_ _ _ _ _ _ of the Road

Did I miss Buckhorn?

Jesse Sanders asked himself, cycling down a deadpan two-lane road. He’d ridden 60+ miles that day (his first in the Appalachians), moving west to east right down the crease of Kentucky.

You thought Missouri had hills. Yeah fucking right.

For what felt like the first time all day he crossed good, even ground- a plane he didn’t need to proposition with constant pedaling. It was a godsend for Jesse after every painstaking revolution he’d made to get here, hauling every pound of shit strapped to the bicycle- two sagging panniers, a one-man tent, his bedroll, and the one remaining gallon of water to last until he found more.

The trees framing the road thickened. The nearest ones reached up and overhead like fingers in prayer, forming a pipeline of perverted darkness; no sliver of dusk to follow here, zero indication of when and where to make camp. It made little difference at this point. He could probably stop in the road even- he hadn’t seen a car in hours. He liked that about traveling like this. He felt like Nick Adams; just set up the tent, summon the bedroll and relax sheltered from the clouds of mosquitos looming everywhere he couldn’t see. He felt plenty of them orbiting his face as he rode now, the time of night you breathed through your nose or suffered consequences.

He was sure he’d missed downtown Buckhorn by now, whatever that meant.

There had been a fork.

And he’d chosen the wrong path. But no matter- you have water. He found no possibilities in the cone of light shining at the head of his bicycle, any true destination out of range. That was until he glimpsed an orange twitch, flickering through the tangled woods to his right. He dismounted, wheeled his bicycle down a slope of leaves, and followed in senseless pursuit. Bugs and branches swarmed until he reached a clearing housing a campfire where the fourth plague subsided. Jesse crept toward the pyre, finding his reflection in the bobbing flames. Then the call came.

"YOU."

Jesse moved toward the beacon completely undisturbed. He crunched new leaves with each step, accenting the steady grind of the bicycle rolling along, and the *click*, *click*, *click*-ing of its chain.

"ONE MORE STEP AND I S-SWEAR."

Then he saw it- sunset streaks dancing across a wicked blade. It must have been half a foot long; a hand spun it back and forth, bearing the teeth in jagged circles. A screaming metal shark, not driven by the oft-merciful forces of nature, but by mankind’s purest hatred; forged to draw blood here and now. The fire burned between them, laughing softly. Jesse’s progress died where he stood.

“How’d you get here? And what the hell d’you want?”

"Sorry," Jesse stuttered. "I can leave.”

The shark continued to swim in her hand.

“I’ll decide whether or not that happens,” she decided gravely. “Now get on your goddamned knees.”

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," a second woman called out from a place of reason. "What’s going on?"

“I don’t know,” Jesse panicked. “I saw the fire from the road- I followed it.”

"What's all that?" she asked, pointing at the bicycle.

"It's just a bike I’m living off right now. I was riding back there.” He pointed to the road. “Just looking for a place to sleep now- that’s all."

The second woman exhaled, relieving some of the tension. Jesse didn’t yet dare to breathe. "I can see that. Don’t worry, this one always plays Goyeto after a few." She stooped down, shaking a liquor bottle for effect, the amber liquid sloshing to her will. "Sit down. You look hungry, eat with us.”

“You’re gonna let him eat with us?” Goyeto protested.

“What did I say? Anyways three is the perfect number.”

“I thought it was six.”

“It’s three. Alright?”

Jesse sat cross-legged on a patch of uncovered earth as the reasonable woman produced a green bag. She unraveled the knot at the top to withdraw a loaf of bread which she threw across the fire into Jesse's lap.

"Have a drink too if you want." She took a pull herself before passing the bottle to Jesse, this time reaching across to complete the transfer hand-to-hand.

“Cut us some slices with this,” Goyeto instructed, handing him a butter knife, while maintaining a distrustful grip on the shark. Jesse accepted the butter knife with his free hand, awkwardly cradling the loaf and the bottle in his other arm. She then withdrew a bit of rope from her pocket and began practicing knots, eyes still fixed on Jesse.

“What’s your name?” the reasonable one asked.

“Jesse. And yours?” he asked her in return.

“And yours?” to the other.

