April, but it’s unseasonably cool. Or maybe it’s supposed to be this cool and it’s just been unseasonably warm for the past few years. Maybe it’s not seasonable at all. Is 50 degrees even considered ‘cool’ anymore? The sky must be punishing us for past transgressions, hiding the sun behind those thick corpulent clouds. But at least the flowers are beginning to bloom. That’s one good thing I can say about Sacton, spring is always beautiful up here. I’d have to dig deep in order to find anything else, though.
The roads are still that pristine dark black from the earlier rainstorm. They look so disgusting when they’re gray, especially if it’s accented by the corpse of an overzealous rabbit. The last time I came up here, about three years ago, this road was littered with dead bodies, as if I was driving through some petting zoo Jonestown. I should have turned back when I saw that first deer on the side of the road. It was a fawn, with a white tail and little white specks on it’s back. I had to pull over the car and just…be for a moment. Just absorb it. Then I saw his mother come out from the sparse woods, nudging her baby and it was the saddest thing I’d seen up til then. Being only nineteen, I hadn’t seen very much. But I should have turned back. I don’t think I know why I didn’t.
Topher’s with me this time. My little Toto. Ever since that last trip I refused to come up here ever again, but things inevitably change. I didn’t want to go alone and I was kind of surprised when Toto offered to come along with me, something about wanting to meet my family and all that. To be clear, I never wanted to meet his family. Nor do I ever want to. I find that they have a clan mentality. Not all families, just the ones I’ve encountered. They accept you initially as a guest and let you begin to feel like you’re one of them. But sooner or later you realize that you’re NOT one of them, you’re just another outsider. A withered brown leaf on their geneaological tree, destined to fall off and float away. But more power to Toto.
“Do you think you can take over soon?” I asked. I’ve always hated driving, unless you have nowhere to go. Driving aimlessly is akin to meditation for me. The road wraps itself around my mind and we disappear together. When you get lost, you’re not really lost at all because you’re not trying to find a specific location. You’re just discovering the world around you. As soon as you introduce a map, that’s when I lose all interest.
“Yeah, give me like five minutes.” I look over at my co-pilot, Toto, rolling a joint between his long nimble fingers. He said he used to play the piano, but when I asked him to teach me he refused. So I think that piano was just code for accordion.
“You do realize this is a rental?”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll just roll the windows down. Or,” dipping his bushy, curly hair into his book bag and re-emerging shortly with a thick glass bottle the size of Pepto Bismol, “we could hotbox and just spray it down with a little Coolwater.”
I considered for a minute then rolled up my window. If it had been Polo, I might have answered differently.
“We should probably pick up some Febreeze or something on the way. It’s impossible to get weed stench out of fabric.”
Toto looked at me, grinning, with the lit paper clenched between his yellowing teeth, his eyes obscured by the canopy of hair on his head. “That’s why I don’t bother to wash my clothes anymore.”
“Well, thank god one of us does.”
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