EDGE LAND
Jordan could smell the sunrise just beneath the horizon like Vaseline sliding towards him and he could not go back to sleep. He made coffee and ate cereal with the dog. In the next room Mona still slept curled around the small folds of her stomach in her baggy white mommy panties. Even the kids, where not kids yet, but half opened dreams lying in their beds, almost, but not quiet alive.
He shut the door behind him feeling bad for the dog that pressed his nose against the screen. The little white house with blue trim was like some paper thing, thin against the Texas sky. It all seemed like something he could wake up from. Toys the color of neon signs littered the yard seemingly glowing, saying goodbye, saying hello, saying open and come again.
He picked a direction, and began to drive. The radio was silent, and his headlights made a small hole in the dark. Maybe here in these early hours he could drive through that hole, and go to a time when it all had seemed new and wonderful; a time when he really had been young.
Mona was probably just waking up. She was going to take the test today, but he already knew she would turn up pregnant. Mona’s uterus was like a space ship. She had been making babies since she was seventeen.
A quarter earth, and three quarters heaven, it was hard to believe anything existed outside of Texas. He had never been to the edge of the state, but he was sure that unlike what the text books and people on T.V said he would find valleys of sky, and maybe a few clouds. All these years it had been the same highway, the same radio station that broadcasted the same high school football teams playing the same games. Maybe today though, he would find it, that place where everything ended.
Something moved in the distance, something small, like a torn up scarecrow on the side of the road. It was almost light out. Almost too late, one line for go, two lines for stop and start over. Maybe it was his fault, maybe he had Chuck Norris sperm. Poor Mona.
He was closer now, and he could see that the torn up scarecrow was a girl walking along the side of the road. Didn’t she know how stupid she was? Bad things happened to young girls who put their hands out in traffic. He hesitated then pulled up in front of her, and watched in his rearview mirror as she walked towards him. This was a bad idea, a really bad idea.
She came up, and knocked on his window. He rolled it down. “So sugar what’s it going to be? Are you going to give me a ride or what?”
“ I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I mean what if you try and rob me or something?”
“What do you have for me to rob?” She laughed an easy laugh, her blond hair across her face, and a wide smile that showed too many teeth.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he leaned over and opened the door for her.
She got in, and up close he could see the sand in her hair. “So where are you headed?” he asked.
“Oh…. You know, the usual, anywhere but here. By the way the my name is Gloria”
“Jordan.” He liked the way she didn’t shake his hand when he introduced himself, like they were doing something unofficial. Like they already knew each other’s names
She turned towards him, and he tried not to watch her look him up and down. She had nice teeth, the kind that college girls have so as to kiss their nice clean college boys. She brushed her blonde hair so it all lay to one side. “So tell me what is an honest hard working man doing picking up a girl like me? You think I am going to give you a blow job?”
He flinched, “I am married”.
“Well? How married are you?” She bent towards him slightly, and her white shirt fell forward. He could see her small pink nipples that looked like the noses of white mice. He looked away quickly. Not quick enough.
“Oh….. I see, you’re very, very married,” she said.
“Yes, and I love my wife. She’s nothing fancy, but at least she wears a bra.” The girl laughed again and adjusted her shirt.
“Your wife doesn’t know what she’s missing. I love my breasts even if they are small….” She looked down at them. “But you know I can’t wear a bra because I need them to tell me when it’s going to rain.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you know how old men can feel bad weather in their bones months in advance? Well I can feel it in my tits like none other. They’re regular weather vanes.”
“So is that why you’re running? Getting out before a storm hits?”
“No, of course not. I enjoy a good tornado just as much as the next person; it’s just good to know when to get off the highway.”
The girl turned away from him as if suddenly bored. Tornados in Texas were beautiful; they came quickly, and left. One night stands without strangers, the beauty of being undone, and the earth just for a couple of hours melting away. Mona used to be like that, a little bit runaway, a little bit tipsy, a little bit homecoming queen. The rain was always the best part, the silencing of the wind, and just the warmth of water before the trees shook. Pregnancy changed Mona made her a more silent woman. Maybe because she gave it all away.
Jordan stopped the truck, and looked at the girl. “Hey what if I wanted to make love to you right here in this truck right now. Say fuck it all to hell.”
