outpost of the empire
you know the interstate it's on. yours. every 20 miles or so in the no man's land between bigger burgs, on the flats, after the overpass, you can see the gas station/truck stop bruises on a flat black sky. you haven't noticed any stars, just headlights blasted in a string of burning pearls across your retinas. it's time to stop.
he asked her before she left him at the wafflehouse on exit 161 if she had his camels. she smokes lights. she didn't even look in her jacket, just told him, yeah, i put them in your backpack. now here he is in front of the radiant after an hour of sitting next to a chemo therapy victim and her bald head and her talk of wellness. he needs a smoke, badly. those kind of women made him want to slap a wall, or tape their mouths shut. like his seventh grade principal, who cooed over him after he'd smashed his fist into the steel meesh enforced window of her office, asking what's the problem- they couldn't see it was always them. the contents of his backpack lay at his feet. no cigarettes. he lays back on the sidewalk in a gesture of defeat. closes his eyes and began his anger management techniques. he's just getting the visualization of the boxing ring, where's he's pummeling troy akin's head into red broccoli, when he hears a far away voice ask him if he's alright. he opens his eyes and faces the ugliest nurses's shoes he's ever seen. held together with yellow duck tape. "you look like you could use a smoke". he looks up to see his saviour-a middle aged man with three days beard, salt and pepper wispy hunks of hair in five layers of clothes. the man drops a half burnt butt on the ground next to him, then walks away. gotta light? the boy shouts at the retreating back. the man turns around and tosses him a book of matches. he strikes one, lights the butt, inhales and tosses it back. thanks, he says. the old man nods, stops as if to say something, but shakes his head and disappears around the corner.
she drives the bridge at sunset, over windcapped water. there are pterodactyl memories in the car . it's not the same car. she places another face beside them. along the bay beads of light emerge in the dusk. she wants a particular bird to go with the peach and plum sky. if he drives any bridge at all, it's the golden gate.she sees wings unfurl, and unfurl to the right, pulls over to the slow lane to let faster traffic get there. the faces overlap, exchange places with every beat. blue and blonde, brown and curley. his lashes make her gasp. the slide is exactly how she remembers it: curves, muscles arced, orgasm blown out of the last neon in the sky. she loves how they surf on thin air.
all the truckstops are owned by indians now. it's a hiss in his ear. he turns toward the window, hoping to avoid conversation. but it follows him like a lost three year old. did you notice how they don't carry bread? //i remember when that one used to be the best place to buy cigarettes on this route.// goddamn greedy bastards, taking jobs away from real americans.// the blonde blue eyed ones?// no baby! me! i ain't had a job since they evacuated us back in september.// finally he's interested. someone from the flood zone. he opens his eyes and looks around for the speaker. sees a black man with dreadlocks and suspects this is the man //hey did you get any FEMA?// laughs all around.
we ascend the hightest point around.
there are cables like sails on the arc
over the bay. i take a toke right before
the top then hand it to you. i want us both
to have smoke in our lungs at the apex
i say nothing of this to you.
water and sky are both distant-
i can't see land. birds and boats
are the same sizes.sometimes when we come
over a certain curve i fantasize
driving straight into the guardrail
calculate the speed it would take to go through
and the distance of the final flight.
this is not that curve. instead
i take your hand,we exhale
together become icarus' sun.
at the waffle house, she's standing on the curb with her bags. a silver saturn whips
in to the parking space beside her. a woman gets out, drops her wallet"shit". picks it up and "what's the name of this shithole?" deb is startled at the obscenities in close succession. no one talks like that in the waffle house where she has dish duties from 530 to 10. she's usually not here in the dark. she wonders if this how they all talk at night. even the greyhound passengers who only have 30 minutes to get breakfast aren't so ...nasty. she remembers her church sister karla telling her that women from the big city are too bold. she always wanted to know in what way but karla would only go on about her husband running off to the city with a stranger, more's the better for her and "...deaf or something? i asked what's this place called?" deb does her best to struggle back to the present "waffle house"
she says, and giggles. "goddamn smart ass retard" the woman, who maybe is young- deb can't tell because she has gray hair but it's long and women over 35 cut their hair, especially if there's gray in it,that's what karla told her when she reached forty last year and took her betty's bow peep at the mall to have hers, deb's, hair cut and styled for the first time since her sister died five years ago-huffs and stomps off to the radiant next door. deb isn't insulted by the retard lable. she knows she's mentally challenged, that's what sissy called it but she knows there's many names for her "condition" . she likes the word "condition" because it makes her feel special to know such a big word belongs to her. "condition, condition, condition" she whispers to the bags sitting next to her on the curb. she's waiting for karla to meet her. they're going to the city to look for karla's husband. karla promised to bring deb because deb gave karla this month's social security check for the trip. the maybe -young woman with long gray hair comes back from the radiant. she clips by deb and opens her door. as she gets in it's "hey retard. next time someone asks, it's boyston. got that?" deb nods. of course she does, she's lived here all her life. "yes, i've lived here all my life" she says to the retreating saturn's hood. she knows saturn is a planet. she wonders what makes the car so special to be called a planet.