“I’m Kerry,” she replied. She was Black, with a remarkably symmetrical face, and bleached blonde hair that stopped at her shoulders. “And my kid sister’s dear friend here-” she clapped her hand against the back of the other’s neck.

“OUCH.”

Kerry smiled knowingly, eyes cast on her hand. “-she’s Levy.”

Levy wrestled her neck free. She was Vietnamese, college-age, with severe features sharpened by agitation. She had a long neck, and a dark curtain of bangs that hung to the beginnings of her eyelashes.

“You know how to use one of those?” Levy asked Jesse.

He reconsidered his clumsy balancing act before squatting down, resting the loaf and the butter knife on either knee, and glugging twice from the bottle.

“Here.” Levy signaled for Jesse to throw the bottle, which he did. She caught it with both hands and uncorked it for good, flinging the stopper off the edge of the earth.

“Do you ever stop?” Kerry asked.

Levy craned her neck back in response, tiny bubbles lusting after the bottle’s mouth.

“That’s enough.” Kerry wrangled the bottle away, the thing bleeding all over Levy until the two were separated. Levy didn’t bother to dry herself, instead laughing at the wreckage. Something stirred in the woods which drew Kerry’s attention. Jesse and Levy shared a private look, where she summoned a flask hidden in her sweatshirt. She flashed it with a wink before tucking it away as Kerry’s eyes returned. Jesse cut six slices from the loaf, stacking them in pairs across the surface of his legs.

“I’ll take those,” Kerry offered, assuming the slices from Jesse two by two. In her other hand she dangled a skillet full of oil hissing in small bursts corralling three thick sausages. Jesse spotted a metal bottle on the ground next to Kerry.

“Do you mind if I boil some water?” he asked with a nod to the bottle.

“Go ahead,” Kerry answered, passing it him. The bottle was titanium all around with a hammered finish. Jesse poured about a liter of his own water into the bottle, then placed it cautiously into the fire.

“What’s that for?” Levy asked.

“Tea,” Jesse answered. “As long as that’s alright.”

“’Course it is,” Kerry confirmed. “Do you want your bread soaked in the fat?”

Jesse shook his head no.

“Well, have another while we wait,” Levy called over, floating the confiscated liquor bottle over the fire. He took a stronger plug this time then inched closer to the flame, the warmth from each settling agreeably over his body. Kerry tilted the pan then added two of the bread slices. A minute later she flipped the pair, before using them to extract the first sausage. She handed the finished sandwich to Levy, then grabbed two fresh slices to make Jesse’s.

“Mustard?

He nodded yes. She drew a yellow bottle from the bag, rained mustard over the sausage, and passed the concoction to Jesse. She made one for herself in the same fashion, then sat down on the blanket next to Levy. Kerry finished eating first and dropped another log into the pit, the dampened wood popping at the first burning kiss.

“So, what are you two doing here?” Jesse asked mid-bite, the food and the whiskey socializing him.

“Not a whole lot,” Kerry replied.

“Coupla New York City rejects,” Levy surmised.

“Sure,” Kerry decided. “That.”

“We’re an odd ways from New York,” Jesse reasoned. “How’d you get here?”

“Well, we’ve been on the road for a little while now,” Kerry answered. “Left New York in July.”

“You walk?”

“No; you didn’t see that Honda back there on the roadside?”

“I didn’t.”

“Fuck. Levy, go check the car.”

“Why do I ’ave to go?”

“Because I said so. Take the flashlight.”

“I didn’t hear the engine. Haven’t heard anything from ‘at road in hours. You wanna check so badly just do it your goddamnself.”

Kerry glared at Levy. Levy didn’t flinch.

“Fine.”

Kerry rose without another word, awakened the flashlight, and crept toward the road. The trees were so dense in parts Jesse couldn’t see the light at all. He stood up and scanned for a tree branch, securing a Y-shaped one with suitable bend. He broke the stem about an inch before the opening of the Y then took the smaller of the two offshoots and snapped it there, leaving three inches. He broke the longer offshoot about two feet from the opening of the Y and studied his work.

“Tha’s some real boy scout work there, hunh?”

“It actually is.”

“You were a boy scout?”

“For a little while,” Jesse confessed, fingering the end of the shorter arm. “I made second class.”

“I’m almos’ impressed.”

