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The Circle Game is
a wonderful game, where chase makes a circle with his hand and
positions it somewhere below the waist. If you look at it, he
hits you. I announce every time he does this, “I am not
playing.” He hits me anyways. SO, Ray Charles, according
to Chase Lisbon, actually, invented the circle game. According
to Chase, Ray and Stevie Wonder used to sit around playing for
hours. They had their assistants help with the whole seeing part . And, we are off to Austin in the morning. On our way out of New Orleans, we stop at a restaurant where Chase had worked, when he lived down there. Many of the same employees are still there. Its funny the places that people never leave. New Orleans seems to be one of those places. We are staying in Austin with Will, a friend of Melissa’s. We decide we should bring him something as a “thank you for having us” gift. We are thinking liquor or something of that sort. So, I call Melissa hoping she can suggest something he likes. She comes up with sugar free candy and Brain Wilson. We get to Will’s later than we were supposed to, as usual. We head over to a gathering of sorts, to meet some of the locals. We make it through introductions, and return home to go to sleep. We spend the next day exploring Austin. We end our day of exploration in Will’s front yard in lawn chairs. Myself and Will smoke cigarettes. Chase smokes his pipe. Somehow it becomes dark and no one seems to notice. People come to us. More lawn chairs appear and our circle grows. Will and one of his friends are playing guitars. I smoke another cigarette. Chase has, two barely of age, girls coming down from some town in Texas. The boys and I, from the front yard, go out to dinner. Chase, and the girls, join us later. We arrive at some sort of chain Mexican restaurant, where we are seated, per request, in the “smoking section.” We are lead through the entire restaurant, past the bar, and through a door. We are seated at a booth in the far corner, next to a big screen TV. The seats are maybe a foot off the ground, and we are all having trouble reaching the food and drinks on the table. We each light a cigarette and it no longer matters. We spend day two entertaining Yvette and Brittany, our two new underage friends. We shop and do lunch. We search high and low for a photo booth so the three of them can remember their magical day in Austin together. Will and I are left in the car, while photo booth pictures ensue. I ask Will if he wants to go outside and smoke a cigarette. He insists on smoking in this girl’s car and goes, “Whatever, she can tell her friends her car smells like smoke, because she was hanging out with older kids.” The girls return to where they came from. We go to a bar. Our driver is a little intense. He is a little unaware of pedestrians. The passengers are a little intense. They are eyeing people on the street and yelling “posers” at them. We make it home alive. I want to go to bed in my dress and boots. Will and Chase encourage me to at least take the boots off. I am asleep within 60 seconds, probably in my dress. We eat approximately 15 meals in the three days we are in Austin. We attend the last supper, being day two of Sushi, around 3pm. A girl working at the Sushi restaurant looks at Chase’s Morrissey shirt and goes, “Is that Vanilla Ice?” He tells her it is Morrissey. She goes, “I knew it was either Vanilla Ice or Morrissey.” We return to our lawn chairs for a bit. And, we are off to Albuquerque, with little to no idea how far it is. I tell Sue that Chase gave Kiki away, in Texas, and got me a pet Armadillo instead. I then called the Armadillo cute. She kind of believes me. Chase is driving and I am reading celebrity gossip magazines. I am driving and Chase is sidekicking. He looks up enough to remark, “Texas looks like Africa.” I do not think anyone will be surprised to hear we get pulled over in Texas. I am removed from the car and Chase and I are questioned separately about where we are from, where we are going, and why, if we are not married, are we traveling together. My cop had no problem with me giving Will’s address differently three times, but does not believe I could possibly be from Boston because I should have a “Boston accent.” We arrive at a thirty-dollar motel in Truth or Consequences, Mew Mexico at four in the morning. I am returning the motel key, the morning after. I am a little tired. The lady at the desk thanks me. I manage to respond, “Goodnight." Chase says she