the woman with the two kids sits between them, holding tightly to their hands the first twenty miles. she has dusty black skin and a high forehead. she's wearing gray sweat pants stained with purple juice the youngest spilled on her in the station
right before the bus pulled in. she didn't want to leave and lose her place in line. she feels most comfortable sitting up front by the bus driver and though i'ts mostly always available, she wants to make sure. the youngest is on the inside near the window, where she can be easily stopped when she attempts escape. her head barely makes it above the sill and from the outside, unless you're even with windows, then you can see the most beautiful set of brown eyes staring out. the woman stashes their backpacks under the seats so no one can get out that way either. after the first twenty miles her eyes begin to droop. the bus driver will announce their destination but lawd i could use a nap, right now, she whispers to the oldest who looks to be about 12; a boy ,red sweat shirt andblack jeans. he has a cd player in his lap and headphones on his ears. the soud carries to the seat on the other side
of the ailse. a thirty something white man with tatoos and a shaved head looks over
at the young boy and says disdainfully "nigger music". her eyes pop open, head comes
up. she stares at the man on the other side who stares back.
at night, between bridges, you can see stars. they follow
you, disappearing and reappearing between the exit lamps
between gauzy town lights and the smell of municipal waste
processors. you're going nearly eighty . there are no other
cars on this strip
you have 2 lanes 2 semi paved shoulders.
the road is straight. you open a window
and lean your head out and up. the stars don't
streak, tho you expect them to. they simply
hang there in the sky, next to a sliver
of moon and you floor the gas to make them move.
centrifugal force carries you round the exit
and into the off ramp. straight shot
to a shitheel burg somewhere beyond these trees.
you pull off the road after the steetlamps fade.
turn out your lights. get out of the car and look up.
you were right. there is something moving across
the sky. at about the altitde
of cirrus. you try telepathy to flag it down
but no go. signal flairs is just a dumb idea
mrs.flannagan sits in her wheelchair
at her station by the door. i fantasize
she's interested in the people walking back.
she looks at us then looks away as we walk
to the self checkout. she scrutinizes the gum
display, the white lighting, the whoosh
of the electronic doors. if we wanted to grab
all of this and stuff it in our overcoats
set off alarms as we walk out the door
she couldn't stop us. roberto is on break
fat and smoking at the trees outside. the car
is on the other side of the parking lot.
bip. bip. bip. the numbers pile up.
slide the card thru the machine. the voice
is female, helpful, bordering on cheery.
mrs flannagan watches him, wild hair, avoidance
eyes, as he heads out the exit
says have a nice day. that goes for me too.
lowry. the word tumbles off her tongue. she opens her mouth
to rain falling fine as snow. lowry. her head stuffy cotton, gray as the clouds barely above her. behind her the red and yellow wendy's retreats. her feet keep moving. she wishes she'd brought a warmer jacket, wishes she'd listened to the weather this morning. it's a long walk and if she'd waited they'd be there to get her. as it is, she's not sure if she can get in and out before they're home, but she's going to try. cash the check in her pocket then catch the bus heading north to the city. when she gets there she'll call her brother, tell him about the shit that went down last night. she fingers
her cheek. there's no swelling but she can recreate the sting.
it was red for hours . why didn't i call the cops then?
angrily she shakes her head. because it's what they would
have done. anything they do has to be wrong. the rain drips
off her wool hood. even tiny bits of water eventually collect
enough to soak through.
they all look startled when juan walks in the door. his hair
is too long for this town. he quietly asks about the posted job.
