Gotta See It For Yourself

I am on a dirt road by myself, with an old army bag on my back and a dream stuck in my head. I have been walking the whole day and soon I'll need a bed.

When there were still houses by the road I asked folks inside what lies yonder, where a man can find a bed. They all shook their heads and said to me, "dunno, son, gotta see it for yourself."

Now there are no more houses, just the road beneath my feet, rising and falling, carrying me like a boat. "Gotta see it for yourself," I say these words out loud and run with my life up the hill. Each hill is a promise to a bed. Soon My legs are like jelly on the way down. The sun is dropping lower and lower, and so are my eyelids.

Then lady luck smiles on me. On top of another hill I see a charming white house on the side of the road. It is the first house I have seen for a long time. I run down the hill with my jelly legs.

Up close the house gets even nicer, with painted windows and picket fences. It even has a small balcony on the side. My eyes brighten. Surely the folks living there can give me a bed. They might even let me live in it.

A man is standing in front of the house. He is a big man but looks like a midget next to his house. It has an opened hood that like a mouth swallows half of his body. He is fixing something down there.

"Howdy, brother! A nice house you have," I lift my hat at him.

He does not hear me and continues burying himself under the hood.

"You must be tired, fancy a smoke?" I get the cigarette out from my pocket and pass one along his direction.

Only then does he pull his head out of the house's mouth. He reaches for my cigarette without looking at me. His hand is black with engine oil. I hurry to light it up for him. He takes a few puffs and then sticks his head back under the hood.

I stand back to let him fix his house. A smile climbs upon my face. I don't know why houses need fixing with wrenches, but if he takes my cigarette then he is giving me a bed. He looks like a good man too, a clean-shaven country fellow.

I look up at the balcony and see a woman in pajamas leaning against the railing and staring at me like she wishes me dead. That must be the man's wife.

In a short while, the man finishes the job and shuts the mouth with such force it makes me jump. I step forward and tell him, "Brother, I'd like somewhere to sleep."

He turns around looking as if I have insulted him, then shoves me back with his black hands, "get lost!" He points his dirty wrench at my face; if he takes a swing right then I'm bound to lose a few teeth. He is cursing with my cigarette in his mouth.

Up on the balcony the woman is banging on the railing and laughing with her head cocking up and down like the road. I never feel like hurting someone this bad.

I watch the man hop over the picket fence speechless. He draws the door open and sneaks inside. I hear a key turning and a sound like thunder on a prairie. The house begins to inch forward. I walk alongside it, then I begin to run. I just realize the house has two sets of wheels half hidden below the picket fences.

I feel tears coming down my eyes; I am breathing hard and eating my own salty tears while the house-car is slipping out of my reach. Suddenly the door on its side slides open and the woman leans half her body out of the car and reaches out her hand.

"C'mon! You want the bed or no?" Her index finger is hooking me towards her.

I have no idea what is happening, but I run like a greyhound despite my jelly legs and finally she pulls me onto the porch.

We head inside. "Where're ya heading to, kid?" She takes the bag off my back and smiles at me.

"Dunno," I say. I am angry and confused, but now I look around and it is really like a house in here. We are standing in the kitchen, next to a huge fridge with double doors and an ice-maker.

She pays no heed to my words and pulls the fridge door open. "Want somethin' to eat? I can make you an omelette." I look inside and see egg cartons stacking on each other all the way to the ceiling, and my jaws drop unto the floor.

"Wait till you see the rest of our house!" She sees me and walks away with her neck stretched out like a cockerel. I forget about the omelette and follow behind her. We climb up a set of stairs around a chandelier that swings a little with the car.

The woman shows me their three bedrooms. Each is bigger than the previous one. I see the nice white beds and puffy white pillows and imagine my head resting on them. Up here the car's swinging gets pretty bad. It's like on a ship. We have to walk with our hands on the walls.

We end up in the master bedroom, the one with the balcony and the biggest bed of them all. She walks in and throws herself on the bed; it sends her bouncing in the air a few times like a trampoline. When the bouncing stops she is free of her pajamas. My face burns up as red as the dropping sun.

