True Love & Funnel Cake

As a child, my mind was filled with stories of first kisses and glass slippers. I was enamored with the idea of “true love,” and I expected my experience to be like the storybooks, where, in that special moment with Prince Charming, songbirds would alight on tree branches and flowers would begin to bloom out of season and rainbow-colored sparkles would gently float down from the sky to land perfectly in my hair. It wasn’t something one could choose, or something that could grow, but rather a kind of innate magic that could only be realized through the help of one’s fairy godmother or else by some oversight of an evil witch.

I was quick to throw away my girlish fancies as I watched my parents’ marriage crumble at the age of ten. For a while, I promised myself I would never fall in love after seeing them both pursue failing second marriages later in my teen years. I never brought any of the boys I dated home, and largely preferred to keep my business to myself.

By the time I was in college, I had softened a little. Though I did go through an “I don’t need the State of Oregon to recognize my love in order for it to be official” phase, I had only ever been in long term relationships with a couple people, both lasting for multiple years. I wasn’t afraid of commitment, as many kids from broken families are, but rather, I was repulsed by the idea of some old man in a white powdered wig formally “allowing” me to marry. Because I was an adult, damn it!

Flash forward to the summer before my senior year in college: COVID hasn’t yet hit and the world is blissfully unaware of what lays ahead. My boyfriend of just over a year invites me to go to the Oregon State Fair in August. It’s up in Salem, over an hour north of our apartment. I offer to drive, as I know the backroads and have the more comfortable cloth seats.

The fair is everything I remember from when I was a child—the smell of cotton candy and corn dogs, the distant screams of people and creaks of metal from the roller coasters, the flashing lights and swirling signs that make your head feel ten pounds lighter—only much smaller and infinitely more expensive. Fifty-five bucks for a ride bracelet? That’s practically robbery.

So Pierce and I decide to skip the rides and games. After waiting twenty minutes in line for a cold, ten-dollar corn dog each, we stroll through the vendors, convince three different salesmen that no, we actually do not need a hot tub in our one-bedroom apartment, deny a few “spin the wheel for a coupon” offers, and unofficially rejudge all the artwork, quilts, and Lego houses with who we think should have really won the blue ribbon. We stop by the animals, too, but the stench is overwhelming so we duck out after ogling at the bunnies.

Before we go home, we decide to get a little treat for the road. Naturally, I head straight to the Oregon Dairy Women booth, because who can beat $4.50 for the best marionberry shake in the nation? No other, guaranteed. Pierce gets a simple cone, preferring his sugar unsullied by other flavors. On the way out, however, he spots a funnel cake stand. Funnel cake has never been my cup of tea, so he eats the whole plate, on the condition that he finishes it before we get in the car to avoid getting powdered sugar all over my seats.

It’s still early afternoon, so we decide to take the backroads home. If you’re familiar with the stretch of I5 that runs from Salem to Eugene, you’ll know that it’s full of flat, barren nothingness—terrible to look at if you’re trying to enjoy a leisurely Saturday afternoon drive home with your boyfriend.

We pass through the tiny town of Monroe an hour into the drive. I grew up around that area, so I tell Pierce stories while I reminisce around the S curves of Highway 99.

Suddenly, Pierce pipes up from the passenger seat, “Can you stop at the next place we see? Think that funnel cake’s hitting my stomach wrong.”

“We just left Monroe so the next stop isn’t until Junction City.”

“It doesn’t have to be like, a rest area. I’ll just pop in anywhere and ask to use the bathroom.”

“No, really,” I say. “The next place to stop is the Safeway in JC. There’s nothing out here but farm land.” I assure him that the drive between the two towns is less than fifteen minutes.

Barely four minutes goes by before Pierce belts out, “I can’t do this! Pull over NOW!”

I jump at his sudden outburst, nearly jerking the car into the oncoming lane. Thankfully, there are no other cars on the road.

“Jesus! What was that for?” I shout, and finally take a glance toward the passenger side of the car.

Pierce has his back pinned halfway between the seat and the door, seatbelt askew. With arms to either side, he’s holding all of his weight against his elbows. His legs are stretched out straight before him, pressing firmly on the footwell, toes hidden under the glove compartment.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask as I do a double-take back to the road.

“I GOTTA SHIT!” He bellows. I let out a tiny giggle. Then I see his face.

Beads of sweat are starting to collect in his hairline. His lips are devoid of color, being clamped down too hard for too long. His whole body is trembling slightly. His eyes—his kind, hazel eyes that I love so much—start pooling with tears as he looks at me.

