Route 66

Previously published in Phylum Press.

 

With these small-town dive shows, you never know who’s going to appear backstage. I’ve had them all – truckers, bikers, drunks, users, married women, married men – all looking for something I can’t provide, just because my words stirred a memory.

 

“I liked that song about the dad who escaped a life sentence taking care of kids that weren’t his,” says the stranger who greets me backstage. Though we’ve never met, I can tell she’s prying, hoping for a confession to fall from my lips.

“I’ve never heard of you; you ever play this town before?” she asks.

I want to tell her I’m a drifter who’s keen on outrunning the poverty and destruction of my hardscrabble past. Within a minute, it’s apparent that we have similar roots. That pleather wrapped miniskirt, sweater-vest, and high-top sneakers make her look like a Barbie doll that was slapped together by a four-year-old. She’s got a disingenuous side-smile that reminds me of my mother, the way it asymmetrically pins up half of her mouth.

 

“I’ve been through here once or twice,” I nod, feeling slightly comforted by her familiarity.

“A lot of people come through, you know, being just off Route 66.” She sits down, causing the skirt to hiccup against the couch. The room is small and dank, the sort of place you’d expect to see rodents rummaging for scraps. The walls and furniture are black, with the only colour coming from the aluminum bucket containing beer and ice.

“You write all those songs yourself?”

I nod again, packing my guitar into its case.

“I take it you aren’t from around here?” she asks, stretching her candy apple red lips into another smile.

“I’m from the outskirts of Anytown, USA,” I say, then push a laugh because it sounds so ridiculous hearing it out loud, like I’m some bad boy hoping to get laid. “I grew up near Seattle.” 

“I would’ve guessed somewhere more secluded like Juneau, but the Pacific Northwest makes more sense. Your voice has the kerplunk of raindrops, tones you can’t get from growing up in SoCal.”

 

She’s doing that thing strangers like to do, giving my music a history, a personality, and accusing me of being a product of my surroundings. I know where she thinks this small talk is going. Soon enough she’ll be telling me that she’s never done something like this before while slipping out of that god-awful vest.

“It’s like you wrote some of those songs about me.” She bounces her foot while smoothing her frizzle of bleached hair.

Unsure if I want to respond, I begin wrapping the mic cable around my fist. If I’m going to make it to the next town by dawn, I’ve got to hit the road.

“I’m the girl you sang about in ‘County Line’ – ‘fresh out of an old relationship, the kind that’s easy to end because the emotions vanished years ago.’ That happened to me today.”

“I’m sorry,” I shrug. It’s clear that she’s looking to patch up old holes with a pocket square and some steel thread.

She dabs a cocktail napkin around those marble eyes, trying not to disturb the layer of makeup. She doesn’t know it yet, but she could never love me, a man who lacks the desire to accumulate money and possessions. They always vanish soon after it becomes clear that the lyrics are indeed side effects.

 

“Me and my friend were headed to the club across the street but couldn’t get in. It’s Celebrity Night. They brought in Mike & Penelope to sign autographs and push pricey booze. Around here, people will line up for anyone with proclaimed talent.”

“That doesn’t ring true,” I say, thinking of the mostly empty pub I just played. I drop my harmonicas into a milk crate and stack it on the lone speaker. She pauses, stirring her straw before taking a sip: vodka cran, if I had to guess.

“You’d have more of a following if people knew about the way those fingers glide across that fretboard. You’ve got the right look: tall, dark, and handsome with a head of curls. I googled you. You almost don’t exist. I could help; I taught myself how to make websites.”

I pull a road beer from the bucket and give it a twist before realizing it’s a pop-top.

“Here,” she leans over and uses her lighter to send the cap ricocheting across the room, the same way mom used to do. I suddenly have the urge to tell her about prison. But my jaw just doesn’t hinge like that. Instead, it clenches, keeping my tongue muted.

“I’m not complaining about playing an empty house. I’m just saying that lineups don’t magically form for a nobody. And besides, why does everyone need to be on their way to being someone else?”

 

Her gaze narrows.

“Why can’t I just be this, work boots and flannel, an old Econoline van, dragging my ass around the country and playing background tunes for drunks? Maybe this is who I’ve spent my entire life trying to become. I’ve finally made it,” I wink.

“Because that’s who my daddy was, a low life who never owned anything more than a toolbelt and a shovel to dig graves with.”

There it is. Money. Possessions. “I think you should’ve stuck it out in the celebrity line across the street.” She looks at me like I owe her something simply because she said nice things about my playing.

“That song ‘Baby Blue’ about the ex-wife and the stillborn… It must’ve been a hard one to write,” she continues.

“Christ, you work for a magazine or something? You writing a blog on America’s failed musicians? It’s just a song. Folks who don’t write think every lyric is a confession.”

