I peel my thighs off the car seat fabric (grateful it’s not leather) and step into Mitchell. The Eurosport is parked on a side street from the town’s main street, free parking, and we head for the main thoroughfare (in a town like this, it’s gotta be a thoroughfare) around a bunch of shops. Kitschy and creepy fabric humans—Native Americans and old men—sit on benches, ripe for photo ops. Josh poses with the stuffed people, kissing an old man’s cheek, giving a Native American guy bunny ears, and I take a few pictures with my cell phone.
The instant we turn onto the main street, we can see the Corn Palace. This is no Mars’ Cheese Castle. From a distance, it really does look like a palace, like the home of a sultan. As we get closer, we pass a street full of tourist shops, an ice cream parlor, and a doll museum shaped like a castle. So many tourist attractions, so many castles. “The Enchanted World Doll Museum!” I squeak. “We have to see it!”
“I don’t know, man. Dolls. Kind of scary.”
“Wuss,” I say. “We’re going after we visit the Corn Palace. Deal with it.” I love old dolls. My mom has a collection from when she was little, but instead of coveting and hiding it, she let me play with the dolls. The old ones are the best, the way their eyes open and shut, their arms separated and poseable. They just seem more alive. In a good way.
Josh looks skeptical, so I grab his hand to let him know I’ll comfort him through the terror. We walk down the street like this, holding hands, checking out the sights of Mitchell. Your casual observer might even think we’re a couple. I catch our reflection in a store window, two tall faux redheads, holding hands. Something overcomes me, maybe it’s the corn in the air, and I quickly lean in and kiss Josh on the cheek. I have never kissed him before. Some people are into that, being all enlightened and Europe an or whatever, but I always thought that kisses were more sacred than that. Maybe that’s why I didn’t waste too much time with my crappy blips of exes.
“What was that for?” Josh asks, touching his cheek with his free hand.
“Needed to be done.” I shrug.
“Mitchell is kind of romantic. What with a museum full of dolls ready to attack me and a palace made of corn.”
Ha-ha. Always a kidder. I let go of Josh’s hand and keep moving toward the Corn Palace. Of course he doesn’t notice my missing hand. The one that used to be holding his. Not that my hand suddenly went missing.
Up close, the Palace is rather unbelievable, the entire facade elaborately decorated with dried cobs of corn in an array of autumn browns, yellows, and purples. The corn spells out MITCHELL CORN PALACE and the year, and the walls are covered in mosaics of tractors and animals made entirely of corn. “This is what the Mars’ Cheese Castle should aspire to be,” I say in wonder.
“Yeah, but think of the stench.” Josh stands next to me and reaches his hand toward the corn. I smack it away out of respect.
“I guess cheese wouldn’t work as well as corn. But, they could try a little harder to be spectacular.” I’m disappointed in my cheese castle.
“Eh.” Josh shrugs as though he’s fine with the way things are. “Eh” is what Josh is all about right now. About his future, about us…I stomp my way through the doors.
Inside the Corn Palace are photos dating back to the early twentieth century from each year the Corn Palace was decorated. New designs are created yearly, painstakingly glued by hand to the building, truly putting the Mars’ Cheese Castle to shame. I decide to buy some caramel corn from a stand inside the Palace, and as expected, it’s the tastiest caramel corn I’ve ever had.
“The Mitchell Corn Palace delivers,” I say through a mouthful of crispy, sweet, melty goodness. We buy a couple Corn Palace T-shirts from a small gift stand, take one last look at the history of corn display, and step outside to find a less corny dinner.
Across the street from the Corn Palace is a burger restaurant with an order window and benches outside for people-watching. We order a couple of cheeseburgers and fries, and park ourselves on a bench right on the main street. The town’s not too busy, but there are enough people trying to take pictures that incorporate their family members and the entire Corn Palace that we are entertained for the duration of our meal.
When I can’t stand the heat any longer, I declare, “It’s time for the Enchanted World Doll Museum!”
“Nooooo!” Josh fake cries.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” I stand up from the bench, and this time he takes my hand. We’re so hot and sticky, I wonder if we’ll ever be able to separate our hands again.
