Page 11 of Goode Vibrations
Once back on the path, I pretended my heart wasn’t beating out of my chest, offering her a winsome, breezy grin. “Piece of piss, yeah?”
“Ohmygod I’m going to get into so much trouble,” she gasped.
“Nah, love, not if you don’t tell. As far as anyone needs to know, we stayed on the path the whole time. It’s all good.”
“But you just almost died.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t, did I?” I pulled up the shot I’d gotten for my trouble. “Plus, look at this. Worth it, I’d say.”
She leaned against me to look, and bless her for the down-blouse glimpse I got. “Wow, that’s amazing.”
“Oh, just wait till I get it into Lightroom and touch it up a bit. That’s gold, that is. My editor’s gonna love that one.”
We walked back, and she stuck a bit closer to me than was strictly necessary. “So, now what?” she asked.
“Well, now I find somewhere to have brekky.”
“Have what?” she asked, laughing.
“Breakfast.”
“Oh. There’s a nice cafe in town. I’d show you, but my shift just started.”
Damn, damn, damn. She was a cute little thing, too. Smiling up at me. A few more of my better stories and I’d have her eating out of the palm of my hand. But, sadly, I felt the highway calling me, louder than my need to linger till her shift was over and see what trouble we could get into.
“And I’d hang about town till your shift was over, but I gotta get a move on.” I shrugged, offering a sad smile. “Thanks for the tour, though.”
She seemed bummed, but smiled back at me. “No problem. Glad you didn’t, you know, die in the cave. I’d have gotten fired for sure if you had.”
“I always know the risks I’m taking. No worries.” We were at the gift shop by then, so I said goodbye to her, picked up a little shot glass as a souvenir, and hit the highway.
No direction, no itinerary, no one to rendezvous with, just…freedom.
St.Louis. The arch, some urban exploration. Old warehouses, litter-ridden streets, and glitzy high-rises. I found an abandoned manufacturing plant in a district outside the city where I was fairly certain I was not entirely safe, pulled my van into a tiny alley behind the plant where it was less likely to be stolen or ransacked. I spent several hours shooting the plant, climbing dizzy heights up into the rafters to get bird’s eye and tilt-shift shots, slid under machinery and climbed over it and squeezed behind things, ducked through broken glass windows and yanked open rusting doors.
By the time the sun had set, I had thousands of great shots. Once the sun started setting, though, some primeval instinct had me hightailing it for my van and I made tracks out of the city before dark found me in what felt to my well-honed instincts as being sus as hell.
I found a single track that dead-ended at a signal tower off in the wops miles from the highway, parked my van and caught some sleep. Dawn found me wide-awake, so I heated water for some pour-over coffee, lit my camp stove outside and rustled up some eggs. On a motorcycle trip across the wild interior of Russia, I discovered that if I stopped at a little farm somewhere, I could usually buy a dozen or two fresh eggs, which would keep unrefrigerated for months, and I’d continued that habit anywhere I went, and the rural expanses of America were no exception, and speaking the language made it easier than it’d been in Russia. I used the Westfalia’s tiny fridge to keep meat and veg in, and left the beer warm because I’d rather have warm beer and fresh beef.
An hour past breakfast, I was zinging along a picturesque two-lane through cattle pastures, singing along to a Harry Styles song, and yes, I realize some may call my masculinity into question over it, but question it to my face if you dare—you’ll be choking on your teeth if you do.
And that’s when I saw her.
We can meet again somewhere/somewhere far away from here…
She was on her knees on the side of the highway. Bent forward, crouched, hunched. All I saw was the finest backside the world has ever known, spread out in a floral skirt, leather boots peeking underneath, a lush man of raven-black hair.
Yes, I saw the skirt, the boots, the hair, the rounded arch of her back in the ribbed white “wife beater” tank top, and god we need a better term for that shirt, don’t we? I sawher, but I was going seventy and all I saw was that ass.
Round, juicy enough to make my jaw drop even as I hurtled past at seventy. Thick, firm. Fuck, that ass. It was…god, there are no words. Just a damned perfect bottom, so perfect my foot was mashing the brake and my hands were steering the Westfalia off onto the shoulder, because I didn’t care what the situation was, I had to—hadto—meet the owner of that ass.
Out of habit, as I exited the driver’s side I yanked my camera off the passenger seat and slung it over my shoulder, because I wouldn’t feel naked if you stripped me to my Jandals and not a stitch else as long as I had my camera, but without it I’d feel naked as a jaybird even if fully clothed.
She was taking a photo. In the dirt of the highway shoulder, elbows braced on the ground, bent over to get the angle, shooting a wildflower growing improbably tall out of a crack in the blacktop.
“You’re in my light,” she said, in the distracted tone of someone utterly focused and annoyed at disruption.
Indeed, I was casting a shadow across her shot, so I moved so I was out of the way, and watched her work. She shifted to the side, and I heard the real click of a shutter, noticed her camera was a gorgeous antique Minolta. She shuffled around on her hands and knees a bit, to get the blacktop in view I assumed, checked her settings, adjusted her ISO a tweak, snapped.Click click click…click…clickclickclick.