Southwest

I grew up in a town in Georgia so small we didn't have a stoplight, just a four-way everyone agreed to. You could drive from one end to the other in eight minutes, twelve if you waved at everybody like you were supposed to.

A time before cell phones, before pagers, before anyone I knew had an answering machine. If you weren't home when someone called, they just called again later. Or they didn't. And life kept moving.

I was raised on well water, gas station biscuits, and stories told from front porches. Stories that didn't go anywhere, but still meant everything. The town smelled like diesel in the morning and pine in the afternoon. There were names on mailboxes that had been there longer than I'd been alive. Everybody knew who your people were before you said a word.

It wasn't a bad place. Just tight. A little too quiet. A little too sure of who you were supposed to be.

And me, I wasn't angry. I wasn't broken. I just needed more sky.

So one summer, I packed a duffel bag that didn't deserve the miles I gave it and pointed west. I didn't pack much. One bag. Mostly t-shirts. A couple books I wouldn't read. Half a bottle of aspirin. And a denim jacket that still smelled like a woman I didn't talk to anymore.

There wasn't a plan. Not really. I just knew I needed to leave for a while. And that west sounded right. I pulled the door closed, turned right, and didn't look back.

I hit Louisiana before the heat got unbearable. The whole state smelled like wet wood and fried something, and even at 9 a.m. the air clung to your skin like it had questions.

Everyone is foreign in Louisiana if you aren't from there. That's not a knock. It's just the nature of the place. There's a suspicion in the eyes of strangers. Not mean, but built-in. It predates the state, probably predates the language. Two divisions: from here or not.

I stopped for gas in a town I couldn't pronounce and got a plate of étouffée from a café with plastic tablecloths and a waitress whose accent didn't match her face. She called me cher without blinking. Her hands moved fast. Her eyes never left mine. Like she knew I wasn't staying, but wanted me to know I'd been seen.

That's the thing about Louisiana. It doesn't ask where you're going. It just reminds you where you aren't staying.

I drove out with the windows up and the radio off.

I hit San Antonio just before the sun got low. The light was gold and glassy, bouncing off windows, skipping across windshields like it had somewhere to be. I parked near the Riverwalk and wandered until I found a place that served margaritas in tumblers the size of flower pots. They came with too much salt and not enough lime, but the air was good and the view was better.

She was sitting two tables over. Said she was half Mexican. The other half she left quietly dangling, something I'm sure she thought sounded mysterious. There was something in her eyes that didn't match the rest of her. Not the mystery she tried for. More like a dare. She spoke in short sentences, laughed without smiling, and leaned back like nothing could touch her unless she let it.

We didn't dance around it. We drank too much. Said just enough. And ended the night the way nights soaked in margaritas usually do. More salt than sweetness. More sting than warmth. I'm still not sure which gave me the worse hangover, the drinks or her.

We said our goodbyes outside the motel, the air already heating up again. I asked if we'd see each other when I came back through.

"Sure," she said. We both recognized the lie.

The first few hours west of San Antonio were nothing. Just highway. Billboards for fireworks and Jesus and topless bars that all felt equally desperate. The road stretched so far it bent in the heat. Somewhere past Abilene, the landscape emptied out. The radio fuzzed. The sky got hard and white.

By the time I reached El Paso, I'd forgotten what I was supposed to be thinking about. That city doesn't greet you. It just receives you. Low and sunburnt and tired, it's been waiting longer than you have.

I found a taco stand that didn't bother with signage. The woman behind the counter had flour on her arms and eyes that didn't ask questions. Two tacos, wrapped tight in foil. The kind of food that doesn't wait to cool. I ate on the curb with my knees up, like I was thirteen again.

It's strange what opens in you when no one knows where you are.

The motel I found had a sun-bleached sign and a broken ice machine. The sheets were stiff. The air conditioner sounded like it was choking. I slept hard. Dreamless. I was back on the road before six. Nothing in my stomach but gas station coffee and a day-old honey bun. Didn't matter. I wasn't trying to be full. I was trying to stay awake.

Outside Las Cruces, the world widened like someone had scraped it clean. No fences. No noise. Just horizon. A kind of silence that doesn't need anything from you. You could scream out there and nothing would echo back. That felt like a kind of relief.

I rolled into Albuquerque around dusk. The whole city looked like it was waiting on something. The light settled low and wide. The buildings looked like they'd been there too long to care what came next.

I checked into a roadside inn where the clerk suggested in a not subtle way that cash was mandatory and ID was understood to be optional. It was the kind of place fluent in both hourly and daily rates. Hourly cost more, in cash and consequences.

I dropped my bag. Walked. The night air was warm but not heavy. The streets half-lit, half-forgotten.

I found a bar below street level, three steps down, red lights and a pool table with one good corner. That's where I met the two girls. They weren't from here. But they weren't going anywhere. They asked me where I was headed. I said west. They said they were too, but their map didn't need gas. The only trips they took were chemical. One had a chipped tooth and knew how to use it. The other quoted Rilke between drinks and lit cigarettes just to watch them burn down.

We talked until everything got slow. Shared a cab, shared a room, shared something that didn't want a name. For a night and a day after, we moved as one. Laughed. Wandered. Didn't ask anything of each other.

And then, like all good things I never planned on, it turned. The silence got longer. The cigarettes burned faster. I started hearing the highway in my head again. The road doesn't beg. It just waits.

I left before they woke. Didn't leave a note. Didn't look back. Some people are just waypoints. Beautiful in passing. Disastrous in permanence.

I didn't plan to stop in Phoenix. A tire went soft outside of town. Not a blowout, just a slow collapse that made the whole car lean left. I pulled into a gas station with a faded awning and a garage that looked half-abandoned but still open. Two guys in coveralls wandered out like they didn't expect much and were rarely wrong.

The fix was quick. Some bartering, a handshake, and a little help from the girl behind the counter. She flirted just enough to make me wonder. Not enough to make me try. By the time the sun dropped, I had a patched tire and no reason to keep going.

She offered me the couch. Said it like she'd said it before. The apartment was bare but clean. Second floor. One lamp. A couch with more history than comfort. She tossed me a blanket and popped a beer. We didn't talk much.

There was something in her voice that lived between invitation and distance. Like she wanted someone close, but not near. I'm sure I wasn't the first to visit. But I doubt anyone ever stayed.

Somewhere between the third drink and the second silence, I thought about kissing her. And maybe she thought about letting me. But her sharing never extended to the bed. That was clear. She said goodnight without softness. Turned off the lamp. Left me on the couch without apology.

When I woke, she was already gone. The coffee pot was half-full. A piece of toast on a napkin. No note. I sat for a while, finished the coffee, folded the blanket, and let myself out.

Two days later, the Pacific opened up in front of me like a slow breath. Wide, endless, quiet. I pulled off somewhere near Big Sur. Took off my shoes. Stood at the edge.

The ocean didn't greet me. Didn't cleanse me. It just moved. And that was enough.

I stayed until the sun slid into the water without ceremony. No music. No breakthrough. Just me, the wind, and a sky too big to understand.

And I realized, I hadn't come to find anything. I came to feel everything.

And I had. The suspicion. The stretch. The ache. The quiet that finds you when there's nothing left to prove.

I stayed until it was too dark to see the lines on the road. Then I got back in the car. Turned the engine over.

And kept driving.