Southwest (Pt 2)

(This is the second half of a two part series, finished by popular request)

I had visions of staying in California.
But it wasn’t to be.
Or maybe my dreams had more tenacity than my wallet.

I made the Golden Gate. Then staggered my way back down to LA, spent part of an evening lost in East LA before a kind policeman, or more likely didn’t want the paperwork, guided me back to the interstate and suggested I beat feet.
And I roared out of California as quietly as I arrived.

Back into the desert before I found Las Vegas.
I spent two nights in Las Vegas. One for fun, one for regret.
Both paid dividends.
But even at that age, I realized regret paid out much more easily than the slots, and Vegas was a trap that could easily pull a young man in and ruin.
I pried myself out of Vegas and headed to Denver.

Denver was too big.
It offered a night, but it rose out of the landscape like something alien.
Too vast and too intimidating after a few days of no-name towns.
I'd become familiar with the closeness, the slowing of time.
I slept a night in Denver in my car, and woke to a hard chill, shivering.
I cranked up the car to warm up but decided I'd warm faster leaving it in my rearview.
Maybe I could coax the sun into chasing me.

I must’ve been tired because it was an hour later I realized I wasn’t pointed east, but south.
But Santa Fe was as good a destination as any.
And I was tired of the interstate, so I wove myself through towns named in honor of people and words we’d long since scoured from the land.
A landscape we’d named after our own shame.
I got lost in it for a few days.

I stayed a couple of nights with an Apache woman. Or girl.
She couldn’t have been much older than me, but she came from a world so different it left me uneasy, like stepping onto ground that didn’t settle underfoot.
It wasn’t what I expected.
Didn’t fit into anything I knew.
Something older, quieter, and entirely itself.
It didn’t bend to match my understanding. It just existed, whether I grasped it or not.

She was kind but careful.
Her laughter was quick but fleeting, like it didn’t have permission to linger.
We didn’t speak the same language, not really.
She tried to teach me a few words, and I must have sounded ridiculous because she just smiled and shook her head.

Her family didn’t ask why I was there.
They just let me stay.
Shared meals. Sat around a fire that smoked more than it burned.
The stories they told weren’t for me.
They were for each other, to keep something alive that didn’t belong to anyone outside that circle.
I just listened.

And maybe it was a little bit love. Or maybe just my romantic side, softened by dust and stars.
Whatever it was, I know this,
If she’d asked me to stay, I might’ve.
But she didn’t.
And I didn’t.

When I left, we didn’t make promises.
I just nodded, thanked them in words they didn’t expect me to know, and got back on the road.
And the landscape swallowed me up like I’d never been there at all.

I passed through Amarillo, back into Texas, which I had no taste for again.
The heat clung to everything, thick and stubborn, trying to convince you to stay put.
But I’d had enough of Texas the first time around, and I wasn’t looking to feel trapped again.
So I kept moving, pushing north through small towns that looked half-abandoned, left out in the sun too long.
Diner signs faded to pastel ghosts.
Gas stations with pumps that clicked with a laziness that mirrored the pace of life.
Nothing settled here.
It just waited for something better to come through and forget to take it along.

I shot up into the nothingness of Oklahoma.
The landscape barely changed, just stretched out flatter and quieter, like the world was holding its breath.
Oklahoma didn’t greet me.
It didn’t even notice I’d arrived.

I spent a couple of nights in hotels that looked so tired, a tornado would be mercy.
Thin walls, bedsprings that screamed when you sat down, vending machines stocked with nothing but pretzels and flat soda.
The kind of places where you question your choices just by looking at the worn carpet and peeling wallpaper.
Paid in cash, left before checkout.
Nothing there felt like it wanted to be remembered, and I didn’t either.

I pushed north into Kansas. Landed in Salina. Rented a room for a couple of nights over a bar that never seemed to close.
The kind of place where conversations trailed off when you walked by, but no one looked twice as long as you minded your business.

People were friendly enough, nods in the hallway, the occasional offer of a smoke out back, but they didn’t really let you in.
Women came and went, too short for a real visit, too long for just a hello.
They moved through like they knew the place, like it was a stop they’d made before.

It just felt like surrender, like everyone there knew that was it, the end of the line.
The simple pleasures were all there was, even if they were bartered.
A drink, a cigarette, a few hours that didn’t ask for anything in return.
I didn’t ask questions, and no one asked mine.
That was the unspoken rule, keep to yourself, and you’d be left alone.

