"I was in San Francisco for a bit. Then… Selma and Bakersfield. Not long, maybe a week." Jess paused and regarded, ever so briefly, his audience.
When Rory didn't reply, he continued, his voice a shell of its former self. While looking down at his lap, he almost imperceptibly ticked off his listless fingers. "Um, I saw Tucson, El Paso, Amarillo, San Antonio… Houston for a bit." With still no response from Rory, he took a deep breath. "San Antonio was nice, with its… river-walk… area."
"I've heard," Rory murmured, still reeling from Jess's freely offered, albeit slowly seeping, divulgence.
He took another look at Rory. Rather he dared a look. There was no other way to describe the hesitation she saw there.
In response to the surprisingly penitent hue of his eyes (surprising because she didn't think she'd ever found penitence there before), her breath became heavy, the struggle of nervous lungs gasping against tense muscles and heightened awareness. Breathe in. Breathe out. The rhythm continued barely, keeping her alive but very dizzy.
And she watched him too, from the corner of her eye. His breath was as shallow as her own, open-mouthed and raspy, matching her breath for heavy breath.
"Uh…" he swallowed with difficulty and continued, his eyes suddenly twitchy and ducking under her gaze, "I spent a couple of months in New Orleans 'cause, by the time I got there, I needed a job... badly." Jess inhaled sharply and ran his palms down along his thighs, raising his shoulders up near his ears. "Turns out the southern states are really hot. I couldn't sleep at all at night…"
Turning away from her, he added quietly, "So I came back up north. St. Louis. Des Moines. Davenport."
As Jess turned and lapsed into silence, it seemed to free her from a hypnotic state. Rory leaned back into the seat and took a deep, steadying breath, suddenly feeling a relaxation of the tension that had held her constricted for so long. She closed her eyes and tried to picture him a wayward wanderer. She found certain aspects of the image came to her clearly (and not all of them pleasant).
He'd seen so many places. San Francisco, San Antonio, New Orleans, St. Louis, her thoughts continued, going over his words again in her mind. A sense of awe in the face of such unstructured vagabond movement overtook her—at least until another thought suddenly supplanted it. And when that new idea took over, she smiled and snuck another look at him. Maybe it hadn't been so unstructured. It certainly seemed as though Jess had kept to a plan.
Gathering evidence, she said, "Go on."
The features on his face painted a jolt of discomfort. With his eyes still averted he began again, this time his voice guarded, dismissive, as though his story were inconsequential. "I ended up in Chicago, where I stayed for... a few weeks, but… I couldn't stand it there much longer than that…" Jess sighed again, twisting uncomfortably. "By the time I got to Cincinnati I was sick of travelling."
Deciding, with rapidly increasing conviction, that her suspicions were correct, she pivoted eagerly towards him in her seat, once again grabbing the dash for assistance. She leaned towards him, pounce-posed, waiting for the right moment.
"Pennsylvania went quick: Pittsburgh, Harrisburg—" he was saying, still not meeting her gaze.
"Right. The 'burgs," Rory interjected, nodding conspiratorially and trying to keep her face straight. Alas, she could not stop the snicker that burst from her.
"—And then I headed home. I've been back in New York for a couple months." His reverie broken, irritation flooded his voice once more, "What? Why are you laughing? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"And did you call yourself Sal while you were doing all this?"
"Of course not."
"You re-enacted On the Road," she said incredulously.
"I did not. You can't re-enact On the Road."
"You followed the route," she pointed out.
"I didn't!" he insisted. "The route in On the Road is really complicated—all zigzagging back and forth. I didn't do that."
"Oh-ho!" Rory laughed. "I stand corrected. But you did hit all the main attractions."
"I didn't though! I didn't go to Denver or Sacramento or anywhere in Wyoming."
"Right 'cause that makes it totally different. So you skipped a few. You still saw most of them. Come on. I know you and we both know that book."
Jess took a deep breath and shook his head in agitation, no doubt realizing he couldn't win this argument. Pouting gruffly, he admitted, "Maybe."
"You did."
Finally Jess shrugged. "I didn't know where to go or what to do with myself so I just used some places from the book as a guide, as goals. I also could've closed my eyes and pointed at a map. Same thing. I let the book decide for me."
This time Rory's snicker had more to do with Jess conceding his defeat.
"I didn't go to Mexico City either," Jess pointed out feebly. "You can't reenact the book without that. That made up a good portion of the 4th part."
Rory smiled. "I'll bet. Was it because Kerouac painted such a lovely picture of dysentery?"
"No..." Jess scowled. After a loaded pause, he said, "I didn't have a passport."
Rory hooted in laughter. She slapped the dash for good measure and then leaned back into the vinyl seat smugly.
Jess turned his head to the driver's side air vent and intently pulled a leaf out of it's grill. He was closed off again, riding out her laughter, she surmised. Instantly she realized how overbearing her reaction was. With slight effort, she reined in her chuckles.
Smirking still, but the urge to do so waning, she sighed contentedly. With more care, she asked, "And so while you were doing all this travelling, how did you survive?"
"What do you mean?"
"What did you do for money?" She had a vision of the young vagabond wending his way across the country. How had he afforded it? Where had he slept? Maybe he'd hitchhiked. Maybe he'd inhabited park benches and alleys. She didn't like those ideas very much.
"Coffee shop in Venice Beach. Forklift in New Orleans—"
"Wal-Mart?" she asked genuinely.
"No." He groaned. "Building supplies. Lumber and stuff. I drove a cab in Chicago but I was constantly subjected to morons so that didn't last long… I had some savings, from before, also."
She nodded absently and when his voice trailed off, she followed up, "Where did you sleep?"
"Boarding rooms, hostels, roommates. Some rest-stops along the way."
"Strategically-placed benches?"
"No. It was all very above-board."
"Oh." They settled into another long moment of awkward silence while she pondered the magnitude of what he'd accomplished. All links to the book aside, it really was impressive.
He'd spent 8 and a half months on the road. Nearly a year. He'd lived where he'd lived and he'd worked when he'd needed money. Just like he'd always wanted to.
Wow, she thought, impressed anew. Rory took a deep breath as she tried to imagine the adventure of hitting the open road, all alone, with no more plan than to pick a few destinations from a book. The idea was positively terrifying for her. The concept was real for him though. He'd done it.
In contrast, her life to this point was still largely theoretical and nowhere near that devil-may-care and free. Most of the "spur of the moment" travels she'd suggested to her mom during their backpacking trip across Europe had actually been painstakingly planned and well-documented in the secret itinerary she'd slipped to Babette before they'd even left.
She could learn a thing or two here, she decided. In fact, she'd need to, if she were to ever follow her chosen career path. The structure she so desperately clung to would not always be an option. At some point, she'd have to let go.
She found her voice. "And so... you had your adventures, learned the great mysteries of the universe."
"No." He suddenly smirked at her, a heart-stopping contrast to the sullen expression he'd previously sported. Her intake of breath was quiet but profound. "You know 'IT' can never be found."
"Right. IT," she said, catching the reference and chuckling slightly. She thought about that. "Actually IT can be found, if you know what you're looking for."
"There's the rub."
"Oh," she said again, secretly finding a common ground in not knowing what it was she was looking for. She smirked at him briefly and then turned away from the distant, confusing twinkle in his eyes. The vinyl seat squawked as he turned away also, and his knee bumped the steering wheel, setting the keys hanging from the ignition to clink like a metronome against the industrial plastic of the steering column.
Her voice ventured into the expanse between them. "Have you—have you read anything else interesting lately?" She could hear the exhale of a happy smirk.