The Buffalo Barn by Sarah Varick

I really hate regretting my order at restaurants. Tomato dripping in slimy mayonnaise oozes out under the overly toasted stale bread. Dan leaves the table for the bathroom. I watch him walk away through the smoky restaurant and then I look down at my uneaten half sandwich; it is much too big for my non-existent appetite. I should have just ordered a cup of soup. I feel nauseated and want to go to the bathroom too, to throw up, or maybe just sit on the toilet for a few minutes. He had ordered a buffalo burger and he made me try it, even though I said I didn’t want to because it smelled like bathroom cleaner. He said it smelled like buffalo. I take a waffle fry from his plate and dip it in his pool of ketchup. As soon as I put it in my mouth I regret it. Eating it is just something to do while I wait for him.

I am at the Buffalo Barn in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. We have been following I-90 from Madison since yesterday afternoon and decided to stop for lunch. Since we left he had only stopped for bathroom breaks and soda. He won’t let me drive, even though it is my car. He drove through the night, insisting that he wasn’t tired and played the Grateful Dead too loud, so when I drifted in and out of sleep I was forced to follow the lyrics. During the night when he thought I was sleeping I looked at him through half closed eyes, at his sharp profile occasionally illuminated by the headlights of passing cars. Dan drives recklessly and sometimes when he changes lanes I worry that he isn’t paying attention and lets the car drift because it does pull to the left a little. Whenever I tell him to slow down I feel like he speeds up, but I don’t check the speedometer. The car is packed with both of our lives, now merged into one trunk space: boxes of books, laundry baskets filled with clothes, kitchen supplies, his comforter. We had to leave most of our things behind. He made me leave more of my things than his things.

My sandwich still sits in front of me. Even though I have eaten a full half I still can’t see the plate. It is covered with the leftover half sandwich and the greasy fries. I take a sip through my straw from the oversized red plastic water glass that makes my water look red. I wish I could see what color the water really is. The Buffalo Barn is gloomy with its low ceilings and small rectangular windows near the ceiling as if the restaurant is in a basement. It is four o’clock on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but inside it feels like night. Unidentifiable eighties rock music drifts through the smoke. There are more people in the bar section than in the restaurant. What are people doing at a bar on Sunday afternoon? Maybe they have nothing better to do. I feel out of place here.

I am self-conscious and wish Dan would come back. The wooden bars of my chair cut into my back through my thick sweatshirt so I shift uncomfortably to cross my legs. We have been dating for two years now and I am beginning to feel incomplete without him. This scares me a little bit. There are six fat, no, obese people sitting at the round table directly in front of me. They are drinking oversized beers out of pint glasses and dipping limp fries into slimy ketchup. They appear to be enjoying them a lot. A few balloons float above the table and a rainbow colored one reads Happy Birthday, although I can’t tell which of the fat people is now a year older. They all look wrinkled and grey. Which one of them had the idea to come here for a birthday party? One of the balloons is in the shape of a beer mug, complete with the shape of foam dripping over the edge. That’s pathetic. I don’t even like beer, but Dan likes beer and back in Madison he bought me different beers then made me taste them all. I usually didn’t get through half a bottle, and at first Dan would be mad, but then he would forget and finish the beer for me.

I imagine him at fifty having a beer balloon at his birthday party. I see myself at fifty- in thirty years I’ll be waking up one morning and going to the Buffalo Barn. I definitely won’t let myself get fat, but I might be at the Buffalo Barn with Dan and a beer balloon. My sandwich stares at me, and I take the toothpick and gently poke my eyelid with it and just graze my eyelashes and then I put it in my mouth and poke my gums a little harder. The faint iron taste of blood touches my tongue. It is amazing how much more aware you become of everyone and everything going on in restaurants when you are eating alone, the smoke drifting lazily from the man’s cigarette sitting in the booth to my right, the waitress laughing too much at nothing funny with the birthday party. But I am also aware that no one is aware of me. They are in their own lives, their beers and bar TV.

Dan is taking a long time and I wish he would come back soon…

…Or maybe not.

My keys are on the grimy wooden tabletop where he set them down. There are only car keys on the key chain, no house key or gym locker key. I have never been this keyless before. I feel more alone than I have felt in a long time. I hope for more keys…they make me feel a part of something in the world. Could I take the keys and leave? Leave my half eaten sandwich with its unidentifiable meat hanging over the edge? Leave the Buffalo Barn and the smoke that hangs over my head like a cloud, making my stomach churn?

Sometimes I want to sleep or hibernate when I feel this way, which has been more often lately. I want to wrap myself in a cocoon of blankets and curl my body around feather pillows in a dark, dark room and sleep for weeks. And if I wake up and I am still tired I will go back to my cocoon while the people have their birthday parties with beer balloons and boyfriends leave girlfriends alone at tables in restaurants to think too much and maybe decide to leave. But where will the girlfriends go?

I could grab my keys and coat in one swift motion and sneak through the restaurant and out the door, across the parking lot to my packed car. I wouldn’t want to run because the birthday party and the man smoking might see and they would tell Dan when he comes out of the bathroom, but if I walk with my head down no one would notice. I would get in my car and adjust the seat for my shorter legs and while I drive out of the parking lot scattered with old, beaten trucks I will throw his Grateful Dead CD in the backseat and put in Janet Jackson, or maybe Madonna. Dan never lets me listen to Janet or Madonna. Where would I go? How far could I go before I get caught, and who would catch me?

