getting sleepy, but there was something pushing him
forward. Maybe it was Kansas. How he was
supposed to be headed back there tomorrow, yet here he was, driving exactly the
opposite way. Far, far, too far to turn
back. Far enough to guarantee that on
Monday at eleven, when his students took their seats for English 130, World Lit
1850-Present, he wouldn’t be there.
There were only two weeks left until summer. And while nothing was certain—especially on
this road surrounded by inky blackness—he felt about ninety percent sure he
wouldn’t be back in Kansas to finish out those two weeks. That he wouldn’t be back ever.
It
was two in the morning when he saw the sign.
Mackinac Bridge Entrance
6 Miles.
His
mind would never have been able to produce this name, but when he saw it, he
recognized it right away: the bridge that extended off the north tip of
Michigan. Into a place that he couldn’t
visualize, somewhere off the edge of his mental map.
That
name, Mackinac Bridge, the image of driving off the tip, it hit him hard.
Suddenly he was desperate for sleep. Okay, yes, good time to get some rest. The bridge would sound a whole lot better in the morning.
He
turned off the road at Mackinaw City, whose sign promised food and gas and
hotels. But the town was almost as dark
as the state road. There were hotels,
dozens of them, small ones with parking spaces in front of the rooms, giant
ones with fancy signs. None of the signs
were lit up, and all the front offices were dark. He circled for a while, past family
restaurants with fish on their signs, empty parking lots, little stores, more
hotels. Everywhere, lights off, blinds
down.
Finally
he found a place with a light inside, Lakefront Palace Motel. They guy at the desk was sleepy and unshaven,
with a puffy vest and a large-size Styrofoam coffee. He squinted at Gavin, rubbed
at his floppy walrus mustache.
“Need
some help?”
“A
room.”
Gavin’s
voice was a dehydrated croak. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything since New
Buffalo, just stopped for gas once, where he peed but forgot to get a snack. Totally
unlike him. Now the smell of cheap
coffee made his stomach growl loud enough for the desk guy to hear it.
“All
full up.” The guy’s voice was creaky,
too. “Sorry buddy, whole town’s full. Vacation
season. A few weeks ago we mighta had
something, but starting May you got to book ahead, maybe a few weeks.”
So that was it. He was going to have to keep driving. Across the Mackinac Bridge, and wherever he ended up after that. He could find a hotel in the morning, or maybe he’d sleep in his car if it ran out of gas before then.
So that was it. He was going to have to keep driving. Across the Mackinac Bridge, and wherever he ended up after that. He could find a hotel in the morning, or maybe he’d sleep in his car if it ran out of gas before then.
“Do
you guys have a vending machine or anything?”
The
guy shook his head.
“Hang
on.” He went into a back part of the
office where Gavin could only half see him, came back with another cup of
coffee and a granola bar in a wrapper.
“Try these.”
By
the time he was back in his car, Gavin had gobbled down the whole granola
bar—chocolate chip dipped in some kind of white coating—and burned his tongue
trying to drink the coffee. He poured a
third of it out onto the concrete parking lot so it wouldn’t spill in his cup
holder.
The
bridge was long and flat, suspended over a still blackness that made him feel
like he was in outer space. He braced
himself for a border crossing at the other side, but there was just a sign
saying Welcome to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Ah, right: Michigan was that weird state that was split in two
parts. He’d just left the bottom part,
and this was the top.
He
kept driving, through a forest now, the road bumpy with rocks that grated under
his tires. He wouldn’t have thought roads could get any darker than the ones he
was on a couple hours ago, but no, this was much, much darker. He crept forward
with the high-beams on, waiting for a deer to jump out in front of him, or
maybe something worse. He only had about
a quarter tank of gas left, and there was no fucking way he was sleeping in the
woods.
He
pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked it—no signal. Kept going, because what else could he
do. But he was starting to entertain the
possibility that he had massively fucked up.
Made one of those dumb, impulsive decisions that he prided himself on
never making, and predictably enough, now he was completely fucked. Lost somewhere on the very edge of America,
nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do but keep driving north and hope
for civilization to emerge somewhere up ahead.
After
a while—hours? No, actually only forty-five minutes—the trees ended. The road was normal again, a regular flat
road with signs lane markers and even a few lights.
And
then a big sign across the entire road.
Canadian Border Crossing
Ten Miles,
it said. Prepare to stop.
He
pulled out his phone again. It was working
now, and there was a text from a few hours ago.
Rona. What did she want?
