*26*

I think it was a member of the Brady Bunch, maybe Greg, that said this, he said: Wherever you go, there you are.

Well, we went, and here I am.

It was me that said this: There's plenty of places like home.

Well, there is, and I just found one of them.

A town in the middle of the desert. They call it a suburb of some big city where things happen, but this big city, you can't get there unless you drive from middle of nowhere to middle of somewhere.

It takes about an hour to get from middle of nowhere to middle of somewhere.

Kind of like Roswell.

We drove into town first, to get something to eat before we go to places where everything is okay.

Compared to this place, Roswell is heaven on earth.

Chain stores, row upon row of chain stores. Shopping malls, mini malls, stretch malls, outdoor malls, consumers on every corner. Suburban paradises undergoing foreclosure. Graph paper streets, an idiot couldn't get lost here. We just found the city with no past, no future, only a present.

This city with only a present, we came here, so here we are.

This city, we're leaving, so there we go.

This city surrounded by dying, brown, deserts. Like Roswell, except for the breeze. It has a breeze that blows tumbleweeds the size of cars into the roads. Flat deserts. At one point I thought deserts like this, places like this, have no secrets to hide, have no places for lies to crawl under. Everything is just so naked, even the people are exposed.

I was wrong.

There's this corner. This hidden place that nobody knows about, where a secret is hidden.

And not all secrets are bad.

Some good secrets stay hidden because your not looking hard enough, because realizing there is something good about this place would make you face that there is something good behind every guilty liar.

Do you want me to make this easier for you?

This city, it has it's secrets. It has a lot of bad secrets, but it has this good one, this hidden poppy field.

Me and Max, we have our secrets. We have a lot of bad secrets, but we have this good one, there's something about us that keeps us alive, keeps us breathing, something beautiful. There's something about us that the guilt never let us see.

Understood?

We drive.

Clues to this hidden place sprinkle the sides of the road. There's this point, behind this hill, you could miss it if you don't turn your head. You could drive right past it thinking you know everything about this place.

Maybe this is another thing about us. We learned how to look for things like this, because we were looking for things like this in each other.

So we turn our heads, because we're looking, we're breathing, we're aware, and we see it.

The poppy field, the orange sea of hills, alive and breathing beauty. It's almost like an explosion, a deep breath.

And I go: hachoo

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"Hello you big, manly alien."

"Well hello there, pretty lil' lady, that's a nice....rib cage...you've got there."

"Max, you are so disturbing."

"SHHH...they're putting on a play for you."

I go: hachoo

Max says, "Gross....you got girl cooties on me."

I say, "You love it."

"Yeah well, Shall I continue?"

"Yea, you know, take away all their innocence, corrupt them completely."

"Shhhh."

I go: hachoo

The setting, this is where I tell you what I see.

Well, look left and right and I see orange. Look down and I see my feet. Look up and I see Max. Look straight ahead, and I see the sky, a little alien and skeleton dancing in front of it.

I'm lying down, head in his lap. He's putting on a little play for me. His fingers are pressed against the little toys heads, making them bob up and down every time they talk.

Max says, "Where was I.....oh yea..."

He contorts his voice into this really high pitched girly sound, "Well hello you big, manly alien."

His voice goes deep again and the little alien's head bobs up and down, "Hello pretty lil' lady, that's a nice rib cage you've uhh....got there."

I say, "Creepy," but I'm smiling.

The little alien turns to me and says, "Do you mind?"

The skeleton says to the alien, "OHH you are just so irresistible....with that...green skin."

"Well uhh...hey," says the alien, "do you maybe wanna...you know uhh...make out?"

The skeleton says, "OH, I thought you'd never ask, you hunk of a hybrid you..."

I shake my head, "This is so wrong."

Max smashes the little toys heads together and makes little muffled noises, "Ohhhhhhh...mmmmmmmmm....aaahhhhhhhhh."

I say, "Ohhhhhh boy."

