Backroads, v2

She wasn't there, of course. Nobody was. I was alone in dawn's early light, lost within the glow of my little electronic cocoon. It was just me along for this ride this time.

I rode a few miles through the darkness to an all night diner on the east side of the city; my jet-lagged internal clock telling me it was time to get out of bed and roll on into the new day, but it had lied. Smells inside the diner said breakfast and the clock above the counter said four thirty, but it felt like dinner time to me. Eggs, bacon, pancakes and a glass of whole milk beckoned; and while I could feel my arteries packing-it-up and calling-it-quits with each and every bite, I really wanted to look across the table and watch Jennie struggling with that chicken-fried-steak. Then I felt the phone in my coat pocket beating like a broken heart and I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the screen.

Five messages waiting.

All from Ireland. My, my; what a surprise.

It was late morning there, I saw, but I turned off the phone, stared at the thing, grew tired of its insinuating presence in my life and thought about drowning the fucker in my glass of milk. Then I decided I really wanted the milk, so fuck it. Fuck everything. Fuck the whole goddamned world. Go away and leave me alone.

The breakfast grease settled on my gut like the embers of a dying fire, it glowed and grumbled and sat there malevolently, waiting for release. I watched condensation form on the little glass of water on the table, turned the glass round and round on the slippery Formica surface while I listened to the grizzled waitress barking orders to the cook. What the fuck was I doing here? Where the fuck was I? Suddenly I wanted to go back to bed, and I knew I wanted to lay there beside Jennie.

Then I never wanted to see her again.

I wanted to find a backroad and drift though lazy sweeping curves, find the right line and hammer the throttle, feel the floorboards grinding under my feet as I leaned into each new curve. Left -- right -- left and on and on forever, nothing but open road ahead. I could run like that forever, and death would never catch up with me ever again.

But every road I took in my mind led me right back to Jennie. She was waiting for me there, wherever I went, waiting by the bike, smiling at me, seducing me with her eyes, waiting and ready to tie me up to the bed again, chew me up and spit me out while hotel maids lined up to laugh at me.

Where could I go to get away from her if everywhere I went she was already there, waiting for me, that smile in her eyes.

I paid up and saddled up and headed up city streets toward the Interstate; instinctively I headed east along the river again, retraced steps from my earlier ride, hoping against hope nothing and everything would happen as it had once again, but that somehow I could hit a reset button and do things differently, change the outcome. Make things right. But then she would be there, waiting, all outcome preordained. How could I make things different in a world like that?

Once again the miles rolled by, the asphalt loomed like a friend and a curse, endless, unforgiving, ambivalent, accepting. I pulled off into a rest area as the sun cleared the horizon, took out the phone and powered it up. Another call -- from Ireland. Good signal strength. I linked the phone to the speakers in my helmet, called information and figured out how to make an international call, then punched in the numbers and hit -- Send.

My finger rested over the -- End -- button; the call connected and a faraway voice answered on the first ring.

"Hello," I said.

There was silence, a kind of pregnant pause, then: "Jim?"

"It might be. I'm not sure anymore."

"Jim? Tell me why? Why did you leave?"

"Ask Ian. He's your Pit Bull, not mine. You're my pit bull."

"What?"

"Listen, Jen. That man has plans, big plans for you, and I got in his way. As long as he's in charge of you, don't you ever forget that. You understand? There's no room for me back there, not in his little universe. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. That's your truth. That's--you're a big part of that world back there, and I'm not. It's as simple as that."

"Jim, that's not true..."

"Jen, don't kid yourself. I'm not a part of that world, and I never will be. Can you understand that? I need to let you go, now, before we kill each other. I've got to go now..."

"Jim! Jim, please don't hang up." Her voice was catching now; she was crying.

"I don't know if there's anything left to say, Jennie. You've got your life back there, your family, and believe it or not I think you've found a new purpose there. You need to lead your life as you always have, in the public eye. You need to set an example now, because there are lots of people who need you, and they're all watching. I'll just get in your way."

"But we talked...about...Well, it doesn't matter. I've got to tell you..."

