Jack is just driving. Jack is young, and all he can do is drive his fantasy.
Premium or un-leaded, the car will run today. Television camera dreams have always followed Jack, ghosts of paranoia. He cries, he cracks, and sprawls and laughs. Jack might be alone but there are dozens sprawled on Highway 482 passing through. Decayed animal smell pulls into the car and parks olfactory ecstasy. He can never decide to be turned on or revolted, desire’s fleeting. Jack likes seeing roadkill because there is nothing beyond what he sees besides something dead on the side of the road. The speed limit is 75 mph, and Jack’s driving 82 mph. When he was first learning to drive his mother would say, “just sit at 7 above and they’ll do nothing.” No police for miles. Jack never had reason to question 7 Above, done it his whole life, why would he. Long asphalt bounds in front of him, an occasional mirage tricks his eyes. There aren’t any voices coming from the horizon. Jack and warm leather seats and Thursday. Travelling southbound means warm weather and freedom.
After school you get a job. Handle your debts. Work in the family business. Start the song over again. Jack packed up everything about a month ago and has been driving since. In school his favorite teachers lectured about past glory, the decadence of the 60’s and 70’s coming together and making change. Teachers never touched on the dark side of the sunny years, they didn’t touch the nighttime of Jack’s today either, icons being turned over and prostituted for money. Jack grew to fabricate his own media, his lessons and experiences, dreams from the television camera and the white line fever highway. History dreams of no contact, Jack’s media and motor oil slap across the highway, a kicked tin can still driving south. Vibrations from his phone in the cup holder buzz off and on and off and on and on, shattering Jack’s present day. Selfish, he takes the phone and hurls it out the window. He grows angrier at himself, ruining his romantic absolute of roadkill and control.
Vibrations from his phone in the cup holder buzz off and on and off and on and on, shattering Jack’s present day. Selfish, he takes the phone and hurls it out the window. He grows angrier at himself, ruining his romantic absolute of roadkill and control.
Jack keeps mental catalogues of the types of businesses he passes. Old diners, supermarkets, motels, all in a running tally. His mind drifts through the countless people in and out of these places, the diner’s his favorite. Fresh bacon and easy eggs fried in the excess fat for a married couple. A bowl of cereal with skim milk and an omelet for a mother and daughter. A cup of black coffee and a T-bone steak for a hungover business man. These people, the diner, oasis, absolute. Attractive bottom lines and even better fantasy highway people, checking the vending machines every truck stop. Jack is trying hard to fall and meet the fantasy. Taking control of what he gives and gets, the business man doing the same thing, diner oasis. He’s been at the same booth, every morning, every Thursday. He is willing to order the same drinks Wednesday night and wake up blurred, puts on the same top 40 station from the diner jukebox, rubs his brow, and cures himself in caffeine and grease. Jack doesn’t see the whole cycle. Little glimpses to paint a whole picture, that’s all he gets to form a world outside of his own. Maybe the business man torched the diner and watched it burn from across the street. Maybe he never really liked his coffee black, or maybe the cook always left his steak a little too blue, luxury wrapped in a crash and burn. Yesterday was a good paying job drowning in polyester and fluorescent tans with a fantasy diner burning.
A truck stop is approaching on the right, signals and exits. The skin on the back of his leg is stuck by sweat on the seat. In the back of the pickup it’s all luggage, sorting through it to find a pair of jeans. Rather sweat through denim than stick to leather, skin on skin. Moving quickly, truck running, Jack goes into the empty bathrooms. During the change, he tiptoes between his sandals and shorts, refusing to let his bare feet touch the floor. Jack comes out and the weather turns from hot leather to rain dark skies. Nearly running out of the stop and into the truck, roll up the windows, tarp his luggage and peel out. The inside of the car is soaked and so is Jack. 7 above and steady. Slowly the rorschach sweat fades into the denim. Jack fog mixed with rain builds up but the windows stay rolled. Miles pass faster. Middle of the road is reasonable, Jack needs the space. The rain has faded out, Jack is saturated. He rolls down his window and new air floods his cab. A pair of white lights start rolling in from the opposite direction. Jack sees them and squints. He drifts back into his lane and feels the air impact of the passing car. The road clears and Jack stays in his lane. As the car passed, Jack caught a scent of dark sunglasses and box-cereal.