He
couldn’t read it now—something about Time
Slide, but the road was too dark and scary to take his eyes off it for more
than a second. Anyway, he needed to get his thoughts together for this border
thing. They were going to ask him where he was going, right? What his business was? And what would he say? Should he make
something up, or just tell them the truth: I’m
driving north. Was that an okay reason to enter Canada? And if he needed a passport, would they just tell
him to turn back, or could they arrest you?
He
braced himself, tried to strengthen his insides, quiet the thumping of his
heart.
Off
to the right, he saw lights. Was that
the border? No, a small building,
surrounded by a parking lot, a few cars.
White Pine Diner.
Open 24 hours.
He
blinked a couple times, made sure he had read it right. Yes, definitely. Twenty-four
hours. It was like some kind of insane beautiful dream. He pulled into the lot, stumbled out of the
car on legs that kept bending under him in funny ways. The most amazing smells hit him as he opened
the door: breakfast smells, frying potatoes, steam.
“Eggs
with bacon, juice, coffee. And, um,
pie,” he told the waitress. He wasn’t
even the only customer. There were a few
bearded guys in ski jackets, one really skinny guy in a baseball cap. This was like a straight-up party.
Once
the coffee and toast came out and he’d had a few bites, Gavin remembered the
text message. He set his phone on the
sticky table and turned on the screen.
Just saw time slide. Off
off off broadway. U were right, his best one.
And
then, an afterthought:
Where’s my movie.
“Here’s
your eggs. Pie’ll be warm in a minute.”
The waitress set them down carefully, like she could tell Gavin was fragile. She seemed really young, like one of his
students, with makeup covering bad skin and a huge red-blonde halo of hair
around her face. She gave him a curious look, like it was weird for him to be
here, which of course it totally, totally was.
“You
heading across the border?”
He
nodded.
“What’re
you doing up there?”
Gavin took a sip of his coffee to make sure his voice would work.
“I’m
not sure.” He wondered if it would be
rude to ask what she was doing up here, surrounded by miles and miles of
what seemed like nothing at all. Did she live with her family? What did they do? They weren’t farmers like his Kansas
students, right? Maybe they needed
people to clear the roads, or maybe logging in that forest. Or hunting—was that
a job?
He
looked down at his phone, its screen dark again, but Rona’s text was in his
mind. He took another sip of coffee for bravery, cleared his throat, took one
more sip.
“Actually,
I’m making a movie. Could I maybe, I
mean if you wouldn’t mind, could I ask you a few questions?”
She
raised her orange eyebrows, a little skeptical, but she sat down on the
vinyl-covered seat across from him. A
good sign. “What do you mean, you’re making a movie? You don’t have a camera or anything.” Close up, she looked even younger, maybe high
school. Did they have high schools up here?
How could you have a high school in a place full of just forest and no
buildings? Was she the only student?
“It’s
with my phone,” he said. “Actually, I
don’t know how to make a movie. I’m
trying to learn. That’s weird, right?”
“It’s
not that weird.” She wrinkled her
forehead like she had to think about it. “You have to start somewhere. Yeah, I
could be in it.”
He
looked down at his phone, pressed the camera button. That’s what he would use, the camera,
right? He hardly ever took pictures, and
he’d never made a video. He tapped a
button and a bunch of options popped up, black-and-white,
comic, vignette. He tapped it again
to make them go away.
“Here.” She grabbed the phone, frowned at the screen
for a second, pressed something. Handed
it back to him and pointed at a button at the bottom that hadn’t been there
before. “It’s this one.”
“Okay,
thanks.”
“Wow,
you seriously don’t know how to make
a movie.” He was watching her through the phone screen now, giggling, rolling
her eyes. Definitely in high school. A
friendly, helpful high-school kid; he didn’t remember any of those from his own
high school. He tried to imagine the
snotty kids from Silicon Valley helping some confused old dude who didn’t even
know how to use his own phone.
Maybe
it was different to go to school on the very edge of America. Maybe her friends
were chipmunks, and instead of going to the mall, they had tea parties in a
mossy grove in the woods. Her parents might be the border agents he’d be talking
to in a few hours. Or they could be CIA operatives looking for terrorists. Or Canadian lumberjacks, or Mounties, or, um,
hockey players. Maybe he’d meet them
tomorrow, on the other side.
He
had not idea what would happen tomorrow, where he’d be, who he’d meet. The
options were infinite. All he knew for
sure was that he was traveling north, and anything was possible.
His hands were shaking really bad, but he tried to get the phone steady. Steady was good for filmmaking. With his elbows braced on the table like a tripod, he centered the girl’s freckly face on the screen and pressed record.
His hands were shaking really bad, but he tried to get the phone steady. Steady was good for filmmaking. With his elbows braced on the table like a tripod, he centered the girl’s freckly face on the screen and pressed record.
