Off the Road - 44

a jazz novel on a typewriter

3

There was an enormous Flatland, and no one asked why. It is twilight and the stars are winking into light with the night sky like a dirty curtain above Sal and Faith. Only time will tell whether this will be the moment that the ball keeps rolling with that thunder that would not stop will they were on the open road and saw below the sprawled city of Omaha. “Have you learned enough of where I come from and why I wanted to leave, why I desired to leave, why I needed to leave?” The refrain went on: I. I. I. I. Leaving things to chance and only chance.

The spirit of the radio went on: it was spotty like a telephone line, but Sal fought with it because he could not get enough of the noise filtered through his conscious however demented it felt. The dirty curtain was painted black with dark soot coming into the air with a glissando rising upward. It was fire in the raptures and the darkness ever spreads.

Low slowing buildings in a few muffled trees, this was near downtown, as it went other than that it was miles with a hint of corn husking on the edges. Faith knew this area well clear as so looked and saw a different country one wear the be decisions were made in the opposite way in this too-big world. Then he wanted to talk to Faith to ease the greasy knife stabbed in his heart because he worried that he was not going to be good enough when she lost the weight and gained even more confidence than she already possessed.

“Why didn’t you come to Omaha? It is a short distance and has all that one might need to find oneself.”

“Because it reminded me of just how far from a real city this town is.”  She held the “t” for longer than any person would.

He was too busy dodging traffic but spun his head north and South to see buildings that were five stories tall and stadiums as a local form of amusing form of entertainment that the locals possessed. All that was here was the industry of taking agriculture and turning it into grotesque food for be pleasure of others. It made both of them sick but for very different reasons: Faith was a reducer wear Sal was a consumer. But been they saw taller holdings and one was on fire and the bright lights in red washed away the gloom of the night. But even this past as quickly as it came because there is little demand for density only a dull ache for its absence. Then they crossed be muddy brown slurry which was called the Missouri but only in name.

On the other side was Iowa and if Omaha was the shadow of a city Iowa was the heartthrob of farmland with only a short span of suburban slice of life. After a few minutes of churning, it could be farmland gridded by the same straight sequenced succession of electrical poles and corn waving in miles in every slouch-out direction. And Sal thought to himself that no reward was worth this.

But his heart still pained with the hurt that he was not good enough in a different way than the hurt by Dean that he was not observant enough: one was in his heartbeat be other was in his eyes and told him that there were so many more focused people in this world, and he was never going to be good enough for any of them. He rapidly made a turn because there was someone racing by with no care for the other members of the traffic. Only after he swerved did he realize how close he came to being dead.

Then he felt a touch on his arm and the well-coming pulse of forgiveness was divinely present. And he realized that wallowing wistfully was a waste, and he needed to chart a new course into contact with a dimensional world. No matter how much it costs. Be realized that being shriveled up did nothing for his words and nothing more to erase the serious crime of not giving due attention to the echelons of meaning that people presented by concealing the past and lying about the future they imagine. Sal realized as he drove through the darkness that if he wanted to be a writer then he needed to be secure in saying what was true even if be words were false.

He glanced over and saw that faith was watching him almost with a religious fever that was still building until it would break into 1000 pieces. But that break had not come yet.

Sal tried to form a sentence, but Faith scored one first: “You must think yourself a failure but realize that being a failure is the first step towards success because only after you have truly looked at wear your failure lies can you imagine what success must look like. You must disdain your success and focus on be destructive power of success. You must believe, you must belie, you must be true to yourself.” Then she folded her hands realizing that her words were not complete but contemplative and contrite.

Now Sal was trapped in the addition of I. I. I. I. And he wished so ardently to move on to the finesse of the Coltrane Changes if only he knew the beat.

And so, they were trapped in the flat cord that was I. I. I. I.

They went into the darkness with no sense of whether or not the deed was done because they were allowing chance and chance alone to determine which course they were on. And chance very seldom is a good leader and a worse follower.

They only true short distance and laid up for the evening give a distance covered by sheets between them. It was a tight night and neither of them dreamed well or slept deeply.  Instead, there was a stab because be knife had still not been extracted.