It doesn't need to be a Ford. It doesn't need to have a radio.

I wanted to say let's go together. I don't care what coastline, which small towns we pass through. I don't have a license but I can drive okay. Let me take the wheel for those long un-policed stretches between the populated places. We could get to know each other over bad coffee and laminex tabletops, around the plastic cutlery containers in truck stops. Spend nights pushing each other away in the sticky dark of hotel rooms with stained wallpaper. Always reaching out again. Swapping secrets through our broken sleep. Building up a collection of stolen Gideon's bibles, our glove box crammed full and so many bedside drawers left empty. Reading passages out loud to keep each other awake. The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it. All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Or we could read John Fante or Flannery O'Connor. Even Kerouac, if you want, though I can't stand Kerouac. I don't mind, I just want to be near you. I just want to know you. In the Gideon's biblical way. In the sweat-drenched, cracked-lipped, same clothes for three days kind of way. It doesn't need to be a Ford. It doesn't need to have a radio. We don't need to fall in love. We could just cover a little distance together.

Josephine