My eyes peel open to a shabbier cabin than I remember. The walls are yellow and smitten with dirty hand prints, and a mildew smell pervades. The sandwiches are dried crumbs and Care is snoring, her arm laid over a crumpled paper plate.
“That’s it, ladies! Last stop east!” an unfamiliar, gruff voice declares, startling Care awake.
“Where are we?” she asks, rubbing the dust from her eyes.
“Far as I’m going!” a gruff head says. “You don’t wanna go no farther than here, I’ll tell you that. You’ll be in the ocean!” The man pops his head from the driver’s seat, fat and wide-nosed, bearded, brown hair and eyes. A stranger. I wonder if we’re drugged, but I only feel battered, bloodied, bone-tired and hungry. Another memory lapse?
I grab the suitcase and we get up together and walk toward the front. My left leg still burns knee to foot, the pants scarred black grey. He nods toward the passenger’s door. We crawl out into a parking lot full of cars that look bright and foreign and new, colorful and white and black, all clean. There’s faces idling in some of them, with bright blue headlights or dimmer yellow ones. It hurts my eyes and makes me turn my aching head.
Travelers are walking in and out of a large rest-stop building next to a dozen gas pumps. The air is cold and the wind whips through our clothes, constant and oppressive.
The truck behind us snorts and rumbles off, disappearing down the highway. A smell of diesel and rubber gives way to hot grease and cooking from inside the complex of fast food stores. My empty stomach growls. The sandwich is gone from my belly, but the wound feels less tender. I can’t understand it.
“Look at these cars! Must be a rich town.” Care yawns. “I’m starving.”
I shrug and limp up to the building with her. A family of dark-skinned Indians is walking out. Father, mother, boy, and girl.
“Excuse me. Is there a payphone around here?” I ask them.
The family stands still and the mother and father shake their heads. The girl of no more than thirteen walks up to me and holds out a black screen in front of my face that barely fits in her hand. The screen goes bright with what looks like a dialing keypad and hurts my eyes. “Here, use mine,” she offers.
The numbers seem to whirl around and through each other in a psychedelic torrent. I wave it away and hurry after Care, who’s waiting with the door open for me.
We walk into the building through glass doors rimmed with black metal. Inside it’s smothered with bright fluorescent lights and people of different colors and languages. “Mama, ella esta herida,” I hear a little boy say. I keep putting one leg before the other and smile at him. He waves shyly.
We pass by a burger place with a long line and big prices. The smell of sizzling beef and hot bread and melted cheese make our mouths water and deepen the pit in our stomachs, but the thought of waiting pushes us ahead. “Everything’s expensive as shit here. Of course we get dropped off in a rich town,” Care moans.
“You’re the only person on Earth who’d escape death twice in a week and still complain about how much it costs for fries and a burger.” I laugh and shake my head, feel the stitches in my belly pull. Then I think of the young man, the fleeing Spider who died moments from escape in that field in front of us. It feels like a burden I’ll hold forever. I look to Care and doubt she’ll ever understand. I wonder if I’ll ever tell her.
“Who’s complaining? I’m just observing. You know, for long-term survival.” She grins widely and slaps my shoulder and I groan as the place twists around in agony. “Here, this place looks better. No line.”
A convenience store stocked with more stuff than I’ve ever seen in one shop. She picks out a few snacks, complaining about prices the whole time. I rub my eyes to soothe the headache and blurriness the lights are giving me. I just want to get out where it’s darker, but the thought of the cold just scatters my brain more.
At the counter, a wide-set Indian man gives us the cockeye as we walk up. “Pack of smokes,” Care says, piling the treats on the counter. “Whatever’s cheap. Jesus, ten bucks for a pack of smokes?! Gimme that six dollar pack. Yeah, there. The green and white ones.” She mutters something about highway robbery.
“You have ID?” he asks , scanning our chips and jerky and cheese-filled pretzels.
Care huffs. “No ID. She can buy 'em,” she says, looking at me. I shrug.
“Can’t sell without ID, sorry,” the man says sternly. “Thirteen thirty-four.”
“Thirteen...!” Care almost explodes, shuffling through her pockets.
“I got it.” I slap down a twenty.
The man looks at it interestedly. “Ah, old bill. Don’t see much. Have a good evening.”
We walk out into the night with the bag of food. Care’s already devouring a pack of cheesy chips.
“What a scam!” she whines. “Food’s a million dollars, and they won’t even sell us smokes. I hope that suitcase is full of cash.”
“It is.” I shake the case and thank Wall and Jackie and the boys. Then I thank God. Then I think of the dead man. Then I think of all the dead people.
“Hey Kade...” She turns around, crunching a mouthful. Under a red sticker saying “We Card” in bold white, another: “To buy tobacco, gotta be born on or after... 1997?”
“‘97...” I go.
Care stuffs the chips into her plastic bag. “Is that some kind of joke?”
“Maybe that’s their way of saying they’re banned here or something. Or the age limit is higher? Maybe we’re in Canada.”
“Whaaat? Never heard of anything like that. Not a place I wanna stay then. What’d they, ban booze too? Fuck, never knew freedom would be so boring.” She rips open a bag of jerky, tears some into chip-sized pieces, and stuffs one in my mouth. It’s tough and savory with a smoky barbecue flavor. Food never tasted so good.
A guy in a navy blue jersey with white lettering stumbles into Care on his way to the doors. “I’m sorry,” he slurs, smelling of beer and liquor and sweat.
“Hey, watch it!” Care snaps. “What’re you so happy about?”
“Pats won, man!” The man staggers and stands up straight, wobbling. Care is silent and he blinks. “Super Bowl! Yeah!”
“Huh, about time they got their first ring.”
“First? You mean fifth.” The man laughs and a few of his friends shuffle behind and push him into the store.
“Guy must be loony! Five rings? Not while we’re alive. Not with how they’ve been playing the last couple years.” She rips off a bite of jerky and chews it voraciously.
I rub my forehead and groan. “Didn’t know you were into sports.”
“Matty was.” She looks up to the sky, chewing pensively. It’s cast sapphire by the bright lights of Earth, and you can almost spy constellations hanging behind the falling dark. “You know, he’s gotta be crazy. It’s still October, right? November?”
“Yeah. First of November.”
“Little early for snow then, ain’t it?” Sparse little flakes begin to fall around us. A chill gust washes over us and through our clothes. She digs into the bag and pulls out a piece of paper. “Hey K, this receipt says February. Am I going crazy?”
I snatch it from her hand and squint. My heart races and my head goes hot with confusion. It’s not the month that shocks me. It’s the year.
