watching the weird fight scene & picking up pete It is some kind of contest, clearly, but we can’t tell if it’s a fight, or sexual, or both. It seems to move slower than a fight would move. Maybe some kind of ritual? Way out here in some random Texaco parking lot? Behind the combatants, or players, or lovers, the dark freeway is a steadily humming backdrop. Gas pumps and convenience store define stage left, and stage right is a scattering of cars, glowing in various shades of orange under the sodium lights. We’ve been traveling for as long as I can remember, but I can only remember a few days back at the moment, because of all the drugs. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But I have been smoking a lot of weed, and taking some pills now and then of an undetermined nature. Mel is good about that. She doesn’t ask dumb questions like why are you taking this, or why are your eyes red, or what did you do with my extra baggie of shrooms, you stupid fuck. Okay, that last one she did ask, but it just led to a fake cat-fight that led to some sweaty wrestling and serious teasing. The two men in the parking lot continue to struggle. They circle around for a little while. An eighteen wheeler pulls in over by the diesel pumps on the other side of the lot, and sits there grumbling, adding a halogen blue to the rusty glow. I’m only a little high, just buzzed enough to really sit back and enjoy the show. Mel’s thigh is pressing against mine in the front seat of the truck, and that is hypnotizing my whole lower body. Red lights swim one way and white lights the other in the picture-in-picture of the rear view mirror. The bigger man is definitely big, there’s no question about that. His shirt is tight with a snake-skin gleam. He is dark, sleek, big-muscled and boulder-headed. Menacing in a smiling sort of way. He looks like someone you’d want to be associated with, but not too closely, and definitely not someone you’d want as an enemy. I like the sound of that description, so I repeat it to Mel. You’re such a retard, she says. Shut up! I tell her. Mel accuses me of being turned on by the big guy, which is ludicrous but true. I’m not, I mean, I’m not like. I don’t know, It’s not like, I mean, I’m just. Whatever. Shut up! I say again, with too much emphasis on the “up.” The smaller man is wiry. He looks like someone who is older than he looks but can still move around like somebody who is younger than they look. He has stubble and a receding hairline halfheartedly de-emphasized by a homemade buzz cut. His main strategy seems to be to get in under the bigger man’s torso and bob around, to which the bigger man’s response seems to be a kind of good-natured scorn. It seems like they’re about to touch, like the big guy is just about to pin the smaller guy down on the weedy asphalt, but just then the door to the gas station opens, and four more men stream out into the ruddy light. One of them has a pack of cigarettes and is whanging it against his palm, WHAM, WHAM, WHAM. Let’s go! one of them says and What the fuck you doing? asks another, and the big guy, our big splendid actor, seems like he’s being yanked out of one play and into another. Man, what the, you gotta be, shit, and other musical expressions of disbelief and ribbing fall around the big man’s muscles as he ditches the wiry white guy and falls back in with his companions. They get into a big old American car and slam the doors. There’s a low growl as they disappear back into to the world of the highway. No river is the same river twice, or all’s well that ends well, or something like that, Mel says, but there’s no time for philosophy, because the wiry old/young guy is coming toward us? Wait, no. Yes. What—why? I don’t particularly want to admit that I don’t particularly want to open the window, so I just don’t say anything, but of course Mel doesn’t need me to admit it and she doesn’t need me to open it either because she’s in the driver’s seat and has the buttons over there. She opens the window and says something, I don’t even know what, something sweet and dangerous the way only Mel can, and, OK, yeah, it looks like we are letting this guy get into the truck. Right, OK. Lacking any contextually appropriate way to object, I slide over onto the hump seat and let the guy get up in the cab next to me. Okay. Okay. At least I’m closer to Mel now. This is weirder than our usual nights, but that’s okay. I think. I’m pretty fucked up. Yeah, fuck. Why not? He is saying what his name is but he has to say it again, because Mel is starting up the V8. Pete. talking about college while pulling into town I quit school almost exactly a year ago, I realize, staring at pumpkins on porch steps and puffed-up cartoon spiders in clingy webs strung