"And you walked away from me, Jen, at the airport. Not a word; you didn't say a word to me. You just drifted into the role you're comfortable with, and then left me to that piranha. You don't need me, Jen; that was clear to me at the airport, in that instant when you faced the reporters. You don't need me now, and here's the thing: I doubt you ever did. You've had your fun, your fling, Jen. Now I guess it's time for you to get back to work."

"Jim, I'm going to fly back, now, tonight. Will you meet me at the airport?" She was pleading with me, lost in her tears.

"I'm not in Portland, Jen. I'm back out on the road, and I might keep on going 'til I run out of places to hide from you. Or until I find one good reason why I should give a damn about anything anymore."

"Jim, you sound like a child."

"Maybe to you I do."

"I'm coming tonight. Tell me where you'll be."

"Nowhere. Anywhere. And all points in between."

"Jim, please. Don't do this to us."

"Us? What the Hell are you talking about?"

"Jim, listen to me. Listen to my voice. I want you to think about something for me. I want you to think about Madeleine. I want you to think about that girl, and what your love meant to her. Will you do that?

"Madeleine?"

"Oh, Jim, yes. Think about her, will you. You loved her, didn't you say that?"

"Jennie. Don't bring her back from the dead, don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"Jim, please, think about what your love meant to her. Do that for me, right now. Can you remember the look in her eyes?"

I drifted within memory, basked in the glow of Maddie's eyes while I held her close, while her soul faded from my grasp.

"Why are you doing this, Jen?"

"Because that's what your love means to me!"

I stumbled under the weight of her words, lost my balance and fell to the ground. "Goddamn you to Hell!" I screamed. "How dare you! How dare you twist that..."

"Jim. I need you. I love you, and I think you love me too."

"You do, huh? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Yes. I made a mistake. Several mistakes, I guess. I abused your trust, your love. I came back to Ireland, when I knew my life was back there, with you."

"Why--do you think I love you?"

"Because I've seen the look in your eyes. I know you love me, and I know you're afraid of my love. I made you afraid of love. It's my fault, it was my mistake. Please, Jim. Don't turn away from me. Not now."

"How much death," I whispered, "do you think I can stand, Jen?"

"Jim, listen to me, listen to me very carefully. That doctor back there, the oncologist, Peterson? You remember him?"

"Of course."

"He called me earlier today, we talked about some sort of new clinical trial they're starting there. They're taking HIV, the virus, and tailoring the genetic sequence so that it will attack cancer cells. The trial is for, well, one of the first cancers they're targeting is mine. He wants me to join the first group, right now. I mean this week."

For the second time in my life, I didn't know what to say. I couldn't think of a single pithy comeback, any easy way to deflect the seductive power of her words away from my soul.

"Jim? Did you hear what I said. I am not going to give up. I am not going to quit. I am going to fight. I am going to fight this thing, and win. I am going to beat this thing with your help, with your love, with you standing beside me. I am not going to leave you, Jim, and I am not ever going to stop loving you. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I'm telling you?

"Yes."

"So. Where will you be tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure, Jen. I'm not sure where I am, where I've been, or where I'm going."

"Look, Jim, I'm leaving tonight. Dublin to JFK, then a Delta direct to Portland. I'll be there at 20:30 hours tomorrow night."

"Goodbye Jen, and good luck. I hope it all works out for you." I hit the power button, shut the phone down, slipped it back in my coat. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if we could simply shut off our emotions as easily?

The exit for Waitsburg arrived and I wondered what to do about that for a moment, but really, I already knew. I had known for days. There was no point thinking about it anymore. I pulled off the highway and gassed up, had another warm Dr Pepper. A young couple came up and admired the bike while I was putting my helmet back on, and they asked questions about the bike and the backroads I had traveled. I looked at them and longed for the simple expectations of youth, but then I remembered my own expectations when I was twenty-something. They hadn't been that simple, and I knew it. There had been thoughts and expectations about which toys to buy next, and always how soon could I get laid. No guilt, no head-trips, just the pure bliss of total self-absorption.

