Excerpt from "Hit the Road" by Wes Blake

Wes Blake is the author of Pineville Trace—winner of the Etchings Press Novella Prize, featured on Deep South Magazine's Reading List, finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel, Feathered Quill Book Award for Debut Author, National Indie Excellence Award for Cover Design—from Etchings Press, University of Indianapolis. Pulitzer Prize finalist author Lee Martin called him a “writer to watch,” and SmokeLong Quarterly described his debut novel as an “utterly compelling read.” His novel Antenna was a semifinalist for the UNO (University of New Orleans) Press Book Prize, and his CNF essay collection Hazelgreen and Other Haunts was a semifinalist for the Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize. His fiction, essays, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in Electric Literature, storySouth, Louisiana Literature Journal, Appalachian Journal, Los Angeles Review, Book of Matches, and JMWW, among others, and he holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio. He lives in Nonesuch, Kentucky with his wife and cats, where they’ve planted over 100 trees. Learn more at wesblake.com.

Excerpted from

Hit the Road

Winter Park, Florida: October 1945

Frank leaned over his martini at the Hotel Alabama bar. The lights were dim, the floors marble, and the bar thick mahogany. Frank’s sleeves were rolled up.

“You look tired,” Henry said. He pulled out a stool and sat down beside Frank.

Frank nodded. “It’s just gonna take time. You know how momentum is. We had it before the war. Now we’ve gotta get it going again.”

“I hope so,” Henry said. “How many were there? Seven people? That’s a new low.”

“Want a drink? Bartender was just telling me Margaret Mitchell stayed here. Drank right here at this bar.” Frank tapped the thick mahogany that spooled out in front of them. “Same as us.”

“Maybe later. You check us in?” Henry said.

“Key’s there.” Frank nodded at the key laying on the bar. “I’ll take the couch. It’s a nice room.” 

“We didn’t need a place this nice,” Henry said.

“After a showing like that, we needed something. To keep us from checking out.” He motioned like a noose was tied around his throat. “What do you reckon those trees are out front? The two big ones?”

“Not sure. I’m gonna take a shower. You be here a while?”

“Sure.”

Henry stood, grabbed the room key off the bar and walked off, leaving Frank hovering alone over his martini. “On Henry,” Frank turned and yelled after him.

Henry paused in the lobby.

“FDR was here. They gave him some honorary degree.”

“He stay here, too?”

“Don’t know.”

Henry nodded and started again across the marbled lobby for the stairs.

Frank figured Henry was about done. With this way of living. He couldn’t blame him. He had to find a way to get things going like they were before. Before the war. They had been on a roll. Each time they came back to town it was a bigger crowd. He was wrong to start in on new territory first thing back. He should have gone back to the paths he’d already carved. Where they’d drawn a following before. He had been too ambitious. That’s okay. Not too late to re-group. He’d plan the next route of revivals better. They’d hit all the places where they drew the biggest crowds. Then use that momentum to branch out gradually. These last few revivals hadn’t all been so bad as tonight. But tonight was bad. Seven people was being generous. More like four. Maybe three. They weren’t even close to breaking even.

Frank settled up. Laid down the few dollars they’d earned from the offering earlier that night. “Oh, one thing,” Frank said. “Not the palm trees down the avenue. Those two big trees out front. Right by the entrance. What are they?”

“Bald cypress,” the bartender said.

“Bald cypress,” Frank repeated. “They lose their needles? In winter?”

“Sure do.”

Frank walked down Alabama Avenue under trees thick with Spanish moss. The breeze off Lake Maitland came from his right. It felt nice to be near water. Alabama ended on Palmer, and he walked on, crossing a bridge over the Venetian Canal. He headed south on Park and bought a bottle of wine. A new movie theatre lit up the main drag along Park. He checked the time on his Swiss Army. Maybe he’d see a movie tomorrow. They didn’t have any revivals lined up after tonight. Always nice to go out on a good note. He smiled, then sighed. He started walking east down New England Avenue, leaving Park and downtown Winter Park behind. There were big fine hotels along the roadside, and he felt the lake breeze coming back. He thought of his nice room back at the Alabama. He wished he was there now but could hardly imagine the walk back.

