Off the Road - 45

a jazz novel on a typewriter

4

There was a time when keeping a journal was the most natural thing in the world, but now it is considered an indulgence. Faith had that indulgence go many of her journals our sealed shut and locked away. Thus, well the streets were vacant at 4 AM she was scribbling her thoughts tightly knitting her legs together in a rocking and bring fashion. She was exhausted and dirty and yet she still bent the pen over and over again to get the exact feeling that would evoke a sense of frustration. Frustration with Sal. Frustration with herself. Leaving San Francisco had been levity and liberty, but now they were in Chicago which had a different vibe one that was a stench in her nostrils. This is only partly because of be cheap motel that they could get. This is only partly because of be meal they could afford. It was mostly because she had turned into a harsh taskmistress, and even she knew that this was unacceptable in the extreme, but it was also le genre humain: taking out on the other person when you're actually reacting against yourself.

So, the painting of letters continued at least until five when she slept and dreamed of tracing more in her diaries.

When she woke up Sal was doing those things that he had promised her he would do: shaving being one of them because the grating feeling of stumble of abhorred her like other things do. It was a sin or a crime against femininity in her mind. Sal looked over at her with an attempt at a smile showing he was shaving and he thought rather well. Faith had a different opinion because be scrapes on her cheek told her otherwise. The mug with shaving cream was tilted on the sink teetering on the urge of failure; the oozing white soap lathered over the counter with aplomb dripping down to the floor. Inside Faith wanted to scream to clean up the mess and do some other small details that would make the bathroom acceptable. But she stopped because she realized that this was the longest that she had spent with a man who was something of a boyfriend if Sal could be called that and she had tried to show him compassion at various times. But still, be echoing of right now beamed in her head like a siren knowing she was not missing right by any stretch of the imagination. Still, his back said that he did some activity and some exercise though he denied it furiously.

He had many other faults such as be session with postwar jazz which he did not actually cement his actuality to, but he did at least try to get the physicality of the beat down.

Then she turned to the window which was be only good thing because it stared out into Chicago’s myth. And while they were a great distance from the center it tempted, tangled, and taunted with its high spires and clustered panorama.

Then Sal offered up something that did not match: he offered to go to the Art Institute of Chicago. He mumbled something about seeing what it was that attracted people to visualizing objects as works of art. She pointed out that be cost for foreigners, meaning those people not from Chicago, was expensive and they did not have enough. Then he asked whether it would be possible to simply look around because he had never been to Chicago in his life. skimmed on her dress and preceded to think about what do poor people could do in the city of be big shoulders. She realized that since leaving San Francisco they had become more pedestrian and more pauvre. The excitement of the new had lost some of its luster some of its zing some of the mystery that comes with the feel of something and someone new. And she wanted stability. Long live regimentation! Because in the end that is what keeps everyone from even a dangling person waiting to drop at the first sign of trouble. Then he looked at her with a strangeness in his eyes and she realized that she must have made a face when she never did so if she could help it. It was a faux pas on her part which she would be more deliberate in avoiding in the future.

 The interaction died down because she took control of her face and everything else about her. Because the most crucial lesson that she learned from childhood was to be in control of whatever abomination was being readied for her. It was more than about control it was essential and crucial by any definition of the word essential. She had lived her life by that code and if need were she would die by it. After all, everybody must die the only choice that most people have is in how to die.

Thus, she outwardly relaxed and looked as if she was delighted to discuss the details of a day out in Chicago, even though it actually bored the life out of her and made her insides bedraggled with a deposit of deadwood. She looked outside the window and saw a man a woman and three children all packing themselves into a large but dilapidated SUV. She wondered how anyone could commit to the ungrudgingly torture of a normal life with someone who is a stranger.

But then she looked over at Sal and a transformation occurred because he was not a stranger because he had dared his soul on more than one occasion, and she had bared her soul to him. Beneath the twines of star-crossed lovers, there was something deeper and even holy underneath the plastered facade.

The rest was trivia and they left forgetting all of the troubles and tribulations and looked out to a new day with the new shining brightly with miles of asphalt down near the skyscrapers and bridges of the downtown of the windy city. Even the smells had a conjuration to them that for the moment they could enjoy.