They stop going at it because the little alien is falling apart and getting back up again. The alien, when he gets himself back together again he says to the skeleton, "Wow, that was some kiss, by the way, your breastbone is showing."

I say, "Who knew that Max Evans was such a cheeseball.....oh yeah.....I did."

I go: hachoo

The alien says to me, "Shut it, cootie girl."

I grab the alien and place a big sloppy wet kiss on his face.

Max says, "Hey no fair."

Umm...

Are you hurling yet?

Okay, so we're cute together.

Did I just say cute?

Oh boy.

I go: hachoo

Max bends over to kiss my chin because that's all he can reach.

And I'm having this feeling.

Max says, "What are you thinking about?"

"Truthfully?"

"Truthfully."

"I'm having this feeling."

"What feeling?"

I sit up and Max picks some twigs off the back of my shirt. I turn so that I'm facing him, "It's this feeling."

"What feeling."

"I don't know."

"Well what does it feel like?"

"It feels like a feeling."

"What feeling."

"It's just this feeling."

"Umm...confusion?"

"No.....what is that feeling....you know."

"Uhh...I'm not sure."

"That feeling where like, obsession is reciprocated."

He smiles, "I like this brutal honesty thing you've got going."

"What is it."

"Umm...when obsession is reciprocated....I believe they call that.." Max rubs his lips together nervously and squints his eyes, "...Love?"

Love.

It's weird when you hear it. Love love love love, sounds so meaningless if you repeat it over and over again. But if you just hear it once.....

I say, "Yeah....love."

Max says, "Yeah....I'm feeling that too."

I nod.

He nods.

We stare.

He says, "Umm...I don't need to like....ask anymore....do I?"

"Ask what?"

"Asking just feels so stupid."

"Asking what?"

"You know....asking..."

I say, "Asking sounds so meaningless when you say it that many times....asking asking asking.....what does that mean, anyway?"

"Huh?"

"What did you want to ask?"

"I didn't want to ask."

"What didn't you want to ask."

"Umm....I think I ruined the moment."

"Are we nervous?"

"I think so."

I nod.

He nods.

We stare.

I say, "Why are we nervous."

"I don't know....it was so easy last night."

"What was easy?"

"I didn't even ask."

"Didn't ask what?"

"I'm just shutting up."

"We should probably make out."

"Wow...okay."

"Is that what you were going to ask?"

"More or less..."

"Well you don't have to ask."

"Good, I won't."

I say, "Love love love love love asking asking asking."

He sighs and says, "I'm not nervous anymore...I think it was just a thing."

"Neither am I......that skeleton, it's yours...I stole it for you."

He smiles, "You did?"

"Yea."

"Thank you."

"Your welcome."

I go: hachoo

He shakes his head and scoots over to face me, cross legged, putting his fingers on the bridge of my nose.

I say, "It's allergies, it'll just come back."

"I know, but this is fun."

He's making my nose all warm and tingly.

He's making my everything all warm and tingly.

I close my eyes because that's just what you have to do when you're having feelings like this, you close your eyes to savor it.

Me and Max, we're not feeling so detached anymore.

We are very much here, in the moment, in the world.

You could choke on the beauty of it all.

He pushes some hair behind my ear and he's looking at me. He's been looking at me like this all morning. Like he's seeing something there, like he's seeing me.

No ones ever looked at me like this.

His breath grazes the skin next to my ear, over my cheek. I turn my head and catch his lips between mine, because it feels right, because there's no reason not to, because I want to.

Because I'm learning that it's okay to want things from someone.

I turn my body and we're touching each other. Touching all that we can, arms, legs, stomachs, lips, tongues, you name it.

Me and Max, we need this.

This kiss, I don't have time to think about pointers because it just feels right. We just fit, the situation is defining itself.

We lean back onto the poppies and his hand is on my side, drawing little circles on my skin.

My hand is somewhere in his hair, messing it all up.

