The Golden State

“Are you telling me that you’ve sealed every road between here and Sierra County? There aren’t even that many people in your whole goddamn movement!” and she looks a little beleaguered and says “We’re targeting key roads around the border counties” and I think okay so I can probably get there another route and the fact that they are doing this for what amounts to a pointless symbolic gesture makes me so furious I wish I knew how to punch someone because I would reach out of this window and clock Cindy except her friends would probably shoot me. I feel something rise in my throat something I know is bad and I say “I don’t know where the fuck you came from but my family has lived up here for five generations and a bunch of fucking rednecks aren’t going to break up the goddamn state of California” and god help me it feels just like the feeling of squeezing a tantruming baby’s arms too hard, something horrible horrible but almost delicious and she says “Bitch you don’t live here and you need to go back where you came from” and moves toward the car and my violent urge deflates and I think I’ve made a mistake and I put the car in reverse zip backward do an ugly humiliating three-point turn and think Please don’t shoot us through this car window and I speed away in the rain with my shoulders up to my ears but there is no bullet no sound of Honey screaming and then I think what if Engin was here and thank god thank god thank god he isn’t here and then I think Alice Alice Alice oh my god and once I’ve raced around the turn and find a shoulder pull over and I look at my signalless phone and try to call 911 just like I’ve read you should and nothing happens so I turn the wheel to get back on the road crying and hyperventilating along with Honey. I have a deep horror of being unpunctual under the best circumstances but this is real, this is so much worse, and I feel pinpricks all over my skin thinking about what is happening to Alice in this downpour but I also know that if I drive in this state in this rain I am going to get in a car accident and Honey is facing frontward and so will be more likely to be killed or maimed and I have to calm down and I try to take deep breaths, try to say soothing things to Honey “It’s okay sweet pea, everything is okay, everything is going to be fine. It’s okay, it’s okay” and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth which is a tactic I have developed from my hours on the phone with the National Visa Center and I turn around to face Honey who is sniffling and I hold her moist small hand in mine and give her a big smile and she looks at me so reproachfully and says “Wah” and I put my hand on her cheek and wipe tears and then I make my hand into a little pincer with two ears and dart it toward her like a puppet and first I think she is going to cry more but then she laughs and I think Okay. I look at the soggy paper in my lap and read aloud to her and after “PROCLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE” it says “The citizens of the State of Jefferson hereby state their intention to secure the borders of the 51st State of Jefferson which will be governed according to the United States Constitution” and farther down there are a list of things and one of them is “You are driving parallel to one of the greatest areas for copper and other mineral mining in the western United States which the citizens of Jefferson have been systematically denied access to through unwarranted federal and state regulations” and Honey is looking at me curiously and I say “This is nonsense” and I thrust the paper onto the passenger seat and feel my breathing slow to normal and give Honey a squeeze and pull back onto the road driving the Buick as fast as I can and feel like the brakes will still work and trying to think positive thoughts about Alice.