Dan will get back to our table and see my half-eaten sandwich and maybe he will sit down and assume I have gone to the bathroom. He will not think I went to the bar to watch TV, because I hate TV. Soon after he sits down he will realize the keys are missing and so is my coat. He might reach across the table and pull my plate in front of him and eat my leftover half sandwich. Soon after he assumes I went out to the car to grab my wallet or maybe Chapstick (I can’t go very long without Chapstick) he will look out the smudged window at the parking lot and realize the car is gone. He will be so confused…I haven’t given him any reason to think that I don’t love him or that I don’t want to be with him. I have done such a good job of hiding my red eyes, turning towards the window to look at the passing scenery: strip malls and gas stations and fields of crops, brown and dotted with snow. He will pay the bill, reluctantly because we usually split it and I didn’t leave any money. He will be pissed at me now about the money, he won’t realize yet that he might be more pissed about something else, soon to come. When he will think back he won’t even remember the money for my sandwich, he will only think about me and how I am gone and how he loves me more than he had realized, but it is too late.

The thought of Dan alone and wondering about me makes me smile. It is wrong that this makes me happy, but it does…I should just keep swallowing the lump that rises in my throat and keep pretending to scratch an itchy eye when I am really wiping away tears. I don’t like feeling this way, and I have tried a few times to talk to him about my feelings, but I know he won’t listen. Why can’t he listen to me? Why can’t he explain these feelings to me and hold me in bed instead of turning on his stomach after we have sex? He says he is more comfortable that way. Sex hurts, but I don’t tell him that. He goes too deep too fast. Afterwards I feel raw and when I go to the bathroom to pee it burns. I would never tell him this, these are my problems and I know I should enjoy sex, but sometimes I am just so tired. When I get back from the bathroom he is usually already asleep, and I crawl into bed next to him slowly so he won’t wake up. Sometimes I watch him sleep. His dark hair falls gently over his forehead. I once ventured to lightly trace my fingers over the outline of his lips and eyes. He didn’t wake up, but I evidently disturbed him because he wrinkled his nose and flopped over on his side, facing the wall. I laid next to him for what felt like hours before I fell asleep, listening to his deep breathing that always sounded too fast for someone sleeping.

But he isn’t always like that. Sometimes he comes home with big bags of groceries and prepares me a delicious dinner, using almost every dish in the kitchen. But then afterward he leaves the dishes for me to do while he watches a game on TV. He had good intentions of taking me with him, and he talks about what a great opportunity it is for both of us, but I feel like this is all for him. Maybe I don’t want to go. Maybe I want to go back home and stay where I know I belong, and not be here in the Buffalo Barn.

The sight of Dan walking through the restaurant back toward our table suddenly interrupts my thoughts. I can’t talk to him now. He will comment on how I didn’t finish my sandwich and I will have to swallow the slimy, ketchup-y lump that is now forming in my throat. I slide my hand across the table and curl my fingers around the keys when he stops to look at the TV. I hold them in my lap in both hands, the cold metal presses into my sweaty palms. He comes back to the table after another minute.

“Nice try finishing your sandwich babe.”

“It was too big…I have to go to the bathroom.”

I slide the keys into my pocket. On the way to the bathroom I pass the birthday party. They are devouring a large greasy pizza. The cheese stretches into long strings. I feel like I might throw up. The bathroom is cold, colder than the restaurant and I shiver when I sit on the chilly toilet seat. I fold my arms over my stomach and put my head between my knees…this feels a little better. I sit here for a few minutes, wondering what I will decide to do. I could go to the parking lot without him seeing me- the bathroom is on the way out the door, or I could go back to the table and be forced to finish my sandwich and face Dan. Neither option sounds ok. I don’t want to be alone, but I’m not sure I want to be with him. The water from the faucet is icy and I let it run for a minute to warm up before washing my hands and face. I look at myself in the mirror. The fluorescent lighting makes me look pale and I can see blue veins in my neck. My hair is greasy, but my eyes are bright and clear. The warm water runs over my hands and I splash some on my face. My dripping face stares back at me. The coarse paper towel leaves my hands and face damp.

I can leave…I will sneak out to the car and he won’t notice for a while and I can get away. I can do this. I look at myself once more and wipe a drip of water from my cheek. I’m not sure if it was a tear or water from washing my face. Holding the keys in one hand, I pull open the heavy wooden door. I am startled to see Dan standing right outside, waiting for me with my coat. Or maybe I won’t be leaving. But I will talk to him, I will make this better.

“Ready babe?”

“Ok…yeah.” What is he doing waiting for me outside the bathroom? Does he know what I am thinking?

“What about the bill?” I ask.

“I already got it,” and he wraps his arm around me and he steers me through the door of the Buffalo Barn and for a second I am blinded by the bright sunlight. “I’m really tired… You want to drive?” he asks. “You’ve got the keys, right?”

“Sure,” I say. I get in the driver’s side and adjust the seat. I like this view. He smiles at me and gently rubs my head. I smile back weakly as I drive out of the parking lot and glance in the rearview mirror at the Buffalo Barn sign fading into the distance.

“Dan…” I begin. “Can we talk?” I want to tell him everything I feel and think. I can’t keep this to myself anymore. But he has already settled into the pillow pressed against the window.

“Later babe, k?” he mumbles without opening his eyes.

The highway stretches on indefinitely in front of me and I grip the wheel tighter. This time I am not afraid to show my red eyes.