Free Mosquitoland by David Arnold Page B

of oddities
 . . .
    His grip is aggressive. “We could be more than friends, too.”
    A circus of neurons and electrons
 . . .
    His breath is warm.
    Ready
 . . .
    His lips are cold against mine.
    Set
 . . .
    His tongue—
    Go
 . . .
    Reaching down deep, my misplaced epiglottis locates a certain milk-soaked hockey puck; it gathers every ounce of the semi-digested beef and dairy, then, with pure force and accuracy, launches a vomit for the ages directly into Poncho Man’s mouth.
    He chokes, gags,
growls
 . . .
    Spinning, I unlock the door and exit the bathroom, breathing in the freedom of the rarely savvy gazelle.

    September 2—noon
    Dear Isabel,
    A quick note: I don’t think a vivid imagination is all it’s cracked up to be. I’m quite certain you have one, but if not, thank the gods of born-with gifts and move on. However, if you’re cursed as I am with a love of storytelling and adventures in galaxies far, far away, and mythical creatures from fictional lands who are more real to you than actual people with blood and bones—which is to say, people who exist
—
well, let me be the first to pass on my condolences.
    Because life is rarely what you imagined it would be.
    Signing off,
    Mary Iris Malone,
Storytelling Lackey

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
    (526 Miles to Go)

12
    Anomalies
    IN SIXTH-GRADE ADVANCED English, my teacher presented a challenging assignment: find a single word to best describe you, then write a paper as to why. During the two weeks leading up to the paper’s due date, I pored over the dictionary each night, searching for that one word which might perfectly define Mim Malone. In the end, I chose the word
anomaly
. (I had it down to that, or
cheeky
, and by my reckoning, it would be far easier to define my many moods with a word whose very definition was a person or thing that couldn’t be defined by any one thing. This, I thought, was irrefutable logic at its finest.) I remember the last paragraph of that paper like it was yesterday.
    â€œIn summary, I am 110 percent Anomaly, plus maybe 33 percent Independent Spirit, and 7 percent Free-Thinking Genius. My sum total is 150 percent, but as a living, breathing Anomaly, this is to be expected. Boom.”
    Back then, I closed all my papers with
Boom
. It added a certain profound punctuation—a little high class among the meandering bourgeois. If I remember correctly, I received a C minus.
    But even today, inasmuch as an anomaly is a thing that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected, I can think of no more appropriate word to describe myself.
    I hate lakes but love the ocean.
    I hate ketchup but love everything else a tomato makes.
    I would like to read a book
and
go to a fucking party. (I want it all, baby.)
    And, pulling into the Nashville Greyhound Station, I am reminded of how much I hate country music—but blimey, I just can’t get enough Johnny Cash, the grandfather of that very genre. And, of course, Elvis, but I don’t really count him as country. Those were Mom’s two favorite musicians. We used to sit on her old College Couch in the garage, and listen straight through
Man in Black
or
Heartbreak Hotel
—vinyl of course, because there really is no other way to listen to music—just soaking in the scratched-up honesty of those two baritones, because damn it all, they’d lived life, and if anyone had a personal understanding of the pain of which they sang, it was Cash and Presley. At least, that’s what Mom said. As I grew up, my tastes changed, but when I think about it, even the music I listen to now has a certain tragic honesty to it. Bon Iver, Elliott Smith, Arcade Fire—artists whose music demands not to be
liked
but to be
believed
.
    And I do.
    I believe them.
    Carl pulls the bus into the station and grabs the mic. “Okay, folks, welcome to Nashville. If this is your final