The doll museum is freakishly quiet inside, which would be awkward if we weren’t the only people there. The lady at the entry desk (which is also the cash register for the gift shop) gives us a look that says don’t touch anything, and directs us toward the turnstile that leads into the museum. Once we’re through the museum door, Josh stands close behind me and wraps his arms around my stomach, digging his chin into my neck. I don’t say anything, but it feels so good to be enveloped by him like this. I can smell his sweat, or maybe it’s mine, but it’s not ripe or unappealing. Maybe it’s those pheromones we learned about in health class. Women are attracted to the manliness of sweat and all that.
We walk slowly, combined, and marvel at the doll scenes. Unlike other doll museums I’ve visited where you just see a doll in its pristine form, displayed as a doll, these dolls are intermingled with dolls of different ages and sizes and conditions, creating stories and scenes and, dare I say, interacting. In one case, a group of dolls anticipate the breaking of a piñata. Another lovingly offers us a glimpse at a doll wedding. In one, titled “Sunday Morning Service,” corroding dolls dressed up in religious gear patiently await a sermon from a tiny pastor.
“This is the greatest place on earth,” I muse. Huge dolls gallivant with miniscule ones, something my dolls would never do. Dolls with big glass eyes hang out with dolls whose eyes were merely applied with paint. Some dolls wear shoes, others go barefoot. It’s a revolutionary dolly revelation! I’m sad when we get to the end of the displays and are released, once again, into the gift shop. I purchase a stack of postcards containing images of numerous doll dioramas, my favorite called “Saturday Night at the Rooming House,” where various dolls of mismatched sizes wait patiently outside of a bathroom door while a fat, naked porcelain doll preens himself inside. Genius.
Outside of the doll museum, the setting sun glints off the Corn Palace flagpoles. “What do you want to do now?” I ask Josh dreamily in this almost surreal setting. It’s only around eight o’clock, so if we checked into a hotel now, we’d have to think of ways to pass the time. But the town of Mitchell is closing up shop. I’m starting to envision me and Josh in a hotel room, when Josh says, “Let’s keep driving? If I go to sleep anytime soon, I’m going to have doll nightmares.” Were the dolls worth spoiling my hotel fantasy? I weigh the question as we load ourselves into the stuffy car. The warm air, the setting sun, and Elvis quickly lull my brain into submission.
So we drive toward the sunset, windows down; Elvis reruns fill the air. We drive as the stars bloom on the vast fabric of navy sky, passing miles of nothing, as bugs can’t help but throw themselves at our windshield. We drive until my eyes close, until the tape flips again, until we finally come to a stop, in a town Josh tells me in a dreamy whisper is called Wall, and I float behind him as he holds my hand and leads me to a bed that’s not mine and I fall asleep.
Went to Gavin’s house for dinner. Well, sort of. He invited me over, rare, and I couldn’t say no. Even after what happened the last time, over a year ago. Even after his dad threw that glass of beer, barely missed Gavin, splashed me but didn’t cut me. He said his dad wouldn’t be home. Everything’s easier when the parents aren’t home. But when we pulled up in my car, his dad’s truck was there. Gavin told me to peel out. I didn’t put the car into reverse fast enough for him, so he grabbed the shift and pulled it up too far and the car made a weird noise and sputtered, and I was afraid that we were stuck and that my car was broken. Bu
t then Gavin got it back in the right position and I backed out as quickly as I could manage, and we drove away really fast. He asked if McDonald’s was OK. I wanted to open my mouth, but all I could do was nod.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The sun leaks through a slit in the room-darkening curtains, throwing a white slash on the wall. I sit up, and my eyes adjust to the hotel room, but not before my nose does. The room reeks of skunk, and I can’t help but hold my hand over my face. Once I can see, I spy Josh in the second of two beds, asleep. I whip back the sheets, all my clothes still in their appropriate place on my body, and feel a nip of disappointment. I fumble my way into the bathroom and pray that the shower will wash the smell out of my nose. I expect to find bugs—or worse—when I pull back the shower curtain, but thankfully all I find is a tiny wrapped bar of soap and a mini bottle of shampoo/conditioner combo. The water heats up quickly, and I manage to lose the smell from my nose and the lameness of last night from my brain. I exit the bathroom with a towel around my middle, hoping that Josh will like what he sees. But Josh is still asleep, and I dress quickly to ensure the stank clings to as little of my body as possible. As a tribute to the fabulous town of Mitchell, I wear my new Corn Palace T-shirt, powder blue, kid-size for clinginess, which claims, THE WORLD’S ONLY CORN PALACE. It’s A-MAIZE-ING! Not able to stand the stench any longer, I head to the door, which I’m slightly surprised to see Josh has bolted and chained; he seems too carefree to worry about safety. Maybe Wall didn’t feel too savory after midnight.
