“Goin’ to Utah?” one of the guys said. “In-fucking-tentionally?” Everyone seemed to think this was hysterical, so I guess they didn’t consider Utah a garden spot.
He got up from the table and leveraged himself onto the bar stool next to mine. He was a big guy, with a buzz cut, a round face, and the kind of build that looks like baby fat with an attitude. “Name’s Dave,” he said and extended a meaty hand.
“Peter,” I said, and shook it. “One of those bikes outside yours?”
“The Yamaha. Been all over the country in that baby. You ride?”
“Not anymore. Used to, but I traded it in for something with a roof when I got into college so my textbooks wouldn’t get washed away.”
“What’re you studying?”
“Psychology and philosophy.”
“Philosophy?” he said, loud enough for the others to hear. “Well, that’s debatable, isn’t it?”
Apparently he was the comedian-in-residence. We all gotta have hobbies. Still, he was amicable and happy to see a new face, and we talked and bought each other drinks and were the last ones in the place when it closed down at midnight. I was still mostly sober, but Dave had started drinking long before I got there, so he was pretty wobbly as he walked toward his bike. He dropped his keys twice trying to get them out of his pocket, and staggered back each time he tried to pick them up, yelling, “Little rascals, come back here!”
I picked up the keys. “You shouldn’t be riding. You’ll end up wrapped around a tree.”
“Love has strange ways,” he said, and laughed.
“Seriously. I’m gonna call you a cab.”
“Okay, I’m a cab. Now give me my keys.”
“Not a chance,” I said. There was apparently just one cab company in town, with only a few cars, but one of them was in the area, and ten minutes later, I shoved Dave into the back of the car, gave the driver twenty bucks, and watched the taillights fade away into the night. As I started walking back to the motel, I realized I still had his keys in my pocket. By now the tavern was closed, but there was a mail drop in the front door and—
And I’m not sure why I did it.
Maybe it was a desire to escape, an act of rebellion against the walls closing in; maybe it was those nine beers, or maybe I lost my mind for a minute, or maybe I got ambushed by the Let’s Do Something Really Stupid gene that every guy my age knows far too well, but before I realized I was doing it, I straddled the bike, slipped in the key, and roared off down the street.
I hadn’t been on a bike in a long time, so I told myself I was just going to take it around the block, but as soon as I hit the road I kept going. I pointed the bike south until I hit Rimrock Drive, which led through the canyons. There wasn’t a stoplight in sight, just one hairpin turn after another bordered by hills and empty land, so I opened up the Yamaha to see what she could do. The speedometer showed fifty, then sixty. I leaned into the curves as they flashed at me faster and faster.
This is insane, part of my brain thought. Slow the fuck down.
Seventy.
I balanced side to side as fast as I could move, riding the white line to flatten out the curves.
Eighty.
I leaned low into the wind, heart racing, grinning at my own terror. We’re on a stolen bike hitting Mach seven on a road we don’t know with more sharp curves than a sorority. Enjoying the ride?
Eighty-five.
I yelled at the night. Incoherent. Raging. Heart pounding. Alive.
I hit a straight stretch of road and throttled up. Defying the night. Daring the night. Fuck you! You want me? Take me now! I’m right here! Come on, you black-robed pussy, take your best shot!
Then: movement on the road ahead.
Shit!
I hit the brakes. The bike skidded and bucked but held to the road, then shuddered to a stop.
Two deer stood twenty feet ahead, looking at me like, Yo, what’s up?
We’re just passing through, one of them said to me with his eyes.
Yeah, me too, I thought back.
Then they turned and walked across the road, skittering down the side of the hill before disappearing into the shadows.
With the moment broken, my adrenaline levels dropped and rationality returned. What the hell are you doing, this is full-tilt stupid. It wasn’t the first time I’d had that thought while screaming down the road, but until now I hadn’t exactly been paying attention.
Keep up this kind of behavior and one of these days you’ll get yourself killed, I thought, and laughed at the voice in my head.
I turned the bike around and headed back. I didn’t blow out the speedometer this time, but I still kept the bike above sixty because why the fuck not? As I got closer to the tavern, a truckload of questions began scratching at the back of my head.
If I hadn’t stopped for the deer, how far would I have gone? Would I have kept going and never come back? I mean, sure, I’ve been talking a good game about killing myself to everybody, but was I really committed to following through? When I decided not to end it in the bathtub, was it really because I didn’t want to abandon the others, or was I just afraid to follow through?
I didn’t know. I still don’t know. Shit, maybe I’m not supposed to know for sure if I want to live or die or keep going or check out until the moment comes for real. Does anybody know until that second? Ever? Really?
When I reached the tavern, I parked the bike where Dave had left it, dropped the keys in the mail slot, and walked back to the motel, my face burning from the whipping the night air had given it.
As I came up the driveway, I saw Lisa sitting outside, smoking a blunt. She nodded at me but didn’t say anything, so I figured best to leave her to her thoughts.
Last rides.
Last rites.
