Advent: Second Note: This is the second part of a twenty-four part short story to celebrate Advent. The first part is below. Your whole life fits into a Grand Caravan, Natalia. Not just your life, but mine too. And Daniel's as well. We've packed clothes, books (most importantly, The New Roadside America), a candy red igloo cooler that fits perfectly between the front seats, a dozen rolls of film, both 35mm and medium format, so Daniel can make use of his Hasselblatt and notebooks for me to write in, although I'll barely use them. Keeping with an almost compulsive tendency for anthropomorphism, the Grand Caravan is named Jizelle. Daniel bought an American flag from one of the vendors on 52nd Street and we taped it to the antenna. It now flutters in the wind as we enter Allentown, PA like a jingoistic moth trying to escape. On the radio, turned up as loud as possible, Pepper Mashay is singing to us- telling us, for the four-hundred and eighty-second time this year to "Dive Into the Pool." "How ya'll feelin' tonight?", cries out the FM. "GREAT!", we yell back. "Ya'll feelin' good?" "We told you already, bitch!" I turn to Daniel. "Didn't we just tell her?" "We told her good, gurl. She must be busssss-ted." Daniel occasionally channels a large black woman, you see, but Pepper isn't listening. "I've got a little proposal to make to each and every one of you here tonight" " You stop singing this god damn song?" "I think it's time... that we all... go dive in the pool..." "No! It's cold in there!" "Ya'll wanna go dive in the pool?" "Leave us alone you dirty scary diva fag hag wench!" (That's me talking, obviously) "I know ya'll wanna go dive in the pool!" Daniel gives the radio his hand. "Uh-Uhhhhh. She did NOT just ask us to dive into her nasty-ass pool after we already TOLD her." "Daniel. The wheel." There's a curve ahead neither of us see. Daniel bare-knuckles the wheel and Jizelle starts fishtailing and improbably, tilting. Everything slows down for a moment. I can see the van and I can see us and little diagrams come spitting out of my head filled with trajectories and angles of incidence and probable impact scenarios and just as I put the last decimal in place I realize we're not going to crash. The graying asphalt continues on in undulating curves as we stare rigidly ahead. "So I wanna see each and every one of you, dive in the pool... with me, tonight..." Okay, so I burst out laughing, hard, strong manly peals of laughter and this gets you puppy, all excited and you jump up onto the dashboard, but I snag you and pull you into my lap where you squirm and start biting my hand. Normally, this would be the start of a huge argument that would last for hours, but Daniel and I are on road-time, travelling the country in out aluminum lunar orbiter and there's really just not enough room to fit in any arguments. "Hey kiddo, let's pull in for the night." "You know it was complety Pepper's fault." "Damn right." Oooh, look! A barn! "That bitch." We pull into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the night. Sneaking you into the Motel 8 is a blast. Daniel goes and distracts the concierge while I quickly rush by with you in the little doggie tote bag we got for you at Neiman Marcus. We drop you off upstairs and go wander through the bloody little town, which this late at night, is entirely devoid of tourists. My childhood was littered with visits to Gettysburg and the place brings back memories that I want to share with Daniel. I grab a Phillie Blunt from the A&P and while we share puffs I tell him about Boy Scout Camp and how the other counselors and I would sneak back to a cabin called "The Pink Palace" and smoke cigars while telling crappy stories about our nonexistent love lives. The air is so pleasantly cool and the highway floodlights seem so comforting, casting down perfect halos every fifty yards or so. Back in bed, you snuggle between Daniel and I, but as usual, eventually wind up curled in a ball nested in Daniel's belly. Zonk- we're out. In the morning, I am repeating a childhood's worth of tour guide spiels to Daniel as we traverse Seminary Ridge, which nowadays looks something like a landfill for tombstones and monuments. Daniel's taking pictures and playing with you, bouncing across the fields where Pickett's men fell and throwing withered dry grass at you, which you jump up to bite at. We have no real use for places of the dead right now, so a little sacrilegious fun is in order. The whole thing looks like a postcard. From Amazon.com:

posted by Japhy at 12/01/2002 09:00:00 PM || #