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Borderline Vagabond is the mythical journey of a twenty-something unemployed writer from Michigan in search of the American Dream. At a strip club not too far from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he finds it. What becomes of the Dream once it's found? What do we do when our goals are fulfilled, and we're stuck waiting for what comes next? How do we reach out and take it? How to we progress? How do we keep going when all signs point to danger? When will we dream the next dream?This book is for those willing to seek, and to ask the question: 'Am I a wolf, or a lamb?' from the text -“The sun hung like an ornament, perspective diminishing its raging nuclear fury to a paltry drop of lemon meringue among the cotton.”“The truth flows from him in a fountain of 'f***s' and worldly insight.”“In these mountains, I can see time. I can see myself existing at different points in my life, growing from boy to man as the mountains stay the same.”
Citation preview
[1]
Borderline Vagabond
An allegorical narrative, expounding on the American Dream
and other such abstractions of modern civilization.
A series of words, intentionally arranged by
Zachary Kyle Elmblad
[2]
SCRIBD EDITION
ISBN PENDING
© 2010-2012 by The New Scum Productions
TheNewScum.ORG
No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, et cetera.
A digital copy can be previewed and purchased at ZachElmblad.com.
Previous Titles by Zachary Elmblad
Whatever Happens Happens
A New Way Home
[3]
SCREW PLAGIARISM
and
FUCK CENSORSHIP
[4]
“We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.”
-A. O'Shaughnessy
This book is written for the dreamers.
For those who can't give up.
Those who keep fighting.
The movers and shakers.
Those road worn saints.
The rising Sun in the East,
the setting Sun in the West,
and for those in perpetual waiting,
longing for just one more dance.
[5]
Part One – The HookChapter One – Consternation
Chapter Two – Dialectic
Chapter Three – Cigarettes
Chapter Four – Ubiquity
Part Two – The LineChapter Five – Dreams
Chapter Six – Deliverance
Chapter Seven – Salvation
Chapter Eight – Precursors
Part Three – The SinkerChapter Nine – Arrival
Chapter Ten – Morning
Chapter Eleven – Pancakes
Chapter Twelve – Lucidity
Chapter Thirteen – Ghosts
Chapter Fourteen – Goodbyes
Chapter Fifteen – Truckers
Chapter Sixteen - Mountains
[6]
Friends,
Our mid-twenties were wrought with emotional
upheavals, grave senses of inadequacy, delusions of
immortality, boundless hope for a better tomorrow, and an
insatiable lust for adventure.
For those few short years of our lives, we found
ourselves running madly in search of something we couldn't
ever have hoped to find. A personalized, single-serving
portion of the world that was tailor-made just for us. We were
children in the eyes of the universe. Unabashedly idealistic in
our pursuits of happiness, and brazenly defiant of the people
who expressed any doubt in us.
Privileged halcyon days spent criss-crossing the
continent in a vain quest for the physical embodiment of an
ages-old metaphor. We may have never found the 'American
Dream,' as anyone else would have seen it, but we did find a
world around us that suited our tastes and purpose just fine.
All in all, it's easy to say you know what the dream is.
It's easy to say you've found it, and it's even easier to say you
haven't. For us, the most fun had always been in the pursuit
of things anyhow.
It always made for a better story.
[7]
[8]
Chapter One – Consternation
“Pig fucker!”
Those were the first words I managed to hear
out of what was becoming a long line of obscene
and incessant curses that I could have sworn were
being directed at me.
From whom? For what reason?
I couldn't quite tell if it was a dream, or if it
was really happening.
“Bastard! Prick!”
I heard it again. Where was I? Who was
yelling? How did I get here? When? I got kicked in
[9]
the shin – that, I knew was real. With certainty this
was, indeed, the waking world. I shook my head
and opened my eyes. The room was unfamiliar at
first glance, but I was pretty sure that I recognized
the voice.
“It's Nine P.M.! We should have punched six
whores in the mouth and drunk a gallon of gin
by now! WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?!”
He was shouting now, jumping up and down
on the floor next to the couch. He was red-faced
and pointing at me with a violently extended index
finger.
“What day is it?” I moaned.
I stuttered when I said 'day.' I was still
waking up. How long had I slept? When did I get
here? Where was here? Why was I here? For what
purpose?
“Tuesday! Friday! Easter! Who cares?! Let's
[10]
get drunk and walk out on our tab! We've got
shit to do and chicks to screw!”
“Fuck it, you're right. Let's do this thing. No
time like the present.”
I peeled myself up off the couch and palmed
the coffee table for my glasses. I was too lazy to
wear contacts, and too poor for LASIK. Complex
and expensive organs, the eyes. I rubbed them
because they felt like they needed to be rubbed. It
didn't really help.
“Get up and take a piss! It's time to fuck
cocaine and snort hookers. Wait. Never mind,
I fucked that up. Whatever. Let's just go
down to the skank shack and throw dollar bills
at titties!”
“What?”
My face must have said to him, 'what the fuck
[11]
is going on?,' and he leaned in close. I could smell
his dogged breath. That pushed me fully in to
consciousness.
“Just. Get. Off. The. Couch. Asshole! JESUS
DOESN'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!”
I shook my head and rubbed my eyes again,
as I thought of a reply.
“God, fuck man, you're insane. A menace to
society! An overall bad seed with no
redeeming qualities whatsoever! Your mother
didn't slap you enough as a child!”
“I'm good people. That's why you're sleeping
on my couch. Now get up and start drinking!
You are a lazy, pathetic, no good puddle of dog
vomit! Rise and shine, shit-for-brains! You're
the one that drove all this way to come party
with das ubermensch!”
[12]
Hooper Felonious. Without hesitation, the
craziest person I have ever met. He was laying low,
so to speak, in some strange neighborhood just
outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It had been
nearly a year since I'd seen him last, and times
spent with this gnarled experiment of humanity had
previously consisted of endless tirades of alcohol,
strippers, and sleepless nights.
He'd buy you shots at the bar just to watch
you get too drunk to keep up with him. He'd give
you a brownie and never tell you it's dosed with pot
butter and liquid acid. He would rather just wait for
you to figure it out yourself when your brain starts
feeling melty.
Never accept food from a stranger, as a
general rule, but especially not one with a smile like
his. He has a knowing smile, an anticipatory smile,
a downright wicked and treacherous smile. A smile
you wouldn't forget for the rest of your life.
We had lived together for a stretch, sometime
[13]
in the fog of the past, and had developed a strange
method of communication that mostly involved
limitless use of profanity and offensively diminutive
insults. It seemed to work well for us. It was good
to see my friend again at such long last.
“Fire up the bong, Hoop. I've got a tingle in
my shaft. How about those whores?”
“You're a failure. Always were. You couldn't
even fuck a girl in a brothel with a thousand
dollars!”
“I'd fuck a thousand hookers in an afternoon.
Jesus taught me mind control when we
vacationed in the Czech Republic. I'm secretly
controlling you. You've got no free will,
motherfucker!”
“Mind control, is it? Did you just tell my mind
to get out of the house and proceed directly to
the nearest bar?”
[14]
“Hell yes, I did.”
“Well, damn, man. I guess I'll just have to
trust your judgment! It's good to see you can
maintain moral integrity when utilizing mind
control.”
“Morality? Ethics? You're starting to think
now! I wondered if it'd be possible with that
tiny lizard brain of yours! You're finally
beginning to understand the greater purpose,
man!”
“My greater purpose is to get drunk and get
that lizard wet. We're leaving. I hope you're
ready for this.”
He was a crude person, but not out of
necessity or ignorance. He was a crude person
because he found it utterly hysterical to offend
people. He was sick with the power of words. He'd
call a stranger a pussy to his face, give the guy a
high five, buy him a shot, and somehow get away
[15]
with it. He'd piss off his roommates, cutting up
pizza with a hatchet at four in the morning, because
that's what he does. He'd come to your house and
eat all your food, then show up a week later with a
car full of groceries and wearing a backpack full of
drugs and booze.
He'd buy you a pack of cigarettes to pay back
the square he bummed off you a week ago, but
then he'd just smoke half the pack anyway. He
would read things out loud in other languages that
he didn't actually speak. When this guy was
around, everybody had a good time. He was one of
those rare people, the ones that are so memorable
they couldn't be properly explained in a hundred
pages. The guy you're proud to call a friend, even if
he disgusts everyone else around you. That's why I
drove half way across the country to see him. He
was that cool. Being in the presence of the guy
made you certain that life wasn't a boring sequence
of jobs you hated and friends you pretended to like.
Hooper is one of those people that made life worth
living.
[16]
“I found this new tit bar a couple of miles
away. Get in the truck. Let's go throw money
at chicks.”
“Finally, a good idea! I was wondering when
you'd be over with the formalities; fully
prepared and ready to find the main nerve.”
“Oh, I'm ready.”
We collected keys, wallets, phones, and
sunglasses, each having a glass of Dewar's, and a
fat joint to burn before heading in to the club.
There really was no cocaine. We didn't fuck with
narcotics. Better to play around the edge than to
go over it. It was all jokes, really. We weren't as
audacious as we made ourselves out to be.
Monstrous bark; bite a mere nibble.
We played characters around each other, bold
exaggerations of our true identities. The world can
get boring sometimes, and it's good to know that
[17]
you can count on some folks to make it a bit more
appealing. Throwing some shit in the pot and
stirring it up just to see what comes out at the end.
Things are far more interesting that way. The real
world needs a little fiction in it every once in a
while.
“Light this, fuck stain.”
“Give me a lighter, jizz rag.”
He passed me a lighter and I checked the side
streets for cached cop cruisers before I sparked up
the joint. We passed it between ourselves and
dropped pretense for a brief, but real, moment of
actual conversation.
“So, how's everything been going, dude?”
He didn't yell anymore, it was his normal
speaking voice. He really did want to know. Now,
we were just people being people.
[18]
“Quit my stupid job.”
“They had it coming.”
“Maybe. Still a pretty stupid move on my part,
though. Soon as I get home, I'll be out of cash
with no prospects of employment. Gonna be a
long few months.”
“Aw, come on, it can't be that bad. At least
you've got a house and a car and enough time
and money to come drink with me in the dirty
South!”
“You're right, man, it isn't all that bad, but I
just wish I could get a better lay out of life
every once in a while. All this day to day
drudgery and the bills and these monotonous
pseudo-relationships make me want to eat
paint chips. I think I'm getting soft. Old,
maybe.”
[19]
“Soft as a limp dick! What are you going to
do? Cry?! We'll get ya all cheered up, man.
Don't worry. I'm glad you made it out, and
we're certainly gonna have a good time. No
sense sitting around wishing you were dead.
Get off of it.”
“You're right, man. I know. I'm just over-
emphasizing the negative. There's hot chicks
to look at, booze in the freezer, music on the
iPod, and good times on the calendar. I just
wish the fun never stopped.”
“Fun wouldn't be fun anymore if you didn't
have some bad shit go down between the good
times. You know this, idiot. Stop getting
down on yourself. We're nearly there.”
He pulled a half-full bottle of Jose Cuervo from
underneath his truck seat. He twisted off the cap,
put it to his lips, and suckled a mouthful before
handing it over to me.
[20]
“HA!” He punched the roof of the truck.
“Road Tequila?”
“I've been saving this for a special occasion.
Today is that occasion. I don't usually share
my road booze, but you're a special guest.”
“Thanks for the V.I.P. treatment.” I said, as I
took a good warm gulp for myself.
Ah, free booze. Tequila burns a little bit more
when it's been in a hot car for who knows how long,
but the effect is still the same and I love it. I
reached into the cargo pocket of my shorts for my
pack of smokes, flipped the flap open, and grabbed
one with the corner of my mouth. I fished a lighter
out of the other pocket and sparked up.
“I thought you were quitting, man. Those
little fucking bastards are gonna kill you some
day.”
[21]
“Keeping that fifth of Cuervo under your seat
isn't a very good idea, either, you know. And
besides – quitting is for quitters, isn't that
right?”
“Every good thing comes to an end, man. It
takes a careful balance of fucking yourself up
and then taking the punishment. Wash cycle.
It's only natural.”
