The first speed limit sign read fifty-five. The second one, only a minute after the first, read forty-five; the third one, another minute or so after the second, read thirty-five; each sign after that, as if mocking credibility, ticked down another five miles per hour. After the posting reading twenty miles per hour, a white rectangle proclaimed to the desert audience that an urban area had been entered. The highway was empty. Grudgingly she followed each successively lower limit, out of respect for the local police radar. By the time the signs reached “5 mph”, Sarah was ready to scream. The gradations on Cassandra’s speedometer looked vague below fifteen. With a delicate idling, Cassandra crawled into the town, leaving plenty of time for Sarah to evaluate the sparse scenery.
The highway parted the small town down the middle, with two small forks venturing off into rings of short, wide houses. Each side of the highway’s shoulder was painted in a broad strip of asphalt. A pair of wooden porches created the frontage for a pair of retail stores and a pair of restaurants. At the far ends, a few mechanic garages and a gas station acted as the town’s border. The walkways appeared deserted, though Sarah assumed any inhabitants were inside, enjoying the air conditioning. A few cars sat parked in front of the stores, glinting in the sun.
“Jennifer, wake up. It looks like our restaurant options are wide open, just like the guidebook said. On the left there’s The Eatery, and on the right, there’s the grocery store slash gas station slash mini-mart. The guidebook recommended The Eatery.”
Jennifer mumbled, her eyes refusing to open.
“Right you are, let’s try The Eatery,” Sarah answered herself. She turned to the left, crawling slowly up to a wooden porch. Jennifer stirred only to block the sun from her eyes with her sweatshirt-pillow.
“Hungry?” Sarah asked her co-pilot, attempting to rouse her. Jennifer hid her head, unmotivated, and fastened her eyes shut. “I’m heading in to see about breakfast. Are you staying? It’ll get pretty warm in here.” Sarah waited for a response and was answered with a mumble. She rolled down the driver side window halfway. “Okay, just lock up when you come in.” Jennifer turned her head further into her disarrayed sweatshirt. Sarah fetched her sandals and knit purse from behind Jennifer’s seat, opened the driver side door and set the sandals on the ground. She stepped into them and closed Cassandra’s door gently, examining the structure in front of her.
From the outside, The Eatery looked like a large, square house. A single lace-curtained window displayed a wooden “Open” sign and a white sheet of paper with fancy lettering was posted near the door. Sarah looked at the sheet, the menu for the month, and read through the home-town selections. Near the bottom of the menu, protected by a thin, shadowed line, were several vegetarian choices. Her eyes widened happily. Seeing even one vegetarian entree at a restaurant made her feel at home. She pushed on the door and walked into the restaurant, with a small bell announcing her arrival.
* * *
Jennifer pushed Cassandra’s lighter with her wrist as she held her cigarette between two fingers. She crumpled the empty pack in her left hand. The heat made it impossible to sleep. The clear sky seemed made of a giant magnifying lens for white fire, the lens being held slightly out-of-focus, forcing all observers to squint. Shadows ducked into corners in apprehension as the glazed earth became a near-perfect reflector. She felt incredibly hot, though a different sort of hot: she felt like she was perspiring, yet moisture barely held onto her skin. The balmy tiredness, the hot of Texas heat, was absent from this sense of hot, and in it’s place was an unforgiving sense of being baked on all sides, like a half-moon of pita bread in a toaster oven. This hot distantly reminded her of growing up in a desert state, this hot reminded her of the sick joke of evaporative cooling, this hot she was no longer used to; now she was used to air-conditioned homes, air-conditioned classrooms, and air-conditioned cars.
Her body demanded nicotine to ward off the idea of discomfort. She salivated, and licked her dry lips. By breathing the smoke she could feel immune to hot and exhale it as part of herself. The right side of her mouth twitched into a smile when the lighter popped. Cassandra’s lighter had created it’s own heat: a purposely focused heat, which could start her cigarette smoldering.
She tossed the empty, crumpled pack on the seat and snatched the lighter. She rounded to Cassandra’s bumper to sit on the dusty chrome and placed the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. The cigarette’s filter stuck to her lip. She drew in a slow breath as the heating coil touched the tip. She closed her eyes.
