Educational Experience

Part III--Chapter 11

"In a New York minute...everything can change..."

We didn't "do it." Sorry.

I just drove like a maniac down this deserted road—a deserted road in the desert. Okay, yes that's the weed talking.

But I wasn't so much running away anymore as giving myself time to think a little bit, finally. And I'd chosen the right companion.

I mean, some people get weird about my long silences, but Celie didn't. She laid back and shut her eyes and chilled. In fact, I thought she was asleep at first. And then she opened her eyes and smiled at me and I realized she was just cool with quiet. Or needed some time to think, too.

We got mad hungry, though, pretty soon, thanks to the blunts and the length of time we'd been away from food by then. So I started consciously looking for signs of a bigger highway or a bunch of lights that might mean we'd found a convenience store or something.

We found a little truck stop thing with a Love's in it—do you know Love's? Or TA? They're these truck stop things that were out there before there were big ass malls all over the place where you can stop and shop and have Starbucks and Olive Garden and all.

They're big diners, basically, that still cook liver and onions and meat loaf and all that. I swear to God, I get liver and onions sometimes. Freaks people out, but I love liver and onions if the liver's not like shoe leather and there's a big mound of mashed potatoes and gravy next to it.

But this time I didn't get liver, I got a humungous, handmade hamburger and a chocolate malt. And Celie got meat loaf because it reminded her of her grandmother who was the only stereotypical Black cook she had ever known. I mean, like the ones in all the movies who cook big soul food dinners on Sunday.

She stuffed a huge big hunk of it in her mouth and made this orgasm noise. And I laughed and said, "Dude. Should I leave you alone with that or what?"

She smiled with her mouth still full, and slid her plate toward me and said, without showing me all the meat loaf in it, "Taste it!"

I ate a forkful and went, "Oh my God! That's, like, crack cravable!"

She almost spit out the food in her mouth, laughing.

And said, "She's going to miss you like hell."

"I just don't wanna talk about it right now. I don't want to feel it right now."

"Shut up and eat your crack, then."

I took another bite and then slid the plate back to her. And then I stole one more piece, but she slapped at my hand when I reached my fork over.

I let myself enjoy that last piece. And then I took a pull on the straw in my malt and said, "So are we gonna make this movie for real or what?"

"Oh, honey, we're gonna kill this movie," she said—suddenly really serious and ferocious. "We're going to do it to death so the whole world knows we're here. To stay. Right?"

"I like that answer."

"I'm serious."

"Good. So am I. I don't know shit about making movies that big, but we'll get people who do."

A coupla cops came in. Highway Patrol. The waitresses got them coffee before they even asked and they started a sort of half-hearted conversation about having to work on New Year's Eve. And how busy the cops must be. Tired people, talking. Tired on lots of levels, pro'bly.

"What is it like to be able to say that?" Celie asked me. "I mean, to be able to say, 'I can buy someone who knows what to do.'"

"Fucked up, right? Lincoln's spinning in his grave somewhere. But I grew up in Arizona. We don't take that emancipation business very seriously here."