Going to Iowa (part 2)
We rolled up to the gas station somewhere near Shelbyville, Illinois. He was staring into space. I offered to get out and pay for this tank and began pumping. He said nothing-I wasn’t sure that he even knew where we were.
I stood there, back pressed against the car and watched the cars make it across the overpass. I took in the summer air. I met him, the first time, early in high school. We became friends a few years later thanks to a party that ended with us giving a girl a ride to the hospital. At that time he could only come back during his breaks and holidays. Watching him those years, it felt like he was the only one that knew how to navigate life. I was trying to figure out who I was, and it was like he didn’t have time for the nuances and complications that ran the rest of us over. He just walked on water. He accomplished his dream, got his dream job, got married and had a house. At twenty-three, he was where we all wanted to be when we were thirty and lucky. Then he had to go. And then he came back. And besides the pills, nobody noticed anything different.
Except me. Which is why, I suppose, I went with him when he asked. There was a chink in the armor no one saw. There’s nothing quite like knowing that everyone bleeds, right? Except a part of me desperately hoped I was wrong. My mind told me that there was no way he was the same. Not after what he went through. But hope knows no laws.
As I stood there watching the overpass, I asked myself: Would I prefer that there really was something terribly wrong with him, so I knew that even he could suffer like the rest of us? That it really wasn’t my fault that I’ve screwed up so much? That the world is like that to everyone? Or would it be better that it really was possible to go through life like he has-that dreams can be realized and mountains can be conquered? That someone could go through life without this awful compromise with these forces beyond definition?
Next year I’d be turning twenty-four. I started thinking about how I would have to start finding a job. Maybe I would find someone. God, I hope I’ll find someone. I could get a house. Maybe I’d start being an adult.
I twisted the gas cap back on and got back in the car.
