“I don’t know. It’s somebody’s fault, isn’t it, Candy?”
“Gina,” I said. “My mother didn’t stay with me, either.”
“You’re both screwed up!” Gina cried. “You know perfectly well, Sloane, that there are screwed up things in you, and I’m not blaming your mother, I’m just saying it’s weird, and maybe this is why you do the things you do, but all I know is that in my world, mothers stay with their kids.”
“And the kids become normal like you,” said Candy.
Gina shrugged angrily. “No comment. Just saying. Just pointing things out.”
“Stop, okay,” I said. “I can’t concentrate.”
Nothing would stop Gina. “This is what I get for picking up a Jesus freak. It’s punishment. Oh yes! I used to attend a Jehovah’s youth group. Before the activities began, we usually sang hymns or some shit. We’d sing, and then pray for hours. That’s when I lost my faith. And look at you—proof positive—all your praying did you no good, as I suspected all along. Oh, they used to pray for all those who hadn’t seen the light yet, who weren’t Christian. They wept! They felt sorry for three billion people who hadn’t opened their hearts to Jesus. Like you do for me. You feel sorry for me. And yet do you see me jumping into strangers’ cars and turning their life upside down? No. I know my fucking place. Do you? You look down on me and Shelby because we’re not like you.”
“I don’t look down on Shelby,” interjected Candy.
“Fuck you!” Gina was incensed. “The Nazis felt the same way about the Jews. Except with killing and stuff. You are one of the most condescending unpleasant people I’ve ever met. Everybody else but you are headed to the rings of hell, the Chinese, the Muslims, the Buddhists, everybody else is wrong and you’re right, and yet, you’re the one fucking up my life, and I’ve never done anybody any harm. You think you’re so pure.”
“Is that what I think?” said Candy. “You obviously haven’t listened to a word I said.”
“No! Because I don’t give a shit! Ah, but you know what, that’s right. You tell me what a good Christian you are . . .”
“Never once said that. I love Christ, but I’m a terrible sinner.”
“That’s right! You do reprehensible things, and still manage to come on all high and mighty. I don’t do anything bad, but don’t act like that. See how it works? I don’t swoon at the mention of Christ or hurt other people. I’m not a hypocrite, pretending all the things I want to do are dirty and inhuman. Give me a break. Fuck you for trying to convert me.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing?”
“Gina, enough already.”
“Fuck you for feeling sorry for me. Fuck you for praying for me. Fuck you and your deluded salvation. You make me sick.”
“Jeez, Gina,” Candy said, calm and unflappable. “You’re right, you sure don’t hate Christianity. You have an equal love for all religions.”
“I want her out of this car!” yelled Gina.
“Stop screaming! I can’t see the road!”
After midnight in the rain, in these spirits, we drove downhill to the Missouri, to Sioux City, trying to find another motel, more hidden, more unnoticed and unnoticeable than the hole in the ground we had just crawled out of.
There was nothing on U.S. 20.
“Tell me,” Gina began again acidly, “is there going to be a Hoadley Dean at every motel?”
“Yes,” said Candy, ending it.
I thought Candy was precocious with her answer. I wasn’t sure if Gina was inquiring after her safety or making a backdoor swipe. It was dark in the car, and nobody but me cared either about the question or the answer.
We had been lucky this time that Gina had stormed off and there had been only the two of us at the bar. Next time we might not be as lucky. Though it was hard to define our present condition as fortunate, wet and drained as we were, in the car twelve hours, unrested and unreconciled to each other. Don’t think it hadn’t occurred to me on that road to nowhere in the black abyss, that if only I’d pulled over and swung open my Shelby door, and kicked Candy out, things might have gotten easier for me and Gina. But that was like saying, if only I hadn’t run so fast, I wouldn’t be going on a scholarship to the best college in the country. Yes, that might be so, but so what. I did, and here I am.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, to no one in particular. “We’re so far north. He expects us to be on I-80. We’re okay. We just have to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s likely,” Gina muttered, turning her gaze to the dark hills leading to the Missouri. I wished it were day and not raining. I wished this day were over. I wished we weren’t in Iowa anymore. I wished for many things.
If wishes were horses.
