03-10-2020, 08:13 PM
Over the years, Near’s internal map of Washington State had devolved into a boardwalk caricature: big star above Tacoma; Seattle up north somewhere; Canada border norther; The Reaches perched on a distant coast, prominently oversized; and all the rest a nebulous tree-flush wasteland, question marks where points of interest might be. He had been caught off guard by how close the house actually was to the city -- as far as his childhood-distorted memory was concerned, trips there and back had always been eternal license-plate-game affairs broken up by plenty of gas station bathroom breaks and the shivery excitement of a long bridge. In reality, the drive took an hour and a half from the America’s Best Value Inn in Lakewood, and the only reason it didn’t take an hour was because he told Waze to avoid tolls. So he missed the bridge, too.
The kid failed to name any of the places on his cartoon map.
Was Olympia too much? It was the state capital, a fact he retained largely thanks to an indelible fifth grade geography song, so in his head it was somewhere in the middle of the state, because that made sense on a basic level. How far away it might actually be mattered less than the fact that it wasn’t here. He lowered his phone.
“I don’t know.” Not stinginess, though he sure as hell didn’t feel like the kid had earned a ride across the street, much less another zip code. “The thing is, this is it. This is supposed to be it. I come up here once, and then I’m done with this, screw it, I don’t come back.” His own plan for after was as dotted with question marks as the rest of Washington. Did he go back to Isa, who still had all his shit? Find a new place and get new shit? Let Lew loose in the woods?
“I mean, I'll think about it." He snatched the cup up at last and took a tentative sip of its contents. Hot. Too hot. But not offensively flavored. "There’s a library upstairs, isn’t there?”
The kid failed to name any of the places on his cartoon map.
Was Olympia too much? It was the state capital, a fact he retained largely thanks to an indelible fifth grade geography song, so in his head it was somewhere in the middle of the state, because that made sense on a basic level. How far away it might actually be mattered less than the fact that it wasn’t here. He lowered his phone.
“I don’t know.” Not stinginess, though he sure as hell didn’t feel like the kid had earned a ride across the street, much less another zip code. “The thing is, this is it. This is supposed to be it. I come up here once, and then I’m done with this, screw it, I don’t come back.” His own plan for after was as dotted with question marks as the rest of Washington. Did he go back to Isa, who still had all his shit? Find a new place and get new shit? Let Lew loose in the woods?
“I mean, I'll think about it." He snatched the cup up at last and took a tentative sip of its contents. Hot. Too hot. But not offensively flavored. "There’s a library upstairs, isn’t there?”