Cadillac Couches by Sophie B. Watson Page B

of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
    â€œOh, c’est triste!” Isobel said, gesturing at the barn, the general emptiness.
    Telephone poles dotted the distance, carrying twenty-nine million people’s conversations from Victoria to Antigonish through the quiet prairie. Sparrows and some kind of bruiser birds, accustomed to dry heat and wind, sat spread out on the wires in tribes of twos and threes. On a blue-sky summer day, this kind of landscape looked like freedom, but on a white winter day this same scene could make a person weep due to the wrist-slashing isolation of it all, or not; depending on your mood. I wondered when the pioneers and homesteaders came here, why did they stop? Why didn’t they retreat or go farther west? What possible draw could this emptiness have? Had they bought land sight unseen and this is where it happened to be? How did they know they could survive minus fifty? It must have been summertime. Must have been a day like this one. Blue sky, yellow fields, and warm lover’s breath air.
    I parked the car beside yet another wheat field in this breadbasket of the country. We got out to stretch our legs and have a pee. We picnicked on red licorice and trail mix I’d grabbed from my kitchen cupboards along with some of Finn’s homemade beef jerky. Finn spotted a long-tailed weasel in the grasses, telling us he knew it wasn’t a gopher because of the brown tip of his tail. He’d been reading up on his prairie flora and fauna. He told us the names of all sorts of creatures we could hope to see like prairie skinks, white-footed mice, black-footed ferrets, coyotes, badgers, whitetail deer, northern leopard frogs. I especially wanted to see a prairie skink, what a rock ’n’ roll name!
    Driving through the flat bottom of Saskatchewan, we finally kicked into tranquil road-trip silence. It was liberating to realize we couldn’t possibly talk the entire way to Montreal or there’d be no more saliva left. We were driving in the big abyss. The weird feeling returned that cities were something from our past.
    A best-of Joni Mitchell tape played on the deck, Isobel drove, and Finn snoozed in the backseat. We were down by Moose Jaw. Endless prairie fields passed us by. I was so numbed by the sameness and flatness that I barely registered the bales of hay and dusty sideroad turnoffs. I wondered how much flatter the world could get. I thought Alberta was flat, but, Jesus, Saskatchewan was unbelievable. I dangled my toes out the passenger window into the blasting warm air.
    It was still light out at ten o’clock when we decided to stop for the night to camp just outside Regina.
    â€œâ€˜My father says that there is only one perfect view—the view of the sky straight over our heads,’” Finn loudly quoted ARWAV from his sleeping bag beside the car.
    â€œâ€˜I expect your father has been reading Dante,’” I quoted back, yelling from inside the car. The warm air coming in the window smelled of ripe chokecherries. Iz and I decided to sleep reclining in our seats. I soon realized it was a big mistake for our necks and backs, all those restless sleepless body contortions in the chase for the perfect snoozing position.
    Day 2
    Regina–Winnipeg
    1,046 km behind us
    still 2,818 to get to Montreal!
    We were so uncomfortable the next morning there was nothing to do but get started early, neck kinks and all. Got some gas station coffees and ice cream sandwiches to fuel us for the day ahead.
    Seeing Regina from the highway, we thought it looked like a mini-Edmonton served up on a platter of extra flatness. It was still Isobel’s turn at the wheel and my turn to choose the tunes. I had only recently lifted the Blue Rodeo ban because of all the Sullivan associations. Through past experiments I’d discovered if I listened to a song enough times it would stop reminding me of him. This worked with most bands we’d listened to together. Blue Rodeo,