(VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA, 10/18/05?)

Shane and I chummed around the smoky neon oasis of Reno for the next few days like a couple of playful puppies.  One evening he took me to see Virginia City, one of the oldest surviving towns in Nevada, a product of the mining boom, which sat atop a nearby mountain.  

We pulled over at a turnoff and snapped a few pictures.  Him.  Me.  My car.

He hadn’t been to Virginia City since he was a kid and wanted to share it with me.  We visited its crumbling graveyards, studying the odd epitaphs.  We walked its planked sidewalks, perusing its souvenir shops and candy stores.  We drank beer in bars with names like the Bucket o’ Blood Saloon.  

I stood before The Suicide Table, an old, cursed card table, reading about the tragic ends of the people who played on it.

We were a couple of tourists.  

A couple. 

Back outside, we passed by a psychic’s storefront and I poked my head inside as Shane walked ahead.  No one was there, and I scurried forward to catch up with him.  Then I heard a woman’s voice behind me.  “Do you want a reading?”  She leaned out of the door, stout and dark, wearing a one-piece nightgown. 

“Maybe later,” I called, turning around to face her, walking backward and smiling.  “I wouldn’t want to hear anything good and jinx it.  I’d only want to hear the bad.”

She stared at me like she was deciding whether or not to tell me something, or rather, whether or not she should tell me it for free.  “You’ve had enough of the bad,” she finally huffed, and disappeared into her shop. 

 It was nightfall when we started back down the winding roads from Virginia City to the interstate.  We pulled off into a little scenic viewpoint, seemingly at eye level with the suspended stars, and didn’t speak.  Reno was an active sea of flashing greens and purples in the distance; it seemed so far away, so far below us.  His hand was on my thigh.  I wondered if we were really safe there in the Hyundai, truly protected from the other cars and motorcycles passing by.  Other people.  His hand was on my thigh.  No one had ever done that before.