Road To...

“It can’t be any good to us” Chewy bemoaned in the passenger seat. I curled up the novel in my hands. Just touching it felt wrong. Reading it was worse. But I couldn’t let it go. I was enthralled with it. I had done enough to prove to Chewy it was what I said it was. That it was useful. Now we were debating what was next.

“I mean it’s how I found you!” I pointed out. “Without it I would still be stumbling around.”

“You told me you were already in town! I would have smelled you a mile away.” Was his retort but I knew he didn’t fully believe that. I could tell he was at least a little thankful he didn’t have to pretend to be a street urchin any longer than he had too.

“I still think it could be useful!” I said. “I mean how lucky are we? This can tell us everything. How we end…” The book's weight grew heavy in my hands. A few words... A sentence could tell me where I was hurtling too. I just had to skip to the back.

“Don’t.” Chewy said. He had watched the thought grow in my mind. “If you hadn't found this book. You might have thought this was all over. We might have gone home. It’s not showing you anything! It’s trapping you!” He huffed.

“You don’t know that. Maybe I'm supposed to find it. Maybe it's supposed to help!”

“Who cares!” He shouted, “This whole time things that have helped us only hurt us. What did Madame Lyra do? She made you fucking crazy! This is more trouble than it's worth.” He flicked his little brown eyes over me. A small whine cracked through his lips. “Let me see it.” He asked. I kept squeezing it in between my fingers. Feeling all the pages run across my touch. The pages of MY story. Of course Chewy didn’t understand. This was about me, not him. He was always a selfish dog.  

Everything I am, is all in here.

It would tell me what's gonna happen. How I defeat death. When I open that box in my trunk, what to do with it. 

I need it.

 I needed it more than Chewy and that's why he was so upset. He could tell. His dark eyes could read through me. Like I could read these pages. 

He’s jealous. Nervous. 

Scared I will abandon him again. Why did I even need him anymore?

“Let me see it.” He said approaching closer, feet staunch on the center console. I turned away towards my own window. Running my fingers along the spine. 

“No.” I said. “This is the key. This will help me more than you ever could and you know that and that’s why you hate it. You don’t want to help me. You never have. You just wanna go home and forget all about her. You hated her!” I snapped. 

If he was alarmed at me he didn't show it. I was angry that he wasn’t. If he yelled and stormed off it would be easier to drive away. It would be easier to even look at him if he had fury in his eyes instead of that pleading painful look. He sighed. “Give it to me. You aren’t gonna like what you read. You know it.” He got closer and pawed at my shoulder. “We have to make our own story. We’ll go to Milwaukee like it said. But after that it’s you and me. Give it to me.” 

I shuddered and for some reason felt as if I was going to bawl. But I didn't. I took a deep breath and composed myself. Tapping my forehead against the glass of the window. Then, I handed him the book without even looking at him. Without even apologizing. 

As soon as it left my touch, the world seemed brighter and shame swirled within me. 

~

Chewy had taken the book in his jaws and hopped out the window in a flash. 

Before he could change his mind. He thought. 

He dropped it on the grass next to a bench and a receptacle for trash that hardly anyone seemed to use. His eyes crept over the front page once more. The thick lines that made up the crude drawing amused him. But everything else did not. He didn’t know why his owner hadn’t been more distrusting with a cover like that. The strange purple swirls that engulfed them in their stationary drive. The tentacles and weird moving visions were drawn around them. Trapping them. But they couldn’t see it as they drove to the sunset. 

It wouldn’t be the first time he had seen things that his owner was blind too. Sometimes it felt like they were on two different pages. But he supposed that’s why they were such a great team. They both had areas where they excelled. Chewy could smell different realities. Could track people across dimensions. Could see into spectrums that his owner couldn’t dream about. Could sense when blood had been spilled miles away. Could run faster, jump farther and still explain molecular thermodynamics to a class of puppies. 

In return his owner had opposable thumbs. 

Which was of course useful for opening jars of pickles which Chewy strangely liked. Even though they give him the runs if he ate too much. He figured it was the sodium. Same thing happened when he drank too much sea water. 