“Wash cycle.” I said, blowing a blue cloud of
smoke out of the passenger window.
I couldn't help but reach for the bottle of
tequila again as I sucked down the last of my
cigarette. I flicked the butt out of the window and
narrowly missed a less-than-thrilled pedestrian. We
pulled into the strip club parking lot, which was
surprisingly empty considering how many people
were inside. It was near a few hotels, they must
have walked.
The security in these places can border on the
[22]
excessive, and twenty bucks a head was way too
much for a cover charge. We ponied it up, and
figured we'd be sure to get our money's worth.
After photocopies of our driver's licenses were
taken, we were led through a large black door. As it
opened, the scent of sweat, cheap perfume, and
despair filled my nose in a shotgun blast of
sensation. The surroundings were all too familiar to
a man like myself, who's spent a time or two in the
gentleman's clubs of our fair nation.
There were mirrors on the walls and ceilings,
disco balls sending shattered reflections all over the
room, imitation velvet chairs with low arms, UV
carpet, and a long UV bar-top with a UV-skinned
woman behind it who had clearly graduated from
dancer to manager. They call people like her 'lifers.'
We made haste for the bar, looking the
woman in the eyes as we approached. We're no
hooligans, lady, and you no fool. Let us remember
that, and keep face. She put her hands to either
[23]
side, leaning against the bar with an anticipatory
bartender's stance.
“What can I get you, boys?”
Before I could open my mouth, Hooper was
already summoning a plethora of libations.
“Two Irish Car bombs, two shots of Jager, two
Newcastles, and some peanuts if you've got
them. I tip well, lady.”
“Right away, honey.” She said in a Marlboro-
tinged southern accent.
“You're going balls deep on the first thrust,
aren't you, Hoop?”
“No other way. A toast! Say a fucking toast
and let's be on with it. I hunger and thirst for
justice, but mostly I just thirst.”
[24]
My favorite toast, I didn't write. I stole it
from Neil Gaiman's “The Sandman.” The main
character is about make a deal with the devil, and is
offered this toast before he heads on his way:
“To absent friends,
lost loves, old gods,
and the season of mist-
that we may each and
every one of us
give the devil his due.”
“Hail Satan!” Hooper screamed before he pounded
his Irish car bomb and brought it down with a
hollow smack against the bar.
I followed suit, and we quickly moved on to
the Jager shots. Better than to let them get warm,
you know.
“To the New Millennium Jagermeister Christ!”
I yelled at the top of my lungs while I tipped
[25]
back the Jager and poured it on down the hatch.
We laughed for a bit as the bartender stared at us
with a shocked stare and widened eyes.
“Starting a tab?” She said, probably hoping we'd
say 'no.'
“Fuck yeah, we're starting a tab- we're only
getting started! We had to pay twenty bucks
to get in to this place! More drinks!” Hooper
bellowed.
She took his credit card with a nervous grin,
and we gingerly sipped the Newcastle. We had to
hold off on shots for a while, or else we'd be
dragged off by the shirt collars. There were pairs of
very large, and very scary, guards at every door.
They periodically glanced at us over the rims of
their sunglasses, just long enough to let us know we
were being watched. They were ready for us to
make one false move, and they'd be there.
They were practically foaming at the mouth to
[26]
throw us out of that place. We were trouble from
the start. Boisterous and argumentative; free and
proud of it. Sometimes I wonder if we actually
scare people with our general demeanor.
It wouldn't have been the first time we were
dragged from a bar, either. Oh no. We had a
tendency to offend. Although our behavior was
funny to us, it was rarely funny to anyone else-
especially those on the receiving end of our
attempts at stretching the limits of decency. The
awkward silence of the club was broken with the
familiarly irritating voice of the strip club D.J.
“Coming up next, the sexy Sandra struts her
stuff on stage. Meanwhile, two girls for
twenty! Pick your two favorite babes and
retreat to your private paradise in our very
own VIP lounge!” The D.J.'s stereotypical voice
cut over the opening synth lines of “Poker Face” by
Lady Gaga.
Sexy Sandra wasn't so sexy. She was the fat
[27]
chick they kept around for fetish's sake. There's
always the construction worker in the back that
comes up to stick dollars in her fat rolls. Bluffin'
with her muffin, indeed.
She prowled around the stage like she was
looking for a bowl of ice cream, and grabbed the
pole in the middle, untying her top for the big
reveal. I wondered how much it would cost to get
her to keep it on.
She unleashed the fury as the construction
worker yelped and spilled another of many beer
stains to come on his plain white T-shirt. He ran up
to the stage with a dollar bill in his hand and his
legs shook as he slipped it underneath a
watermelon breast she had lifted for him.
He sauntered back to his table with a toothy
grin. Sooner or later, she would have his arm in
hers as she led him to the VIP lounge for a twenty
minute dance with the other big girl, Dionne.
There's a woman for every man and a man for
[28]
every woman. That guy might never forget this
night.
A bellowing came from behind me.
“Christ! Get off the stage and on to a
treadmill!” Hooper wasn't one to sugar coat
things.
She ignored him, and carried on with her
performance. I'd bet she was in her mid twenties,
probably been dancing about three or four years.
She had a product to sell, a specific demographic,
and a willing clientèle. Hooper's caterwauling surely
wouldn't affect her income or success.
Strippers don't strip because they're made to
do it. Strippers strip because they make money
doing it. There's all kinds of women, and they're
equally represented at a strip club. There's Asians,
Blacks, Latinos, Whites, fatties, Anorexics, tattooed,
dread-locked, pierced, and vajazzled. That's a word
now. Explain that one to Grandma. So many
[29]
women, so little time. What a shame. Everybody's
got their penchant, and strip clubs aim to please.
Hooper would find a girl he liked if he waited long
enough.
The next was “Foxy Roxy.” The brunette-
bombshell type. Character aged thirty five, girl
aged twenty six. Bet your bottom dollar. She wore
a collared and starched white shirt tied off in the
front, with thick-framed glasses. She looked mean,
vicious even. Hooper was transfixed. He fished a
dollar out of his pocket and walked slowly up to the
stage.
She dropped down to her knees and opened
the front pocket on her white shirt. Hoop folded the
bill in half, and stuck it in. She wiggled her tits in
his face, and he walked back with a smile. He sat
down on the bar stool and grabbed his beer with a
triumphant swing of his arm.
“Much better,” he said, with a red-faced and
sleazy grin, gingerly nursing his beer.
[30]
Chapter Two – Dialectic
What's the most beautiful girl look
like? That's a hard question to answer. What a
man finds attractive in a woman is more a matter of
personal philosophy than anything else. All women
are beautiful in their own way. No single one is the
most beautiful, but some are better looking than
others, sure.
I saw one of the most beautiful women I have
ever seen, dancing like a goddess in some washed-
out strip club in North Carolina. I didn't know her
name, or at least her real name. Maybe I'll never
see her again, but I sure won't forget her face.
She had dye-orange hair. Not like red-head
orange, but orange like a traffic cone. It was cut
just above her shoulders, so that it swooped past
[31]
her ears and curved in like a scythe ready to reap
her neck. She had gauges in her ears. Nothing too
extreme, just a few captive beads and an industrial
in the left ear. No visible tattoos, but she would
have made a beautiful canvas. It seemed like
maybe she wanted to be able to go back to her
hometown and never have anyone suspect what she
did for a living.
Her eyes, they were the most captivating by
far. Not Grey, not green, not blue, but some
impossibly iridescent blend of the three. No amount
of paint mixing could ever reproduce those eyes.
She was slim, but healthy and well toned. Not
rail-skinny, and nowhere near fat. Not too short,
not too tall. She wore black laced garters and a
black satin thong with a tiny pink rose embroidered
on the front. A matching bra barely covered her
chest underneath a sheer pink top. I looked again
at her eyes. She was dancing to some song by The
Mars Volta, I want to have been 'Drunkship of
Lanterns.'
[32]
Her face had the angelic grace of transcendent
beauty, and the devilish twinge of hedonistic excess.
She looked like she had seen the worst, but still
expected the best. If it was all an act, she was
worthy of a spotlight on Broadway. If it was the
truth, I couldn't have written it any better. She
smiled when we made eye contact.
It wasn't the smile of a saleswoman, nor the
smile of a vixen on the prowl. It was an honest
smile, a 'hey, you looked me in the eyes' smile. The
kind of smile you give someone you just realized
was a real human being, and not some depraved
animal that wanted boobies for a buck.
She didn't dance so much as float around the
stage. I forgot, just for a minute, that I was at a
strip club. Who was this woman? What thoughts
were on her mind? I was entranced, finding myself
wishing to know her outside the context of this
temple of desire and fantasy.
[33]
I couldn't help myself. I didn't even notice as
I grew nearer and nearer the stage. I didn't notice
myself grab a stack of ones from my wallet. She
did. All I saw was her looking at me, and in that
moment there was nothing but her on my mind.
She grabbed my shoulder with her right hand, as I
put a dollar bill underneath the strap of her garter
held out by her left.
She pulled my shoulder closer to her as she
leaned forward.
“What do you want from life?” She whispered
into my ear, with a kind of voice I could have sworn
that I had heard before.
“I want to be famous.” I told her.
It was only half a lie. No one tells the truth in
a strip club. Famous? Sure, that'd be nice. It's a
stock answer for a stock question.
“You look famous to me, babe.”
[34]
Nice comeback, lady.
“What do you want from life?”
I offered her another dollar bill, but she didn't
make a move to take it. She just kind of stood
there like someone had a gun at her head, and she
was trying to figure out what move to make next. I
set it down on the stage. She looked taken off
guard. Stunned. I wonder how many times she'd
used that line without someone holding up a mirror
to it.
“I want to get out of here,”
As she said it, her face dropped from cutely
confident to functionally forlorn. I thought, for a
minute, that she had broken the wall down; that
maybe she was speaking to me out of character and
as a real human being. I had the sudden urge to
ask her if she'd like me to buy her a drink, and I
realized it was the long con. I gave in.
[35]
“We're shooting Jager - you in?”
“When I'm done with my dance, I'll find you.”
“How? It's a big place, you know?”
“I'll remember your face.”
Slowly backing away, looking me straight into
the eyes, she leaned backwards on to the pole in
the center of the stage. Supporting herself initially
with her shoulder, then slowly bringing her arms up
to support her weight, she lifted up her right leg.
She brought the right leg all the way up,
perpendicular to the pole, then raised up the left leg
in the same way so that she was fully extended
upside-down. She brought her legs to her sides,
making right angles. Fluidly and effortlessly, she
lifted her legs back up to wrap around the pole,
twisting her body to be supported by her legs, and
facing me from high above.
[36]
She was good, this one.
She took off her top, still looking me in the
eyes, and I took a seat near the stage and watched
the rest of her dance. She surely was a goddess,
even if only for the five minutes on stage. It was
long enough. No need to have too much of a good
thing, you know, you'll end up taking it for granted.
After her dance, she shot me a wink as she walked
into the dressing room to count her tips.
There's something I just don't quite like about
strip clubs. Something unnerving that I can never
quite put my finger on. Sure, I like strip clubs, but
sometimes I wonder if it's wholly ethical to
participate in such an enterprise. Surely there's no
measurable gain on my end from the ordeal. That
girl was never going to come home with me. She
wasn't going to come over for a drink. That was a
figment of my imagination. I mentally slapped my
own wrist, ashamed at myself. Falling for a stage
act like a plebeian chump. I slumped back into my
seat at the bar.
[37]
I picked up the Newcastle and mindlessly read
the label, periodically glancing up at the bar mirror
in hopes that I'd see that orange hair behind me.
That has to be why those mirrors are there. At
first, you think it's to make it look like there's more
booze on the shelves than there really is, but that's
not why those mirrors are there. They're there so
that you can check people out in an indirect way.
Also, so you can see the stage while belly-up to the
bar.
“You found yourself a fine piece, man.”
He looked at me, lifting his glass as if in a
toast.
“Piece? You are such a crude mongrel,
Hooper, you devil. It's a shame you haven't
been shot to death by a woman scorned.”
“Likewise.”
