Little Bastards in Springtime (40 page)

I’m happy to stare at the highway just before it disappears under our wheels, thinking about things like walking, how it doesn’t keep pace with reality at all, about how good it feels to be moving forward, straight forward at a fast, steady, motorized pace, that this is how I want my life to be from now on, not stuck in some accidental place doing an accidental thing, but me at the wheel steering where I want to go. This is when I notice that the guy is swerving out of our lane, then back in again, that we’re weaving all over the place. Suddenly we swerve into the left lane and head for the concrete blocks in the middle of the highway.

“Hey, Jesus.” I grab the guy’s shoulder.

The guy snorts, jerks his head up, rights the wheel.

“Holy shit,” he gasps. “Goddammit, this isn’t working. I drank, like, six cups of coffee this morning but I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Okay,” I say. I notice that he smells faintly of vomit. “Late night?”

“No night. We stayed up till I had to split this morning. I promised I wouldn’t, but you know, once you get going. My exam is at two, and I need to do some studying.”

We say nothing more for ten minutes but I notice that the guy is slipping down so far in his seat that he can barely see over the wheel, that he’s pinching the skin of his right arm, that he’s throwing his head back and grimacing with fake yawns, the kind you make to get extra hits of oxygen, then shaking his head like a dog.

“You drive,” he says finally. “I need to sleep, then I’m gonna study. Okay, d’you mind?”

“Okay,” I say. “I don’t mind at all. Where are you going?”

“UNB,” he says and pulls the steering wheel hard to the right. We skid to a stop. I assume this is a university. “Fredericton.”

We switch places. “Turn in to the city at the first exit when we get there. Thanks, man,” he says, then throws the seat back and pulls his sweatshirt hood over his eyes.

He’s asleep before I pull off the shoulder, his breathing erratic and ragged. It feels great driving a car, how fast you can go on a perfect highway like this. I check to see how full the tank is, I check the side pocket, the glove compartment, I fumble behind me in the backpack on the back seat, find his wallet and riffle through it. His name is Brad, he was born in 1977, and he’s got forty-five dollars in cash on him and a debit card and two credit cards. I see a sign for Fredericton, still hundreds of miles away. I could just keep right on driving till we hit the east coast, or try to cross the border into the U.S., since Brad could sleep all day without moving an inch. I could pull over, open his door and push him out. It would be that easy, he’d fall, and wake only when he landed on the gravel, when his car was pulling away from him, when it was too late. He’d lie there for a few moments, bewildered, then he’d swear like a loser and get up slowly, brushing gravel off his palms, staring at the disappearing car.

But then I find his pack of cigarettes. In it, wedged between the cigarettes, are three joints so lovingly rolled that it’s like a sign from his guardian angel. I look at him sleeping so trustingly beside me, believing that nothing bad will ever happen to him besides this last inconvenient exam of the year, that he has to somehow bullshit his way through so he can get back home to a summer of partying. And I think of Dušan, I
can’t help it, it’s the lovingly rolled joints, and how close in age they are, and how Dušan used to sleep the same way, still high, still drunk, putting off the work and bullshitting he’d need to do when he woke up. How having a good time with his friends was also the most important part of his life. How Dušan took me for granted and ignored me and assumed I’d always be on his side and would never squeal on him or take his stuff or screw him in any way, just like this Brad is doing. I think, how good it was that Dušan grabbed all that time for himself, how right he was to live selfishly for the moment, not doing his math homework, not doing any homework, not worrying about his bad attitude or making it in the world or any of the things he was constantly nagged about. How wrong everyone else was, Mama and Papa, his teachers, the responsible ones, about his pointless teenage fun, how surreally, horribly wrong.

For the next four hours I drive, watching Brad with one eye as he snores and tucks his hands into his armpits, as he wriggles his large frame to get more comfortable, as his head tips back and his mouth opens and he looks like a fat-cheeked baby in a crib. And I debate his fate with myself, his fate versus my fate, how perfect it would be for me to have his car for a solid day and night so I can make some good time, how shitty it would be for him to tumble headfirst out onto the shoulder. And the whole time, in my mind’s eye, Dušan is also asleep, also trying to get comfortable, also trying to stay warm, but he’s lying on the floor in a trench somewhere, or a gutted house they used as a bunker, it’s never clear where. His head is tipped back, his mouth is open, just like Brad’s, just like an overtired child who can’t take any more of this world. And I watch him as he twitches and babbles from time to time, as the innocent slackness of his
face is troubled by a grimace, which sometimes happens when people sleep and dream. And then a brief scene unfolds that I haven’t been able to watch until now. A soldier with a gun shows up in the trench, in the house, wherever exactly the two of them find themselves in this fateful moment, and without pausing for an instant aims his gun down at sleeping Dušan and shoots him in the face.

