The 99 Pontiac Bonneville floats through the desert, two headlights in a spring night. He no longer sees the Joshua trees, the rotting wood barns, the roadside crosses. A speckled pattern of stars is all that separates the endless black of the dessert and the open sky.
Ron Johnson (Ronald by birth, Ronnie through puberty and Ron at 21) shifts his weight in the driver's seat. Should have emptied his pockets before he got in.
He's 52, thinning hair, red-marked cheeks, a management position at Northwestern Mutual life and tonight of nights there's a woman half his age and half his type asleep in the seat beside him.
Cat Stevens plays softly on the stereo. They've been through Paul Simon, The Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Gordon Lightfoot (his selections) after Dave Mathews, John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Jewel, Blink, Ash (her selections).
They talked for the first few miles, not that he had much to talk about. Conversation weighed heavy in her favor. She was in school, worked as an administrative assistant, worried about things and things and things. His job was to offer reassuring phrases when she came up for air.
Na-na-na-na-na "it'll all work out" na-na-na-na-na "you'll figure it out" na-na-na-na-na "that will come with time."
The rest of the trip she slept, or read her women's magazines and giggled, blurting out, "I can't believe we're doing this! It's the craziest thing I've ever done."
Oh baby, baby it's a wild world…..
"I've got an idea," she's suddenly awake.
"I doubt that," he says. He smiles like a punk jock in a letterman's jacket and takes a "you meanie" slug in the arm.
He's 23, feels 23, could just as easily be 23.
"Let's stop and get some beef jerky, I haven't had beef jerky in years."
So they stop, she tears at the thick plastic wrapper with her teeth, giggling
and pointing at the tabloid magazines in racks under the counter.
"What happened to Demi Moore? She must not be working out."
He doesn't respond. She gets annoyed, turns her head away and gnaws harder at the jerky wrapper.
He signs for the gas, the bottled waters, the jackelope postcard she just "has to have", and against his will makes eye contact with the overweight woman behind the counter.
The nametag says Karma. Good Karma. Don't let her knotted hair and missing teeth fool you, she knows damn well what's going on.
Then her head like a cute kitten is snuggled against his chest. With testosterone instinct he brings her in tight, kisses her hair back to normal.
It can be normal, it has to be normal.
They're back in the car, on the road, his pockets are still full. In goes the Dixie Chicks. She claims she likes it. She sings along, wide open places, ugh spaces (giggle). She looks over at him expecting him to know the words. The sing-a-long goes for awhile, too long awhile. He changes the temperature to all mixtures of hot and cold, windows go up and down. Damn pockets full of stuff.
Her face snuggles against the seat. She mouths him kisses and smiles. Her soft hair is close by, he feels her breath raising the hairs on the side of his neck. Her fingers are there on his elbow, up the back of his arm. That's why he did this. See, that's why he did this.
"Just think," she says in a soft tone, "I thought my life was going nowhere. I had no boyfriend, no money. I had a crush on you forever (giggle) then something like this happens. I'm a lucky girl (a long sigh)."
"These things happen," he says smiling, staring ahead of the headlights to an endless night, "These things happen."
Now she's asleep again and he begins to whisper aloud to himself. He used
to always whisper when he wanted the whole world to hear.
"The reason these things happen is because every time these things happen
people just say 'these things happen' and that's why they happen."
He shifts his weight. The shift presses first the arrow up button and then the call button on a cell phone deep in his hip pocket. The cellphone calls the first number in its address book, home.
