Kiss the Morning Star

It’s strange how a plan can unfold sometimes—an umbrella shooting up at the touch of a button and extending out in all directions quickly, effortlessly. In so many ways, this journey is exactly the wrong thing to do. I mean, what kind of daughter leaves her grieving father and takes off across the country for no reason, or no reason she can say out loud? But I look at Katy beside me—I see her clutching that book like always, the bright flash of her blue toenails on the dash—and I can’t help but smile.

It comes over me in a rush, as we pull into a spot at Camden State Park, the sun setting in an impressive fiery red ball behind our campsite.

The light. Red like the iron ore dust that settled on the sills of the shabby apartment where I abandoned my father. I can still hear the trains rattling through the thin walls of my bedroom at night, the whistle growing so loud and then fading, into the distance. I can still see his pale face at the window, the small motion of his hand, waving good-bye—a sorrow-laden blessing.

A feeling. Real feelings, rushing over me like the strands of the retro bead curtain in Katy’s basement, each one familiar and fleeting, clacking together softly in my wake. It’s the first time in forever I’m actually interested in what comes next—or even in what happens now.

She would not shut up about the rucksack revolution. I have no idea how many times Katy read that passage to me, how many times she begged me to do something exciting with our last summer together—something besides shuttling coffee to little old ladies and phony hipster teens at the Village Inn. Something besides taking care of my father.

I never believed we’d really go. I mean, how could I leave? There was my dad, lying on that sunken Goodwill bed, no longer able to sway me with his golden voice, staring bleakly into the dusk. The ever-present tumbler of whiskey leaving rings on the hardwood floor.

But the idea was so tempting—a way to escape. I thought of the stacks of college applications lying untouched in their envelopes on the kitchen counter. My lack of a boyfriend, my persistent virginity. The fact that I don’t believe in God anymore.

“Just listen to this, Anna.” Kat forced her dad’s battered copy of
The Dharma Bums
into my hands. She’s been spouting the words of Jack Kerouac at me since April, when Mr. Griffin made us do these research projects about catalysts of social change. Kat’s dad suggested we study this crazy group of writers from back in the fifties and sixties called the beatniks. Kerouac was his favorite, and he dragged out all his old, raggedy books from college, including this one. Kat quoted it from memory.

“…I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ’em Zen lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason….” Her voice resonated with excitement.

“See? Doesn’t that sound perfect?”

Perfect. Yes, perfect for Katy, who must think I’m still the girl she knew a year ago. The girl who cared. The girl who dared.

I shrugged, the noncommittal gesture that I have adopted as my main method of communication. “Well, it sounds pretty, but I mean, what’s the point of it?” I closed the Kerouac book and handed it back. “So we take off on some ‘rucksack revolution,’ for what? I don’t think I’ve got any spontaneous poetry in my head, and I
know
I don’t have any more prayers.”

“Anna babe, your whole life is a prayer.” Kat tapped the cover of
The Dharma Bums
. “And Jack here. He can show you the poetry.” She flipped through the pages, not like she was looking for something specific, but more like she just wanted to feel the words running through her fingers. She was so excited, so filled with hope, like she could change the world. I think I used to feel that way, at times. But it’s hard to remember. Before.

“Yeah, right,” I said. “A prayer to something I don’t believe in.”

Kat’s hands froze. “What are you talking about, Anna babe? Of course you believe. In God?”

“Whatever.”

“No whatevers! You can’t just whatever
God
!”

“Well, if God
is
real, he whatevers
me
all the time. Look, maybe there is a God, and maybe there isn’t. But I’ll tell you what I
don’t
believe in anymore. I don’t believe in God’s love.”

The thing is, I’m not even sure that’s true. I mean, it was true when I said it, but thoughts like that are shifty; it’s impossible to pin them down.

Kat wrapped her hands around her hair, pulling it into pigtails the way she always does when she’s thinking. “Well, there you go. We’ll leave right after graduation.”

“Katy, stop it with the dharma bum crap. We’re not doing this. I told you. There’s no point.”

Kat shook her head. “Oh, we’re going. The
point
is to find proof of God’s love,” she said, and then laughed. “And who knows? Maybe we’ll even get laid.”