Chapter Five

Six Days on the Road, or That’s What It Felt Like, Anyway

First off, Elsie's car didn't seem like it wanted to run. Well, first, I didn't think we was going to get the passenger door open. We took a bus over to Elsie's house to get the station wagon, we got there about seven in the morning. Ralph's car was gone, just the station wagon was left.

"Elsie must of took him to work already," I said. "She said the car keys was in the mailbox." I went and got them and give them to Rusty. She unlocked the driver door and slid in. She reached her arm over and pulled up the button on my side, but when I tried to open up my door, I about pulled my shoulder bone out of the joint. The door didn't give one inch.

"Is the button up all the way?" I said, but Rusty was on the inside of the car, and she couldn't hear me. She had the engine going already and was fooling with the radio knob. I pecked on the glass, and when she looked I put my face up close to the window and said, "The button up all the way?" She couldn't understand. So I took my arm and moved it like "open the door" but she didn't get that either. So I had to walk all the way around the back end of the wagon over to her side. "Open up my door for me," I told her, and then I went back around.

She lifted up the door latch and I pulled on the handle but the door didn't move. I was helping it along with my foot a little bit, when up at the house Elsie stuck her head out the kitchen window. She was home and here I was kicking her car. At least it was the rusted- metal side, not the side that had the wood still on it.

"That door won't open," Elsie yelled. "Go in the back door and climb over the seat."

"Oh," I said, and I did it. After I was in, I rolled down my window and put my head out. "How come aren't you taking Ralph to work?"

 "He ain't come back yet from last night," yelled Elsie. "He better save back a dime from the bartender, cause he's going to need it to call the emergency."

Rusty leaned over my legs so she could talk to Elsie out of my window. "If he don't come back for a while," she yelled, "how're you getting to work? Me and Carol don't want your car if you need it."

"Would you talk to her out of your own window?" I asked Rusty. "Your elbow is about to dig through my leg."

"He'll be back," yelled Elsie. And right then, Ralph's Buick come crunching up the driveway behind us and stopped, with him sitting behind the steering wheel looking kind of wrinkly and worried.

"Now we're parked in," said Rusty, so I put my arm out and made a sign like "let us out." Ralph didn't get it. So I had to climb over the back of the seat and let myself out the back door and go up to Ralph's car window. "We're trying to get out, can you back up?" I said. "Don't worry, Elsie's mad but she won't kill you. Go tell her you're sorry."

Ralph turned the engine off and opened up the driver door. I said, "First please back your car up. We are trying to drive Elsie's station wagon to Colorado."

I went back to the wagon and did my acrobat act to get in. Rusty had turned the key off while we was talking to Elsie. She tried to start the car again, but it wouldn't even turn over. She kept the accelerator to the floor and turned the key again. I said, "You're going to flood it," which she did. Then we had to sit there. Ralph already had parked on the street, went in the house and shut the door. After a couple minutes, I went up on the porch and listened. I didn't hear no stabbing or screaming so I knocked. Ralph come to the door with his shirt unbuttoned, in his sock feet.

"You don't got any cables, do you?" I said. "We can't get her started."

"It's the ignition," Ralph said. "Hold on a minute." He went inside and come back with shoes on. He followed me out and Rusty opened the driver door for him. He leaned in and jiggled the key thing. When he turned the key the wagon started. "When it quits," he said, "just jiggle it around like that, see that?"

All I seen was his butt, bent over while he fooled with the key, but I said "yeah." So did Rusty, but I bet she didn't either. Then Ralph straightened up and said, "You all drive safe," and went toward the front door. But he turned back and walked right up to me. "I told Elsie I was sorry," he said. 'That was a good idea."

I never had an Arab man come right up and talk before. It threw me, not being used to it. After a minute I figured out what he said, but by then he had already went inside the house.

"That's OK," I said to nobody. Rusty was already back in the driver's seat, she had WIBC on nice and loud.