“Don’t be.”

“Well, ‘at’s either some second-class work or jus’a branch even more broke than you found it.”

“It’ll work,” Jesse affirmed. With that he stood up and fished the shorter offshoot into the mouth of the bottle. The tip caught the inner shoulder, and Jesse used the longer arm to fish it from the fire.

“No shit,” Levy said.

“Just don’t ask me to do anything else.”

He withdrew a thermos and a hand towel from one of his panniers, wrapping his hand with several times with the grizzled cloth. Levy removed her flask and took a sizable pull as Jesse transferred the water into the thermos, not losing a drop. She started to offer the flask to Jesse, but he still had the uncorked bottle at his side, and he took another good draw from there instead.

“It’s there,” Kerry confirmed as she re-entered the circle. “You really didn’t see it up there?”

“I didn’t,” Jesse said. He reached back into the pannier to withdraw his maté, bombilla, and a drawstring pouch of yerba. He poured yerba into the maté until it was about three-quarters full.

“What’s that shit?” Levy asked, as Jesse prepared the maté.

“Maté.”

“Gets you high?”

“No- but it’s good after a meal.”

“Can I try it?” Kerry asked.

“Let him go first,” Levy cautioned.

Jesse inserted the bombilla into the maté. He then grabbed his thermos and poured several ounces of the boiled water over the top of the yerba. He sipped some, the mixture scalding in the fashion he preferred it; his always scorched tongue didn’t even bother burning anymore. He continued until he drained the water.

“You’re sure ‘at isn’t dope?” Levy asked.

“You don’t have to try it.”

“I will,” Kerry spoke up. Jesse refilled the maté with water from the thermos then passed it to her.

“That water is gonna be hot as hell.”

“I’ll be alright,” Kerry said. She recoiled at her first taste. “Jesus.”

“You’ll come around,” Jesse said. “Or you won’t. I’ve seen it both ways.”

She drank the maté until she cleared it, then passed it back to Jesse who refilled it a second time.

“How was it Kerry? Are you fucked up?” Levy asked.

“I don’t know- you try it.”

Jesse passed the cup to Levy. She finished the round then returned it to Jesse.

“Gimme one more.”

“Soon,” Jesse replied. He reached for the thermos to pour himself another.

“Well, did Levy tell you much while I was gone?”

“We’re goin’ to Memphis,” Levy cut in. “Aunt’s house.”

“You know Kerry’s sister?” Jesse asked between sips.

“Yeah. High school. Haven’t seen ‘er but ran into Kerry in New Yark,” Levy finished.

“Was that in New Yark?” Kerry clarified.

Levy volleyed a go fuck yourself type of look. Jesse offered Kerry the maté which she accepted with traceable regret.

“We both lived in the same neighborhood- kinda traveled in the same circle even. Levy played in a band out there, Glove Compartmentalize.”

“I do not want to talk about that,” Levy said, annunciating every syllable into the ground to prove she still could. Kerry showed Levy a blended look of disappointment and understanding.

“Well I’ll do it then.” She finished the maté then passed it back to Jesse. “Levy played drums in this band. They were good. Really good band actually.”

“You guys still play?” Jesse asked.

“We don’,” Levy said. “Shit got fucked up. Too many bands.”

“They had a run though,” Kerry clarified. “You ever spent any time in New York?”

“Exhausting,” Levy interjected.

“Been a couple times,” Jesse reflected, handing the maté to Levy. “Summers when I was a kid. Visit my Mom’s brother.”

“Never since?”

“Not once.”

“Okay, well what music you like?”

“Built to Spill, Elliott Smith, Modest Mouse. Mostly stuff like that.”

She nodded her head in calculation. “Some Pacific Northwest shit, huh?”

“I guess. I’m basically from San Diego though.”

“No New York bands in there that I heard at least. Well, Glove Compartmentalize, GC, was a New York band. You know The Strokes?”

“Little bit. I heard their EP.”

“Well, you’re about to know them more than that. They’ve got an LP coming out in a couple weeks, and they’ve been lighting New York on fucking fire. And get this- GC headlined a show they played at the Mercury Lounge.”

“Bullshit,” Levy hiccupped. “The Strokes never headline Mercury. ‘At’s how they get off.”