The unlocking causes Josh to stir, so I call, “Good morning.” A mumble comes from Josh’s general direction. “I’m going outside,” I tell him. “Need fresh air.”
“Shower,” is all he can say.
“Meet me outside when you’re ready,” I tell him, and then I enter the morning air of Wall, which, strangely, doesn’t smell at all of the skunk stench in our room. Glad I didn’t think to look under the beds.
We’re on the second floor of a motel, and the balcony view is a dusty parking lot and a road strewn with fast-food restaurants. A few rooms down, a family props their door open with a cooler. Two bright blond boys calculatedly drop ice cubes over the railing. I look over the balcony to see a puddle surrounded by pigeons. “I almost got him! Didja see that?” the taller boy shrieks at the smaller one. I pray they don’t look over at me to join in on their merry animal abuse game, but luckily Josh emerges from behind the clunky motel door and gives me a warm, kinda sexy smile. “Morning, Sunshine.” I smile back and hope those little Aryans think we’re together. As if they care. I could step on them anyway.
After we check out from the tiny front office (and decide not to partake in what smells like last week’s free coffee), we head to the car. Our destination is only a few blocks away, but we drive based on the barrenness of the town. Wall Drug, it turns out, is not exactly a drugstore but a full-on city block of stuff. Unlike the House on the Rock, however, this is mostly stuff you can buy. And most of it is stamped with WALL DRUG in some form.
Hungry and groggy, we make our way to the sprawling restaurant, a counter-service-seat-yourself kind of place, with a sign claiming to seat 530. Quite a few tables are ocupado, but not enough to feel crowded by the other guests. Josh and I order coffee and some cinnamon-sugar doughnuts, and Josh adds, “Why don’t you add in some of that free ice water?” He charms the girl behind the counter, name-tagged Nadia.
Josh doesn’t like to talk much before his morning coffee, so I look around at all of the crap they have hanging from the walls and ceiling. I read the brochure in the plastic holder on the table, explaining how Wall Drug began as a simple rest stop for those needing a drink and turned into a mecca of kitsch (my words, not theirs). After breakfast, I expect to be wowed by the hilarity that is Wall Drug, but as Josh and I stroll through store after store of stuff we don’t need and don’t really want, I feel let down. There’s a scuzziness to the place that’s not exactly funny.
Josh and I choose a few items to show the world we have indeed been to Wall Drug—bumper stickers, T-shirts, a mug. As we pay, I detect an Eastern Europe an accent on our cashier, a ripe-looking girl named Polina. Underneath her name, her name tag reads, “Kiev.”
“My great-grandparents were from Kiev,” I tell her. She gives me a slight smile and nod, and continues ringing up our spoils. I fill the silence. “I noticed a lot of name tags list different countries.”
“Yes, we all came over together,” she says, friendly, but not overly warm. She explains how Wall Drug recruits people from other countries to work here for months at a time. They all live together in a little apartment complex. “We do it so we can see America,” she says.
“So where else have you been?” I ask.
“Nowhere. This is all we have seen for three months.” She tips her head to showcase what she has seen of our fabulous country. She doesn’t try to hide her lack of enthusiasm.
“Will you get to go anywhere other than Wall? Before you go home?” It seems so tragic that someone would come all this way to experience life in another country, and all they get to see is the inside of this stankhole filled with obnoxious tourists picking up stuffed jackalopes and commemorative spoons while they’re on their way to somewhere else.
“A few of us are going to Las Vegas when we’re done in a month.” She sounds excited.