* * *

Back at our trailer, it took a lot longer to get the car loaded up than we planned on. Rusty already had sold about everything she had, but for a person that didn't have nothing, there was a lot of stuff to cram into the wagon. Rusty had a pretty nice suitcase, the latch worked on one side anyway, and a make-up case, and three cardboard boxes and one pillowcase full of stuff. I just threw a couple shirts and some underwear in an A&P sack, and on top of those went a comb and my toothbrush and a can of fluid for my Zippo.

We loaded up the back seat first with the clothes and stuff. In the front seat we put our cigarettes and wallets and the maps and half a gallon of ice tea, and we was done. We walked over to see Mrs. Kingshead, the trailer park lady. She about fell over when I give her a check for two months rent. Instead of a week late, me and Rusty was paying our trailer rent a month ahead. Rusty put in half the rent money, even though she was going to be gone to help me out. Pretty soon Fd be paying all the rent by myself. "Unless somebody moves in with you," Rusty said when we was walking back to the trailer. I acted like I didn't hear her.

We got back to the trailer, and looked at my Plymouth, sitting in the driveway. One of the windows wouldn't roll up all the way, it would be pretty easy to stick a coat hanger inside and pull up the knob.

"What if it gets stole?" Rusty said.

"Dream on," I said.

We still wasn't quite ready to take off. We had to go get deodorant cause Rusty was out. "I don't want to hit Colorado stinking,” she said. And we had to go get the light bill changed over to my name, and go put air in the spare tire and one thing and another, and then it was about three o'clock. And we was tired and snappy with each other and we was supposed to have left at eleven o'clock. So we went and got our friend Sherry North to buy us a twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and we took it to Garfield Park. We sat down on that twirly wheel thing that kids spin around on, and drunk six beers apiece. Each one we drunk was warmer.

When it got dark, we put the empties back in the carton and buried it down deep in the trash. We didn't want the kids to find nasty old beer bottles. Then we went back to the trailer. I could of slept in my room, but I felt bad about Rusty's room. Her bed was still in there, but there was just a bare mattress and nothing of hers around. No pictures, no hairbrush, no clothes.

"Let’s just camp out in the living room," I said. "We can spread blankets out on the floor."

"Okay," Rusty said. She was all wobbly from drinking so much beer. She laid right down and fell asleep before I could spread a blanket out. I laid the blanket over her, and put a quilt down for myself. I curled up and tried to fall asleep but the floor was too hard. I got up and got another blanket and put it on top of the quilt. Then it was soft enough for me to sleep on.

When I woke up, my watch said four-fifteen, but I knew that wasn't right cause a big strong beam of morning sunshine was poking me in the eye. I got up off the floor and went and looked at the clock over tire stove. It said six o'clock. I was creaking and squeaking from sleeping on the floor with my bones going down into the linoleum. I got the coffeepot on and went on down the hall to pee. When I come back, the coffee smell had went up Rusty's nose and she was blinking and mumbling.

"Hey, is it morning?" she said.

"Yep," I said. "Moving day. So move."

The car was all packed, air was in the tires, we had our maps and all, and it was nice and early. Everything was perfect, except we was a whole day behind. But shit, sometimes a person just has to go on.

We put gas in the car at Lydia's Place, which was a Shell station that had a restaurant too. Rusty smelled sausage cooking while she was filling up the gas tank, so we went in for biscuits and gravy. "We're already behind a day," she said, "we might as well have our breakfast."

We got us each a big take-out coffee and some sweet rolls for later on, and went on out to the wagon. I climbed in through the back, and Rusty took the first turn driving. She generally took the first turn at everything. Me, I liked to slouch down and ride, plus I could drink my coffee hot. Hers was sitting in the cup holder, getting cold and nasty.

Rusty turned off on 1-74, but it was 1-74 East instead of I- 74 West. Rusty was not a good person to tell how to drive, so I slouched down and waited for her to figure out we was going opposite of where we wanted. I decided to drink my coffee down to the bottom and have two cigarettes. By then, she would wise up.

Hell no. I had three cigarettes, just to give her time, and she was happy and humming around and in about twelve hours, we was going to fall in the Atlantic Ocean and drown. So I lit up one more cigarette but I didn't want it, I was already about to gag from Lydia's greasy biscuits. I put the cigarette back in my pack and said, "How come are we going this way?"

