The Escape or Marrying Moritz
There are few things I miss about living in Oklahoma. One is Braum’s. It was the best ice cream in the world. Even if you came in for just a milkshake and left stinking of greasy burgers and fries, it was worth it. I don’t know why they bothered with food. I guess because everyone else was doing it and Oklahoma was the kind of place that valued what everyone else was doing, even if it took Oklahoma years to catch on, they’d stock up and pretend that’s the way it’s always been. They were wearing flannels and Doc Martin’s and acting depressed at youth group years after Kurt Cobain shot himself. No wonder people on planes asked if we had Television yet. It’s obvious we don’t catch on too quickly to trends. But Braum’s always smelled bad, especially the one I grew up by. Post Road. It was so tiny that even if you just ran in to buy milk, the car still running outside, your dollar fifty in your hand ready to be rung up, your clothes instantly saturated that greasy food smell. It was inevitable.
Everyone talks about getting out, but no one actively tries. Even the ones who get out for a little while, maybe a few years for college or the military takes them far and away, they always wind up back where they started from. Typically just a few blocks away from where they started from actually. That way when the grandkids start coming, grandma and grandpa are close by to help out. That’s the cycle. You were taken care of by dear ol gran and gramps, then your mom and dad feed you and cloth you and send you to a school where everything seems safe because everything outside of this state must be treacherous and gloomy. That’s what Charlie said when he went to Atlanta for those six months. Pure Hell. And Cindy met that rich doctor in Charlottesville who turned out to be nuts and ruined her credit. No one comes back with tales of honor and excitement. Those people know how fucking warped it is. They never come back. In their mind, Oklahoma was a black hole and sucked itself up. Every time there’s a map that must be a panhandled patch stuck on so that new maps didn’t have to be reordered and distributed for the rest of the country. That’s what I told myself anyway.
I knew if I was going to get out and stay out, I’d have to be clever. Working seemed pointless, I knew women never rise up to the level of a man without sucking a few cocks and that just wasn’t what I wanted my future to be. I knew college wasn’t an option, I couldn’t even afford a bus ticket. I knew there had to be a way, I just waited patiently until it came to me.
At the start of sophomore year, I ended up sitting next to our German foreign exchange student. I copied his geometry homework and he needed help writing essays about all senior required reading. Everyone else watched the movies anyway, but I liked reading back then, so I didn’t mind, and I figured I’d have to do all that work in a couple years anyway, so I might as well get it out of the way now. We weren’t good friends. I never sat with him at lunch and he never invited me to come to his host mother’s house to go swimming. If we saw each other at the football games we smiled and that was that. I needed geometry and he needed essays and there was no need to complicate that partnership, so we didn’t.
Then a couple years later he shows up. I had heard that he was in town because everyone talks, but I didn’t believe that rumor. Then I saw him in the flesh. I knew he said he would miss the free refills, but I didn’t think that it would be enough to make him come back, so I was really surprised when I saw him pumping gas into this red Camry. He had just cleaned the windshield, but there were still a lot of bug guts all over the front headlights.
What the hell are you doing here?
I made too much party back home. Needed to get out before my brain was no more and this place was a place with not so much party so I came back.
That’s retarded.
I know of this now.
Moritz was living in the same apartment complex that his host mother lived in. They did not talk to him though. Even though she came over when he moved in and she said if you ever need a cup of sugar or some meatloaf, please stop by.
