The Tree of Knowledge

Four Hundred Miles to Carlsbad

Next order of business, get off the main highway.

"Siri," I tell my phone, "I need directions to Carlsbad, New Mexico, avoiding highways."

Bing Bing.

"Starting route to Carlsbad, New Mexico."

It's the only plan that makes sense. Head for the nearest City of Refuge. Even if they know exactly where I went, they'll never follow me in there. Because it's, you know, a death trap.

Maybe this isn't my most excellent plan ever.

It is, however, the only one I've got.

My phone makes a terrible screechy noise and I nearly veer into the car in the next lane. I seem to have some trouble coloring between the lines.

I pick up the phone. I have a push notification for an Amber Alert. The Amber Alert, it's for me. My husband put out an Amber Alert to find his wife. I take a moment to ponder the fucked up nature of my classification as a missing child.

At least it still says I'm driving the Mercedes. That means they haven't found it yet. I might have days before they figure out I changed cars.

It suddenly occurs to me that they might be able to trace my phone. I roll down the window and pitch it out, throwing George's out after it for good measure.

Shit. Now I need a map.

I pull off the highway and into a little gas station and convenience store. I should probably fill up the tank.

After two tries I park the truck embarrassingly far away from the pump, but still close enough for the nozzle to reach. I'd much rather have erred in that direction then, say, smashing into the gas pump and dying in a giant fiery explosion. I seem to lack for spatial reasoning when it comes to this whole driving thing.

I pay at the pump using one of George's credit cards, skimming his zip code off his driver's license. In his wallet is a picture of three beautiful teenage girls. I wonder if they're his daughters or his wives?

I walk into the convenience store and smell the roller food, only just now remembering I haven't eaten since breakfast. I get a hotdog and two greasy taquitos for now and a turkey sandwich for later, along with a small stack of promising looking maps. I pay with George's credit card.

I'm not actually certain I know how to read a map. I spend some time pouring over it, sitting in the gas station parking lot and nibbling taquitos. Before I killed Siri, she said it was seven hours to Carlsbad. It looks like there's a nice, flat line representing Highway 20 that could get me most of the way there. Or I could take 20 just a little further and hop on to the skinny line representing Highway 180 and take that straight there. I think the object of the game is to stay on the skinny lines.

I almost miss the interchange for 180, veering suddenly across two lanes of traffic, car horns blaring. I do better on 180, having the road mostly to myself.

At least I do pretty good until it gets dark.

Dark is scary.

There are almost no street lamps. Just miles and miles of country road cutting through the black space with only my pitiful headlights to guide me. It's the kind of road horror movies are set in. I keep my eyes peeled for vanishing hitch hikers, and try desperately to stay in my lane.

It's 9:30pm when I make it to Carlsbad. The city itself is a ghost town.

I remember the protests when Carlsbad National Park was proposed as a City of Refuge. Parks made a kind of sense, being a place with no people already living there. But tourists were up in arms about not being able to admire the natural beauty of the caverns, scale Guadelupe Peak, or watch the thousands of bats fly across the desert sky. And the people of Carlsbad were really up in arms about the tourists no longer paying to admire the natural beauty of the caverns, scale Guadelupe Peak, or watch the thousands of bats fly across the desert sky. In the end, I think the park was converted just because no one had a better plan.

The citizens of Carlsbad's dire predictions of financial doom once the tourist dollars dried up were spot on. I pass store front after store front with the windows boarded up. Foreclosure signs. Angry, protesting graffiti scrawled across a brick coffee shop demands, "Stone the sinners and take back our city!"

Signs along the road caution drivers not to pick up hitch hikers, like near prisons and mental institutions.

I pull the truck into a parking space, badly. At least I didn't scratch it. Hopefully George will get it back, safe and sound. I wheel my bike to the entrance, where I am met by an imposing double set of locked gates. Barbed wire coils along the top. Two armed guards stand sentry in front of them.

"What do you want?" one of them asks me.

"In." I respond simply.

He looks me up and down.

"You're seeking refuge?"

"Yes."

"You sure you wouldn't rather take your chances out here missy?"

"I'm sure."

The guard shrugs. Indifferent.

"Alright then."

He punches a code into a control panel. The first gate slides open. I step past it. Just as it shuts, the second gate opens. I step through that one, into the park.

Just as the second gate clangs shut behind me, locking me in, I hear one guard say to the other, "They're gonna eat her."