He gripped the front cover and a dozen pages with the excitement that only a dog could have for doing the thing that he was made to do. He shook his head violently like it was a caught rabbit. The pages with each whip of his neck shook loose and tore away. They fluttered around him like a swarm of birds and rolled across the grounds away with the wind. He did this again and again, tearing loose most of the book. Finally the front cover peeled away with a satisfying rip. 

Adequately pleased with himself. He lifted his leg and urinated on the book's carcass. On returning to the car he did so with a bounce in his step. 

Milwaukee I

The car was dying. Plain and simple. The car looked back over its life and found that it had had a good life. A couple owners, many trips. It had seen many sights and carried many different people to and fro. It had done its job well. And although its current owner, the man with the thinning hair and his little steel-grey high energy dog, hadn’t kept up with maintenance as much these days, the car still enjoyed their activities together. 

Soon the engine with gunked up valves would rupture and belts would go flying and the car would skirt to a halt and never turn a wheel by itself again. The car thought back, how had it gotten so old so fast? It seemed like yesterday it had gotten off the assembly line. Looking back it was difficult to determine where the point was exactly, where it crossed from new to old. It felt that it still had a young mind, but it couldn’t do what it used to. Its parts had gotten run down and dirty. 

Worn. Such is life.

The car figured it was in the monotony of life that its parts had snuck away and started aging under its nose. Secretly. In the many commutes and runs to the grocery store. Until one day things wouldn’t work like they used to. Things would break and the new replacement parts within it would work too well and cause stress on other parts that were now breaking down too. 

Surely this was what dying felt like? What a long drawn out process! 

It would be better to get totalled on a pole somewhere. Quick and be done with it. Too bad. It wondered if it would come back as a toaster in a new life? That would be nice. 

It hoped it would do its job before dying. Get the man and his dog to their destination. That’s all it ever wanted to do. Although, the car wasn’t quite sure where that was... It seemed this whole trip was a wandering thing. Looking for something. Looking for nothing? He didn’t hear the man talk about any sort of destination between the ramblings of himself to his dog. It seemed the next city was always chosen by throwing a dart on a map. But it knew the trip was nearing its end, solely because of how haggard everyone was. It hoped it could do its part and get him there. 

A little oil would do wonders for everyone involved. Or a couple new brackets to hold things together. Too bad the man was neglecting it. The car had tried to get the man to look under the hood to see that oil had leaked and gunked up over the piston house. But the man found it strange that the hood was loose, seemingly popped open by itself, and just slammed it shut with a little bump of his wide butt. 

The car had tried to tell him that the breaks were giving way. Everytime he set it on cruise control it would turn off due to the feedback. The car slowed and sped up in a herky jerky motion. But he simply stopped using the cruise control. Which was good for all occupants because he paid more attention to the road without it. 

It had tried to get him to think something weird was happening by changing the radio to different songs. Spelling out that the car was in dire straits. But he had just flipped back and banged on the dashboard. Not to mention that the alignment was off. It was leaking several fluids. And it constantly was running hot as denoted on the gauges. 

By now from all the signs the car was giving him. It knew he knew something was up. He had too. It was a painful realization that he didn’t care. He knew. The dog kenw. The car knew. This was the car's last ride. And they were gonna push it there, smoking and steaming. Riding a corpse to the finish line if they had too. No nice retirement in a garage somewhere. Death by a thousand miles. 

That’s alright. 

Like a work horse dying in the field it would die by doing what it was meant to do. If we could all be that lucky. On the trip towards Milwaukee the man and his dog discussed many things. And also had long drawn out silences that were nice. Where people could pay attention to the world zooming by outside, and appreciate how fast the car was taking them. 

They talked about their dead mistress. And laughed telling stories about her. 

They talked about fate and destiny and how the man disagreed with the dog. But that was okay. The talk helped the car find solace in its destiny soon approaching.

They talked about religion. Which confused the car as the only thing worth worshiping was the life-drink of Gas and how father of gas was Oil, but also they were the same entity? Even that was very confusing for a car. But you get points for trying, that’s what faith is. The car was just happy to get both once in a while. 

