Virginia is for Lovers, Nebraska is for Cheaters

 By Gracie Brinker
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The Macarena is a song about cheating. In the same way that Semi Charmed Life is about crystal meth. It’s the idea of Pumped Up Kicks being about vintage shoes and also about kids that bring weapons to school. Sometimes, even the most upbeat song may have a disturbing backstory to it, almost like it’s lying right to your face. From painting a red door black to balloons floating in the summer sky, there is probably a song about anything you can think of. People thought Hotel California was about going to Hell. You could go on about The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, or the time the devil went down there looking for a soul to steal. Many scenarios are exaggerated. Some take their inspiration from real world events. But not all murder ballads are created equally. Tears in Heaven is about Eric Clapton’s son who fell from a window. A girl didn't like a weekday so much that she aimed a rifle at a preschool and The Boomtown Rats penned I Don't Like Mondays about it. Bruce Springsteen wrote about a real couple that murdered 10 people in Nebraska. You might not realize it at first, but a second listen might give you questions you’ll have to search for the answer to. But it's not hard to be subtle when the lyrics spell out the meaning right there.
 
Sometimes, Georgia doesn't want the devil to visit her anymore, the Hotel California becomes an unlovely place, and Nebraska decides she wants to kill you herself. Unassisted. She'll show up at your front door unprompted. When you go to open it, she shoots you in the forehead. You almost don’t even see the weapon in her hand until it claims your life. There’s no emotion in her face. You used to love the way her blue eyes would twinkle at you, but now they only view you coldly. A color once vibrant and loving, now darkened. She might as well not look at you at all. She doesn't even have a reaction when she checks for your pulse, cold fingers against your cold neck, searching for a heartbeat she knows isn't there anymore. A heart that once beat for her, now lifeless. She’ll drag you by your arms to her car, unlocking her truck and tossing your body into it. It might as well be your final resting place. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds wrote an entire album about fictional murder ballads. Maybe the girl you once loved was inspired by these. You've become restricted to the girlfriend tied up in the trunk cliché. Maybe this is how it ends; this is how you die.
 
But most of the time the smoking gun is just her voice itself. She doesn’t stuff you into her trunk. She doesn’t shoot you at all. She won’t even look sad when she tells you she wants to break up with you. She doesn’t have to drag you to her car at all, instead you’ll climb into her passenger seat willingly. She has your favorite ice cream for you. It's a little melted, but you prefer softer ice cream and she is aware of that. Fuck. You wish she didn’t know you as well as she did. If she didn’t have you memorized like a favorite song, maybe this wouldn’t hurt as much. You've clung on to every “what-if?” of the relationship since the beginning; what's one more for good luck? She asks if you’d like to go for a drive and you agree, knowing what's to come. The silicon chip inside your head gets switched to overload, and you suddenly wanna shoot the whole day down. And since you'd rather not get heartbroken in your driveway, you agree. She's going to sweeten the deal and then go for your heart. If this is what the game of love is, she must be a very bad player. She’s always had terrible aim anyways.
 
She will start the conversation by asking about your job. She knows what you like to talk about and what you don't. However, she's very bad at respecting those boundaries. Your workplace has sucked the life out of you to the point where everyone around you notices. She has for sure. She backs out of your driveway and turns right down the street you take every day. To you with muscle memory, but for her she had to memorize the way she came from. She'll have to do the same when she drops you off too. You'll have to take that road for months afterwards and she's all you're going to think about. You wish you would’ve just opened up the door and rolled out of the moving vehicle before she could break your heart. She decides to drive down the road she's most familiar with. You don't question her because she should know her way around your neighborhood by now. She seems to have learned about other neighborhoods as well too. Neighborhoods with much bigger houses and yards. She can date across the 50 states all she wants; all interstates will lead back home to you. You ask her if she can cut the bullshit, and she doesn't expect you to be so blunt, but she agrees.
 
She confirms that she was cheating on you. You nod because you aren’t surprised. Although you don’t let her know that you aren’t surprised. The Beatles released many songs that sound like a bunch of random instruments jumbled together. To you, her words sound just like a hammer coming down upon your head. Bang! Bang! She creeps up behind you and strikes when you're the most vulnerable. It's the type of feeling that makes your fingers spark, like electricity being shocked into you through bolts on your neck; some sort of lovestruck Frankenstein’s monster. IT’S ALIVE!!! You let a tear run down your cheek and pray she doesn't notice it. She’s also always been terrible at paying attention. She only remembers what she wants to remember. She decides whether or not your sadness will dictate her own sadness. Her sympathy only stretches so far. Maybe she’ll write a murder ballad about you someday. You wonder how many words she could rhyme with your name.
 
