Just a Spring Haze

That Friday night, we drove to Wrightsville Beach. It was still early in the season, so despite the warm weather, there wasn't a crowd. We walked along the shore in the moonlight and sat in the sand, talking for the better part of an hour, watching the lanterns from Johnny Mercer's pier reflecting on the sea. The wind coming off the ocean was just enough to cut the unusually high humidity for that time of night. It smelled amazing. We could see the shadows of a couple as they danced on the water's edge, pausing to kiss occasionally as the moon glimmered off the waves behind them. They were unaware that we were sitting in the darkness nearby, or maybe they just didn't care.

Eventually, we got up and went for a stroll on the pier. We walked out to the far end, to a corner everyone else was avoiding, possibly because of the abandoned fish lying nearby, though it gave off no smell. We leaned against the railing and looked back over the town of Wrightsville Beach, the condos lit up and the dull gleam of a green GloStick being tossed around along the shore.

There was a strange humming in the air. It reminded me of the sound of a wet finger running around the edge of a wine glass. Someone had set their fishing poles in the holsters at the edge of the pier and the lines were singing quietly.

The lanterns, the fishermen, the lights from Wrightsville Beach on a Friday night, were all picturesque, but after a few minutes, I turned toward the water, and it was just...nothing. The moon wasn't hitting it from that angle, so it was simply a thick black spreading out as far as the eye could see. Above it was a lighter black, an ashy sky with stars scattered across. I closed my eyes and told myself that this was space reaching out in front of me into--as far as I could see--infinity. Then I opened my eyes again.

It didn't work. It still looked like I was staring at a backdrop. If I leaned over the edge of the pier far enough, I'd touch it. If I were in the water, I could swim out to it...probably wade. If I were in a boat, I'd run into it, like in The Truman Show. It was painted, black lower down, deep gray higher up. And I couldn't get over how thick it felt, how heavy the darkness. I imagine this is what the walls of the 5 & ½ Minute Hallway from House of Leaves would look like.

I rested my chin on the railing, let an arm hang over the side. The wood was unusually warm against my skin, almost hot, although the sun had long since set.

We stayed there for at least half an hour, listening to the conversations around us and the waves hitting the legs of the pier, the music of the fishing lines and the odd laugh floating up from an unseen group playing in the dark of the beach.

"Ready to go back?" Adam asked eventually.

"Okay...does that look like a wall to you?"

"Hmm?"

"Does it look like we're standing in front of a huge wall and the ocean's not even real, it's just painted on, like a part of the wall?"

"What, like in The Truman Show or something?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Adam stared out, considering. "Sure. I can see that."

I think he was just being polite.

Just having thoughts.

"So we have some news for you," Heather said suddenly. My ears pricked up. Another baby! "But you're not gonna like it."

My heart dropped to my knees. That could only mean one thing.

Her baby gurgled happily to himself from the floor between us, blissfully unaware that something awful was happening: my best friend was telling me she was moving 800 miles away. As far away as I used to live, in another direction. That place she meant when she referred to "back home," and even though my back-home was different, I knew exactly how she felt.

She'd moved here five years ago and I'd known her for most of them, four as a friend. She'd started at my job after I'd been there half a decade and I'd immediately operated on the assumption that she disliked me, partially because her predecessor had and partially because at the time I tended to think most people disliked me unless I was proven wrong. We had brief conversations during our interactions at the end of the workday, but it was mostly polite small-talk. Once, she asked me if I'd sent her a friend request on Facebook. Someone named Stephanie had and she didn't know my last name. It wasn't me, but I thought, maybe I should. And then I'd decided not to. That'd be weird. I've never had a good handle on what's weird--after all, how should I know what's normal to people who aren't me?--so I tend to err on the side of caution. (As a footnote, we later became Facebook friends without much fanfare. And it wasn't weird at all. It was fine.)

In early 2012, she asked if I'd ever read The Hunger Games. I hadn't, but I did the next day. Took down the entire series in four days, which isn't insane in that it's not difficult reading, but it's maybe slightly more impressive in that two of those were long workdays. And I had someone to discuss it with when I was finished! I never had anyone to discuss books with! Most people I know don't read for fun.

We improvised about the books for a while, then the upcoming movie. I told her I never go to movie premieres, but I was thinking about going to that one.

"I'm definitely going," she said. "That's the kind of movie you see opening night."

