The Open Road

by Quinn Loftis

  “Wanted to read you all something this morning. I’m hoping, maybe, it will help you folks out there in America-land get to know who Bethany was. This is her favorite poem. It’s ‘Song of the Open Road’ by Walt Whitman.” Jason held the page up to the camera. It bore several lines of neat, slanted cursive writing in a blue pen. “Bethany used to carry this paper with her and read the poem to herself when she was feeling down. Now, I’m not a poetry guy myself. It never made a lot of sense to me, but she loved it. She actually memorized the stuff and was always spouting it out at random times. I didn’t get it, but it was still adorable. She was so much smarter than me it was unreal. I still sometimes wonder how I talked her into marrying me. Anyway, here it goes. I doubt I’ll do it justice but bear with me.” Jason cleared his throat and began to read the words on the page.

  Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,

  Healthy, free, the world before me,

  The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

  * * *

  Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune;

  Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

  Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

  Strong and content, I travel the open road.

  Jason’s voice cracked on the word “travel.” His already bloodshot eyes were now rimmed with tears. He cleared his voice again. “I’ll skip down a bit.”

  From this hour, freedom! From this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,

  Listening to others, and considering well what they say,

  Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,

  Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me . . .

  . . . I inhale great draughts of space;

  The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

  * * *

  I am larger, better than I thought;

  I did not know I held so much goodness.

  All seems beautiful to me;

  I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,

  I would do the same to you.

  * * *

  I will recruit for myself and you as I go;

  I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;

  I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;

  Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;

  Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

  * * *

  Silence filled the air when Jason stopped speaking. Several moments passed before he looked up again from the page. He made to speak but then paused. He shook his head and punched the stop button on the camera. When the video started again, Jason appeared more composed, and it looked as if he’d splashed some water on his face.

  “Sorry about that, everyone. I knew I might get emotional and I did. Better now. Back to the tour.” He got to his feet and walked to the front of the RV. “Here’s where I pilot this house on wheels,” he said, indicating the driver’s seat. “Like I said before, it’s really not that difficult, kind of like driving a big moving van. No big deal.

  “And, that’s the grand tour. I know I said I was going to get a map and plot out a course, but I’m still not thinking exactly clearly at the moment. I’m going to have a shower and some breakfast,” he said looking at his watch. “Then I’ll post another video later this afternoon, so look for that. Thanks for hanging in there with me, America. I’ll see you on the open road.”

  The video stopped and Samantha growled like a grizzly bear. “Charity woke me up for that? I am going to kill her.” All thoughts of giving Jason the benefit of the doubt based upon Tran’s recommendation were forgotten. She was too irritated about being woken up. Just then, Sam heard a loud knock on her front door. She sat still, thinking maybe the knock had actually been on the apartment door next to hers. An emaciated old hippie named Skip lived there, and he received all manner of strange visitors. It was not uncommon for one of them to knock on Samantha’s door by mistake. When Skip wasn’t hiding behind his dark curtains, he spent most of his time sitting in a lawn chair on the stoop smoking nonfiltered cigarettes and petting his elderly cat, Mrs. Kush Kush.

  The knock came again. No, that was definitely on her own door. Who in the world could that be? She sucked in a breath as she remembered Henry and his bizarre statement about knowing their future. Could he have found out where she lived? Not that it would be hard. Samantha was pretty sure you could find anyone you wanted on the internet. The knock came yet again, a little more insistent this time. Still, she didn’t move. It was Sunday, almost noon. She wasn’t expecting anyone. This had to be some stupid door-to-door salesperson or maybe a religious nut just out of church and all fired up. Or it’s a crazy, psychic nut who’s obsessed with you, she added in her mind, choosing not to voice that out loud and somehow make it come true. Not that she was superstitious but why not play it safe, just this once? She wasn’t going to answer it. They’d go away in a minute.

  The knock sounded for a fourth time, even louder this time. “Dammit,” she swore and threw the blanket off her body. She was annoyed enough now that she was able to tamp down any fear she might have been feeling a moment ago. Samantha lumbered up and stomped into the living room so loudly she probably made the pictures rattle in the apartment below her. She paused at the door and looked down at herself, noticing her breasts were about to come tumbling out of the top of the red shirt she’d been wearing the night before, which was stained and wrinkled. Her throat was on fire. Her mouth tasted like she’d eaten a raw dragon liver, and she could only imagine what her hair must look like.

  Samantha yanked the shirt up as high as it would go. She briefly thought about quickly freshening up, or at least brushing her teeth, but then she might miss the chance to read the riot act to this jackass pounding on her door. And if it was Henry Hyena, she was going to make it perfectly clear that he was creeping her the hell out and he needed to stop. Sam was going to make this fool pay for dragging her out of bed—well, off the bedroom floor, anyway—on what should be a very relaxing Sunday. The knock came again.

  Damn it! It’s my first day off in three weeks. I’m SO not listening to a sales pitch about satellite TV! This asshat is getting a piece of my mind!

