Veil of Azure Sequins

For sixteen weeks I’d prepared myself to do this. Four months of mental games, of steeling my nerves against the pain of this re-birth, so why did tears course down my cheeks as the car ate up miles of road, spitting them out behind us as I watched in the side mirror? “You’re sailing on The River of No Return,” the driver said flatly, speaking of the foreboding Salmon River rushing in deep gorges through rough Idaho wilderness. “If you ever try to come back we’ll kill them, we’ll kill them all.” I didn’t say anything, I just leaned my head against window while mile posts flew by with alarming speed. I figured Dad had reached Terreton by now; he’d go there first thinking I’d snuck off to be with Bo. But here I was, already spying Spokane behind me. We had driven through the night, reaching Missoula at 2:30 a.m., then through the long, long, winding canyon to the Idaho panhandle, across the narrow northern tip of the state, and into Washington. During the hours of travel the driver had spoken only a few acidic sentences to me, terse and threatening words meant to injure and cut, just in case the former me wasn’t already dead. Surely there was enough life-blood in me that my nerves ached, and I pictured myself flinching inside the way squashed rabbits do along country roadsides. Their nerves spasm and jerk into moments beyond death. As best as I could tell, we were now cutting a diagonal jag across the southeastern corner of Washington. As the crow flies, I was now closer to where we’d begun, but cars can’t fly over the jagged, Salmon River Mountains. Horses were about the only transportation mode that could go due west from where I had once lived. So it had been a ridiculous route through three states, but I suspected the driver made it all the more ridiculous to keep us from being found just in case the police had already circulated my picture. I never asked for bathroom breaks, but whenever the driver pulled into a station for gas I’d take advantage of them. My stomach was cramping with stress and I felt ill to the very center of me. We stopped at a station in Kennewick, and I ran into the bathroom quickly. Diarrhea is never pleasant on a road trip, and this road trip was the worst of my nearly seventeen years. After the lower-bowel assault was over I knelt over the toilet, violently hurling. As I exited the stall for the second time, I met the driver standing in the doorway of the ladies’ room. Apparently I had taken longer than he thought I should have. I washed my hands and splashed water on my face while he stared at me in the mirror. “Will you give me enough time to brush my teeth?” “Learn to better control your sick urges or deal with it,” he said coldly. So I scooped water into my mouth and rinsed it the best I could; gargling, spitting a stream into the sink without giving him the satisfaction of an answer. In a few miles we crossed the Columbia River, and yet another state line, putting straight west now. “Portland?” At first I had suspected Seattle—but now I could read the writing on the wall. My question remained unanswered, and only freeway signs satisfied my basic curiosity. Lost in a new world and strange terrain, I watched river barges freighting grain to elevators along the river. This was new to me, and for a couple of hours I forgot everything. Not until I wished I might have spoken to Dad about the marvels of freighting grain along the river route did the pain register and my guts tie again into knots. We turned off the freeway at The Dalles. I was grateful because my churning stomach needed relief, but instead of a station we drove to a splintery home near the hill. I didn’t know whether or not I was to get out of the car. The man had already slammed his door and stood now, dragging on a cigarette. I saw a sheet stir at the window where proper curtains should have been. I did not want to go into the house. The driver blew smoke from his nostrils hotly, motioning impatiently for me to join him. This I did with wary trepidation. I felt even more ill when he told me to get my bags from the car. “We are staying here tonight. I need some shuteye.” It was the kindest statement of the journey. Subwoofers made the house pulse, and it seemed to shed chips of paint with every beat. Even from the sidewalk I could feel the vibrations of Mötley Crüe.