[38]
I offered him a high-five in reply, but he was
busy double-fisting apple martinis. He lifted them
both up, gave me a fucked up look before glancing
back and forth at each, finally taking a drink from
the one in his right hand. He had just finished
buying drinks for himself and Foxy Roxy, the
naughty schoolgirl . I was ready to rack up another
twenty bucks worth of drinks. Money burns easy
when you've got a bunch of it in your pocket, and it
burns even easier when there's liquor and naked
breasts involved. What's a savings account for,
again?
“I want to introduce you to my newest friend,
Roxy. She's awesome. I want to touch her
butt. Are you gonna buy orange hair babe a
shot?”
“I expressed that intent. Keep your fucking
ape hands off of her, I'm going to rescue her.”
His face seemed to be indicating that I was
being rediculous.
[39]
“Rescue her?! From what? All the money she's
making? Did you see how many guys were
putting bills on that stage? She must have
scored a hundred bucks with that five minute
dance! What a fucking succubus!”
I seemed to have forgotten - or hadn't noticed
at all – how many guys there actually were in there.
Hooper was probably right, but I had to get a stab
in likewise.
“Doesn't that just mean she's good at her job?
What's the story on plaid skirt over there,
Hoop? Are you trying to re-live the bygone
years of youth?”
“I always wanted to fuck a teacher, dude,” he
said, sheepishly looking at the floor.
I finished the last foamy gulp of beer from the
bottle, and pushed it to the back of the bar. That's
how you get their attention, you know. It's a
[40]
politely non-verbal way of saying, 'hey, this beer is
empty and I probably want another one so get the
fuck over here and stop sexting your boyfriend.'
“Need another one, doll?”
Alert the internet! We've got a genius!
“Make it a Guinness. Four shots of Jager, too,
if you'd be so kind.”
“I would be so kind. Who might the fourth be
for? Jasmine? I saw her giving you the eye as
you walked back to the bar. We don't get guys
like you two in here often. It seems like
Roxy's taken a fancy to your loudmouthed
friend over there, as well.”
She pointed at Hooper and Roxy, who hadn't
broken eye contact since they sat down.
“It would seem so, yes. What do you mean
when you say, 'guys like us?'”
[41]
She put her hands on her hips and looked at
me with one partially closed eye, as if to say that
she saw right through my bullshit, and that she
wanted no part of it.
“I mean guys that can afford to buy shots of
Jager for people they don't even know, and
didn't get the money from robbing a
convenience store.”
I smiled, and said “Who says we didn't just rob
a convenience store? And, by the way, what
did you say her name was? Jasmine?”
“You didn't rob no damn store, and you know
it. Yeah. Jasmine. So stunned you forgot to
ask, weren't you? I might say that isn't the
first time that has happened.”
“I know the ways of these temptresses, and I
won't be taken off for some expensive groping
session I can't reciprocate. I'm not in the
[42]
mood for fool's errands today. I just want to
get drunk”
“Fool's errand? She's already got you buying a
shot for her!”
“This is a gift. Thanks for her choice of music,
and nothing more. I know better. Your girls
work hard, you all deserve your tips and your
respect. You'll get that much from me, but I'm
not shelling out the big bucks for anything but
liquor, because I know that will do something
for me in the end.”
“You sound like you've got a story. What do
you do for a living?”
Before I could answer honestly, I was
interrupted by a blur of orange hair and a set of
arms around my shoulders.
“He's famous. A musician, maybe. Look at
him. You can tell.”
[43]
I smiled.
“Famous, she says! Maybe to her, maybe to
you. I'll settle for borderline vagabond.”
The bartender dried a glass with her trusty white
terrycloth towel, and said “Famous is only a state
of mind, honey, but I do like that... borderline
vagabond... not quite sure where, but headed
there in a hurry, eh?”
“Listen to her, she knows everything,” cooed
Jasmine interrupted, taking a seat next to me at the
bar.
“I hear your name is Jasmine. I'm the
Vagabond. Sure is a pleasure.”
I offered her my hand to shake hers, but she
grabbed it and pushed her hand to my mouth like a
princess or something. I mimicked the charade,
following suit, and kissed her lightly just above the
knuckles.
[44]
She dropped out of the graceful royalty act
after I handed her the shot glass full of Jager. For a
moment, her true colors shone through. It was the
long con. I knew it.
“Oh, Sweet nectar!” she proclaimed, as she
tossed it back. She was well practiced, and it was
easy to see. Given the chance, I could probably
drink with her until well into the evening.
“To the New Millennium Jagermeister Christ!”
Is it considered a social faux pas to use the
same toast twice in the same night, even if it was
with two different people? I haven't been keeping
up on my studies of etiquette. Who cares, right?
I'll just keep to my stock responses. It keeps things
simple.
“Interesting toast, Mister.”
[45]
“Don't call me Mister, please, for the love of
fuck! Do I look that old?”
“You look like a mister.”
She pouted.
“This motherfucker is no man, she-devil!”
Hooper seemed to chime in at the most inopportune
times. It's almost tragic.
“He looks man enough to me! More of a man
than you!” She looked at him disdainfully, from
under an outstretched brow.
She was already defending me against
Hooper's playful verbal abuse, and playing along to
boot. Things were getting dire, and the vibrations
were developing into a heightened crescendo. This
girl was shopping for a lap dance, and she wasn't
going to get me to buy one. I didn't go there to
spend money on lap dances. I was there to drink
and look at tits. Better to show face, though. You
[46]
can't look a gift horse in the mouth. I was offered
an opening, and I took it.
“Oh, I'm man enough. Probably too much of a
man for you.” I was playing along with her, now.
Two can play this game.
“Are you? How about I take you back to the
V.I.P. lounge and we can find out?”
There it was, that long con. That price tag on
the dream. It was no big shock. The bait had been
cast, waiting for a bite on the hook to sink the
lunker.
“I saw that coming from a mile away, Babe.
It's always the long con. You are a beautiful
woman, and you deserve every dance you sell-
but I am only here to drink, I'm sorry. Let's go
have a cigarette. Do you smoke? Where do
you guys smoke? Out back? When are you on
break?”
[47]
“Alright, vagabond. We'll have that smoke.”
She glanced at the clock on the wall behind me.
“I'm on break in twenty minutes. I gotta go
make some money, though.”
“Give 'em a good time, kid. Come find me
when you're ready for nicotine. We'll see if we
can't find you a way out of here, huh? I'm
gonna rescue you.”
“That's the real con.”
I watched her as she walked away and across
the stage, with the lights on the ceiling coloring her
ass like a double-arched rainbow. I could have paid
for it to be rubbed in my face, and I surely would
have enjoyed it, but I just couldn't stomach it that
day. I didn't feel like monetizing my sexual desire.
I jut wanted to get drunk and hang out with my
friend.
I had too much on my mind, I guess. There
was a purpose for this visit. I stared at my
[48]
Guinness pint, and I thought of all the bars I had
sat behind all across the country. Guinness pints
and Jager shots all over America. From New York to
Portland; and from Jackson Hole to Amarillo. This
was another dusty side-road on the American
Interstate. Some town in the middle of North
Carolina, just another stop along the road. A
wretched den of sin, a house of ill-repute. A place I
surely belonged in.
Where was I going? Why? On the road to
where? Nowhere? Anywhere? Why were we at this
strip club? How many drinks had I drunk? Where
were my cigarettes?
I wandered into the bathroom to take a piss,
and bought some gum from the concierge. You
gotta love places like this, tipping the guy that turns
on the water for you. Why is he there? Is it really
that difficult to turn on the water? Is he there to
make sure you're not snorting coke or hitting a
chillum in the stall? Is he there to make the place
seem fancy? What's fancy about a weird guy in a
[49]
suit watching you pee? I want privacy in the
bathroom. When they offer the paper towels, I just
say 'fuck off' and flick water at them. I guess I
probably shouldn't do that. It isn't very nice.
[50]
Chapter Three – Cigarettes
“Got a light?”
Hands in her purse, cigarette in the corner of
her mouth; she rummaged through bottles of
hairspray and spare, dry, underwear. I reached out
with the trusty Bic, and she leaned in to light her
smoke.
“How long have you been in town, Jasmine?”
“Three years.”
“How do you like it? How's business?”
“It isn't too bad, really. I have bigger dreams
than this, though.”
[51]
She took a slow drag on her cigarette, staring
at the ground. She kicked at a piece of garbage
near the curb. We had made our way out the back
after convincing the the bouncer, Brock, that I
wasn't a threat. All it took was a friendly and
vigorous handshake. We were, after all, just going
out for a smoke.
She led me through the dressing room, and
out back to the fenced-in smoking area. A few
years had passed since my last time in the dressing
room of a strip club, but it was good to see that
things had not changed. Women in various stages
of undress, openly ingesting all manner of foul
substances, and speaking casually and frankly about
their clients and boyfriends. Pungent smells of
underarm sweat and body spray coupled with rancid
burritos still in the garbage from last week. Thongs
hanging from the mirrors, and threats made with
arm-length dildos.
“New squeeze, Jazz? After hours show?”
[52]
We ignored the cat calls, and shut the door
behind us. We sat at the picnic table around the
corner, across the walkway from the garbage cans.
“How was the private dance?”
“He licked my face, and I had to call in Brock
to peel him off of me after that.”
“Sick fucks, these animals. There's no civility
left in the world.”
“Why do you say that? What's got your heart
in pieces all of a sudden?”
“I'm not heartbroken, I'm just trying to keep it
real. There's no civility in this world. You
should know that best yourself, you know,
getting your face licked and all. Who does
that kind of thing?!”
[53]
“Yeah, I guess you're right. You want to lick
my face, though, and you know it!” She tried to
hide behind a playful grin, but I could see right
through it.
Another slow drag on the cigarette. She was
from Boston. Moved down South to go to college,
making a good deal of money dancing at night and
shooting films in the morning between classes.
Cheap films, but a constant and steady income that
she could rely on.
She told me she had an apartment in Durham.
I'm sure that was a hint, but I never pressed the
issue. At the rate I was going tonight, I was going
to be so hammered I was just hoping I could make
it back to Hooper's place. I was in no condition to
court a stripper. These people are professional-level
galavanters.
“What's on your mind? You look troubled.”
[54]
“Troubled, you say? Yeah, I suppose. You can
drop the act, you know. Let's be real people
smoking cigarettes.”
“Why are you in town? I can tell you're not
from around here. You're a Yank like me.”
“I write books. I'm on the road trying to find
my own version of the American Dream. My
friend Hooper seems to have found something
for himself down here, so I thought I might
come check out the scene.”
“Did you find anything yet?”
“I don't know. It's hard to tell. What does the
dream mean to you?”
“When I first came down here, I thought it
was a husband, a house, and a dog. Now I'm
not so sure.”
“That can't be all there is too it.”
[55]
“I hope you're right,” she said it with the
smallest hint of a sigh.
Me too, Jasmine, me too.
I was the one playing the long con now. This
girl was one of the strippers that does it because it's
easy money and she was smart enough to know it.
She wasn't there to get drinks bought for her, she
could buy them herself. She wasn't there to prove
herself to anyone, she didn't have to. She was
there because she was a goddess and she knew it.
She still believed in love. She used her beautiful
body as a tool to make men fork up hundreds of
dollars a night to watch her do nothing but prance
around the stage to some spaced out Mars Volta
song. Hell, it had even worked on me while I knew
it was happening. She was very confident in herself
and her ability. It wouldn't be long before I was
fully assured of that fact.
[56]
“So tell me, vagabond, what is the American
Dream?” She sat down next to me and started
rubbing my shoulders.
“That's a hard question, you know. I can't tell
you what it is, because I think it's different for
everybody. It isn't something that you can
just spell out.”
“I know. You seem like you might be hot on
the trail, though.”
“Do you want the short answer, or the long
one?”
“Let's start with the short one.”
“Freedom. The dream is freedom. Escape.
The endless possibility of the sunrise. The
hope for a better tomorrow. An unexpected
outcome, a sense of adventure. A new way
home.”
[57]
“Do you really believe that?”
“I'm still trying to figure that part out, I'm a
little short on faith these days.”
“Let me help you.”
She sat on my lap, with her arms over my
shoulders and her legs around my waist. She ran
her fingers through my hair, and she kissed me
lightly on the cheek.
