U.S. 2
That road stretched out long and thin
and as straight as a guitar string. Sometimes he felt that if it were stretched
one mile longer it would snap, and blow them all to kingdom come.
He mopped his soggy brow with a shaky
hand and squinted through the glare at the horizon. There it was alright, the
grain elevator heralding the next town. What was it? Malta? Joplin? Havre? Or Glasgow?
He could never keep them apart and he had trouble concentrating right now anyway.
But those infernal grain elevators.
Man, it was crazy how you could see things like them for such distances out
here. They reminded him of the monolith in that stupid science fiction movie he
saw a few weeks ago. Standing erect against the endless sky. Those suckers blow
up, he thought, they go off like an A-bomb.
He was feeling explosive himself. He
hadn’t been alone with a woman for quite a while. And certainly not for a such
a long duration.
He had picked her up just outside of Circle.
She looked like one of those grain elevators, standing along the road out there
far ahead. That was two and a half hours ago. He didn’t know why he did it but
he pulled over. She mumbled something bout Glacier Park and tossed her backpack
on top of his sample books in the back seat.
He studied her out of the corner of
his eye. Her chin up, she was focusing on the horizon herself. She looked so cool;
in spite of the heat rushing, like a blast furnace, through the open windows.
She was so, so cool and confident.
He had to make a move. True, their conversation
had trailed off but, well, maybe she was lost in thoughts just like his own.
And hadn’t she smiled sweetly at him back there at the service station in Wolf
Point when he filled up?
No, it was more than sweetly, it was
invitingly. He was convinced of it.
He reached out and put a sweaty palm
on her knee.
She glanced at the rear-view mirror.
Man it was crazy out here how far you could see things. Like that jerk back
there standing along the road holding his face. He looks like one of those big
silo things you see in every town out here.
Or maybe like one of those monoliths
in that groovy new Space Odyssey movie.
1/14/24
Duluth, MN
This was another story I found when organizing
my journals last week. I had never forgotten this one, only lost it. The original
had him looking back at her through the mirror and holding the side of his
swollen face and musing about how long you could see things out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment