the habit of being

There are plateaus in New Mexico and in Colorado. I remember �plateau� as a vocabulary word in an elementary school geography lesson, a social studies class. I had a sneaking suspicion that these funny things did not exist outside diagrams, where they were only used to demonstrate what funny land shapes they could conjure up with funny names to memorize. I�m from where the ground is flat.

It’s early morning, by sleepy I-25 South, surely one of the most seldom-used stretches of highway in the country. The cars don�t come and when they do come they don�t stop and long do we sit by the side of the road, waiting. The scene includes mountains with trees but no tree line. There�s an RV park on the other side of the freeway, piles of construction junk further down. Green Interstate signs and well known logos. Texaco. McDonalds. I use our black umbrella as a parasol. Sitting girl, dirty clothes, head scarf, road. He reads. He holds the sign. SOUTH TO ALBUQUERQUE. A dog is barking. The bark crosses the freeway from the RV park, sits on my shade umbrella. I see myself, a funny sight, an enchanting one.

He asks me �when was the last time you remember having fun?� This is an accusation. Fun? �I like playing checkers,� I say. We play pennies against nickels on a hand-drawn board. It is a weak answer. I wish I had said, �when was the last time we had sex?� This is an accusation.

I dreamt of tearing open chickens and speaking to people knew that there were people called Katharine and James but did not know that we were those people. They told me that James cared for me so much more than for anything else, and that real James who stood next to me snickered.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she dreamt she gave birth to a kitten instead of a girl, and upon bringing it home from the hospital she accidentally left it in a dresser drawer, and it died. I haven�t dreamt of children or of cats, only of becoming more and more pregnant, and huge. I tried to talk to him about it, but I couldn�t find the words, I just say I wish I could get it over with, the abortion, and I am scared I will just wait and wait until I won�t let it happen.

He says he knows and hold my hand and it is terribly insincere. He says �it must be hard for you.� Traveling like this, with the emotions and the hormones running amok. I want to say �you have no idea;� I want to tell him all about it. I cannot. I say I am tired, I am dizzy, I am sick, I am hungry, I am afraid. Today was the last day I could�ve gotten the pill. We have $65; we need $300 or $400. The signage blitz isn�t working. We�re in the middle of nowhere, trying to get to Albuquerque, and we�re running around in circles.

�Do you have a better idea?� he asks. No. �Do you want to try something else?� No.

I want to rest. I want to sleep in. I want to eat something that isn�t fast food, that isn�t peanut butter sandwiches. I want to get away from the sun. I want to wipe out the red, the orange, the yellow. These New Mexico colors are everywhere, on the ground in the sky. My skin is splattered with this paint and I am tan and I am fire and I am burning and I feel like I�m going to vomit up a sun-baked baby.

To write, I take down the umbrella. The sun squints my eyes, muddles my thoughts. My nose is stinging. My arms are stinging. Sweat drips slowly down my neck. Next to me are a small pelt and a smear that used to be an animal. If I never moved, that might be me. On an entrance ramp, I saw a near-mummified dog, a grotesque rug, like the sheep and the lions with the heads still on, looking at the parlor floor.

I�m sitting on a rolled up sleeping bag. He�s sitting on his pack. A jeep just passed us, talk radio spilling out the windows. If I stood up, I would fall down. A sign says there�s a Holiday Inn at the next exit. I want.

Our water is tinted with Hawaiian Punch, from the soda fountain where we filled up our bottles. It tastes bad and I don�t want to drink it but I�m so thirsty and my piss says I�m not drinking enough.