Genealogy

by goatgirl

Hands

by Treason

Minimum Wage Strike

by David Rovics

listen to this song (all of David’s music available for free listening/downloading at davidrovics)

Road Trip

by goatgirl

At least the dirty porcelain was cool on her cheek. She stared at the grimy wall behind the flush handle until another wave of nausea rolled through her and the last of her breakfast plopped heavily into the toilet.

As she was wiping her mouth, the heavy metal bathroom door slammed open.

“Hey, Kee, I got you a coke. How ya doin?”

Kira groaned from inside the stall where she squatted. She could hear the squeak of her friend’s sneakers pacing in front of the sink and the clink of the soda can on the sink as she set it down. Kira closed her eyes and tried to think of stillness. The sickness passed, and Kira sighed and settled on the floor, her back to the stall door, rubbing her belly.

“God. That sounded awful. So, what do you think it is? Maybe those burgers back in Woonsocket? I told you I thought it was a mistake to stop anyplace named Woonsocket. I mean, what kind of a name is that? The kind of name where they give you food poisoning for lunch, that’s what.”

Kira smiled thinly. She could picture her friend’s frenetic energy in the small room, twisting her thick dreadlocks, scratching her neck, pulling at her t-shirt.

“I hope you don’t have the flu or something. Kee, I swear, I can’t take one more setback on this trip. I mean, the car and everything. I can’t even believe we got on the road. If you have the flu I’ll just have to nurse you back to health, that’s all. We’ll just do lots of orange juice and echinacea and… hey. Kee? You OK?”

“Yeh. I just need a minute. I’m just gonna sit here for a sec.” Glazed with a cool sweat under her t-shirt, she shivered. On the wall next to her was a spattering of grafitti: coupled names and lonely floating initials and phone numbers. At the stretch of her arm was the word FUCK carved so deeply in the door that layers of paint could not cover it. Kira traced the words with a shaking hand. Fuck. Yeah. Slowly, she stood up. Bits of breakfast still floating in the toilet made her stomach twist again, but she swallowed hard and flushed it away.

Back in front of the single sink and tin mirror, Julie was leaning so close to the mirror that her hair touched it, poking at her eyebrow. Seeing Kira walk unsteadily out of the stall, she jumped to her friend’s side and hesitantly put her hand on Kira’s shoulder. Her friend’s halo of patchouli and fresh sweat made her want to bury her head in Julie’s t-shirt and weep with relief.

“Want a drink?” she asked sympathetically. Kira nodded and Julie handed her the coke. “My mom always says that coke is the best thing for an upset tummy. It comes from the coca tree, the same stuff they use to make coke. You know,” Julie sniffed loudly and wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully at Kira. “But it settles your stomach. So my mom says.” Julie scrunched her nose and twisted a thick rope of hair around her fingers. Kira burped and they both giggled.

“Better,” Kira said, forcing a smile. “Let me just wash up.” She turned on the cold water, ran her fingers under the stream, and dabbed the icy water on the back of her neck.

“Maybe it’s just the heat?” Julie said. Kira hummed non-commitally. Her reflection in the tin mirror was a pale, wavy blur, but she pushed at her hair anyway and straightened her shoulders.

Outside the bathroom door the sunlight bleached the wide parking lot. Kira squinted at the starburst glare from the dozens of windshields at the car dealership next door. In contrast, the parking lot of this gas station was empty—a wide, tarmac plain punctuated by the gas pumps and their tri-color station wagon. The car had belonged to Julie’s older brother, Jim, and he had condescendingly sold it to them for their road trip, laughing at them for trying to drive it across the country. “Give me yours, then,” Julie had taunted, and he’d leaned against his new SUV protectively. “Get a job,” he’d retorted, “and you can buy your own.” When Julie had playfully slapped his chest he wrestled her to the ground, and Kira, watching from the other side of the car, wished desperately in that sun-glazed moment for the ease Julie and her brother did not even notice—she couldn’t remember the last time someone touched her.

