American Estrangement Read online

  Nor is there any indication of trouble from the rental car agent, who’s all smiles and New England goodness, eighteen years old and working his summer job. “Where you folks from?” he wants to know. He calls us “folks.” He thinks we’re married but we’re not. Later, Lizzy will say, “Why does he need to know where we’re from?” But she’s only being paranoid and he’s only being nice. He’s surrounded by Hertz logos and fluorescent lights, telling us that there just so happens to be a Cadillac Escalade in the parking lot if we’re interested, “just so happens,” five-door, full speed, which he can get for us at a great deal. He does a good job pretending as if he’s as surprised as anyone by how great and unexpected a deal this is, but no doubt he’s reading off a script from somewhere inside his head, his eyes moving back and forth across the page, watermarked with his commission. “We were hoping for something cheap and simple,” I tell him, by which I mean two doors and good mileage. Lizzy has other ideas. “Oh, let’s live a little!” she says, never mind that we’re trying to be budget-conscious on a vacation that hasn’t even started. She’s implying, publicly, that I alone stand as the obstacle to delight and merriment, and therefore joy and happiness. The eighteen-year-old can tell he’s making progress with at least one of the folks, and so he goes ahead and gives us the hard sell on the upgrade, and I must admit that the Cadillac Escalade does sound awfully good, what with the tinted sunroof, the leather steering wheel, the dual DVD players “for the kids,” which we don’t have. The idea of luxury, even rented luxury, is appealing to me, as I know it must be for Lizzy, having grown up, as she did, without. “Sure, why not,” I say, “let’s live a little!” And Lizzy drapes her arms around me, asking, “Do you mean it?” as if the choice were only ever mine. I make a big show of removing the joint credit card from my wallet. Beneath the fluorescent light the card appears burnished and indestructible, despite an outsized monthly balance about which, as with many things, Lizzy and I have grown accustomed to deferring. All that matters now, though, is that the card is swiped through without complication, granting us access to that coveted crimson key fob that matches the coveted crimson Cadillac Escalade that just so happens to be in the parking lot. “Where you folks headed?” the agent wants to know. This is the last line of the script and he doesn’t really care where we’re headed. But it doesn’t matter, because we don’t really know.

  Two hours later, Lizzy and I are reclining in rented luxury on credit, the daylight streaming velvet through the tinted sunroof, having made it as far as some town called Hamlin, population few. We see the sign and then the sign is gone. Lizzy’s doing forty miles an hour, mostly she’s doing thirty, at this rate it’ll take us a week to make it through Maine, but this is the remedy that she has proposed. “The scenic route,” Lizzy says. “Slow driving,” she says. Slow driving, slow living. She has her finger on the pulse of “what ails us”—she’s referring to society and also the collective us. When she’s not working her day job at low pay, she’s a yoga instructor above a natural foods store, three nights a week and Sundays, immersed for an hour and fifteen minutes in the ancient science of remedying and restoring one body at a time. That she is now steering a Cadillac Escalade down a country road, guzzling gas at twentysomething a gallon, is a contradiction in lifestyle that we have agreed to accept without further inquiry. Together we stare out at the therapeutic landscape, mesmerized by the stillness, by the emptiness, by the rolling hills, etc. When we hit a bump in the road, we don’t feel a thing. We are sailing more than we are riding. “Undulating,” Lizzy says. She’s talking about the hills. We have our luggage in the back, along with a cooler of green tea and room enough for eight more people. Outside the car it smells of fresh air, and inside it smells of air freshener. If society has changed, we can’t tell through the window.

  And yet there is something that is clearly ailing us. What it is precisely, no one has been able to determine, not even the couples’ counselor whom we went to see, one hundred dollars out-of-network, with Lizzy and me sitting side by side on the couch trying to account for a lack of delight and merriment in our lives. We blamed ourselves, we blamed our parents, mainly we blamed each other. After a year of no improvement or discovery in either direction, we were told by the couples’ counselor, “I’m willing to keep seeing you but I’m not sure what would be gained.” Standing on the sidewalk in the wake of our last session, Lizzy had said, “The board-certified professional admits defeat.” We continued onward, the two of us in our mid-thirties, occasionally evading, but never fully outrunning, a general dissatisfaction that now seems sure to tag along beside us into middle age. Perhaps we met at the wrong point in life, or in the wrong manner, i.e., online, where she’d lied about her age, and I’d lied about my height and my age. “You have a pretty smile,” I’d written her, as vanilla a way as any to break the ice, but which still managed to be effective. For our first date we’d gotten together by the gazebo in the business district, where, yes, she was older than I anticipated, but beautiful all the same, statuesque actually, and her brown hair was lush, and her smile indeed pretty. She’d been dressed in a skirt and sensible shoes, long legs, nice butt, having come from what she would refer to only as her sellout day job. As for me, I was neither beautiful nor lush, and my hair was thinning on top, which I knew would be evident given that we were equal in height. “What I really want to do is to make the world a better place,” she’d told me within the first few minutes. I wasn’t exactly sure what she’d meant by this. “That’s a great idea!” I’d said.

