Light streamed in through the slotted mini blinds of Samantha’s tiny apartment bedroom. It passed straight through her thin polyester curtains and splashed across her face, causing her to squint and groan. Her head pounded, and the light assaulting the outside of her eyelids felt like thousands of tiny needles being pressed into her eyeballs. She groaned and rolled over, grabbing the pillow and squeezing it tightly around her head. She hadn’t overdone it enough to spend the entire night in the bathroom floor praying to the porcelain god, but she’d come close. Now she just wanted to find a nice damp hole in the ground to crawl into and hibernate until winter … of next year.
She was just about to doze back off when her phone chirped. She made a noise that sounded like something a banana slug might make if it could talk … and was also extremely hung over. Without pulling her head out from under pillow, she slammed her hand down on the bedside table and groped for her phone. She felt it briefly before it decided to leap off the table and onto the floor, where it landed with a thud. Now the banana slug that had become Samantha uttered a few choice words that even banana slugs should be ashamed to say in mixed company. The woman wiggled herself over to the edge of the bed and cracked open one eye. She saw the phone lying where it had bounced several feet away, looking all innocent, as if hadn’t jumped out of her reach on purpose. With another groan, Sam wiggled herself even further onto the edge of her bed and reached for the phone, stretching as far as she could. She felt it brush the tips of her fingers just before she overbalanced on the edge of the bed and toppled into a tangle of sheets on the floor. She cursed again as she hit the ground.
“This better be good.” She growled before sitting up, snatching her phone, and punching in the unlock code. She noticed the time, 11:30, and lamented the fact she hadn’t been unable to sleep all the way past noon. “My one day off,” she grumbled. She checked her text messages and saw one from Charity, the chirp that had ruined her wonderful, delicious, much-needed sleep. The text read,
Bet you have an awesome headache right now. 😊 Misery loves company. Looks like you aren’t the only one that had fun last night.
Another message popped up just below it that contained nothing but an external link.
“I will kill you tomorrow.” Samantha muttered, squeezing the phone, pretending it was Charity’s neck. “Wonder what this is all about,” she said, clicking the link. Jason O’Neal’s haggard face appeared on the screen. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like someone had just dragged him out of a wet ditch. He had a ball cap pulled down low over his face, and his lips were chapped.
“Hello, America,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Jason here. Day three of ‘Jason’s Lost His Mind—North American Tour,’ and I am hurting pretty bad this morning. It turns out John and Nancy like to party way harder than I expected. We shut down that sports bar last night. Wasn’t really planning on doing that, but here we are.” He paused for a moment and nodded at the camera. “It was good though. Real good. We had a great time. John was nice enough to drive me back to the campsite last night where my RV is parked, so I got home safely. Now, I’m just having some strong coffee and trying to get my headache to go away. Well, I promised you all I’d give you a tour of my new home yesterday, so here we go.” He put down his coffee, stretched, and groaned. Samantha noticed his large chest and arm muscles rippling under the tight black T-shirt he was wearing. He turned the camera away so it faced the inside of the motorhome.
“Pretty standard, really. This is the kitchen,” he said, pointing. “Got my tiny refrigerator there, and a little stove here so I can cook up some bacon and eggs in the morning, also a microwave for little frozen pizzas. There’s a dining room table that can fold down and make into a bed if I need extra sleeping capacity. I’m not really expecting to have anyone over, but it’s nice to know I can host if I need to. This thing supposedly sleeps four people—two on this dining room table bed and two back in the queen size—but I don’t think that’s realistic. You’d be lucky to get two hobbits on this fold-out bed.”
Samantha snorted out a laugh as she mumbled, “Two hobbits. Good one, Gandalf.”
He took a step down a narrow hall and poked the phone into a small bathroom. “Here’s the bathroom with its tiny toilet and even tinier shower. Not exactly luxury, but it works.” He pulled the camera back out and took another step down the hall. A queen size mattress was squeezed between the walls. The picture went momentarily slightly blurry as Jason jumped through the air and landed on the bed. “This is where I sleep. It’s queen size but, as you can see, not room for much else in here.”
The camera panned the room. The quarters were tight. A row of cabinets lined the ceiling, and a couple small shelves hung on each side of the bed. “I’ve got an electrical outlet here,” he said, pulling back a pillow and showing the outlet in the wall, “where I can plug my phone and tablet in, and I’ve got this cool little pouch here to store small stuff, papers, or keys, or whatever. Right now, I’ve got all Bethany’s lilacs in there.” Jason pointed to a little mesh pocket affixed to the wall that was filled with pressed flowers. He reached in and pulled one out—a blue one—and showed the flower to the audience. “Only forty-nine in there now.” Jason replaced the flower and then pulled out a crumpled piece of lined paper.
