The Road To Nowhere

four - neil

By the time we got to the Idaho border, I felt like puking my guts out. If Eva wasn't there, I probably would have.

It was starting to get sort of dark. Somehow I wasn't hungry. All I'd eaten since Aunt Beth called me was that piece of licorice. It was a wonder I'd even managed to choke it down.

My palms started to sweat when I pictured Shirley, with its rundown buildings and dirt roads. I fought back the memories. Running down the sidewalk, calling for Dad, my bare feet bleeding and full of blisters. Sheriff Larson had come up to me like I had done something wrong. I remembered his deep rumbling voice. It made me feel like I was nothing.

I couldn't believe Dad was gone. It felt like we were driving for no reason. Like there was no way I was going to bury the man that raised me. Of course we weren't going to stick him in the ground and cover him with dirt. When I got there, he would be the same as always, drinking a handle of vodka in the trailer and listening to one of his radio shows.

No, Neil, I thought. He's dead. He's dead. Get it through your skull already!

I shivered and glanced at Eva. She rested her cheek on the glass of the window. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears. I liked her ears. They were small. She once told me she thought they were too small, but in my head I disagreed. She sat with her knees to her chest.

I must've looked like I'd seen a bear on the side of the road or something, because she asked if I was alright.

"I'm fine," I said, sounding like an overplayed television ad.

"You're not hungry yet? Or were those two pieces of licorice a little too much for you?"

"No, God," I said. I knew she was joking, but I was still a little ticked off. "I just don't have an appetite right now."

"Okay, okay," she said. "I understand."

We drove for a few more hours, the miles of Idaho farmland brought with them a sick familiarity to my stomach. Flashbacks to long, lonely nights in the trailer came flooding back, the crash of Dad stumbling in, too drunk to stand. Screaming matches at two in the morning.

Then, there were the times when I forgot about the drunkenness and the fighting. Quiet drives into town, laughing as he showed me how to change a tire, or when he let me drive the truck and it felt like flying.

We sat in complete stillness for another hour. A song began playing on the radio, one that sent ice down my spine.

I nearly slammed on the breaks as I was back in the trailer once more, waiting for Dad to come back. Yelling his name. It was "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

My hand flew to the dial and I turned the volume down.

"What?" Eva cried, as if I'd purposely stepped on a kitten. "You don't like Smashing Pumpkins?"

"That song just creeps me out."

"I love that song," she said.

"I," I tried to sidestep the concept, "I don't like his voice. It's too squeaky."

"Squeaky?" She laughed.

"You know what I mean," I scoffed.

We drove and drove, until the sun started to set.

We didn't speak much. I was thinking a lot, though. I could tell that Eva was, too. She was twisting a piece of her hair around her finger and staring out the window. Her eyes were unfocused.

At around eight o'clock, we pulled off the road again in front of a little roadside restaurant. Eva was hungry. I wasn't, but I followed her inside anyway.

The restaurant was simple, with plain tables and booths and a checkered floor. We sat at a booth near a window.

Eva scanned the menu, her hazelnut eyes moving back and forth. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she moved. She looked so nice, perched on that booth with her legs crossed.

"I'm gonna get a grilled cheese sandwich," she declared. "And fries."

"Mhm," I said. Watercolor paintings of classic cars covered the walls. We were the only people there, aside from a few truckers.

The place reminded me of somewhere my dad had taken me once. It was one of the few instances where I had anything to eat aside from boxed mac-and-cheese and peanut butter sandwiches.

We'd gone after he won a hundred bucks playing poker. When we'd finished eating, he looked around for his wallet to pay. Turned out he'd blown it all on tequila and a bag of weed.

We had to sneak out of the restaurant without paying. I'd never been so embarrassed in my life. All I could think about was how nice the waitress had been to us, and how we'd stolen from her. It made me so ashamed, even though it wasn't really my fault. I was only about fourteen.

Looking around the restaurant, a hint of shame stabbed me, leftover from that memory. I winced to myself.

"Look, I know you said you're not hungry, but if you change your mind this is on me, okay?"

"Thanks," I said. I decided I'd get a cup of soup to let her know I wasn't starving myself or anything. We were quiet for a minute, as the waiter brought us ice water. "And thanks for coming with me."

She didn't say anything. All she did was tilt her head and smile. She had only one dimple when she smiled, on the left side of her face. I hadn't noticed it before. It was pretty intriguing.

The waiter returned and we ordered our food. We chatted for a while about unimportant things, like work and tv shows, until I asked another random question that had been on my mind lately. I always had a lot of questions floating around in my head and no one to talk to about them. That was why I'd wanted her to come.

"Do you ever miss people who hurt you?"

Her irises made their way to the ceiling above us. She chewed her bottom lip.

"Of course," she said, "all the time."

I thought of my father.

"Like who?"

"This guy I dated one summer during high school," she said. "He was a year older than me. I was in love with him. Well, I thought I was, anyway. I never had so much fun with somebody in my life. When summer was over, though, I found out he had a girlfriend who went to another high school."

A light stroke of something went down my spine, anger and discomfort.

"He's an asshole," I said. "Why would you miss somebody like that?"

"Same reason you missed Lily," she said. "All you can remember is the good things about them."

"That's the thing about my dad," I said. "I can barely remember the good things about him. But I think I still miss him." She stared at me and furrowed her eyebrows. I kept on talking. "Hell, I miss my mom and I barely even remember her. I just know she was a good person."

"Why is that?"

I paused. "She was married to my dad, for Christsakes. That means she loved him, even when he was a piece of shit."

Neither of us said much after that.