Eight

Shaking his hair back, Garson shifted his Cherokee from first gear to second: it growled and lunged forward, a burst of power. He let out a whoop. This was it! Lord Godalmighty. Hot damn Madam. Holy shitski on a stickski. He shot over into another lane, powershifted into third, tromped on the gas and whished past one car, two cars, then cut back to the right. Like riding a stallion! Better! Oh, the tingling of the steering wheel beneath his palms, that beautiful vibration. He squeezed the curve deliciously, hungrily, wanting more, more, letting up only for an instant to reach over and turn on the radio because he felt like singing. The radio burped only a few seconds before he snapped it off again, because he didn’t want to share the song. He desired his own.

Cal-li-forn-ya

Here I come!

he sang, several times, because he didn’t know the next line. Then he tried

Ari-zony

Here I come!

and

O-re-gony

Here I come!

He didn’t know where he was going.

But he was ready! He was answering the call. Everything was in place—his gas campstove, sleeping bags, and twenty-four bottles of Coke in a cooler, not to mention a stock of booze, the rye and schnapps and sloe gin packed away in a wicker picnic basket and wrapped in red-checkered napkins he’d taken from his mother that morning (“I got my reasons,” he’d told her. “Whyn’t you mind your own business?”). It was, incidentally, a perfect Spring morning: fresh, sunny, with spangled shadows cast by new leaves in the trees. While he’d loaded the Cherokee, the birds had been singing their little feathery asses off.

A road atlas lay spread open across the seat beside him. His rendezvous was at a rest stop. Wow! Just looking at that blue- and red-veined network of interstates, the X he’d scratched into the paper with his fingernail, set his pulse racing.

“Thank you, God,” he whispered.

Then he thrust his hand between his legs. From a two pound bag of corn chips, he extracted a fistful which he eased into his mouth. Slowly he munched, sucking the chips into a pasty goo. Soon he began to sing,

This land is my land,

This land is my land …

He pressed the accelerator, watched the needle spasm upward. Fourth gear now. All at once his exit sign loomed over him. He reacted, jerked the wheel, screeched onto the ramp, curved above the road and found new access on an even larger highway, a wider expanse, a fat paved ribbon stretching before him.

Today was his, yes it was. And tomorrow. The future! Oh, what happiness! The poles whizzed by. Yes, he could see. America was his.