“Still,” Kerry said. “They had something. Kinda sounded like Jonathon*Fire Eater.”

“No idea,” Jesse confessed.

“Well… the point is Jonathon*Fire Eater signed with DreamWorks in the ‘90s. Never did anything, broke up like two years later.”

“Okay.”

“And GC was better- I think at least. Four-five years earlier, you know when every major label wanted their own Nirvana, they would have been signed in a second.” She snapped her fingers.

“You work for a label?”

“No label. I bartend in the East Village. You can’t work a shift without serving half the New York rock scene though. And I run a music blog too. Upstart Euphemism… you probably haven’t heard of it.” He hadn’t. She continued, “Just a Napster child- I find music and write about it. Got a digital camera so they let me shoot the shows. I wanna write for Spin eventually.”

“But you’re leaving New York?”

“For a little while. Needed a break I guess; we both did.” Kerry glanced to Levy whose head looked ready to fall off. Suddenly the maté crashed from her hand to the earth. She leaned back, the flask slipping from her coat pocket, glinting in the fire’s glow. Kerry swiped it away, but there was nothing left to prevent.

“LEVY.”

Kerry laid a hand on Levy who shot up and sloshed forward. She kicked the edge of the fire then tumbled into a mat of leaves, draped in a dissolving cloak of embers.

“Not again,” Kerry lamented. “Here. Help me with her.”

Jesse grabbed her feet as Kerry wove her arms under Levy’s armpits. They dragged her toward an army green tent pitched a few yards outside the circle. Kerry set her head down beside it carefully, then unzipped the tent in full. The pair eased Levy down inside, sliding her onto a flaking camping mat. Kerry then unraveled a sleeping bag, the zipper’s sound dribbling around the canvas amphitheater, before laying it over the corpse. She restored Levy’s legs to a more human alignment then jammed a sweatshirt beneath her head.

“We’re just lucky it’s not winter; if I lost track of her she’d die doing something like that. I know it,” Kerry hypothesized as she zipped the tent shut, an excitable hopelessness in her tone. The two returned to the blanket beside the fire, where Jesse collected his maté.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No harm done,” Jesse replied. Kerry smiled weakly.

“It’s some kind of proposition becoming a rock star,” she eventually spoke up.

“I still don’t get it. Why are you here?”

“It’d help to take a step back first. I graduated from NYU winter of ‘99 and just stuck around. I had no idea Levy was there. And if I’d known she was there I wouldn’t have cared if she wasn’t a musician. The first time I saw Glove Compartmentalize-”

“That’s her band, right?” Jesse clarified.

“Yeah. First time I saw them play I recognized her; I mean she was always over at the house growing up. And after the show we caught up and agreed to go out. We went to this place Lit, just a psychotic bar- if you wanna be in bed before 06:00, try again. It was weird… I mean I never knew her like that.”

Her eyes bulged like headlights in the rearview.

“I’m a little older, so I split an apartment 50-50. Couple bedrooms, bathrooms, my own door. You know I work, and I can pay some rent. Levy and I were living in the same neighborhood, but she’s all the way- cramming onto a different floor every couple months with all these musicians, comedians, artists, those types. And there are all sorts of things out there that you can take to help your work, things that different people in your house experiment with at different times. Now I’m no Narc. If you wanna write about music and drugs you’ve gotta familiarize yourself at least with one of them on an individual level- and I’m not musical. But the way Levy did drugs wasn’t journalism. And that night at Lit she’s doing the ones you aren’t supposed to.”

The fire popped, shifting Kerry’s focus.

“But I get it, she’s playing in a big girl band. So we keep going to the same shows, some she’s playing, others she’s in the crowd for like me, and we keep up a little bit. Only after a while her band stopped doing anything. Levy kept showing up to the venues though, going to the afterparties, but just to get fucked up. I’d ask her what she was doing, and I’d never get an answer; I mean she wasn’t saying it but some of these drugs are full time jobs. Anyways, I’d already written to my sister, had been thinking about getting Levy out of there for a while, then finally one night I find her real twisted up. And I just do it. We jump in my car and try one of these communes I’d heard about out in Virginia.”

“Communes?” Jesse probed.