Hey! I thought. But then, no. You don't ask someone you barely know if they want to go to the movies. That'd be weird.

She walked by five minutes later and said, "We should go together." And it wasn't weird at all. It was fine.

Over the next few months, we started hanging out occasionally without the excuse of a movie. The awkwardness slowly ebbed as my shyness melted. I met her dogs. She listened to stories about my cat. We picked up one another's histories through anecdotes. We were both from somewhere else and I think there was something bonding in that: strangers in a strange land. Not really; just Northerners living in the South--Yankees, they still call us, grouping everyone in together. Doesn't matter; if you're not from here, they don't really care where you're from.

She and her fiancé were good company. I always felt energized after an evening at their place, talking myself hoarse and laughing until my face hurt, the way you do around people you're comfortable with, people you recognize as your own. They can draw you out of your shell, no matter how hopelessly introverted you think you are. Her dogs, even the extremely timid one, began to recognize me and come over for pats as soon as I stepped inside. Everything about their home was inviting. Even the cat who hated me when I showed up to feed him while they were out of town could at least be civil in their presence.

That winter, she took up Zumba. I considered giving it a try, knowing I needed badly to start exercising, but the thought of dancing in a room full of people was petrifying. Besides, I didn't want to be tag-along. That'd be weird.

A few months later, she tagged me in a post looking for Zumba buddies. And it wasn't weird at all. It was fine. Three days a week for an hour after work. I had no idea what I was doing and hid in the back corner, where she was good enough to join me, but I was actually doing it. I was in a room with several others and I was moving to music--confusedly, but technically, it was dancing. I tried going alone once, when she was out of town, but it was too much for me. I used to joke that she was my security blanket, but it was absolutely the case.



It wasn't until we were having lunch with our friend Marie that it occurred to me. Marie pointed out something with cilantro on the menu and suggested I might want to try it. Before I even processed what she'd said, Heather remarked, "She doesn't like cilantro."

"You guys know each other," Marie beamed. "You guys are such good friends."

I chuckled over it later to Adam. "Awww," he said. "You guys are such good friends."

"I think of her as a good friend. She has a lot of friends, though. I think I'm just her coworker-friend, you know?"

"Naw," Adam replied. "I think you guys might be BFFs."

This idea had never crossed my mind, but I considered it and decided maybe he was right, at least from my end. Which was strange, although it took me months to place why. I eventually realized: all of my close friends as an adult have been men. All of my close lady friends were people I met when I was a kid, friendships that were strong enough to make it to adulthood. I love those women dearly and I'm deeply thankful for their continued presence in my life and the way they've let me change and grow without pushing me away. This was simply something new to me, because it wasn't based on the convenience of being born with the same blood in our veins or having known one another since way back when. She was actually just this nice person I met who got me and made me think that maybe I wasn't as out of touch with other people as I often thought.

And over the next four years, that's a thing I came to recognize increasingly about Heather: she makes me feel more normal. I can talk about something I've been mulling over, an unexpected feeling I had in a particular moment, a knee-jerk reaction or impulse that struck me as unusual. She knows what I'm talking about--or at the very least, tries to without judging. At the same time, she's straight with me. She's never unnecessarily cruel, but if you ask her opinion, she'll give it with sincerity and it's very cool.

Maybe this isn't rare for most people, I don't know. Maybe everyone's surrounded by friends like that. But when you're a shy and awkward person who has a hard time getting acquainted with other people, it's always nice to know someone that's truly got your back. You can never have too many friends like that. They bring out something better in you. And they make you more confident--so confident that maybe you find yourself three times a week standing in the front row of a room full of people and dancing in spandex workout clothes.

I was supposed to help her shop for a wedding dress, but I woke up that morning with all the warning signs of a UTI and stayed home to drink my weight in cranberry juice, a decision I will always regret. She chose a dress just fine without me, of course, but it would have been fun, and what a life event to be a part of in some small way. I ate a sandwich while watching her Vegas wedding online (thanks, technology of the 2000s) and teared up with happiness. I worried that she'd move home during her first pregnancy, realized that there were worse possibilities when she decided to stay, but miscarried.

We walked by the river on a gorgeous afternoon a few days after. My heart ached for her as she scratched her dog behind the ears, affected a laugh with a bitter note in it, and said, "I was being greedy. I wanted too much love, huh?" I didn't know what the right thing was to say that day, so I hoped listening was enough.