The first taste always brought a familiar rush: the shedding of the familiar itch; the sudden release of muscles taut with a pointed anticipation. The smoke circled in her mouth, hot and dry, and she drew it down into her throat. She reflexively held the smoke within her until her lungs felt the largeness of the breath, then, arching her back, exhaled strongly through her nose. The smoke stalled in the hot air, indecisive, clinging tightly to her body. She opened her eyes to look at the thin smoke; it seemed like such a small thing, compared to the strength of it when inside her. Slowly, it began to evaporate upward into the air. She watched the remaining wisps curl past her gaze, squinting instinctively.
She didn’t know how long she had slept in the car, but realized she was hungry. The asphalt shined as the sun beat through the dust to the pavement. She returned to Cassandra, reaching in for her sunglasses while holding her cigarette outside the door. She put her glasses on and glanced at her surroundings, unimpressed.
The town seemed dull and fatally incestuous. She took the small tin from her bag and returned to Cassandra’s bumper to finish her cigarette. Even with her sunglasses on, the town, the cars, even the earth itself acted as perfect reflectors for sunlight, and her pupils seemed to ache from tightening. The black asphalt highway glistened with radiant dust and her own skin beamed at her. She tied her hair behind her and she exhaled forcefully. The hot bothered her less now, and she snuffed the cigarette out in the tin, returned the tin to the passenger side seat, and locked the car.
Inside the eatery, Jennifer found Sarah sitting at a small booth facing the door, halfway through lunch. A bell hanging at the edge of the door frame tinkled above her. She took her sunglasses off and found herself blind.
“I was wondering when you’d wake up,” Sarah called from her table.
After a slow moment, Jennifer’s eyes adjusted. “The heat woke me up.” She asked for coffee and sugar, and ordered the first thing she saw on the menu. “What are you having?”
“It’s a tomato curry with garbanzo and cauliflower. It’s really good. It says the cauliflower is organic and locally grown. I can’t believe they’d have a big vegetarian crowd here. Unless it’s just because of us.”
“Us, and the other ten thousand mad ravers?”
“Ten thousand young music enthusiasts,” Sarah corrected.
“Ten thousand free-dancing, dayglo-wearing, trance-loving, pill-popping, electric heads.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “We can only hope.” She looked at her watch. “It’s already two. We still have to go across the street to get ice, your cigarettes and the rest of our food. Did you lock up Cassandra?” Jennifer nodded. “Roll up the windows?”
Jennifer hesitated. “I forgot the windows. I need to wash up anyway. I’ll lock her up.” She took Sarah’s keys from the table.
Once outside, Jennifer recognized the gray Civic at the gas station across the street. The driver, wearing the easily recognizable rainbow hemp hat, and long cargo shorts, flopped back to his car from the store in thin sandals. He began tethering his car to a gas pump. Jennifer opened the Volvo’s door and rolled up the window. She locked Cassandra and returned to the restaurant.
“Guess who _I_ saw in town,” Jennifer said, sitting down again.
“Oprah and an army of cameramen?”
“Huh, wouldn’t they just blow the underground. Nah. I saw Mr. Magic Bus. He’s across the street getting gas.”
“I guess he finally caught up with us.”
Jennifer untied her hair and ran her fingers through it, letting the cool air soak in. She stared at her friend. “We need to get supplies, right?” Sarah nodded. “And you’re finished eating, right?” Sarah nodded again. “He’s across the street. Why don’t you go over and introduce yourself?”
Sarah avoided Jennifer’s gaze.
“What did you come on this trip for?”
Sarah reached for her water glass; the ice in the water had made the glass sweat. She touched the side of the glass and let the condensation wet her finger. “I came for the music.”
“You _skipped school_ for this. Why not go over there and browse around, and see if he wants to talk?” She took a bite out of her sandwich.
Sarah’s cheeks turned pink. “Talk about what?”
Jennifer gazed directly into Sarah’s eyes. “You have to see if he’s interesting.” She took Sarah’s hand, and held it, and then gave her the keys to Cassandra. “I’ll finish in a minute–then we can go.”
Sarah focused her gaze on the door and gripped her keys. She noticed the metal doorbell which hung from the ceiling, held by a thin, dirty string. Around it’s base were small cuts in the metal where the door had stuck it, forcing it’s small voice to ring. The small bell could be at peace, if it weren’t for the door. The scars in the bell were easily visible, but Sarah doubted if anyone noticed them.
