Genesis Road by Susan O'Dell Underwood

Author:Susan O'Dell Underwood [Underwood, Susan O’Dell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Madville Publishing
Published: 2022-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

In the Arizona morning, the national forests vanished. I checked the map for upcoming spans of green, but on our route, from Williams to Kingman to Vegas and Death Valley, there was not a speck of forest, just miles of bullying sun and heat like a cocked gun.

Carey convinced me we should take a stretch of old Route 66. We were the only car that exited, out of hundreds. For twenty minutes, past desolate sheep farms, the only other vehicle was a ranch wagon hauling lambs. The driver turned to look at the specimen of us, on our way nowhere. I pointed out to Carey that we were coming up on the only entrance back onto I-40 for seventy miles. At a hole-in-the-wall called Seligman I made him pull over and look at the map.

“It’s a historic route,” he argued. “See? It’s marked scenic.”

I got out into the oven-like dry heat and stomped in front of the Jeep, only half-joking. “Stand here and look,” I said. “Don’t lock the keys in the car!” I slid my toe along a wide crack in the asphalt. “Nobody drives here.”

“What are you freaking out about?” He climbed out, grinning at me behind his sunglasses. “There are clubs for people who drive this route.”

“No. Look. Pavement like my Granny’s kitchen linoleum. So holey you can see the layers from every decade. Here’s red asphalt. It’s red. From how long ago?”

“Oh, yeah.” He bent to look. “Like the color of dodgeballs in elementary school! Whose bright idea was that, anyway? Like it’s fun to make kids hurt each other?”

“Carey!” I snapped my fingers toward him. “Pay attention. There is grass growing in the road. Grass!” Brittle blades probed up, in suicidal patches.

“Glenna, there are fences and ranches. Route 66 is on the map. There are towns, for crying out loud.” He laughed, but I shook my head. “Stop worrying.”

I watched the dashboard clock as we set out again. We didn’t pass another car for a half hour. The towns with pretty names, Peach Springs and Valentine, turned out to be skeletons. Old men sat in front of rusted-out, broken buildings and hand-painted cardboard signs. The apocalypse had left them behind.

The road tightened between acre-high piles of brown stones. And in that brief canyon, neither of us could wait any longer to pee. Without a bush in sight, we took turns watching the horizon line in both directions for any sign of a car. Everything butted up against nothing. The thermometer Carey had attached to the outside of the Jeep read 102 degrees at eleven fifteen.

Kingman blustered chaotic wind on a sterile planet, a clutter of chain motels and gas stations where 66 bisected with the four-lane to Vegas, a vein steady with RVs and cars headed in and out of the dusty mountains ahead. A shock of traffic after the miles to ourselves, but a weird relief. Over slow gray rises, in our little confined space, we joined the roving civilization.

Carey slept with his forehead against the window while I drove, taking in the high desert hills like bad medicine.

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