We grinned across the floor at each other in Zumba when I asked if...something was different about her and she informed me that she'd just found out the night before that she was pregnant again, the third time, the one that came to full-term.

We Christmas-shopped together every December for the last three. It's indecent to go to Blue Moon without her. I've tried.

I know where the light switches are in her kitchen and bathroom without having to feel around. We rode together to her son's dedication. I know first-hand that she makes an amazing Thanksgiving dinner (which I still feel bad about, actually, because she did it alone, while pregnant). And she told me one of the best stories I've ever heard about the time she rolled off the side of a patio chaise to get away from a clown when she was little.

We've

swam in a pool fully-clothed, with her dogs
hopped our way into our workout clothes in adjacent bathroom stalls a million, million times
carpooled after work
sat in the warm sun by the fountain at the theater in the spring and beside a bonfire outside Starbucks in the autumn
messaged one another random silliness in the middle of a rough workday
talked through fitting room walls at most clothing stores in town
been lost in a corn maze on Halloween night, her husband loudly whispering, "MURDER," anytime strangers wandered by
hung out to sort-of watch TV and unwind after a long week
sat together at work gatherings, exchanging amused glances when events dictated
shared countless meals
talked well into the night
exchanged confidences
traded childhood memories
made inside jokes

Twice, we went clubbing with friends downtown. Even on anxiety meds and drunk, I can't let my guard down, but she's a natural dancer. She doesn't do it in a showy way, she just moves to the music with grace and a lack of inhibition that is enviable. One of the those times, she was dancing to a particular song and maybe the alcohol was making me emotional, I don't know, but I remember thinking what a beautiful person she is, inside and out, and now that song always reminds me of that. Even if I was in some I-love-you-man stage of drunkenness, I was right, she is a beautiful person. And generous, kind, funny, and so, so much fun. I'll miss her badly.

The other time we went clubbing, I actually danced. I wasn't going to. Even as drunk as I've ever been, I wasn't going to. There were songs we knew from Zumba on and I thought, Maybe I will. And then I stood right where I was, because dancing isn't something I've ever done, especially in public. That'd be weird.

But she grabbed me and pulled me out to the floor, me laughing self-consciously and her patiently telling me to stop worrying and move to the beat. I mostly just tried to follow her lead and not fall over in a tipsy stupor. She spun in a circle under the arc of my arm, then twirled me around the same. The room dipped and swirled, but she clasped my hand and held me steady and we danced, as best as I knew how. And it wasn't weird at all. It was fine, fine, fine.

 

I think we're like fire and water, I think we're like the wind and sea.

In eastern North Carolina, March is a confused thing.

Once, we went hiking to some waterfalls. It was chilly enough for long sleeves, mild enough to regret them after ten minutes. We went half an hour out of our way to find restrooms, only then they were closed and I finally ducked into some bushes, shouting, "DO YOU HEAR RUSTLING I THINK SOMEONE'S COMING IS SOMEONE COMING," the whole time. We found our way to the entrance from the Blue Ridge Parkway and there was a little shop, only the little shop was closed and there was no one in sight because that part of the Blue Ridge was shut for the winter. It was like being somewhere abandoned. I couldn't actually picture it with people there.

It was colder, the day before. We climbed a trail winding steeply up through woods, maybe it wasn't even meant for humans, maybe it was left by animals. Roots crisscrossed our path under a blanket of last autumn's leaves and everything was dull, dry, brown, until we reached the top of this little mountain, a little mountain in the midst of a hundred other little mountains, and a wooden fence stopped us from rolling down the other side. The wind was blowing a dull ache into my ears and it was the only thing to hear, the wind and all those bare branches and the leaves crunching under our feet, long undisturbed and smelling like some forgotten fall. I carved our initials into the fence, hidden away in the middle of a wooded nowhere deep in the Appalachians, and then we walked back down our little mountain to the car. We'd never find it again if we tried.

Two days later, there was an ice storm and we listened to pellets pinging on the old roof of our cabin all night. When it finally stopped in the early morning hours, the only sound in the world was the water from the creek behind the cottage rushing away under a frozen surface.



We let the road thaw until the next evening and then drove through the nearby countryside, stopping for wild turkeys to cross the road. The melting ice made us cocky and we decided to play on the railroad tracks beside a defunct-looking post office that was still in operation, only the cold coming off all that metal and the setting sun chased us back to the car after a few minutes.