“You can’t make love on the first time, nobody can.” She had a point there. He looked at her, and then the highway. He would never find the edge of Texas. “Besides,” she said, “Strange men only suggest making love when they want something from you.”
“I guess I just wanted to do something stupid. It’s been so long since I have done something stupid, and wrong. I think I am becoming boring.”
She smiled her young girl smile again, “Tell me…What is your son’s name? You seem like the type of guy that would have a son”
He started the engine, and got back on the highway. “It’s Baby John. I know the kids at school will tease him for it, but I always wanted to name at least one of my kids Baby. Its unique.”
“So tell me where are you really going?” he asked
“ Trinidad…. You know to have one of those sex changes.”
“Seriously?”
“No of course not.” Trinidad was one of those places that didn’t exist, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her. He had heard talk about Trinidad, the sex-change capital of the world, it was supposed to be in Colorado where the world didn’t actually exist. They must run those stories so that people like him didn’t feel so alone. It wasn’t that he wanted it all; he just liked the idea that he could if he was a better person, have it all.
“Tell me something true, or I will kick you out of the truck.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have a blowjob?” If she hadn’t been serious he would have laughed. She paused…..”Ok, I have Cancer; I need to get to Wyoming.”
“Are you going to get some treatment up there?”
“No…. My mom is up there.”
“Ohh.”
“I really just want to crawl into bed with her, and feel her hold me one last time before I die.”
They drove in silence. There wasn’t much to say after that. They stopped at a gas station, and he bought her a prefab turkey sandwich and orange juice. He thought about calling Mona, but decided against it. She had probably taken the test, and gone to Wal-Mart to buy more bad news. This time though she probably had got the 15 dollar kind, just to make sure.
“So it’s your turn,” she said, “tell me something true, or drop me off, and I’ll find somebody that will.”
What was true, he couldn’t remember. He had gone through the hole, and the white house with the blue trim didn’t exist anymore. He could lie to her; she probably wouldn’t know the difference. The again maybe she would.
“My wife she used to be really pretty when we were kids. We kissed behind the bus once because the neighbor boy said that if you touch somebody’s tongue with yours that you could get them pregnant. Back then Mona just wanted a baby sister real bad, she was about the loneliest scrawniest person you ever did see.”
“Is that when you fell in love.”
“Hmmm I think I fell in love with her when I came home late one day on my 20th birthday and I found her dancing in the kitchen with our baby. She was singing all off key and shit. She was beautiful though I could hear her laughing deep down in a place I didn’t know existed.
Gloria rolled down the window, even though it felt like the heater was running. She stretched her hand out in the wind, letting it move with the momentum of the truck, this little up and down wave.
“I wish I could love somebody like that,” she said. He felt embarrassed fr telling her. She was all alone. “If you live your entire life, and only love one person, bt love that person well, then you have lived a full life.” There was longing in her words. “You’re lucky cowboy, if I were you I would turn around right now so you don’t end up like me needing strangers to take you home.”
“Yeah, maybe your right.”
“Hey look, the state line is just 50 miles up ahead, why don’t you just drop me off there.”
“What about you?”
“What about me? You can’t take me all the way to Wyoming.” For a moment he thought he could, and then he knew she was right.”
“Hey you never told me what kind of cancer you have.”
“Breast Cancer.”
“Shit man….. Why don’t you just cut them off.” It all seemed so simple. Maybe it was a money thing. Maybe she didn’t have insurance. Those dumb hospitals only cared about people who belonged.
“It’s not that easy. If I took em off then I wouldn’t be able to feel the rain. You don’t understand. I’d rather die than never feel the rain again. Besides I hear death is just like standing still in the middle of the storm. I might like that”.
His children loved the rain and the lightening. He’d come home and they would be out in the front yard dancing naked. The sky so full of lightening they would scream with joy. Redneck fireworks. He wished he could love anything as much as his children loved lightening. The wonder in their faces was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He pulled over. “I don’t think that I need to see the border. I thought I did, but I changed my mind.” She smiled, once again a thing that didn’t belong to him.
“Thanks for the ride ”
He watched her walk away from him towards the edge. Until she became a scarecrow, her white shirt a battered rag, then a speck. Then nothing. She must have fallen off. Maybe she flew off, grew wings and found Wyoming.
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