Poughkeepsie

I tasted blood but it didn’t bother me. The black sky shimmered in shallow pools on the pavement. The woman drove, her cracked windshield splattered with cold sprinkle.

The neon glow of a strip mall bloomed from the midnight horizon, sporing ambient light before us, engulfing the valley in a yeasty aurora. The woman guided the car off the Thruway and veered up a ramp into and through the blanch phantasm.

“Only in America,” I said aghast and started to cough.

“It’s just Wal-Mart,” she said. “You’ve seen one before, right?”

“There’s one in my hometown,” I said. “But it’s not this big.” I coughed again, cleared my throat and nodded at the expansive structure.

“That’s a shame,” she said. “But they’re basically all the same.”

The car rolled through the parking lot and we parked. A light drizzle pattered on the roof. The woman got out and started across the parking lot, toting a hemp purse the size of a mailbag.  I climbed out of the car and followed her towards the building, moving past abandoned pushcarts scattered in aimless clusters across the slick tarmac, rain squishing through the toes of my sandals.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Will you tell me your name again?”

“You mean, you don’t remember?” she said, smirking.

“I guess I forgot,” I said. I massaged my tender glands.

“Seles,” she said. “Like the tennis player, remember?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I knew it was something pretty.”

“It was my grandmother’s name,” she said. “At least that’s what her tombstone said.”

The automatic doors slid open and we stepped through the threshold into the cold blast of air conditioning, chilling our wet skin.

“What’s the origin?” I said. I felt the cool air quell the hobo odor deep in my beard and damp dreads.

“I think Hungarian,” she said.

The entire store appeared empty apart from a lone cashier playing with the Velcro on her beige wrist splint. And on the far end of one corridor, janitor strode, buffing the floor with a tractor-like contraption.

We passed a row of checkout counters, a rectangular popcorn machine, a stack of Goodyear tires, and a giant stuffed bunny. I followed her up and down several aisles until she stopped at a rack of maternity gowns. A mellow soprano sax crooned from the rafters. The flavor of blood lingered in my gums.

“My parents would be upset with me if they knew I picked up a hitchhiker,” Seles said.

“Why is that?”

“They’re pretty tough.

“Are they Republicans?”

“They’re Episcopalians,” she said. “Diligent ones.”

“I don’t like the term hitchhiker,” I said. “I prefer nomad.”

“Same difference,” she said.

“I suppose you’re right,” I said.

“I’m glad you stopped.”

“It’s wet out there tonight,” Seles said. She walked a lap around the rack of multicolored gowns, and then she stopped and looked directly at me.

“Are you still okay with our arrangement?” she said. “How do you feel?”

I stepped forward, paged through gowns with her. “I feel fine,” I said.  “A deal’s a deal.” I looked at her and she stared at me as if to extract something intangible from my soggy visage.

“Just get me to Toronto,” I said, smiling. I pulled a gown from the rack and held it towards her chest. “I like this terracotta one.”

Seles took the gown and held it up to her body.

“It looks too Native American,” she said, looking at the barcode. “And too expensive.”

“I like it,” I said.

“I need something that will stretch,” she said.

“Are you afraid of getting fat?”

“You mean pregnant?”

“Yeah, pregnant,” I said. “That’s what I meant.”

“I guess,” she said. “I think it’s partially why I became a lesbian.”

“It’s not like chairs will break underneath you,” I said.

“God, I hope not,” she said.

“How long have you been a lesbian?” I said. I felt a tickle in my throat and tried not to cough.

Seles stopped, looked at me then past me, segueing her eyes.

“I came out of the closet in 2004,” she said.

“What was that like?” I said. I grunted and swallowed.

“I had a Brittany Murphy wet dream,” she said.

“Is she a lesbian?” I said.

“She’s dead,” Seles said. She turned and spoke over her shoulder. “She was a celebrity. It was sad.”

The sound of the floor buffer gradually increased, its fenders rattling in a nearby aisle. I could feel vibrations hum through the enameled tile.