“I'll show you the American Dream. You don't
even have to pay for it.”
“The dream, or the dance?”
“Watch out, now, or you'll see how quick it
gets taken away from you.”
I smiled. I couldn't help it. The dance of
metaphors ended when she brought her mouth to
mine, and we shared an ashtray kiss on a picnic
[58]
table outside a run-down strip club in North Carolina
I didn't even want to go to. Sometimes, Hooper's
ideas don't make sense unless seen in retrospect
and as a part of a broader context.
She ground her thighs into my sides as we
kissed. She grabbed my hands and pulled them up
in the air, outstretched, and then between us and
onto her breasts. I slid my hands down the side of
her stomach, on to her thighs, and around to her
ass, which was rising and falling on my lap in time
with the music wafting out from the club walls.
She was a pro, after all. She took her face away
from mine and looked me in the eyes again,
grabbing my shoulders and arching her back like a
gymnast.
“There's your American Dream. Write a book
about that.”
“I just might. What's your real name? Off the
record, of course.”
[59]
“What's in a name?” She said.
She looked off into the distance, through the
chain-link fence, and into the endless sea of city
lights blending into the starry skies. With a quick
motion, she flicked her cigarette over the fence and
onto the pavement beyond.
“Oh, come on. Did you really just say that to
me?”
She laughed, and backed off my lap. She
grabbed two more cigarettes from her pack, lit them
both at once, and passed me the second. She laid
on the picnic table seat, with her head resting on
my leg.
“What are you doing tonight?” She took a short
drag before saying it, exhaling smoke to visualize
her words.
“I was planning on sleeping in my car outside
my buddy's apartment.”
[60]
“In your car? I thought you were famous!”
“To some, baby, just not to everybody yet.
Right now, as it stands, I'm only famous to the
U.S. Interstate system. Besides, the car is
better than his dumb couch. I've got a bed
made up in the back.”
“It takes time, you know. You'll get there if
you keep it up.”
“I know. This story might even help a bit,
too.”
“I always wanted to be in a book,” she said.
“It's not the first time I've heard that line, you
know.”
“Listen to mister hot shot here, making out
with a stripper, but he's still gotta have more.”
[61]
“It sounds so bad when you say it out loud.”
I laughed again, and she climbed back up into
my lap; curling up sideways like a cat. We finished
our cigarettes in silence, staring out at the city from
the picnic table. We sent out plumes of smoke into
the night.
“You really gonna find me a way out of here,
vagabond?”
“I don't make promises I can't keep.”
“How about I rescue you instead?”
“Who says I'm the one that needs to be
rescued?”
“Poor little baby, sleeping all alone in his car
outside his crazy buddy's house while he
ravages Roxy. Out here, searching for the
American Dream without being prepared to
find it. I will rescue you, lamb.”
[62]
What had I gotten myself into?
[63]
Chapter Four – Ubiquity
“Drink with me!”
Hooper was steadily increasing his already
sizable bar tab when I got back from my adventure
out back with Jasmine. This time, he was drinking a
Gin Gimlet. He waved it back and forth at arms
length, eying it suspiciously, like the glass was
trying to get away from him. Classic Hooper style.
The bartender waved hello with a knowing smile
and half a wink. I shot her a glance and a smirk
when I asked to close my tab.
“Where'd plaid skirt go?” I asked Hooper.
“Private dance. I think I'm gonna buy the
next one. Where's flame-top?”
[64]
“Cleaning up. She's off for the night. Mind if I
give you a call for a ride in the morning?”
“Are you fucking serious right now, dude?” he
said with a devilish grin.
“Yeah, man. For reals.”
“Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Find out if
the curtains match the drapes.”
I heard her voice behind me all of a sudden.
“Don't worry, he won't, and... they don't.”
She came up behind me, and crossed her
arms around my chest. She kissed the back of my
head. The temptress! I watched Hooper's eyes get
really big as he saw it.
“Oh. My. God. No way. You're way too hot for
him. Leave here at once!”
[65]
She laughed, making her pouty-face at
Hooper. For a second, I thought she might stick out
her tongue.
“What's the matter? It's OK If I borrow him
for a night, isn't it? Gonna cry?”
Hooper was surprisingly and unusually
speechless. Of all the ways that night could have
ended, this was probably the least likely. I'm sure
his vision of the night's end involved the both of us
fighting over the toilet to puke in. That wasn't far
off from what how I was thinking it might turn out,
either.
“A shot for the road, then?” She said with a
sadistic grin.
“This is my last drink.” Said Hooper with the
slightest hint of a depressed and jealous frown.
“Early to bed, early to rise, Hooper. It makes
[66]
a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Didn't your
mother ever tell you that?”
As I said it, I knew I shouldn't have. I had
driven all this way to see him, and he had requested
time off of work to hang out with me. He got that
far away 'I just got dissed by my friend' look, and I
thought for a moment that I might just tell the girl
I'd call her later. Foolish thoughts. What would we
have done? Taken a few more shots of Dewar's and
passed out at the dining room table? Yelled more
insults at each other while playing cards?
Why was I even thinking about telling this girl
I wasn't coming home with her? What was wrong
with me? Was it my conscience that made me do
these mental gymnastics? Some aspect of
psychology I had no way of understanding without
an advanced degree?
“You look like you have to take a nutty shit.
Wipe that stupid look off your face before I
stab you in the throat with a soldering iron.”
[67]
Leave it to Hooper to effectively and
immediately expose the brevity of any situation. He
knew which of the two of them I wanted to spend
the evening in the company of.
“I'd like to see you try it; maybe you'll get to
see how fast I can gouge out your eye with my
thumbnail.”
I shot a glance at Jasmine after I said it, to
see how she would react.
“Plus, you'll have to go through me” She added,
crossing her arms and attempting a threatening
gaze.
“Oh, fuck, wow! I'm definitely scared of you,
munchkin. Fuckin' 'eh, you better fucking suck
his dick for free. He doesn't have any fucking
money.”
There he goes again.
[68]
“I'll do a whole lot more than suck his dick,
little man. At least he's got one to suck.”
She ran her tongue across her teeth. This girl
was going to fit right in. She reached into her bag
for some lip gloss, and just stared at him with a grin
while he fumbled for words.
“Jesus, whore, you've got a set of balls on you.
You'd choke to death on my salami. Careful,
dude, she'll cut your dick off in the night if you
don't keep an eye on her.”
“I'll bite it off,” she said.
She mimed a chomping motion, like she was
biting a banana. She put her arm around me again,
as she said it, and we all had a good laugh.
“Let's get breakfast in the morning, huh?
Good luck with Foxy Roxy.” I said.
[69]
“He doesn't need any luck with her, she's a
fucking slut”
“YES!” Hooper's smile grew, and he added,
“I knew it!”
I wondered how Hooper might approach this.
He was a pro, after all. Maybe he'd just pound
drinks with her until they got a room at the hotel
across the street. He had money to burn like that.
Maybe they'd split early and go back to his place.
Maybe she'd play him, and her pimp would show up
and break his legs.
This part of our evening was the exact point
where things could dramatically change. You can
always tell. You may not see it coming at first, but
you always know when the night starts going your
way. A change in the mood, a shift in the general
atmosphere. A tingle in the shaft. You can see
possibility rolling out like the open road.
Hooper felt it, too, it was certain. He knew
[70]
time. He knew the rhythm of the road, the way of
the adventure-seeker. We were looking for the
American Dream. It wasn't a goal, it was a way of
life. The Dream, we later found out, was nothing
but a state of mind. It wasn't a thing, it was a
concept.
“Let's stay a while, this guy seems cool.”
I was glad she had said it, in a way. We could
get a bit more drunk, and Hooper and I could
together take hold of the evening's reigns.
“That's the spirit! We need more drinks!”
Hooper said before he slammed the last of his
gimlet, nearly falling out of his seat as a result of
the exaggerated gesture.
“Let's find a table and get a pitcher. There's
no sense taking shots to the head if we want
to have a sensible conversation.”
Were we to continue at such pace, we would
[71]
surely be thrown out of the bar and vomiting in the
gutter. We had to maintain for the rest of the
evening, and that meant beer. Beer takes longer to
drink, and takes up more space in the stomach. It's
easier to pace yourself when you're drinking beer.
We grabbed two pitchers of Miller Lite, and
found an out of the way table near the bathroom
door. The table had stencil-painted stars and
moons that glowed under the black light suspended
just out of reach.
“ROXY!” Jasmine squealed.
“What, babe?” Roxy had just rounded the corner.
“Come drink with us!”
“I'm up again in ten.”
“Fuck you, slut, come drink!”
“Fine, I'll have one.”
[72]
She took a seat, and eyed her beer.
“You're here visiting Hooper, right?” she said.
“Yup, I'm here to find the American Dream,
shoot it in the neck, and hang it up to dry.”
“What does that mean?”
Hooper laughed.
“Nothing. Don't listen to him, he's insane.
The American Dream is a convertible in the
driveway, a white picket fence, a straight
marriage in a church, two kids with good
grades, and a job that doesn't make you want
to shoot yourself in the head.”
I started to answer, but Jasmine beat me to it.
“I think it's a great journey that only ends
when you're dead and buried. It's a dream,
[73]
but one that you can just barely reach. It's
what keeps you reaching higher when you're
down on your luck.”
“Right,” I added, “The need to go the next mile,
the endless pursuit of the next best thing.
What's in front of you, and not what's in the
rear view mirror.”
“Unless it's the cops,” said Roxy.
“Ha!,” Hooper nearly choked on his drink.
“I gotta get ready.” she got out of her chair, and
turned to leave.
“Want to take me to the lounge when you're
done?” Hooper cocked his head to the side and
grinned.
“Sure, babe, I'll find you.”
“I'll be waiting.”
[74]
She walked to the dressing room, and later
emerged wearing a nurse's outfit. Hooper looked
mildly disappointed. He must have really liked that
schoolgirl getup. She was still a, what did he say?
A fine piece? Yeah, that's it. He'd ravage her, or
she'd ravage him; however you want to imagine it.
There usually isn't much supervision in the
VIP lounge. Maybe they'd just fuck there, too
impatient to wait. He was good like that, he could
talk anyone into anything. Hell, he had woken me
up and convinced me to go to a strip club with a
twenty dollar cover! He just had a way with people.
He was really convincing.
“You about ready?” Jasmine asked me.
“I'm always ready.” I said.
“Good, my car's out back.”
“I'll hit you up in the morning, don't lose your
[75]
fucking phone. My keys are at your place.” I
Said to Hooper.
“Get out of here, I hate your face.” Hooper
laughed, and watched Roxy get on stage.
“Breakfast.” I said as I walked away.
“Go away!”
Jasmine put her arm around my shoulder, and
I grabbed her waist. We shifted and bobbed out of
the bar, playfully trying to knock each other over.
Brock smiled and nodded my way as we walked out
the door.
As we walked out into the humid summer
night, I saw a line of storm clouds on the horizon
glowing in the vibrant pinks and purples of the
setting sun. The ubiquity of the dream was all
around me, even hanging off of my shoulder. I saw
the main nerve.
[76]
I was sure I was right. I was sure that's what
it was. It had to be. I was banking my life on it.
The great main nerve of the universe was
everywhere, sending out lines, waiting for me to
take hold of one.
I got into Jasmine's car, and she turned on the
radio. More Lady Gaga.
“I love this record, baby,
but I can't see straight anymore.”
“I love this song!” She reached down and turned
it up.
Her car speakers were blown, they sounded
terrible. I wondered if Lady Gaga had found the
American Dream. Just dance, right? It'll be OK.
There's truth in there, right?
Why is it that you can hear a song on the
radio, every once in a great while, and it seems like
[77]
some cosmic DJ in a higher dimension put it there
just for you. It's the power of music, I guess. The
mystique that drives us all to shell out our cash to
see these people, buy their records, and have a
piece of them – to own, that's all ours. Your own
memories of the first time you heard that song, and
all the times you heard it after that. Just hearing a
line or two can bring it all back like it was only
yesterday.
