I still think about that drive.
The tenacity of those Tennessee roadside concessions. The ones fueling those dirty dashboard confessions; the ones screaming at a Pigeon Ford quickly evaporating in a smoky rearview mirror.
Because I never had the opportunity to properly explain myself.
I just remember Knoxville coffee punching hard against softer insides. And how that burn helped to round out the sharpness of those elevated curves. And smooth the stark indignity of unused emergency runaway ramps. The ones scratched and clawed into an unnamed mountain’s downward slope.
Cities were on fire then. It felt like the whole world, locked down and suffering, was about to collapse. Which I thought was fucking hilarious. Because I was tired of the abuse. And wanted to break free into something more significant.
Instead, I found phantom faces blasted in chiseled shale embankments. The ones mocking that little red five-speed rental. Those unreasonable inclines made the imported engine howl; the downward slopes forced overworked brakes to smoke and squeal—I still remember that smell.
But that was the price to be paid for slingshotting up out of Appalachia. And I had to keep pushing back north.
In Kentucky, a badland scarecrow scowled. Silent judgement dripped from that weathered outline pinned to a post in the buckwheat. The one pounded right into the hardscrabble heart of tobacco country. A battered flannel and straw stranger set out as a festive warning to passing cars to just keep fucking driving.
It was a place where poverty flourishes. And addictions howl. Broken skeletons of cars littered yards; battered tobacco barns held fast in a place that time, and social advancement, seemingly forgot.
I witnessed those stains on the American fabric; I felt the hurt. And part of me wanted to stay there. Because someone should be writing those stories.
The snow squalls started about 50 miles from the heel of Indiana.
High-beam moonlight rattled off the dash. And broke up the radio signals. The ones ignored for more indignant playlists toothing on the blues.
Just drunk on the miles. Spun out on the vibrations still banging from the memory of that sloped mountaintop oasis. Because all those things we swore would never happen, actually happened. I was reminded of that every time the strapped seat belt rubbed against the marks she left on my chest.
But, hers were worse. Just the way she liked. And begged for, there amongst the lacy bedding snuggled in the bluegrass foothills.
There was palpable relief crossing back into Indiana.
The red neon burned atop the bluff overlooking the river on the Hoosier side. I saw it coming around the Kentucky curve leading to the 421 Bridge.
After another 500 mile night, it felt good to be 200 feet high. Standing still. A drink in hand; a typewriter on a balcony table. Both were required to address a heart full of hurt.
Because it was from that bluffside vantage point that it became clear—flatland foxes and mountain bunnies were never intended to intertwine. That simply isn’t the nature of things.
And no amount of clever writing was ever going to change that.
But I still think about that drive.
Admittedly, more often than I ever think about her…
