This trip had, in its several incarnations, been planned for several months, mercurially snaking through various iterations, dates of departure, and routes, until it was decided that we would leave Thursday at noon, with the admittedly lofty aspiration of arriving in the bleary hours of Saturday morning. Our course would meander through Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia again, a fact which became no small source of confusion and amusement, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico before depositing us in the arid embrace of the Sonoran desert. We, in our obstinate wisdom, had decided that this was a drive best taken in one sleepless and utterly reckless thrust. We viewed the drive not as a diversion in its own rite but as ritual purgation, a means of purifying ourselves before our arrival in the dry sterility of the desert. In the empty months before our departure, our lives had grown cluttered and congested with the discordant drama so abundant in those dead days to which summer is heir. This cacophony of breathing static resonated throughout our persons, propagating and echoing against the walls of our humanity, deafening us to life’s elegant overture.
We elevated. The hills had risen, haphazard vertebrae exposed and jutting from their origin in the cleft cradle of The Republic. As we ascended I glanced back at that vast escarpment and watched the trivialities of our dominion buffet the hills and collapse, silent, though still convulsing in their death throes. Unbound, we proceeded deeper into the seclusion of those maternal crags. Seemingly insulted by our presumption, the hills called out to the sky and dutifully conspired to disabuse us of our illusions. The sky gathered himself in determined venom and began his blustery diatribe, grasping and swatting at us with a fury reserved for interlopers, frauds, and apostates. Offended by our tenacity, he visited streaks of gray rain upon us that stretched the air, choking it with our calamity. He swiped heedlessly with his pigmented hand, graying the dejected and tree-choked peaks beneath us, but we pressed on, we beat forward, clamoring and staggering through the pass, punch drunk and senseless.
Crossing the spinal range, we began our trek across the broad shoulder of this continent, barreling toward a sun in descent chasing the long shadows of evening that sprawl across the horizon. The road straightens, unobstructed by the cramped architecture of the East, carrying us over sparse prairie toward the land of the sleeping sun. It is unconscionable that twenty hours remain in our trip, and, in a vain effort to convince ourselves that by some miscalculation, we had gotten farther into the journey than we had thought, we try to put it out of our minds, but as we crossed time zones and raced into the shadow of the sun we surrendered ourselves to the seductive whisper of eternal twilight.
Night finally claimed us, conquering the vigilant sparks of light that had hung, scattered in the air, listless and lazy like cigar smoke on a late summer night, bound to dance and sway to the tune of some quartet, long ignored and forgotten. The darkness spread subtly, extinguishing the ambient glow and supplanting it with a tactile void that unfolded from behind, overtaking us and dousing those last embers into ash. Beyond the path burned by our headlights, the world slept in silhouette, revealing the distant cut-outs of trees rendered by the pale radiance of civilization beyond. Beyond the Gateway, the trees faded and were replaced by the rhythmic ripple of loamy waves, the petrified remains of an erstwhile sea, now memorialized as a sterile azure splotch in geology texts. The grasses sway gently in our wake, rustling inaudibly over the din of the motor. I feel anachronistic, a trespasser in the vast timelessness of this Great American Desert, humbled by its transience and unworthy of its grandeur.
I remember home.
It’s strange, driving through the night. In disregarding sleep’s earnest demands and reclaiming those hours once left as tribute to her vanity, I strangle her until her grip slackens and I am free to crawl out of her clutching claws and breathe deep once again. I stand perched on her sallow knuckle and allow my lungs to expand fully once again. The sweet, thick air of the plains fills me, pressing my ribs outward and my chest upward. My eyes close as I hold that breath momentarily, enraptured by my defeat of the wicked witch of that stifling East. The air escapes slowly and I deflate, sobered by the privation of my ephemeral glory. Solemnly, I descend her hideous fist and slouch forward, back to her hulking form. I turn back after a moment to view the spectacle of the toppled abstract and notice that color has returned to her waxy pallor and that she has begun to stir. Determined and furious I strike the ground with a righteous fist, irate and impassioned. The earth groans, shudders, and buckles before me, retracting, momentarily, before surging upward and sending forth a black jet of viscous fluid, dousing everything in its awful misery.
I ignite the world.
My eyes reflect a conflagration. The geyser quickly becomes a cascading plume of light, engulfing her broken form, and interning her to the parched landscape. The plains are on fire. Soaked in the thick blood of the earth, the grass gives birth to a sea of flame that laps at the frightened sky and surges outward, drowning us all in heavy smoke and tired air. Greasy soot and syrupy smoke run in rivulets as it begins to rain. I run my blacked hands back through my hair and forget about home.
The grim dawn has started to bloom, scattering light into black and watching it bleach the taut fabric of the night. Everything goes out of focus; lines lose their stiffness and shapes hide their depth. I don’t think that I’ve slept, but I can’t be entirely sure. I don’t remember how we got here. The world is waking up. I feel sick. My stomach churns, announcing its displeasure with my decision to fill it with nothing but White Castle, orange soda, and Monster for the past fifteen hours. The peanuts probably didn’t help. I can’t move; my muscles are tensed beyond the repair of simple stretches and I think my arteries are jammed with finely chopped onions and grease. I’m pretty sure this is what dying is.
