roads

on the same stretch of road that james dean died on (many years before) i saw a women roll her car, tail over nose. she was in an suv. a table fell from a truck in front of her car, landed upright on the road as she approached. i'd heard that suv's were prone to rolling, but i hadn't ever expected to see high-speed, slow-mo proof anywhere but on tv. time slowed down as i saw her face flipping and rolling towards me in the oncoming traffic. sometimes, when i close my eyes at night i can still see this happening. she came to a dusty rest in the ditch at the side of the road, and climbed out, relatively unscathed. i would have hated it if she was scathed. further up the road i bought a bag of salted nuts from a mexican who spoke no english. he seemed exhausted, and a little eager to sell more nuts than i was prepared to buy. there's only so many nuts you can eat. later in the day i would take a wrong turn and pass fields of cattle, black as ash, in sun bleached yellow grass. i wrote to a friend 'if there was a god in this landscape of peasants, drama and colour, it would be van gogh.' later that night, eating bean tacos in a hotel bar i saw a man with only one ear. he was drunk on magaritas.