“I’ll go now–” Sarah said, reaching for her wallet and adding as an afterthought, “he might leave soon.” She pushed herself up from the table and left enough cash to cover the lunch bill. “Join me when you’re finished?” Jennifer nodded. Sarah walked slowly out the door, the small bell lightly ringing with her exit.
* * *
Sarah saw the Civic attached to a gas pump and hurried inside the store, attempting to keep her shopping list in mental focus. Spontaneous purchases of varying sweetness and nutritional value greeted those in the entryway. Arranged above a ragged collection of small metal shopping carts was a cork tack board with faded fliers: a snake warning, with instructions for venom detoxification, and the current fire danger–very high. The store shelves were deep and short, and the rows continued past two large freezers. She grabbed a shopping cart and quickly wheeled it between the shelves. The cart’s wheels squeaked at her, pronouncing the cart’s emptiness, and she grabbed at the first shelves to fill it with a few items.
Toward the middle of the store, Sarah noticed camping gear and survival gear, foldable water containers, canteens, propane bottles, first-aid kits, a large selection of sunblock, and meal-sized can goods. The freezers held beverages, water, a pallet of beer, and some refrigerated food. One of the freezers was empty.
Beyond the freezers were cardboard boxes with army surplus gear. The boxes were stuffed with green and black camouflage clothing in three standardized sizes. Smaller boxes, neatly sealed, had shoe sizes written on them, along with whether or not they included steel toes. At the rear of the store was a heavy glass display case, lined with knives and small arms. Sarah returned to the front of the store.
“Excuse me,” she said to the man behind the single front register. “I don’t see any ice.”
He nodded at her and adjusted his _Mobil_ baseball cap. Tufts of gray hair stuck out around it’s sides, blending with the stubby hair in his ears. “My boy should be back with the truck in a bit. What kind you looking for, cubed or block?”
“He’ll be back–when?”
“Shouldn’t be more than an hour, he left around ten, and it takes a few hours to load up the truck.”
“I need block ice. But I can’t wait around.”
“You going to that thing in the hills? Young guy comes in here yesterday afternoon, had a flatbed, and bought all of it. I guess he went up there too. Even loaded it himself–had another guy with him–the whole pallet. Funny thing, but there’s been funnier business than that, long before you all started up. You can wait around about an hour, my son will be along with the truck. He’s dependable.”
Sarah stared at him blankly. She mentally counted the hours until sunset, when they wouldn’t have a chance of finding their destination and another night would be lost in travel. The man was bagging her items and telling her the total.
“Does that include the ice?”
“Don’t you want to pay when it comes in? I could add it now–but, like I say, you’ll have to wait.”
“I’d like to pay now.”
The man shrugged, and added the price to the bill, giving her the new total. She looked out the window at the Civic outside; it’s driver had unhooked it from the gas pump, and was walking towards the market. “I’ve got a few other things I need. I’ll be back.” Her pulse quickened and she pushed her empty cart into the aisles again.
“Just hollar if you can’t find something,” the man called over the shelves at her. Her cart squeaked it’s wheels in response. After a moment she heard the old man greeting someone, then counting out the change from a twenty. The old man was explaining where to find something. Sandals flopped near her. She squeaked around another shelf, though finding herself surrounded by hygiene products, she suddenly felt the need to bolt down a third aisle. The flopping changed direction, then stopped, and paused. Sarah’s heart was racing; he seemed to be on the next aisle. She thought she might be able to bolt down another aisle, though a small squeak from her cart made her wince. She heard the sandals flopping back to the counter again, and the old man was explaining something about needing to look in the store room. Between the puffy pink wrappers on the shelves she saw the rainbow hemp hat. Her back stiffened and she took shallow breaths. After a few moments the old man returned, and there was a ring of change being passed. Sandals flopped out the door. Sarah let out a long breath. The circulation in her fingers resumed as she loosened her grip on the cart.
She stiffened again, hearing a familiar voice outside the store. It was Jennifer. She heard her smooth beginnings to conversation. Sarah sighed. She returned to the old man, paid the bill, loaded the groceries into the cart, and headed out the door.
“Oh, Sarah–this is Rich.”
His golden chest seemed to absorb the sunlight. Sarah smiled at him quickly.
