by Pran Phucharoenyos
The thunderhead is willing to break any and all windows because there’s no insurance around, and still, I take a blue car out West. The way I brought myself down to California— you would have been proud.
I leave Enchanted Wells adjacent to Rainbow Blvd and across from Wishing Coin Road and other counterfeit fairytale worlds Nevadan roads titled themselves after. The Santa Ana reports here that this boulevard I’m residing in contains steamed rainbows from kitchen sink dishwashers and the youthful and overly sentimental scent of a clean glass picked up from the cabinet reminds me to bring water when I leave to lie flat on backyard artificial grass as if I’m in wait for a high danger surgery as the southwest sticks on my sunscreened legs.
The pre-sunrise bird is forcing and gorging itself on some skinny, soft worm as I pull out of Montgomery Lane. Cheaper unleaded gas loaded and done after shoving down a cheeseburger I picked the lettuce out of, I climb back into the car and find myself on the freeway in ten minutes, “Leaving Las Vegas” spelled out by the shoulder in twenty. Passing about eighty Silverados, we head to the flaring scorch of Death Valley, 46000 acres of government-designated wilderness. The state issued a notice this morning to “travel prepared to survive,” though I refuse to process and head West anyway. To the right, there’s a blue desert that kisses an even bluer sky. “Injury? Call Sweet James,” and about a million other legal advertisements glide by, and I wonder where Saul is and if I better call him because my James is no longer available on speed dial; I’ll make do with a leopard coat and Bacardi.
Elevation: Sea Level, a sign says, as Ricky Nelson whispers in my ear for me to buy a dream or two. Skimming by Arizona, I remember I brought cigarettes without a lighter, a combination of bad habits of forgetfulness and ugly lungs, and by the time I reached Badwater Basin, I could light one with the sun through the unfiltered windshield.
I trudge towards Dante’s View, and within an almost immediate pace, scream an expletive because how is it possible to have barely made it a few yards (nowhere near enough to better myself with the achieved distance), before I feel joints collapsing, faltering from the scorch on heavy shoulders. The desert sweats, though it’s just the sand rising with the east Californian orange wind, and I am the one trailing foreign water behind. Heat and nothing left to feel. The entirety of the body is evaporating away perspiration, and it’s better than any sickness I’ve felt, sand in my hair, and the back of my throat.
The sun I begged to appear now chars relentlessly, and I begin to climb the devil’s backbone, my white garment upon my chest an ironic, asinine prayer, protecting nothing. As for the hell before me, I can only imagine the true pandemonium below this false one is all the more vast, none of the achingly loveliness. At least here you can reach me by satellite. “It’s only pretty from inside the car,” my sister had said, “not so much on two feet in the heat.”
Thoughts run through: Disabuse the idea of the Santa Fe casino and think of Sahara Ave. I blow the desert a kiss goodbye, and the tourist who pulls up in yet another Silverado gives me a look like they think I might be a little wrong in the head, so I shuffle back to the car quickly. The desert has plugged in some cavity in my chest, so the overflow of tears begins to push out of me, unexplainable and not for you for the first time. Brighter and crisp as the skyline darkens, the moon follows the car all the way home to Las Vegas.
© Pran Phucharoenyos
Pran Phucharoenyos is a Thai immigrant teacher residing between Bangkok, London, and Seattle. She has a BA from Seattle Pacific University and an MA from Queen Mary, University of London. Her work can be found published or displayed in publications and places such as Lingua Magazine, Persimmon Literary Magazine, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, or Shoreline Exhibitions. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at @pranleu.
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