Music is a part of the American Dream. Ever
onward, always changing, adapting to new ideas
and technologies, but always keeping a piece of the
past. Capturing moments for people, as a trigger
for memories they wouldn't otherwise keep on top
of their minds.
I like to listen to the radio when I'm on the
road. It's our culture, the voices of our people, the
music that defines our moment in time. The radio
captures the dream in a strange way, dictated both
by culture and by the market. Music is one of the
few commodities we invest both emotion and
[78]
money into.
“Where to, Captain Jasmine?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“I like the sound of that.”
She drove West, towards the wall of storm
clouds. The pink and purple faded to the ashen
greys and moon shadow blacks of a stormy night.
Raindrops began to fall on the windshield, a gentle
and steady drizzle. There was no lightning, no
thunder. It was a peaceful rain, not a violent one.
A calming, refreshing rain. We silently listened to
the radio and smoked cigarettes in the dark, as we
drove off to the next adventure.
[79]
[80]
Chapter Five – Dreams
It was only one year ago that our roles
were reversed. Hooper was the one sleeping
crashing at my place, and I was the one housing the
borderline vagabond. We were just as drunk back
then, too, and just as vulgar. Some things take
longer to change than others.
“I've assembled a list of actionable items, and
I'm on the verge of knowing true freedom.
Can you taste the sweet air?!”
He was pacing around my living room, the old
Michigan hardwood floors creaking, adding
emphasis to every step. He always had that list of
actionable items. It was a little notebook he carried
with him that contained a long-running list of things
he was supposed to be doing and thinking about.
[81]
He was always writing things in it and crossing them
out. He didn't go anywhere without his list of
actionable items. A tangible part of his life was in
that book.
“Actionable items, huh? Sounds professional.
Where does 'whack my pud' fit in amidst all
the drinking and womanizing?”
He stopped and looked at me for a second,
raised his arm, and pointed.
“If you were half of the professional I am,
you'd have your own list of actionable items
that consisted of more than bong rips and
vodka fifths.”
I laughed. He got me!
“So, where's the main nerve? Are you now a
fugitive at large? Am I now an unwilling
accessory? Where's the body? Are you
infested with any incurable diseases?”
[82]
I had received a frantic phone call, nearing
three the morning before, after a long string of
texts that grew less and less intelligible as time
went on. I was working, so I couldn't answer the
phone. I listened to the voice mail as soon as I
locked the front door.
“Hey, it's Hooper. Pack up the bong and
buy more booze, I've discovered the main
nerve. I'll be in the mitt by five tomorrow. Be
prepared. The circumstances look dire.”
We called Michigan 'The Mitten.' Not just us,
you know, a whole lot of people call it that. If you
can't figure out why, look at a map. After that, if
you still don't understand; shoot yourself. He had
been out East, lost somewhere in Virginia, sucking
the 'Go Green' cash cow for all it would deliver.
He worked for a private contractor, designing
and building overpriced sustainable housing. It was
a seller's market. Demand for the 'back to the
[83]
Earth but close to the city' lifestyle among the East
Coast elite was growing, and the supply of
applicable contractors in the area was low. That
meant Hoop was getting fat paid; while at the same
time no less full of anxiety for the future.
He'd found himself trying to clear his sour
state of mind, driving North to Washington, D.C. for
a weekend away from plundering the vapid young
money elite of their trust fund dollars.
We maintained frequent communication
despite our geographical disparity. E-mail and
instant messaging had made it so we could keep
tabs on each other's pursuit of the American Dream
twenty four hours a day. He had told me earlier in
the week that he was heading to the District to clear
his mind, hoping he would find a clean hotel with a
well stocked bar. He found the bar, sure enough,
but soon got thrust into contemporary polemics with
a good natured and diabolically corrupt G.O.P 'Yes
Man,' as he called him.
[84]
“He called me a R.I.N.O. when I called Sarah
Palin a cunt muffin with ugly hair.” Said Hooper,
loudly taking a bite of an apple.
“Jesus! What'd you do?”
“I told him if he ever called me a Republican
again I'd cut out his eyes with a can opener.”
“Did you get security called on you?”
“No, man! He said, 'I've never met a
Democrat with a spine before!'”
“What'd you say to that?”
“I told him if he ever called me a Democrat
again, I'd cut out his eyes with a can opener.”
“Nice!”
“Shit, man, that guy was a cool motherfucker.
We drank till the bar closed!”
[85]
“Who the fuck was he?”
“Some lobbyist, I think, a boot licker making
moves for some up and comer from some
dumb State. Reagan's name was dropped at
one point.”
“Apparently he licked enough boots to pay for
your prodigious consumption of alcohol.”
“That's not all he paid for!”
“Do tell.”
He paused for a second, as if he was re-living
the events in his brain before he told me the story.
“Well, I got pretty drunk, and that's when I
started texting you the other day.”
“I remember.”
[86]
“He grabbed the phone out of my hand, looked
at it, and said 'You're texting a fucking dude?
What's up with that? We need whores!' I
agreed wholeheartedly.”
“So what'd he do, buy you a whore?”
“Not just any whore! A top-quality, only
services the suites at the Four Seasons,
whore. An escort. Champagne bottles. All on
the G.O.P. dime.”
“Why aren't you still balls deep in the lap of
luxury? You fucked an A-Grade prostitute in a
suite at the Four Seasons only to come twelve
hours away and pass out on my couch?!”
“It just isn't right, man. Your taxes just paid
for my sticky dick! I haven't even washed it!”
“Well, when you put it that way, it does kind of
piss me off. Who cares, though, right? You've
found the main nerve!”
[87]
“That's the issue. Fucking G.O.P. hookers isn't
my American Dream; it's a story for the back
of a porno. If that was me hitting the main
nerve, what if I never find it again? Could that
have been my only chance?”
“Is that what this is about? You need to set
your goals higher, man! Free hooker after a
night of free drinking in a ritzy hotel room that
you left in a huff. That's just a good story,
man- it's not the main nerve.”
“I quit my job. I saved up enough money to
live for a while, I think I'm just going to hit
the road. There's no coming back from this.
I'm just gonna live in my truck for a while and
take it as it comes.”
“All of this over some free hookers?”
I was having a hard time understanding the
correlation between the hookers and his insanity.
[88]
“IT'S NOT ABOUT THE FUCKING HOOKERS,
MAN! It's about the fact that I just topped out
on my potential. I'm damn near thirty,
balding, and working for peanuts with a
private contractor. I'll never get a taste of
pussy that expensive again in my life if I don't
start getting proactive! I need advanced
degrees, I need capital, networks, I need to
quit digging holes in the country for rich
hipsters!”
He sat down on the couch with his head in his
hands. He wasn't crying or anything like that. He
was just so frustrated. You could feel it in the air.
It was like a pressure cooker in there. He was on
the verge of discovering something huge about
himself, about to take a new turn down the great
road of life. A new exit, a new set of directions,
maybe even a new destination entirely. I was just
glad I could lend a spare couch and a shot of
whiskey to a friend in need.
[89]
Who hasn't felt like that before? Where the
world seemed like it was crushing you from the
weight on your shoulders, but suddenly it's all gone
in a single breath. That's how you know you've
found it. The main nerve. The living, breathing,
serpent of cultural ubiquity. I just wanted to
scream:
“Get it! Find the fucking thing, man! Grab
hold and don't let go! You're gonna make it
through this!”
If you have the right eyes, you can see the
main nerve in the rolling hills of the Dakotas,
floating along the Mississippi, climbing the Rockies,
surfing the coasts, and in the knowing smile of
every person that finally figured out the dance. On
the train stations and subway platforms, and in the
buses and airplanes. In the factories and corner
stores. Sometimes it's obscured by the filth and
monotony, but you can always find it if you look
close enough.
[90]
It's a great big world out there, filled with
potential and opportunity. You just have to reach
out and take it sometimes. You have to make the
dream a reality, and nobody wants to do it for you.
Your sacrifice, your reward.
Hooper found the great wide-open arms of the
American Dream staring at him from behind the
eyes of a three thousand dollar a night politician's
escort. His dream was perverse and likely illegal,
but it was a dream none the less. Part of a dream
that we're all dreaming when we roam the streets,
when we get in our cars and go to work, and when
we come home to the lives we've built up around
us. Maybe it isn't a dream as much as it is a
promise we make to each other. A promise that
we're all in this together, and that we know it. That
no matter what happens, we still have another day
to look forward to; another opportunity for us to get
closer to what we all really want.
[91]
It's refreshing to see that in the eyes of
another human being. Knowing full well they've
seen what you've seen, heard what you've heard,
dreamed the same dreams, thought the same
thoughts, and cried the same tears. Knowing that
you aren't the only one who feels like giving up
sometimes. That when you stare up to the stars at
night; there's a million people all over Earth just
looking right up there with you, wondering what it
all means.
In that moment, I kind of wanted to punch
him in the face.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I
wondered if he could use a hug. He was obviously
upset. Hell, so was I.
[92]
Chapter Six – Deliverance
I drove East on I-90 through Northern Ohio,
towards the heart of the sunrise. B.B.C. accents
talked dry politics on late-night N.P.R. I watched
the road meet the horizon in the blue-grey glow of
an early Spring's moon. White lines materialized
and disappeared in the muted-yellow reach of the
headlights. I was alone with the road, a lowly
passenger on a great ship; an ant on a castle. The
cloudless, star-filled sky shifted from endless black
to lighter and lighter shades of cerulean. It was the
moment before the change. The Ennui, the satori.
The culmination and the beginning. The serpent
was eating its tail again.
At the horizon, the road began to meet an
amber haze that set the sky on fire. And then, as if
from nowhere, it happened. The Sun. A new day.
[93]
Tomorrow came. It's as if time might have stood
perfectly still in that moment, yet the great
clockwork of the sky ticked on without me ever
noticing.
Thwack!
A large insect met its end on my windshield,
directly in the center of my vision. A sign, a
reminder. The imperfection of beauty; the cycle of
day and night, of Sun and sky, and of life and
death. I stared at it, almost through it, at the dot
on my windshield superimposed over the rising Sun.
I guess you could say I was in a weird mood.
The first morning you wake up after you quit
your job is like the morning after you break up with
your girlfriend. Things seem both empty and
hopeful at the same time. You've got no income
source, but you've got your life back for a while.
Same thing as breaking up – you're alone in your
bed for the first time, but you've got that twinge in
your shaft that says “hell, I can fuck anyone I want
[94]
tonight!” There aren't many times where you can
both smile and be so lonely at the same time.
You go down paths in life, sometimes, that
you can only question afterwards. Frost talked
about two roads diverging in a wood, and that's a
weak way to put it. There's no need to speak in
metaphor when you're talking about your own life.
It's a clear choice you're making when you pick a
path. You can't predict the future, but you sure do
have a whole lot to do with how it turns out in the
end. The path you take makes little difference
compared to the destination.
The first thing I did after I quit my job was
call Hooper to tell him I would be emptying my
savings account and driving straight to his
apartment in North Carolina. Hell, that's what he'd
done to me; I figured it was only reasonable that it
was his turn to quarter the vagabond.
When I got there, I would be the road worn
saint. It would be me that found the main nerve
[95]
and ran away like a frightened puppy that had stuck
its nose in a hornet's nest. First, I had to quit my
job, which was something I had been meaning to do
for quite some time. You grow comfortable in your
ways, worming your existence through a rut. I
needed to break the cycle, I guess. Or at least quit
pushing cash register buttons and dealing with
assholes for a while.
I was one of the restaurant industry lifers.
Every service sector has its lifers. I had spent
nearly a decade managing restaurants when I
walked out that evening, and wanted no part of it
any longer. When you're a salaried manager at a
restaurant, all you have to look forward to is twenty
hours of unpaid overtime a week, crew members
not showing up, food outages, and angry
customers.
I walked into a whirlwind of a shift. The place
was a mess, the server wasn't eighteen and couldn't
serve booze to the line of customers at the bar, the
cooks were behind and out of most of what it took
[96]
to complete the tickets, the delivery driver was
washing dishes, and all three phone lines were on
hold.
The thought first crossed my mind to flee
when the sixteen year old girl came up to me before
I could take off my coat and said,
“Can I go on break? I have to call my
boyfriend.”
