Vacationland

Graduation day ended with a handshake from dad and a prayer from mom. No party. No cards with cash folded inside. No photos on the front lawn. Just a Dear Jesus protect our son out in the wicked world.

With a middle finger to the skyscraper sized Cross that shadowed the town, I climbed the steps into a Greyhound with a duffel bag. Everything I owned fit under the seat. I couldn’t leave that constrained life fast enough.

The bus smelled like cigarettes and body odor. The air conditioner rattled somewhere overhead only succeeding in moving hot air around the interior. If I pushed my forehead against the glass, I could see the stars above the sprouting cornfields.

Eighteen years old. First night of my life.

I was headed for a summer camp in Maine. Mowing grass in the rain. Scrubbing pots after dinner. Unclogging toilets filled with campers’ shit. Whatever needed doing. The pay was lousy enough to be funny, but they fed you and gave you a bunk. That was enough.

The brochure had smiling kids in canoes and pine trees reflected in a lake. What I noticed were the counselors. The female counselors. Tanned college girls spending three months away from home with nobody watching.

The Way Life Should Be.

Port Authority. Then Boston. Then another bus north. Every stop felt like I shed another husk.

By the time I got to Augusta, my spine felt as stiff as morning wood. The station was empty and smaller than an I-70 rest stop, not even a vending machine next to the dirty water fountain.

I dug a folded scrap of paper from my pocket and found a pay phone.

The number was smudged but still readable.

A woman answered on the second ring.

“Yeah,” I said. “I just got in.”

A pause. Static on the line.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” she said.

Then a click.

I hung up and looked through the station’s glass doors parking lot. Pine trees beyond the Walmart. A state I’d never seen before.

For the first time in my life, I could do what I wanted.

And I wanted to get my dick wet.