Ollie Avenue seemed to be calling him, and he went south again. His walk ended at a train station. Dinky Station. At the edge of Lake Virginia. So many lakes so close. He walked inside the station. It was past dinner, and there was hardly a crowd. He realized he hadn’t eaten. The station was empty.

He sat on a bench, leaned against the station wall, and opened his bottle of wine. He took a long drink. There was nothing like red wine for a cool night after a long walk by the water. He looked out at the railway line and wondered when the next train would come. And where it was bound. He was too tired and not in the mood to walk to the ticketing window and find out. If he was hopping the next train, where would it take him? He imagined Henry back at the Hotel Alabama. Sitting on the bed taking in the fine furniture and linen, thinking about the dismal turnout they’d had tonight, dialing the number back home to his wife, Cindy. And telling her just how it was. How the revival tonight hardly brought a crowd. Hardly brought a soul. Wouldn’t even cover our gas home. How the other nights had been better. But not by much. And how could Frank convince him that things would change? That things would start moving back in the right direction? The direction they’d been moving in before the war?

Had he changed? Had the world changed? Of course, they both had. And must. But he could change again. He could find his confidence again. It would come back.

He took another drink from his wine bottle, sat it down on the tile floor, and listened to the echo inside the small train station. It was nothing like Hub City. The Hub City station was grand. Big. Bustling. At least, it had seemed that way to him when he was a boy. How would he view it now?

“North or South?” said a man who wore a long raincoat like a detective. The only other soul in the station.

“I don’t know.”

“Guess you’ll know soon enough.”

“Guess so,” Frank said. “Back home, I guess.”

“Oh yeah,” the man said. “That’s always good.” He had a Chicago drawl. Frank imagined he was here on business. He had the air of a salesman. “Where’s home?”

“I don’t know yet. I just got back. The war and all. And now—me and my little brother—we’ve been travelling for work since then.”

“Sales?” the man said.

“In a way,” Frank said. He took another drink from the wine bottle, then held it out to the stranger. “Drink?”

“Two steps ahead of you, partner. The man pulled out a flask from his inside coat pocket. But I’m saving it for the ride home. Long way. Headed north.”

“Back home?”

“Oh yeah. Back to the cold. If I had any sense, I’d live here.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Frank realized when he said it that this would be a very nice place to live. Maybe he would live here one day. Maybe he’d stay on. He should probably go see dad before long. It’d been a while. But he felt like he was losing time. He had a plan now. He’d go back to his strength. Go back to all the places they’d had their biggest revivals. A homecoming revival tour. It hadn’t been that many years. People would remember them. It was a sure thing. “Well, safe travels home to you,” Frank said.

“You too, partner.”

A cowboy from Chicago, Frank thought. But Frank liked him. There was something constant in him. Steady. Reliable. He was good. A good man.

Frank walked back out of the station and found his way to the edge of Lake Virginia. The town’s lights reflected on the water. The air was still now. Like he was inside a vacuum. Far out over the water, lightning flashed. Then a breeze that carried the feel of oncoming rain. Frank dreaded the walk back to the hotel. In the rain. It was a long way. He wished he hadn’t wandered so far. Looking back at the train station, Frank saw a man walking up the stairs. “Henry!” Frank ran to the station door.

“Thought I’d find you here,” Henry said.

“Yeah? What are you doing here?”

“I’m going home.”

“Okay,” Frank said.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but I just have a lonely feeling out here. On the road. I miss Cindy and the girls.”

“I understand,” Frank said. “It’s okay. But don’t judge the whole thing on tonight. And the last few revivals. I was too ambitious. We should have gone back to the places where they knew us. Before branching out. We’ll start again. The right way. I promise. We’re not through.” He held up his index finger to emphasize his point. “Not just yet.”

“I know,” Henry said. “I don’t doubt you.” Frank could tell he was telling the truth. “I can talk another revival tour out of Cindy. It’s just the numbers with her. The missing time and no money to support the family. She’s gotta have one or the other—either the time or the money.”

“I understand. She’s right to see it that way. I was wrong. I was too ambitious. And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. We’ll be back on top.”

“I know we will,” Henry said. “I don’t doubt it for a second. I’m looking forward to it. How about you? You okay getting home? Where are you headed? Dad’s?”

“Reckon I should see dad. Maybe stay on here a while. This is a nice place.”

“This is a nice place. Too nice for the likes of us. Nobody needs saving.”