The fury was only beginning to rise when the
delivery driver handed me the phone.
“Here ya go, man, this guy's pissed!”
He's pissed?! This was my fifth straight day
of this, and I had only been there fifteen minutes of
a thirteen hour shift! I still hadn't even taken off
my jacket.
“Thanks for holding, what can I do for you
today?”
[97]
“I'll tell ya what you can do, you can get me
the fucking food I ordered half an hour ago.
I'm just up the road, what the fuck is taking so
long?”
“Honestly, sir, I've just walked in. I have no
idea why your food isn't done, when did you
place the order?”
“Four thirty, dumb fuck! I thought they said
you were the manager! You should be on top
of this shit!”
Another dumb mistake by the morning staff.
Deliveries don't start until five, they should have
told him that.
“I'm sorry, sir, I don't know why they took
your order at four thirty when the driver
wasn't scheduled in until five”
[98]
“I don't give a fuck when your driver comes in,
I want the food I ordered! I'm hungry!”
“Well, sir, it's now ten after five and it looks
like my driver has just left with your food. He
should be there in just a minute. Like you
said, you're only up the road.”
“I could have walked down there and gotten it
myself by now. I'm not paying.”
That was almost the straw that broke the
camel's back. Not quite, but nearly enough. He
could have fucking walked to the restaurant. The
lazy piece of shit was paying two extra dollars to
have his food driven less than two blocks. This
situation is emblematic of the plague of laziness
wrought by our convenience culture.
“You're more than welcome to do that in the
future, sir, and my driver will be right with
you. I can always write a credit, but I can't
refund you. I'm sorry.”
[99]
“Thanks for nothing,” he says, before adding
“and, by the way, you're a shitty manager if
you don't know what's going on in your store.
It doesn't matter if you just walked in. If you
can't do your job, then fucking quit.”
There. Right there.
That's where I had enough. It only took a
split second for the change to come. Four years of
hard work were forgotten in an instant.
Zang.
“Ha! You're right, shit dick! I shouldn't be
managing this dumb fucking restaurant,
dealing with dumb fucking people like you! I
hope the driver drops your food, you miserable
pile of dog vomit! How about you walk two
blocks down the road instead of sitting in your
apartment? Go straight to fucking hell, sir, I'll
kick your ass when I get there!”
[100]
I slammed the phone to pieces on the counter,
and looked up to the packed dining room.
Everybody's eyes were on me. I sure was famous
then. I stopped for a moment, smiling, and looked
at every single one of them – right in the fucking
eyes. I grabbed my backpack, took a bow, and left,
still wearing my jacket.
That's how you quit a job you hate.
Consequences be damned, a person just can't be
asked to deal with things like that for very long.
Everybody in the place – employees and customers
alike - dumping their problems on you because
you're the only one smart enough to do something
about it. Fuck them. Let them solve their own
bullshit problems.
I would never rag on someone for trying to
get their job done, in public or private, even if I
knew them. Things don't always run smoothly.
Mistakes are made and people forget things. It
happens. There's no reason to get miserably irate
[101]
with someone because your food is a few minutes
late. A call? Sure. Why not? It couldn't hurt to let
us know when there's a problem. Never yelling.
That does not help. I promise.
“Fuck it. Who cares? Enough thought about
that. History. Nothing more. I need more
cigarettes.”
Sometimes I talk out loud to myself when I'm
driving alone. It's kind of like praying, only
someone is actually listening. Another way to put it
would be that I was telling my story to the road.
The road will always listen. If you lean in close,
keep a close eye on the horizon, and turn the radio
off; you can hear the road whispering it's eternal
reply:
“Keep on ahead, round the bend, just over
the next hill. Keep pushing forward.”
“Toledo. Sounds good.”
[102]
I pulled in to a gas station on the side of the
turnpike. After I fueled up and bought a pack of
cigarettes, I parked the car to eat a sandwich and
listen to some music before getting back on the
road.
I caught a glance from a group of Amish as
they got out of a bus. I couldn't figure out why they
were all looking at me until I realized I was the only
other person in the parking lot, and that I was
listening to the Devin Townsend Project at
considerable volume with the windows down.
Devy is a little much for the Amish, I fear.
They may still be scared of me to this day, and they
never even knew who I was. Much less did they
bother to ask. I don't want to offend the Amish;
I'm not really even that scary.
What might it be like for them, on the way to
the “city” on the Ohio turnpike; watching me smoke
cigarettes in the early morning fog? Them,
watching me watch them. Which of us is the wiser?
[103]
Why are the Amish driving across Ohio in a bus?
Isn't that a faux pas? Against their religion or some
strange anachronistic fear of machinery? Maybe
they can get inside of it, they just can't operate it. I
don't know. Who cares about the Amish, anyway?
I caught the gaze of a suburban-looking
woman in her late forties, wearing a tracksuit. She
paced in front of the entrance, gabbing away on her
phone and smoking a cigarette, presumably waiting
to visit the washroom. Had she seen the Amish?
Had she seen me hit my bowl?
She gave me a look that said to me both,
'weird fucking Amish, huh?' and 'I saw what you
just did!” It was time to leave, I figured, and I left
the rest stop in a huff. I didn't even take the time
to finish my bowl, or my sandwich.
[104]
Chapter Seven – Salvation
We turned into Jasmine's apartment
complex, and parked the car in her carport. She
grabbed her bag out of the back seat, pressing the
lock button on her key fob. A tinny honk came from
underneath the car hood, and the puny sound did
little to help the already sad looking machine.
We walked up to the door, and she put her key
in the lock. There's always the lonely hollow click of
a key going into an apartment lock in the dark of
the night. It echoes through the hallway, signaling
to the whole building that you're home.
I imagined the rest of the people in the
apartment thinking about us.
[105]
“There's that stripper girl coming home again,
and another set of steps! She's brought one of her
gutter slug men home with her to keep us up all
night again, lord have mercy on her soul!”
Maybe it was because I'm narcissistic that I
thought everyone in the apartment building was
thinking about me, but more than likely, it was
Jasmine screaming down the hallway as we walked:
“Rah-Rah Ah-Ah-Ah
Ro-Ma Ro-Ma-Ma
Ga Ga Ooh La La!”
I figured I might as well join in. I knew the
damn words. Everybody did, and you did too.
From somewhere in one of the apartments we were
walking past, I heard the wasted cries of a college
girl drunk off way too much cheap tequila:
“Want your bad romance!!! AAH! I LOVE LADY
GAGA!”
[106]
You couldn't walk into a bar in the whole
country without hearing Lady GaGa that summer. If
you didn't like her, you either had to stay home or
learn how to deal with it. Had I been a few years
younger, and a little more steadfast in my ways, I
would have never listened to Lady GaGa. After a
while, though, it got to the point that some of my
best summer memories were remembered to the
tune of a Lady GaGa track. No matter where I went
in the United States of America, Lady GaGa was
there bluffin' the speakers with her muffin.
I may lose a bit of credibility with my
metalhead friends, but I wish I could have written
as good of a pop hit as Lady GaGa in the later part
of the twenty-aughts. Going from night clubs in
New York to headlining an arena tour in a few short
years is no small feat. You gotta start somewhere,
though. Just like that bartender had said. Famous
is only a state of mind.
“Here we are!” she said.
[107]
She unlocked the door and set her bags on
the dining room table. It was a normal college town
apartment. Boring white walls and trim, tiled
kitchen floor, beige carpet, and recessed lighting. A
single bedroom, but not a studio. It was spacious,
but there was nothing particularly special about it.
It's crazy how we've standardized our housing to
such an extent that a new apartment anywhere in
the country feels like your girlfriend's place.
I followed her into the kitchen, and she
grabbed two champagne glasses out of the cabinet
above the refrigerator.
“I've been saving this for a special guest, and
It ended up being you.”
“Thanks for the V.I.P. Treatment.”
I think I really should give up on the stock
responses. I don't know why I feel stupid saying
the same thing twice to two different people, but it
just bothers me.
[108]
“It's not every day you party with someone on
the hunt for the American Dream. When you
say it out loud, doesn't it sound like
Champagne needs to be involved?”
“That's every day for me! Someday I might
find it, and then what will I do?”
“You're going to kill it and hang it up to dry,
isn't that what you said you'd do? That's why
you're gonna be famous! You actually know
what you want out of life. The rest of us don't.
We have to look up to you guys to tell us what
to want.”
“Whoa. Give yourself more credit!”
I choked on the words a little bit, unable to
conjure up a cogent response. I'm just a
demographic, too, baby. We're all nothing but a
fucking statistic. Selling our bullshit to each other
until we're rotting in the ground. That's why we
[109]
drink every day, isn't it? The really famous people
only sell big after they're dead and gone.
She popped the cork on the champagne
bottle, smiling, and poured us each a glass. She
picked them up and walked through the living room
towards the sliding door that led to the balcony.
She stopped short and turned slightly, motioning
with her head for me to follow her.
“Let's go watch the storm!”
I was kind of, maybe, just a little, definitely
falling for this girl. The roadside temptress on the
great Interstate of life. Which of us was the lamb,
and which the wolf? There was no way for me to
find out except to let the night run its course. I had
to play my cards very carefully, though, and I knew
it. I was in the company of a professional heart
breaker, and I needed to keep that in mind.
I followed her out the door, sliding it shut
behind me as I walked out. She sat down on a white
[110]
wicker love seat with a purple cushion.
“Have a seat, vagabond.”
She patted the seat beside her, and I sat
down next to her. She pulled up a matching wicker
coffee table with purple trim around the sides, and
we put up our feet. We sipped champagne in the
night, and looked out over the park across the
street.
“I like to pretend it's Central Park.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Why Central Park?”
“Because I wish I was in a big city, with all the
lights and the bums and the subway and the
money.”
“I can definitely relate to that.”
I raised my champagne glass in a toast.
[111]
“When I was a kid, my friend's older brother
asked me what I wanted to be when I grew
up.”
She held the glass with both hands staring
straight ahead as she spoke.
“What'd you tell him?”
“I said I wanted to be a dancer. He told me I
wouldn't make it because it was too hard.”
“You should have kneed him in the junk.”
“I know. I was still a little girl, though, and I
was devastated. Boot-stomped dreams.”
“That's a sad story. At least you're a dancer,
now, though.”
“Yeah, kind of. Dancer. Whatever.” She said it
with such disgust, it almost made me cringe. She
was bitterly sarcastic.
[112]
“You're a good dancer. Who cares if you have
to show your tits? You're a goddess, what are
you doing right now? Doubting yourself? Stop
it!”
“How about you, does the vagabond have any
sad stories?”
That was a good question with a long answer.
This time, it was me staring off into space and
grabbing the drink with both hands.
“I've got plenty of sad stories. Why do you
want to hear sad stories?”
“Sad stories inspire my dances. That's what I
think about when I'm up there. That's how I
cope.”
“It seems to work well.”
“It's an art.”
[113]
She smiled.
“OK, I'll bite. I spent some time in Egypt a
few years ago...”
She grabbed my arm, eyes widening.
“You went to EGYPT?! That's so cool!”
“I know, I know. It was a long time ago,
though, and I was really high the whole time.
It seems more like a dream to me now than a
memory.”
“Yeah, sorry. I always wished I could go to
Egypt. Maybe you can tell me that story some
day.”
“I've got plenty of stories.”
“OK, so what happened in Egypt?”
[114]
“I was with a friend visiting his buddy, Moe. I
had never met him before, but he was a really
nice guy and we were having a really good
time smoking hash and going to the pyramids
and all that...”
“The pyramids! Oh my god! So cool!”
“I'm telling ya, Jazz, I've seen some shit you
wouldn't believe.”
“Sounds like it.”
“So this guy got a call one day when we were
in a place called Sharm el Sheik.”
“I think I heard about that place once.”
“It was the most beautiful place that I've ever
seen.”
She moved a little closer to me on the wicker
seat, and it squeaked when she shifted her weight.
[115]
I continued the story.
“We had just gotten stoned to shit off of some
of the best hash I have ever smoked in my life,
we're walking down the beach, and he's
talking on the cell phone. All of a sudden, he
stops dead in his tracks and starts shouting in
Arabic. He drops to his knees, and starts
crying on the beach in the summer sun.”