I tell myself, Okay, I’m good, let’s get this over with.
But the questions keep right on asking themselves.
* * *
Hi, I’m Audio Recorder!
Tap the icon to start recording.
LISA: Hey, moon! Hey, God or whatever! Yeah, you! I got a question for you.
This whole time, did you think it was funny?
I mean, you had all these millions of combinations for the DNA thing, you could’ve done anything you wanted. You could’ve made me perfect, or given me cystic fibrosis or hemophilia or cancer or green hair… not sure if that last one’s actually an option, but with enough genes I bet you could’ve pulled it off… something where I could’ve popped out of my mom and a doctor would’ve done a blood test and said yeah, it’s this or that, so you’re gonna have to prepare yourself and here are some pamphlets and your bill.
You could’ve done any one of those things, but you didn’t. Instead you put a time bomb inside my head so I’d think everything was fine, until one day when it’s like, okay, we’re gonna jumpstart your hormones, oh, and surprise, you’re going to lose your mind for the rest of your life. Have fun!
Did you think it was funny? Did it make you laugh? Or am I just being an asshole? I mean, you’re out there designing butterfly wings and sending comets on these amazing trajectories, painting nebulas and goldfish and peacocks, so I guess you’re too busy to talk about the things you screwed up, like putting the knees of flamingos on backward, and herpes, and me. Well, fuck you.
I want to know if it was worth it. For you. To do this. To me.
I want you to climb down out of that fucking sky and tell me what you were thinking, and why, and what it’s supposed to mean, because from here I don’t see it. Seriously. I don’t see it. Was I put here just to piss people off? To be an annoying bitch? Is that it? Is that all I am to you? Because that’s all I ever was to anybody else.
Can you name one good thing I did that anybody will remember? No. Because my circuits are fried. Because I was too busy being Crazy Lisa and after ten minutes even I couldn’t stand her. All I ever wanted was just one chance to do something that mattered. But it never happened, and it’s too late now.
&n
bsp; So why was I even here? I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t get a vote. Nobody checked with me. I had no control over it.
Well, now I do. I may not have had a voice in how I came into the world, but I sure as shit have a voice in how I leave it. And I’m going to use it to spit right in your face.
* * *
Karen_Ortiz
We’d finished making love an hour earlier, but Dylan was still wide awake, like something was racing through his head and he couldn’t shut it off. “Four o’clock comes early,” I said. “You should try to get some sleep.”
“I will,” he said, but it was clear that sleep was off the menu. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
He started, then stopped. “Let me back up so I can set this up.”
“Not going anywhere,” I said.
“I was thinking about the whole suicide thing—”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now, not on our last night—”
“I don’t either, but it’s important,” he said, and sat up a little. “See, I think the reason people kill themselves—”
“One of the reasons. We’re all different, we don’t lie down in rows.”
“—is because they think they’re never going to be happy again, that every day is going to be miserable and awful and lonely and painful and they might as well check out because there’s no chance they’ll ever be happy.”
“Okay, fair. So?”
He looked at me with eyes so intense I could feel them burrowing right through mine and scratching at the other side of my skull to see what was back there. “Are you happy, right now? With us?”
“Dylan, come on, don’t do this.”
“I’m just asking. Are you happy… with me, and us, right here, right now?”
“Of course I am. I love you. I never thought that would happen to me, or that it could happen this fast, and maybe it’s because I don’t have time, but… yes, I love you and I’m happy when I’m with you.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“You mean the vote?”
“No, leave all that aside, I’m just talking about us. Do you think there’s a chance, just a chance, that for ten minutes tomorrow you could be happy with us being together, like this?”
“Dylan—”
“Five. Five minutes. Do you think you could be happy for five minutes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”
“Because if it’s possible, then maybe you should think twice about tomorrow.”
“I have. I thought about it a thousand times before getting on the bus, and a hundred times since.”
“Even so, I’m asking you not to go, Karen. I love you. Don’t leave me.”
“Don’t do this, Dylan. It’s not fair.”
“I know, and I don’t care, not if there’s even a small chance that you might be happy tomorrow, or the day after, for just five minutes—”
“We don’t know that.”
“We don’t know that you won’t, either. Can’t we just live in that space? Live in the ambiguity?”
“You Googled ambiguity, didn’t you?”
“Karen, c’mon, I’m asking you—”
“I know you are,” I said, and touched his lips. So soft. And his eyes were softer still, held-back tears reflecting light at the edges even as he refused to let them out. “Let me read you something.”
I leaned over the bed and fumbled around in my purse until I found my phone and called up Notes. “It’s a Zen proverb I found online the day I answered Mark’s ad, almost like it was a sign.
“ ‘Empty-handed I go, and yet the spade is in my hands; I walk on foot, and yet I am riding on horseback: when I pass over the bridge, lo, the water flows not, but the bridge is flowing.’ ”
I glanced up to see him looking at me like a goldfish that couldn’t understand why the magic food hadn’t appeared in his bowl. Totally didn’t get it. Tabula rasa. It was cute and charming and funny, but I didn’t dare laugh.
