And just like that, in the quiet, it was born. And in its birth, of course, was imprinted its demise, along with all of ours. Margie left us and it’s funny because as much as we complained about her and laughed about her when she wasn’t listening (and sometimes when she was), I’m actually sorry she’s gone. I’m not necessarily going to admit it to Milt or anyone else, though. Let me say something about Milt. Milt is kind of a cross between a bear and a pussy. I am absolutely, indefatigably, undeniably, undyingly in love with him. But he will never know! More on that later. Perhaps. I’m going to walk all day. Why? Because I can. Tin can, soda can, coffee can, oil can. We got everything in the junkyard. Every. Little. Thing. And some big things too. I got a whole machine shop, although most of the shit doesn’t work, of course. But hey, most shit out there doesn’t work, either, really. Statistically, it’s about the same—junk or not junk. Corn passes. Gravel to dirt. More corn. Dirt to mostly grass, and it goes downhill sharply, past the sunset. The old truck wobbles to a stop at the edge of a dark, thick stand of oaks. You get out. You get this eery feeling you’ve been here before, but with—less hair? Different clothes? A different—name? You look around for your companion, but he is gone. Where the road ends the path begins. Everything is not all right. Milt went to the bathroom and didn’t come back. Margie is in a bad mood, and if you know Margie, you know that’s a scary thing. I can’t stop bouncing my left knee up and down. The music sucks. Something’s really wrong but I can’t quite— The closest we’ve come so far was underneath a crumbling overpass in some gravelly weeds. The salt and pepper shakers were there, but cracked, empty, and long ago flood water had rusted the napkin holder into modern art. We waited. We waited a long time, and no-one came. We actually got up and left before getting any service. Everyone was really quiet that night. The truck seemed to drive itself by moonlight, and even Milt looked as if he was starting to wonder. The junkyard is about 24 miles square. Only it’s not really square. It’s kinda oblate, like an inflated douche bag, I don’t know. I don’t really know what a douche bag looks like; all the girls I’ve ever known with pussies they cared to show me were always too retro-classy to douche anything. I mean, come on. Just wash yourself every now and then; there’s no need to go sticking a bunch of flowers and shit up there. How you doin, there, babe? asks 1 in his most ingratiating. Yeah, I think, trust your instincts there, 1, and I wonder if that little rule of thumb still works if you’re an asshole. Probably— The truck wheeled around in the sun. Across the street, they were cleaning the losers out of the café. Then we left that scene behind, too. Did you ever just want to say simple things? Did you ever have a powerful, inarticulate desire to say, simply, I love you. I love you. I’m hungry. I want to go to sleep. I want to sleep for a long time. I want to wake up when I wake up, and then I want to pack away the campsite, and go on to somewhere else. I want to drive for a long time in the orange pickup truck with you, and you, and any of the rest of you all who still want to hang on. Let’s go. I love you all. Play some music. Let’s sing and pray. Let’s get down on our knees tonight and pray to the god of stiff hot cock. The radio comes on. A field of pumpkins pelts the periphery of vision. I get a monstrous urge to masturbate. Isn’t it ironic, Margie sez as we sit around the formica waiting. Here we are on a quest to find the place where there is no service, expecting service cuz we’re hungry and ready to eat. When we started, I’m trying to think, there were, as far as I remember, ten of us. Most of the time it was me, Milt, and Margie in the cab (Milt driving of course), and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 piled in various configurations in the bed. Orange paint from the seventies blinded the sun as we caterwauled down the first of many highways. Every highway has a soul, and every highway sign is an eyeball. We sang songs. We drank root beer floats half brandy. In those days, it didn’t seem so terrible to drive drunk, because almost nobody used the roads. Yeah, you might kill some corn if you careened off into the ditch. This one time, we went swimming in a low, slow river down below some sagging summer trees. I had nothing to change back into, so I borrowed some of his clothes. The cut-off jeans were too tight, and the t-shirt seemed almost obscenely personal against my nipples. I was extremely aware of the presence of him pressing all around me, by fabric proxy. I suspect he was clueless about my aroused chagrin. Nonsense! It’s a kind of prayer when she says it. Much as I have come to depend on the ingenuousness of Margie’s dumb comments, I’m glad she’s not here right now, so I can focus my full ears on this new, this other, this rocklike polished girl with no name. That’s