“Why was he crying? Who was he talking to?”
She was listening intently.
“His brother had been killed in a suicide
bombing in Israel. Moe went to school in
Cairo, and his brother was up there. His
parents lived in Jordan. Fucking tragic. The
poor guy just said 'We're getting high. We're
gonna smoke so much hash and get so drunk
that my little brother can feel it up in heaven.'
He kissed his hands and blew it up to the sky.”
[116]
“That's awful! Imagine how his parents feel,
not even being in the same country!”
“Well, you gotta remember that Jordan isn't
very far away from Israel. The story gets
worse, though, you know. No sad story ends
with the first tragedy.”
“Oh my god, what could be worse?”
“About a week after I got home, sure as fuck,
the poor bastard got killed in front of his
fucking apartment. The same damn apartment
I stayed in for a couple weeks.”
“No way! How?”
“Some psycho was speeding down the alley in
reverse and didn't see him, I guess. There
was some weird rumblings about murder, but
I think it was just politicized bullshit. Can you
imagine how terrible it must have been for
their parents to lose both children in such
[117]
senseless ways in the same month? No one
deserves to lose two children in the same
month. Nobody. That shit is fucking
ridiculous. Absurd. Things like that really
bother me.”
“That really was a sad story. Did you ever talk
to his parents?”
“No, they didn't speak English. I told my
buddy to mention my thoughts in whatever
way was customary for them. I didn't want to
press the issue, you know. Nothing but
respect for the dead, and even more for the
bereaved. I've been through that shit too
many times to try to press things on people in
that state of grief.”
“Yeah, me too. My best friend died when I
was really young. She drowned in the pool at
a mutual friend's birthday party. We all saw
her there, floating, blue and lifeless. Her hair
was the worst, though. The way her hair
[118]
floated around her head. I still can't forget it,
Christ it must have been damn near twenty
years ago.”
“Ah, man, that's horrible. I hate hearing
about kids dying, dude. It really bums me out.
Always has. There's nothing worse than the
look on the face of a mother burying her own
child.”
I really wasn't in the mood to do the old back
and forth with the sob stories. I was on the road to
find the future, not re-live the past.
“You look like you're thinking. You make a
face when you're thinking.”
“A face? What do you mean, a face?”
She laughed and pointed at me. She moved
back dramatically, towards the other end of the
seat. The wicker squeaked loudly this time, and it
sounded like it might tear apart.
[119]
“That face! The one you're making right now!
You look like you're staring into another
universe!”
I blushed a little, I think. Probably. I couldn't
see myself, obviously, but I felt the rush of heat in
my cheeks.
“Aw! Cute! You're embarrassed! Don't worry,
I won't make fun of you too much.”
A bright flash interrupted her heckling,
followed closely by a loud clap of thunder. She
jumped a little, immediately curling up against me
on the wicker seat.
“I love storms, but the thunder always scares
me!”
I always wondered if girls pulled that stuff as
an excuse to get closer to you. Well, I guess I
always knew it was an excuse, I just wondered if
[120]
there was any legitimate fear; or just what they
said. Like when something scary happens at the
movies and they curl up next to you. It's like a pre-
programmed reaction. The thunder stopped, and
she didn't back away. I put my arm around her, like
I figured I was supposed to.
We didn't say anything for a while. It was
nearing four or five A.M., and I was starting to get a
little tired. I could tell she was, too. Her breathing
was slower, and she rested her head on my
shoulder. I thought she was asleep, but suddenly
she said,
“Let's go to bed, I'm tired.”
She yawned, arching her back, and stretching
her arms out behind her.
“Yeah, me too.”
“How about one last cigarette?” She said,
picking her pack up off of the table.
[121]
“Sounds like a plan. Wait one second,
though,” I put up my right index finger in that 'one
second' pose I hate so much, and I fished my pack
of cigarettes from my shorts pocket. “I've been
holding on to this guy for a while.”
“What?”
“A joint. I was gonna smoke it with Hooper on
the way home from the club...”
“But then you met me and we're gonna smoke
it now.”
She grabbed it from my hand and lit it, taking
the first few draws and passing it to me. She laid
her head back down on my shoulder and exhaled.
“What a day,” I said, because that's what I always
say when I don't know what to say.
“Yeah, it was. I had a big fight with my boss
[122]
today. I don't know if I'll be working there
much longer.”
“What's it about?”
“Some dumb shit. I got caught smoking weed
out back by one of the born again shit head
bouncers. Brock tried to talk him into keeping
his mouth shut, but Jesus doesn't want him to
lie and all that.”
“Damn, all that over smoking a joint at a strip
club?”
“Yeah, he goes to the same church as the
owner, if you can believe it.”
“A church-going strip club owner?”
“He doesn't own the club, he owns the
conglomerate that owns the club. He stops by
every once in a while to make sure it isn't
'Sodom and Gomorrah,' as he calls it.”
[123]
“What a prick!”
“You have no idea how much a prick that bible
thumping cocksucker is. He'd fire us all if he
wasn't making so much money.”
She took the last hit off of the joint, and
snuffed it out in the ashtray. She stood up, and
opened the sliding glass door to walk back into the
living room.
“Come on, let's have a nightcap.”
“Alright, what do you have?”
“You like tequila?”
“If it has alcohol in it, I like it.”
“Well, let's do a shot of Cabo then.”
“Sounds good!”
[124]
She walked into the kitchen, and picked up a
blue bottle of Cabo Wabo from the cabinet
bulkhead. She poured two shots, and took two
slices of lime from the refrigerator. She smoked
good bud, and drank good booze. Maybe the
American dream really could be in North Carolina.
“Training wheels?” She said?
“I'll pass on the salt, but I can go for a lime.”
“Good man.” She raised her glass.
“A toast, then?” I said.
“To a new tomorrow!” She said with a grin.
“And to a greasy breakfast at the Waffle
House!”
We took our shots, and set the glasses in the
sink. I watched her there, for a second. She got
[125]
that look on her face like she was gonna puke, and
she braced herself on the kitchen sink.
“One too many?” I was the one with the grin this
time.
“Ooh yeah.” She ran to the bathroom and shut the
door behind her.
I've sure been there before, and I'd be willing
to bet that you have, too. You don't know it's your
last shot until you take it, and then you know for
sure. You always know when you've had too much.
Drinking often without drinking too much from time
to time is a difficult thing to do. After a few nights
out, you learn your tolerance. You can press the
limits some nights, but only once or twice a week.
Obviously, the smart choice is to quit drinking.
There's no fun in that, though. I always figured,
'well shit, I'm gonna die anyway, I might as well
have a good time.' Who cares if your liver is a little
worse for wear? Don't drive a car, and know your
[126]
limits.
For those of us that know that we won't stop
drinking anytime soon, here's my advice. Drink by
yourself every once in a while. Figure out how
many shots it takes over six hours to get drunk
enough to be drunk and not go over the line. You
have to know yourself if you're going to do this
right.
She was a pro, and I think we were just over-
celebrating. After a long series of moans and
splashes from the bathroom, I heard the next series
of sounds you hear after someone pukes. There's
the toilet flush, the wiping off of the speckles and
splashies accumulated on the seat and rim, the face
wash, the brushing of teeth, and the extra rinse
with mouthwash to get the back of your mouth.
The taste will not go away until morning, no matter
what you do.
Then, after that, you lift up the toilet seat
again because you're not quite sure it's over. You
[127]
sit there for a while, hem and haw, and then decide
you've purged what needed to be purged. It's now
time for bed. If you're lucky enough to be in your
own home, you'll probably have the clothes you
slept in last night nearby. You'll change into those
next, and hope they're comfortable. At least they
don't smell like vodka sweat and bar food puke.
I heard the door creak. She turned out the
light as she walked out of the doorway. She had
changed her clothes. I knew it. She was wearing
plaid boxers and a tight-fitting white t-shirt with the
collar cut off that said “Buck Fush.” I guess she had
been holding on to that one for a while. She was
pulling her hair back, tying it off with a puffy zebra
print ponytail holder.
“Feeling better?” I said.
“Yeah, but it's definitely time for bed.”
I didn't quite know what to do at that
moment. I was really tired, I just wanted to pass
[128]
out. Would she invite me to the room? I made an
awkward move toward the couch, and I set my hat
and phone on the coffee table. She grabbed two
glasses of water from the kitchen, handed one to
me, and sat down next to me.
“Here, drink this, you'll need it.”
“Thanks, Jazz.” I said, and I knew she was right.
She seemed to like me calling her that.
Maybe she had forgotten that I didn't know her real
name. Either that, or she knew damn well and just
enjoyed being called by her stage name. Maybe her
name was something traditional like Jessica or
Emily, and she secretly wished it was something
exotic and stripper-sounding like Jasmine.
“Let's go to bed, vagabond.”
She stood up, reached over, and grabbed my
arm. We walked into the bedroom, which I hadn't
seen yet. It was your standard twenty-something
[129]
girl's bedroom. Pictures of high school prom dates
and volleyball teams. Boyfriends and friend boys
and girlfriends and pose shots. She must be one of
those girls that brings her camera everywhere. I
wonder how many of those kind of pictures I'm in.
With social media, now, you get to see a lot of
them. For years and years I've been in drunk
pictures with people. I hardly ever see them, but I
know they're out there somewhere, regrettable
memories from another in a long string of college
parties.
You can always tell you're in a chick's room.
Everything is meticulously arranged and looks
breakable. A blundering drunk like myself may
stumble and knock over a lamp, or set down a
ceramic turtle too hard and break it. You really
have to watch yourself in a girl's room. One false
step and you could ruin a cherished trinket from the
past. That means you're going back to the couch.
Tiptoe and don't touch anything. That's the rule,
and you have to stick to it lest you foul your
ambiance. Oh yeah, and never yell at the dog – if
[130]
there is one. Just don't do it.
She was fiddling with things on the dresser,
plugging in her phone, and thumbing her iPod. She
plugged it into the stereo on her bookshelf, and
turned around. I found myself looking at that little
part on her neck where it looks like there's a stick
under the skin revealed by the shirt with the collar
cut off. I don't know why, that's just what I
remember looking at.
“What do you want to listen to?” She said.
That's the question, isn't it? It's hard enough
to find girls that sleep with music on, but they
always have to ask you what to listen to. It's a test.
These chicks and their tests, man, I'll tell ya. I just
hoped I would pass. I crossed my fingers, and said
the first thing that came to mind that wasn't
Strapping Young Lad:
“You were dancing to the Mars Volta earlier,
right? Want to get down on some De-
[131]
Loused?”
She crumpled her face a little, and I thought I
might have blown it. She probably didn't want to
think about work, or something like that. I don't
know. She just smiled and shook her head.
“Nah, that'll give me nightmares.”
Fair enough. What should I ask her to play?
It's a test because I've never looked at her iPod, yet
I'm supposed to know what kind of music she
listens to. I just know she dances to the Mars Volta
and loves... oh... that's it!
“GaGa?”
“OOOH! Yeah! Good idea! I can't believe you
like Lady GaGa! All of the boys that I know
hate her.”
Ha! I passed!
[132]
She turned it up loud enough to hear it from
across the room, but quiet enough so we could hear
each other talking. The room was rectangular, with
the bed on one end and the dresser on the other.
The door was in the middle of the long wall, and the
bookshelf ran along the middle of the other long
wall. The walls were sea foam green, and the
bedspread matched them. A psychedelic tapestry
hung from the ceiling above the bed, and one of
those Ugly dolls between the pillows. She sat down
on the left side, and patted the bedspread next to
her.
“Have a seat.” She said.
I sat down next to her on the bed.
“You sleeping in your clothes, or do you wanna
borrow some shorts or something? I want to
see you in one of my skirts.” She laughed,
probably at the mental image of me in a skirt, which
would certainly look awkward.
[133]
“I'll be fine as I am. No skirts.”
“Take off your pants, boy!”
“Damn! Demanding today, aren't we?”
“I just want you to be comfortable. You seem
overly polite. Stop it.”
