We were somewhere around Barstow at the edge of the desert when reality started to kick in.
California!
Not much farther to Mexico now. We’re getting away, like Bonnie and Clyde. The sun was straight up above us, and it must have been a hundred degrees on the ground. Just a few more hours to the coast, and I could hardly sit still! Yes. We can outrun the highway patrol, our parents, and that goddamn Daniel White. Cole was bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat to the Astrix remix that was blasting out of the dashboard, and I was trying not to think too much about getting caught. Trying not to think about what they’d do to Cole.
At the tollbooth where the highways merged, we pulled into the cash lane and asked the operator for directions. Told her we’re going to the beach! Can’t wait to swim in that ocean. Taste the salt in our mouths. Feel the cool, wet sand between our toes.
“Well . . .” She smiled. “Take I-15 down to Corona, then hit 91 West till I-5. Somewhere around the San Juan Capistrano turnoff, you’ll be sure to see the water.”
She had a look on her face as if she were envious; stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, sitting in a little shack on the highway with nothing but a cash register and a little TV tuned to some old reruns, listening to her favorite songs from her tiny iPod speaker over and over again.
Not for me. Not for us. Cole and I, we’re going to see the ocean, turn left toward Mexico, and disappear.
“You kids been driving far?”
Cole hesitated for a second and said, “Las Vegas. But before that, Phoenix. That’s where we’re from.”
“Phoenix, eh? My husband’s from there. We go back every so often. His mom’s still down there in a little community called Estrella Village. Real pretty. You can see the mountains from her window. You know the place?”
Cole shifted in his seat. “Um, Estrella Village, hmmm . . . oh, sure. By the mountains, yeah. We live downtown, so we don’t get out that way much.”
“Oh.” The tollbooth woman gave us a hard look, then said, “Have fun at the beach. You’re heading the right way.”
We waved and drove slowly out of the toll plaza without saying a word. To the side was a low, flat concrete building. Two highway patrol cars were parked out front.
“That sucked,” Cole said in a low voice. He punched the steering wheel in frustration and accelerated onto the freeway.
We came up quickly to the first exit, and I pointed to the sign. Cole turned us off and drove along the service road and into a dusty two-pump gas station. I filled the car while he went in and returned with an old-school road map of Southern California.
“She’ll tell the cops which way we went,” he said. “We’d be easy to pick off on the highway. Let’s go south and take the county roads.”
The cashier was watching us from inside his little bulletproof glass booth.
“I’ll drive,” I said. I was nervous, thinking about how far we’d come. Feeling trapped and watched by everyone.
On the overpass across the highway I wondered if we’d really make it. But we had to. We’d gone so far beyond the point of turning back.
Dream:
I float. The deep darkness of space is all around me, but at the edge of my vision a million fiery suns burn brightly. There is no sound. A quiet like none I’ve experienced before. My nose tingles, and I can smell the earthy scent of Cole’s body, but I am alone. My body is warm, and I am breathing freely, though I can feel the vacuum of space all around me, fantastically cold. I begin to tumble in the weightlessness. What starts as a slow, high, arcing somersault—the universe turning head over heels—becomes faster and tighter, until a few minutes later I am being washed through space at a dizzying speed. The stars are lights spinning like the small bulbs on the roof of a carousel gone out of control. The starlights blur together, giving off a white glow that grows until it covers everything, until it blinds me.
Memory:
Thinking of that day at Cole’s house, back home, before we left.
Jennifer came to the door wearing light-blue jeans torn at both knees and a purple V-neck T-shirt that looked about three sizes too big. Her skin had a sickly greenish tint to it, and her eyes had very fine lines around them in all directions, with dark, purplish semicircles beneath. She smiled at me and gave me the once-over, pausing at my hair and my bracelets. “Come on in, sweetheart,” she said. “Cole’s in the kitchen.”
It was the first time that I had been in their kitchen, and I was surprised at how empty it was. Fridge, counter, sink, cabinets, and stove, of course, but that was it. No table, no clock, no pictures on the wall or plants in the window. A round fluorescent bulb cast a bluish light over the room. Definitely depressing. Upstairs in our apartment, the kitchen is my favorite room in the house; always warm and bright, with leftover smells of fry bread or slow-cooked stew and a sturdy wooden table that Papa had gotten at yard sale in St. Paul.
My face must have shown my thoughts, because the first thing Cole said was “Yeah, it’s not much to look at in here, huh?” It was true, but it had been such a great day and I was so happy to be there with him that it didn’t matter. I kissed him, and his face relaxed. I found a pot in a cabinet and put some water on to boil. Jennifer leaned in the doorway and talked, told us about dinners her mother made.
We ate in the living room. Cole and I sat on the floor with plates on our laps, Jennifer sat on the couch. I guessed something happened to the coffee table since I was there last time—there was no other furniture in the room.
I talked about the trip to the observatory when she asked about school, and told her about EDM when she asked about my bracelets. Jennifer talked about rock music from the ’90s, a bunch of bands that I had never heard of, going to see the punk shows at 7th Street Entry. She asked me about my name, saying, “Atty. It’s so pretty, where’s it from?”
And that’s where it all went wrong.
As I was talking about Haiti and Red Lake Nation I could see her face growing darker, closing in on itself. God, I thought, and braced myself for some backhanded racist bullshit. As soon as I told her my last name was Taton she had a total freakout—her plate hit the floor and broke into three large chunks; she stood up, red-faced, and for a minute I was actually afraid she’d hit me.
“You’re the daughter of that son of a bitch pig that lives upstairs! Cole, you just thought you’d leave that part out? You thought you’d leave out the part about her father harassing me, trying to call child welfare on me? What are you doing with this girl?” She turned to me and growled. “What are you, a little spy?”
Cole looked as shocked as I felt.
“Mom, stop it. Officer Taton has given us a lot of breaks.” He tried to stand in between us.
“GET OUT!” she screamed at me. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” She was standing on the couch, pointing at the door. “Don’t you ever come back here! Don’t you ever talk to my son again! You are a spy, aren’t you? Trying to seduce my son so you can find out if I’m clean or not. He sent you here to spy on me! Goddamn all of you straight to hell!”
It looked like she was about to pounce on me. Cole jumped up and held her around the waist shouting, “Mom! Mom!”
I didn’t wait around to find out what might happen next.
Fact:
A day on Mercury is fifty-nine times longer than a day on Earth.