  Samantha unlocked the door and yanked it open. Everything she’d been planning to say froze in her throat as she stared up into the eyes of the man at the door.

  “Nice shirt,” said Derek, grinning like a Cheshire cat. And Samantha vomited all over his shoes.

  Chapter Seven

  Charity plopped down on the couch next to Brent and handed him a glass of white wine and kept one for herself. He munched on popcorn as he watched a pregame show about the playoff basketball game that was about to start. She threw a blanket over both of them, snuggled up against his warm chest, and pulled out her phone to play on social media.

  Images of the previous evening replayed in her mind. She and her two friends had had a great time. Unlike Jessica and Samantha, Charity had decided to take it slow after they left the restaurant. She loved having fun as much as the next girl, and had rarely met anyone she couldn’t outdrink if she set her mind to it, but she knew how dangerous it could be to lose one’s faculties in a place like Club Sprocket. Most everyone in there was just like them, young people looking to have some fun. But three inebriated young women could be easy prey for someone with nefarious motives. Someone had to keep a level head. It was clear when they arrived that Jessica wasn’t going to slow down, and Samantha, in Charity’s opinion, didn’t need to slow down. It was the first time in months she’d actually heard Samantha open up about what was going on with her and Derek. The girl needed to heal in a big way. If it took a bit of liquid courage to get that healing process started, then so be it. For a little while, it almost felt like Charity had her old friend back again.
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br />   Charity was delighted she and Jessica had begun to hit it off. No would could ever replace Sam as Charity’s best friend; they’d known each other too long and been through too much together. But when Samantha was trapped in Derek hell for almost four years, the girl was basically MIA. Getting her to do anything fun was like pulling teeth. Every time Charity invited her to go shopping or to a movie, she’d come up with some excuse, no matter how lame. It was always, “Oh, Derek has a family reunion,” or “We just want to stay in tonight,” or blah, blah, blah. The truth was, Derek flat-out refused to do anything with Charity or anyone else in Samantha’s life. So, going out on a double date was simply out of the question, not that Charity could have stood to be around the man for longer than five minutes anyway. But she would’ve tried for Sam’s sake. And on the rare—very rare—occasions that Derek did let Sam go out without him, he’d get so jealous he’d spend the rest of the night after she returned giving her the third degree. At some point, having outside friendships just wasn’t worth it for Samantha.

  Because of Sam’s absence, Charity had a void in her life. She needed another girlfriend in a big way. So, when Charity went to work for Caldwell and met Jessica, a woman her own age, it was no surprise the two quickly hit it off. They were like a pair of young, twentysomething lighthouses in a sea of post-menopausal cubicle drones. Neither had any idea how to make lemon squares, what the best slow-cooker recipes were, or who was the best chiropractor in town. It was a marriage of necessity, really. The both looked forward to noon when they could run off across the road to the sandwich shop, relax, eat salads, and gossip about the hot new guy in the mailroom or how Brenda’s stylist had turned her hair blue.

  But even as close as she and Jessica had become, Charity still missed Samantha terribly. When Derek ran out, Charity was hopeful she’d soon have her best friend back. But it wasn’t to be. If anything, it was even harder now to drag Samantha out of her apartment, even if Sam could find the time between her two jobs. The girl was a shell of her former self.

  Charity and Brent had started making definite plans for their wedding, and Charity was the happiest she’d ever been in her life. She was extremely busy but she had purpose. Charity worked at Caldwell Insurance during the day, took evening and online classes at night as she worked on her business management degree, and spent weekends with Brent. The only thing missing was her best friend.

  Much like Samantha, Charity had not had the best home life, which is probably why the two girls got on so well during high school. After graduation, Charity didn’t want to go into a mountain of debt to start school, so she went to work and attended school part-time. It meant finishing her degree in six years instead of four, but if it kept her free from a quagmire of student loan debt, that was fine with her. Unfortunately, Brent’s loans from law school would be more than enough to take up the slack. Working and going to school at the same time just wasn’t an option for him. He had a clerkship at small firm, but it was only a few hours a week and paid virtually nothing.

  When Brent wasn’t at class, he spent almost every waking moment studying as he slogged through his second year. He was everything she could ever hope for in a future husband. Brent was smart, funny, and devilishly handsome, with wavy sandy-brown hair and sharp blue-green eyes. And he treated her like a princess, which was really all that mattered. Having this lazy Sunday afternoon to simply relax with her fiancé was exceedingly rare, and Charity was soaking up the good vibes. She might have been asleep in his arms within a few minutes if he hadn’t decided to strike up a conversation out of the blue.

  “Babe,” he said to her as he turned down the volume on the television.

  “Yeah?” Charity replied, a hint of surprise in her voice. The game was just about to start, so the fact that Brent was taking a minute to initiate conversation was a bit of a surprise. He was a man of few words at the best of times, but he definitely wouldn’t pause a basketball game just to chitchat.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “It’s been six months since we postponed our wedding.”

