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Show Blue Run/84 "Mommy Daddy is a Peckerhead!" "Cutey pie. We'll be there soon." "I'm not a cutey pie," Lara screams The stolen Pathfinder smells worse with the paper mill blowing through its vents. Crumbs from our road food gather on the floorboard, in the folds of our stale clothes-crackers, peanuts, Cap's stale snack mix. Renee says, "Look That courthouse." True-the razorblade hands on the clock say quarter til six and we've driven since sunrise on the Florida panhandle On the road, I always think of O.W. For my wedding, he gave me his gold plated pocket watch: for O.W Harvell from IceLand for 1,000.000 safe driving miles, it says. A million miles-from here to the moon and back and more. So much time alone to sort the future from the past, to devise lists of events necessary for changing the course of either Sometimes, when he drove on black ice or through tornadoes, Mama'd have us all clasp hands at the supper table and pray while our Tony's Pizza got cold. Amen, she'd say, and Jimmy'd get echolalia and his chin would lock up Aretha Franklin belts out "respect yourself." Renee catches the refrain, sings. They both have hazel eyes, Lara and Renee-a trait they've inherited from Meg Rockerson, who was a West Virginia Showalter and Vice-President of the secret sorority of Delphina at WVU. Renee makes a right into a Phillips 66 and takes Lara to potty. Gasoline leaks on my sandal while I fill up and I feel like I have no business whatsoever here, a fool boy from a family who burns wood fence for cooking, on the way to his mother's casket, that's how I'm feeling. Still, we don't eat, drive north, each mile heavier than the last. "You okay, Joe? Are you going to be okay?" |