“But I’m not like the gays today,” she said. “Most of them are only bisexual.  It used to be more of a folk scene.”

“I think I know what you mean,” I said. I snatched a leopard-print brassiere from display and held it up to my breast. “Look at this.”

Seles lapped a small turnstile of clothes and returned to where I stood, tilting her head to the side.

“You look like a bitch-titted Christ,” she said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.

We walked to another aisle and Seles stopped beside a rack of blue jean overalls.

“What about these?” she said. “They look really roomy.”

“Very lesbian,” I said.

“Very,” she said.

The janitor emerged from behind a shelf of plastic containers, hunched over, riding the buffer like space-age oxen, scrubbers winding, psychotically pining for wax. His body hunched over, age cricking down the notches in his spine like mankind’s dénouement.

“Have you picked out any names?” I said.

“Why do you want to know?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just thought I’d ask.”

She filed through the rack of overalls and unhooked a pair of denims. “I like the name Jamal for a boy,” she said. “And if it’s a girl, Carrie.”

“Carrie?” I said. “That has a nice ring.”

I touched my head and my hair still felt wet. I cupped my breath. My tongue tasted sour and my saliva, sanguine. When I swallowed, my tonsils scratched and I almost choked.

“Are you ready?” Seles said, starting in the direction of the checkout counters.

“Don’t you want to try them on?” I said.

“Nah,” she said. “If they don’t fit, I’ll just bring them back.”

We retraced our route through the store. I stood behind Seles at the counter while she paid the cashier and admired the vast assortment of bubblegum.

Outside, the rain had ceased and a thin veil of clouds made slate drapes in the wan Taconic moonlight. We climbed in Seles’s car. She folded her overalls and crammed them into her hemp bag.

“Mind if we get some beer first?” I said. “My throat feels raw.”

“I’ll stop at the next Hess,” she said. “Drinks on me.”

Seles bought a six-pack of Pabst, and I drank reclined in the passenger seat while she drove past foothill after foothill. A crack in her windshield paralleled the murky horizon. The rain returned.

The tickle in my throat waned and then hastened. My bones softened and I tussled with a queasy body buzz. “I’m going to have a hangover tomorrow,” I said, my stomach bubbling. “I can already tell.”

“Hop in the back and lay down, if you want,” Seles said.

“Is it okay if I fall asleep?” I said.

“Makes no difference to me,” she said.

I unbuckled my belt and ambled through the cabin onto the backseat. I took a swig off my can and Seles watched me in her rearview.

“Just think,” she said. “Tomorrow you’ll be sipping Labatt in Canada.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Thanks again.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

“A deal’s a deal,” she said.

I looked at her reflection and smiled as she reset her eyes onto the road, skipping off the dotted lines darting through the headlights.

Seles drove and several hours passed as I nodded in and out of consciousness. I awoke and started coughing when I felt the car begin to slow. Seles pulled into a vacant lot, gravel crunching beneath the tires. I looked out the window and saw a silhouette of a church with a tall iron cross in the translucent dawn.

“Are we there already?” I said, phlegm percolating within my ribs.

“Not yet,” she said. “We’re just making a pit stop.”

“Are you feeling alright?” I said.

“I just need a break from the road,” she said.  She leaned over and fished through her bag, and then she pulled out the new pair of overalls, and studied the tag. “I think these will be too small.”

I sat up. An empty Pabst rolled off my lap and fell onto a floor mat. I watched it rock back and forth. I lulled my head forward.

Seles unbuckled her belt and climbed over and onto the backseat beside me. Her expression was blank, but her eyes appeared ready and eager.

“We might as well give it another try,” she said, worming her hips beside me. She pulled a lock of hair around one ear. “Is that alright?”

I stretched out my arms, yawned, and rubbed my eyes. “A deal’s a deal, right?”

“That’s right,” she said, and she lowered herself onto me and gently touched my face.

“Do we have to here?” I said. “It’s  kind of creepy.”

“It feels safe,” she said. “This is a safe place.”