Scene From A Jersey Rest Stop

He’s halfway there by the time it takes him to forget all that his name carries home from the present.

There’s a past to be revised in his future, his memories to be rewritten alone -  in the journal on the dashboard she gave him, just before he remembered his sins -the shackles and lies of yesteryear, all the demons and dying promises that obscure his vision from the girl.

They’re expecting and she’s raging for a victory, in the way she watches the crowds as they dance in front of their story, unknown to rest of humanity that their tragedies are melodies in harmony. She’s delirious to the other prisoners, alienated from the family next her, staring down wives with attitudes that doubted they’d ever make a living. Honest or properly adjusted. How right they were in jaded retrospect. Her husband changed his soul for the soulless, torn and green all over.

He’s removed from their tryst in this swan song, dying near the kiosk and vendors where the children pretend they’re happy, ice cream on the tile beneath them like an innocence fleeing in the shuffle. She’s breathing in the scent of popcorn as he purchases a synthetic meal.

There’s something in the way he tells her that the cashier wouldn’t keep the change, as if ignoring a gesture of kindness was their way of sharing the pain.

He’s sweating with the fate of his livelihood resting on the tips of his shoes. He’s toppling and she fears it’s ending, that the wedding won’t come before he falls.

Yet nothing can stop his hubris - he’s a puppet with mannequins for gods.

He ignores the weight on his sanity, saddled instead with maps and drinking from souvenir cups, one last time before he hits the turnpike as dark creeps out of the sky - smoking the last of his cigarettes outside on the jagged cement walkway where he watches gamblers parade from Cadillacs and lick their lips praying it all doesn’t get lost. On the horizon down there at the shore. Somehow, someway or another. The way his dad squandered his tomorrows.

The way in which he might be squandering his child’s.

It takes food and expensive gas for them to remember they are running from reality. For a weekend, a dead-end getaway. Two days over and gone like thunder in summer heat - where bolts ignite a lustful joy as the aftershock fries what’s left of the heart.

His wife is inside remembering how she gave him the journal to spare some words. A reminder of who she is. A symbol of what solace she needs. Bearing his soul in a notebook as they travel across state lines to nothingness.

She calls to him as he starts the engine. He kisses her on the cheek as they leave.

Driving off far onto the highways that bleed. As they make due with the beauty of silence.