It couldn’t have turned into anything, not home, not even a pause.
There was something about it that bothered me, something that felt contagious, like if I lingered too long, I’d sink into that same resignation.
I fled more than left.
I wasn’t sure what unsettled me most, the place, the people, or maybe just the way they seemed resigned to it.
I wasn’t willing to find out what we had in common.

By dawn, I was already miles down the road, as if leaving fast enough could keep it from sticking to me.

I ran out of money in Little Rock.
And there’s no one that’s ever called Little Rock the center of opportunity.
It’s a place where you land when you’re not sure how you got there.
And when you’ve got a busted wallet and a half tank of gas, it doesn’t exactly open its arms and offer solutions.

But I had some skills and a few tools I could sell, so I spent the better part of a week not eating and saving up money for gas.
Fixed up a couple of things for folks who needed it—a porch with some busted steps, a rusted-out bike chain.
Replaced some spark plugs for a guy who didn’t know how, even though he pretended he did.
Little jobs that paid in crumpled bills and leftover sandwiches.
Enough to keep moving, barely.

One night, I ended up at a dive bar on the edge of town, shooting pool with a group that looked like they’d been there since the place opened.
Lost the little I had left that first night, mostly because I was too tired to play straight.
Next night, I went back with just enough money for one beer and shot better than I ever had before.
Won back what I’d lost, then doubled it, then tripled that.
Enough to fill the tank, eat something decent, and feel like I wasn’t one mistake away from walking.

It felt like the right time to leave. So I did.
Excused myself to go to the restroom, but I didn’t stop until I was halfway to Tennessee.
Figured it was better to disappear when I was ahead.
Sometimes a win is just an invitation to lose it all again if you stick around too long.

By the time I hit Tennessee, the road was starting to smell familiar.
Hints of pine and red clay, like the land was reminding me of places I hadn’t seen in too long.
I drove with the windows down, breathing it in.
I hadn’t made it home yet, but I could feel it somewhere just ahead, like a song you know by heart even when you haven’t heard it in years.

I had visions of Memphis that didn’t jangle right with the reality of what I found.
I’d pictured neon and brass, the hum of guitars spilling out onto Beale Street, something alive and aching in a way that made sense.
But the Memphis I found felt worn out.
The music was still there, sure, but it sounded like it was tired of playing itself.
Like a song that’s been on repeat so long it’s forgotten what it meant the first time around.

I drove down streets that felt like they were waiting for something better to come along.
Old brick buildings where the mortar looked like it was holding on out of sheer spite.
A diner with its windows fogged over, the kind of place that makes you feel like you’re intruding if you walk in without knowing anyone.
I didn’t. So I didn’t stop.

I parked along the river for a while, watched the Mississippi move slow and heavy.
That part felt right.
The water didn’t care whether it looked pretty or pulled at something in you.
It just moved, thick and steady, pushing south like it knew better than to stay.

I walked around a bit, trying to feel some kind of pull from the city, but it didn’t happen.
It wasn’t hostile. Just indifferent.
Like it had too many stories of its own to care about mine.
And maybe I didn’t feel like telling it anyway.

I didn’t stay long.
Memphis didn’t ask me to.
The reality didn’t fit the myth I’d built in my head.
I thought about finding some old juke joint, leaning on a bar with a beer in hand, but it felt like I’d be pretending to belong.
And I was tired of pretending.

So I left the city without a backward glance.
The road east stretched out in front of me, and I knew I was getting close to something.
Home, maybe.
Or the version of it I’d been hoping to find out there.
Either way, the car didn’t slow down.
And neither did I.

I dug lower, back into Alabama where the tea is sweet and the girls are deceptively sweeter.
Both have a way of hooking you.
But I was a young man, and wisdom is never wasted on youth, so I hopped around, having fun.
I bartered one night here, two there.
Sometimes a couch, sometimes a cheap room for a little handyman work.
A loose doorknob tightened. A busted hinge put right.
A screen door that finally closed the way it should.
Small fixes for small comforts.

There’s a softness to the place that makes it easy to lose track of time.
Music drifting through open windows, a voice or a guitar, sometimes both.
Girls with sun-baked hair and a way of looking at you like they already knew how you’d turn out, and it wasn’t bad enough to be a dealbreaker.
And the tea, thick with sugar, poured with a kind of pride that makes you feel guilty for not drinking two glasses.
They never warned you about how both could leave you spinning, even if you didn’t feel it right away.