What a blast it was to be a kid, I told myself. I looked at that young couple, looked at their old, beat up car and the happiness on their faces, in their eyes, and I hoped they'd never have to grow up too fast. I was pretty sure that in some pretty significant ways I never had. This festering yellow Honda was certainly all the proof of that anyone would ever need. My expectations about life hadn't changed, they just become a little larger than life...

I sat there on my Desert Rose, started the motor and the kids got the message, walked back to their car and soon drove off. I looked to the east while I sat there, looked over the backroads of my life. I thought of the road that had taken me to Waitsburg, and to Mary, just last week. She was, I told myself, a memory worth chasing, but in my heart I knew she'd always be there, and that she wasn't the type to settle down with one man -- simply because she had too much to share with all the men of this world. Her's had, after all, the wise mother's soul, and she lived for the next person who was just about to walk into her diner for the very first time. I wasn't sure I had grown up enough to share her with the world, or ever could, but I knew her soul well enough to feel love for her. I wanted to see her again, talk to her. Hold her in my arms for a hour or three and listen to her wisdom, then hit the road again...

I looked north, towards the painted landscapes of 'what dreams may come', to the lakes and mountains around Glacier National Park. I thought of Jennie in the moonlight and the boat out on Lake MacDonald, of her playful self-assurance that night. I closed my eyes and remembered what a good lover she had been, what a decent soul I had held so close to my own that first night. She...her actions the next night, were so hard to reconcile with what I'd come to love...she simply caught me unawares. Really, she did, and thinking out it now none of it seemed like a trick, there was no deception. I remembered the smile in her eyes when I'd first come down to the dining room after that poor kid cut me loose. It had all been a joke to her, a very strange attempt at humor, and yes, I really had reacted just like a little kid. Lower lip jutting out, little Jimmy hopped on his motorbike and rode off into the night. Maybe the only deception that night was self deception, and maybe that's the only kind of deception there really is.

But what about Dublin? Had I 'gone off' too quickly -- again? Had that same little kid's temper taken over and clouded my approach? With no strobes to guide me through that nightscape, maybe I'd simply lost my way again, lost sight of what was really important.

I pulled out of the station and puttered over to the Interstate, then shut off the engine. I listened to the wind blowing across the prairie, the tic-tic sounds of the engine cooling, the occasional roar of a truck passing down there on the highway. I looked at my hands, then at my reflection in the mirror. It wasn't the same face I had seen in there, even a week ago. It was the face I had seen in that window...

Change. Lots of change.

Beyond every curve, beyond every breath we take, even beyond the very last breath we take, change is out there, waiting. I opened a coat pocket and pulled out a small 'baggie' and looked at it, I don't know, almost reverentially. There was nothing in it but a single tissue, loosely folded.

The tissue held a single tear. Madeleine's. The last tear she gave me, before her dreams came for her.

I took off my helmet and held the tissue to my face. The wind was so pure out there, like her memory.

+++++

The terminal is almost empty. A janitor walks along buffing the floor, a few car rental agents sit at empty kiosks busy on their phones. The Delta jet is on the ground, maybe at the gate by now, and I wonder where this journey is going to take me next.

Voices. Throngs of people. In a blinding kaleidoscope of people and emotion, I see Jennie in the first wave. Jennie walks, holding hands with a Jennie-clone, a younger version of herself with the same mad red hair and deep green eyes. I immediately feel self-conscious, the interloper who does his work in the shadows. I am here, and I am going to be judged. Again.

Jennie is on me before the next thought has time to form. She runs into my open arms, wraps her arms around me and there is nothing left in this world but her almighty kiss. I close my eyes and Madeleine wraps her arms all around me, and the feel of her, the scent of her blows through my mind like winds on the prairie, leading me onward, showing me the way.

Jennie is looking at me, wiping a tear from my face.

Then I am holding her, kissing her, icy-hot fusion defines our movement through time.

She is my prairie wind, she is everywhere, she is nowhere, and she is mine.

[(C) 2008-2016 Adrian Leverkühn | ABW + This story is a work of fiction. The views expressed and characters presented are fictitious and do not necessarily represent the views of the author. No resemblance to persons living or dead is implied, and any such resemblance is coincidental. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the journey.]