Then me, because nothing is ever as perfect as it seems, because it's the little imperfect things about the situation that make it so perfect, I lean back and I go: hachoo

And we laugh.

And we lay here, him with his hand on my nose continuously, so that I stop sneezing, we hold each other.

I look around us. The poppies are swaying with the breeze, making it look like a giant, orange ocean. I say, "This place is amazing."

And he says, "It's just a place."

I nod, because I think I know what he's saying.

He says, "It's perfect, because we're together, but it's just a place, it could be horrible if we were alone."

I say, "Like Roswell."

"Yea, Like Roswell."

I say, "I miss it."

He nods, "Looks like there's no place like home after all."

"I miss the people, I miss Tess."

"So do I."

"And Alex and Maria."

"And Isabel and Michael."

"Yea."

"Yea."

"So what do we do now?"

He smiles and hugs me closer, "Well, first we hump like rabbits....kidding.....okay first we make out some more."

"Definitely."

"Then we sleep."

"Okay."

"Then.....we face things."

I nod, because I know what this means, because I know that this means we're going home.

--------------------------------

The drive home.

Being in the car sucks because I was just getting used to second base.

And now I'm just sitting here stalling the car every five minutes.

Max says, "Well....we should get there in about three weeks."

I say, "Can it."

"I'm kidding."

"I love you."

He stares.

I say, "WHY IS THE CLUTCH SO FAR AWAY!?"

"Whoa, whoa, you're letting up too fast."

"Letting up on what."

"I love you too."

I stall the car again.

We smile at each other.

He says, "The clutch, you gotta ease it off slower, and push on the gas at the same time, kind of like a teeter totter. Okay? Then when you want to break you gotta push on the clutch and ease off the gas and then push on the break, maybe we should move the seat up."

This is what I'm hearing: clutch clutch break break break gas acceleration, Okay? Break break clutchety clutch clutch gas gas gas, maybe we should move the seat up.

I say, "Yea okay."

It takes me about half an hour to get the speed above 30 Mph.

I say, "Your birthday is in two weeks."

"No it's not."

"Well, when is it then?"

"It was like five months ago."

"Well, that's not going to work for me."

"Uhh...."

"Was it the day you were born?"

"I wasn't exactly born, my mom and dad just picked the day the adoption went through."

"Well, see, you don't know what day you were born, what if your birthday is really in two weeks?"

"What if it's really in two months?"

"My point exactly."

"Wait a second.....what's the point again?"

"The point is that your birthday is in two weeks."

"Really?"

"MmmHmm."

"You gonna get me something?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

Max, he looks at me and he says, "What if my birthdays really today?"

"That's not gonna work for me."

He stares out the window, shaking his head and laughing slightly.

I look out the window too, In the middle of the dying desert I see this poppy. This random, misplaced poppy.

I've never had this feeling before, this feeling where I realize I have my whole life ahead of me, and I'm actually happy about it.

So we drive home, we drive home because the climax is over and we're just sitting here waiting for resolution, some life statement to take home and paint on a sign and hang above our doorway.

Pardon me while I reflect on this.

I think about me almost dying and I think maybe a good moral would be: Don't try this at home.

But that's just stupid.

I mean look at me, does it look like a regret a damn thing?

How about: There's not so many places like home.

How about: Kiss the pathological liar.

How about: Leave the damn gun in the drawer, dummy.

I'll have to think about this some more.

For Max's birthday, I think I'll give him freedom from guilt.

Because we're all such tragedies waiting for resolution.

We're all such aliens looking for a good place to call home.

----------------------

Motorway To Roswell
Last night he could not make it
he tried hard but he could not make it
on a holiday
for many miles
looking for a place to stay
near some friendly star
he found this mote
and now we wonder where we are
how could this so great
turn so shitty
he ended up in army crates
and photographs in files
his tiny boat
sparked as he turned to graze our city
I started driving on the motorway
I was feeling down
last night he could not make it
he tried hard but he could not make it
he started heading for the motorway
and he came right now
-The Pixies