One of the first questions he asked me: "Are you a creature of being or becoming?"

He said it like that, called me 'creature.' Even then, transforming me with a word into something I'm not.

I said I wasn't sure what the difference was. He said let me show you.

*

"Describe what you see," he says, close enough that I hear the gulp and swallow of his mouth.

"A hotel room. A bed. A TV. A chair."

"Is that it?"

I nod. Three fingers trail across my lower back.

"Find something new," he murmurs.

I pull away and pace the room. I point, wordlessly, at a chip in the varnish on the table, the bible rusting in the dresser, grey gum wadded behind the headboard. I procure a forgotten tie from the top shelf of the wardrobe. I place it around his neck. This is the way, he has said, to make it ours.

We are going east, to Maine. He talks of old growth, tide pools, the wild coast. But we seem only to plunge deeper into the immense middle of the country. He seems dismayed by the gas stations, Super 8s, townless-towns, as if these things are less real.

I am not dismayed. The sensations of my heart feel strangely constant. I wonder if I was given some stultifying drug, weeks or months or even years ago, but I wonder this idly, my feet up on the dash.

Out the window of our hotel room, I see a parking lot, half-full of cars, and across the parking lot, a similar hotel. It's February, and there's an oily skein of snow pushed against the lampposts. The wind makes a game of a tattered American flag, knocking it brutally against the metal. I make a game of counting geese while he takes his shower. Muffled squelch of shampoo bottle, bright ring of water, tick of silence when he turns the nozzle off. Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four geese. He's shaving off the beard. He'll emerge, someone new. I'm not sure what state we're in.

Could a person ever not 'be'? Could a person ever 'become?' I asked him this in Oklahoma, sucking a cherry lollypop. An infinite cornfield rushed by, and on each of his white knuckles glinted a brass ring. "Presuming there's a difference, 'being' must relate to the breath, proprioception, an absence of desire." I liked this philosophical turn of my mind, and I smiled at him to see if he agreed.

He didn't meet my eye. "Have you really never experienced transformation?" he asked.

He emerges from the bathroom wearing new cologne. He leads me to the suitcase and procures a turquoise kimono, some lacy black underwear. I allow him to lift my limbs into the openings. He gathers his brow in concentration to apply my lipstick and eyeliner. His is a practiced hand.

I know this is an exercise in becoming, but I experience only the mundane things—itch of dry skin on my thigh, an ache in my tooth.

Later, my head knocks hard against the wall, the sharp heat spreading over my skull. The rhythmic force of him, his glottal grunts. Is this actually changing me? I wonder. Or just driving me back into my body, that same-old same-old, no more wonderful than a flyover state, a gaudy Valentine's sunset, a Burger King.

When he finishes, I reiterate my observations: ruined bible, discarded tie. I reach behind the bed and remove the gum. He eyes me curiously as I bring it to my mouth and chew. It tastes like nothing.

Tomorrow, more of the same. We listen to Bob Dylan in his car, and I can't quite hear it as music. The landscape is yellowed, automotive. Am I attracted to this man? I wonder, sneaking glances. He's removed the metal from his fingers. Yet even as the thought steps across my mind, I feel the stubborn prerogative of my stomach and knees. The car swoons across lanes.

Omaha. We manage to find the worst motel. Against the railing outside our room, prostitutes deliberate in heeled boots.

"Bed. TV," I begin, pacing. I lift a dented microwave, finger a broken sconce. The cockroach feces in the corner. Blood stain on the wall.

"We can leave," he says. "We can keep driving."

His prevaricating makes me angry. You brought me here, I think.

But I only shake my head. I'm not sure why. I guess I've already come this far.

In the end, I lie sleepless as jackals' laughter serrates the night. A brilliant parking-lot lamp filters through curtains in a taupe glow. It feels almost solid. I sit upright at 3:00 a.m., staring at him. Behind closed lids, his eyes twitch like a dog's. His stubble has already returned. Perhaps it's a problem of men, I think, this constant becoming. The prostitutes left hours ago. I picture them, sleeping soundly in blackness, the vast country roaring all around like a bitter sea.

I rise, fondle his keys on the table. The car is parked right outside. I could leave, so quiet, becoming only a shadow. My heart twitches and rhymes. One more stillborn fantasy. I let the keys fall with a tingle that's not like laughter.

Back in bed, I push my body against his. Something crusted on the sheets grabs the hairs on my thighs. Semen. His? I imagine being disgusted by this. I imagine not being. He grunts and sighs—also like a dog—and nudges into me, our skins collaborating. I try to conjure a dream but can think only of the motel. Room after room of brittle, lost people, ugly under the narcotic haze of the halogens. In the pipes, cockroach larvae lust for spring.

I'll be me by then, I promise myself, incoherent with the first caress of sleep. Long hours separate us, she and I. The endless miles, too empty to even count. And maybe, at the very end, a gray line of ocean, and no more road.


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