Free Hick by Andrea Portes Page A

live on Sheridan. You get to come back all chuffed up on Thanksgiving and make a circle with all the other older brother Chads and cousin Jennys about this game and that class and how you had to stay up till five last week just to get three papers done and then about fell asleep in class and ha ha ha you sure felt silly.
    And you could be like me and sit there dripping in your towel at the Knolls, like some wet rat, out of place, invited on a lark, practically by mistake, out of politeness to Becky’s cousin Cindy, but ending up there regardless and listening. And you might think to yourself, What kind of world is this that lies somewhere outside the drip-drab horizon with rolling hills and halls of granite, green and books? What kind of world is this that nobody told me about that extends its hands out to nowheresville and plucks lovingly, exclusively, the cream of the crop? Who the hell gets to go there and why and if it’s Cindy then she ain’t near smart enough and why her not me?
    You might think that. And it might tear you up for a second and make you run inside the locker room before anyone catches on that that’s not just swimming-pool water running down your face and before everybody starts whispering, Who the hell invited that girl? Well, you might as well just hold up a sign that says, “I don’t belong here just take me back to shitsville.”
    But if you’re smart, you’ll just bite down and forget you ever heard it. Just pretend that was some black-and-white movie and that whole snooty universe doesn’t exist or it might as well not cause it sure as hell doesn’t exist for you.
    And never will.
    You don’t want to be squeezed in between sixty-two percent of snootsville, anyways. Bunch of limp city folk that couldn’t figure out how to pour whiskey out of a boot with directions on the heel.
    I stare out at the fields in green and yellow patches rolling by into the dusk coming up from behind. Glenda sits in the front, knuckles turning white on the wheel, shoulders hunched and leaning forward, heading west.
    Out west everything has its own space. Every little ramshackle cabin, shack, hut sits perched atop its own little piece of destiny with room to breathe, room to live, room to die. You’ll see them, the dead ones, sitting by the side of the road like some faded gray and rotting mystery, thinking about the good ol days before trains and cars and wanting more.
    And you’d best be prepared for heading west. Otherwise, you might just end up eating your best friend’s ankle, hunkered up under a snowdrift somewhere, like the Donners . . . marking the bodies so you don’t eat your own uncle, watching your pastor starve to death, calculating his weight versus the rest of winter. And youmight look over at that one nutso German and have the sneaking suspicion he’s just killing people and eating them before they die, on a whim, for fun.
    But that was out by Reno. Here, before Chimney Rock, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. Mostly, in the panhandle, folks just froze to death, uneventful. You’d be wandering around after your dream and you’d come across some half-thawed Swede in the slush. And you’d look at him, shrug your shoulders and say a prayer, but you weren’t about to stop.
    I look out past the corn and the wheat and wonder how many sets of bones are buried, unspoken, keeping their stories to themselves in the dirt. I wonder if they know the sky is bright blue today and the air smells sweet. I wonder if they still listen in. I wonder if the caterpillar trucks will roll over them, too.
    Glenda pipes up from the front seat.
    “Okay, kid, here’s how it’s gonna be. And no naysaying. If you naysay even once, I’m gonna kick that door open and throw you out after. I mean it. Nobody likes a naysayer. Nobody, got it? So, we gotta get to Jackson. Never mind why. Just that we’re headed to Jackson for some very specific reasons that I’ll tell you later. On the way, we’re gonna have to make a few