We cross into Texas, that vast Lone Star Republic unto itself and collapse into a collective stupor. No words pass between us, though not for animosity or enmity. Our minds, once in glorious congress with our mouths have replaced harmony with discord, leaving us stunned and silent. The sun has regained its throne and everything is sweating. We smell awful. I see a forty-foot concrete cross. I guess that makes sense. Catatonia sets in and we pass through the pan handle and New Mexico in alternating bouts of blathering nonsense and disconnected silence. I refuse to relinquish my seat at the wheel because I am intent on personally delivering us into salvation, regardless of whether or not we careen into a guard rail on the way. I fall asleep at the wheel. I wake up. I jerk to attention.
I pull over as soon as we enter the promised land at a post-apocalyptic gas station nestled between Swiss cheese cliffs. We collapse out of the car, uneasy on our feet, glistened with sweat and grime. I see myself reflected in a window, my hair is matted in chunks, my bandana sits around my neck, covered in dust. My eyes are sunken and ringed with black. I look like a ghoul. We amble, bow-legged and bewildered, into the store and leave in a haze of confusion. We drive. We make it to Sedona. Sedona is beautiful and alpine. He doesn’t see me turn on Pretty in Pink. Molly Ringwold is gorgeous.
The world is born.
The road from Sedona strings outward, until, with one final surge, we’re past the precipice and gaze upon the rapturous truth that is the Valley of the Sun. It sits, nestled in its resplendent glory, disinterested and unconcerned with our insignificant presence. My cracked lips part, as a humid sigh curls past my tongue and my eyes droop further still. Half blind, we wind through the dead basin, blathering incessantly. The car stops in front of the townhouse and we roll out of the doors, too weak to stand and lacking the volition to try.
My eyes wince and my muscles contract furiously as the shower washes over me, freeing me of thirty-five hours accumulation of filth and wretchedness. The oil lifts off of my pallid skin and circles the drain beneath me, marbling in the drain with the frothed soap. I’ve become so incomprehensibly tired that my mind, in what most aptly would be termed a mutiny, gives up and simply lets my body function independently, relinquishing its responsibility for my reckless disregard. I rub the soap from my eyes and push the hair out of my face, inhaling sharply. I step out onto the mat, dripping rhythmically as I drag my hand across the mirror, revealing my clavicle and little else.
We reemerge, still caught in that languid stupor of mental distemper and file back into his car. Confronted by a smell that had fermented over the past two days, my body hesitates as my stomach groans, but we press on and turn out of the driveway. The sun is gone now, but we move through a diffuse chemical twilight that animates the cityscape. The world is amber.
Perched on a cement bench, I can feel the summer heat radiating onto my legs all these hours later. I look down at the white Styrofoam lid and coax it open with my white plastic fork. It quickly becomes evident that there is no way that my knife is going to cut the firm toasted tortilla carapace of my carne asada burrito. I try in vain, frowning dejectedly as my fork glances harmlessly off of the surface and careens into the bottom of the box, burrowing itself into the forgiving foam. I pout sheepishly and reevaluate the situation, carefully surveying my tools. I discard them. Abandoning the pretense of etiquette entirely, I grab the burrito and I gorge myself on the substantial greatness of grilled meat smothered in guacamole and cheese stuffed into an exquisite flour jacket.
I am elated. My stomach beckons the warm, quasi-nutritious mass as it descends, filling me with a comfort known only to those who are, or have once been, charmingly plump. Well on my way to satisfaction and munching jovially, I notice the prominent poster delineating the various grades of meat recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture and where in this ranking FIliberto’s meat falls. I am not impressed. I look down at the grayish meat and feel betrayed. We finish our burritos and turn to meet other friends.
The rest of the night is a series of staccato flashes of memory and decision-making with a definite order but ambiguous causality. We meet friends. We decide to go to a 90s party after deciding that we would rather sleep. We recognize the contradiction, but somehow are unconcerned. We show up. It is immediately apparent that I know no one there. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought that this would be awkward, but it is. To make matters worse, everyone there is dressed as assorted fictional characters from my childhood, making the entire scene hauntingly surreal. I find myself in conversation with Edward Forty-Hands and a Winona Ryder impersonator. I try to converse with them, but it’s apparent that they would rather mill around and talk to their real friends. I understand and head to the back yard. A girl is on the ground laughing and Bennett, Charles and I are staring at her, not entirely sure what to make of the situation. Another girl, assumedly her friend, sidles up next to me and begins to explain that the girl now writhing in hysterics is generally not like this. I have trouble believing that. Bennett tells the girl that I’m in a signed band. The girl smiles at me. I feel uncomfortable and walk away. I’m on the grass with Bennett, Charles, and Dane. Bennett takes a look at the girl who had been on the floor and tells me that she is a train wreck. I agree. She falls down again. We nod. I’m driving Bennett’s car to his apartment. In the backseat are four girls who locked their keys in their car. I’m standing outside and the one of the girls is trying to convince me to go swimming. It’s three AM. I haven’t slept in nearly two days. She is in no way pretty enough to entice me to go swimming. I hesitate. Dane suggests that I go to bed and puts his hand on her back. I don’t get the hint. She and Dane take off their clothes and I decide that it’s better if I don’t watch Dane lose his dignity an hour after meeting him.
The next days are an undifferentiated mass of consciousness through which I waded too hastily, seeking, with immature intensity, the bottom of my self-pity. The summer heat of that desert valley oppressed us miserably, insensitive to the sensibilities of our human condition. Nothing specific about the next several days is worth mentioning in great detail. An Ikea may have been involved. I’m not entirely sure.
What I do recall, with vivid clarity is my last evening within those protective rocky walls. It was the Independence Day and in the spirit of our Republic’s uncertain birth, we dressed as White Trash and congregated. So I left the broken Valley of the Sun, dancing in the uncertain light of summer nights.
