road

i went looking for the origins of this chance encounter, visiting greenville this year for the first time. like most stories our parents tell us, they often live in our imagination until something gives them life—a picture, a tape, a letter, a place. i didn't find the hotel that day, but i found the bright lights, and it wasn't long before the polaroids of their wider smiles flashed in my eyes as i strolled the city, my feet somehow finding the routes they took on those faraway dates along the tree-lined streets of downtown. "what can i get for you?" the bartender asked as i took a seat. i had slipped inside a cantina off main street where i ate tacos and kindly rationed small talk. tvs were beaming sports. speakers were playing music. and at one end of the bar i found myself retreating, quietly wondering and wandering between the bites about the chance encounter responsible for my life, those sparks that flickered in this town forty years ago, the ones that turn strangers into lovers, into husbands and wives, into moms and dads and grands and greats."how was everything?" she asked, snapping the past from my eyes. "dinner, or the 1980s?" the sun was now setting, regulars were trickling in, and outside the windows i could see them smiling. "it was great," i told her, fast-forwarding the tapes back to the present. i left the way i came, steering my tires back to the open road

—jk montane