Somewhere around Tahoe. What road.

At fourteen, I was flying planes.

My dad flew planes. He was in the Civil Air Patrol.

My grandfather built his own runway in Portland, Michigan, where he flew planes.

My flight instructor’s name was Rene. He was from France. And we did not get along. I did not always understand what he was saying. Usually in French. He screamed a lot.

A lot of what I know about aerodynamics comes from Rene screaming at me over the Cessna’s engine.

No one understood that the reason I was so good at flying with instruments (usually with just the instruments) was because I could not see over the propeller. I was short.

One day, Rene, covered all the instruments up.

I got lost. And landed at the wrong airport.

All the airports looked the same to me.

Ever since learning how to fly, I’ve been traveling.

Is the Internet traveling.

No. It’s sitting on your fat ass. It’s not traveling. There are no aerodynamics to speak of. Even if there is an awful lot of screaming.

In the old days (Paris, don’t ask), the boys I was working with would dive into the Internet and mess around with everything they could find. They lived to mix it up.

Today, the boys I am working with do not so much as remember the 1990s. Because they had not been born. They cannot recall a time when there was no Internet. 911 is someone else’s history.

They do not just dive into anything. They’re cautious, suspicious, casually promiscuous, and they do not look back.

Only one climbs trees.

They see the Internet as the bridge to the Kingdom under which the trolls reside.

They think writing code is stupid when there is someone else around who will do it.

Sometimes, I let them drive my jeep through the Blueridge Mountains where we live. The roads we drive on are mainly lonely, and mainly begin nowhere which is where they end as well.

Boys are bribeable. They love to drive my jeep. There is only one rule. You have to swear you have taken all your meds.

It is usually not a problem unless someone is clinically depressed. In that case, they’re just as likely to drive over the edge, jeep or no jeep.

We had no money. It had been sucked up by the sky.

Somewhere around Tahoe.

Winter.

I do not know why we were somewhere around Tahoe because I do not remember. I have this talent for forgetting things I do not wish to remember.

We had just driven across a lake of black ice swept clear of snow by wind. No lights. Just head the jeep in the direction of what we thought was town.

What weed. I cannot roll a joint if my worthless life depends on it.

Put the top down.

Around the world. Around the world. Around the world. Around the world. Around the whole fucking world.

Freezing, we parked in town and put the top back on.

Then, the boys disappeared. I was alone. I found a coffee shop. Not Starbucks. I pretended to read James Joyce.

I don’t do sex work. I gave it up.

I am sitting in the jeep. They sell whiskey in Tahoe or somewhere around there.

I said I was trying, I really was driving the coast
The fight or the flight, well I side with the latter most
It almost is laughable but when I chuckle I choke
Can’t get the words out my throat of one more
Is that my lion’s pride, I meet my mountain then I run and hide
And I cross my heart and hope to die
Unless I happen to lie

They seemed to reemerge from the night one kid at a time.

We’ve got airplane rides
We got California drowning out the window side
We’ve got big black cars
And we’ve got stories how we slept with all the movie stars

I may take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drink my worries down the drain
And fly away to somewhere new

Is there anywhere you can’t get fucked. No. Not really.

I turned the jeep toward what I thought might be the desert.