Wyoming
The sun was just beginning to set behind the Berkshires directly ahead of me, and refracted knives of light were stabbing me in the eyes. I fumbled the visor down, which helped only marginally. I squinted and tried to focus on the narrow single lane highway I was driving down, whilst also feeling blindly for my sunglasses in the console next to me. My hand roved around the depths of the console, trying to locate the metal frames of the glasses by sightless touch, my fingers seeming to find every item but the one they sought. Finally, just as I’d begun to fret that I’d forgotten them, my thumb lighted upon one of the lenses. I extracted the glasses and put them on. The rays of the sun’s last gasps of the day no longer assaulted my eyes, but my right eye now had to look through a fresh thumbprint that was still drying on the lens. I chose to ignore it for the time being, but the print distracted and irritated me.
I’d been on the road about an hour. I’d just come through Greenfield and was now beginning the steady climb into the Berkshire Mountains. The road was beginning to wind and narrow as it ascended. I wasn’t entirely sure I was headed in exactly the right direction, but I knew I was headed west, and that was good enough for now. I had my phone with me and it, of course, had a GPS app installed, but I’d opted against using it. I’d realized about twenty minutes after I’d left that I’d forgotten a charger. I couldn’t turn back to get one. I knew if I did, I’d find a reason not to leave again. The phone had about a half charge, and I figured I’d need it more later on. I’d stop at a Best Buy or Target when I saw one and grab a charger, but who knew when I’d pass one out here.
It took only a few minutes for the sun to disappear behind one of the peaks, and the road became doused in shadow. I removed the glasses, wiping the lens on my shirt before putting them back in the center console. As my eyes returned to the road, they passed over the dash and I noticed how low I was on gas. The needle hovered right over the top edge of the serifless E. I hadn’t bothered to check how much gas I’d had when I left. I hadn’t thought about much of anything, except going.
I was in serious Boonie-ville at this point, and I started to get anxious. There may not be a gas station out here for miles. I continued snaking my way through the mountains, sweating more and more as the needle first decapitated, then bisected the E. The low fuel light dinged on, and the little illuminated orange gas pump gave me palpitations. I was just beginning to seriously despair when the angelic glow of fluorescent light began to announce itself between the trees. I rounded a bend and sighted a Cumby’s, one of those new deals with 18 rows of gas pumps and a fast food restaurant and half a grocery store. I heaved a sigh of relief and pulled in, saying a silent prayer to the God’s of retail and profit for refusing to leave the wilderness unmolested.
I chose a pump and went inside to pay. The only stop I’d made after leaving the apartment was the bank. I’d emptied my account. I didn’t want my debit statements tracking my progress across the country. So, everything was to be paid in cash.
As I stood in line, I realized I had no idea what it would cost to fill my tank. I was so accustomed to just scanning the card and waiting for the pump shutoff. I rarely even looked at the total when I was done.
When it was my turn, I gave the kid 40 bucks for Pump 8. He seemed nonplussed so I figured I must have guessed about right.
“Anything else?”
As I opened my mouth to decline as I had so many times before, my eyes lighted on the rows upon rows of gleaming cigarette packs behind him. Hardly aware of what I was doing, I requested two packs of Marlboro Reds, then quickly amended it to three. He handed me the packs. I pocketed two and immediately began pounding the third into my palm. I hadn’t smoked in twelve years.
I left the store and pumped my gas. I utilized the prop that made the pump hands-free and continued to tamp the cigarettes while the gas dispensed. I was still somewhat in shock that I’d bought them. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d consciously craved a cigarette, and yet here I was, fiendishly beseeching the pump to dispense faster so I could get in the car and light up. When the pump clicked to signify a full tank, I hastily replace the nozzle and gas cap and jumped in the car. I tore the cellophane off savagely, throwing it on the floor. I pulled out a cigarette, placed it gently against my lips, bit it gently with my front teeth. I patted my pocket for the lighter that I once had never been without. It had been many years since I’d carried one.
I ran back inside and bought two full-size Bics, grinning sheepishly at the clerk in acknowledgment of my gaffe. On the walk back to the car, I unthinkingly resumed another old habit and ripped the child safety mechanisms out with my teeth. I was somewhat unnerved by how easily these old routines returned, yet moreover comforted by their familiarity.