It’s impossible to explain how interminable seems the road when it’s late at night and you’re exhausted. There is no mile that doesn’t go by in slo-mo, no traffic light that doesn’t stay red for hours. We were stopped behind a line of cars at such a light. A few streetlights, cars, fast food joints. That’s how we knew we were coming back to civilization—a McDonald’s followed by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Was Candy scared? I couldn’t tell; in the rearview mirror, I could see she was looking out the window.
In Sioux City, there was no Holiday Inn or Budget Inn, and the Best Western and the Clarion, too rich for our blood in any case, were sold out. We didn’t dare pull into a gas station to ask about lodgings because it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps every gas-station attendant had a CB, and no sooner than I’d put a drop of fuel in my car, he’d be calling in my latitude and longitude to a man named Erv.
Where was Erv? Was he traveling on I-80 in his own car, staying in touch by radio? Or was he centrally headquartered like a general, perhaps in Nebraska, ordering other people to find Candy and bring her to him? I glanced at her in the back. She had given up even looking outward. Her eyes were closed.
Near a muddy canal that couldn’t possibly have been the Missouri River, we found a shining, neon-blinking casino, the Argosy, more colorful and trashy, if such a thing were possible, than even the Isle of Capri. The only room they had for us was a penthouse suite for six hundred dollars a night. Politely we declined, and cursed like sailors out in the parking lot.
Gina said we might as well go inside and play a bit. Exhaustion and anger were gone from her face. I looked at her as if she had two heads. “You were in bed two hours ago telling me you were too tired to be a passenger in a car. Now you want to go play a bit?” I was incredulous.
Shrugging, she said, “I got my second wind. Is that a yes or no?”
“Uh, that’d be a no from me, Gina,” I said.
Even Candy, who was up so high at the Bar n’ Grill, shook her head. “Count me out, no pun intended.”
“What? Is tomorrow going to be any better?”
“There is always that hope, yes,” said Candy, “plus tomorrow I will have slept.”
Will have slept. Sometimes she spoke as if she read Henry James. I wanted to cry. All that driving, and no bed, no pillow for my head, no sheets on which to stretch my sore and aching limbs. I was all day behind the wheel, and now had to sleep behind it, too.
“God, sing me a Psalm, Candy,” I muttered. “I need something to fall asleep to.”
Gina, upset with us before, was upset again for denying her the only fun since the last bit of fun she had. With her huffy arms crossed, she sat and complained, while we sat with our eyes closed. I opened the window. “Go ahead, Candy,” said Gina. “Sing for your ride.” And before the girl could begin, Gina said, “I don’t believe the both of you. All day and night in the car, and now we’re cooped up again. Instead of stretching our legs, walking around a little, sitting down, having a free drink, enjoying one minute, one second of relief after this wretched day, after all these wretched days, this is what I get. You’re forgetting yourself, Sloane. You’re supposed to be my friend, remember? Fifteen years friends, how quickly we forget, one evening at a bar, and the whole friendship right out the window . . .”
I remembered coming over to Gina’s house when we were twelve or so. She’d just gotten a new puppy, and we sat in the summer grass with him between us and played. Our feet were stretched out, the heels, the soles, and the toes pressed against each other. I remember this because her feet had been warm, but not sticky, and I worried mine might be and that any minute she’d pull her own nice dry feet away. But she didn’t. We sat there, and let the puppy bite and chew us, and roll around between us. Oh, Gina.
“Go ahead, Candy,” I repeated miserably. “Sing for me.”
The Lord is my light and my salvation, Candy sang. The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell . . . the Lord in time of trouble shall hide me in his pavilion, shall set me up upon a rock . . . When my father and mother forsake me, then he will take me up, lead me in a plain path away from my enemies. I would have fainted, unless I believed to see the goodness of God in the land of the living . . .
There, in the parking lot of a seedy canal-side casino that was too pricey for us, regretting leaving a room in a dank dump I should have never pulled into, Candy placed her hands on my shoulders. The rain came through the open window onto my slumped and despondent head, the night air cool and fresh. It smelled like the river was near, smelling of distant cities, of ships, and seas, of other seafaring people’s safe adventures. There once was a time I dreamed of running away with Eddie, just the two of us, getting into his beat-up GMC truck and just driving, not stopping. We’d head somewhere into the great unknown. But now, drifting off on the watery border of Iowa and Nebraska, in the land of such unknown, both geographically and emotionally, I couldn’t picture Eddie in my dreams anymore. The only thing in my head was the plain, solemn face and unadorned eyes of a girl slowly approaching a tall man in white robes, bowing her head to him. “Hello, Grace.”