She’s crying now. You don’t really know why she’s crying to begin with. She’s the reason why this is ending. She is the farmer with the rifle in her hand. You are the sick dog who cannot be saved. She looks the opposite way, as if turning and begging you to “Get! Get away you dumb dog! Can’t you see I don't want you anymore?” Avoidance is the silent killer. The silent stalker. It builds up inside before it snaps. You can run around avoiding the state of Nebraska all your life, but she’ll come to kill you in the end. She always takes back what is rightfully hers. She wipes stray tears from her eyes and turns back to you, as if wanting to hear what you have to say. There’s nothing left but blood on the axe. Blood on the saddle and blood on the wall. You can clean up your mess as much as possible but the stains will still be there to remind you.
 
You'll be convinced that there was something they had that you didn’t. You ask her what you could have done better, and she tells you “nothing”. You both know that's not true. Although you know she won't admit it to your face. She'll eventually be caught and tried and executed for her crimes. But right now, she thinks she's off the hook. She’ll brag to her friends about how good she’s handling it, but your shadow will terrorize her. Riders on the Storm; there’s a killer on the road. There's only so far you can drive until you'll have to stop for gas. But by now, she’s turned back and is driving towards your house. She might feel grateful this is the last time she's ever going to drive to your place. She might disappear from your life, but her melodies will always seem to chase you. Like an earworm so catchy it makes you miserable when you no longer remember how it goes. One day, you'll wake up and forget how her voice sounds, but you have a lot of music left to listen to until that happens. You need to clear the queue for better playlists.
 
She pulls into your driveway, and you know it’s time to go. You'll say goodbye forever; it's the only music left to hear, besides the beating of your own heart in your ears. She’ll ask to hug you one last time. She has her arms out before you can say no, so you agree because you know you’ll be alone later and regret it. Although, for the first time, hugging her doesn’t feel pleasant. It doesn’t feel like you’re wrapping your arms around a human, molding flesh together. Some people like to wrap their arms around their partners as tight as possible. She used to be so warm. She used to wrap her limbs around your waist, staining your face with her maraschino colored kisses, whispering “I love you, I love you, I love you” against your skin like a promise. Her words became bullets which became bombs which blew up. You can compare the pain to any weapon known to man. Her embrace might feel like you are hugging the knife, letting her sharp blade puncture through your skin, piercing your lungs, stopping your breath. She’s unaware of the life she’s sucking out of you.
 
You'll go back to your bedroom alone, and then you’ll think about it. You’ll think about her. You’ll come up with every single scenario under the sun to make yourself feel better. You blame yourself for every situation where you could’ve been better, but you know you can’t change it. You might’ve not been perfect, but neither was she. You can’t fix how she feels about you. You can’t fix how her mind works. You’ll never truly realize it. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe the truth would eat you alive. Maybe it's better off to not know either way. You will never see her again. You'll only hear about her. But word-of-mouth doesn't seem to do her any justice.
 
And so you can’t say that you’re surprised that the girl named after the state got back with her ex-boyfriend, but you're glad you overheard. Makes the grieving process a lot better, in your eyes. You knew the second you split up, she was gonna run back to him like a record on a turntable, perpetually spinning just for him. You can call up the radio station and beg them to turn that shit off, or you can let the record play. She still makes art about you and you still write stories about her. It’s a silent agreement you both have. Hell, it's the only thing about her that’s silent. If Nebraska can kill everything in her path, then you can be bitter. You can be worse. You can be as evil as you want to be. You can rent a room at the Hotel California, but you can never leave. You can try to outrun the gun in your expensive shoes, but the quick hand always wins in the end. You can make a deal for your soul in Georgia, but the Devil probably sees far enough of her already.

About the Author 

Gracie Brinker likes to write, A-LOT; so much so that she has to buy extra storage for her Google Drive just to keep track of all her writings. You'll see many references to pop culture and media within her writings. Although she is quite shy, she uses her writings to express the words she cannot say. You can usually find her reading a banned book or listening to The Beach Boys, or both.