The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [33]
I empty my pockets. After the bus ride and breakfast, I’ve got a twenty and four ones. I think to give him the ones, but a sudden force like a wind nudge from behind me pushes my right hand forward instead of my left.
“You serious?” He looks at the bigheaded twenty like it’s foreign currency. “Thanks, lady.”
I follow the highway up to the old bus shelter on the hill, graffitied with “Smash the System” and “Jenny + Chris.” The only nearby building, a ramshackle old storefront with no sign.
The wooden door’s ajar, so I push it open. “Hello?” A dozen round tables with plastic chairs, a stove at the back of the room, a giant pot of soup simmering on the burner, a crucifix on the back wall. “Hello?” No one but the simmering pot. The smell of onions. A handwritten sign on a Formica counter says: “Lunch Served at Noon.”
I have to pee. I tiptoe past the stove, knock before opening the door that says Restroom. Opposite the toilet, a Greenpeace poster informs me that it takes ninety years to grow a roll of paper, and suddenly I don’t want to wipe. I sit there for a long time, trying to decide what to do before I realize it probably took at least ten years to grow that poster, so I go ahead and take a little toilet paper, Greenpeace having lost the moral high ground.
When I step out of the restroom, a skinny guy with thick glasses is stirring the soup.
“Hey,” I venture.
He startles, almost knocking over the pot. “Whoa, I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
He adjusts his glasses. “Lunch isn’t served until noon.” He’s wearing a red and orange tie-dyed T-shirt.
“I’m looking for Dot.”
“Well.” He bobs his head up and down like one of Manny’s plastic toys. “She doesn’t come down here much anymore. Anything I can help you with?”
I shake my head. “Do you know where I can find her?”
He points to the ceiling. “She’s up, uh…”
I think he’s going to say she’s dead.
“She’s, you know, well, you wanna drive about forty, forty-five miles up the highway, right? Up to Kay’s Resort. There’s a gas station and a store up there. So you park at Kay’s Resort, and you just wanna find the trail and start walking around the lake sort of south and west, right? You’re gonna pass some picnic tables and a sandy cove and you just wanna keep going—follow that trail about a mile. That’s where you’ll find her.”
“On the lake?”
“Uh-huh.” He turns to stir his soup.
This is ridiculous. I want to call Tony, find out what’s going on. Maybe I can get the bus back to Sacramento, meet up with my troupe. Maybe it’s not as bad as the old minister made it sound. “Listen,” I say, “do you have a phone I can use?”
The guy adjusts his glasses again, reminds me suddenly of a potato bug. “Local call?”
“No.”
He scratches his head, squints his eyes. “Well, make it quick, will you?” He points to the black rotary phone on the wall, a relic from another time.
It feels strange to dial in circles. One, wait. Four, wait. One, wait. Five, wait.
Magdelena answers on the first ring, her voice all dread. “Hello?”
I just want talk to Tony.
“Who is this?”
I don’t know whether to ask for Tony or to say something to Magdelena. What do I have to say to her?
“We don’t know where the fuck she is, okay? Tell me who you are or I’m calling the cops.”
I hang up.
Back outside, I weigh my options: a highway going up or a highway going down. Dense pine forests or open fields dotted with olive trees. I could keep chasing Dot or wander off. I’m heartened by the fact that no one on the road seems to know who I am, that no one cares what I can or maybe cannot do. It’s funny, the way it can feel like everybody knows your name, like everybody wants something from you—a thousand twisted mouths calling your name. Then you just turn, run away, slow your running to a walk, and pretty soon even the memory of those voices begins to fade. There’s a whole world far off the interstate that doesn’t seem to care where you’ve come from or why.
I look both ways before crossing to the middle of the highway. No traffic. Up or down?
After