Vegas. The real America? As real as Wall Drug. At least she won’t be working.
That’s when Josh interjects his charm into the conversation and tells Polina about the crazy times he and his dad have had in Vegas. I glaze over, having heard his dad regale us with the same stories in an almost desperately cool manner over the flaming table at Benihana’s Japanese Steak House. Plus, how many times do I have to witness Josh flirting with someone? Me included?
I finally catch Josh’s eye when I see him write something on a Wall Drug brochure and slip it across the counter to Polina. He nods in acknowledgment—it’s time to go—and I walk away to wait by the door without a goodbye to my new foreign acquaintance. I step out onto Wall’s main street, which isn’t nearly as quaint or, um, corny as Mitchell, and instead has a more dusty, used feel. I’m ready to get the heck out of Wall. The idea that there are people flown in from other countries, essentially kept prisoner in Dead Street America and forced to shill crap is überdisturbing. I jump a bit when Josh plants his hand on my shoulder. “Ready to book?” he asks.
“Beyond ready.” As we walk to the car, I poke. “So you gave that girl your phone number? Even though we don’t live near here and she’s from a land far, far away?” I should hide my snark, but I don’t get why being together on the road, in hotels, is not swaying Josh in any way toward me romantically. Maybe I should have a bumper sticker made: WHY THE HECK DON’T YOU WANT ME? Not as catchy as the Wall Drug ones, but maybe it would be effective if I stuck it to my butt. Or to Josh’s forehead.
“I didn’t give her my phone number,” Josh defends. “I wrote down some of the must-sees of Vegas. That would have been tacky, dontcha think?”
“Tacky how?”
“Since I’m here with you and all.” He says this as he gets into the car and starts it, so there’s no opportunity for me to see his expression. With me how? I want to ask, but it’s time to navigate the frig out of Wall, and it’s still too early in the day for me to try and have that conversation. I’ve held off for four years, haven’t I?
“Hasta la pasta, Wall!” Josh calls out the window as he peels out of the parking lot. It’s dorky lines like this that make me like Josh so much. And coming from those lips, delicious looking, always just a little chapped because he’s too guy to wear Chapstick, well, the dorkiness just gets filtered out.
We head south of Wall toward Badlands National Park. “I love how that sounds. Badlands!” Josh yells and flashes the devil sign like we’re at a cheese-rock arena concert.
As we drive into the park, we notice a cavalcade of Corvettes driving in the opposite direction. New ones, classic ones, all driven by older men
and women. “Must be some kind of club. Like, retirees who like to drive Corvettes,” I guess. A particularly sleek iridescent purple ’Vette rumbles by.
“Maybe they’re vets who drive ’Vettes? You know, like war veterans?” Josh guesses, with a smile in his eyes at his cleverness.
“Or maybe they’re not war vets. Maybe they’re veterinarians,” I pontificate.
He ignores me. “That’s the life, man. Not having to work, slick car, driving anywhere you want to go.” Josh pulls the Eurosport into a parking spot at a scenic overlook, where more Corvettes are pulling away.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing now? Aside from the slickness of the car. And you didn’t even have to fight in a war—or work with animals—or work at all, for that matter to earn the right to retire,” I point out. Sometimes Josh’s rich-daddy side rears its ugly head, and I have to take him down a notch.
“I’m working.” He’s defensive. “Once I get the band together, write songs, tour. That’s work.”
“Mmmhmmm.” We step out to read some of the park signage that explains the lore of the Badlands, which were so named by the Lakota Indians and early French trappers because of the varied harshness of the landscape, from vast empty prairies to rainbow-colored rock formations that made the land difficult to cross. I look across the endless low hills and imagine a time when roads didn’t cut through nature. The only way from point A to point B was up and down, up and down, slipping on rocks, tasting the dry air. I smack my tongue and am thankful for the cooler of pop in the car.
Josh and I decide to make a plan for the next couple of days, so we don’t miss out on anything we want to see but so we also don’t forget that we have a final destination. That forces me to look at my phone. No reception. Well, then I must not be missing any calls, so there’s no need to feel guilty, I assure myself.
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