By Teresa Tsang
I was probably mad, that’s why you and I were driving to the middle of nowhere. I don’t remember what made me so mad that you had to blow all your fuel just so I could blow off some steam. You picked me up in the car that you had driven into the road time and time again. You had a habit of filling five to ten dollars of gas at a time and then running on fumes up an incline. You told me we were driving south until we ran out of gas—We’ll be lucky if we make it to Fife.
It had to have been spring because the warm air held me close. The cars on the I-5 zoomed by our sputtering jalopy. I must have been really mad because I remember playing the alphabet game in my head as Flume blared on the radio, the one functioning part of this car. You knew to sit quietly until I unleashed like a dam unable to contain itself any longer.
Was I mad because of something you did? Maybe you said something insensitive too quickly again. Was it something I did? Maybe I failed a test or assignment. Maybe we, stuck in the hamster wheel of routine where the monotonous cadence ceases to break, desperately needed a change. Maybe I was mad that this was your attempt to fix things between us—a half-assed road trip to nowhere.
You always said that the great American road trip was how writers like us found clarity. But Jack Kerouac traveled farther than fifty miles. John Steinbeck traveled with his dog, not his girlfriend of however many years it was at that point. I didn’t own a white suit like Tom Wolfe. You always made comparisons in vain, thinking that we were something more than two college students who neglected their own writing because of piled up assignments. You’re probably still a barista by day, video gamer by night.
“Do you want to see High Steel Bridge?” I shrugged in response because I was sick of making decisions. “I just want you to be happy.”
I would be happy if you made this tiny decision.
I would be happy if this relationship wasn’t holding me back from who I could be. I would be happy if I could build up the courage to be alone.
“Yeah, let’s go.” The trees seemed to grow as we rattled farther from the cities that were sprinkled around the Puget Sound. They tried to block the sunshine that had been hiding over the winter months. The sun bore through the trees at first, but as we ascended up the Olympic peninsula, the trees tightened their frontline. The only reminder of spring was the blue sky that shone brightly over their crowns.
After a $10 gas stop, we reached the bridge and I remember that I had to pee. It started to drizzle as I popped a squat, and you made some comment about the rain on your camera. I hadn’t noticed that you brought it because you had a habit of leaving it to collect dust on your desk. You always said that you wanted to become a photographer but these hopes were lost amongst the many.
The air was so crisp with altitude and rain that it hurt to breathe in through my nose. I looked out to the winding river below dotted with small waterfalls. You asked if I wanted to hike down and explore. I looked down at the bottoms of my Vans, already slippery from the mild rain. I never felt like I was adventurous enough for your rural Oregon roots. When you brought me home for the first time, I shrank in my seat as we rolled through the one main street in your town. You took me to your favorite lookout spot—which required some bouldering in the dress I met your dad in. You introduced me to your lifelong best friend—who immediately made a racist
comment to me. You stood up for me to your friend and laughed when I needed help climbing up the rock face. “City girl,” you clucked.
The sun went down as we drove into a small town made up of nothing but fast food joints. The glow of neon signs lined the block, enticing us to enter their arched doorways. I had to have still been upset because you asked if I wanted a smorgasbord, something we rarely indulged in toward the latter half of our relationship. Back in Seattle, we’d order Domino’s pizza and garlic knots; New China Express’ beef chow mein, pork fried rice, and sweet and spicy chicken; and top it all off with Hot Cheetos con limon, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Everything But The…, and a two liter bottle of Coke. I gained twenty-five pounds the first summer we spent together.
That night it was our mission to order as much food as humanly possible. Taco Bell, Burger King, Panda Express, and Little Ceasar’s were only a fraction of our options on that Las Vegas strip of fast food. We dug into the food piled around the Motel 6 bed with what seemed like insatiable hunger. Though, I think we were both insatiable for different things. Maybe love, maybe comfort.
There’s a reason it’s called comfort food. It’s warm and packed with umami, or cool and so sweet your stomach aches almost immediately. It’s doughy and pillowy, or crispy enough to hear from across the room. It’s greasy in the best and the worst ways, but not bad enough to keep you from slurping up every noodle or polishing off that burger. It makes you feel full and whole. Our smorgasbord was the ultimate way to get a taste of everything, with no sacrifices except for our waistlines.
I looked at the feast we devoured. All of it in gluttony, all of it in expectancy of comfort. My stomach was warm and my heart finally was as well, but what was there in the absence of our feast? The warmth from my heart might’ve been from high cholesterol.
We held each other in the middle of Tumwater, Washington and I whispered how home was wherever you were—that I would be able to find this same comfort of five dollar carry-out pizza and cuddling wherever you were. That was true, but what more was there?
In the span of our relationship I sought this comfort out like a mosquito to blood. I desperately wanted to be held and loved and comforted in a new city. You indulged me and fattened me up with security and love. But I felt the same at the end of our relationship as I did at the end of an unhealthy meal. What was there in the absence of nourishment? Was manufactured sustenance enough to keep a relationship alive?
The next morning, you were satisfied that you had cured whatever had made me upset the day before and we began our trip back to Seattle. The dirt roads, lined with yellow dandelions pushing up like daisies, baked in the spring heat. We drove with all the windows down, Odesza playing too loudly for conversation as we rattled through dilapidated towns. We stopped for gas and I stared at my ghost-like reflection in the windshield. At some point, you noticed some picturesque scenery and I asked if you wanted to stop to take photos. We were in no rush. You brushed it off, saying it was fine or okay.
Comfort food is usually that – fine or okay. It’s nostalgic, not to be confused with memorable, and never spectacular. The best part about comfort food is its consistency. When you order Taco Bell, Panda Express, or Little Ceasar’s, it doesn’t matter where you are, it’s going to taste the same. It’s enough sugar and fat to make you confuse it with happiness.
There’s nothing wrong with comfort food, but you can’t eat it forever, especially not in the middle of nowhere.
Teresa Tsang is a writer from Seattle, Washington.
Hot Pot Magazine 