Two days later, we took an interstate drive for hours with the windows down.

Sometimes, it just rains. The day we went to the beach, it rained. Started out sunny, then a mist crept in over the ocean, over us as we drove east to meet it. We walked the slippery Rocks at Kure Beach until my Chucks lost their footing and I decided I didn't want to slip and fall into the sea. Amanté chased some birds in the drizzle. We settled for the park, playing on the swingset as the overcast day turned to night. He kicked massive pinecones around, astonished by their size, then we went downtown for a muggy dinner, but there was no more rain.

Other days, it's that wintry kind of sunny that tricks you into thinking it's warm outside. You bundle up because your phone says it's freezing out, but you don't really believe it until you take that first breath and it freezes in your lungs.

Those confused March days are coming again soon. We'll spend a week rubbing hands in the car to keep warm or opening the windows while we cook dinner, wandering through a museum as a surprise thunderstorm makes the heat outside even thicker or walking a foggy beach, driving to the store in a late-night downpour or navigating unfamiliar streets under a frozen early-morning sun. Together.

Fangs

I like to do year-end music lists as much as anyone. My original plan was to use my favorite songs of the year as writing prompts throughout December, but December was kind of crazy for me and that didn't pan out. So then I was going to make it January, because, hey, it's a 31-item list. But then that fell through, too. So I guess I'm just going to do it anyway, at my own pace.





We're never afraid to be on the right beach at the wrong time. We've

sat on the knoll by the ferry on a wind-raw December night
watched a lightning storm away out over the ocean from the shore
stood in the middle of the rock wall at Fort Fisher as thunder rolled across the water to us
laid huddled on the sand in the hopes of seeing shooting stars when it was below freezing and you could hear the chill in the waves, feel it down to the bone.

So when a January day promised to be clear, if not warm, we didn't hesitate. We bundled up, got in the car, and drove. We drove

                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                        west
                                                                                                                                                            south
                                                                                                                     west
                                                                             south
                                      west

almost to the state line separating us from the wilderness of another Carolina.



I don't remember a thing about the drive, but I do remember that the day turned gray and it felt right. I remember that salt smell slapping me in the face on a sharp gust the moment I stepped out of the car. I remember the long pier from the road to the beach, between condos and over sand hills and through a copse that buzzed with insects the summer before, now quiet except for the wind. I remember not hearing the ocean, knowing it was over that down and not being able to hear a thing. You take a few steps and suddenly, it's there, white foam crashing white noise dimly in the background until you come over that last rise and the sea opens out before you at full volume, louder than you ever expect and never stopping for breath. I remember the grass on the dunes and almost no one around. The day bright behind the clouds. My toes going numb and my fingers long since gone, out of my gloves so I could take pictures. The wind raking my hair mercilessly. Sand filling my shoes. Jaw locked against the cold, eyes streaming, ears aching deep down inside.

What a good day.

A Trip to Alte Salem Kirche

"Cathedral towers over the fields. Rotten photo. I took it through the car window after we'd been driving all day, the car still moving. I've only kept it because I remember taking it, remember the feeling of coming in over the fields and towards somewhere I sort of knew. It doesn't actually matter you can't see the towers, I know they're there. That's what I like about this one. That I took it for me. Just for me." --Janice Galloway, Foreign Parts

Stephanie and Amanté
Amanté and Stephanie

driving through the fading daylight of an Indiana landscape.

We're sort of in Evansville still, Evansville according to Google, but I saw the county line back on the highway. Maybe these side roads twisted and turned back that far east as we drove through the gathering dusk, uncertain. My sense of direction stopped following along ten minutes ago. Off our personal maps now, we're chasing something I read about on an Internet forum once. We are somewhere neither of us has ever been, heading toward something neither of us has ever seen.

Ahead, the street curves down into a hollow canopied by trees so dense, the pavement is cast into premature night. I feel my pulse throb slightly, pick up pace.

"So we're definitely going to get hacked to pieces by a guy with an ax out here, right?" Amanté asks.

"Definitely. There's definitely a guy with an ax just waiting for some young people to wander by all the way the hell out here." We're only kidding, of course we are, but I can feel the adrenaline slowly trickling into my veins. Buzzing the way it does before a big storm.