Rusty looked at me like I lived at the funny farm. "We have to take 74 to get on 72. Don't worry, when we get to 72, I'll get on it."

"Yeah, the 74 part is good," I said. "We're all right there, but East, East is the problem. West is what we want. Going to Colorado and all."

"No, Carol," said Rusty. "We have to go towards California." She was real polite, like she didn't want to hurt my feelings.

"That's what I said. We're supposed to be going towards California, but we're going East."

"Same thing," she said, driving along.

"Huh-unh" I said. She couldn't throw me off, I knew my directions cause I had Miss Blair in 4th grade. "California's west. Like Wild, Wild West? Like Go West, Young Man? New York's east. Like if it's the map, and the part that sticks up is over here, and Florida's down in the corner, then if you go left it's West."

"I turned left," said Rusty.

"Pull over," I said. "I'll drive, you drink your coffee. It's cold."

* * *

Elsie's car quit on us right before we got to Hannibal, Mis­souri. I was driving and Rusty was in the passenger seat. She ground out a butt in the ashtray and went, "Hey, this car really runs good, don't it?"

Right when she said that, the pedal softened up under my driving foot. I pressed down more but the car wouldn't speed up any. White smoke come rolling out from around the front hood. I stepped on the brake but I didn't need to, cause the engine quit humming and we rolled about ten feet and that was it.

"You are a jinx," I told Rusty. "Talking about how good the car was running. When you say that stuff, you're supposed to knock on wood."

"There ain't any on my side," she said. "It's ripped off." We got out and pushed the station wagon off the road. Rusty pushed from the back and I walked next to the driver door, pushing and steering both. Then I opened up the hood and looked at tire engine, but it wasn't no use. I didn't know nothing except water in the radiator and the oil ought to be up to the second mark on the stick. I went and sat down in the driver seat. I was out of Winstons, so I smoked one of Rusty's nasty menthol cigarettes.

After I smoked it down to the butt, Rusty was still looking around, so I figured the car was broke bad. I went around to see. She was all bent over, wiggling wires. "We got a short someplace," she said. "Hell if I can tell where at, though."

We argued about what next. I said, "Try and jiggle the ignition thing, like Ralph showed us."

Rusty said, "That was for when it won't start, not when it quits running." Then she said, "Let^’s start walking."

I said, "Walk where? Hannibal is three miles." I didn't plan on walking three miles with flip-flops on my feet. But we might have to, I couldn't do long without my smokes. Not one car came by, not one in twenty minutes. I seen a repair bill in my head, and the number at the bottom, next to 'Total," was get­ting bigger every minute.

A tow truck come up from behind us, and pulled even. It was the most dented, beat-up truck I ever saw, and the tow chains was red with rust and just clanging around loose in the back. An old guy and his wife got out of it, the woman was driving and when she slammed her door, it about fell off.

"It quit on you?" said the old guy.

"Sure did," said Rusty.

"How much for a tow up to Hannibal?" I asked him.

"Talk to her about that," said the old guy, nodding over toward his wife. "Her truck."

I looked over at the truck again, and in between the rust patches on the door there was some flaky white-paint writing. It said Betty's Tow Service or Betsy's Tow Service, I couldn't tell for sure. What do you know, a lady tow truck.

I was scared to ask her how much to tow us in. She wasn't mean-looking, but she was kind of stocky strong and looked like all business. She went around to look underneath of our car. Her husband come over to the driver's side of the wagon, the wood side, where I was. He settled his butt up against the door and got out a Marlboro. I kind of gave him a look, I guess, cause he raised up his eyebrows and said, "Cars, don't know a thing about them except turn the key and go. I'm strictly a plumber, she's on her own on this tow service thing."

Rusty and Betty was still messing around inside the car guts. Rusty said, "Electrical, that's our problem, got us a short somewhere."