karla, manning the front desk, has quietly pushed the alarm
to the president's office. policy, ever since that disgruntled customer came in waving the remains of his antenna like a sword, looking every bit the postal employee he was. broke ten thousand dollars worth of computer. god, was the boss ticked! karla hands the mexican an application with two fingers, points to a desk he can use to fill it out. she wishes she could tell him to go somewhere else to do that, but the boss says it makes them look too unfriendly. karla feels unfriendly, epecailly to the illegal farmworkers who roll through here thinking they can get a legal citizen's job. go back to the tomatoes, she subvocalises. juan fills out the application, seems to be unaware of karla's hostile stare or the comings and goings of personnel straining their necks to see if this one has a knife or maybe a gun. nothing exciting happens around this town. we have to make our own dramas, thinks the boss's son as he strolls past juan to the refrigerator, grabs a frozen pizza and pops it in the microwave. he stands in the breakroom doorway watching juan fill out the paperwork. little beads of sweat collect on juan's upper lip, studding a thin baby moustache
like diamond chips. he looks up at the man slouching in the
doorway, looks at the half filled application, looks at karla.
he picks up the application and walks to her desk. returns
the pen he borrowed. stares at karla till she looks at him.
drops the application in the trash can and walks out the door.
you've been driving for hours again. the road begins to
waver in the headlights. it's almost dawn and coffee seems
to be the only thing you crave. sleep left sometime around
four. now you just want to be part of the lane
reflectors and the ghost wall that flickers in and out as
fast as you pass them. you pull into the BP rather than the shell b/c you like the green and yellow signs. cheery.
after the bathroom, you stop at the coffee counter for a
dark roast with a shot of hazelnut. the cashier is ringing
you up when a cop comes in. he buts a package of gum
and begins talking. she stops in midring, so you're stuck.
you decide to listen "....and the stupid guy, must have been
his first time out on it or maybe he was drunk, we can't do
a blood test now, he's scattered from one side of bee ridge
road to the other. this is one of those where you know
a helmet would be useless. nearest we can tell, he was doing
close to 110 when mr. valenti, you remember him don't you-
thick glasses, curved spine? yeah, that's right, always goes
to the six oclock mass but it takes him an hour to get there?
well mr valenti pulled out of holly lake drive and the biker must
have swerved to avoid him, took out that old pole the city
should have replaced years ago. now we've got rush hour beginning and no signal light. god i hate traffic duty" . you look at him and ask something so that they know you're there.
he answers, she finishes ringing you up. you grab your coffee
and go.
he asked her before she left him at the wafflehouse on exit 161 if she had his camels. she smokes lights. she didn't even look in her jacket, just told him, yeah, i put them in your backpack. now here he is in front of the radiant after an hour of sitting next to a chemo therapy victim and her bald head and her talk of wellness. he needs a smoke, badly. those kind of women made him want to slap a wall, or tape their mouths shut. like his seventh grade principal, who cooed over him after he'd smashed his fist into the steel meesh enforced window of her office, asking what's the problem- they couldn't see it was always them. the contents of his backpack lay at his feet. no cigarettes. he lays back on the sidewalk in a gesture of defeat. closes his eyes and began his anger management techniques. he's just getting the visualization of the boxing ring, where's he's pummeling troy akin's head into red broccoli, when he hears a far away voice ask him if he's alright. he opens his eyes and faces the ugliest nurses's shoes he's ever seen. held together with yellow duck tape. "you look like you could use a smoke". he looks up to see his saviour-a middle aged man with three days beard, salt and pepper wispy hunks of hair in five layers of clothes. the man drops a half burnt butt on the ground next to him, then walks away. gotta light? the boy shouts at the retreating back. the man turns around and tosses him a book of matches. he strikes one, lights the butt, inhales and tosses it back. thanks, he says. the old man nods, stops as if to say something, but shakes his head and disappears around the corner.
she drives the bridge at sunset, over windcapped water. there are pterodactyl memories in the car . it's not the same car. she places another face beside them. along the bay beads of light emerge in the dusk. she wants a particular bird to go with the peach and plum sky. if he drives any bridge at all, it's the golden gate.she sees wings unfurl, and unfurl to the right, pulls over to the slow lane to let faster traffic get there. the faces overlap, exchange places with every beat. blue and blonde, brown and curley. his lashes make her gasp. the slide is exactly how she remembers it: curves, muscles arced, orgasm blown out of the last neon in the sky. she loves how they surf on thin air.
