Monday:
twenty-seven hours as near as I can figure it, though already, starting late today, I’ve driven six, Galesburg to Springfield to St. Louis to Lebanon, with Springfield looming up again tomorrow an hour into the drive. When I look again at my atlas, I see my math is confused. Just as: why so many neighboring states with a Springfield? Concatenating tiles: Illinois: Missouri: Oklahoma: the Texas panhandle: New Mexico: Arizona. I am in Missouri for the night. The room is pricey but clean and warm and Romulus, for an extra ten bucks, is welcome too. He roams about sniffing the rug. He likes the curtain billowing in the hot fan. He’s shared my confusion and not a little of my stress about this trip, but mostly he was quiet today in the dark rain as we drove. Fog outside and the windshield fogging. The two truncated legs of the Arch. We hit slow traffic in St. Louis just past them and watched taillights amass in the dark, a long slow thread floating ahead of our crest. Thrilling to me, beautiful. Like the blue-lit cross from a church, a sudden sign announcing Sweet Tree Road, near nowhere. I think I won’t see them again. Nor this room and this bed.
The fan is drying my eyes out, but my legs are tucked under the covers and an episode of the X-Files I haven’t seen is on, and I am feeling lazy after the long hurry to finish up and leave for home. The fan stays on for now. No internet connection, so I post from Word as if publishing now. I should be sleeping—tomorrow’s leg, I tell myself is fourteen hours if I’m up to it—but I’m thinking of Sweet Tree Road and the bare trees in the billboard lights. She is driving home, Glenda told Trystan. Then she is bringing Romulus, he said, because when she drives she brings him with her. Once before, last year around this time, I drove and brought Romulus with me. Now we are expected. Going south and further south, I shed my gloves, I scratch his ears. He is quiet.
Somebody dead is screaming on tv. Scully renounces her invisible man. Mulder wishes for peace on earth. Sufjan Stevens: I did everything for you I did everything for you I did everything for you. I would, too, to be home in time for my birthday on Saturday. It’s done the genii says. (What did I wish for?) Mulder again: guess I should’ve seen that coming.