I leaned forwards so I could look around the hood and see what Betty Tow Truck was going to do. She didn't even bend down, she just rolled her eyes over the engine one time and then she said, "Short, hell. Overheated. Radiator hose." She went straight over to the back of her truck and moved some junk around and come up with a twisty piece of black rubber hose about as long as her arm. She walked up to me and her husband and said, "Knife." The plumber reached down in his pocket and got out a case knife and give it to her. She whacked off a piece of hose and threw the rest back in the truck. Then she went back to messing around under the hood of our station wagon. After a couple minutes, she come out with the old hose in her hand and showed it to Rusty. She didn't say a word, just twisted the hose to show where it had a big split. Rusty said, "Yep, she's split all right." Betty handed Rusty the hose piece, slammed down the hood and said, "Six-fifty."

Rusty looked at me. "Got your wallet handy?"

"Yeah," I said. "Hang on." I had to root around in the front seat to find my billfold and then all I had was a ten. I give it to the tow truck woman. She give it to the plumber and said, "Change." The plumber give me three ones out of his billfold and two quarters, one of them was Canadian but that was all he had. He shook me out two or three Marlboros from his pack. "Here," he said. 'To last you till you can get you some in Hannibal." Then he went and got in the truck, his wife was already in the driver seat. Betty told him something so he cranked down the window and leaned out. "She says when you drive it into Hannibal, let it sit a while and cool down."

"All right," I said. "We will."

"You boys drive careful, now," said the plumber. Betty put her truck in gear and pulled out.

"Boys?" I said. "They thought we was men?"

"Well, they fixed the car good, anyway," said Rusty.

"Yeah," I said, "they fixed our wagon."

Rusty climbed in over the back seat and got in the passenger side. I could tell she felt foolish, she was supposed to be the handy one but she couldn't fix the car. So I said, "I'm about to starve. Do they got chili dogs in Hannibal, do you think? Maybe we could get us one."

She was still feeling foolish, so I said, "Trade me places. It's getting dark, and I hate night driving. You drive us to Hannibal." That cheered her up, she liked to drive. Especially if she had a passenger to scare to death. We switched places, she started the wagon up, and we went flying off to Hannibal to get a chili dog.

Hannibal was where Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn and those guys used to live at. We was excited cause we thought it was Huckleberry Hound, and we'd get to see where they made cartoons at. When we got there and found out about Mark Twain, we couldn't even go in his museum because it was closed. But the chili dog place was open. Me and Rusty got two dogs each, extra onions.

* * *

That night we pulled the car over behind a boarded-up gas station and got our rest the best we could. Rusty got in back, and I stretched out on the front seat. The steering wheel was right up in my face, but if I laid the other way, my feet moved around and beeped the horn. We got up in the morning tired and snappy, and we washed up in a restaurant bathroom. The sink didn't look like nobody had ever took a sponge to it. At least Rusty brought in a towel so I never had to touch the nasty roller towel. Whew, that thing was gray.

Our muffler come off in St. Joseph, Missouri and dragged behind us till I looked in the rearview mirror and seen the sparks fly. Rusty had the radio up loud or we would of heard it scraping. We didn't blow ourself up, I didn't know why not cause our gas tank surely leaked. I watched while Rusty got underneath the wagon and wired the tailpipe back on. I was so rattled, I forgot the passenger door was stuck, and I jerked the handle real hard. My shoulder got a pain in it that hurt all day.

We did all right till we had a flat tire, it blew out in cornfield country. No spare, no flares, and I had to hunt for the pieces to the jack. It must have been against Elsie's religion or something to have emergency stuff. There wasn't nobody to help us till a farmer on a tractor come up along his fence and seen us.

He give us and our tire a lift to Maysville in his pickup. "You want me to wait?" he said.

"No," Rusty said. "It's all right, we'll get us a ride back." She tried to give him some money, but he wouldn't take it. He rolled the tire into the gas station for us, and then he drove off. We stood around quite a while in the gas station parking lot, but it was pretty hot with the sun cooking the black tar. We walked across the street to a laundrymat and got us a pop. The laundrymat had a Greyhound sign over the door.

"You'll never be back to work on time," said Rusty. "I better just go on by myself. You take some of my money and get the Greyhound to take you back."

"Piss on it, I'm going with you," I said. I give her my pop bottle. "Here, open this up for me."