But somewhere in the middle of that restless ease, I realized I was just delaying home.
Stretching out the last few miles because once I crossed that line, the road would stop.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

On the border of Georgia, I met my first woman.
Not my first girl, I’d met plenty of those along the way.
A woman.
Much older, with lines in her face that looked like they’d been set there by years that didn’t always treat her kindly.
She had a way of talking that made it sound like she was trying to convince herself more than me.
Half sentences. Hints.
Like she had thoughts too big to finish, but too tangled to leave alone.

She never looked me directly in the eyes when she spoke.
Always just past me, like whatever memories she was chasing were standing behind me, threatening her with happiness.
There was a palpable desperation to her.
Not loud, not obvious, but something you could feel in the way she moved, like she was afraid of breaking something fragile and couldn’t figure out if it was me or her.

It scared me in a way I couldn’t explain.
Maybe because it was the first time someone looked at me like I could be more than just passing through.
Like I could mean something.
And I wasn’t ready for that.
Not from her.
Not from anyone.

She made us something to eat, some kind of stew that tasted like it had been cooking for hours.
We sat on her porch while the sun settled low, her words drifting out like they weren’t meant to be heard.
Stories about when she was younger.
When she used to sing in a band that never made it out of the county.
When her husband left without saying why.
When her daughter took off to California and never called home again.

She laughed at one point, a quick, breathless sound that didn’t fit the rest of the story.
Then stopped, like she’d realized something she didn’t want to say out loud.
And I just listened, not sure whether I was comforting her or just being there when she couldn’t keep it in anymore.

That night, she offered me her bed.
I think she meant it in more ways than one.
But there was something in her eyes when she finally looked at me.
Something raw and unguarded that made me feel like I was intruding.
I took the couch instead, and she didn’t argue.
I heard her crying a little while later, but soft, almost like she was apologizing for it.

In the morning, she didn’t say much.
Just handed me a thermos of coffee and nodded when I thanked her.
I wasn’t sure what to say.
Part of me wanted to say sorry, but I didn’t know what for.
I just knew I didn’t belong there, not with someone who saw me as a way to fill the gaps left by years of being looked past.

When I pulled out of her driveway, she stayed on the porch, one hand gripping the railing like if she let go, she’d float away.
And as I drove off, I kept checking the mirror, half-expecting to see her still standing there, watching me go.
But I didn’t look back.
I just kept moving, letting the morning swallow the night behind me.

I arrived home as if nothing and everything had changed.
The roads I’d once memorized were still there, winding through the trees like they always had been.
Same cracked pavement, same mailbox leaning just a little to the left like it had been waiting for someone else to fix it.
The town hadn’t shifted an inch.
It was me that didn’t fit right anymore.

I slid back into the life I’d run from as if time had been paused in my absence.
Same front porch, same chair, same questions about the weather and when the rain might come.
Nobody asked where I’d been.
Nobody needed to.
They just nodded, said, “Well, look who’s back,” and handed me a beer or a chore or both.
Like I’d only been gone a weekend.

I tried, once or twice, to tell a story.
Started to talk about El Paso, or Salina, or the girl with the chipped tooth who quoted Rilke in a basement bar in Albuquerque.
But it never landed right.
They’d smile politely, nod like they were listening, and then change the subject to something closer, something familiar, who bought the old Miller place, whose dog had gone missing, whether the high school team had a shot this year.

It was strange, being back in the middle of everything I’d known and feeling more foreign than I ever had out west.
The silence wasn’t hostile, just indifferent.
Like the world here had never missed me, had never left a space open at the table.
As if I’d never left.
As if the stories I carried were postcards from a place no one believed existed.

At night, lying in the same bed I’d grown up in, everything felt smaller.
The ceiling lower.
The air thicker.
The dreams didn’t come as easy, and when they did, they were quieter, full of roads I wasn’t driving anymore and people whose names I still remembered but wouldn’t say again.

There was a comfort in being home.
But it was the kind that settles into your bones, not your heart.
A stillness, not a peace.

And I think I knew, even then, that I wouldn’t stay.
Not because I didn’t belong.
But because I’d been gone too long to fit back into the same shape I left behind.

Some nights, I’d find myself holding my car keys without remembering picking them up.
Feeling the weight of them in my hand, like they were asking me if I was ready to go.
I didn’t have an answer.
Sometimes I’d sit on the porch and stare at the road stretching out, wondering where it would take me if I let it.

I couldn’t say for sure whether I was waiting to feel settled or just waiting to leave again.
Maybe both.
Maybe neither.
The days passed without me deciding.
And the road stayed right there, like it always had been, daring me to pick a direction and move.