“They’re not all Spawn Movie Ranch- you’d fit right in with your little bike. And I never saw anyone there drink that dirt tea you like.”

“It’s an acquired taste.”

“If you ate enough dirt you’d probably acquire a taste for that too.”

Jesse shook his head.

“I’m just saying all kinds of people try these communes,” she continued. “We stayed a month- cooky place, but she’s a month clean. My sister’s coming out to Levy’s aunt’s house in Memphis Tuesday and I’m gonna pass her off then. She’s kind of become an alcoholic, but she’ll figure it out.”

Jesse struggled to process the details until Kerry relieved him of those efforts. “I’m sorry. That was more than you asked me.”

“It’s not that,” he assured her. “You know Levy actually reminds me of a friend of mine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He probably doesn’t have it as bad as she does… I don’t know. But I handled it a whole lot worse than you did.”

“Tell me about him.”

“There’s-” he stopped. “-a lot of context.”

“Would you call what I just told you lacking context?” she countered.

“I’m not saying that; I guess it’s just fresh. And I’m pretty upset about it still.”

She pivoted on the blanket, leaves crunching with every move. “This guy’s younger?”

“Little bit.”

“And you left him in a tight spot?”

He’d never conceded the state he’d left Rob in. He remembered their struggle, and that final image of Rob passed out on the kitchen floor-

“I mean worse than when you met him?” she clarified.

-and shivered. His fingers curled around the wine bottle he’d bludgeoned Rob’s head with. This wasn’t the first time he’d revisited that night, but normally it came deeper against his will.

“You could say that.” He sure as hell didn’t have words for it himself.

“So you feel responsible for him?”

“I do.”

“But is he your fault?”

Jesse’s foot started bouncing against the ground. “No.”

“Then what are you doing to yourself?”

He exhaled. “It’s just guilt. If there was some method to it, we’d probably have it eradicated by now.” He waited for her cut in, but she never did. “I wish I’d tried harder; or at least for longer. Riding this bike like I am now isn’t any calling, it’s just a way out of a situation. I mean I stole the goddamn thing off the friend I fucked over- and then I meet you and see the way you’re taking care of Levy. Why couldn’t I have done something like that?” he stopped to listen to his foot chew on the brittle earth.

“Whatever I’m doing shouldn’t be some retroactive standard,” she reasoned.

“It just feels like you did the right thing,” he confessed. “And I’m sure it wasn’t easy dropping everything like you did.”

“It’s funny you should say everything,” she smirked. “Because it’s true- but it’s hard for me to pinpoint what exactly I left back there.”

“What do you mean?” Jesse asked.

“It’s just been four years now I’ve been trying to make it; two years I’ve obsessed over it. And I’m not anywhere close to where I planned.”

“Sounds like you make enough to be at the center of what you care about,” Jesse countered. “There are worse places.”

“I cut it closer than I make it sound. But it’s not the money; just whatever I’m doing in New York- the photos I take, the reviews I write- it’ll never mean anywhere near the same to anyone else that it does to me.” She grabbed a twig and frisbeed it into the fire. “That never occurred to me until I couldn’t get it out of my head; and I was particularly tuned to that reality the morning Levy and I left New York.”

“Maybe nothing you put out into the world like that ever does,” Jesse guessed. “You know how many different albums, how many movies I’ve sworn changed my life since I was a kid at some point? And you know how often I think about those now? How many more I forgot completely?”

“Maybe,” she replied. “But probably neither of us have ever done anything worth enough to know.” She dug her nail into the end of another fractured stick. “Even if it’d only end up dying like any other memory.”

Levy moaned horribly from the tent.

“What a mess. I should go check on her- I know we haven’t been much company tonight, but you should camp here.” Levy wailed even louder in disjointed protest. “She’ll cut that out. And she’s better with a hangover.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Well good. Will you put the fire out once you’re set up? I’ve got that bucket of water there.” She pointed to the proof.

“Sure. Good night Kerry.”

“G’night…”

“Jesse,” he reminded her.

Kerry returned to her tent, crawled over Levy’s disfigured body, then flashed a parting look back. “Sweet dreams Jesse.” Before zipping the flap shut.

Jesse made his camp then quieted the fire with the bucket, watching the embers steam for the last time.