"You look beat up, kid." She eyes me up all funny-like. "Say, what's the last time you had sex?"

A bump in the road sends me flying into her lap. I confess to her I have never had sex before.

She rests her chin on her hand and looks down at me. Then she kisses me; her lips are soft as clouds but her mouth smells like week-old garbage behind a butcher's shop.

"Don't mind Doug. He's just having a rough day."

She unbuckles my belt and pulls down my pants. "Hello there, you little soldier," she climbs on me and turns her head back at me and I am inside her. Her fat tits point to both sides and tip up and down, up and down.

I keep fearing that her husband will run into us, but as long as the car is moving we are safe.

Soon I am like an overblown balloon about to pop. She's got a fat butt that almost bounces off each time she slams down on me. From time to time she turns her head back to check on me. I make a sound from my throat and her eyes widen. I make another sound and her eyes widen again. I feel like a gas pump and she is a hungry pickup truck. Finally my tank is left without a drop.

"C'mon!" She lets go of me and leaps onto the balcony. The gluey milk runs down her legs and leaves a trail on the carpet. The smile on her face is thicker than the morning fog.

"But Doug will see us!"

"No he won't. Look," she points down.

I follow her hand and look from the balcony. Her husband down there is driving. His black hands are firmly on the wheels. He looks straight ahead like a statue of Abraham Lincoln. She is right. The man sees the road, and the road is all he sees.

Against the sunset we are chatting. I have become friends with her. I learn that she used to be a cop, and he was a commercial truck driver. This car and everything inside they bought with all of their savings, half of that in those eggs, enough to last them a lifetime. We talk about the eggs, the grocery price, the mortgage rate, their stillborn children's college fund. I feel like such an adult, talking about such serious things with such a grown woman.

"So we're going to Alaska. Heard about it all my life, but you just gotta see it for yourself, you know?" Her hair is blowing in my face.

These words I have been hearing since I am on the road. I feel even closer to her now. I put my arm around her shoulder and she puts hers around mine. In the wind her bad breath is almost gone. This wind is blowing from homeward; I reach out to catch some. Later I'll put them in my army bag.

I am ready to ask her for a bed tonight, or maybe a few more nights.

Suddenly the car stops, a hard stop that almost throws me overboard. The car parks half way uphill. We see Doug beating on the wheel making the horn go off and almost tears it down.

The woman pads me on my back: "go down there and see what that's about, will ya?"

So I throw my clothes on, grab my hat and run down the stairs. Doug is already outside, the car's mouth opened again and half his body buried under.

"Got more smokes, little brother?" He asks.

I feel one out from the carton in my pant's pocket and light it for him. He takes a long puff and looks down at me smirking.

"Little brother," his nostrils are like two chimneys. "Your cock is hanging out."

Doug leaves me hanging and goes back to fixing his car. I zip up the fly, look at the sunset that is painted above the hill and look at my shoes. Soon they will be as black as Doug's hands.

My eyelids are dropping again. I think of the bed and hear his wrench tightening on rusty metal parts and feel like an inmate waiting on death row.

Then behind me the door slides open, and the woman comes out. She has changed into something really tight and carries a roll of pink yoga mat under her arm and a carton of eggs in her hand.

"Hey honey," she looks our way but does not stop. I can't see her eyes because of her sunglasses. She marches into the middle of the road not far from the car, unrolls the mat on the red dirt, and starts doing her yoga. I look at her legs and waist and get stiff in my pants again.

"Psst." It is Doug. He has stopped tightening the screws. "Check this out." He is holding a little black tube. He wants me to take it. I see that I'm supposed to put one end over my eye. Once I do that, the world becomes a lot closer and clearer; if only I have something like this a long time ago.

"Japanese, top shelf. Even comes with infrared. hehe," his hand directs me, "now look at this." The woman appears in my view. She bends down with her strong legs apart and her butt is stretched tight against the fabric.

"How about this," his fingers pulls a ring on the device making clicking sounds, and my view zeros in on the shape between her butt cheeks. Some moisture is sipping through around it. I can almost smell her musty crack.

