100 Proof

As we drove through town, the streetlights strobed, intervals of darkness tearing at our hearts so roughly we could barely bear it by the time the light flickered on again.

This is how we navigated. We drove through moments of light, then moments of gloom that gutted us. We made bargains from split second to split second as we caught lightning-fast glimpses of the road a few yards ahead.

Once home again, we turned on all the lights, lit all the candles. We fell asleep like that, more afraid of the obscurity than of a house on fire.

Up there in the woods was a warm place, a place where the wind didn’t hit the way it did elsewhere, a place where she could tuck in and feel safer than usual.

He didn’t understand why she went there until he hiked up there with her, felt the grove above him like a cathedral, felt the distance from the rest of the world. How is it no one knows about this place but you? he said.

They’re too distracted to notice me leaving, she replied. They don’t have time to hide.

Wait, she said, but the rain still fell, washing the dirty world around her.

She spoke as if into silence, and no one responded. Was anyone even listening? She wondered if they could hear her over the weather.

I have things to say, she said, but again, no one paid attention. This is important.

But it wasn’t important enough for them to turn and look. She stood there, drenched and supplicant, her outstretched hands as invisible as her thoughts, her voice devalued yet again.

The highway is burning, she said, and they watched the glow on the horizon. He imagined all the other highways catching, one by one, creating a flickering network across the country. He imagined what it might look like from space.

What do you think it means? he asked, though he didn’t really expect an answer. It had become so hard to fathom what anything meant anymore.

It means someone’s going to have to pay for all those repairs, she said.

In other words, he said, we’re not going anywhere.

In the back of the bar, he leaned forward to ask what she did, and he realized she smelled exactly like his fingers after he’d played guitar too long, her body heat mixing oily, metallic notes into something intoxicating.

I used to work on the Hill, she said. But that was before all of… She waved her free hand. I’ve been thinking about the Peace Corps, but that’ll probably get defunded, too. Besides, this isn’t a good time to be an American overseas.

Or maybe it’s the best time, he said. Maybe you should go while you still can.

All we asked for was everything others tell us is long gone. We believe, if we wait long enough, if we stretch our dollar far enough, our jobs will return, we will, again, stop asking the question of whether a few beers Friday night mean we’ll run out of food Thursday.

We were once the people about which songs were written. We were, of course, once the people writing the songs, singing the songs, up at the bar, ordering more bottles of High Life, talking about how great our lives were. We were once happy. We were once free.