We drive past an unmarked drive that disappears around a curve and possibly leads to our destination. There's a mailbox, which is pretty unexpected. Not even a very old mailbox. It looks so clean and modern that it jars with the backdrop. So we keep straight, squinting into the woods as we pass, but the thick growth is full of late evening shadows and gives away nothing.

"That was the place," Amanté says after a moment.

"It must be..." I falter.

"No, it is. Look." He motions skyward, to where a moldering steeple peeks above the treeline beside us.

There are no suspicious neighbors, no other cars to rush us as his truck circles back. Just this deserted road and the dirt path waiting ahead for us.

As we turn in, the headlights hit a cross. A makeshift cross, devised of haphazardly broken boards and nailed to the gnarled trunk of a tree. Maybe it's a sign for curious travelers like us. Or people who have nowhere else to go. Here in the last strains of daylight, it feels menacing.

But we
            creep
                   forward
                              through
                                        the
                                           trees
                                                                                                                                                 until

the                
church fills          
our view to the       
right, spire dark      
against the deepening sky.

And a fire.

The building rests in a small hill clearing, descending quickly to woods on every side. Google said there was a campground buried somewhere in the weald behind the church, but seeing a campfire so near is unsettling. And there's a trailer beside the fire pit, a dilapidated thing stretching along the forest's edge. Some kind of office for the campsite? Someone's hunting shack? Someone's home? An abandoned structure where local homeless bed down? Meth lab? I'm too unnerved by this unexpected sign of life to study my surroundings carefully, risk making eye contact with someone who might not like it.

Amanté slowly turns the truck around in plain sight of anyone who might be near the fire. He has to, there's no other space to do it and we can't risk backing into a tree in this unfamiliar landscape, it's not even his truck. I pass the time wondering if we're about to be shot at. Finally, we're aimed back toward the main road, separated by the hill from the glow of the firelight. I'm chattering because I'm nervous, chattering with no real idea what I'm saying, only I know I mention that some people have gone inside the building, I've seen photos. Amanté puts the truck in park and jumps out, leaving the door wide to check the padlock on the church entrance that hovers a few feet above the ruin of stone steps. I scan our surroundings like it might be a trap, like I think someone might be sneaking up on us.

And then we're back on the road, deer playing in the dim fields beside us. They stop to stare as we pass.

Nothing's as intimidating in the daylight of the morning that follows. The sky is as gray as the church, with a rain so soft, it might be a trick of the imagination.



I stick to the front of the church, letting it obscure me from anyone beyond, and poke cautiously around in my dress while Amanté sets up the camera. I turn too quickly and catch sight of us in a reflection, nearly have a heart attack. Twice.





After he takes his pictures, I steal back toward the collapsing remains of a house half-hidden among the trees at the same edge of the property as the trailer. Which is when I see something strikingly red in the midst of all those dull browns and greens. Someone's jacket, hood up.

They are facing away from me, looking toward the trailer. They don't know I'm behind them. Before they can turn around, I retreat quietly back to my side of the church. There are no KEEP OUT signs, nothing to warn us that there's NO TRESPASSING or that we're on PRIVATE PROPERTY. All the same, I don't want to rub anyone the wrong way. Or startle them by appearing behind them silently.

Instead, I slowly circle the structure in the other direction, taking in the details.

Most of the glass at ground-level is broken, but when I lever onto my tiptoes to look through jagged panes, I nearly gasp at the vivid blue that comes into view. Stained glass windows on the opposite wall--trailer-side--are completely intact and daylight is streaming through them gorgeously. I back away and try to take pictures on my phone, windows through windows, but it doesn't look right.



And I think I've found the main entrance, a gaping hole that probably once housed double-doors, obscured behind a thicket of trees and bramble in what I first took for a ditch. We could just walk right in. I'm not taking my chances in those bushes, not with my legs bare, but if we wanted to.

There isn't much else to see from the outside. I decide that since we're about to leave anyway, I don't care, so I head toward the house that's falling in on itself and try to get as close as possible, just to see in. Upon closer inspection, a patch near what used to be a door reveals itself to be a sign prohibiting hunting. It probably swung freely from the farmhouse once, but has long since rusted over so thickly that it's corroded into the structure. This is all I can really tell. There's too much tall grass surrounding it, with large shards of broken glass spread around, and I'm aware that probably someone is watching us from the trailer. So we leave.



