The Animators(14)

I go outside, head churning, to crouch on the sidewalk and smoke. I call Avis and rent a car. I hear the lady in the basement apartment moving things in her kitchen. I watch the traffic glow, beads falling down a string on the BQE.

It occurs to me that if Mel has any family members to call, I don’t know about them. There are times when, after more than ten years, I’m not sure I know Mel at all. But I do know enough to leave her alone right now.

Finally she comes downstairs, duffel packed, hair combed back, the bottle of Teacher’s sloshing in one fist. She uncaps, takes a pull, hands it to me.

“Well,” she says. “We should probably get out of town.”

—

I put the address for the Central Florida Women’s Correctional Facility on the dashboard and take 278 out of the city, cross the Verrazano, and hit the New Jersey Turnpike. Pass the power plants glinting in the sun, then surge into the countryside, everything too bucolic for an hour outside New York City. Mel is quiet, drinks, fiddles with the radio a bit. We make it our business to not talk about where we are going or why. I look down when we reach a Pennsylvania town with a long German name and am surprised to find myself still wearing a cocktail dress.

We gas up and pull into a Rite Aid. Mel troops alongside as I grab a basket, toss in Chex Mix, vitamin C, Dexatrim. She scrunches her nose, waggles the pills at me.

“I’ve larded up,” I say. “Some have clearly taken note.”

“Some people wouldn’t take note of their own ass with two hands and a flashlight. Pardon the expression.”

I grab a bottle of orange juice and push it into her hands. She looks at it doubtfully. “No sale, dude.”

“You’ll drink it and you’ll like it.”

I hear her mumble something about taking a big ole bitch injection as we approach the counter. A woman of maybe seventy with blue hair and a large silver cross around her neck picks up our basket. She scans slowly, turning the pills upside down, searching for the bar code. I train my eyes on the rows of Winstons and Pall Malls over her shoulder, feeling Mel wavering behind me. Between Brooklyn and this Rite Aid, she’s managed to get herself completely soused, even more than she was last night.

I swipe my credit card. Too slow. The cashier looks to me, glum. “You need to swipe a-giyin.”

“Did you know,” Mel says loudly, voice garbled. “Did you know my mom didn’t want me to be an animator?”

I smile tightly at the cashier. I’ve heard this story before. “You’ve said.”

“She thought it was weird,” Mel continues. “No, actually, you wanna hear what she really said? She said it was a faggy thing to do. Brilliant, right?”

The cashier’s eyebrows lift. The receipt prints. She reaches for a bag.

“I mean, she’s one to be giving career directives,” Mel says, gathering steam. Here we go. The vitriol too nuclear to go in Nashville Combat, following us into a Pennsylvania Rite Aid. “Like she had any perspective outside of which brand of cream works best on recurring chlamydia.”

The cashier freezes and stares at Mel. An open plastic bag hangs loose in her hand.

“We don’t need a bag, thanks.” I push Mel toward the exit.

Back in the car, I pop a Dexatrim. I’m an old pro at speeding and staying up all night to work. I figure driving across seven states shouldn’t be much different. Mel’s asleep before we hit West Virginia. I’m grateful. I still don’t know what to say to her—what would matter, what might help. Mel’s not in the habit of spilling guts. The only thing to do, for now, is to keep moving forward.

I’m freaked enough that my driver’s hands have taken me down the interstate path I know best—through Pennsylvania toward Ohio—before I realize my mistake. It would take too long to backtrack; the only solution is to charge forward. During one of her stints of wakefulness, I confess to Mel what I’ve done. She merely wipes her nose with the back of her hand, lets the hand fall with a smack down to her thigh, and shrugs.

“Well, she’s not going anywhere,” she says.

We press down Ohio through Cincinnati’s river valley and into Kentucky by the afternoon. Mel dozes on and off through three interstate changes, finally stirring on I-75. “Trivia,” I say. “We are less than five hours from the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. And less than three from mine.”

“Rad.” She closes her eyes. Resumes snoring.

I stop for gas again south of Lexington, throw her a pack of four-dollar Benson & Hedges. She blinks, looks around. The land has exploded into bright green elevation. Trim roadside acres lined with white slatted fences. Two men in Carhartt jackets and boots tend to a sleek, knobby Thoroughbred.

“Iddint that pretty,” Mel says. She lights two of the smokes, sticks one in each corner of her mouth, barks, “I’m a walrus.” Passes one to me. Her hand shakes.

Suddenly I am back home. First time in Kentucky in at least four years. I’m filled with unease, a horrible sixth sense hanging like gas since we hit the state line. I’ve always had the feeling that here, less is possible for me, that even the cars move slower.

I flick. The two men and horse retreat. The mountains are a jagged EKG on the horizon.

“It’s like a postcard,” Mel says.

I turn the engine. “Yep. Can’t find a job but it’s a goddamn Currier and Ives print everywhere you look.”