S
HORTLY
after I turn onto the first exit for Fredericton, I pull over and cut the engine. The silence of the stationary car does not wake Brad. I take a twenty out of his wallet, and ten smokes, two joints, and the lighter out of his pack of cigarettes. Then I get out and close the door quietly behind me. I trudge back to the Trans-Canada and walk far enough along so that Brad’s car is out of sight. I turn and stand waiting for the next vehicle to come speeding along. When cars pass by I stick out my thumb, but no one picks me up. After about an hour, I start walking.

I
STAND
outside a service centre inhaling the food and sipping the coffee that I paid for. I also bought smokes, and that’s it for Brad’s cash. Then I watch the trucks that are idling in the parking lot, wondering if I should travel as far east as I can get in Canada, St. John’s, Newfoundland, which is still several small European countries away, or whether it’s time to turn south then travel west again, to attempt the border, to cross the continent, to find Ujak Luka. He’s way on the other side of it, at least a week away. That means a week of open road, staring out of windows, thinking, dreaming, figuring things out.

I walk up to the nearest truck with U.S. plates, knock on
the passenger door, pull myself up, and look in the window. I’m amazed by what I see. The cab is a home. There’s a quilted blanket, tasselled pillows, dog-eared photos stuck to the dash, magazines, books, clothes on hangers, dangling amulets to keep road-death away. The driver is reading a magazine, smoking a cigarette, sipping coffee.

“Hi,” I say. I motion for him to lower his window.

“What’s up, kid?”

“Where are you going?” I ask direct, like the other driver said.

“Pittsburgh,” he says. “Via the Houlton border.”

“Okay. That’s it, then. Can I get a ride?”

“What’s your destination?” He puts his coffee down carefully and turns to look at me closely.

“California,” I say. It sounds really sweet coming out of my mouth. I have to say it a few more times. “California. I’m going to California. Los Angeles, California.”

The driver is short, with bulky arms and neck. His skin stretches taut over a mighty, grizzly face. He rolls his eyes.

“That’s where they all want to go,” he says. “Know someone there?”

“Yeah, I’m going to visit my uncle. He’s some kind of Hollywood star, or producer, or businessman, or something like that.”

“Oh yes.” He sighs. “Everyone knows someone there, someone who’s just about to make it big. You got a passport?”

I shake my head. “I’m not worried about that kind of thing.”

The driver laughs and puffs smoke in my direction.

“Oh, to be young again. What’s the accent? Something from Europe, I’d guess.”

“Where do you want me to be from?”

“Oh, anywhere outside of this continent will be good. I can tell you, I’m up for some fresh words and ideas. I’ve heard most of the ideas in the heads of North American kids, I know what they’re thinking about, pretty much, and it’s got flaws, I tell ya. It’s got flaws.”

“I’m from Bosnia,” I say.

The driver claps his hands. “Bosnia? Well, I’ll be damned. Hop in, I can take you as far west as I’m going, and if you’ve got a brain between your ears, some good stories, a few jokes, a decent way of eating, no one likes a slob, I can maybe pass you on to some brothers from there.”

I haul myself in. It’s a soft sofa kind of seat, and there we are sitting nice and high off the road like thin-skinned aristocrats.

“My name is Samuel L. Jackson. Not Sam. Samuel. Like the actor, but short, fat, white, and one-hundred-percent teamster, Local 299. That’s Detroit, son.” Samuel smiles a flashy smile. “The city of rusty champions.”

Samuel does some bustling around before we get going, then turns the key, presses a series of buttons and levers, and the truck picks itself up and charges up the highway on-ramp. Samuel drives it like it’s a high-strung prize horse, clucking and crooning to it, saying,
whoa there, girl, giddy-up, back, walk, gallop, step, easy.
He tells her she’s a good girl; he says, you can do it, girl, pass that pathetic short-strided pony, go on, pass that son-of-a-glue-pot. I ask Samuel if he’s a horse guy, does he like to ride, and he looks at me like I’m nuts. I get comfortable with his pillows, I feel my muscles go soft, I feel my skin burning from exposure to the cold and the night, I feel sleep filling my head. We’re heading west on Highway 2, still the Trans-Canada, nothing but brush on either side.

