Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 35 D E PA R T M E N T L I T E R A R Y L O D E Inside, sitting next to a man who claimed to jockey horses in California during the summer, we listened, believing everything, as he talked on about horse tranquilizers, illegal bets, and steak din- ners at midnight. Montanans didn't care much for Californians so anyone in Montana claiming to be from California was probably from California. Not that we cared. We just wanted a story, so we simply nodded and grinned, dropping shots of tomato juice into our draft beers as he told his tales. I wanted him to get up so I could see if he was short enough to be a jockey, and to see if he wore cowboy boots. I knew the details would be important. "Which way to Yaak?" I asked him when he was done talking. "I could drive you there," he said, squinting at me as you leaned against my shoulder, laughing. "No, we're cool," I said. Youth is like a drug, Fitzgerald said, and we were feeling it, young and foolish, the kind of people we don't recognize today, don't understand—like those kids we saw just yesterday leaving the coffee shop only to stand in front of the shop's win- dows kissing for minutes before they climbed into their purple van and drove away. Why stand there kissing like that? Why not just drive off together and get on with it? We looked away and got back to our business (whatever that was), trying to ignore that tickle beneath our skin, our past lives scratching to get out When we arrived, Yaak was one paved street, two bars, and a post office. It was just after ten, no hotel in sight, no gas station, even, and Libby was 68 miles behind us, but we didn't care. We skipped into the bar to find it packed, the jukebox miraculously screaming the Violet Fems—Big hands you're the one—and a man dressed head-to-toe in calfskin, a David Crock- ett knife attached to his leather belt. He danced a little jig in the middle of the floor littered with sawdust and peanut shells. We looked at each other with ravenous wonder, delighted and in love. "is is like a dream," I shouted to you over the music. "What? I can't hear you?" Y OU WERE ALL SILK LACE, POLITE TALK, AND MONEY, A DAUGHTER OF PROFESSORS, A MYSTERY TO A WORKING GUY LIKE ME, BUT WE FOUND EACH OTHER BECAUSE WE BOTH WANTED TO SLUT IT UP IN MONTANA, to drink and dance in bars among cowboys, loggers, and magicians, to drive those long forever roads beneath the skin of the sky stretching out in front of us like an invitation to the rest of out lives. In Montana, it felt like anything could happen, and it usually did. I bought an ancient Audi Fox, a white one, for $900 from a girl who lived in a condo across the street from Dick Hugo's grave, and when that first weekend came, a balmy Saturday in October, we headed to Yaak with the windows rolled down. Some writer or other had wintered there and written about it, which was enough for us. On the way to Yaak, we stopped in Libby, an old mining town where half the population was dying of asbestos poisoning and the other half just didn't give a damn. We found a bar, of course. We always found a bar. WHAT I WANT TO SAY IS THAT IN MONTANA, YOU AND I LAUGHED AND DRANK AND DANCED IN A WAY THAT LED US TO BELIEVE THAT THIS WAS OUR LIFE—BOOZE, MAGIC, AND ROAD TRIPS— THAT THIS WAS ALL WE NEEDED. fiction by FRANCIS DAVIS

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