As we sit at the light to turn back onto the highway, something wells in my throat and I hold it there. While I wait for it to ebb, I snap a photo. The western periphery of my hometown under a sky blue-gray like an ocean. Cars going about their weekday business. A deer sign that I always joke is a flying deer crossing, which literally no one has ever laughed at, not a single time, not even me. The radio is playing "Crawlersout" and Amanté is absently tapping the wheel in time, watching the traffic. It doesn't matter that there's nothing significant whatsoever about this shot, that you don't know where we were or who was with me or how the music sounded in that moment. I know it when I look at the photo. That's what I like about this one. That I took it for me. Just for me.

Highways Are Built to Fold

This was the song of my first solo drive to Indiana. I was making such good time. I wasn't tired, I wasn't hungry, and I'd only had to stop maybe twice for gas and bathroom breaks. The roads weren't exceptionally busy, even though it was Labor Day weekend. Maybe because I'd left Wilmington well before sunrise.

Some time early in the afternoon, I dug an apple out of my purse. Just as I was taking my first bite, this song started. Life was good, but suddenly, everything was infinitely better. The day was still young, though I'd been driving for over eight hours, and I'd made it over halfway to my destination. The weather was perfect, I was getting along with myself astoundingly well, I had an entire week ahead with people I loved, and, damn, was that apple good.

I'm one of those people who sing along to my radio until I pull up beside someone at a light and then I play it cool, because other people might be like, "Hey, check out that chick talking to herself." But I just felt too good to care. I was eating my apple with one hand, steering with the other, and dancing around (you know...responsibly) in my seat without a single thought given to the semis I was passing.

It was a good day. It was such a good day.

Until. A couple of hours later, when my car hydroplaned, spun several times into oncoming traffic, and finally came to a crunching halt in the median.

.........................................

But before all that, before the apple and the dancing and the sound of concrete obliterating my car's steering column, there was "Delta."

I left town early that morning, still cloaked in darkness, car heavy with dew. On my way out, I stopped at my ex's old store.

"Are you on your way to work?" the friendly woman behind the counter inquired, sweet enough or bored enough to sound genuinely interested.

"I'm on my way to...Indiana, actually. Road trip."

Even coming out of my mouth, it didn't sound real.



I started my MP3 player as I left their parking lot and "Delta" began, quietly. It was a song for the beginning of a road trip, if I've ever heard one. Driving down Independence Boulevard to meet the highway out of the city, I looked up at the stars, still bright in the night sky. A few minutes later, I crossed the bridge west over the Cape Fear River and left Wilmington behind.

Outside of town, the blackness was complete. There were no streetlights, no home lights, no "closed" signs glowing softly from empty businesses. There was just nothing for a long time.

What will happen to me today? I wondered as the faintest hint of color smudged the sky in the rearview mirror. What am I setting in motion by being in this very spot at this very moment? Where will I be when the sun sets?

I'm secretly an optimist. I'm a worrier, but no matter what I'm saying, no matter how despondent I sound, an unspoken part of me is hoping like crazy and is naively certain that things will all turn out just fine.

I was scared about this drive and no joke. Anything could happen (and did). But up until the moment my tires slammed an unexpected puddle and fell out of my control, until the second my car began to spin, until the very instant that my brain whispered, Something's happening, and my hair whipped across my face in a sudden, torrential downpour of red, I honestly thought I was going to make it without a hitch.

Even after, I was sanguine. No one was hurt. Maybe the car wasn't totaled. Maybe it would be all right.

The tow truck driver dropped me with my luggage at a 24-hour diner in Bowling Green, where I waited a few hours for my sister to make the journey south from Henderson to collect me. The waitress was very sweet, told me I didn't even have to order anything. She brought me some water. My phone was dying and there was nowhere to plug it in, so I passed the time staring into space, watching a fly make rounds among the booths. The restaurant was vaguely '50s-themed and every other oldies tune was about automobiles or love like a car crash. I always did appreciate a good song gag.

I took a Xanax almost as an afterthought, more because I thought I should than anything. It didn't make me feel any different, because I wasn't even upset. I'd call the insurance company and get a rental and everything would be fine. A headache, but fine.

To answer my question from that morning, I was in that diner when the sun set. Rain had settled in for the night, causing a premature dusk.

On the drizzly drive to my mom's house, my sister pretended she was losing control of the car, as a joke. Twice.

........................................................................