“What’s in Paradise, Grace?” I whispered. “Can’t you give Erv what he wants and be done with him?”
But no one answered.
3
Argosy Pavilion
At the International House of Pancakes the next morning we ordered breakfast and Candy paid. “It’s on Hoadley,” she smirked. She sat across from me, Gina next to her, not angry anymore, just bleary, and in the gray of the morning, my mind addled, my heart as sore as my body, I said, “What are you so chipper about? Give me the map. I need to plan our route.” My hands were scraped, my knees damp.
Candy took the map from Gina. “Don’t worry about today,” she said. “We got some bucks, and I know the way to Rapid City.”
“To where?”
“Rapid City.”
“Give me the map.”
“It’s in South Dakota.”
“South Dakota? Give me the map, Candy!” I ripped it away from her and Gina smiled smugly. My olive tank top felt rank; I needed a shower, I needed to change. “Rapid City is completely and totally out of our way,” I said, tapping emphatically on the map. “Completely. And totally.”
Candy tried to wrest the map back. I wouldn’t let her. “Shel,” she said gently. “Have some French toast. Have some bacon. Relax. Eat a little. You look terrible.”
“Gee, I wonder why.”
“You should’ve come with us,” said Gina. “Serves you right. We had fun; what did you have?”
Candy squeezed my grumpy hand, circled it with the tips of her fingers. “Shel, listen to me. There is no such thing as out of our way. Out of our way means out of Erv’s way, and that’s good. Don’t worry so much. In Rapid City lives my very good friend Floyd, who has a wad of cash that belongs to me. I need to get it before I get to Paradise.” She cheerfully raised her eyebrows. “He’s got plenty. I’ll pay for your gas all the way to California. Okay?”
“Candy . . .”
“We’ll take the backroads to Valentine, Nebraska, through the Sand Hills, and then go north and west through South Dakota to Wall Drug. That’s where Floyd works. We’ll stay overnight at the nicest hotel in Rapid City, my treat, and the next morning drive down through the Black Hills. Sounds like a plan?” She grinned at me like a circus clown. “I know how much you like plans.” An endearing circus clown. But still. “We can’t take the straight and narrow anymore,” she went on. “We can’t get on I-80 in your little yellow canary and smoke 300 miles in three hours. Can’t do it. We either do the backroads where the trucks don’t come or we travel at night, off the main drag. We need to be extra careful. Okay?” She pushed the map back to me. “Now go ahead. Study the map. Plan. You see how Rapid City is right on the border with Wyoming? After Rapid City, I figure we’ll have it pretty easy till Utah. Then we’ll see.”
Throughout this exchange Gina had barely been paying attention. She was giggling, trying to peer over Candy’s shoulder at the map while picking at a soggy hash brown. I used my thumb knuckle to measure out the distance between International House of Pancakes in Sioux City and Rapid City, South Dakota. “I hate to point out the obvious, Cand,” I said, “But it’s 460 miles. You plan to do 460 on the backroads?”
“Finish your food. We need to hammer down. I have to be in Rapid City tonight.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because my friend’s expecting me tonight, that’s why. And because,” Candy added, “we still have a long way to go, and I really do have to be in Paradise, very soon. But first I have to get my money from Floyd. I don’t have time to dilly-dally.”
“Good plan, Cand,” said Gina. “Spiffing.” She gulped down the last of her coffee. There had been a polar transformation in Gina’s disposition toward Candy, a nice tropical thaw. After all the things Gina had shouted at Candy last night, I was surprised Candy would ever talk to Gina again. This could only be explained by a trip to the casino, a calculated move on Candy’s part to avoid a repeat of last night’s virulent tantrum. Candy needed Gina in her camp if she was going to get where she was headed in one piece.
“I thought I was only taking you as far as Reno?” I was the moody, dour one this morning.
“Reno!” exclaimed Gina, so brightly. “How long till then?”
