We Can’t Hold Hands in Montana
BY SHIRA ERLICHMAN
We drive, hungry, trying to find a place. Actually, we drive past hunger
when we can’t find a place to sate it. Night starts to fill in the space
between mountains. We keep the radio off because it’s all the same
station anyway—some man crooning about a woman gone. It’s so cold
we play rock paper scissors to see who will get out of the car to pump
the gas. You lose. I watch cowboy after cowboy through the windshield.
To be Black and white in a place not Brooklyn is one thing. To be Black and white
and two women in love in a place not Brooklyn is another. You slam the door
and climb in. We drive. In the middle of the blackness, a supermarket so super.
A fluorescent slab cut into the dark. When I open my door, the air hurts.
Inside, three teenagers with greasy, pockmarked faces are running the joint.
If I don’t stand with you, they think I don’t know you. I grab the sliced turkey.
I grab the cheese. I grab a warm bag of pickles. I am building a sandwich
from scratch. When we bump into each other in an aisle overflowing
with empty boxes, we laugh. Like a witch, you’ve located an actual sandwich.
“Living the dream, I see,” I point to the loosely wrapped soggy bread
in the plastic container. “Same ol’ bullshit, I see,” you point at my collection.
Your eyes smile and say something like, We can’t hold hands in Montana.
It’s six years now, so when you know, I know. When I cough, you bless me.
We move quick, but not too quick. You make your way to the checkout
and I follow. I don’t know who will find you up there. I’m scared, but
when I think about why, I get more scared. So I glide my findings across
the conveyor belt and watch you exit the sliding glass doors, beep-beep the car
and close the door behind you, safe. The distance between us is too cold
to breathe. “I can’t believe it,” you say, “it’s actually good,” squeezing
your third mustard packet onto the bread. The night is black, so I drive.
13 days ago, when the cop pulled us over, I was driving. When he let us go,
you said, “I don’t want to even think about what could have happened if I–”
and it’s true. It will be 25 states in all. In New Mexico, I’ll scream at you
on the side of the highway, out of gas and stupid with fear. In Arkansas,
after a big fight, we’ll play a house show where you hold a snake
and I eat a thousand cookies and force you to slow-dance. For months,
everything will be ours—the road, the time. But also, not. For now, Montana.
I wipe mustard from the corner of your mouth even though you don’t like it
when I do that. Your phone rings. It’s your dad, so you pick up. He’s 74
and old-fashioned, but he always asks about me. “How’s Shira doin?”
“She’s doing good,” you say, “She’s right here.”
