Ohio was a little more complicated. I searched for signs to cities I had heard of before: Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo. It was a wonder to me that I was finally within miles of places I had only heard about; that meant all the other places I had heard and read about were actually in the world too, I just had to get close to them. People lecturing you about all the things you can do and places you can go in your life don’t mean shit when you don’t believe that these things and places are there. But now, I believed. About a hundred miles into it, I saw a sign for Cedar Point. I knew there was a huge amusement park in Cedar Point that Aunt Jewel had promised to take me to, but we had never made it there. I wondered how nice it would have been for me and Rasul to stop there. We could ride that Ferris wheel. But there was no time. I was ready to get to New York, and Rasul claimed we would be there before the sun set. It didn’t matter that it was nearly four and we hadn’t even officially escaped the Midwest.

A four-lane where everyone surpassed the speed limit was enough to get Rasul flustered and cranky. He never drove past the speed limit, and sometimes didn’t even reach it. The burn I thought I smelled had intensified, and he had slowed down as if he was obeying its silent command. At one point, an angry man mouthing curse words shot past us when we were only going forty-five miles an hour. Rasul had retired his sunglasses when the sun began to dim around six, actually five our time since we had lost an hour soon as we crossed the Indiana state line. I feared a rainstorm coming. I took a catnap and woke up to find him listening to his own juvenile, underproduced songs recorded on cassette tapes—mouthing the words to himself. We ain’t your slaves no more or your Uncle Toms, just niggaz raised in broken homes with single moms, keep walking down the street and don’t look us in the eyes, pop pop pop we ain’t nothing but soldiers in disguise…

“What’s up, sleepyhead?” he teased after he caught me staring and was embarrassed.

“We almost there?” I asked, as if New York City were around the block. I was sore from our lovemaking the night before. I almost wanted to stretch out in the backseat, but I thought that would be selfish and cruel.

“We almost at the end of Ohio … then it’s Pennsylvania.” Like the genius I now believed he was, he had memorized the map. “We should be there around midnight.”