karina

Exit 10-B on southbound I-91 is a gateway to a retail wonderland. Running westward for three-quarters of a mile along Riverdale St. (aka US-5) in West Springfield, this paradise also sprawls southward across maybe two square miles of parking lots until it nestles against the tree-lined banks of the ever-flowing, ever-placid Connecticut River, upon whose rippling surface we have not yet figured out how to locate a retail establishment.

Nevertheless, here is a partial directory of the desire-fulfillment centers available here, drawn just from the memory of pick-ups and drops I’ve done in the area. Home Depot, Costco Wholesale (with adjacent Costco Gas Station), Panera Bread, Nippon Grill and Seafood Buffet, Stop & Shop Grocery, Citizens Bank, Crumbl Cookies, Bueno y Sano Fresh Mex Restaurant, Dollar Tree, Five-Below, Burger King, Kohl’s, Aldi, Olive Garden, Raymour Flanagan Furniture and Mattress, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Staples, Table and Vine, Longhorn Steakhouse, KFC, Key Bank, Starbucks, TD Bank, a 15-theatre Cinemark Multiplex, Dunkin’, CVS, AT&T, Pizza Hut, Courtyard by Marriott, Verizon, Westside Inn, Cal’s Wood Fired Grill and Bar, Friendly’s, Chili’s Grill and Bar, Ninety-Nine Grill, Wood-n-Tap Bar and Grill, Crazy Seafood Cajun Seafood and Bar, T-Mobile, and a Quality Inn.

Wood, Outlaw Ribeye (or Renegade Sirloin), hardware, bathtubs, tents, red wine, sneakers, golf clubs, fishing rods, candy, nail polish, cash money, cookies, guitars, Smoked Brisket Burrito, Wake-Up Wrap, Ultimate Cajun pasta, black coffee, white wine, beer, Android, hard cider, Madame Web, whiskey, Lasagna, rum, tacos, all the parts of a chicken, Demon Slayer, seafood, sushi, more cash money, iPhone, some fruit, fewer vegetables, Chicken Tortelloni Alfredo, more cash money, an Oleato, donuts, mattresses, office paper, pharmaceuticals, a bed, milkshakes, bread, dog food, vodka, a peppermint white chocolate latte, gasoline, Coolatta, a movie, pizza, a sit-down meal, a stand-up meal, a take-out meal, a delivered meal, a makeover, and baby back baby back baby back ribs. 

I’ve made around one hundred pick-ups or drops in this area dedicated to abundance, to satisfying our needs and wants, to filling the hole we’ve learned to believe we have inside us. It would be a lie to say that everyone I have picked up or dropped off in this area has seemed unhappy, dissatisfied, or exhausted. Four out of the hundred seemed to be thriving: two teenage girls going to get their nails done, and a young mom and her daughter going to see The Little Mermaid.

Don’t get me wrong. I like to buy shit as much as the next red-blooded American. But there is a dark energy about this place—this vortex of capital and consumption, so rampant as to feel like a black hole tailor-made to suck away our souls.

When I pick Karina up at the Quality Inn, which, in a parking lot just off the exit ramp, serves as the Hellmouth to the strip, it is just after the holidays, so the whole area has the strewn and mashed gray look of a frat house front yard on a Sunday morning. 

Karina was polite over text before I picked her up and striking when she appears between the sliding glass doors of the motel. She radiates a look and energy incongruous for the area: very bright blue hair, funky outfit, hugely long fake eyelashes, and a bounce in her step. 

 But when she approaches the car, things look different. Beneath the heavy makeup, her features are gaunt and drawn. She clutches a drink—the very color of her hair—in an unlabeled plastic bottle, and on the other arm, she drapes several tote bags over her forearms.

“Hi Karina, I’m Santiago. How’s your day going today?”

“Oh, not so good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Well, there’s a phone charger in front of you, some water, and a box with candy and poems. Please help yourself to anything you like and let me know if I can do anything to make the ride more comfortable.” She looks at the box for a second, then into the rearview mirror. 

“Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Santiago.”

“Sorry. Right. Thank you, Santiago.”

“Of course.” She continues to rifle nervously through her tote bags one-handed. 

“So it looks like we’re headed to Northampton,” I comment.

“Yeah, to the VA, well, to Soldier On. I was staying there but have to leave now, so I gotta pick some things up.”

“Sorry, Solider On? What is that?”

“It’s supposed to be a shelter for vets, well, for female vets who can’t find housing.”

“Oh, so you’re a veteran?”

      “Yeah, Air Force. But they don’t provide support. That place is full of shit. They’re just in it to make money.” Mentally, I relocate the Soldier On building so that it squats somewhere on the commercial strip we are just leaving, one more way to squeeze money from people in exchange for unfulfilled promises. 

“It’s full of drugs, and two nights ago, some crazy bitch got loaded and started talking shit to me. I tried to walk away, but she came after me, grabbed me by the neck from behind, and I fuckin’ lost it, just freaked out and went off on her. But they didn’t do anything to her—just me. They just kicked me right back out onto the street. Like on the spot.”

By now, we’ve been released back onto I-91 heading north. The valley spreads out to the right below us, Mount Tom on the left. 

“Fuck.” I say. “That seems so unfair.” 

“Yeah, you’re telling me. I have PTSD, I have Military Sexual Trauma Disorder, I’ve been on and off drugs since I got out, on and off the streets, and I thought this place was going to be different. That’s what they promise. But that’s how it is. That’s our country. That’s the U-S of A.” 

I have read many books that make the same point in the esoteric language of academia, backed with reams of evidence. And yet, somehow, I feel as though I know nothing, certainly much less than Karina. 

“I feel you, Karina. And I’m so sorry.” I mean it with all my heart. But my words feel stupid and empty even as I say them.

Something has slowed traffic on the interstate. We coast to a crawl, then a stop. Karina notices that hanging from my rearview mirror is a little copper figure.

“Is that a bear?”

 “Oh, actually, yeah. Well, it’s a little girl hugging a bear. I got it from a woman who runs an Air BnB I was staying at in Arizona during a long road trip a few years ago. She was a jeweler. The little girl is supposed to be her. She told me that on a hiking outing with her family when she was young, she got angry and stalked away from her family, saying she was going to live with a bear.”

“Oh wow! That’s so cute. I noticed it as soon as I got in the car.”

Without thinking, I unhook the bear from the rearview mirror and turn to hand it to her.

“Why don’t you take it?’”

“What? Are you serious? What? Why?”

“Honestly. I don’t know. It was given to me by a stranger when I needed it, and now I’m the stranger, and I feel like maybe you need it. Or, anyway, you like it, so maybe it’s time for it to move on.”

“For real? That’s amazing. Thank you. I love it.” She takes the bear from me and clutches it in her palm. Then leans back against the back seat, her long fake eyelashes fluttering slightly. “This car has such a nice vibe. It’s so calm.”

“I’m glad. Seems like you deserve some calm.”

She slurs something in response and looks up into the mirror as we begin to pick up speed again, I see that her eyes have finally closed, the bear in her closed hand pressed against her chest. 

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