what the one driving the truck said. And then he expired. Son of a bitch died, on my fucking tarp by the southwest rotten pumpkin field. How long those pumpkins have been rotting, I can not tell you, nor can any man. But how long that kid that was driving that orange truck has been dead? Oh—about five hours. Better go around there soon, if you want to see him. The crows and vultures aren’t going to wait forever. Nevermind the worms and smaller ideas even more sizzling and potent still. Yawn. I can’t believe he died. It makes me tired. I didn’t know him at all. He seemed like he was on drugs. Ha! That’s all I know about youth culture. “On drugs.” I’m sure that’s some kind of joke, you know, among the youth. You were considerably more upset about the kid than I was, and believe it or not, this time I didn’t even have the energy to retroactively act like I really was, after all. Upset. Anyhow, Milton Brockham Jameson France has a hairy paunch, a pagan beard, a thespian manner, and waaaaaaay too much time on his hands. He’s one of those guys who will never be in a beer commercial, unless it be one of those post-hip, celebrate-the-sub-par, grainy, black-and-white ones, but who nonetheless poses, to certain beings, of which I proffer myself as an epitomatic specimen, a distinct and peculiar sexual problem. More on that later. Put enough barbecue sauce on this shit, and it’s almost as good as eating a pile of shit! 2 declares. Why would you even want to go to such a place? Margie asks with a bitter face. I’m just saying. Could you, if you wanted to? Could you actually go someplace outside of Esriel’s Cafe? He drinks orange juice out of a small glass jar. I see his throat moving it on down. The bus will be here soon. Smoke and snow are on everything as I trudge. We order. Mostly everything is made of corn, but they do have sweet potato fries here, and a few slabs of slightly greenish roast beef. And nobody in the cafe paid any attention. What do you think most people actually think about all day? Milt asks. Something sacred, Margie replies at once. Me, I’m not so sure. I’m starting to suspect most people don’t think about anything much at all. But then again, maybe that’s what other people assume about me. Maybe they’re right. An oak tree hollers Goodbye as we streak invisibly past in the ancient orange truck in the antique night. Goodbye. We’ll keep going. But only because we’re slugs, and we have no choice. We hurry along, about .12 miles per hour, feel that wind. I said, feel that wind. Your car is about a jillion years old and I always know it’s you coming up the rut, not because I’m so attuned to the unique motor sound, but because you’re the only fucking idiot that ever comes up here. Did you ever wonder why I think you’re so fucking hot, and you’re so much better than me, and I’m so unworthy and all that shit, but if that were the case why’d you keep fucking coming around here year after year, you horny camp-ass bitch-whore slut? Yeah, that’s right. You’re just as pathetic as I am. And for some reason, that cheers me up as I light a fire under a rusted-out spatter-ware kettle I found under some dead guy’s floorboards about two months ago. Everything finds its way into the junkyard eventually. Trust me. Everything. Even you. Still pullin at that leash. Ha ha. What? Well, I was just going to say, just wait and see. But then that would kinda be simultaneously proving and subverting my own point, wouldn’t it? Sure, Milt. Sure it would. The girl behind him and to his left quashes her cigarette with a grimy black stiletto. Honey, she says through ghetto makeup. Honey. She rests one fair, slender hand on the crook of his arm. Yes, yes, Protein!, sing it out, say your little incantation before our humble repast. Hamburgers again. Sound familiar? I wonder what poor piece of shit animal these ones are made out of. Chew, chew, think and chew but mostly chew. Coffee? TV, right. Coffee? The corn-colored sun slants through a leaf umbrella. Afternoon drips down upon us. We talk and chew. I can see the longing in their eyes. The unanswerable curiosity. The simple confusion and bafflement, as they watch the worlds go by, so close, inches away, in slow motion, near enough almost to touch— I’m hungry for some cock. One cornfield looks a lot like another. I want to masturbate. The orange beast is silent under a cemetary tree. The other travellers are occupied, some asleep. I wander off. One corn row looks a lot like another. I find a place to press my buttocks into soft silt. Summer smells and the buzz of bugs accelerate as I slow down. My ears, my head, my heart. We all make compromises with the fatality of the sun, I think as I begin to stroke myself. I smell wet. Rainclouds, my eyelids; I settle into a rhythm. Protein!, hollers Milt, pounding ham fists, and the irony, if not lost, is at least fucked. The stereo played something black and pulsing, and the night roared silently on. And I know we will never again be able to go outside.