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The Sun Runner Arts & Entertainment Magazine - August 1999
“Free”
by Jeremy Baumann
The grease on the hard plastic seat of a booth in a truck stop in Kingman, Arizona, has adhered itself to my hands; I've
washed them twice with that grainy industrial soap and still it's spreading everywhere.
I'm ready for another set of silverware and another pen; hell, I'm ready for another notebook to write in and another "restaurant." I put down the greasy pen, look over the oil slick on my food and smile from within. A smile I know everyone in this loud flourescent truck stop sees and feels. I look up to match their gazes and smile large at everyone who looks my way and I realize that truly, once again, I am free.
It's been so long since I've owned a motorcycle. Eight long years.
More. Maybe closer to ten. My last bike got thirty gazillion miles to the gallon. I was a poor student and life was simple: five gallons of gas a week and I could ride anywhere. The one before that took me cross country in the middle of winter. NY to LA. Northern route. Stupidest thing I've ever done. This pretty blue BMW K75c with the powerhouse opposed four-cylinder engine represents yet again my freedom, but oh, what a different freedom than any bike before it.
Behind me is a life of sorrow and pain, frustration and upset, tragedy and loss. Ahead of me is the rest of my
life and a future of loves and laughter, adventure and intrigue. How could something as simple as a small town in rural America create so much shit and hold back someone with so much love in their heart?
Because small towns in America can often offer such things, that's how. Leaving the wrong one for the wrong person can reveal a whole world of sunshine and bliss long forgotten.
"You look like you're having a good day," says the pretty waitress in her polyester mustard yellow suit
with a matching ummm… thing on her head.
I can't believe they make them wear headgear, how demeaning. But then we're fast approaching the millennium and coffee is still thirty-five cents here, so who am I to argue. Except the coffee sucks, but that's beside the point. Burnt dirty water coffee.
"I am having a very excellent day, thank you," I smile at her and she lingers and smiles just a little bit
too long.
I'm reminded in the moment that when you're doing well, when you're recognizing the beauty of your own life, it doesn't matter if you've gained a little weight or lost a little hair. She wants me. I want her. We meet after her shift like eager happy bunny rabbits....
I am free.
Life is good.
Life is very good.
Her name is Maggie and she wants to hear about movie stars. She says that she can tell I know them "just bahhh
luckin' aht me." I'm not sure what that means since I don't fancy myself a star type--not anymore anyhow--but she pegged me; I do know a lot of good stories about movie stars.
I just make 'em up as I go along, but they're awesome stories.
"So this friend of mine is walking with Pia Zadora through a small private airport upstate New York and coming
towards them… they're on their way to a screening of a movie they did together… is a bunch of guys in the summer humidity wearing three-piece suits and wearing dark sunglasses, right?"
She nods at me while placing honey roasted peanuts she stole from work in her mouth in slow motion, her eyes are lit
up.
She couldn't be prettier. I think to myself that if I were ready to settle down in a small town again anytime in the next decade, she would be a sweet one to do that with. But I'm not. I run my hand over her back, her skin as soft as fur. I like her clean bed in her little house.
"So my buddy is thinking like, 'what's up?' but his question is answered a moment later when President Carter
appears from the bathroom of this airport. Ex-president Carter, that is, anyhow, my buddy is freaking out cuz he's tripping his brains out on Mickey Mouse acid and wearing these little dark Lennon-style
sunglasses and he's thinking these secret service dudes are gonna figure him out and bust him for something like 'tripping near a former president' or some shit."
She squeals like a little girl.
"Mickey Mouse! Oh my!" She looks like a young Stevie Nicks, that's who she looks like. I was wondering why her face was hitting me on such a deep level; I used to have such a painful crush on her when I was going through puberty. I used to stare and stare at those pictures of her on the first two Fleetwood Mac albums she was on. Her tan, shiny, bright face with sparkling eyes. Now here I am in bed with her. That California girl smile and happy, proud body. She says "WOW!" but she says it in such a way that her front teeth are visible throughout the entire pronunciation. She's radiating happiness at my story so I continue after I kiss her, and she sighs during the kiss.
"OK, so my buddy's not sure what to do so he stays back a few paces behind Pia and follows her lead but now Pia
yells out 'JIMMY!' which totally freaks my friend ALL out cuz she runs up to Carter and he says something to the service dudes so they back away, I mean, they were gonna' tackle her, y'know? So they give each
other a long hug and she goes 'Jimmy, I'd like you to meet my friend, I just did a movie with him, I think it's going to be great… Jimmy, this is so and so-- he's going to be a HUGE star and so and so, this is Mr.
Jimmy Carter.' I can't tell you my friend's name, I'm sorry…."