probably thought I was a hooker. He is probably right. We wander around Truth or Consequences, and in order to get Chase tea, we end up eating an entire meal at 11am. I blame Austin, Texas. Soon, we are back in the truck and off to Albuquerque. We stop at a Mexican graveyard, maybe an hour from Albuquerque, to take pictures and notes respectively. From the catacombs of New Orleans, to shallow graves marked with stuffed animals and hood ornaments, cemeteries are my kind of beautiful. One just has “I heart you” written out in rocks. Chase decides he wants an internet gravestone. I agree to be in charge of the site’s upkeep. I just want “I heart you” in rocks. We arrive in Albuquerque. We stay with a girl, Kat that works at Hot Topics and her six roommates. Upon our arrival, we discover Kat needs to go to work. I put a bathing suit and a razor in my bag, because Kat’s boyfriend said he would call us to go swimming. We bring her to the local mall and decide to walk around a little. This does not last long, due to the crowds of people pointing and staring at us. As most can imagine, we have been stared at in truck stops, gas stations, restaurants, and bathrooms since we left. The Albuquerque mall beats all of these scenarios, hands down. I offer to change my underwear. I am wearing a yellow skirt and a black thong, but that really is the least of our problems. We leave the mall. Chase accidentally takes a Xanax. I have a razor in my purse. We continue on to some street where there is a Buffalo Exchange. After I pay for whatever items I purchase, and will probably never wear, Chase spots this red vintage lingerie top in the window. It has potential to be used in a shoot. He asks a girl working there to see it. So, she is getting it off the mannequin and I go, “You have to get it. It has panties,” making Chase seem a little gay and me a little crazy. I miss Will’s front yard. We find a coffee shop with outside seating. Chase gets an entire pot of tea and we now have somewhere to sit for the next 4-8 hours, as needed. We go out to a bar that evening with Kat and her boyfriend. Apparently, Chase accidentally takes another Xanax. He begins telling them I have had sex with 17 guys on this trip. He details how amazing this feat is, due to the fact, we had been gone for a little over a week. The kid Chase is directing this all to, gives me this "I get it now" look. He begins to detail blowjobs at truck stops, and dudes on the side of the highway. Chase is still talking when this kid leans over and high fives me. On the way home from the bar, we go to Wal-Mart. I think Wal-Mart is Albuquerque’s “after party.” Chase is trying to convince the carpool to go to a Casino. Wal-Mart distracts him and he forgets about it. Once home, I want to go to sleep. We are sleeping on a pull out couch in the living room. There is Eminem blasting out of the stereo. At least, four people are loudly engaged in playing some sort of video game where you are a giant ball rolling the city streets collecting things to make your ball bigger. I think small children were worth a lot. The last thing I remember hearing before falling asleep, in the middle of all of this, is someone yelling, “Small child, small child,” over and over again. It is morning and we are off to Los Angeles. Chase wants to stop at one of the many enticing “Indian” themed, Tepee shaped, rest area/gift shops, off the highway. We settle on “Indian City” in Arizona somewhere. He is wandering around with some postcards. The lady working asks him to leave the postcards with her at the counter, until he is done looking. He is all upset in the car about the injustice of some Native American woman thinking “Just because he stole her land, did not mean he was going steal her postcards.” We stop in the California desert, at night, to take pictures. I try to give Kiki Children’s Benadryl to chill her out, but just spill it all over her. She starts foaming at the mouth. I tell Chase I think we are going to jail. We make it to Los Angeles. We both kind of want to keep driving, but the road ends. I blame the ocean. We blow up the air mattress and fall asleep at Melissa’s. Maybe tomorrow, we will do it again. We will wake up, leave LA quickly and quietly, and no will even know we were here. I wake up and go to Starbucks. Chase gets up and showers. We get in the truck. It smells like cat pee and tobacco. We decide to go to the Glendale Galleria to look for jeans instead. -sarah morrison EVEN MORE |
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