  Then we’d strolled out of the business district and into the natural foods store, because if you really want to break the ice, you do it by taking a yoga class together. I’d never done yoga before, but I’d wanted to show her that I was up for anything, an easygoing guy, fun-loving, wearing droopy pants with a drawstring, perched on the edge of a rubber mat in a room smelling of body odor and brown rice, making me think how everything was so laughably cliché, including Lizzy herself, who was going by the stage name Saraswati, with bare feet, turquoise earrings, and temperate voice, cooing her students into positions that I quickly realized I could never achieve without risking injury. Class had scarcely begun and I had sweat dripping off the tip of my nose, trying to twist to my right, trying to touch my toes, trying to focus on the light within or something. Lizzy had come over and adjusted me. “Like this,” she’d whispered. Her hands were on the small of my back, pressing softly, as if there might be hope for me after all. “Breathe,” she’d said, but I was already breathing, panting really. I was under the false impression, perhaps brought on by mental and physical exhaustion, that she had never touched anyone the way she was touching me. Later, she’d say, “I could feel the sadness in your body.” She was talking about me, but she was also talking about her.

  I’m wrong: we make it through Maine in a day and a half, staying overnight in a town called Yarmouth, about an hour from the border, where we hope to book a room in one of those old-timey inns, the kind from bygone days, with board games in the pantry, yogurt in the morning, and small talk about small-town life. But there are no inns in the vicinity, or bed-and-breakfasts, or lodges for that matter, an example of where society is heading, or where it has already arrived—this according to Lizzy. There is, however, a Motel 6, one story in taupe, where the attendant at the front desk also wants to know where we’re from and also has “a great deal” on a room with a king-sized bed and spectacular views, plus free Wi-Fi with password. He pretends as if he’s surprised by how great a deal all of this is. Again I hand over our joint credit card, which he swipes through without incident, granting Lizzy and me the electronic key that will get us into our room, Room 112, in taupe, and which, from first impressions, seems to have been designed with traveling executives in mind, swivel chair, charging station, walls covered with framed and mass-produced watercolors of Small-Town Past, all nature and shoppes and no people. But who are we trying to kid, we love this Room 112, despite the assembly-line feel, in fact, we love i
t because of the assembly-line feel. Here there is Wi-Fi and cable TV. Here there is no draftiness or creakiness or an innkeeper poking around at night. Here there are hotel toiletries, brand names in small bottles, which we will collect as we travel, every one of them, stock up for years and always remember where we were when. It’s nearly dusk and the “spectacular view” we had been promised is limited to thirty yards from our window, through which we can see a teardrop swimming pool with a plaque that reads in indemnifying block print SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. Just beyond the swimming pool is our Cadillac Escalade, waiting patiently for us in the empty parking lot, its hood gradually transforming beneath the setting sun from crimson to ruby red, then, a moment later, an even darker shade of that, which is blood-red. Lizzy and I lie on our backs on the king-sized mattress, awed by the expanse, our fingers intertwined as we look up at the popcorn ceiling in taupe, saying nothing. I have a feeling that this might be the time for Lizzy to have “the talk” with me, or a talk, the first in a series, hopefully civil, about what the future holds for us, her and me. She’ll begin lightly, politely, speaking gently, a soft-shoe prelude about everything we have done together, lo these last years, and everything that we can still do together, hypothetically speaking, with the years that remain. After which, the conversation will segue from everything we have done to everything we have not done, items fixed and indisputable, and which includes marriage and children, as if I alone stand as the obstacle.

  But, lying there on the king-sized bed, our fingers intertwined, Lizzy broaches nothing, and neither do I, something soporific and soothing having apparently been induced by those three hundred slow-going miles in the Cadillac Escalade.

  It’s the next morning at the border between Maine and New Hampshire where things take a turn for the worse. “Have your travel documents ready,” reads the LED display, but there are no patrolmen anywhere around. I pull into the designated spot, marked by official and inscrutable arrows, directly behind one other car, which is also waiting for the border patrol, and has, presumably, been waiting for quite some time, because the engine is off and the passengers seem to be dozing in the front seat. It occurs to me how few cars we have seen in our travels thus far, moreover, how few people, and that there has been a pervasive sense of abandonment or desertion. But this, of course, is because we have chosen to take the back roads, and here now before us is a subcompact with two doors, more toy than car, the type I had almost considered renting from Hertz back when I was in the habit of avoiding delight and merriment, which feels so long ago, and which I can say with confidence, sitting as I am in my leather seat with my leather steering wheel, surrounded by wood trim and chrome accents, with climate control set to perfect, that I am thankful for having made such personal growth. Indeed, I could sit here all day, gazing at the view where Maine becomes New Hampshire, a scene reminiscent of those watercolors from the walls of the Motel 6, pastoral, prosaic, no sound, all nature, Lizzy and me insulated within our Cadillac Escalade, the glowing knobs of the dashboard blinking at us with essential information, as if we are inside a spaceship orbiting the land, rather than of it.

