Jesse Maskell
Montana, June 2015
A race across the country skipping everything I want to see, farmland from a car window always hungry to go into them, down those roads, further in, fleetingly small towns not even, I’m strapped in with Chris a rideshare stranger from Craigslist on this wild ride gotta believe it’s worth more than not. Three nights in I finally vent messaging Victor–finally get a chance, so mad were the days all full end to end flying hundreds of miles constantly with Chris barely alone even in motels him talking when I finally sleep I absolutely need precious sleep after ten hours on the road, sleep-deprived from day one, if for nothing else than to drive safer the next day. Victor “who cares if it’s a bit weird, or uncomfortable, ride it out you’ll get so much out of it” easy reassures, Rock Springs hellhole goodnight.
Middle-of-nowhere Wyoming houses on the road to Yellowstone.
We glided into Yellowstone up and up in pine-tree parades, the blue-skies day, after Yellowstone stopping for petrol on the north-exit town on the border of Montana. And Montana was
11pm Montana Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence album blasting, Cruel World, as Chris yells over it stories of past girlfriends and how American girls are (“they’re all polite and proper on the outside, but inside, they’re nuts, once they’re in the bedroom, they’re crazy man”), advice, marriage advice me leaned in from the passenger seat to hear over the roar of the open windows at 75mph and Lana Del Rey, and we hurtle into the black silhouette of the Rockies against deep purple sky for an all-nighter, over brief Idaho passes and into Washington for Seattle tomorrow, I steel myself.
© Jesse Maskell 2015 Extract from an untitled manuscript.
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