YOU’RE NOT GOING DOWN (YOU’RE JUST GOING UNDER)
An excerpt from Some Things You Love With Your Insides, Your Guts, the new novella by Joshua Rodriguez.
Below is an exclusive excerpt from Joshua Rodriguez’s new novella, out on 5/30/24. If this gets your brain gears spinning, click or tap the order button at the end. Enjoy!
Drive a while and it feels like your car’s reading Braille—it rattles as you traverse imperfect asphalt, uneven and divot-addled. Locals denigrate it as unbecoming wrinkles on perfectly flat terrain—like military personnel prioritizing starching their collars over maintaining peace. Signs are erected before especially rough stretches: Warning—Shaky Road Ahead—You’re Not Going Down—You’re Just Going Under. But, eventually, things smoothen briefly. Your car stops seizing with an epileptic’s fervor. Equilibrium’s restored. Looking around, you’ll see a solitary segment of manicured asphalt. Black as the universe—level as the besieging Illinois terrain.
‘Jesus,’ people say after being hedged in by Illinois state lines their entire lives, ‘it’s like we paved over outer space.’ They stare into the asphalt like an abyss, prostrated, noses brushing it while they pet it. They take pictures beside a sign affixed to an unused pole of unknown origins jutting out like a giant weed that reads: This Stretch of Highway is Proudly Owned by Jeb Christenson. They ask what’s wrong with the surrounding run-down expanses speckled with concave, amoeba-shaped depressions—they exalt all Jeb does for his stretch of highway. Rumor is he named it Carmella, after his late wife.
While Jeb’s celebrity blossomed, Jeb was unaware. A cluster-fuck of a cop in the best way, he found modest success starting a Loss Prevention agency. By business-relevant metrics, he got by all right. It even partially sated what he hoped police work would. Still, he felt unfulfilled. You can only watch so many women traffic cheap jewelry and lipstick in bras before you start asking that supremely unanswerable why? The only time he approached fulfillment was after apprehending a shoplifter who’d been personally responsible for thousands in lost revenue. As he pursued them, yelling, ‘LP! Stop!’ and as they darted through clothes racks, pushing some over to obstruct his path, he’d feel a spiritual sigh of relief.
Regardless, the legend of Jeb outstripped Jeb himself. Unmarried, his conscience was like a spouse. When it suggested he tend to Carmella, he obliged. Like clockwork, he’d procure supplies, drive 45 minutes, and get to work. As soon as he spotted an area that looked compromised—that wasn’t even an issue yet—he’d touch up the section like putting out fires before they’ve combusted. On one such night, a driver sees someone crouched in the middle of the road.
Delirious from working the night shift, the driver squints at a man’s contour rendered diminutive and spectral by the dark and distance, ‘He’ll get himself killed.’ However, he soon realizes he’s not some vagrant. He’s doting on the highway like his kin. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he takes photos, ‘Excuse me, sir—’ he begins. ‘Ain’t a bathroom for miles,’ Jeb interjects, ‘but you can piss on the side of the road. And no—I won’t watch.’ ‘You Jeb?’ ‘Who’s asking?’ ‘Your work isn’t going unnoticed.’ Before Jeb can respond, the truck’s gone. Soon after, Jeb buys a Porta-Potty and sets it up roadside.
For the people.
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