Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll get through graduation then–boom! I’m outta here. I’m heading west. No destination, no plan, just the road and me and a trunkful of Bangs.
And once I’m past the Mississippi–I’ve never been past the Mississippi, the closest I’ve been is reading bits of Huck Finn for class when I felt like trying–but after the Mississippi, I’m west, right? ’Cause that’s where I’m going.
And once I’m there, I’ll go to one of those rodeos, with the cows and the ropes and all that stuff. And there’ll be a real cowgirl there in her pink plaid and cowboy hat and glittery cowboy boots. She’ll see me in the crowd and give me a wink just as she ropes the calf without even tryin’. Then afterwards we’ll find each other and drive into the desert and look up at the stars from the back of her truck, with George Strait playing.
I mean, it happens in the movies, so it has to happen to someone in real life sometime, doesn’t it? Why not me? Why can’t I get the girl and sit beneath the stars listenin’ to music we’ll remember forever after?
But maybe it just won’t work. You know how it is. She has a father with a gun and she has a horse she loves, and I have a car that hasn’t reached the Pacific yet. (That’s the one by California, right? Yeah, I’m sure it is.)
So nevermind the cowgirl. Who cares about her? I keep driving, ’cause that’s what I’m going to do.
Then I’m in the mountains, and there’s still snow, ’cause there’s always snow in the mountains, and I decide to take up skiing. My instructor’s cold, impersonal, but about my age, maybe just a little older. She makes fun of me a lot, but we get stuck on the lift for hours in a blizzard and we get to talking. She’s trying to make the Olympics, but her father just doesn’t understand. He wants her to take over the family business, a series of Airbnb chalets. (See, I do know some fancy words.) And after the blizzard ends, well, then we–we–-
Okay, fine, she’ll never fall for me. I mean, there are all sorts of hot Swedish guys on the slopes and stuff. What am I? Just a guy who works at Pizza Hut until he graduates and heads west. But a man can dream, can’t he? Guys always get the girl in the movies? I mean, Hallmark, right?
But I just keep driving, because that’s what the road’s for, isn’t it? And why even have a west if a young man don’t go that way? You understand, don’t you, the need to do something new, something a bit crazy? To just go for it?
And so I’ll drive. After the mountains, it’s just California, right? So I get to California. The beach, the sun, the waves. Cute girls everywhere. How is a guy to choose? Well, he doesn’t. Because, imagine it, me on a beach, with all those bikinis. Me, on a movie set. They’d take one glance at my pasty white skin over their cool sunglasses and then go back to sunning themselves. And some dude who’s just a smile and glistening pecs spikes a volleyball into my face and I eat sand. But he ends up being an alright guy, you know. He tries to apologize, he tries to teach me to surf, he makes sure I don’t drown, but at the end of the day I just stumble to my car and fall asleep. I’m broke. I ain’t got money for a room, but from what I hear, it’s the thing to be homeless out in California, so there’s that, at least.
And then I turn around and come back and get a job and make some money and join the Y or something, I guess. But I’ll always be thinking I missed my opportunity, that I had my chance to do something, to be a big shot, to touch, for just one moment, something like that feeling you get from a movie when everything clicks, and everything’s perfect, and you risk everything because, deep down, you knew what you wanted.
And that’s why I’m telling you, I’m going out west, one way or another, but it won’t be like the movies. I know there’s no girl out there for me. It’s a fact.
’Cause you’re right here.
And so I’m going to do something crazy, and this ain’t a movie, but maybe all the dreams of Hollywood’re just practice for what’s going on here in this old town, between you and me and everyone who feels like you and me and maybe I’ll quit talking if you’d only just say something.
I mean, you do want to go west, don’t you–maybe just once?