up in the oaks and maples of this town’s front yards. I’m almost but not quite getting sick of these anonymous little main drags, all so similar and all so different. There’s an enormous bag of candy corn on my lap, and each time Mel or Pete reaches in to grab a handful, they act like they don’t know that their fingers are inches away from my crotch. Pete wants to know why I quit school. I can’t really think of a convincing answer. It was too easy? No, I just. I don’t know. I guess it just wasn’t a good fit. You know for my. Whatever. For my personality. Or something. Oh yeah? You were too good for all that phony academic stuff? His grin is not as cruel as it could be. Well, what about you? I ask, getting brave. Pete’s wiriness, his rough face, his smell of smoke and outdoors, are all still intimidating to me, but I guess you can only be intimidated for so long by somebody who has spent hours mashed up against your thigh eating candy corn out of your lap. Did you ever go to college? Pete just looks at me for a while, while Mel drives slowly past a church with a sign out front that says *Tired of being a loser; turn to God.* Finally, he just says, No kid. No I never went to college. The silence inside the cab of the truck is underlined by the low sound of the engine, the white noise of the heater. Outside it starts to snow. Mel almost starts to say something. There’s a red light up ahead. The snowflakes get big, smashing themselves on the windshield. I should have though, Pete says. Mel flicks the lever, the wipers go schlup-schlup, and the windshield is streaked with distortion. Everything’s coming fast. Brake lights, gas stations, a little market, someone’s turn signal ahead of us, everything begins to glow in carnival hues. Yeah. I should have gone to college. I would have had a great time. For a moment, I know this can’t go on forever. There can’t always be restaurants, and truck stops, and endless highways. It has to end. I may be a dropout, but I’m not stupid. My heart hurts more than anything right now. I almost feels plausible that I could stay here, riding along between these two burned-out weirdos for the rest of my life. At the same time I’ve never had a clearer sense of the end of it all. There’s another church on the right, slowly passing by, an older one, with spindly spires and ornate windows. There’s no cutesy billboard, but beyond the silhouettes of the graveyard, the sun sets like a stop sign saying Stop! Stop! Go back! Stop! getting high in the bathroom We stop at an exit ramp on the westbound side of whatever highway we’re on at the moment. There’s a cluster of the usual gas stations and fast food. One thing I can think of that would really equalize this situation, and that’s if I felt more like a lion and less like a bunny. So while they’re in the store getting snacks and paying for the gas, I go around back to the grubby restroom, make sure the door’s locked, and fiddle around with the plastic baggie in my breast pocket. I roll a lumpy joint, lean back on the toilet seat, and hiss the green into my lungs. The fluorescent light above the greasy mirror starts to buzz louder. Graffiti starts to mean something. I start to get a really nice hard-on, thinking about Mel’s teeth when she smiles, and Pete’s rough neck when he turns his head to listen to her. That act, the pushing out and taking in of words, is erotic, and I can’t wait to watch and listen to them do it some more. But first, another hit. Mel and Pete are acting like they’ve known each other for years. Something about it seems fake or wrong, but I can’t resist it. Since I can’t literally drink it in, this weird energy between the two of them, can’t gulp it down and hold it in my guts, I suck hard on the joint instead while my head goes boom, boom, boom and my heart thinks too much about everything. One more hit and then that should be fine for a while. The butt goes down the tubes like a tiny turd, and I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror. I look okay. The doorknob pings as the lock unlocks, and I go outside into the sunlight, like coming out of a budget movie matinee. The sunlight is a three-dimensional transparent paint blob suffusing everything with nostalgia. The truck, grumbling by the gas pump, orange and dilapidated, looks as comforting as a fried-chicken dinner in a cozy kitchen. I waft towards it, gratitude working my muscles and bones. They’re already in there, bitching and laughing like a married couple. Packages of candy and chips crinkle with the power of satisfaction, giant sodas jut out of the cup holders. Hey kid, Pete says as he ambles out of the way so I can climb up into the bitch seat. Since when did I become a kid? Mel smiles right at me, feels like for the first