all the truckstops are owned by indians now. it's a hiss in his ear. he turns toward the window, hoping to avoid conversation. but it follows him like a lost three year old. did you notice how they don't carry bread? //i remember when that one used to be the best place to buy cigarettes on this route.// goddamn greedy bastards, taking jobs away from real americans.// the blonde blue eyed ones?// no baby! me! i ain't had a job since they evacuated us back in september.// finally he's interested. someone from the flood zone. he opens his eyes and looks around for the speaker. sees a black man with dreadlocks and suspects this is the man //hey did you get any FEMA?// laughs all around.
we ascend the hightest point around.
there are cables like sails on the arc
over the bay. i take a toke right before
the top then hand it to you. i want us both
to have smoke in our lungs at the apex
i say nothing of this to you.
water and sky are both distant-
i can't see land. birds and boats
are the same sizes.sometimes when we come
over a certain curve i fantasize
driving straight into the guardrail
calculate the speed it would take to go through
and the distance of the final flight.
this is not that curve. instead
i take your hand,we exhale
together become icarus' sun.
at the waffle house, she's standing on the curb with her bags. a silver saturn whips
in to the parking space beside her. a woman gets out, drops her wallet"shit". picks it up and "what's the name of this shithole?" deb is startled at the obscenities in close succession. no one talks like that in the waffle house where she has dish duties from 530 to 10. she's usually not here in the dark. she wonders if this how they all talk at night. even the greyhound passengers who only have 30 minutes to get breakfast aren't so ...nasty. she remembers her church sister karla telling her that women from the big city are too bold. she always wanted to know in what way but karla would only go on about her husband running off to the city with a stranger, more's the better for her and "...deaf or something? i asked what's this place called?" deb does her best to struggle back to the present "waffle house"
she says, and giggles. "goddamn smart ass retard" the woman, who maybe is young- deb can't tell because she has gray hair but it's long and women over 35 cut their hair, especially if there's gray in it,that's what karla told her when she reached forty last year and took her betty's bow peep at the mall to have hers, deb's, hair cut and styled for the first time since her sister died five years ago-huffs and stomps off to the radiant next door. deb isn't insulted by the retard lable. she knows she's mentally challenged, that's what sissy called it but she knows there's many names for her "condition" . she likes the word "condition" because it makes her feel special to know such a big word belongs to her. "condition, condition, condition" she whispers to the bags sitting next to her on the curb. she's waiting for karla to meet her. they're going to the city to look for karla's husband. karla promised to bring deb because deb gave karla this month's social security check for the trip. the maybe -young woman with long gray hair comes back from the radiant. she clips by deb and opens her door. as she gets in it's "hey retard. next time someone asks, it's boyston. got that?" deb nods. of course she does, she's lived here all her life. "yes, i've lived here all my life" she says to the retreating saturn's hood. she knows saturn is a planet. she wonders what makes the car so special to be called a planet.
the woman with the two kids sits between them, holding tightly to their hands the first twenty miles. she has dusty black skin and a high forehead. she's wearing gray sweat pants stained with purple juice the youngest spilled on her in the station
right before the bus pulled in. she didn't want to leave and lose her place in line. she feels most comfortable sitting up front by the bus driver and though i'ts mostly always available, she wants to make sure. the youngest is on the inside near the window, where she can be easily stopped when she attempts escape. her head barely makes it above the sill and from the outside, unless you're even with windows, then you can see the most beautiful set of brown eyes staring out. the woman stashes their backpacks under the seats so no one can get out that way either. after the first twenty miles her eyes begin to droop. the bus driver will announce their destination but lawd i could use a nap, right now, she whispers to the oldest who looks to be about 12; a boy ,red sweat shirt andblack jeans. he has a cd player in his lap and headphones on his ears. the soud carries to the seat on the other side
of the ailse. a thirty something white man with tatoos and a shaved head looks over
at the young boy and says disdainfully "nigger music". her eyes pop open, head comes
up. she stares at the man on the other side who stares back.
at night, between bridges, you can see stars. they follow
you, disappearing and reappearing between the exit lamps
between gauzy town lights and the smell of municipal waste
processors. you're going nearly eighty . there are no other
cars on this strip
you have 2 lanes 2 semi paved shoulders.
the road is straight. you open a window
and lean your head out and up. the stars don't
streak, tho you expect them to. they simply
hang there in the sky, next to a sliver
of moon and you floor the gas to make them move.
centrifugal force carries you round the exit
and into the off ramp. straight shot
to a shitheel burg somewhere beyond these trees.