Back in the car, I lit up while still sitting next to the pump. The first drag was both reviling and delightful in equal measure. I coughed, choked on the acrid smoke, winced at the burn in my lungs; yet simultaneously I felt soothed, less anxious, relaxed and mellowed in that good old nicotine way. Each drag was less repulsive than the last, and soon I was puffing easily and happily. The tobacco was exceptionally well-packed, courtesy of my compulsive tamping, and it burned slowly and evenly. Even so, I smoked it down quick, ashing and exhaling out the cracked window. When I’d smoked it down to the filter, I pulled out another, lit it, and pulled back out onto the road. I waited until I was a safe distance from the gas station before flicking the extinguished butt out the window, then went to work on the second.
I drove and smoked. I’d smoke one down to the filter, then use the butt to light the next. I started coughing up big mouthfuls of phlegm, hocking them out the window in big gobs. That had been one of the reasons I’d quit, the nasty oral discharges. And the coughing. And shortness of breath. And foul odors that offended pretty much everyone with whom I came into contact. But now, I didn’t give a shit about any of that. Smoking was satisfying, deeply scratching an itch I’d had no idea still nagged me. I realized how much I’d missed it, warts and all, and I was already resolute that I would not be giving it up again.
I was nearly halfway through the first pack when I began to feel lightheaded. The road began to sway slightly, and the pleasant buzz of the nicotine suddenly twisted into an all-out cranial assault. Nausea began to rile up from the depths of my stomach. I slumped my weight forward onto the steering wheel, and the car lurched into the opposite lane. I jerked it back severely to the right, and the rear tires began to fishtail. I cut the wheel back left, jammed on the brakes, and came to a sliding halt on the right shoulder, mere inches from a guardrail overlooking a sheer and staggering drop. Hardly cognizant of my great fortune, I opened the door, staggered out, and made it only a couple of drunken steps before depositing my stomach’s contents all over the pine needle dusted shoulder of the road. During my third retch, my knees gave out and I slumped, not entirely avoiding the puddle I’d created.
When my stomach was emptied and began to settle, I leaned back on my lower legs, wiped a hand across my sweat-drenched brow, and that’s when it happened. I didn’t feel it coming, I didn’t expect it. But tears began flowing down my cheeks, and I began to cry in great retching sobs. I knelt there, half illuminated by my headlights, the back half of my car still out in the road, my knees soaking in vomit and bile, and wept more deeply and thoroughly than I ever had in my life.
When the episode passed, I wiped a hand again across my brow, which was now thoroughly drenched with sweat and tears. I used my shirt to mop off my face. I stood slowly, not entirely trusting my legs. I turned and returned to the car. I felt better. My body and soul felt cleansed. I put the car in gear, straightened it out, and pulled back onto the road.
I stowed the remaining two and a half packs of cigarettes in the center console. The mere sight of them made my stomach turn, and my previous conviction to resuming my smoking habit wavered. For now, they were best left out of view.
I focused my attention on the road, but my mind wandered. I thought about my episode on the shoulder. Though the hysterical emotion had left me, it’s cause had not.
It’s hard to say exactly what broke me. It’s even harder to say when. I’m quite sure I’d been living with it for some time, the way someone will throw their back out and, convinced that it will heal with time, neglects to see a doctor until their spine becomes an irrevocably gnarled and twisted mess. I’d felt the ache, dull at times, quite acute at others. Occasionally, I’d tried to self-diagnose it. Far more often, I’d self-medicate. The usual prescription was whiskey from the shin-high shelf, Canadian Club or Ten High out of big plastic jugs.
I’m not sure I was ever really happy. I think the best I ever managed was numb. But numb had been okay for a while. In fact, I’d have given anything, kneeling on that shoulder, soaked in my own vomit and tears, to get back to numb. Numb seemed a lifetime away.
When I lost my job, that had punctured the numbness. I’d lost plenty of jobs. But after the fifth time you get laid off, just when you’re starting to get comfortable again, it wears. And eventually, it chafes. Stability and comfort go hand and hand.
When Sally left, that shattered the numbness. Suddenly, I remembered how to feel. But the only feeling that I relearned was agony, and it taught some harsh lessons. Handles of whiskey could drown it, but I could still hear it gurgling, fighting for air, thrashing towards the surface.
I buckled down, recommitted to the average existence I’d been eking out my whole life. Found a new job. Hit the bars with the boys. Tried to act like I always had. I thought it was working.
