Ontario

Sometimes a story starts out as one thing, then turns out to be about something else entirely. Where this goes next...I can't even guess.

I put my finger on the map, and said I will go here. Besides, I liked the sound of the name. I liked that it was just a name to me, with no meaning, no associations. I didn’t know anybody there, I didn’t know when it had been settled, what Indian tribe had called it home, who lived there now. I didn’t know if it was in the mountains or on the plain. All roads are flat in Rand McNalley. But there were a lot more blue roads than red, and the cities were marked by smaller dots than the ones I was used to.

I gave the cat to Rita and loaded the car with all the warm clothes I had. It didn’t look like enough. I went to the Goodwill and bought another duffle bag full for a dollar a pound. Then I hit the Costco and Kmart for cases of meals in cans. My brother gave me his old sleeping bag and a couple of hundred dollars for gas.

Rita and Pepper waved goodbye from the driveway we shared. I took off on a green spring day, under an arch of new budded sycamores, looking for—somewhere far away. Something different. Seasons. Snowmen. A wolf. It’s funny the way dreams send us on our way when good advice leaves us paralyzed.

Sycamores became pines became scrub. Forty miles of roadside orchards gave way to patchy grasses and then the oil fields. I hit the 5 at eighty and scooted north with a tail wind.

Funny about those dreams. I tried not to think about them during the day, and tried even harder when the sun went down. They had started just before Thanksgiving and by Christmas had become a permanent part of my mental furniture. The funny thing was, I couldn’t figure out any explanation for their appearance. Nothing had changed in my life. No new lover, no break-up. Nobody had died, things were fine at work, my credit cards were paid off. I had plenty friends to meet at the pub, better friends to meet when I really needed to talk, and who called me for the same.

At first I didn’t think too much about it. The same kind of dream three times in one week was weird, but hardly the strangest thing that ever happened to anybody. The same kind of dream every time I closed my eyes for three months—that was scary. I tried staying up really late, thinking I would be too tired to dream. I tried a couple of beers. I tried having friends over for grown-up slumber parties. I slept with the lights on. I went to the doctor.­­

The dreams kept coming. Not exactly the same thing every night; no, more like the same story told from a different point of view every time. I didn’t think I could stand to watch the execution through the eyes of yet another witness. Quite a crowd had turned out to watch. I might have the same dream for years before I ran through the audience.

I needed a new place to sleep.

I had enough money saved up to see me through a couple of months off work. 

Hence, the map.

Spring nights were still cold, but I stayed in campgrounds to save money whenever I could, in spite of the speculative looks I got from the sloppy men who slurped and burped cheap beers at stained picnic tables carved with the initials of bored teenagers. I had cause to bless the inventor of the ATM card a couple of nights when the night winds shoved rain right through the ripstop nylon walls of my tent.

The dreams followed me. Luckily the witnesses didn’t seem to be very involved with the victim, so once the hanging was over I was able to roll over and go back to sleep. I had great hopes that by the time I got to Montana, I would be standing so far back in the crowd that I wouldn’t have to see it at all.

Hope is a liar and a cheat.

You can tell her I said so.