Johann suggested he start writing a journal, advice Russell took and practiced daily for a few months. When he read back over everything he’d written, he was depressed by the banality of it all. It was then he decided to hit the road. Things needed shaking up, and he couldn’t think of a better way to do that than by packing up and leaving town. He had always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean, so that was something he could accomplish. If nothing else, his journal entries would certainly become more interesting.
Russell quit his job, gave notice to his landlord, and sold everything he couldn’t carry with him. While he waited for his final paycheck he took long walks around the city, trying to work up a properly adventuresome spirit. The best he could muster was a combination of exhilaration and trepidation. It was on one of these expeditions that he ran into Gloria. He was happy to go along with her idea to leave town together, not only because it saved him money on a bus ticket, but because he thought it would do him some good to leave on friendly terms with her. The plan was for him to drive through the night while she slept; then she could take over and continue on fresh in the morning.
Yesterday he stuffed his belongings into his backpack and went to see Johann one last time. There he was presented with an ornate walking stick that Johann had made for his journey. The top was carved into an over-large acorn, supported by the tails of four grinning squirrels. Oak-leaf scrollwork twined down to a thick bronze tip. It was an accomplished work, and Russell gratefully accepted the gift. He took his first walk with it when he hiked over to Gloria’s with his backpack. They had dinner together, then got on the road. She fell asleep around midnight, shortly after they crossed into Indiana. He’d driven almost the entire length of the state and was nearing the southern curve of Lake Michigan, the place where he had grown up that now seemed so foreign.
He was laying rubber across land once covered by glaciers, and marked by prehistoric tribes with their mysterious mounds. Trappers had tramped with the Potawatami until both were displaced by garrisons of soldiers who built forts and trading posts to supply westward wagon trains. Towns slowly accreted on what they called the portal to the prairie, and with the railroad came more schemes and scams, successes and failures, loves and losses. His own people, drifting in from all over, decided to make a go of it here, at least for a while. He wished he knew their stories, but all his relations were scattered and distant. He could imagine them, though: plainspoken folks in their kitchens, their perfect flaws intimately warping the space around them.
Gloria snorted and snapped her eyes open. “Where are we?” she asked with a yawn. She sat up and ran her hand through her tangled hair.
“Just about twenty miles away or so.”
She cleared her throat and fished a fresh pack of cigarettes from her purse. Last he knew, she had quit smoking. He smiled to see her light up with the Zippo that he’d given to her. She lazily exhaled out the window. The silence wearied him.
“Over there used to be a barn,” he started, indicating a field to the right. “The Party Barn. All through high school we’d go out there and get drunk and stuff. Nobody owned the place; it was just abandoned property. But a couple years ago some kids were partying a little too heartily and burned it down.”
She recoiled at the thought of a party barn, at the notion of cheap booze and sweaty teenagers. He rambled on, oblivious to her displeasure.
“A neighbor of mine, kid I grew up with, got killed on these tracks coming up. Train dragged him, like, a quarter mile or so before it stopped. Sixteen years old and wham—”
He snapped his fingers, then read the look in her eyes and shut up. She snuffed her cigarette, then took out a compact and primped a bit. They entered Door Prairie.
About thirty thousand souls dwelled in this county seat that had thrived during the heady days of the Rust Belt and had declined along with it. Some manufacturing remained, most famously production of the meat slicer found in delicatessens across the country, but lately the town council had begun to focus on revitalizing the languishing tourist economy. Back in the Jazz Age it had been one of Chicagoland’s bucolic retreats, and the plan was to resell it as such.
He drove along the old Lincoln Highway that served as the main street. A downtown beautification project was underway around the monumental courthouse towering over modest buildings of brick and stone. Groups of migrant workers stood around in parking lots, either waiting for a ride or seeking a job in the fields. Every spring waves of wandering farmhands came through, most from Mexico. Two of the friends he was here to see, Carmela Contreras and Manny Fuegas, were part of the resident Hispanic population, as was the current mayor.
While they waited at a red light, he offered to buy her breakfast. She accepted with thanks. Somehow he liked her better when he could do something for her. He felt an echo of the satisfaction that had filled him in their early days, when it was clear he was providing her with something she needed. They drove to a restaurant where the hospital he’d been born in had once stood.
He ordered up a mess of protein; she asked for fruit and oatmeal. After testing her coffee with a sip, she excused herself and left the table. Forms of cars glided across the shaded windows. A man in a business suit read a newspaper at the counter. An elderly couple ate wordlessly in the next booth. The decor relied on neutral colors, brass rails, and hanging baskets of silk plants. He peered through the rough weave of the shade. For the first time he felt wobbly facing his future, acknowledging the range of things he could do and places he could go. The air conditioning felt good. It was going to be a hot day.
She slid back into the booth and smoothed her hair. He watched her bony wrist as she stirred an ice cube into her coffee. Her dull nails were chewed and ragged. The whirlpool in her cup absorbed her black eyes. With her face turned down in the warm morning light, she looked like a stranger to him. And she was. For all her foibles and follies he could enumerate, all her preferences and moods he knew so well, he realized as they sat together in this restaurant that she was more mysterious to him now than when they first met. He knew that he might never see her again.
She was trying to calculate how far her US dollars would stretch in Canada.
“When are you going back to Cincinnati?” he asked, because he felt he had to say something. She stopped stirring and sipped her coffee.
“Over Labor Day. Why?”
He shrugged. “Curious.”
“Where do you think you’ll be?” she asked while glancing out the window.
“I don’t know.” He raised his brow and shook his head. “California, I’m guessing. I’m going to stay here awhile, look up some friends.”
Their food arrived. She asked for skim milk to add to her coffee. He caught sight of a familiar face behind the counter. The cook was someone he knew, but the name escaped him. He turned his attention to his omelet. The old folks finished their meal and shuffled off. Gloria and Russell ate in silence. He wolfed down his eggs and was attacking his toast when she asked him for directions.
“You can get out of town on this road here. It’ll take you to 94 north into Michigan. Got me from there. Do you have an atlas? I’ve got a pocket one you can have.”
She bit a piece of cantaloupe before answering. “No, there’s one in the car. So this goes straight to the highway?”
“Yeah, it’s about ten miles. Maybe more. Less than twenty.” He paused and set his toast aside. “Listen, I want to thank you for getting me up here, even though it was out of your way.”
With a dismissive wave she said, “That’s OK. I’m happy to help you out. Besides, it’s shorter for me to drive from here