  “How long are we supposed to wait?” Lizzy asks.

  “Slow waiting,” I say. I thought this would go over well, but it does not. Evidently she is now in a hurry. She leans across me and presses hard on the horn, harder than necessary, longer than necessary, pushing with both hands. The horn sounds more like detonation than horn, and it disrupts the New England serenity, startling the passengers in the subcompact who are sitting upright and getting presentable for the authorities. I have a good feeling that this, this inconsiderate behavior by Lizzy, this act against nature, is going to be our first fight of the trip, and before I can fully work out an opening salvo that will cut hard and deep, the doors of the subcompact swing open, and instead of two chumps emerging from the car, I’m discomfited to see that it’s actually two border patrolmen, dressed in dark blue uniforms, the New Hampshire coat of arms on one shoulder, the official bird, whatever it is, on the other. They are strapping, these patrolmen, six feet tall, barely fitting into their shirts, full heads of hair, no need here to lie about height or age, striding toward our Cadillac Escalade with the mistaken impression that it was I, not Lizzy, who had sounded the horn.

  They tap on our windows with their flashlights as if they were the ones to have pulled up behind me, rather than the other way around, their silver rifles strung across their shoulders, long enough to be a third leg, appearing burnished and indestructible in the sunshine.

  “Let’s see your travel documents,” they say without preamble.

  Here we are not “folks.” Here there is no New England goodness. Here we are playing solely by the rules.

  Happily, our documents are in the glove compartment, six weeks in the bureaucratic making and all in order, but when I reach over and pop the glove compartment open, out they tumble, falling windswept across the floor mat emblazoned with the Hertz logo.

  “You can’t read the LED display?” the patrolmen ask. They are annoyed that I am not prepared, despite how much time I have had to do so, and this, I am sure, will be seen as an indication of out-of-state disrespect.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, “I sure can read it!” I hear the emasculation coating my voice and I’m helpless to stop it. Later, Lizzy will pile on about the importance of maintaining dignity, especially in the presence of authority, especially in this day and age. “When our self-respect goes,” she will say, quoting someone, “what then will we be left with?”

  The patrolmen shine their flashlights inside the car, looking for I know not what, the flashlight diffused by the sunlight coming through the sunroof. They want to know who we are. They want to know who we are to each other. They want to know what’s in the cooler in the back.

  “Sixteen bottles of green tea,” Lizzy tells them.

  “How do you know the exact number?” they ask. They suspect they’re on to something.

  “Because I bought them,” she says matter-of-factly, “and I’ve drunk them.” She has a hard edge in her voice. She’s giving as good as she’s getting. She would never allow herself to be deprived of self-respect, even if it means we are made to sit here for hours by a vindictive, protocol-obsessed border patrol, who can, if they want, terminate our journey and send us back up into Maine.

  But the patrolmen seem to accept Lizzy’s answer at face value, and they move on to a long list of other inquiries, learned at the academy, such as where our trip began, what time did we leave, where do we intend to go. They’re leaning in through the open windows of the Cadillac Escalade, their chests filling the frame, as if they’re just chatting with us. I get the sense that they’re more bored than annoyed, and that we are their chief diversion for the day, a routine border stop that they will draw out until their shift is over. They would probably rather be policemen than patrolmen, occupying, as they do, the lowest rung of law enforcement, their principle activity guarding the state perimeter in snow, rain, and heat. When they shoot to kill it’s almost always from a distance, and only after having chased some poor fool for half a mile through the New England underbrush.

  “It took you that long to come this far?” they ask. Again they suspect they’re on to something.

  “The scenic route!” I say.

  They think I’m being literal. “Which route is that?” they say.

  “The zigzag route,” Lizzy says.

  “Is that so?” They don’t know what either one of us is talking about.

  They ask what business we have had in Maine and what business we will have in New Hampshire.

  “No business,” I say, “just personal.” Child cheerful.

  “What’s wrong with your own state?” they want to know.

  I’m not sure if this is a question for which I am supposed to have an answer. “Nothing is wrong with it,” I say.

  “Is that so?” they say. Then they take the travel documents from me and disappear back into the subcompact, the car sinking beneath their
weight, our precious paperwork out of sight, being manhandled by bored and frustrated law enforcement who dream of greater glory.

  Lizzy is muttering to herself, saying goddamn this, goddamn that.

  “They can see you muttering,” I say.

  “Let them see me,” she says.

  She’s going to make this worse for us and then she’s going to blame society.

  “What gives them the right to ask us anything?” Lizzy asks. I want to tell her that, first and foremost, their guns give them the right.

  When the border patrolmen return, I am sad to see that they have carelessly rolled up our travel documents and are holding them as if they are batons with which they plan to beat against the windshield of our Cadillac Escalade.

  They say, “Are you sure you didn’t come all this way just to stay?”

  “No, sir,” I say.

  “We’re asking the lady,” they say.

  “Why would I want to stay?” Lizzy says.

  “Why would you want to leave?” they say.