And for a long time there was quiet until the dog stirred when the car came to a stop. They were outside a gas station along a long pristine lake, stretching out to the east what seemed like forever. The car would guess it was the ocean but the waves were tiny and quiet. And the fields around it was green grass and coarse sand. It was no ocean swept beach. Not truly.  

This is where it learned something else. As the man got back in the car after filling up the tank with that sweet prophet that was the life-drink. He informed the dog that they would very soon be out of money (Speaking of religion, money seemed the biggest thing of worship among people, for good reason the car supposed.) They were down to their last twenty dollars. 

Maybe the trip was very close to being over after all. 

~

I had a small basket of cheese curds for lunch. Paying for it with change in the car. Before I had twenty nine dollars now it was just a wrinkly twenty bill and some change. The last of it. 

Disappointing. 

Even more so because I had never had cheese curds before but was saddened to find out that they were just small mozzarella sticks. I shrugged, giving one to Chewy. We had parked next to what I assumed was Lake Michigan. Its endless blue waters stretch calmly to the horizon. Wind rolling off of it slowly like how an artist drags his paintbrush across a canvas. We were parked by a small park with quaint trees rattling in the breeze and grass waving in turn. Near us was a large two to three story complex that looked like an art exhibit. You could tell just from the way of the building. It looked like some futuristic sailing ship with canvas stretched across the various porches of the complex. I finished the curds and crumpled the trash into the backseat of the car. 

“Where to next?” I asked Chewy. Turning around and looking into the tall buildings of downtown. Steadfast against the sky. All glass and metal with reflections of the mixed blues of the lake and sky that twisted into the same shade and smattered across the whole skyline. 

Chewy yawned. “I don’t know,” He said, smiling slyly. “But that’s a good thing. World’s our oyster, as the saying goes.” 

I huffed. “I hate oysters. Slimy” And shook the thought of their texture from my mind.  

The thing that was most on my mind was Gas. We were low on funds. With twenty dollars and change to my name. If Tim had fled the city, done his work and left. We had zero hope of going after him. Not that I even knew what I would do if I reached him. I didn’t really wanna go trippin through realities again. I was just feeling more like myself from Nashville. No blurred vision or visions, and no stinging headaches. No bleeding out of orifices. If I was going through more doorways I was going to come apart at the seams and next time I might not walk out the other side. I might unravel on a molecular level. 

The thought of all possibilities before me made my knees weak anyways. I wasn’t those versions of myself. Those worlds weren’t mine. Thinking about them just made me ill. I needed to make things right in my world here and now. 

I knew making things right didn’t involve a bullet out of gun anymore. I learned that the hard way I suppose. 

Hell, maybe I just wanted to talk again. I don’t know. 

“How do we make some cash Chewy?” I eyed the small dog that was eating grass. “Could you do a little dancing routine? We could lay a hat out and pan handle.”

He chomped on some more strands and swallowed. “I dance for no man. I am not a monkey.” His words dripped with disappointment. “You are the capitalist slave, not I.” He said while pulling up more weeds.

I took that to mean ‘figure it out’. Well maybe I could find Tim in the city. I pulled out a newspaper from the trash can. It seemed like a place people went for their lunch break and light reading. I scanned the obituaries and although many people had passed. None reached out to me as being Tim’s doing. Not that I really knew what he did, he could be subtle perhaps? From experience I knew he wasn’t opposed to violence and took young and old alike. Leaving bodies behind him and feeding off the grief of it all. But I suppose death personified wouldn’t be too fun at parties. 

These were all old people dying in nursing homes and gangbanger shootings that already had the rival triggerman in police custody. I folded up the newspaper and thought for a while. Maybe I should go to the police precinct? Pretend I'm an investigative journalist. Need murder stats or something. 

“Alright. We better go into the city proper. Look for a police precinct, see if there’s been trouble.”

Chewy whined. “I hate po-po. They shoot dogs for no reason, you know? I’ve seen it on the news.”  

We got back in the car and it took me a couple turns of the ignition and pumping the gas to get her to start up. 

Come on, I thought. We are just going a little further. 

As I fell into the bustling city traffic I stopped scanning the city blocks as my attention caught an advertisement on a bus I was following. 

