Beep beep beep.
He’d just closed his eyes! Brad fumbled for the clock in the dark; its extra large numbers still just a blur to his unaided vision. He had gotten the clock years before, precisely because it was the only one that had a huge display and an alarm that would not turn itself off after 30 seconds. No, this was a man’s alarm, and there in the alarm clock aisle of Best Buy, amid the cacophony of all the demo units, Brad had chosen this to be his rooster. It had lost some luster since then. After he got it home, he learned that it would sometimes not feel like ringing, unless he held the alarm set button in several times. The large display also cast a red diffuse glow over his face while he slept and for a time his dreams were haunted by red UFO’s, red pumpkins, and red faced teachers, all glowing glaring at him. He was used to it now, its neurotic features complimenting his own. First on his out-the-door checklist was “turn off alarm” so as to save his parents’ sanity. On the trip, he would use a wimpy travel alarm, backed up by another, wimpier one set five minutes later.
Brad jumped into the shower, but the slumber in his soul wouldn’t get out. He only gave himself a count to fifteen before getting out and wearily wiping the fog off the mirror. He debated wearing glasses all day but then thought about the horror of meeting a beautiful someone somewhere on the road and looking subpar. Brad hated his glasses. They made him feel like a stereotypically geek Chinese. When he wore them (when his contacts were being bad), he felt the need to wear ripped T-shirts with obscure Canadian bands and frayed pants. His parents hated it when he wore damaged clothing.
Today’s clothing would be khakis (Brad hated traveling in jeans) and his lucky blue shirt. He took them off the desk where he’d left them the night before and pulled them on. He went down the stairs, noting how quickly the sun was rising. He was only 10 minutes behind schedule. Bags in hand, he jammed his feet in his tennis shoes and stamped up and down.
“You’re not leaving without breakfast, are you?” Mrs. Gong said from the kitchen.
“No time, Mom! Gotta beat rush hour traffic through Chicago!”
She came out into the hallway with a plate of pancakes.
“How about I pack them? You can take them with you and eat them in the car.”
Brad imagined swerving through I94 traffic, a syrup-laden pancake in hand.
“Mom, I’m OK. I’m late already.”
“You’re going to want this later. You’re going to get hungry and-”
“Mom, please, I can’t be late to this funeral.”
At the F word, Mrs. Gong put her arms down. She went back into the kitchen and got a thermos and put the chocolate milk she’d made inside. Brad gripped the thermos under one arm, and took garment bag and duffel in hand.
In the garage, he loaded the car while his mother looked on from the back door. He had his CD case in the passenger seat, cell phone plugged into the car charger, and his snack bag in back on the right side, for easy access. The thermos he tried placed in the cupholder, before realizing how futile the attempt was. He was about to snap a picture of the odometer, but his mother hadn’t left the doorway yet. In fact, she padded out to the side of the car. Brad fumbled for the window down button.
“Be careful, son. And give the Donovans this card from your father and I.”
“Uh Mom, there are no Donovans. This is all an elaborate plot to get out of the house,” almost came to the surface before Brad fought it back. Instead he said, “I will, Mom. See you on the 5th.”
The first ninety miles flew by in a familiar going-to-Chicago blur, although it was nice having the road to his lonesome. The first CD (Pete Yorn’s musicforthemorningafter) lasted Brad three quarters of the way down. He took advantage of the light traffic and well-worn route to compose his first entry in the travel journal for his parents.
Callie did not run out of the truck stop. She watched as the waitress came to her table.
“Growing roots, honey?” Esmerelda Jackson, bored of the regulars in back, said to the girl alone in the booth, who had brown hair covering her face, obscuring her features. “You’ve been here for hours. Boy stand you up?”
“No, I am just early. I will pay my bill now,” Callie said. She had hoped that the waitress wouldn’t pay her much attention, but evidently Callie hadn’t been as plain as she had thought. Esmerelda shuffled away, coffee pot in hand. Her nametag was faded in the middle from years of a thumb pressed on it while she pinned it to her uniform. When Callie saw that the woman was turned away, she opened her backpack and took one of the thirty notebooks out. She opened it to the back, found a clean page and ripped out a rectangular section. She wrote “$20” on four corners and squiggled a face in the middle with a pen that had a scratchy icon of a feather on the body.
She did not run out of the truck stop; she walked briskly out the door, backpack over both shoulders and head high. She turned at the floor to ceiling window outside and watched Esm-elda approach the table, check in hand. The waitress reached down and slipped the paper onto the tiny black tray as Callie thought, “Green, seal, uh, BG…536…702…60…A” hard at the woman’s head. Esmerelda blinked rapidly, as if she’d stood up too quickly and had head rush. Then the waitress walked back to the register.
