Lit Riffs (8 page)

He is focused on the road, not looking at Meg, but she feels as though the things he says are being delivered in a random order for her to reassemble, everything a clue to something she can’t know.

They hit a pothole. Jackson passes a white van. There is no one ahead of them.

Did you know him? Your father?

Of course I did, Jackson says, turning to her with a sharp look. Of course I did.

They are quiet for a while and then Jackson pulls the truck into an all-night gas station and Meg stays in the car while he fills up.

In Meg’s house, the absence is everything. One car turning the wrong way on a one-way street and the world stopped moving forward. Sometimes Meg lets herself think about the other family, the mother and daughter belonging to the drunk man driving the other car. She wonders what they have become, whether that night ruined them, too. The newspaper said the other driver was
survived
, just as her father was
survived
, but it was the wrong word, she knows. They don’t survive him, exactly. It is more fragile than that, more precarious. She and her brothers were crushed into tiptoeing shadows, moving soundlessly through the house so as not to disturb their mother, who rarely left her room before and now refuses to leave it at all. Meg doesn’t think of that as surviving him. They survive despite him.

The rain has let up, but the darkness is inky, the center of night. Meg grinds the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until she sees bright spots of white, and opens them to find Jackson staring at her through the window. She rolls it down.

You want a Coke? he says. I was asking if you wanted something to drink.

I’m OK, she says.

Well if you want to use the facilities, this would be a good time. We still got a ways to go.

Meg nods. He opens the door and she climbs out of the truck. Her legs nearly buckle from hours of driving. In the sharp fluorescence of the ladies’ room she splashes water on her face and tries to neaten her hair. In the mirror, her eyes are wide, wider than she remembered, and she has the strange sensation of staring at an older vision of herself, as though the evening has aged her. I’ve been up all night, she mouths, but it feels different from that. It feels as though she’s been looking at a teenage version of herself for years and her reflection has suddenly caught up with her.

Neither speaks when they began driving again. She holds the Coke that Jackson bought her but doesn’t open it, and eventually it grows warm in her hands.

The night is bleeding into a predawn haze by the time Jackson turns onto an unmarked dirt road. They bump along and drive up clouds of dust, until they find another road, even more rough, that leads them to a weather-beaten shack, which leans impossibly. There is loud music playing, they hear it through the closed windows as they drive up, and the light from the shack gives it the orange glow of an invitation.

We’re here, Jackson says, and climbs down from the truck.

Meg sits there for a minute, wondering at what she has done, at where they are, but then he opens her door and offers his hand, and his touch is all it takes to push away her questions again.

She straightens her smock and follows him up the dirt path. As they approach, laughter rings out over rowdy music, a loud thumping beat, yowling voices. Jackson holds the wooden door for Meg and she plunges into a room of dancing people. The place is thick with sweat and smoke and the heavy odor of fried food. The noise rushes through her.

Jackson takes Meg’s elbow and steers her toward a raw pine bar. While he shouts for beers, she watches the whirling couples, each one moving faster than the next.

They mind us in here?

What? He leans in close, but still she has to yell.

They mind us coming in here like this? She sweeps the room with her hand, trying to show him how her color doesn’t match, how they are different from everyone else there.

I don’t think so, he says, but he presses his lips together and she is sorry for having asked.

We’ll only be a minute, he yells. If you mind it, I mean.

No, she says. No, I just—she circles with the hand again, then forces herself to clutch a wet beer with it instead. I just was wondering is all.

He nods, his jaw set. Come on. He steers her back beyond the ever-spreading dance floor, until they come to a rough doorway that opens into a larger room crowded with rough-hewn picnic tables. You wait here, he says, and points.

She sinks onto a wooden bench and he disappears again. The dark floor has worn smooth with age, but it is clean. A few people sit at nearby tables. Two coffee-skinned men in matching baseball caps and a huge woman with dark curls tumbling down her wide back are hunched over eating with great concentration, as though the place were quiet.

Panic takes Meg by surprise. Where are they and how is she ever going to make it back in time for her shift? The thought propels her to her feet and she lurches toward the door, then takes a step back when she sees Jackson weaving toward her, a plastic tray piled high with food and more beer gripped tight in his large hands.

This is worth it, hon, he says. Worth the whole night’s drive. Don’t know what it was, but I had to take you here. Haven’t been here in years. Too long. But it’s the same. Catfish to make you cry. Here, taste—

He shoves a paper plate at her. Though her stomach rumbles at the sight, she lifts the sandwich gingerly and sniffs it.

Go on. His eyes are bright and focused on her. She flushes, but takes a bite, and the bread is warm and soft, the fish crispy outside and flaky inside, warm and tasty. She closes her eyes and takes another bite. Wow, she says.

My mom took me here first, when she and my dad split, Jackson says. She lit out of Texas and we drove for days. Took me here and it was the best place I’d ever been. They played more country then, more old-timey stuff. First time I remember hearing the banjo. And I always meant to come back. Even when I was touring around.

Touring? Meg wipes her mouth with a paper napkin.

Yeah. I’m on the radio all over, he says. You didn’t recognize me?

She stares for a moment, then shakes her head slowly and notices the light in his face dim a little.

Well, I’m known, he says. Get recognized lots of places these days. Half the people in that restaurant of yours were whispering the minute I walked in. That’s some of why I figured you wanted to come with me. A little touch of fame. That’s why I picked you—seemed like you needed something special to happen.

Meg stops chewing and puts the sandwich down. The magic of the evening rushes away from her. What do you mean? she says, but thinks she knows—she just wants to hear him say it.