In bold fun letters it said. “Potawatomi,” and under it in smaller writing. “Come to play at the friendliest tables in the county.” And below that slogan (which I thought was probably not the biggest compliment. I mean how many casinos were in the county?) A crew of dealers smiled and laughed up at the camera.

I laughed at them, obviously the majority were models of some sorts. The few dealers who were overweight and looked ordinary probably won a corporate promotion to appear in their county wide ads. Chewy saw me scoff and followed my eyeline. “Casino?” He asked. 

“Yeah it has a great name. Fun to say. Poto-watomi.”

“Poto-wat-omi,” He repeated and we smiled at each other as the car lurched forward, the traffic moving again. “Well we did never go to the one in New Orleans.” 

“That’s right but we don’t have time. We are on the trail. And we don’t have money anyways.”

Chewy’s smile dropped away. Still staring at the ad. “I think we should go. I think we have to go. I think we are supposed to go.” He said matter of factly. Before I could ask why, his two front paws were on the dashboard and his nose was pressed to the window. Like a hunting hound pointing at birds in the bush. I followed his lead and looked closer. On the right side of the ad was a tall lean man. There smiling at me, beckoning me to come sit at his table was a man I had met before. Now rid of his disguise, he peered at us with that sallow face of his. 

“Everywhere you go, there you are.” I said to myself, astounded.  

~

The smoke sucking ventilation system was working overtime. I entered the tacky carpeted casino and a wall of swirling fumes hit me from various brands of cigarettes, cigars, and candle scented vapes from the younger demographic. It was reminiscent of my highschool performance of the little mermaid when we spent half the budget on a fog machine. 

Boy did we get our money's worth. 

It was a weekend night and that was the main cause of such traffic pouring in here. And how well the place was staffed. They were making sure every person that wanted to could pour their money onto the tables and shortly afterwards deposit it into the casinos coffers. I suspected some people might be more satisfied with just lighting their money on fire. Least they would get a few seconds of worth from it rather than the nothing they had received. But I wasn’t quite sure that was true. They sold ideas at casinos. The idea of riches. And losing money and spitting in the patrons faces was part of that illusion as much as winning was. You need the odds against you, afterall. 

And from the cheers and jeers of the different populations of people, I assumed money was trending both ways. At least it was an entertaining bunch. Midwest cowboys were shooting craps next to men with heavy gold chains and sagging pants. Mobility scooters were pulling around Large Marges with their hair pinned up. Stout Mexican moms who prayed before every slot-pull were next to white fraternity boys from the local college. Those fresh face frat bros seemed like they were here to lose money no matter the odds and it would be in either bad Cocaine or bad bets. The way they played and who they surrounded themselves with, I was sure they had a long life of bad investments ahead of them. First one was probably buying drugs off that sketchy guy in the parking lot that I passed. He said he was offering, “Booger sugar, downers, and clowners.” 

What the fuck does that mean?

For once on this journey I felt like I fit in. A mess of an overweight man wearing flip flops and a sweat stained shirt was normal. Not only normal but welcomed. Heralded. Because money looks the same if it comes from a leper or a saint. That green never washes off.

I had left Chewy in the car with windows cracked. He didn’t like that but we knew they wouldn’t allow him in here. He wanted to be watching my back, but all the smoke gave him migraines. Throws his scent off too. He had to accept it and settle in. Besides, I bargained, we weren’t here to confront Tim. I had lost my gun. Even if I had it, I would be swarmed by security in an instant if I tried something against theirs. We just wanted to set something up, after hours. Last twenty bucks told me we needed to wrap this whole thing up. 

Whatever that means. 

~

I had never played roulette before. But it looked like a bullseye and that drew me in. The dealer was a bald skinny asian man named Thomas who looked like he was ready to get off shift. The board had familiar colors of red and black that made me comfortable. Like I was playing darts at my local dive bar. Around was a middle aged man who was huffing and puffing on a cigar so hard he was red. But as I stepped forward I watched the ball roll and stop on Red 7. 

I clapped. “Alright there ya go.” I said. The man had so many chips spread across the felt I assumed he had won something. But then the dealer put his marker on the red seven square on the table and it was bare as a baby first born. 