We’re less than 10 minutes out by this point so I tell him to hold on a little while longer, and step on the gas. My 1995 Ford Taurus starts to rattle when you push him past 65mph, but I try to give it a little more.

“I CAN’T DO THIS!” Pierce screams. “Pull OVER! Let me out!” The front of his shirt is plastered to his chest. Tears and sweat are freely flowing down his face and into his beard. He looks at me with pure, unadulterated terror. And I know.

This man is going shit in my car. Right on my clean, comfortable cloth seats.

“I swear to God,” I warn him. “If you shit your pants in my fucking car . . .”

“Please,” he whimpers. “I’ll use my sock.”

We pass Lingo Lane and I know we’re in the home stretch. I start giving him minute-by-minute updates. Less than 3 minutes now, Pierce. We’re almost there. Focus on your breathing, Pierce. You can do this. Do not shit in my motherfucking car, Pierce.

I remember belatedly that the Safeway in Junction City has the sketchiest bathroom, impossible to find unless you grew up there and were toted around the store by your grandmother every week. I try to give him simple directions: go through the giant, black double doors at the back that customers are usually told they can’t enter and turn right when you see the warehouse. The double-stall bathroom is tucked into a corner with no signs.

But he can’t hear me any longer, all his effort is on clenching his own asscheeks. He shakes his head a little, and I know he hasn’t understood my directions. At this rate, he’ll never make it. I try to tell him again—straight back, big, black doors, turn right—when I see it.

I kick myself for not remembering that the entrance on this side of the grocery store has a massive dip, like a reverse speedbump, where the sidewalk meets the asphalt. I apologize to Pierce, who looks at me with mortal fear, and ease the car’s front tires into the crater.

“Oooooooooh!” Pierce squeals, raising himself higher on his elbows, trying to keep his ass off the seat. I try to soothe him by letting him know we’ve arrived as we pull up toward the entrance.

Before I can find a parking spot or even stop the car, Pierce unbuckles his seat belt and barrels out, leaving the car door wide open. I laugh as I watch him scramble nearly on all fours to the front, though I’m secretly hoping he is able to find Safeway’s elusive bathroom.

A few minutes later, I get a text: OH MY GOD. I can’t help but burst out laughing as he tells me how he narrowly escaped disaster, only thanks to a good Samaritan asking to be led to the bathroom. He tells me how he was able to follow them and swoop in before leaving a mess on the floor of the refrigerated section.

Pierce spends twenty-five minutes in Safeway’s bathroom before buying a bottle of Arrowhead water and making his way back out to the car.

“I really thought I was a goner back there,” he sighs once he’s buckled in the passenger seat again. “The only thing that kept me going was the sound of your voice.”

No birds sang and no flowers suddenly appeared. No glitter floated down and decorated my hair, but at that moment, time seemed to stop. The air stilled and my heart swelled with tenderness. I realized that “true love” isn’t about first kisses or Prince Charming. It isn’t knowing your partner’s favorite song or listening to their childhood traumas.

Sometimes, “true love” is driving as fast as your little beater car can handle while chanting supportive Do Not Shit statements at the one you love. It’s about sticking around when dignity fails, and being prepared to clean up the aftermath, together.

So the next year, when COVID hit and my final term at the University of Oregon had gone completely online, and when graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2020 were canceled and the Linguistics Department sent us all, instead, a little green box with a very nice pen in the mail, Pierce bought me a bouquet of flowers and had me pretend to walk across our one-bedroom apartment’s living room to receive my degree from him in my green grad cap and purple pajama bottoms.

And when we spent almost a year with lockdown restrictions, afraid of what would happen if people kept dying in troves . . .

And when the Santiam and Holiday Farm Fires were ravaging the state, making the sky blood red with pieces of ash that fell like snowflakes . . .

When Pierce lost his job, and we worried about how we were going to pay rent or eat on only my income . . .

When our elderly cat passed away after a long battle with kidney disease . . .

When we eventually moved across the world, away from all our friends and family . . .

And even now, as we consider the next steps to take in our life together. . .

. . . Pierce and I always have each other. Because true love is about pushing each other, and supporting each other, and moving forward together, toward a common goal, even if that goal lies at the end of a search for a public bathroom.

 

M. James Harper: “Originally from Oregon, I currently live in South Korea with my husband. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Oregon, and am a current student of Southern New Hampshire University’s Online MFA program. Although new to submitting my work for publishing, I am a longtime fan of writing and storytelling. When not grading papers, I enjoy playing tabletop games, taking walks in nature, and attempting to make desserts from YouTube recipes, much to my husband’s delight.”