“Maybe so. Drink for the road?” Frank held out the wine bottle. Henry drank from the bottle and handed it back. “Alright, get home.” Frank clapped his shoulder. “I’ll call you when I set up the next revivals. Victory tour. Lots of familiar faces.”

“Be careful,” Henry said. “And Frank, I found this. In the local paper.” He handed Frank a full-page attack ad against their ‘fake healings’.

Frank looked at the ad. “Church of Christ. After us again. They’d attack Jesus himself if he came back and healed their own mothers. They don’t like their lighter offerings when we come around. That’s the rub. Well, they can’t stop us on our victory revival tour. The people that already know us—they know better. They won’t fall for this.” Frank crumpled up the newsprint page. “Mind the storm. Sounds like the devil and his wife are getting into it tonight.”           

Frank walked out of the station and turned back up Ollie Avenue. The wind blew in bursts and threatened rain. Pocketing his hands and trying to beat the rain, he realized he had a full pack of Camels in his front shirt pocket. And he hadn’t even wanted one. What was wrong with him?

The elegant hotels off New England Avenue taunted him, and he wished one of them was the Alabama. The shops along Park Avenue were locked up for the night, and the lights shut off.

 He smiled when he saw Alabama Avenue up ahead.

He made the lobby stairs before the rain came. He wondered if it would come at all. The weather on these lakes is unpredictable, he thought.

His hotel room door swung shut behind him, and a thick lonely feeling came over him. This was probably the nicest hotel room he’d ever stayed in. The curtains were lush crimson, and there were oil paintings of Victorian landscapes with heavy frames hanging on the ornately wall-papered walls. It was a matter of expectation, he thought. He expected he and Henry would chat about their next move on the drive home the next day. Wherever home was for him now. He didn’t need to explain it to himself. Why shouldn’t he feel lonely? He pulled the drapes together so he could sleep in for a long time without the daylight intruding. A heavy wind blew against the hotel’s walls. He heard hail pinging against the roof and window.

He peeled off his clothes and got under the sheets and comforter. The wind picked up and sounded as if it would peel the roof and walls from the building.

Frank turned the radio on and picked up a local station. The volume was low. An announcer broke in—“The B-Side is ‘Tabby the Cat’, but we’re not playing that, cat! Here’s the Pied Piper’s massive hit—'Dream’.” The music seemed to quell the storm outside. The strings and piano began and sounded almost angelic for a profane song. The close harmonies comforted Frank, and there was a lilting melancholy in the melody that matched how he felt inside. The vocals began: “Dream, when you’re feeling blue / Dream, that’s the thing to do / Dream, while the smoke rings rise in the air / You’ll find your share of memories there / So dream when you’re feeling blue / Dream, and they might come true / Things never are as bad as they seem / So dream, dream, dream.” And then a mellow saxophone shuffled in and filled his elegant and lonely hotel room with real warmth he could feel.

He remembered a poster he’d seen in front of the cinema on Park Avenue for a movie called The Southerner. On the poster a man was carrying a pretty girl in his arms, and the movie was described as a battle by a man named Tucker—against nature—to make his way in the world. Based on a novel called Hold Autumn in Your Hand. He liked the sound of that. Frank needed that kind of story right now. He needed to dream. And plan. And rest. And escape from his own mind for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~

Frank sat in the movie theatre alone. He’d checked out of his hotel room, had no revivals lined up, and no home to go to. He drank a cherry coke and sat in the dark theatre waiting for the movie to start. In this room, he didn’t have to confront reality in any way. It was a vacation from reality. The whole place existed to help you escape into another world. A dream world.

The first preview was for a new noir called The Killers based on a Hemingway story, with a femme fatale played by Ava Gardner. That’s what he needed. A girl like that. He wished she was in his movie. He sighed. A girl like that would make it all worthwhile. The struggle. The failures. The trying.

The movie began, and the light in the room disappeared altogether—as if nothing existed except for the world on the screen. Frank’s life—his trouble and worries—they all disappeared for ninety minutes. All the man in the movie wanted was a piece of land that was his own. To farm and make his way in life, his way—that was his dream. But the world kept throwing a stick in his spokes at every turn. It was relentless. He considered giving up and joining the factory line, letting his dream go. But he fought on and on. Against each new setback.

Frank hoped he would get what he wanted before he was too tired to try.