Then Doug's finger pushes a button and my view changes colors. It turns nearly black and white and the shape in her crotch is now detailed with lines and folds. It looks like an eye of a sleeping reptile, but I remember how good she feels inside and an awe arises from my heart.

"You should see her twelve years ago. Tighter than a bear trap!" Doug talks like he is bragging about his favorite animal at the zoo when he was a kid.

"They all get worn down along the road, don't they? Just like this babe." He slams the hood shut and throws the wrench on the ground. He sticks his black hands in his hip pockets and looks at me.

"So, uhh, is it fixed?" I ask.

"Nah. It's beyond fixing." He says.

"What are we gonna do now?"

He tilts his body forward and looks me in the eye for a long time, then suddenly grins. "Well. Guess we'll see."

Yonder on the yoga mat Doug's wife is taking a break. She stretches lazily and yawns, then opens the egg carton beside her. She takes one in each hand and knocks them over her mouth. I watch with astonishment as the yolks sink down her throat like little suns.

I turn around to find Doug gone. He is jogging along the road uphill. There is a lone tree at the top and he is already half way there.

"Hey, where are you going?" I shout at him.

"Trying to get help, idiot. I need to see what's over there." He has turned around and is jogging backward now. "You keep an eye on my car," his voice is getting harder to hear. "You keep an eye on my wife."

He is now past the tree and out of my view. I look aside at his wife. She is balancing herself on her head, her feet reaching in the air like she is walking upside down.

I wait for her to come down to strike up a conversation but she turns away and positions her round butt at me instead. She's acting like she doesn't know me, and I don't want to know why. I might do some sports myself had I not been so tired. My eyelids are dropping and I myself can drop on the spot right now, and sweet Jesus won't raise me come Judgement Day.

I sit down near our car and try not to fall asleep.

After some time I see a black van coming down the hill, kicking up dirt behind. It drives slowly, past Doug's wife on her yoga mat and comes to a halt not far from me.

Out come three men, two young at my age and the other older. They look like simple country folks like Doug.

"Howdy!" I get up and raise my hat, "has Doug sent you? Where is he?"

They don't answer me but look up and down at the house that is a car. The older one turns to me. His eyes are blue like little glass beads. The two younger ones stand behind him like bodyguards.

"This your house?" he asks.

"This here is actually a car, sir," I point out the wheels under the picket fences. He nods. "And it's not my car, it's Doug's. I'm just hitchhiking." I look at the tree on the hill. "Where is he? Did he not come with you?"

He doesn't answer me but turns to look at the wife.

"That Doug's too?" Under his woody brows his glass bead eyes are purple in the sunset.

"Doug didn't send you here," I say. "Who are you?"

The old one's fist strikes so fast I can't see a thing coming, but it lands right on my face and sends me flying ten feet away. When I sit up again I feel for my nose and finds it slipping down from where it should be, like a melting snowman's carrot, and blood is flowing like tears.

He tells the man on his right, "you go get the twat." Then he turns to his left. "You check out that house."

Soon both come back, one dragging Doug's woman by her hair, the other carrying two cartons of eggs right on top of each other.

"This bitch stinks!" Says one. "I'll fucking arrest you!" She yells, still struggling to get free.

"Look at what I found," the other opens the top carton and his face is instantly lit up by a golden glow. "They've got a whole fridge of them!"

I still can't stand up. The older one squats in front of me. He is laughing at my nose. Then he stops smiling. He has a pistol in his hand and its eye is pointing right at me. Unlike the eye between Doug's wife's legs, this one is cold and hard, and I have no love for what comes out of it.

"You must think we're some bad, bad people, but you're wrong. You see, it all works very simple according to me. A man's gotta eat, but what he eatin' with no egg? A man's gotta fuck, but where he pokin' with no wife? Five hundred miles around, and not a single carton left on shelves, and not half a whore in sight. Don't make no sense to me."

He grabs a fistful of the dirt from the ground and rains it on his boots.