  “Yeah…” Charity could already see where he was headed.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time we reset the date?”

  Charity drew in a deep breath, pondering the question before she answered. “You know that I cannot wait to marry you, right?” she asked.

  “So you say,” he replied.

  “C’mon,” she said. “I can’t wait to become Mrs. Charity Smith. It’s just that—”

  “I’m just messing with you. I know why you postponed it the first time,” he interrupted. “I completely understand it wouldn’t have been right trying to plan a wedding with your maid of honor going through all the hell she went through. But now I think it’s time. I love Sam just as much as anybody. I totally respect you for what you did, but at some point, we have to live our own lives. There’s only so much you can do for her. She got dealt a crappy hand. There’s no doubt about that. But, at some point, she’s got to stand on her own two feet and be her own woman. You can’t make every decision in our lives just to avoid causing her pain.”

  “I know, I know. You’re completely right. It is time. This engagement has gone on too long already. I’m ready to be your wife.”

  “And I’m ready to be your husband. I’m ready to brush our teeth together every night before bed. I’m ready to wake up and see your smiling face every morning.”

  “You know I don’t smile in the morning,” she replied deadpan.

  “It’s a figure of speech. You know what I mean.”

  “I do, and believe it or not, I think it might be fine on Samantha’s end too.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “She seems to be in a good place right now. I think she’s finally starting to get over Derek.”

  “Really?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yeah, you should have seen her last night. She almost looked like her old self again.”

  “That’s great.”

  Charity sat up. “It is. I think she’s finally turned a corner. Things aren’t totally peachy. She’s still working two jobs and flat broke, but I think maybe she can see the world isn’t going to end just because that loser is gone.”

  “Excellent,” said Brent, turning back up the TV and relaxing back into the cushions.

  Charity just shook her head and inwardly smiled. That was so Brent. The man took being task-oriented to a new level. She could almost see the day’s invisible to-do list in his mind. Eat breakfast. Check. Study one hour. Check. Talk to Charity about our marriage. Check. The rest of the list would say: Watch one basketball game; Study two more hours; Go to gym for a one-hour workout; Eat dinner; Read a magazine; Make love to Charity; Drop into a comatose-like sleep. The following week would contain similarly scheduled days, and anything that disrupted the schedule would throw the man all out of sorts. Charity loved his discipline and dedication, but sometimes his lack of spontaneity could be a bit infuriating. But then, that’s why they fit. She was his wild card in a perfect hand. She kept him on his toes and he kept her feet on the ground when she wanted to get carried away in the clouds. They were a good match.

  “Want me to go dig out the binder and start making some plans?”

  “Sure, babe,” Brent said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

  He’d already moved on to the next task on his list. Getting him to return to the subject of their wedding would be next to impossible now. Charity inwardly cursed herself. She knew she had missed a golden opportunity to make some serious progress on their wedding plans. Now she’d have to find a way to get herself penciled back in on his schedule. But she had a secret weapon: the next-to-last item on the list. Before the nightly festivities started, she’d have his undivided attention. At that point, he’d agree to whatever she wanted just to shut her up and get her naked.

  ‘You want the hottest band in town to play at our wedding?’

  ‘Sure, babe, no problem.’

 
; ‘Oh, you want the most expensive photographer money can buy?’

  ‘Whatever, babe, it’s your special day.’

  Charity chuckled to herself and snuggled back down against his chest.

  Just then, her phone buzzed and she looked down at it. The notification showed a new video from “Jason’s Lost his Mind—North American Tour,” which he’d now officially named his video channel. When the man popped up on the screen, he looked much better than when she’d seen him last time. He still had his hat on, but it wasn’t pulled down so low over his eyes. Though his face was still a bit haggard, some of the color had returned.

  “What’s this?” asked Brent, snapping out of his basketball haze and looking at Charity’s screen.

  “This guy’s wife and kids died,” she said. “Now he’s touring the country to honor their memory. And just for the record, after we’re married, if I die, you better be just as torn up as this guy.”

  “Babe, if you died, I’d kill myself, so you don’t have to worry about that. We’d be together no matter what.”

  “Good answer,” she said, hitting the play button.

  Jason began to speak. “Hello, America. Sorry about the earlier video. I was looking a bit rough, I know. But I’m back in the saddle now, baby. Wanted to show you what I’ve been working on.”

  He turned the camera over to reveal a large map of the United States spread out over the small dining room table of the RV. It hung off the table at the edges. At the top, in a relatively blank area of the Canadian border, a small wallet-sized picture of Bethany, Hannah, and Chloe was taped to the map. There was a black line drawn in marker beginning from a point in central Arkansas, running west through several states. Jason moved his finger across the map, following the line with his finger and giving a running commentary on his plans as he did so, noting how he would find a place to park his RV in California and Washington and then fly to Hawaii and Alaska when the time came. After he’d traced his way through forty-eight states, Jason followed the line as it moved from Mississippi into Louisiana where it then stopped somewhere above New Orleans.