“I don’t get it,” he said, stating the obvious.
“It means that sometimes intent takes over from everything else. I’ve committed myself to what I have to do, and I’m at that point now where even if I try to stand still, the bridge is flowing, and it’s going to take me where it’s going to take me.”
“It’s a stupid poem.”
“It’s Zen, it’s not supposed to make sense. Also: a proverb, not a poem.”
“I don’t care.”
“Totally get that,” I said, and touched his face. He closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against my cupped hand.
“I love you, Dylan, and as much as being in love with you means to me, it doesn’t change what’s inside me. Could I be happy tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that? I don’t know any more than you do. Maybe. Maybe not. But I know for an absolute fact that the Spider is going to be there for all of those days and the ones beyond. I can’t live with that anymore. Please don’t ask me to keep trying. I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep and be done with it.”
“What am I supposed to do without you?”
“Live. That’s all. Just live.”
“I don’t know if I know how.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I said, and curled up against him.
There were two hours left before four o’clock.
And in those two hours, we lived a lifetime.
* * *
VaughnR
So how did you spend your last night on earth, Vaughn?
Watching infomercials for Snuggies.
It was dark as pitch, no moon, when I went outside at 3:30 and found Theo tending a fire in an old rusted grill behind the motel. “What’s for breakfast?” I asked.
“Words.”
Then I saw Theo’s notebooks in the grill.
“Why are you burning them? I loved the parts you read.”
“Thanks. I wrote them for myself, and anybody I chose to share them with. They served their purpose. The stories are done, so I’m sending them on ahead of me. You want to say anything over the cremation?”
I started to shake my head because I’m not really good with words at times like this. Then I remembered the rhyme Carolyn used to sing when we talked about meeting the end side by side, with love and courage, and while that didn’t quite work out the way either of us expected, maybe this time it would.
I cleared my throat, crossed my hands in front of me, and said, “Together we will go, together we will go, heigh-ho the derry-o, together we will go.”
A moment passed. Then another.
“That’s it?” Theo said.
“It’s all I’ve got.”
Theo laughed. “Well, I’ve heard better, but I’ve also heard a lot worse. Thank you for the requiem, Reverend Vaughn.”
Then I looked up from the fire and saw the others gathering outside the bus. “We should go.”
Theo agreed, and raced toward the bus like somebody just offered free barbecue.
* * *
PeterWilliamRouth
Dylan closed the door and switched on the air conditioner. It wasn’t hot outside, but I was seriously sweating. Then he got up out of the driver’s seat and turned to us, his eyes heavy with the weight of what we were about to decide.
“The gas tank’s loaded to the max, I picked up the extra fuel cans, and the bus is as ready as I can make it, whichever way you decide to go. Like I said, it’s a five-hour drive. Maybe you can get to the other side before the cops know you’re there. And maybe they’ll nail you ten minutes after you cross the border. Either way, it’s your call. What do you want to do?”
Theo stood at the back of the bus. “Can I say something?”
“Sure thing,” Dylan said.
“The police are after us for what we did helping Zeke to go on ahead of us. If they arrest us, they’ll stick us in a box and take away our freedom. And I think we can all agree that that would be bad. So let’s say we give up, pack up our bags, and go home. None of th
at changes the fact that sooner or later, we’re going to do whatever it takes to follow Zeke and Tyler out the door because that decision was made before any of us even heard about this trip. And if the police find out what we’re going to do before we have a chance to do it, guess what? They’ll stick us in a box and take away our freedom. The only difference I can see is that at least here we have each other.
“Our lives and our bodies don’t belong to the police, the church, our families, or the government. They want to force us to stick around so we can keep on being good little consumers or good little soldiers because that serves their purposes and their profit margin. They think they can control what we do with our bodies because we belong to them, we’re their property. Well, I say we’re nobody’s property. Yeah, we could just end it right here rather than going all the way to California but it’s the principle of the thing. Our lives belong to us, we decide what to do with them, no one else. So if we’re going to end up in jail or an asylum either way, then let’s finish what we started and make a run for it, ride this out right to the end. That way whatever happens, it’s our choice, not theirs. Never theirs.
“We also need to recognize that we’re not just talking about the decision to keep going into Utah, but also all the decisions that’ll have to be made once we’re in the middle of whatever’s waiting for us. Things are going to happen fast and there won’t be time to take a vote about what we should do about it.
“So if we decide to keep going, I propose that we don’t stop once we’re on the other side, not for anyone or anything, no matter what. If they want us that badly, if they want to keep us from doing what we believe is right for us, then let’s make them work for it.”
Then Theo sat back down, and we fell quiet for a minute. None of us had wanted to hear those words, but all of us needed to hear them, to understand the actions that might be required on the other side of the decision we were about to make.
We don’t stop, not for anyone or anything.
No matter what.
“All right,” Dylan said, breaking the silence. “Unless anyone has anything else to say, I guess it’s time for the vote. All in favor of making a run for it, raise your hands.”
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