I stared into my lap, at my own curled fingers. I looked back up at him. “Yeah, I guess,” I said, tears blurring my vision. “I’m sorry, Eric. I try to follow my heart, but right now I can’t feel it. I thought we could try to be honest with each other on our own, and then maybe you’d wanna go back to the Farm with me.”
“I’m not going back to your damn farm!” He punched the padded ridge dividing his seat from mine. “But I don’t understand why we can’t try to be together, just the two of us, right here!”
I dropped my eyes back to my hands—clenched into claws, hunting a grip.
“I can’t, Eric. I just can’t. I feel like if I did, I’d… I’d shrivel up.”
Back at my brother’s place in Boise, I learned I’d been admitted to the September visitor group at East Wind—the Missouri commune over which I’d chosen Zendik in October 1999. I was to arrive at East Wind no earlier than the end of August.
To kill a few weeks—and a couple more dreams—I hitched to Alaska by way of Glacier National Park.
In Glacier, from the backseat of a sleek rental car, I watched a husband on honeymoon release the wheel to clasp his wife’s gold-banded hand. Twisting his innocent gesture into a death grip, I imagined him hissing, You’re mine, all mine—and took this as a good sign: maybe I’d finally iced my desire to mate in the wild.
In British Columbia, a trucker hauling timber to Alberta pushed me repeatedly to take a nap in the back of his cab. After refusing half a dozen times, I lied that I had to pee and asked him to stop at a gas station. Instead, he dropped me off, after midnight, on a desolate street at the edge of Prince George. I made it till morning with the help of a cashier at a twenty-four-hour 7-Eleven who unlocked her minivan so I could sleep a few hours in the backseat.
In Anchorage, I found purple-leaved trees like the one that had showered Eric and me with “cherries”—really ornamental plums—in Davis. But they yielded only tiny, tasteless pellets. The plums I picked in Osoyoos, Washington, were larger but still hard and tart. None of the fruit I hunted on my own proved half as luscious as the plums we’d bagged together.
When I returned to Boise, in late August, I was exhausted—and leery of hitching to East Wind. My thread to Zendik—which I believed had delivered me from harm so far—thinned as my absence lengthened. I assumed that by now my banana boxes had been shunted to the barn or shoved deep under the bed to make way for another Zendik’s claim on my space. That those who wove the Zendik story had recast me as a traitor, or a ghost.
I gladly accepted my brother’s offer of a bus ticket. From Springfield, Missouri, I’d hitch the final ninety miles to Tecumseh, where someone from East Wind would meet me.
The trouble was that the bus wouldn’t reach Springfield till 5:00 p.m.—leaving me just a couple hours’ daylight to complete my trip.
I’d be fine, I told myself. It was only ninety miles.
From the Springfield bus stop, I should have hiked south to the edge of town, where I might have found a good spot—a broad shoulder, a turnout—and drivers headed for Tecumseh. But I feared losing time, and I was tired. So I trudged up a hill to a busy commercial strip and settled for sticking my thumb out in the wide driveway of a Pizza Hut.
At about six o’clock, in a battered blue Honda, Alvin Long pulled up.
He said sure, he’d take me to Tecumseh—he just had an errand to run before we hit the road. He gave me a crumpled dollar bill and some change and told me to go inside and get a soda.
I didn’t drink soda. And I’d formed the habit of hoarding every penny I received for health-food-store purchases or emergencies. I pocketed the money and sipped from my water bottle.
I sensed something amiss in Alvin’s instructions—why hadn’t he left me in the driveway and promised to pick me up if I was still there when he returned?—but I was too beat to put my finger on it.
I didn’t start to worry till he ignored a sign for US-65 and turned instead onto a lettered byway. A stack of cards in a niche between us identified him as a stump remover serving the Springfield area. Surely he must know the local roads.
“Is this the way to Tecumseh? I thought we were supposed to take Highway Sixty-Five.”
He stared straight ahead and tightened his grip on the wheel. His scalp reddened under his buzz cut.
“Look, I told you I’d take you there. You wanna get out and walk?”
Indeed I did not. The lettered road had led into a lettered labyrinth. If I left now, I’d be lost, with no ride at all. So I made up a story: He’s taking a shortcut.
But he wasn’t in a hurry. He stopped twice to chat with homeowners mowing stump-infested lawns. After his second sales pitch, he returned to the car and stood by my window. I rolled it all the way down. “Hey, you know how to drive?” he asked.
“I’ve driven before, but I don’t really know how and I don’t have a license.”
A friend of my brother’s had taken me driving in the hills above Boise. Fargo had let me drive his Bronco partway to Stanley. Both men had been kind and patient, bearing with my vise grip on the wheel, my terror of accelerating beyond twenty miles an hour.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s switch. I’ll give you a lesson.”
“Um, I don’t really want to.” I’d already seen Alvin lose his cool. And I preferred not to fool around, now that the sun was sinking.
“Come on! It’ll be fun. Just do it!”
He opened my door and shooed me out. I drove a few miles through the maze while he teased me for going slow and stopping short at intersections. The further delay worried me, but I liked being teased. It reminded me of Zendik, where my peers knew me well enough to poke fun at my quirks.
After Alvin took the wheel back, we passed a jeep parked in a clearing by a creek, packed with young men drinking beer. He slowed to wave at them and shouted something I couldn’t make out. They raised their beer cans and leered back at him. I clung to my story: Any second now, I’ll see a sign for the highway.
Around 7:00 p.m., Alvin stopped on a wooded road, out of sight of any houses.
“Gotta pee,” he said. He got out and strolled toward the rear of the car.
Out my window, the sun streaked the sky orange as it crept behind a ragged horizon. Right by the road, a kudzu vine lassoed a slender trunk—reminding me, again, of Zendik. In the warmer climate of North Carolina, kudzu was known to choke whole forests. Though still hundreds of miles from the Farm, I was closer than I’d been since mid-July.
Gravel crunched under Alvin’s feet. He took his seat and slammed the door. Finally. Now we can go. I bet we’re just a turn from the Tecumseh road.
But he didn’t start the engine. He arched his back and rolled his shoulders. He raked his fingers through his close-mown hair. Okay, he’s settling in for the rest of the drive.
He turned to me, lip curled.
He fixed me with a lizard gaze.
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a blow job,” he said.
Blood flooded my face. One hand made a fist. The other gripped it. I-40 out of Asheville. First trucker. Same threat. Same offer.
“No. No way.”
He grabbed me. Shoved his tongue through my teeth. Seized my breast. A scream thrust up. He caught it. “I got a knife. You scream and I’ll cut you. Don’t make me cut you.”
I whimpered. Shivered. Shook. Squirmed to free an inch between us. He squeezed me tighter. What? No! Got out last time. Way out now. Way out now.
Fingers. Clutching my back. Stubby insults. Hand on my breast. Hand like cardboard, rough and dead. Tongue in my mouth. Lizard tongue. Why? WHY?