"You don't want to lose your job," said Rusty. She stuck the bottle in the slot and popped the top off.

"Who says?" I said. "That might be why I come with you, don't you reckon? Give me my pop." I took a big swig. "I never would of just quit, just walked in Vernon's office and went, "Vernon, old buddy-boy, I hate this crappy job so please resign me.

Rusty said, "I don't follow you."

"Look here," I said. "Elsie paid seventy-five dollars for the wagon, she told me, seventy-five on time. This car, somebody let her have it for thirty-five down and pay the rest later on. So it was a thirty-five dollar car, it was going to break down if we drove it across the country. I knew I wasn't going to make it back, I figured I'd get fired. Piss on it." I put my bottle in the box with the empties. "Let's go to that donut shop over there and get us a bear claw, want to?"

* * *

The woman at the donut shop drove us and our tire back to where the station wagon was stranded. She made us promise we wasn't running away from home. Rusty took out her driver's license and showed the lady that she was over eighteen. The woman watched us put the tire on, then she followed us for a couple miles to make sure it didn't fall off.

We got back on the highway about suppertime. I went to sleep about one minute after I wiggled through the back of the car, into the passenger seat. Probably the bear claw did it, if I ate greasy food I slept hard and dreamed funny. Like I dreamed all this junk about being little and Marlene was little too and she was my sister, not my old lady. And Aunt Shirley was my old lady instead and she wanted me to help her fix her truck cause it was broke but I wouldn't help her. Instead I run into the barn to hide but when I got in there, it wasn't the barn it was school, remedial reading. And Rusty was there too. And then Shirley drove her truck in, right in the Remedial Reading room, and the truck bed was full of donuts, bear claws, and all the kids could have one, and the teacher. And we was all eating donuts and Shirley said, "My little girl ran away so I came to school to get another one." She pointed at Rusty and told the teacher, “Put that one in the truck for me," but Rusty said she couldn't go cause she was all sticky from eating her bear claw and there wasn't a sink for her to wash up.

And then the station wagon went over a bump, my neck got a crick in it, and I woke up. "Oh," I said. "I was dreaming Shirley's truck had donuts in it, and she come to school to make you be her little girl, but you wouldn't."

My stomach hurt so I found a Rolaid in my pocket. Rusty looked bad too, so I asked her did she want a Rolaid. She said no. I said we should figure out where to stop for the night, but she didn't say a word. So I said how was our gas and she said O.K.

I said, "Hey, are you mad or something?" and she said, just all of a sudden she said, "How come you hate Marlene so much?"

"Cause she's a mean hateful drunk," I said. "Sure you don't want a Rolaid?"

"Least Marlene kept you," Rusty said. "Light me a cigarette, would you?"

"Course she kept me," I said. I pushed the lighter knob in. When it popped out I lit Rusty a Kool and me a Marlboro. "If she'd turned me out, she would of got her welfare cut."

Rusty's face was just regular but her foot was tromping down on the gas. Every minute or two I sneaked a look at the speedometer thing moving up. We was going 60 in a 45 zone but I never let her catch me looking.

"That ain't why she kept you, and you know it," said Rusty. "She always took care of you. You never went hungry. And your clothes wasn't any junkier than the next one's."

"What is with you anyway?" I said. "I never said she starved me. I wasn't griping. You're the one talking. I never said shit about Marlene."

"You never said shit to her, either," said Rusty. She slowed down till we was only ten miles over the speed limit.

"You can't talk to a drunk," I said. "Before I talk to somebody, they got to have a brain in their head. Marlene is ate up. Marlene is ate up bad, she don't know what month it is. Shit on that—she don't know what year it is. If you want her to have a friend so bad, then why the hell don't you go hang around with her? She might let you have some out of her vodka bottle. I doubt it though."

Rusty just kept driving like we was still friends. "She's your old lady."

"I know that, you stupid idiot!" I didn't care what I said now. "How do you think I got all my brains? She's a dumb-ass, I'm a dumb-ass, it runs in the fucking family. Now shut up or I'm getting out of this car right now."