“Wanted to read you all something this morning. I’m hoping, maybe, it will help you folks out there in America-land get to know who Bethany was. This is her favorite poem. It’s ‘Song of the Open Road’ by Walt Whitman.” Jason held the page up to the camera. It bore several lines of neat, slanted cursive writing in a blue pen. “Bethany used to carry this paper with her and read the poem to herself when she was feeling down. Now, I’m not a poetry guy myself. It never made a lot of sense to me, but she loved it. She actually memorized the stuff and was always spouting it out at random times. I didn’t get it, but it was still adorable. She was so much smarter than me it was unreal. I still sometimes wonder how I talked her into marrying me. Anyway, here it goes. I doubt I’ll do it justice but bear with me.” Jason cleared his throat and began to read the words on the page.
Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
Jason’s voice cracked on the word “travel.” His already bloodshot eyes were now rimmed with tears. He cleared his voice again. “I’ll skip down a bit.”
From this hour, freedom! From this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me . . .
. . . I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,
I would do the same to you.
I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.
Silence filled the air when Jason stopped speaking. Several moments passed before he looked up again from the page. He made to speak but then paused. He shook his head and punched the stop button on the camera. When the video started again, Jason appeared more composed, and it looked as if he’d splashed some water on his face.
“Sorry about that, everyone. I knew I might get emotional and I did. Better now. Back to the tour.” He got to his feet and walked to the front of the RV. “Here’s where I pilot this house on wheels,” he said, indicating the driver’s seat. “Like I said before, it’s really not that difficult, kind of like driving a big moving van. No big deal.
“And, that’s the grand tour. I know I said I was going to get a map and plot out a course, but I’m still not thinking exactly clearly at the moment. I’m going to have a shower and some breakfast,” he said looking at his watch. “Then I’ll post another video later this afternoon, so look for that. Thanks for hanging in there with me, America. I’ll see you on the open road.”
The video stopped and Samantha growled like a grizzly bear. “Charity woke me up for that? I am going to kill her.” All thoughts of giving Jason the benefit of the doubt based upon Tran’s recommendation were forgotten. She was too irritated about being woken up. Just then, Sam heard a loud knock on her front door. She sat still, thinking maybe the knock had actually been on the apartment door next to hers. An emaciated old hippie named Skip lived there, and he received all manner of strange visitors. It was not uncommon for one of them to knock on Samantha’s door by mistake. When Skip wasn’t hiding behind his dark curtains, he spent most of his time sitting in a lawn chair on the stoop smoking nonfiltered cigarettes and petting his elderly cat, Mrs. Kush Kush.
The knock came again. No, that was definitely on her own door. Who in the world could that be? She sucked in a breath as she remembered Henry and his bizarre statement about knowing their future. Could he have found out where she lived? Not that it would be hard. Samantha was pretty sure you could find anyone you wanted on the internet. The knock came yet again, a little more insistent this time. Still, she didn’t move. It was Sunday, almost noon. She wasn’t expecting anyone. This had to be some stupid door-to-door salesperson or maybe a religious nut just out of church and all fired up. Or it’s a crazy, psychic nut who’s obsessed with you, she added in her mind, choosing not to voice that out loud and somehow make it come true. Not that she was superstitious but why not play it safe, just this once? She wasn’t going to answer it. They’d go away in a minute.
The knock sounded for a fourth time, even louder this time. “Dammit,” she swore and threw the blanket off her body. She was annoyed enough now that she was able to tamp down any fear she might have been feeling a moment ago. Samantha lumbered up and stomped into the living room so loudly she probably made the pictures rattle in the apartment below her. She paused at the door and looked down at herself, noticing her breasts were about to come tumbling out of the top of the red shirt she’d been wearing the night before, which was stained and wrinkled. Her throat was on fire. Her mouth tasted like she’d eaten a raw dragon liver, and she could only imagine what her hair must look like.
Samantha yanked the shirt up as high as it would go. She briefly thought about quickly freshening up, or at least brushing her teeth, but then she might miss the chance to read the riot act to this jackass pounding on her door. And if it was Henry Hyena, she was going to make it perfectly clear that he was creeping her the hell out and he needed to stop. Sam was going to make this fool pay for dragging her out of bed—well, off the bedroom floor, anyway—on what should be a very relaxing Sunday. The knock came again.
Damn it! It’s my first day off in three weeks. I’m SO not listening to a sales pitch about satellite TV! This asshat is getting a piece of my mind!
Samantha unlocked the door and yanked it open. Everything she’d been planning to say froze in her throat as she stared up into the eyes of the man at the door.
“Nice shirt,” said Derek, grinning like a Cheshire cat. And Samantha vomited all over his shoes.