The Passenger

In all those hundreds of miles, he had barely uttered a sound. He communicated his annoyance almost exclusively with his eyes. Narrowed eyes to say, “God, I can’t look.” or “Slow the hell down”. In essence, as a passenger, I imagine those came to the same thing really. I knew he didn’t like speed.

On the other hand, when you’re traveling across the breadth of a great continent, speed is essential especially if you’re light on cash for hotel rooms. So we sped through the southland, through the high desert, the mesa country, and finally the classic barren and bone littered deserts. I kept thinking of Dali as I persisted in this mission of mine—pocket watches melting, wasteland, and that marine carcass curled in the desert almost tragically in sight of the sea. Whether the picture was in my mind because of the surreal quality of my non-stop flight or my silent passenger, or there was a deeper and more truthful answer, I simply was not prepared to say. Wait and see.

When we descended from the high desert it was around 5:00 pm. Darkness was flowing behind us like the smoke of a wildfire. Night was reaching out to embrace us as the desert plains below came to view. Sunset above an endless expanse of nothingness. With darkness at our backs and the steep drop ahead, I was mentally trying to retrieve my consciousness from the unreal expanse where my mind had been wandering leaving the body on autopilot for at least 100 miles. I shook my head sharply to complete touchdown in reality but somehow reality had shifted while I was gone.

The sun, not surprisingly a white hot disc before us, just desert cliché. That was okay. What wasn’t okay was the rainbow circling it like some Egyptian hieroglyphs snaking this way then that in a neon pinwheel. The whole lot of them; the white disc, the flashing colors, the snaking dancers were gently bouncing up and down. The show persisted even though it was well after sunset as if to force me to answer myself.

I glanced over at my passenger hoping to see some sign that he saw the same wild show ahead of us that I saw. To my great relief, he was glued to the scene with his jaw dropped slightly. I wasn’t hallucinating after all. I probably couldn’t convince anyone to believe me but he knew. He would remember.

By the time we rolled into Gallup, I knew I could not drive any further, so I took the first Route 66 exit I found and looked for an all night diner. I asked my passenger if he were hungry too but all I got was a non committal harrumph. I got him a cheeseburger to go and found a cheap motel for the night. The moment we entered the room, he literally threw himself at the floor and appeared to be attempting to embrace it. Sarcasm is not a good quality in a traveling companion.

The next day was unremarkable.  We hurried past LA far in the distance and kept to the forgotten roads. No more freeways for me, I would take it easy and learn to breathe again. By the time we reached Santa Cruz, my passenger was yawning audibly so when I announced that we had arrived he was unimpressed. I thought it was likely he hadn’t heard me.

As I swung down out of the Jeep though, I heard him say, “So what now, genius? Had you ever thought about what comes next?”

All I could do was stand there with rain peppering my back and my head hanging while his tail wagged madly. I had not thought about it. Hadn’t allowed myself to think about it. Wait and see.