It’s nothing against you, sweetheart, he says. Never mind. Eat your sandwich and then we’ll dance.

I have to work tonight, Meg says. I have to get back.

He scowls. I said eat up. For chrissake. He takes a toothpick from the tray and leans back to clean his teeth. Most girls would kill to be in your place. It’s the least you could do, considering.

She takes another bite, but the flavor has gone. He had not recognized her as the stranger he was waiting for. He had not fallen prey to a dream, as she had. He took pity on her. He brought her along to flatter himself.

She pushes the fish away. I don’t want any more, she says. I’m not hungry.

They do not dance.

When he has finished his sandwich, and what is left of hers, he gets himself another beer and sits there, not looking at her. Finally he rises and she follows him to the truck.

For the first few miles they are silent. The sky has started to pink, tendrils of color leap up and across the horizon. The land is stark and lush at the same time. Empty and full of life.

Meg presses her cheek against the cool glass and watches the fields pass. She is not sorry she got in the truck or drove all night, but she does not like this silence or the emptiness that accompanies it. It is different from the bouts of silence they shared on the way down. Those belonged to both of them. Now they each have their own.

She thinks of her brothers asleep on the floor in front of the television, no one to put them to bed. Their limbs will be tangled, their cheeks flushed, the dark circles under their eyes softened by their dreams. She can almost smell them, feel their weight as she carries first one, then the other up to bed. But she will not be there to do that tonight. Tonight they are on their own.

She rubs her temples with the tips of her fingers. You didn’t need to do me a favor, she says softly. You don’t know me. My life isn’t something you needed to rescue me from.

He stares straight ahead, but his mouth twitches.

What makes you think you have that kind of power, anyway?

He doesn’t answer. Meg loosens her seat belt and pulls her legs up under her and for a while they watch the sun come up.

Sorry, he says a while later in the full light of day.

What?

Sorry. About before.

Oh.

Aren’t you going to say thank you?

You sure do have a lot of ideas about what I should do, Meg says, and that hushes him for a while.

Well, anyway, he says a little later. I am. Sorry, I mean. I just thought you looked different in there. Like you might want to have an adventure.

So you thought you’d do me a favor. Drive me all the hell across the state for some fish?

You sure are prickly all of a sudden. I didn’t see you complaining before.

She bites her lip, but doesn’t feel like explaining what she thought would happen: that he
had
come to rescue her, to hand over his heart, cracked open. She had no reason to believe this beyond the shaking and the way she couldn’t catch her breath when he’d sat down, when he’d touched her. Surely that wasn’t his fault.

The trees have moved closer, but still there are places where they can see the red clay hills. She tucks her hair behind her ears and catches a whiff of the catfish. It was real good though, she says. The fish. Thank you.

He glances over and squints. You making fun?

No. She exhales. No, I mean it.

You do?

Yes.

It is the best I’ve ever had, he says. But I don’t know why I brought you there. I’ve never brought anyone before, least of all a stranger. That place means a lot to me. He looks over at her and smiles, and she sees it again, the whole reason she came with him in the first place.

What’s your music like? she says.

He hesitates and licks his lips. It’s like what we were listening to before, he says finally. Kind of like that. Old-time country and a little blues. Just me and my guitar, mostly. I write my own stuff.

Oh.

You like that music?

She looks at her hands and they seem to belong to someone else entirely. I guess, she says. You’ll think it’s strange, but I don’t listen to music much.

Oh, he says. He sets his jaw again and she feels the wrongness of what she said, but it is too late, and anyway, it is the truth.

I don’t know if I believe you, she says a little later. About your career? I mean, if you’re so well known, how come your truck is so beat-up?

His hands grind at the steering wheel. Don’t talk about my truck.

Why? It’s a mess.

The back of his hand connects with her chin before she can move out of its way. She tastes blood and promises herself that she will not cry, even as tears leak out.

Bastard, she whispers. You didn’t need to do that.

They pull off the side of the road. I thought you were someone else, he says. That’s the truth of it. I thought you’d be someone I could tell things to but you’re not like that.

You don’t know what I’m like. You don’t know anything about me.

Sure I do, he says, his eyes narrow and mean. You grew up in that town and so did your folks. You dropped out of high school and probably wouldn’t have been able to finish, but you’re pretty, so people treat you nice anyway. You hope maybe someday you can get a decent house. You hope maybe someday you can marry some dumb ex-jock with a steady job and pump out a few little monsters, and by the time you’re thirty you’ll look like an old lady. That’s who you are.

Her face is hot. She tries to open the door, but he reaches over and swats at her hands. Won’t open from the inside, he says. You can’t throw yourself out on the highway.

She crosses her arms and looks for a familiar sign, a landmark, something to tell her where she is.

He started to laugh. Aw, he says, sticking his bottom lip out. Did I hurt your feelings?

She pulls her knees to her chest, refusing to look at him.

You going to cry?

You don’t know anything.

Oh, I don’t?

No, she says softly. Asshole. You don’t.

Tell me one thing I got wrong, he says, and uses his finger to count. One thing.

Okay. She turns to him. I graduated from high school second in my class. I had a scholarship to college and I even went. Did a whole year before my dad died. I bet that’s a year more than you. My mom is sick, she has been for a long time, and I have two little brothers, so I had to come home and care for them. I had to come home and work for them. And no, none of us are from this town, we moved there when I was seven and my dad got a job at the plant. You don’t know who I am or what matters to me and you got no right to judge my choices when you just met me. You never walked two steps in my shoes.