Last summer, early morning, somewhere in Nebraska, I’m sharing an egg McMuffin breakfast meal with the ex’s dog. I don’t remember the name of the town, it probably wasn’t there before the highway came through, maybe it was, but not the part I’m sharing a McMuffin with a white muzzled golden lab in. I pulled over because it was late the night before, I was tired, there was a huge gas sign and motel.
Early morning, mid-Nebraska, the sun barely up and the air oppressive, thick and choked with that green smell of chlorophyll and corn husks, the old lab is working on his second bottle of water in a hand cut old big gulp. Two more days on the road and I hand him over to my ex. I’m missing him more at this moment than I will when he’s gone.
There’s a short line at the drive-thru but it’s moving slow, the smell of grease hangs outside the drive thru window; the air is too thick to let it travel far. There’s an obese man with his obese wife and possibly a couple of kids behind the back privacy glass. He’s sweating at the back of the line, chain smoking, honking every minute or so, well, often enough that the old golden lab is ignoring it as part of the ambience of morning in nowhere Nebraska.
I met the girl at the window a half an hour ago. She’s got tat’s from shoulder to wrist on her right arm, and tats peaking through the modest decollage of the plastic McDonalds blouse. Both of her earlobes are split, some sort of tribal thing I’m sure I don’t understand, or, at least, don’t understand anymore than she does. As the fat mans minivan approachs the window the lab, sensing my anticipation, perks up and watchs, Smart Water dripping from his dewlaps.
I can’t hear over the traffic and distance and thickness of the air, but both the old dog and me smile, though he might pant a bit more than me.
I imagine the conversation during the exchange of green for brown.
“Betcha didn’t think this is how things would turn out didja?” The man says throwing white and red bags in the back seat.
“You either” the tribal white girl from Nebraska says.
My knees creak as I stand up, the dog sighs. Two more days.
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