TO LOOK FOR AMERICA
They labored through countless days of a hundred plus degrees, in stinging sleet and suffocating dust storms. The highwaymen, or "chain gang" Dad liked to call it, spent the better part of the fifties digging and blasting for Eisenhower's demands of interstate connection and accessibility. Dad swore it was the hardest work he'd ever done. And this from a man who grew up boxing in the seediest gambling rings of New Orleans' underbelly.
Wearing skin that had been baked into an earthen red clay, Darrel 'the Cajun Cobra' Curtis came home most every night with eyes that warned us we'd better not test him, a little more biting than when he'd left us at dawn. Cut with dynamite and steamrolled over every part of the country, the toughest of men laid out these highways for America as adventure, as escape.
But not for our kind.
Hoods like us were never meant to leave our pothole existence that ran alongside and three miles east of all that I-44 tore through. By the time of the sixties, we'd become only blurs of chainlink passing outside of bug stained windshields. We'd become the pitstop for a piss on the way to grandma's or somewhere more exotic, like Disneyland or that big steel arch they'd just built over in St. Louis.
An out-of-state driver who stopped off on our exit for an RC cola and a Moon Pie might speed up his walk when he surveyed his surroundings, a little too rough for his liking, and make sure to instruct the wife to lock their doors and roll up their Cadillac windows. He probably eyed that thug of a kid on the corner, suspiciously leaned against the No Loitering sign. Might've even thrown him a nasty glare or worse, one of righteous pity, once he was safe on his way to the nicer exits that shot into the downtown business district. He couldn't know that lonely boy was only there to steal a rest and a smoke, and to maybe, for just a little while, drown out his too soft thoughts of his too hard life lately, at the edge of a noisy turnpike.
As mid-century Americans set off for the discovery of their birthrights, nobody gave a thought to the kids who were living out theirs under the neon reaches of a Texaco star.
We were just the little gray dots on somebody else's horizon.
But damn if I don't look back on those days with the sweetest kind of ache.
xXx
They forgot to pick me up. Again. Can't ever get Tuesdays right. Sometimes I don't remind them that I stay late for Art Club just to test them, to see if one day Soda'll remember on his own. But those idiots keep showing up at the junior high straight after the high school lets out. They drive alongside the crowded sidewalks real slow like they're casing the joint, and when they don't spot me, they speed off toward their afternoon assuming I took the bus. I haven't taken the bus since fifth grade. Wouldn't be caught dead on that yellow hell on wheels. So I'm hoofin it today, and it ain't all that far of a walk, but it's the damn principle of it.
I blame Darry.
I normally cut through the alleyways, which really aren't alleys as much as they are rows of backdoor garbage cans. It sure does stink to high heaven, but it cuts off a good five minutes. Today though finally feels like spring, and so I'm walking the main streets among all the people, out in the sun. So warm I've got my jacket wrapped around my waist, shoved the sleeves of my t-shirt up over my shoulders, can almost hear my freckles popping out on the bridge of my nose and cheeks. A day like this is meant to be spent out in the open and it smells better too, like greasy french fries and diesel fumes.
I'm not surprised I'd spot the gang hanging on Pickett. Over across the street outside the pinball arcade, I see them laughing with all the other students that are too cool to be in a dumb club or to stay after the bell on some Tuesday afternoon. Not voluntarily anyway. I stand and watch them for a minute. Looks like even Dally's come around. He mostly stands on the outskirts though looking his usual surly self, like he's pissed to be there when nobody really dragged him.
Guys are shoving each other, showing off for the girls that flock and circle. Everybody's loud and nobody's heard. And there's Sodapop in the middle of all of it, looking as comfortable and easy as the beat up blue jeans he wears.
Oh to be that tuff, that laidback, that...forgetful.
I don't approach them today, I'm not in the mood to be shooed off anyways, and I head down different streets, feeling like being alone awhile. I loop around the discount stores and under the soaring overpass.
Dad always told us the story of how he lost his footing on the day they filled those hollowed out pillars. He said he was a fraction of a slip away from being mummified forever inside a thousand tons of concrete. For some reason he seemed awful proud of that fact. Soda and Darry loved that story but I hated it. Funny that story is the one thing I thought about the second his hearse drove over the very bridge he'd built. Now whenever I walk alongside the great posts I reach out and give them a quick and meaningful pat. I can feel him down here much more than any old graveyard.
Tuesdays are Darry's longest days and we're a ways off from supper. So I buy a SuzyQ and eat it outside the Texaco that sits off the interstate. Don't have enough for something to wash it down and I'm regretting the decision to eat my snack over drinking it. Could've had a brown cow float or something.
Darry never gives me enough. Ever. And he can't even remember to remind Soda to pick me up.
I try not to look creepy but I've always had a problem with staring at people. And I can't stop watching a family organizing their trunk outside the filling station store. The dad tosses around their nice leather luggage, a half dozen pieces or more, and their Cadillac looks brand new, a stylish seafoam green. Only Caddies we see around here are junkyard salvages, pieced together with parts from discarded clunkers. Steve and Soda would be drooling over this one.
And then there's the shiny black stretch kind. The nicest car you'll ever ride in. The kind that if you weren't on your way to a couple of freshly dug holes with a broken heart, you'd be mighty proud to be seen riding inside something so pretty.
"Whoah look at all this leg room back here. Damn that motor purrs. How much you think this would go for Darry?" Soda runs his hands along the leather seats and flips all the ashtrays open.
"Arm and a leg I'd imagine. Christ Almighty would you quit touching everything Soda. God are we tracking dirt in here? Check your shoes Pony."