“We’re going to cross at Houlton in about an hour,” Samuel says. “Then we’ll be on the I-95.”

I let myself be carried along like a bundle of cloth, adding no energy or thoughts to the process, just letting the exploding gas, pistons, axles, wheels do all the work. And I feel so relieved I want to cry. I stare out at the monotonous brush, I stare into car windows at shoulders, laps, car interiors. I know there’s no other place on the planet that I’d rather be but on this road, pointing in this direction, so many thousands of miles ahead of me to get lost and found in.

At the border I join the boxes of office supplies in the back. If you get nabbed, Samuel says, I’ve never seen you before, you got that? But his truck rolls right through after a short stop, paper clips, binders, desk accessories and all, and me with it, one skinny-assed Euro-fugitive from an imploding past lying flat on his back with the smell of cardboard pressing into his lungs. I say ciao to Canada, the giant, friendly land at the top of the globe, with its mash-up of people from all over the world living together pretty well, considering. And I think, I didn’t get to know you much, or at all, really, you tried your best, thanks for all the cigarettes, weed, stale doughnuts, sorry about the mayhem. Maybe one day I’ll make you proud. Who else would let in a screwed-up motherfucker like me?

‡ ‡ ‡

T
HE
U.S.
OF
A.
IS A BIG PLACE, JUST LIKE
C
ANADA,
this is the first thing I notice as I look at the map Samuel’s given me as he chases down the miles with unwavering focus, like a hunter following his dogs. It’s a real physical country, that’s the second thing I notice, as I look out the window, with earth, rocks, soil, plants, trees, rivers, towns, cities, people. It has farmers’ fields, cows, barns, orchards, fences,
silos, small towns, gingerbread houses, a church on every corner. It has industrial wastelands, dingy down-and-out towns, low-rent strip malls with low-rent chain stores, rusty railroad bridges, highways that cut through shapeless scrub, three hundred million flags, one for each person, give or take. It has foggy foothills, winding roads, deep ravines, rushing gorges, pounding waterfalls, small lakes with sandy beaches and rocky shores, and lakes as big as seas. That’s what I’ve seen so far and we’re only halfway through Maine. I laugh at my foolishness quietly as I watch it unrolling in front of my eyes. In my mind, Canada was the wild land full of natural wonders. America was a huge perfect golf course decorated with plastic palm trees and twenty million cruise missiles sticking out in all directions.

And that’s not all, Samuel tells me, his eyes shining and alive, there is marsh, prairie, desert, badlands, giant mountain ranges craggier than anywhere, canyons you can fly helicopters into, distances that dwarf the European mind.

“It’s better live, in person, on the ground, than it is as an idea,” he says, “that’s for certain.”

In the middle of Maine, we heave off the I-95 and come to a standstill at a truck stop that Samuel declares is passable. There are other, really swanky ones, he says, like spas and resorts and vacation stays where you can get rested, fed, bathed, entertained, fucked, fleeced, and shop for your kid’s birthday, all in a few hours’ time. Samuel says I need a shower. And I need new clothes. I wander inside to the shower room.

I stand under the hot jet and feel all kinds of places on my body sting like a motherfucker, my scalp, my mouth, the backs of my hands, my asshole. Soap makes it worse, then better. My fingers slither over my body, but nothing is as familiar as it should
be, something feels different now that I’m a free man, sort of, out on the open road. My sad lonely cock is an unfamiliar appendage too, but it gets hard and jizzes after only a couple minutes of attention, of thinking of Sava, alive and breathing and doing something ordinary and sexy and smart back in Toronto, that’s all it takes, and I get out, dry myself off, feeling so much better, light, bursting with energy. I roam the corridors full of polite heavy-set men in baseball caps, looking for Samuel.

Samuel is waiting for me in the restaurant. He loudly and slowly reads out all the breakfast and lunch options on the menu, as if my accent means I’m illiterate or something, then tells me exactly what I should eat to get healthy. He’s so motivated he offers to pay for the whole deal. He’s decided that I’m a sickly kind of Yugo, a boy who must devour kilos of bloody, fatty, patriotic American cow every day, helped down by buckets of milk and bushels of mashed potato. He orders me a steak and when it comes it’s the size of Sarajevo.