“Candy,” I said doggedly. “You told me Reno.”
“Look, let’s take it one day at a time, ’kay? ’Kay.” She patted my hand.
I persisted. “Who’s in Paradise?” Though I didn’t take my hand away.
“A friend.” She paused. “Mike.”
“Sure got a lot of friends, girlfriend.”
“You’re going to Paradise for Mike?” Gina asked incredulously.
“No, I’m not going to Paradise for Mike,” Candy said, mimicking Gina’s tone, turning her steady, amused gaze at the girl. “Though your surprise is ironic, coming from someone who’s going to Bakersfield for Eddie.”
Gina got defensive. “Bakersfield for Eddie is better than Paradise for Mike.”
“Really? Well, if you say so. Personally I think going to Bakersfield for Eddie is just the beginning of your sorrows. But as for me, I’m not going to Paradise for Mike.” She lowered her head a moment. “Not anymore.”
“But it’s Paradise for something, isn’t it?” I asked.
“What does that mean?” Gina snapped. Candy had a knack for saying just one sentence too many.
“Nothing,” Candy said to Gina. “A dumb joke.” And to me she added, “Yes. It’s Paradise for something.” She got up. “Let’s go. Shel, do you know where you’re going?”
“Do I know where I’m going?” I got up, too. “You mean like Mendocino, California? Or do you mean like a hotel, with a bed and shower and sleep?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get that. In 460 miles. But you really gotta make tracks, girl. Floyd’s getting off work at six.”
It was ten in the morning. I was so fidgety and unsettled. Last night after Candy had relented and gone with Gina to the Argosy, I fell into restless sleep. Cramped and miserable, in a sitting position, trying to get comfortable, I half-opened my eyes at one point—and screamed. A man’s face was pee
ring at me through my open window. I staggered sideways from him, dragging my legs over the clutch to get to Gina’s seat. I started to whimper and cry. He stuck his head in and looked around the car. “You got somebody else here with you?” he barked.
I pretended I didn’t hear.
“Hey! You alone?” he yelled.
How did I answer that? To say I was alone was unthinkable. To say I was with two other girls, one of them pink-haired, was also unthinkable. I didn’t answer. I was crying because he looked like any minute he would open the door and fling himself on me. Thrashing from side to side, suffocating in my panic, I pushed open the passenger side, fell out of the car onto wet pavement, struggled up, scraping the palms of my hands, and sprinted toward the Argosy doors, leaving my car, my bags, my money, everything. I didn’t think he would outrun me; after all I had once run the 440-meters in fifty-seven seconds.
A group of people walked out; I rammed headlong into them. They walked me to my car, looked around, assured me there was no one there; giggling, teasing, they advised me to lay off the hard stuff next time. A little calmer, I locked up and, taking my keys this time, limped to the lobby, where I dropped onto a stiff couch, waiting for the girls to return. That’s where they found me, asleep. I said I’d had a bad dream and left it at that.
And this morning, I didn’t want to tell Candy about last night, turning my face away from her questions and soft gazes, looking down at my raw palms. I didn’t see the point. The terror had been so real.
NINE
BADLANDS
1
The Bartered Bride
The road is like a drug. It’s like hypnosis. I’m staring into the long distance, tires whooshing, the soporific rhythm of the wipers battling to clear the pearly road spray. We crossed the Missouri in the rain, found a dinky two-lane road. Up down, up down, where we are, no one knows. Candy said, a long way away, that’s where we are. No effing kidding was Gina’s comment. We bickered. We didn’t listen to music. Oh, we tried. But how many times are you going to hear tide is high, so I’m moving on, before you scream? Gina’s morning gloss was gone—gambling gets you only so far, and there were no more casinos to relieve her stress. I had the wheel to relieve mine, which I gripped with both hands like a new driver. Candy sat in the quiet back, eyes closed. She always managed to achieve that—stillness. Was she listening perhaps for God’s voice, for help, for direction? I didn’t know. I was beginning to suspect Candy had more resources to cope with anxiety than either me or Gina, and I envied her that. I wished she could teach me how to keep body and mind so calm, when ahead and behind was so much imponderable noise, when all three of us waded through a loud mire of delusional shallows.
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