Soda doesn't listen. Can't seem to stop himself from talking today. "Wouldn't Dad just get a kick out of us in a car this good lookin..betcha he's whistlin at us right about now."
The man's eyeing me kinda weird when he locks his trunk then goes inside. I look around real quick to see what riff-raff might be spooking him, but Crazy Pete doesn't happen to be around today hollering all over the streets on one of his drunk tirades. Shoot he's a harmless old man anyway. This area does border Brumly though and it can get a little tricky if you don't look like our kind. Whatever that looks like. A gust of wind blows long hair over my eyes.
They seem like a real nice family. I light a smoke and try to imagine what direction they're headed. Maybe they won the lottery and are off to their new digs in Beverly Hills or maybe one of their kids is a champion chess player and they're due for a tournament in Sioux City or they could be going to visit some old presidents carved into the side of a real bonafide mountain, or they might just be getting back from the east where they toured some not-so-civil battlefields. Or maybe, just maybe they got to set their eyes north on the falls of the great Niagara.
I can make out three little buzzed haircuts lined up in the back. The mother licks her thumb and rubs at the littlest boy's face. He bats her away, not knowing just how lucky he is. I feel a flash of jealousy, then realize they look to be on the way to some place fancy, and I hope for them it's not a funeral.
I jump at the slam of the driver's door and I look the opposite way, feel my cheeks get hot when they all give me a good dose of their own stares before they're on their way to somewhere more important than east Tulsa.
I tilt my head back to blow the last of my smoke, shaping my lips so that I puff out a perfectly formed ring that floats up and up, a circle intact. The sky's slightly darkened, just enough to bring about the zap of a nearby power box and the gas station's star high above me blinks to life. I can feel as well as hear the buzzing volts of electricity. I'm thirsty. And the welcome time alone has suddenly soured to lonesome. I set out for home.
I think about the feel of that electricity the whole way. Think about me and Darry and Soda. How my life now is one big finger stuck in an electrical socket. What was once fairly normal is now all jarring jolts and blaze and intensity. It has to be. We don't have Mom and her thumb to lick us, and we don't have Dad to take the brunt of the shocks, to swing his Louisiana left hook, all while paving the way for other men's dreams.
The cops drive up slow and trail me for a solid couple of blocks, then turn left to hunt down a more interesting kid to track I guess. Aiming towards Brumly probably, or the turnpike that it'll get em to Greenwood quicker than you can say segregation.
Making my way up our gravel path, I can hear everybody goofing around inside before I open the back door, hear the deejay chattering a mile a minute from the kitchen radio that Soda's always got turned up beyond loud these days. Sometimes it's hard to think in my house. Maybe that's how he wants it.
Nobody looks up when I walk in. They're too busy trying to beat each other's records on the pull-up bar that's mounted across Darry's door frame.
Soda finally notices. "Hey Pony where ya been?" He easily swings from the bar and starts rubbing his sweaty hands across the thighs of his jeans.
I shrug. "Just grabbed a snack at the Texaco."
"All the way out there?" Two-Bit's leaned back on the couch slurping sugar smacks out of our tupperware bowl he's got balanced on his knee.
Soda holds up his arm and simply gives me a thumbs down sign since the brand new Texaco is the DX's competition.
Steve yells out from deep inside the bathroom, "Traitor."
Shirtless and looking like he just woke up, Dallas leaps for the bar to have a go. While Soda counts off every time Dal's chin makes it above the steel rod, I tell them about the car I'd just seen. "Saw a '65 Cadillac today. Mint color, mint condition too."
The toilet flushes and Steve emerges with the obits and anniversaries sections tucked under his elbow. "Oh yeah? Lemme guess. They weren't from around these parts."
I reach out to straighten Darry's framed diploma that's been knocked askew on the hallway wall. "Yup, Idaho plates."
Dally grunts every now and then between his words. "Man, I'd rather be poor in this shithole than live in lame ass Idaho, Cadillac or not." As he sails towards Darry's unbeaten record, I think how Dally's bitterness has always seemed to fuel his strength. And for that, I imagine him making it out of here someday.
Darry shows up out of nowhere and starts knocking people around. "Stand back boys, your balls ain't even dropped yet." And he shows everybody how one armed pullups are done. It's hard not to be impressed, but I walk away and let everybody else sing his praises. After all he forgot to remind Soda to pick me up today.
xXx
I'm lying down and thumbing through the Atlas while Soda gets ready for bed. I trace the outlines of all the states and their rivers, the mountain ranges, the deserts, and ask him which state he'd drive to if given the chance to take off tomorrow in any direction, any distance.
He drums at the light switch before turning if off, then steamrolls over me to his side of the mattress, the side that he's pushed against the wall right underneath the window. Tonight the moonlight pales in comparison to the gas station star.
"I don't know Pony," he sighs, already exhausted. It never takes Soda long to fall asleep after his head hits the pillow. He's rubbing his eyes, but he'll always play along and answer my endless nightly questions. His mouth moves slow and lazy. "I wouldn't mind going to the gulf again. Or maybe take off to Alaska. See the northern lights."
I raise my eyebrows cause I hadn't considered Alaska. It's a good and interesting answer, so I let him off the hook and quit bothering him. I get really quiet and he's out like a light.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pray that Soda'll one day get to see the world.
As I drift off, my dad has come to visit. I can make out his silhouette in the muted glow of a car radio softly playing. The red ember of his cigarette moves about as if on its own, like some will 'o the wisp, and we ride the night on the highway that he built.
A/N: Outsiders by SE Hinton
Title taken from Simon and Garfunkel's "America"
In no way whatsoever do I hold Idaho in the same regard that Dallas Winston does. I've never visited, but feel sure it's a lovely place to live :)
As always, my heartfelt thank you for reading!