Callie sat down behind a planter. She wanted to put her head down and go to sleep. That had been way too much information. No one looks at serial numbers on bills. She was just used to a different attitude towards currency. She put on a purple beret that had seen better days and pulled her thin black coat around her body, even though it was a warm morning. Before closing up her backpack, she allowed herself a brief glimpse of the thing she’d come all this way to retrieve. Then she got up and began walking down the highway. She was waiting for someone who had not yet stood her up.
“Cuz I’m free! Free fallin’!” Brad sang with the windows rolled down. He had gotten up too early and now he was tired. He shook his left foot, which wasn’t used to not having anything to do, as his Jetta was manual. He was trying to save his CD’s for the long stretches through highway that had only country stations and so he had turned on the radio.
Brad reached into the snack bag and pulled out a breakfast bar. He unwrapped it with his teeth and one hand and ate it in two bites, concentrating on chewing. His eyelids were so heavy. He cupped a hand outside the window to divert some fresh air into the car, which already had its vents on full. If this was how bad he was now, how would he be after lunch?
At the thought of lunch, the junk food in his stomach (three breakfast bars, a Sprite, and miscellaneous hard candies) began to shrink in on itself, worried about the inclusion of anything healthy and hearty into their territory.
Callie fingered a piece of paper nervously. She looked on the horizon, scrutinizing each shape as it rose up and then sped towards her spot on the highway. She was still recovering energy from the stunt with the waitress. But she needed just a little bit more.
She knelt and rummaged around in her backpack. She brushed aside the notebooks, past the precious bronze, and found some rice cakes. She picked one out and then opened a water bottle. It was one of those trendy plastic clear ones, but she had taped the outside with duct tape. Nevertheless, from cracks between the tape layers came a dim yellow glow. Callie looked around to see if anyone was watching. The coast was clear. She unscrewed the cap and quickly poured out a shining drop of water onto the rice cake and popped it in her mouth. It would hold her for another hour. She recapped the bottle hurriedly and checked to make sure none had leaked. It would not do to leave evidence around. Then she sat back down next to the bag and renewed her watch on the road.
In the eye of her mind, she kept broadcasting one thought: an image of herself, with just a tiny little embellishment. If she were not so tired, she would be refining the vision. More importantly, she would choose her targets more carefully. But that would take more vigilance than her splitting headache allowed. Instead she yelled out her message to any and all in the area, with new strength from the cake and ambrosia. Power versus finesse.
Two miles after the cop and Bluto incident and Brad was feeling hungry. During the interesting driving bit, his attention had wandered away from his stomach but now that that was over, it would not stop gurgling.
“Rumble, why don’t you! Be a manly stomach!” he said. He had passed the line of being embarrassed about talking out loud to himself back in Lafayette.
A passing road sign noted that there was food, gas and lodging at the next exit and warned that if one were to be so foolish as to pass this one up, there wouldn’t be another for 17 miles. The logos on the sign beckoned. Shoneys. Burger King. Iron Skillet.
Brad chose Iron Skillet, for its resemblance to the name “Iron Chef.” He took the exit and started looking for the way to the restaurant. Helpful arrows and relative mile markers gave too much information. He navigated by realizing that all turnoffs, all truckstops are the same. But he was wrong. He found himself on the frontage road leading back to the highway.
“Piss,” he pouted and his stomach echoed the sentiments. “Piss?” questioned his bladder. Brad was looking for a safe place to U turn when he lost sight of the road.
Girl. She was in front of the truck, no, she was closer, she was in front of his eye and she was glowing (blue) there was light streaming into the windshield,
He shook his head. The road was back, a regular, ten o’clock Indiana road, but there was a girl on the side of the road, getting up from the gravel.
“I don’t have to tell you not to pick up any hitchhikers,” his dad said in his head but he was already pulled over next to the pale figure and he was rolling his window down to talk to her.
“Do you need help?” Brad asked as the girl tried to say, “Oh there you are.” He tried again. “Do you need help?”
“Are you the Bard?”
“I’m Brad. I just, uh, saw you and you looked like you needed help.”
She closed her eyes, as if checking his words against a prewritten script. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Brad.”
Again the check. He unlocked the doors.
“I’m Callie,” the girl said as Esmerelda Jackson came thundering from Iron Skillet’s door. “Hey you! Hey! Get back here!” and from the highway came a black Toyota Tercel. Brad watched in stuck-at-the-doctor time as Bluto barreled through a red light. Honks from traffic on both sides exploded in the air. Behind him were two squad cars, sirens blaring. Callie slammed the door and said, “We should go.”
Brad applied foot to gas and opened mighty valves within the V6. The car spun its right wheels and kicked up spouts of gravel as the left side gained purchase and swung the vehicle into motion. Brad corrected the angle and they sped down the onramp, merging and joining the rest of the cars, south to Tennessee.