“Jesus. Who knew you’d be so hard,” she fumbles around my lack of interest. “I thought it’d be nice to share a drink. Like I said, your lyrics spoke to me.” She stands, wobbling in her high-tops.

“They’re just words. It was good meeting you.” I pick at the label on my bottle instead of looking in her direction as she exits. I wince at another missed opportunity, cursing myself for continuing to be a brick wall. After all those self-help books, I was supposed to be a different person by now. It’s been a year since the divorce and I still haven’t transformed into someone my ex might love again.

 

After hearing the door shut, I wait a minute before heading to the bathroom and finding walls covered in black marker graffiti. I winnow through the messages and imagine how good it must feel to write something in a public space and be fairly certain it won’t come back to haunt you. These words can’t be tied to the author’s digital history.

Desperate to leave my fingerprint, I grab a Sharpie from the ledge and give it a go:

She showed up looking like a timeworn memory: fuzzy around the edges, out of breath, life and luck.

 

I feel a little more whole and consider handwriting a letter about the last five years of my life and mailing it to a random house somewhere in America.

At the rear of the van, I swing both doors open – for some reason it’s always smelled like a box of crayons back here. While sliding milk crates around on the moldy carpets, I tap my foot to the perfunctory beat of crickets rubbing out tunes near the rear of the parking lot.

Looking at the paper map, I confirm the next destination to be about two hundred miles up the road. It’s where I played my first solo gig. Ever since, Flagstaff has felt like a getaway car, a refuge for escaping the crimes of everyday life.

I guide the van onto an empty road and push for the sticks. My headlights catch the silhouette of a hitchhiker – it’s that miniskirt again. As the elusive second chance reveals itself, I pull over and make a mental note to soften.

 

“You shouldn’t be out on the streets at this hour, you could get –”

“My friend isn’t answering her phone, and I can’t call my ex,” she cuts me off.

“Where are you headed?”

She shrugs, putting on another side smile. “I’m hoping to make it to my mom’s in Myrtle’s Lot. She’s away, but there should be a key hidden in the wheel well.”

“Myrtle’s? I saw it on my way in; they had that sign boasting about a big fishing pond.”

“Where are you headed?” she asks after getting in.

“Two hundred miles west.”

“That sounds hellish. I’ve searched the pockets of every town within a five hundred-mile radius and keep coming up empty-handed.”

I smile for the first time. “You sound like a jaded musician. I’m sorry about earlier; I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s Carly.”

“I’d turn the radio on, but it’s broken.”

“You could sing me a song; from what I recall, you aren’t much of a talker.” She pushes at the small of her back. I like the drag of her words, the way they elongate like a bubble escaping her mouth.

 

As we lumber along the onramp and connect with Route 66, the steering wheel feels as big and sloppy as a hula hoop. For the first time, I almost believe in a future that doesn’t hinge on my past.

“Not all my lyrics are fiction,” I confess.

“What about ‘Fire Poker’?”

 

I white-knuckle the wheel. “It’s true. Neither of my parents were drinkers before they met. But that’s the thing about marriage, you aren’t only marrying the person in front of you; you’re marrying who they were and who they’ll become.” I pause, sinking into the drone of the tires.

“Mom was a cleaner. On weekends, she’d drift off in the recliner with a case of booze while binging Dateline reruns. Later, she’d join Dad at the firepit. They were that couple that stayed up all night chatting until their whispers turned into screams. There was a poker by the fire pit that mom would slap against her palm when things got heated.”

Carly put her hand to her chest.

“Then, the two drunks made a booze run and Mom accidentally slipped the car into a ravine. She made it out, he didn’t. It brought a lot of attention to our park. I hit the road because every hiding place I ever had was suddenly exposed.”

“My dad is dead too. His heart was full of holes.”

“Emotional holes?” I ask.

“It was a birth defect that wasn’t detected until later; it caused a stroke.” She looks down and smooths her skirt. “It’s the next exit.”

 

Pulling up to her mom’s place, I feel like I’m delivering an anonymous letter. There’s a dulling of loss stirring in my gut, giving me the sense that I’m about to untie another knot.

“Thanks for the ride; I’ll keep an eye on the marquees and catch you next time you’re in town.”

“I don’t do marquees,” I grin.

 

While creeping away, I see her searching the wheel wells in my rearview. She tries the door again, then runs for the van. I hesitate between the brake and accelerator. “There’s no return to sender,” I whisper.

Back on Route 66, my headlights catch skid marks that run perpendicular. They start soft and shallow, then deepen to a pastel black before coming to an abrupt stop at the median. Instead of picturing twisted metal, I envision a portal unfurling from the sky like a pull-down projector screen. It swallows the vehicle whole and spits it out on a different path, one that doesn’t inspire songs like “Baby Blue” or “Fire Poker”.