Right here was where the old Rusty would of pulled over and called me on it. She would of stopped the car and said, "All right, get out." Then I didn't know what I would have done. But she never stopped. Maybe Redskin Brooms had took all the fire and snap out of her.

We drove on past Greenville, Brownville, and Hilltown. I was wondering if we was ever going to stop and eat and pee and sleep, but I was too proud to speak. So I smoked till I was sick and looked at the billboards. Royal Motel, sleeping there made you feel like a king. Sleep-N-Rest made you feel just like you was at home. I knew we was staying at Elsie's Station Wagon, and sleeping there made you feel like an old grandma.

"Did I ever tell you," Rusty said, "that one time Aunt Shirley went with Grade Casey to the TraveLodge?"

"Grade who?" I was too mad to talk but I forgot. "Who's that? Was she on Kukla, Fran, and Ollie?"

"Not teevee, real life," said Rusty. "Grade Casey."

"Oh," I said, sarcastic. "Saying it different helps me so much. Who are you talking about?"

"I told you about her," Rusty said. "A million times."

"Who?" I said. "Who? Who IS she?"

"My..." Rusty started. "My...what do you call your mother's sister's mother?"

"Your grandma," I said.

"No, not Grandma. I know what a grandma is."

"Well, your mother's sister is your aunt," I said, "and your aunt and your mother has the same mother."

"Not my mother's sister," said Rusty. "My aunt's sister, Shirley's-"

"That's what you said," I said. "Your mother's sister."

"No, I never," said Rusty. "I said my Aunt Shirley's mother's sister. Anyway, Grade never got to go anyplace. She was the youngest girl and took care of her daddy after her old lady passed away. Then Grade's brother got killed in the coal mines and so she took his kids back to the farm to raise. By the time they was grown up and gone, Gracie was too old to get mar­ried, I guess, and she just stayed by herself. The only one who ever come to see her was Shirley.

"Shirley got forty dollars somehow, worked at the process plant probably, and she was going to take Gracie someplace nice. She was going to take her over to Illinois to see some of her relations and Grade asked Shirley was they going to stay at a TraveLodge on the way. Shirley went, 'No, Gracie—if s not but a three, four hour drive over there.

"But the TraveLodge was the only part Gracie cared for, I guess. She liked them little doll-bears on the sign, with their pajama stripes on, you know? And so instead of Illinois, Grade and Shirley just went to Wheeling and stayed in a motel room. Gracie was tickled over it, you would of thought she was on her Florida vacation. She put on her Bermuda shorts and her little bathing suit top and she went swimming in the swimming pool. That night her and Shirley ate in the restaurant, there was a restaurant part to the TraveLodge. And Sunday morning, before they took off for home they had silver dollar pancakes. And Gracie brought home a postcard with the motel on it and she took a ink pen and made a circle where her and Shirley's room was at, third floor on the end. And she went around in a shell top so everybody could see the suntan she got on her arms."

Rusty was laughing but then she steered the car over on the shoulder of the road, and she wasn't laughing, she was crying. "Shirley is so good to everybody," she said, "Gracie and every­body. But she give me over to Viv."

It was raining a little bit and the windshield got covered with water drops so I couldn't see out. I didn't want to watch Rusty bawling but I didn't have nowhere else to look. I got out one of Rusty's Kools and lit it up.

"Here,' I said. "You want this?"

She just shook her head and kept on crying. I couldn't hear a noise but I could see the tears running down out of both eyes. I opened up my window and threw her cigarette out in the rain, that menthol smoke was about enough to choke a person.

"Shirley's your for-real old lady, huh?" I said.

She moved her head up and down a little bit which I guess was yes. "She give me to Viv, and she never took me back. Giving me to Viv, that part, it don't get to me but...she should of took me back. She was only fifteen when she had me but she could of took me back when Grandma died. She could of."

"How come did she—" But why did I even start to ask? How come does any girl fifteen years old give her own baby away? "Did she do like La Vonne?" I asked Rusty.

"La Vonne?" she said. "Hell no, Shirley wasn't never in the army."

“No," I went, real patient. "Did she get...in a family way before she got married?" I was extra polite cause I wouldn't want anybody talking dirty of my mother.

