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?"