Thomas yawned and wiped the mounds of chips away. He shoved them down a hole where a machine whirred to life, I assumed they sorted them, counted them. That was cool. I was more interested in that than gambling really. 

The man cursed and stomped away leaving his silhouette in the smoke as he left. Thomas looked at me. Talking over his shoulder, maybe to me. Or no one in particular. “New player!” He said.

“Yeah, I am a new player actually. How do I play?” 

“Put your money down.” He said. Rapping his knuckles against the table while he looked over his shoulder bored as all could be. 

I thought I was betting my twenty one dollars so I put it on the plain red marker. That was a fifty-fifty shot of winning. But he took the money instead and handed back my chips. 

“Oh duh.” I said to myself. I looked around the floor, pleading with anyone around to help me. But they were in their own little worlds at their own little tables watching their money slip between their fingers. I understood what a distraction that could be. I had scanned this whole floor and saw no vest wearing, skeezy man that looked like Tim. But I knew he could be anyone. I eyed Thomas who was still staring at me. 

“So we gonna play?” He asked in a thick Vietnamese accent. 

“What’s the time?” His electronic watch was the only timepiece in a quarter mile. I guess casinos don’t like you to know how late it is. He glanced at it. “Practically 12:30,” He said and yawned again like checking it reminded him how tired he was. “Almost off my shift. Now let's play.”

I'll just put a dollar down. Play it slow. Try and get some info. 

I placed one red ruddy chip on the red square. He gawked at me before pointing to a little sign. “Twenty dollar minimum,” he pointed out. “You put twenty dollars over the numbers or twenty dollars on the bottom row, red, black, odds, even.” He pointed out. 

“I see… I can literally bet on whatever I think the number is gonna be.” 

That’s pretty simple. The board even broke it down if I thought it was gonna be in the ranges of 1-12. This is a simple game. Simple games can still rob you the most. 

“Hey Thomas, do you have a coworker named Tim?” I asked. “Last time I was here…” He was shaking his head at me. 

“Sir,” He said. “Are you gonna play? Come on. You need to put money down. Nineteen more chips.” He tapped the lone chip on the red square. I was getting flustered and making a fool of myself. I placed all the chips on the black square instead and had the one lone chip join them. As soon as I did it I regretted it. But he had already let the ball rip by. The whole circular dish was rotating, numbers across it passing in a blur, but the ball was white hot and zooming around the top edge. 

I watched it go around and around. Until finally friction caught up with it. It dropped down into the numbers. Bouncing back and forth, up and down. I held my breath. I didn’t even realize I was but I could feel my body tense. 

Black Ten.

“Winner!” he said. Placing his marker on the appropriate square. He doubled up my chips as I clapped. People around must have thought I won a million bucks when really I had won twenty one. I laughed like a little kid who can’t control his excitement when getting ice cream. 

That’s another tank of gas!

 I calmed myself.

“Last time I was here, a dealer.” I motioned to him, implying ‘like you’ “A dealer, saw me win lots of money. He was a gangly man. Pale, slick black hair, gaudy gold rings. Name was Tim.” 

“I don’t know him.” He replied. Looking at his watch again and swiftly picking up the ball. He spun the roulette wheel a couple times. Keeping its momentum.

“Oh,” My shoulders slouched. Maybe I should take my money and try another game? Another dealer, another area? But winning here was so fun. And now I had some more to bet. Would one tank be enough? I looked around and saw a bathroom that people were coming in and out of, there was a free soda machine right next to it. Jeeze, what is this place? 

But that doorway… Maybe I could walk through it and into a reality where I had won millions. There had to be one where that existed. But would I have the money or would another version of myself have it? Would I share? If I had that idea then so did other versions. I imagined thousands of myself fighting over a stack of cash like it was some interdimensional gameshow.  

I had run myself ragged in Nashville, and now I just started feeling normal again, some rest along the lake shore helped. I decided when things are already slipping its best not to test it. Besides, I could be the winner myself. Here and now. I didn’t need another version of me to be a winner. 

My wife always told me in her special drawl that I was ‘A winner, baby,’ let’s turn this whole trip around