"She never got married," Rusty said.

It had got dark. I pulled my sleeve up so I could see my watch but my watch wasn't on. It must of fell off, the catch tiring didn't work very good. I lifted my butt up and felt around under me and finally I could feel the watch strap sticking out of the back of the seat. I got it loose and lit up my Zippo so I could see the time. Shit, I must of forgot to wind it, it said three o'clock.

"What time is it?" I asked Rusty.

She didn't turn her head. She pulled the car back onto the road.

"Time to quit talking this stuff," she said. "It's making my nerves feel bad."

"My everything feels bad," I said. "We been on the road for­ever. What time did you say it was?"

"Nine-something," Rusty said. She turned on the dome light and took a look at her watch. "No, almost ten o'clock. Want to quit?"

I was just getting ready to say "yeah" when we both seen them. Big red billboard letters, on a real friendly-looking sign. "Snooze Motel, 1/2 Mi."

"That's a good name," I said.

"Yeah," Rusty said. She got over in the right-hand lane. "We got enough money. I mean, if we don't smoke so much." The turn-off for the Snooze Motel was coming up. "I could cut down, could you?"

I thought about my backbone, and how it felt after I slept on the seat of a car all night. "I believe so," I said.

Rusty put on her signal.

There was a little store built onto the Snooze Motel, it sold pop and gum and Qreos and cheeseburgers-to-go. The lady that run the store had such black circles under her eyes, they made her mascara look gray. I guess running the store at the Snooze Motel kept her from getting her sleep.

"You hungry?" Rusty asked me.

"You're not kidding," I said. Rusty and me both stared at the menu stuck up on the wall over the little grill. I bought me a cheeseburger, extra onions, and a Milky Way. Rusty got a hamburger, extra onions, and a ice cream sandwich.

While Rusty was paying for her food, I looked at the new Photoplay in the rack. "Marlene was a beauty," I said. "When she was young, she could of been a star in the movies. Perfect teeth. She was always mad I didn't get her looks."

"What?" said Rusty. I guess she didn't hear me. We took our burgers and stuff to our room. Number 19, right in the middle. As soon as we got in the door, I went back real quick and got a carton of Pall Malls.

When I come back to Number 19 and put the cigarette carton on top of the dresser, Rusty said, "Hey, I thought we was cutting down. Did you get Pall Malls cause we hate them, so we won't smoke so many?"

"They're for Marlene," I told her. I took my pillow off my bed, I knew which bed was mine cause Rusty was laying down on the other one. I hated to sleep with a pillow, it hurt my neck.

"You're taking them back to Marlene, huh?" Rusty said.

"I've borrowed cigarettes off her before," I said. "Just a payback, that's all."

"Marlene?" Rusty said. "You borrowed something off her?”

"Leave her alone," I said. "She had a bad life, the old man beat her and her mom died when she wasn't but sixteen years old."

Rusty didn't say another word. After while, I said, "We got about forty, forty-one dollars left and about two hundred miles. And where are we going to stay at in Colorado?"

"Don't worry," said Rusty. "We'll make it all right."

* * *

We had to be out of the Snooze Motel by seven-thirty a.m. or pay extra, which was crap but that's how they made their money, I guess. We got on the road about eight o'clock, me driving, and the radiator started steaming real bad. We stopped to let it cool down. As soon as we got going again, the steam rolled from under the hood so bad we couldn't see where we was going. I wasn't like Rusty, I didn't drive unless I could see where I was going. We was next to a road sign that said "New Naples 11, Jefferson 19, Highland 29."

"Well, shit," I said.

"Let^’s stop for breakfast," Rusty said.

"Breakfast?" I said. "We got less than forty dollars, no, less than thirty-five cause we got gas and a can of oil. How're we going to get to Colorado on thirty-five dollars and stay till we get a job?"

"We get a job first," said Rusty. "And we save up and then we go on."

"Where are we going to work at?" I said.

Rusty took her cigarette out of her mouth and pointed it at the road sign. "New Naples is eleven miles, Jefferson is nineteen miles, and Highland is twenty-nine," she said. "Let's eat breakfast and decide."