So, the sunrise outside Ann Arbor—I figured I’d say something about that. I was in my parked car, reclined all the way, feet pressed against the radio, thinking about falling asleep there, outside that gas station. I was less than halfway to where I was headed when I saw the sun come over the pines, when I decided to keep going, when I decided to stop smoking, after just this last one.
The cigarette bounced out my rolled-down window, caught a breeze, floated into grass sparkled with dew. I had started, miles before the sunrise, to describe things in my head as sparkled, dazzled, majestic, and so on. Water and seagulls underneath the Mackinac Bridge during last night’s sunset—that was glitter. I had crossed the bridge; I had decided to stop smoking, after just that last one. That cigarette hit a car’s windshield and flew into the straits. In my rearview mirror: sparks and a swearing woman. She passed me on a slight curve, flipped me off, sped onto an exit ramp. I’d expected as much. Once, back home on our major road, a woman threw a hamburger against my window, made me swerve a bit.
There was a bookstore in Ann Arbor. Before another sunset, I stood looking at the novels and short stories and no one asked if I needed help. A person in college-themed sweatpants dropped their stack on my feet. I joked that my feet were made of titanium. The person in college-themed sweatpants laughed and invited me to a party, wrote an address in my phone, smiled after the books were rearranged in their arms. I told them my schedule was tight, which it wasn’t, was never.
Outside the bookstore, in my car, I read about this new drug for depression and anxiety. It was a shot for which you had to pay thousands of dollars. I wondered if I needed a shot like that. One of my problems is not understanding my problems. I sat with my therapist and talked about childhood memories. I have problems telling stories. I get on one track and backflip to another, running in the opposite direction. One second I’m pulling a freight train from Kansas City to Las Vegas. The next second I’m in southern Indiana, headed to Atlanta. I know that’s a problem. I wish I understood it. I watched a man in glasses leave the bookstore with a paper bag. I watched the paper bag rip. I laughed hard enough at to cough. That was another thing wrong with me: laughing, at first, when someone needed help. I’d laugh before helping. I’d still help. I’d laugh first.
Coughing in my car, I wondered if they had shots for whatever was wrong with me. The man didn’t want help. He waved me away, grumbled into his fallen books, adjusted his tie, swore with a Nordic-sounding cadence, yelled at a bus for almost breaking his legs.
That was the bookstore in Ann Arbor.
At a liquor store in Ann Arbor, I weighed a plastic bottle of vodka in my hand. I picked up a bigger bottle and held it like an old cat.
In a grocery store parking lot in Ann Arbor, I slept and dreamed that all my pants were back home, folded and forgotten in my drawer. There was loud music in my dream and I was naked, not having a good time, getting yelled at by a disembodied voice.
Outside a house party in Ann Arbor, I counted people on a porch, counted people through the front window, counted people dancing, counted people talking, hugging, drinking, shaking hands.
Outside a house party in Ann Arbor, I pulled away.
I found a motel near the highway, off the southbound side.
Here’s my point: that was day two.
I woke up in the darkness.