She looks like a little girl who was just given all the Barbie dolls or Beanie Babies or pogs or what-have-you in the
world and then had them taken away.
I now felt awful. I should've told her a story about someone whose name I could have mentioned. "Awwwwww, that's so not fair, Jeremy. You can't do that." She pouts the look of a lover that I want to give everything to. I want to give her the world, my heart, another two hours of me... unsure what to do I flip her over and bite her ass way too hard so as to leave a mark. My mark. The mark of the beast within me; this new beast of freedom. She screams with delight and yet again I smile that smile and remember how free I am.
I press my body against hers and squeeze her chest as flat as I can against my own.
Her breath is like candy to me, her kiss grainy with remnants of honey roasted peanuts and we fall asleep.
In the morning I wake to lips against my cheek and I wonder which smells better, the warm earthy smell of the
pancakes which she made from scratch or her breath. When you find those rare people who you really match with, there's something about the feel and smell of the breath, the warmth of the breath from their nose
as you kiss. If it's one of those really rare ones who I click with completely, physically, anyhow, the sighs and heavy breaths and gasps for air from their mouth, from deep within their lungs is like bliss,
inhaling bliss. This is what I'm feeling as she wakes me with her kisses and smiles.
It's early in the morning, not even seven yet, and I'm already reminded how time differs when you're in your set patterns versus on the road
with adventures ahead and no plans, no itinerary and no restrictions. I won't stay up and watch two episodes of COPS back to back at one a.m. or Happy Days at three in the morning on Nick at Nite.
I'll fall asleep in the arms of a beauty at ten at nite and wake to pancakes at six something. It all feels too good to be true and that something from deep within says to leave while I still feel this way.
"I'm not going to see you again, am I?"
Maggie asks with only a bit of sadness in her voice. She seems to be thinking the same thing I am, that we'll find problems in no time if I were to stay. It doesn't matter, it's not even an option. This trip has just started, it can't stop less than a day's ride away from home no matter how sweet she is. We'll write and keep in touch maybe. See each other again in a year or two or ten. Who knows what the future holds, but for now there's very little of it to be had. We sigh in unison and smile as if we just had an entire conversation aloud and came to a meeting of the minds. She doesn't need me to answer her questions with words.
"Well, at least tell me the rest of the story about President Carter and your friend and Zia before you
go," she smiles again and looks as lovely first thing in the morning as she did the night before after hours of courting.
I must've drank twenty cups of coffee just to stay in that awful greasy place and be near her.
"Pia."
"Duh, I know," she says giving me her "I'm so dumb" look. God, I don't want to leave her.
"Alright, so my friend was introduced to the former president and just sort of mumbled cuz he was so afraid of
speaking jibberish and getting arrested or something and that's about it."
She looks at me suspiciously.
"There's more to it than that, I can tell. Last night it sounded like it was building up to something big. Bigger than that. Come on, tell me." She looked like she was three.
I tell her that last night it was more appropriate.
I don't finish the story about how my friend told me of Pia's desire to be taken while watching a video montage she had edited together of all of her favorite film clips of herself. This on her private jet while bent over a table on the way to her premiere....
She walks me to my motorcycle out in front of her tiny little house with pretty flowers in her window box in a patch
of other small houses, some with window boxes, some without, and kisses me. This collection of miniature houses looks like something I expect to see when I finally make it to Ireland someday. I almost
expect to see leprechauns peeking out from behind the trees these houses are mingled amongst.
Maggie pats me on the chest of my leather jacket almost as if I were a stranger. Exactly as if I were a stranger. I am a stranger. We now seem to feel as close to each other as a salesman and a mark. Like we'd just completed a transaction of some sort. Maybe on some level we had. I told her stories and she gave me her body. Maybe she felt cheated by my stories of unnamed movie stars and no payoff, not even a full story. She seemed ok with it. She seemed ok knowing that there were more stories there but didn't need to hear them.
Turn the key, the engine roars to attention and my skin feels electric.
I prepare to take off on my bike not sure how to say goodbye and I realize that we forgot to exchange numbers and
addresses, but it feels too late and she looks at me with confusion on her face. She doesn't know how to say goodbye either.
What a sad situation this is. With a tilt of her head she says to me, "bah the way, Jeremy, who's Pia Zadora?"
I smile and pull away falling simultaneously out of love with Maggie and in love with the whizzing sound of the proud
engine of this magnificent machine which takes me off to who knows where.
Free.
Writer Jeremy Baumann is the founder of Jeremy’s Cybercafe & Beer Haus in Joshua Tree, CA, and is a frequent
contributor to The Sun Runner Magazine. He now lives in New York City.
This story appeared in the August 1999 issue of SR. For author or reprint information, contact the Editor at
(760)362-5257.
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