you pull off the road after the steetlamps fade.
turn out your lights. get out of the car and look up.
you were right. there is something moving across
the sky. at about the altitde
of cirrus. you try telepathy to flag it down
but no go. signal flairs is just a dumb idea
mrs.flannagan sits in her wheelchair
at her station by the door. i fantasize
she's interested in the people walking back.
she looks at us then looks away as we walk
to the self checkout. she scrutinizes the gum
display, the white lighting, the whoosh
of the electronic doors. if we wanted to grab
all of this and stuff it in our overcoats
set off alarms as we walk out the door
she couldn't stop us. roberto is on break
fat and smoking at the trees outside. the car
is on the other side of the parking lot.
bip. bip. bip. the numbers pile up.
slide the card thru the machine. the voice
is female, helpful, bordering on cheery.
mrs flannagan watches him, wild hair, avoidance
eyes, as he heads out the exit
says have a nice day. that goes for me too.
lowry. the word tumbles off her tongue. she opens her mouth
to rain falling fine as snow. lowry. her head stuffy cotton, gray as the clouds barely above her. behind her the red and yellow wendy's retreats. her feet keep moving. she wishes she'd brought a warmer jacket, wishes she'd listened to the weather this morning. it's a long walk and if she'd waited they'd be there to get her. as it is, she's not sure if she can get in and out before they're home, but she's going to try. cash the check in her pocket then catch the bus heading north to the city. when she gets there she'll call her brother, tell him about the shit that went down last night. she fingers
her cheek. there's no swelling but she can recreate the sting.
it was red for hours . why didn't i call the cops then?
angrily she shakes her head. because it's what they would
have done. anything they do has to be wrong. the rain drips
off her wool hood. even tiny bits of water eventually collect
enough to soak through.
they all look startled when juan walks in the door. his hair
is too long for this town. he quietly asks about the posted job.
karla, manning the front desk, has quietly pushed the alarm
to the president's office. policy, ever since that disgruntled customer came in waving the remains of his antenna like a sword, looking every bit the postal employee he was. broke ten thousand dollars worth of computer. god, was the boss ticked! karla hands the mexican an application with two fingers, points to a desk he can use to fill it out. she wishes she could tell him to go somewhere else to do that, but the boss says it makes them look too unfriendly. karla feels unfriendly, epecailly to the illegal farmworkers who roll through here thinking they can get a legal citizen's job. go back to the tomatoes, she subvocalises. juan fills out the application, seems to be unaware of karla's hostile stare or the comings and goings of personnel straining their necks to see if this one has a knife or maybe a gun. nothing exciting happens around this town. we have to make our own dramas, thinks the boss's son as he strolls past juan to the refrigerator, grabs a frozen pizza and pops it in the microwave. he stands in the breakroom doorway watching juan fill out the paperwork. little beads of sweat collect on juan's upper lip, studding a thin baby moustache
like diamond chips. he looks up at the man slouching in the
doorway, looks at the half filled application, looks at karla.
he picks up the application and walks to her desk. returns
the pen he borrowed. stares at karla till she looks at him.
drops the application in the trash can and walks out the door.
you've been driving for hours again. the road begins to
waver in the headlights. it's almost dawn and coffee seems
to be the only thing you crave. sleep left sometime around
four. now you just want to be part of the lane
reflectors and the ghost wall that flickers in and out as
fast as you pass them. you pull into the BP rather than the shell b/c you like the green and yellow signs. cheery.
after the bathroom, you stop at the coffee counter for a
dark roast with a shot of hazelnut. the cashier is ringing
you up when a cop comes in. he buts a package of gum
and begins talking. she stops in midring, so you're stuck.
you decide to listen "....and the stupid guy, must have been
his first time out on it or maybe he was drunk, we can't do
a blood test now, he's scattered from one side of bee ridge
road to the other. this is one of those where you know
a helmet would be useless. nearest we can tell, he was doing
close to 110 when mr. valenti, you remember him don't you-
thick glasses, curved spine? yeah, that's right, always goes
to the six oclock mass but it takes him an hour to get there?
well mr valenti pulled out of holly lake drive and the biker must
have swerved to avoid him, took out that old pole the city
should have replaced years ago. now we've got rush hour beginning and no signal light. god i hate traffic duty" . you look at him and ask something so that they know you're there.
he answers, she finishes ringing you up. you grab your coffee
and go.
posted by hiccup at 6:28 PM
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