Read Last Ride to Graceland for Free Online
Authors: Kim Wright
âIâm just saying it would scare me out of my skin to think you were going to try and drive this car to Tennessee. So promise me youâre not going to, right?â
âIâm not going to drive this car to Tennessee,â I say. âJesus. Give me some credit. Gerryâs expecting me to start singing in an hour.â
â âCause that would be a foolish thing to try and do, Cory Beth,â Leary says.âThat road out there canât tell you a single thing that you donât already know.â
The engine does indeed have a satisfying roar, and as I pull onto the dirt road, it feels like the whole world is vibrating. I aim my long, black hood toward the setting sun. Leary looked it up for me. Itâs 672 miles from Beaufort to Memphis, and Google estimated it would take a person ten hours and fourteen minutes to cross this particular distance. But if that person is driving a car with bad tires and an out-of-date inspection and trying to keep off the main roads, then I figure it will take twice that long. Thanks to the beer run, I have $199, a pack of protein bars, and a single Stella Artois, which Leary insisted I take, and within the hour Gerry will be expecting me at Bruiserâs. But somebody else is going to have to sing his Jimmy Buffett and his Beach Boys tonight. They must have a squadron of their own illegitimate daughters out there somewhere. Girls with tiny feet and daddy dreams and pretty voices, all of us rattling up and down the waterfront, looking for work.
The sun is intense. I adjust the visor, which hardly helps, so thereâs nothing to do but let it shine, bouncing back at me from every mirror and burning away everywhere I grew up. My mama must have driven this same road thirty-seven years ago. She was heading east, with the sun behind her, while Iâm heading west,with it ahead of me, but she must have nonetheless passed this same old twisted cypress tree, this bend in the road where the waterway curves and you suddenly see it all at once stretched out below you, the whole bay waiting like a shimmering flat blue carpet, so beautiful that it hurts.
Honey was eighteen when she left Beaufort. Nineteen when she came back. Young. Crazy young. Young and pretty and pregnant and wiping off makeup layer by layer, excavating herself right back down to the girl she once was, the spell of Graceland wearing off just a little more with each mile that rolled by. It takes a long time to get from Memphis to Beaufort, especially if youâre alone. But what she was thinking as she drove, nobody knows.
HONEY
August 19, 1977
I âm a failure. Iâve failed completely and utterly at everything I set out to do.
But at least I have the Blackhawk. I have it by accident, but I still have it, and this car makes a statement. It says that Laura Berry might have snuck out of Beaufort on a Greyhound bus, but sheâs coming back riding 425 horses right down the middle of Bay Street, roaring to the sky like some kind of avenging angel. The townspeople stop in their tracks and stare at the sight of the Blackhawk rolling by, even though they canât see me through the tinted windows. They probably wouldnât recognize me if they did.
They donât have to know that Iâm driving barefoot with no possessions in the world except for an eight-track tape, a tube of somebody elseâs lipstick, half a hamburger, and a jar of tupelo honey. They donât have to know Iâm coming home in shame. Just let them see the car. Thatâs enough. Just let them see the car and wonder.
I pass the ice cream stand where I had my first summer job. The sporting goods store where we were all fitted for our cheerleader uniforms, the library, and the fire station, and the beauty parlor where my mama gets her hair done, and the Chinese buffet. This town was the whole world to me at one time, not so very long ago. Before Graceland. Before Elvis. But now it feels small and flat, a
âIâm not going to drive this car to Tennessee,â I say. âJesus. Give me some credit. Gerryâs expecting me to start singing in an hour.â
â âCause that would be a foolish thing to try and do, Cory Beth,â Leary says.âThat road out there canât tell you a single thing that you donât already know.â
The engine does indeed have a satisfying roar, and as I pull onto the dirt road, it feels like the whole world is vibrating. I aim my long, black hood toward the setting sun. Leary looked it up for me. Itâs 672 miles from Beaufort to Memphis, and Google estimated it would take a person ten hours and fourteen minutes to cross this particular distance. But if that person is driving a car with bad tires and an out-of-date inspection and trying to keep off the main roads, then I figure it will take twice that long. Thanks to the beer run, I have $199, a pack of protein bars, and a single Stella Artois, which Leary insisted I take, and within the hour Gerry will be expecting me at Bruiserâs. But somebody else is going to have to sing his Jimmy Buffett and his Beach Boys tonight. They must have a squadron of their own illegitimate daughters out there somewhere. Girls with tiny feet and daddy dreams and pretty voices, all of us rattling up and down the waterfront, looking for work.
The sun is intense. I adjust the visor, which hardly helps, so thereâs nothing to do but let it shine, bouncing back at me from every mirror and burning away everywhere I grew up. My mama must have driven this same road thirty-seven years ago. She was heading east, with the sun behind her, while Iâm heading west,with it ahead of me, but she must have nonetheless passed this same old twisted cypress tree, this bend in the road where the waterway curves and you suddenly see it all at once stretched out below you, the whole bay waiting like a shimmering flat blue carpet, so beautiful that it hurts.
Honey was eighteen when she left Beaufort. Nineteen when she came back. Young. Crazy young. Young and pretty and pregnant and wiping off makeup layer by layer, excavating herself right back down to the girl she once was, the spell of Graceland wearing off just a little more with each mile that rolled by. It takes a long time to get from Memphis to Beaufort, especially if youâre alone. But what she was thinking as she drove, nobody knows.
HONEY
August 19, 1977
I âm a failure. Iâve failed completely and utterly at everything I set out to do.
But at least I have the Blackhawk. I have it by accident, but I still have it, and this car makes a statement. It says that Laura Berry might have snuck out of Beaufort on a Greyhound bus, but sheâs coming back riding 425 horses right down the middle of Bay Street, roaring to the sky like some kind of avenging angel. The townspeople stop in their tracks and stare at the sight of the Blackhawk rolling by, even though they canât see me through the tinted windows. They probably wouldnât recognize me if they did.
They donât have to know that Iâm driving barefoot with no possessions in the world except for an eight-track tape, a tube of somebody elseâs lipstick, half a hamburger, and a jar of tupelo honey. They donât have to know Iâm coming home in shame. Just let them see the car. Thatâs enough. Just let them see the car and wonder.
I pass the ice cream stand where I had my first summer job. The sporting goods store where we were all fitted for our cheerleader uniforms, the library, and the fire station, and the beauty parlor where my mama gets her hair done, and the Chinese buffet. This town was the whole world to me at one time, not so very long ago. Before Graceland. Before Elvis. But now it feels small and flat, a