Then I stumbled, half blind, through the door of one of my usual haunts, and saw Sally, seated at the bar, one leg completely wrapped around some half-brained looking nitwit. I lost it. Sally was facing the door and saw me approach. She only had time to register a shocked expression before I fired a cheap shot at her date, who never saw me coming. My aim and balance were hardly at their best, and my fist slid across his left cheek and barely made contact. The force I’d put into the swing pitched me forward, hard, and I collapsed right into Sally’s lap. The last thing I remember is looking up at her, her face a twisted mask of disgust and disappointment; then, I took an anvil to the side of the head. I woke up on cold concrete, staring through iron bars.
It was my first visit to the drunk tank, though I’d just barely avoided it countless times before. A “friend”, who was essentially just a regular at the bar whom I’d frequently chat up when hammered, did me a solid and bailed me out. I’d run straight in when he dropped me off and grabbed some cash to pay him back. I’d already made up my mind, and I didn’t want to leave any loose ends behind.
After he left, I’d grabbed up a few things, hopped in the car, and gone to the bank to drain my account. Then I headed west. I had plummeted to a lower rank of society than I’d ever thought myself capable, and I couldn’t face up to it any longer.
These memories assaulted me as I descended out of the mountains, still weary from the spell of sickness and emotion. I calmed my nerves by focusing on my goal, my destination.
I’d been obsessed with Wyoming for quite some time. It was about the unlikeliest place on the globe for which someone could get a hard-on, but it had arrested my imagination, ever since I’d seen footage of the boundless, naked plains, ringed by towering mountaintops, in some generic nature doc on the National Geographic channel. It seemed like a place out of Tolkien, and its status as the least populous state in the nation made it, in my mind, the perfect place to disappear forever. I imagined I’d float around, working on ranches, getting my hands dirty, building muscle and a tan, just eking out a living, but doing so honestly and with satisfaction.
Of course, I was aware of the sepia-toned antiquity of my little mental picture show, and I thought myself well prepared for the likely rejection of a semi-modernized Wyoming with little need for an unexperienced, wannabe drifter. If sufficient work could not be found, I’d keep heading west until the Pacific Ocean stopped me.
As I pondered my half-baked plans, all alone late at night on a strange, winding road, the utter insanity of what I was doing suddenly washed over me, like a hard, cold slap in the face. I was mere miles from the state line, so perhaps it was fate trying one last time to dissuade me. My very vision seemed to tremor in unison with my resolve.
I pulled over to the shoulder, closed my eyes tight, and lay my head against the steering wheel. I took several deep breaths, trying to steady my nerves. I’d set myself on an inexorable path, or so I thought, and I had to gird myself for the long journey ahead. Leaving the state I’d called home my entire life, with no intent to return, weighed far heavier than I had expected. The entire endeavor suddenly seemed monumental, when just hours earlier I’d seen no reason whatsoever to linger a moment longer. The dissonance rang between my ears, and once again I nearly swooned.
A whimpering sob escaped my lips, and I very nearly succumbed again to a fit of emotion. But, something in me, perhaps the last vestige of strength I had left, resisted. I suddenly felt buoyant, resolute, determined. I pulled back out and continued west.
In just a couple more miles, I began to see signs warning me of my imminent entry into New York. I ignored the knot of anxiety that wound ever tighter in my throat. Fog was beginning to gather as dawn was just breaking over the horizon. Wisps of cloud danced over the blacktop, swirling around the bases of the road signs.
An extra large sign, three times larger than the others suddenly loomed out of the mist. It was white, with blue borders, and a blue script font. It read “Welcome to the Empire State.” I slowed to a crawl, far too slow for the highway I traveled. I was nearly hyperventilating at this point, breathing in heavy, rapid breaths. I continued to slow, creeping dangerously below the speed limit. The sign seemed to be both mocking and beckoning me, simultaneously.
I knew beyond that sign lay my destiny, even if I only made it ten feet into New York and turned back. All at once, I slammed on the accelerator. My little sedan wasn’t built for the sudden acceleration, and it jerked and fishtailed before finding its footing and careening toward the state line. I gritted my teeth like a stock car racer when he’s leading and has just seen the wave of the white flag.
In mere seconds, I zoomed past that big blue sign and into New York state. I hesitated almost immediately, and nearly turned back. But the triumphant feeling in my chest gave me pause, and I continued cruising until the sign disappeared in my rear view. Suddenly, what felt monumental a moment ago felt small and insignificant, with so many more miles to traverse and state lines to cross. I didn’t look back again. I continued on to Wyoming, or whatever lay between or beyond it.