The vinyl seats inside the wagon were scorching under the thin batiked sheets that covered them. A piece of plastic piping poked into Kira’s knee as she settled into the deep concave, hissing at the heat under her thighs. The wagon smelled like a boy’s car underneath the veneer of incense: deeply ingrained dirt and motor oil and cigarettes. Their sleeping bags were piled untidily in the back seat from last night’s camp, dusty and reeking of campfire. Julie slid behind the steering wheel and turned the key, her forehead wrinkled in deep concentration as the car squealed to life and she eased it into first.

“Hear that? We’ll probably need to replace the fan belt before we even get to the Rockies,” Julie told her as they chugged onto the Interstate. “It’s no big deal, I’ve seen my brother do it a thousand times. We should probably find a supply store soon and get it so that when it goes we’re not stuck in the middle of Bumblefuck Kansas with a broken fan belt and our thumbs up our asses.”

“OK,” Kira said. Neither of them said anything for a long while as Janis moaned softly from the backseat speakers. That woman’s voice could break your heart, Kira thought, it’s just full of tears. She tried to hear it as if she couldn’t speak the language, to listen to just the music, but the words crept in anyway: “A woman left looooonely will soon grow tiiiiiiired of waiting, She’ll do craaaaaaaaazy things, yeah, on lonely occaaaaaasions…”

Kira began to sing. “A woman left loooooooonely, she’s the victim of her maaaaan, yes she is…” Julie glanced at her, eyebrows raised. Kira placed her hand on her heart and mimed deep, passionate grief. “When he can’t keep up his own waaaaaay, good Lord, she’s got to do the best that she caaaaaaaaan.” Julie giggled, and Kira finished the song, her hand draped dramatically on her forehead. Reaching for the radio knob, she turned suddenly to Julie, whose cigarette smoke was being sucked out by the fierce slipstream. “Do you want kids?”

“What?” Julie flicked her cigarette out and rolled up her window, glancing at Kira’s earnest face.

“Do you want kids? Someday?”

“I guess. I mean, I think I will. I don’t now. Man, when I babysit for Jim I can’t wait to give’em back.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember Ginger? After her baby she got all fat. And after graduation we never saw her again. I mean, she, like, disappeared.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess, maybe someday? After I’m married?”

Julie lit another cigarette and offered the pack to Kira. She shook her head, nausea wriggling in her belly again. They cruised on for a few moments, the silence loud in the absence of the rushing air from the window. Julie’s smoke filled the car. Kira cracked her window and leaned her head on the cold glass, her mind numb as she watched the flashing summer trees outside.

They stopped for gas again in Pennsylvania. The sun was half-hidden by the full trees, and their shadows danced tall on the tar as they waited for the tank to fill. One of the best things about Julie was that Kira didn’t ever have to talk. She could sit silently for hours, smoke swirling around them and Janis howling endlessly as the tape played over and over, letting Julie fill the quiet.

When the gas pump clicked, Julie squeezed in another dollar and then walked to the register, the slapping of her sandals echoing off the concrete-block building. Kira leaned against the warm car, the peculiar stillness clearing slowly from her mind like the smoke blowing out the car window.

She could see Julie talking with the clerk at the counter, probably asking if there was a campsite nearby that they could stay in. The clerk was laughing. As she watched them through the window, the lights at the gas island flicked on, and she suddenly was drenched in the orange arc-sodium glare. She was marooned in the light for a moment, dazed, blazing in a weird pavement desert. She shivered and climbed back into the car, rubbing her sunburned arms to warm the rising goosebumps.

Kira took a deep breath as Julie came out of the gas station, grinning and waving their road map. Kira turned in the sticky seat to face the driver’s spot and waited for her friend to climb in, so they could go.

The Soup Song

sung to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean".
A depression era song; words by Ruth A. Fox.