A week later, I sat on a plane on the runway of the Evansville airport, waiting to go home. I was feeling pretty low. I'm never happy to leave, but when your car is totaled, your insurance company is giving you loads of crap, you barely got to spend time with your recently divorced mother, and you're leaving behind so much love, it's a special level of Fuck This Shit.

I put my ear buds in during the pre-flight announcements and stared out the window. It felt weird to turn on my MP3-player and find the song that was playing during my crash there, still paused and waiting. I shuffled to another track and a song--that remix of "Diet Mountain Dew"--started as the plane began to move toward the runway. I thought about that golden, late-summer day, the open road, the apple, the pretty countryside. The rare, heady feeling that I was moving through the world exactly where I should be in that moment.

As the bridge of the song built back toward the beat for the final minute, the ground outside began to roll by more and more quickly, became a blur. My arms came out in goosebumps, skin crushing and uncrushing, shivers racing along my spine as the music and the world outside synced into something perfect. And I was back on that highway, eating some fruit and dancing alone and feeling damn fine.

I have no other pictures from my trip, so here are some scary mannequins from Eastland Mall.

A Trip to Dogtown

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a spot on my phone's map. "Have you been there before?"

Probably Amanté has. He's lived in Evansville for most of his twenty-nine years and knows all of it. He maneuvers through a maze of side-streets faster than I can keep up with which direction we're going.

But I find a place. I find one place he hasn't been. It's Union Township on a map, but Dogtown from the mouths of locals. It exists in a horseshoe bend of the Ohio River, a mostly unpopulated floodplain that's submerged in water every few years, tucked away at the bottom of Evansville civilization. There's a locally renowned tavern and a boat ramp and...what else? There's no through-traffic, because there's no way through. A ferry ran from the southern tip, decades ago, to take you across the river to Henderson, but not now. Now the way out is the way you came in, so you only go if you need to.

We don't need to, but one evening, we go anyway. There isn't much to see. The main road is an endless narrow loop along the inside of the horseshoe, with crowding trees, a marsh to one side, and the river just beyond. The occasional street of gravel intersects, dust still and long settled. A handful of bungalows dot the way, unmarked industrial buildings like something out of The X-Files, an ancient train trestle leading across the water into Kentucky. It's so strange to be in one state and constantly have view of another. It's really no different, though, I know that. Just a man-made border borrowed from where a river already flows a line between.

Amanté comments that this is where you dump a body in Evansville and he's right. The old train bridge towers against the graying sky with an ominous look. Dark clouds blot out the sun, already hanging low on the horizon. The trees lean over the car like something from a cartoon, like something with bony hands and a long, ghoulish face, obscuring the last of the fading light. I know we're fine, but there's a sense of tension in the air. We are somewhere neither of us has ever been and we haven't seen a soul since we got here and a storm is brewing and I don't know if we even have cell phone service, but I doubt it. If anything should happen...

At the end of it all, we find an abandoned yellow building, piled high with refuse. There are still numbers visible on the mailbox and I jot them down to research later. We stop to gawk from the safety of the car and Amanté points out that there's some kind of artificial light in there, behind all the junk. I think it looks like a meth house. We elect not to investigate.

Imagine this, but grimmer and full of garbage.

I look it up later. The Internet reports:

-The yellow house is often referred to as Old Dogtown School.
-A bunch of people were murdered there.
-It is haunted.

The truth, as is usually the case, is much more prosaic. I find it with a minimum effort at research. Built around 1915, the structure served as the lock and dam house for a reservoir that existed in the area until a flood destroyed it in 1975. Exactly zero people are confirmed to have died horrible deaths in it. The current owners began renovations on it a few years ago. The mountain of garbage inside indicates that they gave up at some point. Maybe that flood in 2011 was just too much and they realized nothing was going to get all that mud out of the basement.

And why is there a basement, when it comes to that? A basement with windows? It was built in--indeed, for--a flood-prone area and even has marks up one side of the building to measure how high the water levels get. I'm not used to this lack of foresight. Houses in Wilmington just don't have basements, for the very same reason, i.e., they're going to flood anyway.

I still think it could be a meth house.

We make it out of the wilderness just fine. Half-drowning in the summer downpour, but fine.

If you're interested in more pictures and information on the dam house or other abandoned buildings in the Evansville area, The Recreational Trespasser (from whom I borrowed the modern photo of the structure seen above) is a fantastic resource.