time all day. She has been kind of working around me like you would a map or a box of kleenex — something you don’t want to get rid of, but when you don’t need it it’s kind of in the way. There’s only so much room in the cab of a pickup truck well on its way to being an antique. She navigates out of the parking lot and once again, the anonymity of the highway picks up speed, accelerates backwards, vanishes on either side of us forever. the cocksucking scene in the motel (needs an ending) My stomach’s already twisted like a fucked up mackerel because they left me here in the motel room while they went somewhere and they wouldn’t tell me where. Finally I hear them laughing like parents on the conrete steps outside. As the door swings open, it’s all keys jingling, lipstick and teeth showing, leather creaking, perfume, leaning on each other and more laughing. The TV pales next to the barrage of their entry. Pete grabs Mel’s purse and tosses it onto the chair by the little table. Some of her change and loose purse junk flies out and rattles against the AC box under the window. There’s also the unmistakeable flash of a thick wad of cash. It looks criminal. Mel laughs again, even louder. Pete’s coarse, knobby hand grips her elbow, hard. She wobbles as they go past my bed to the other one. A fresh swirl of perfume, mint gum, leather jacket, and alcohol engulfs my senses. They do a messy pirouette, and fall onto the bed, him on top. Oho no you don’t! Her voice gets suddenly deep, her mouth turned down with the pleasure of forcing herself to stop laughing and sound serious. She pushes at his chest with both arms. Her loose black sleeves fall back and I can see her sleek, white muscles straining against him. She grunts, and they roll over together so that she’s on top. She grabs both of his wrists. He’s wearing a chunky gold watch I’ve never noticed before. She leans back with all her weight, and he lets himself be pulled to his feet. It’s as if they notice me for the first time. The way Mel stares at me, with a cool hatred wrapped in warm affection — it’s the most thrilling thing anybody’s face has ever done to me. You know what, she says to Pete, gaze still locked on me, you deserve a little special treatment. She tugs at him, and together they move across the gap between the beds. Mouth dry, I look up at them. Sit up, Mel says, and I obey. Undo his belt, Mel says. I obey. Now his jeans, Mel says. Pete’s standing there looking kind of amused, one hand, the one with the watch, on his hip. His jeans are stiff and loose. They come down around his knees without much tugging. Now his boxers, Mel commands. A strain has entered her voice, a constriction of the throat. A tendon on her neck stands out. Mel puts her hand against his ass, and pushes him toward my face. It’s musky, it’s been a while since our last truck-stop shower. It’s sweaty and funky, almost a mushroom smell. What are you waiting for? Mel demands. I think you owe this man a little something. Her eyes flick for just an instant toward the lump of cash on the floor. make this into the morning after the cocksucking scene Okay, Pete, where do you want to go next? Shit I don’t know. Just, fuck, I don’t know, away from here. And so we go. On the way out of that anonymous town, our headlights slash across a roadside park with a sagging merry-go-round under a cumulonimbus willow tree. It’s dark but light under there, as if it’s lit by only fireflies. Watching it slide out of view as we head back up the frontage road and get on the freeway ramp, I get this really sad feeling, I don’t know why. Somebody must have gone there all the time when they were a kid, when they were little and safe and had parents, and they didn’t know how much everything was eventually going to suck, and they went around and around on that merry-go-round, and the spinning feeling was enough. And everything didn’t smell like diesel and have crude shit written on it in the fake light, and they weren’t grown up and didn’t have to know everything and do everything, and somebody still cared. But that was a long time ago, and now car after car after car swept on past, through the night, and now we’re just another one of those cars. And so we roll on into the next day, an endless scroll punctuated by radio signals and more gas stations, potato chips and smoke-breathing factories on the horizon, a billboard, a stricken tree, a muddy creek. I don’t know where we’re going, Mel doesn’t know, Pete apparently doesn’t care. At least I’m sitting next to Mel. She’s talking more to him than me, and that makes me mad and hot, but I’m pressed up against her and there’s pretty much nowhere she can go right now because she’s driving, and I’m thankful for that. I think maybe I love her.