(14)

As much as I would've preferred to skip the Tennessee angle, Moira insisted we swing by to see Marcia, who was expecting us before nightfall. So we rode hard across Missouri, through the cluster fuck of St Louis freeways under the auspices of the Gateway Arch, and threaded our way to the 55 interstate, heading southeast. I pulled over twice in the country stretches to work out the saddle soreness and have a smoke and some soured tea. Moira said that Marcia wanted a picture of me. I put my shades down and smirked. Above us the clouds were thickening and I could smell the rain coming.

We made it to West Memphis just before the storm broke loose. From a McDonald's window we watched the silver sheets glistening in the wind and washing the dust off my rat. Moira chatted with Marcia. Yes, Mrs Benton had sided with Moira's mom. No stipends until Moira went on her way. So we would stay the night with Marcia and her five month old boy and leave the next day.

The storm was brief. When the sun came out the parking lot smelled like boiling vinegar. We crossed the Big Muddy into Tennessee and stopped at a gas station, one with a tree that shaded a picnic table. I located Marcia's place using the GPS map on Moira's phone. I thought what a dull visit this would be, and I was not wrong. I wouldn't even mention it except that it was the Memphis angle that led us to the Kentucky outback and the little sister of a Roadent nicknamed Reb.

This all came about when I purchased 200 minutes for my trak phone. When I reactivated it I went through my list of contacts just for the hell of it and noticed that Reb's mailing address was not far off the 75 that we would be taking after leaving Memphis. It was a country road outside of a wide spot called Girdler, in Kentucky.

While Moira exchanged texts with Marcia and munched on Cheetos, I dug through my wallet until I found the little photograph of Reb's sister that he had given me back in the day. Had her name not been written on the back, 'Gwen,' I would not have remembered it. Reb had talked her up to me and urged me to stop by and see her. She was lonely, etc., and had been begging him to hook her up with a Roadent suitable to her taste. I had considered her but had never gotten around to taking Reb up on his offer. There wasn't much of a chance that Reb would be there, nor was it likely that Gwen, now in her late twenties, would still be lonely, etc. But on the off chance that Reb would be cooling his tubes at his sister's I sent a text.

No reply. So I put it out of my mind and with a threat of more rain we took off for Marcia's apartment. On the way there Moira shouted in my ear: "Were you sending a message to Tops?" I shook my head. Moira added: "It's a girl you know in Morgantown." I shook my head again. "Don't distract me," I said. Intersections are the most hazardous places for motorcycles, and at this hour the traffic was feral.

Marcia's boy was at that toddler age where a woman explores her motherly instincts and a man finds an excuse to leave the room. I spent most of the evening in the side yard of the apartment complex, which I liked better than the postage-stamp size patio that was cluttered up by just two wrought-iron chairs that bent when I sat on them. In the yard there were horizons instead of walls. I sat on a concrete bench under what I think was a magnolia tree.

Moira's emotional chats with the gossipy Marcia had me wondering again if she would ever explain to me what she was looking to find besides peace with bodies of water. Then I heard her voice as she appeared suddenly in the circle of hazy light from a lamppost near a bird bath. "I'm not so sure I want any children."

"If you do, you're going in the wrong direction," I said. It's what I had been planning to say if given the chance. She asked me what I meant and sat next to me. It was a very clear night and almost cold.

"Why did you leave your place? What, you didn't get along with June Colt? Too close to your folks for comfort? Or was it just thinking the grass was greener somewhere else?"

"All of that," she said. "That's what I've been talking to Marce about. And why should it matter which direction I go? Isn't every direction the same?"

"If you're looking for someone you don't know you'll never find him. You can't find a stranger. You can only find someone you know. You go back home and you'll find someone. Out here you won't find anyone."

"You're tired of me, William." It was a statement. There was a catch in her voice. "Who did you send that text message to? Are you trying to find someone you know? And what am I, a stranger you haven't found?"

"I was going to say that you don't go looking for something you haven't lost or never had. Home is where you will meet whoever it is that fate has chosen for you. I like you a great deal, Moira, and I'll take you wherever you want to go. But I'm just a daddy figure with a hard-on."

"I know that," she said and bumped me with her shoulder. "I saw you texting in the kitchen."

Gwen had gotten back to me. It's what had made me so introspective, just when I was starting to keep my thoughts on what's out there. "We've been invited to the home of a friend of mine's sister. She lives in rural Kentucky. It's not far out of our way. She lives in a hillbilly house by herself and two big dogs. Are you game for it?" (She made a soundless laugh and nodded.) "She used to want out of there," I added, "wanted to ride off with one of her brother's biker buddies. She remembers Reb talking to her about me. She knows me by my biker name."

"Why haven't you told me it?" she asked with surprising vehemence, as if I had kept a terrible secret from her. So I told her in a tone of voice that made no big deal of it.

"Okay, Hangman, we go into the Kentucky hills tomorrow where I won't find any strangers to take home with me. But, you know, you've got me all wired about this Lord of the Roads. You said the winter's coming on and we won't be able to spend much time in West Virginia before we have to head south. Right?"

I looked into her eyes and saw the lamplight reflected in them like two moons. As if one wasn't enough.