"I like the snake on your tattoo,
I like the ivy and the ink blue.
Yayo, yes you, yayo.
You have to take me right now,
From this dark trailer park life now.
Yayo, how now, yayo.
Put me onto your black motorcycle
50s baby doll dress for my I do,
It only takes 2 hours to Nevada,
I wear your sparkle you call me your mama."
Her sultry voice echoes throughout the ballroom. She sings an unfamiliar song but judging by the lyrics it sounded a lot like the story she told me back in Phoenix. I lean against the doorway of the empty room; a large open space carpeted with red fluffy material and littered with folding chairs and a grand piano. Lizzy's fingers glide across the keyboard as she continues to sing soulfully to an audience she doesn't think exists. It's hard to look away from her; her voice has always been something that intrigued me. Especially now as she sings about her experiences and things she's felt, it makes it all the more emotionally captivating.
We were supposed to check out at ten in the morning, it's almost ten thirty now, so I stand with all of our luggage at my feet. It's not a lot, just two duffel bags, so it's easy to carry. We arrived at a little town forty miles north of the Mexican border last night. With all our newfound cash, we stayed in the only hotel there was for miles. In places this South of the United States, towns became further and further away from each other and necessities became harder to find. Right about now, we were also a few miles from New Mexico, nearing closer to our final destination.
"Let me put on a show for you tiger,
Let me put on a show."
She finishes her song with a short piano solo and I clap slowly, smiling to myself and she finally turns around. She looks startled when she hears my applaud and says, "Jesus, I didn't know anyone was here."
"I didn't know you wrote songs about your boyfriend," I say and cross my arms.
Lizzy turns on the piano bench so her whole body faces mine. She leans back on the keys creating a loud, ugly pitched bong. "I write songs about all my boyfriends," she says.
My eyes widen and I sashay over to one of the folding chairs and drag it right in front of the stubby bench. "So," I start. "Did you write one about...me?"
She laughs. "You? You're not my boyfriend."
I bite my bottom lip. Lizzy and I never really discussed where we were in our relationship. Before we were three quarters to Texas, we discussed seeing each other back in England and days before that, we even got married. I felt like there was some sort of an agreement between the two of us that we were a couple. Some of the things she said to me sounded like she was interested in a long term relationship, but then as I look at the red mark that she still wore on her face because of me, I remember that punch might have turned things around.
"Well, obviously not," I say.
"I've never had a girlfriend before."
"It's not too late to have one."
She smiles and looks down at her red converse shoes. After our third or so day on the run, Lizzy's thick curls have gradually straightened out to a wavy style, crawling down her back like a black waterfall. This new style helps me focus on her facial features better. Now when I look at her, I just see her face, not a giant mass of curls. She wears a long black cardigan that looks like it's a size too big on her, over a white tank top and blue jeans. What I liked about Lizzy is that she was always dressed very casually. Even though she never dressed to impress, she always found a way to look beautiful humbly.
"You already know how I feel about you," she says, distracting me from my thoughts.
"I know how you felt about me before I punched you in the face," I say.
One of her hands reaches for her face from behind her. She leans forward as she touches the red mark on her cheekbone. "Let's be real," she says. "I fucking dragged you out here in the middle of nowhere against your will. I deserved it."
I shake my head. "You didn't." I lean forward and place a hand over hers on her cheek. When I make this contact, she looks up at me and our eyes connect.
We hold this gaze for a long time before she purses her lips and stands up. My hand forcefully falls from her face but interlocks with hers shortly after. She walks toward the exit of the ballroom and I follow her lead. We pick up our luggage, walk across the empty lobby and get into her car. As soon as she finishes tossing her bag into the backseat and sits in her driver's seat, she reaches for a Jack in the Box receipt and scribbles words on the back of it.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
She looks at me briefly before going back to scribbling a few last words down on the small piece of paper. "Everything I want I have: money, notoriety and rivieras," she reads.
I stare at her, waiting for her to continue. "What's that?"
"You'll see," she says and smiles.
Her slender fingers wrap around the clutch and she pulls the car into reverse. It only takes a few minutes to leave the small town and head back out on the road. Lizzy and I are still the only people on the freeway, the black road ahead of us bending and stretching with every curve and bump of the land out into the horizon. We would pass the odd car every ten minutes or so, and after every thirty minutes there would be a tribal themed variety store. Shortly, we pass a sign that says, "Welcome to New Mexico."
Lizzy and I don't speak for most of the car ride; we always had the same radio station playing until we drove out of its covered region. Right now, it was hard to hear anything on the station, it was mainly static but we could hear glimpses of pop songs. She seems to notice that we're finally out of range from a large Tucson station, so she fiddles with the knob and scans through channels until she comes across a clear one from a local station. Latin music fills the car as we start our short journey toward El Paso.
It's twelve o'clock now and the empty pit in my stomach grows. I'm starving; I haven't eaten anything all day. I open the glove box and blindly feel around for a cigarette pack. I feel the gun Lizzy used during our heist and pull it out to examine it. It has an intricate design along the top of it and I trace it with my thumb.
"How do you use this?" I ask.
She looks at the gun before focusing her eyes on the road again. "You want me to teach you?" I nod and reach back into the glove box, still looking for cigarettes to kill my hunger. I find the Newport pack and open it, pulling out a single stick and placing it between my lips before lighting it.
She steers her car to follow a dirt road, driving us further into the middle of nowhere. The desert heat is really intense here. Its already bone-dry atmosphere made drier by the dust kicked up by Lizzy's car. I lean back in the passenger's seat; my arm hangs out the window, feeling like it's being shrivelled by the heat of the sun. I take a drag and keep my eyes focussed on the horizon in front of us. A vast open land owned by Native American tribes. Lizzy hums along to a song on the radio as her car gradually comes to a stop.
"Get out," she says.
I look around. The freeway we came here on wasn't even visible anymore. I reluctantly step out of Lizzy's car, and she does the same, grabbing the gun from my lap. I take one last drag before tossing my cigarette to the sand and stomping on it, twisting my foot into it. "What are we doing?" I ask.
"I'm teaching you," she says and places the gun into my hands before walking behind me. Her full body presses against my back and she holds my arms, moving them up so they're extended in front of me. Her hand moves over mine and she slides the top of the gun back. "Keep your finger off the trigger," she says and I move my index finger away. "Only put it there until you're aimed at your target."
"What am I aiming at?"
"That shrub," she says and points to a stubby shrub five metres in front of me. "Take a deep breath, keep your dominant eye on the front sight and make sure you're on the target."
I take a deep breath and aim, following Lizzy's exact words.
Bang Bang.
