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Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12
Lilly and I met when she punched me in the face. She thought I was bad-mouthing St. Louis, her hometown, though in reality I was just recalling that her hood had been declared the most violent city in the country. She fell in love with me when I showed her a map of Cleveland, pointed out where the salt mines used to be, where the city gives way into the flats, how highways and railroads and a private airport cut off downtown from the lakefront. Now she curls over an already tattered atlas, charting a course from Ann Arbor to the Upper Peninsula. She traces a finger over the flat geography, one knee pushed up against the dashboard.
Highway 75 north across the Mackinac Bridge—a 3,800-foot, metal suspension bridge joining St. Ignace at the north and Mackinaw City at the south. Tugboats and ferries nudge past on either side and carve Vs into the waters where Huron meets Michigan. Since Lilly’s driving now, I lean out the window to take pictures: blurs of green cable, patches of water, crooked concrete towers. On the north side, we pay the $1.50 toll and plow west along Highway 2, a scenic pass that spoons the fringe of Lake Michigan.
The Lake roiling to our left, the dunes puffing out trees to our right. Stopping at the Curio Fair gift shop, we each pay the fifty cents to climb the plywood stairs to an observation deck where we can see the bridge from a distance. There, a father pays the dollar to take a photo of his two girls lying on the lap of a life-size Native American doll. The rest of the first floor is a hodgepodge of faux Native American regalia: plastic tomahawks, arrows with suction cups at the end, flasks with eagle engravings.
Just before first light, Lilly lifts her skirt to her waist and walks crotch deep into the lake at the end of the tree-lined sand path that meanders from our campsite.
As the stairs settle under our weight, the place smells like sawdust and piss. Floor to ceiling, the walls display the stereotypical graffiti of passersby: “John loves Sarah” sectioned off in a heart, “Candace and Rachel BFFs 4eva,” and manifold uses of the word fuck. All the way up at the brink of dusk, we watch the massive bridge cast glints of light into the dark water. The deck sways in the slightest gust of wind. On the descent, we pass the father and his daughters marching upwards, a chain of held hands and heavy breathing. “Almost there,” he sputters down at his own.
West again on Highway 2, always west, past boarded-up motels with drooping for-sale signs, past sundry outposts flaunting Grandma’s best pasties. The sun continues sinking into the horizon. The prongs of telephone poles sprig downwards, rather than jut out horizontally, so as not to snap off in heavy snow. Few people on the road, few people anywhere. Only abandoned snow chains rusting in the mud, and snowmobiles with tracks like spider legs holding up for-sale signs, homeless. Two bears lumber across the twilit road in font of us.
We don’t arrive at our campsite until after dark and have to assemble the tent in pitch black, except for the beam of my headlamp. The moment we get inside the musty shelter it starts to rain; big drops punch the fly in and beat at our palms when we press them against the green roof. We forget to tuck the tarp properly underneath, and in the morning we’ll wake in puddles and wet sleeping bags.
Just before first light, Lilly lifts her skirt to her waist and walks crotch deep into the lake at the end of the tree-lined sand path that meanders from our campsite. There’s a misted island just across the bay. She looks at me standing barefoot and stupid in the sand. It’ll rain again, but not yet. She walks back towards me, leaves a train of scattered ripples in her wake.
It’s better to turn twenty-three on the road through Escanaba—surrounded by burnt-out forests, the abandoned state fairgrounds, and a water tower. The trees are too charred to distinguish, yet the surrounding earth unfurls into fireweed. Lines on the road blur together into a single, unbroken strand, connecting where we’ve been to where we’re going. We drive. A white pine perimeter encloses a Ferris wheel stuck in metallic respite, teacups chipped and no longer spinning. The steel blue water tower rises above it all, brandishing the town’s name in black block letters. I don’t feel static. I don’t feel in flux. I don’t feel any older. The cracked road below comforts me with the solid white lines I know not to cross.
With my right hand, I click the turn signal up, wait for the NewPage Corporation truck to pass on its way to the paper mill tucked against the river, and veer into the Mobil. There’s no lock on the nozzle handle so I squeeze down the trigger and feel the gas hum into the tank.
“Flat rock,” says a man sporting a camouflage John Deer hat to another man in a neon orange cap.
“Land of the red buck,” orange responds, lifting his hat for a moment before pressing it back down upon his head.
The pump sputters its last gasp of fuel. I tap the nozzle against the inside of the tank, put it back in its holster. After settling back into the car – now a clutter of spilled trail mix and unfolded maps – Lilly and I discuss the cryptic cant of locals while crossing into northern Wisconsin.