"Now, this 'Doug' of yours, he has eggs, and he has a wife. Meantime my two boys, they ain't got nothing. Don't make no sense. Had my wife not been dead for twenty years I'd happily share her with my boys. But time's changed, and being honest won't get you nowhere. A man's gotta help himself, and we're just helping ourselves about now."

Suddenly there are such noises all around me, and all around people are coming.

Cars are riding down hills on both ends of the road, folks are pedaling hard on bicycles, folks marching on foot with no shoes, little dark peasants on green trackers bouncing out of the field. I don't know who these people are, where they come from, but none of them are Doug.

I watch helplessly as the raid unfolds before my eyes. They swarm the house-car with their hands reaching out like hungry birdlings' mouths, and the old one is standing on the porch and handing out eggs looking like some saint.

The two young ones drag Doug's wife upstairs and many follow them. Soon comes her scream and the bed's violent screeching.

"Enough!" I pick up my hat and get on my feet again.

People turn around. They surround me in a large circle. They pull up their sleeves and crack their knuckles.

"Look who's playing the hero. Well. Come and get us!"

I am teetering like a drunkard between them. I puts up my fists and try to swing at one, but he just dodges away and with one blow sends me stumbling in the other direction. My face is all purple and green and has grown a red beard.

Soon I am on my knees and they are using me like a punching bag.

I look around and see the mouths laughing and cursing at me. Eggs are thrown on me. I must smell like shit. From the balcony the wife's clockwork moan fills my ears. I have to look away, along the dirt road, far up the hill.

By the tree is a figure standing.

"Doug!" I shout with my last strength. "They've taken your house! They've taken your wife!"

He can't hear me. He is spying with his little glass and laughing. I can't hear him, but he laughs so hard he has to bend over. He is slapping his legs and hammering his knees like he's nailing himself onto an invisible cross.

They are done looting the eggs and everything inside and are taking apart the house now, unscrewing the windows from their frames and pulling the planks from the porch. Some are throwing the nightstands and mattresses down the balcony. Some take apart the picket fences and are loosening the wheels.

I watch with rage as they tear down the beautiful house. I am mad at everyone, but especially Doug. Soon I have no rage left. I sit on the ground and let my eyes limping about.

I see them carrying away Doug's wife tied like a hog on a stick. They put her in the black van and drive away smiling.

I think I even see Doug too; he comes down to loot his own house and jumps on a peasant's tractor, puffing and bumping into the field. He holds something in his arms and is laughing at me.

It is my bag. He has stolen everything I have.

The plunderers without shoes leave in droves singing, and I hear their songs long after they have gone over the hill.

Now everyone is gone.

It is dark and cold and not a sound around me. I sit in the middle of the road and look at the car that was once a house. It is such a terrible sight. The car lies there all quiet, battered and scarred. I know I am battered and scarred too.

The wind begins to rise. It howls like mongrels, and the dark field rustles and twists. Every part of me hurts. I can't find my hat.

I climb into the doorless car and lie myself in the seatless seat. At least they have spared the steering wheel. I put my hands on it and smell the engine oil, oddly sweet like my own blood.

I cry as if I have lost a good friend.

Outside the wind picks up even more. Inside the car I am hungry and cold and tired, but I am not alone. Even the car is dead its heart is still warm. I know my heart is warm too, despite of all that has happened, all that I have seen. I have been looking for a bed all my life; I never knew I would find it here, in the warm heart of a dead car.

I remembered a distant sunny afternoon.

The trees were beautiful and so was the lawn. It was summer. Everything was green and sparkling. The day after my 18th birthday, I went home from my part-time job and saw my mother packing my dad's old army bag.

"Leaving for somewhere, mom?"

"No, boy," her packing hands stopped. "YOU are leaving."

"Me?"

She smiled.

"That's right. You're eighteen. A real man now. Gotta see the world for yourself."

She loaded that backpack on me, which instantly sank me down to eighth grade, and gave a little smack on back of my head like she's smacking a horse's behind, and I darted out of the front door and galloped onto that road, into that beautiful world under that wide, blue heaven of a sky.