I got up, and I took off my shorts and my t-
shirt. I folded them and set them on the floor in
front of her dresser, and put my socks on top of the
pile. I sleep in boxer shorts, usually. I used to
sleep naked, but you never know when something is
going to happen and you've got to jump out of bed
ready to go. You can't awkwardly walk around
holding your junk when your girlfriend's mom is
over to grab that vacuum you borrowed, you know?
Better to be prepared.
When I turned around, she was under the
covers on the right side. I tried to turn off one of
the weird-shaped lamps, but I couldn't find a
[134]
switch.
“It's on the cord. Thanks Babe!”
I turned the switch, and I got into the left side
of the bed. So many things are whispered in
bedrooms, things that are never said out loud in
public. Things that never leave that bed unless
some asshole writes a book about it. Sometimes
the words are vile, and you'd be red-faced if you
said them in public. Other times, they're just too
honest to be spoken out loud.
“Can we cuddle?” She said almost in a whisper
before adding, “I've been feeling kind of lonely
lately, it's nice to have a friend.”
I was expecting to hear the bit about
cuddling, but I wasn't expecting that second part.
Truth is, I was feeling the same way. I put my arm
around her, and she grabbed it to pull me closer to
her. It might have been thirty seconds that went by
before her breathing slowed and her shoulders
[135]
relaxed into my chest. She had taken the t-shirt
off, I could feel the skin of her back on my chest. I
wish I was able to fall asleep that fast.
I'm one of those people that has a million
thoughts go through their head at night. Some of
us just can't turn off the machine. I laid there, and
I thought about how the day had started. From a
couch to a stripper's bedroom. Was this the main
nerve I'd found? Lady GaGa continued to play on
the stereo, and the next song I heard was
“Summerboy.”
“Ca-Ca-Ca Crazy!
Get your ass in my bed!”
Sure, why not? I tried to relax, but my
heartburn was flaring up. I started to wonder if I'd
even be able to go to sleep. I adjusted myself in
the bed, a little, trying to get more comfortable. I
put my left arm under her pillow just above her
head, and she woke up when I laid back. Just for a
second, though. I kind of felt bad, but she had such
[136]
a funny look on her face. All squinty and 'I just fell
asleep'-looking.
“Hmm? What?” She mumbled.
She hadn't even finished the words before she
turned around facing me and put her left arm over
me, resting her head on my chest. I was trapped
now, there was no getting out of this. I looked at
her face for a while. She looked really peaceful. I
guess everyone looks like that when they sleep.
She looked innocent. Serene. Beautiful. I
closed my eyes, and tried to calm down and relax a
little. I silently listened to the rest of the play list,
and I think I finally passed out sometime during
“Retro.Dance.Freak.” It's much more comfortable
to sleep with a warm body next to you. Maybe she
thought the same way, maybe she didn't. You don't
talk about those things, you just feel them.
It was the clock that got me through the
night. She had a clock on the nightstand, and I
[137]
could see it with my glasses off. Whenever I woke
up, I looked at the clock and realized it wasn't time
to get up yet. That got me comfortable enough to
sleep through the heartburn. Acid reflux is a
fucking bitch, man. Don't forget to take your pills,
and never adventure without backup antacid.
For both of us, that night, I think we just
needed someone to be close to. Maybe me more
than her, maybe not. I didn't know much about her
or her life, but I knew damn well I could use a warm
body in the bed. It wasn't so much about sex as it
was about not feeling alone in a world that feels so
empty sometimes. It's good to find someone you
feel comfortable around, and it's a nice feeling not
to go to sleep alone.
We were just two people, after all. We barely
even knew each other. Two people lost in a too-big
world, we passed out drunk in the night; neither
one of us the wolf, nor the lamb.
[138]
Chapter Eight – Precursors
I remember when Hooper and I first started
searching for the American Dream. We had been
friends for quite a long time, and kept in near
constant communication. Hooper is a person that
can't stay in one place for too long, he doesn't like
to plant roots. He prefers to keep on the move
when he can, and he doesn't like being bored.
He's lived all over the place. Parks, cars,
trucks, girlfriend's houses, ex-girlfriend's houses,
spare couches, rest stops, hotels, and casino floors.
For Hooper, home is wherever he happens to be at
the time. It takes a certain kind of person to live a
nomadic lifestyle, and Hooper is that exactly that
kind of person. He would feel as comfortable with a
six figure income in the suburbs as he would
subsisting on wild berries and rolled oats
[139]
somewhere far off in the Ozarks.
He's ready for whatever comes his way, and
that's probably why I always looked up to him so
much. He was always ready to go at a moment's
notice, and all I ever did was talk about going.
Hooper was a man of continuous action, and I a
man of limitless determination. The combination
was a personality tornado that wrought havoc
wherever it showed its wicked face.
He was in town to complete another page in
his list of actionable items that he had labeled
“Operation Michigan Liberation.” He had business in
the several areas of the State that he had lived in.
Bills unpaid, years old parking tickets, old
roommates storing his possessions, and family to
visit. Any time he found his way back to Michigan,
he would find the time to stop by my place as well.
We walked to a party not too far away from
my house, where a few of our mutual friends were
celebrating the first nice day of spring. There were
[140]
a few kegs, a pot-luck buffet, a pair of beat up
guitars, and a yard full of camp chairs. As we grew
further and further on in our inebriation, we decided
that Kalamazoo was beginning to feel a bit
claustrophobic. Nothing but the same people
running along the same ruts, all wishing they could
make a change; too afraid to manifest it. We
walked back to my house, and tried to figure out
what we could do to calm the storm rising within us.
Within an hour, we were packing up what we
deemed necessary to find the dream into the back
of my car, and howling down the highway at top
speed. We brought an acoustic guitar, three packs
of cigarettes, a quarter ounce of grass, a large jar
full of change for tolls and vending machines, a
hand-held recorder I never bothered to turn on, and
a change of clothes each.
We headed West from Kalamazoo, on I-94
towards Chicago, thinking we might find something
there. We didn't really know what we were looking
for, where we were going, or even why we had left.
[141]
We just felt strongly that we needed to go
somewhere that night, and so we did. We were the
type of people that did those sorts of things. The
things you always talked about doing and never did.
Sometimes it isn't enough just to dream things, so
you have to reach out and make them a reality.
When you go out looking for the dream, it finds you.
They tell you to reach for the stars. You have to
take the star from the sky and make it your own.
As we drove, we held conversation in our
normal manner. To most, the thought would never
occur that we would be friends. All we ever did was
insult and and demean each other, all while
screaming and making frantic gestures. Truth is,
though, Hooper and I were indeed very good
friends. That's just how we spoke to each other.
It's fun to yell, and finding intelligent and diabolical
ways to insult each other shows that you know
enough about your friends to hit them where it
hurts.
Our primary objective was determined nearing
[142]
Gary, Indiana.
“Fuck, man, Gary looks worse every time I see
it. You should live there, then people couldn't
smell you. Take a shower, hippie!” He said,
putting his arm out the window to let it fly in the
wind. Good 'ol Bernoulli.
“The American Dream must have left this place
for greener pastures. Maybe it was China.” I
said.
“Fuck the American Dream.”
“Why do you say that?” I swerved the car a bit,
reacting honestly.
“The American Dream was a fucking billboard,
man, a fantasy. Fool's gold. Some dumb play
on words. Great experiment, my ass. Look
around you. How many potholes have you
hit?”
[143]
I swerved to miss a serendipitous pothole.
“So the American Dream is dead just because
there's potholes? Great Experiment?! Isn't
that what this is supposed to be?! How can
you say it's a bad thing?”
“Do you want to be part of an experiment?”
“I am! I'm part of my own experiment, Hoop!
My own great dream. It started when I was
born and continues to my death. So are you!
Life is a social experiment!”
“Fuck you, your life is a failed experiment.
They should have shot you in the fucking lab.
They'll regret it soon enough. You don't
understand the big picture. You don't
understand that they're selling you this white
picket fence crap. You're falling for it hook,
line, and sinker!”
“White picket fence crap?! So maybe your
[144]
dream doesn't have a fenced acre. The white
picket fence thing is the metaphor, stupid. It
represents well-defined borders and security.
Surely the American dream hasn't fallen so far
from your sight, you drunken idiot!”
“Fallen?! You're the one that's defending an
antiquated notion of manifest destiny that you
and I both know miserably failed.”
“We're still the fucking Hegemon.”
“China's nipping at our heels.”
“Fuck China. There's room for us both.
Hegemony is an antiquated notion. No one's
gotta be the best. There's only one Earth,
man. We're all stuck here whether we like it
or not.”
“Fuck China?! They own all of your debt! All
of your credit cards, your auto loan, man, even
my fucking student loans. It's all going to be
[145]
in Yuan in ten years.”
“You've lost your mind, Hooper! You say 'look
around,' and I say it right back to you. So this
is Gary. This is where Industry used to be.
This may not be the future, but it's still a huge
part of our past. It's still the dream, just an
old dream that refuses to die. So it's not
yours, and it isn't mine either, but that doesn't
mean it wasn't someone's at some time. Who
are you to shit on someone else's dreams?”
“Who dreams of waking up in this fuck-nest of
misery and loathing?”
“Someone does, man. You wake up under
park benches sometimes, hell, we've both
seen the darker side of the fuck-nest. I'm sure
some people would take issue with living the
way we find comfortable.”
“That's a good point, ass hole.”
[146]
“No problem, dick hat.”
The topic had turned to the American dream.
What is it? Or, maybe, what was it? How many
times have you heard that phrase uttered in your
life as a citizen? Thousands? What does it mean?
Who first said it? Hooper was on top of things, as
usual. He didn't even know I was thinking about it
when he said,
“But still, listen- James Truslow Adams was a
W.A.S.P. East-coast elitist douche bag.”
“So were all the founding fathers, and pretty
much anybody in our American History books
until like 1850, man. Remember? It's the
American Dream! Back then, America wasn't
anything except the East coast. We tweak the
dream as it suits our purpose. It's the
cumulative dream of everybody that lives here
now, and has ever lived here before. We make
our dreams the reality man, that's what this is
all about!”
[147]
“There is no fucking way that you are going to
convince me that holding on to some stupid
fantasy of a ladder to self-propagated success
is going to pan out for you in the long run.”
“Do you have any other choice than to believe
in it, Hooper? Isn't that what you want from
life? Don't you want to be better off five years
from now? Aren't you getting sick of sleeping
in your truck and trying to find a job wherever
you move to? Don't you wish you could just
pack up and leave whenever you wanted and
know that anywhere in America there were
jobs to be had, friends to be made, and good
times to be had?”
“Isn't that already the case?”
“Why don't you tell me? How long did it take
you to get that gig in Virginia? Three months?
How many places did you have to apply to and
interview with in order to finally land that one
[148]
job?”
“Yeah, so what? I still found one, didn't I? I
know how to take care of myself, I didn't
dream about learning how, I did it!”
“We're not talking about physical things, here,
Hooper. We're talking about a concept, an
idea, a potential. We're talking about fucking
the breath of life in the blow hole. We're
talking about the potential for greatness in
every new idea. Individual greatness,
collective greatness, technological greatness,
and maybe even humanitarian greatness.”
“Now you're really dreaming, dude. You're a
stupid Utopian idealist. You're just going to
disappoint yourself if you keep thinking about
that sort of dream. You're not Willy Wonka,
man. You talk about metaphors, you can take
them and throw them in your Charlie Bucket.”
“I'm not saying we live in it now, I'm not
[149]
saying we're ever going to find it. I'm saying
it's the search for the ideal that we have to
value. It's the fucking meat of the experience,
man. The ideals and the pursuit of a better
tomorrow. That's why I get up in the morning,
Hooper, that's why I put my pants on and
brush my teeth and walk around the
neighborhood. This world is so fucking big,
it's so complex, and it's so god damn beautiful.
I can't imagine not wanting to maximize the
experience. I'm not a pessimist, man, I'm not
a realist, I'm not an optimist, and I'm not a
fucking dreamer. I just know I want a better
tomorrow to finally come, some day, even just
once. No matter how hard I have to work for
it. And when the fucking sun shines brightest
on me, that's where we'll know I've found it!”
We pulled up to a toll booth in Portage,
Indiana to get on the skyway going into Chicago.
Before I could count the quarters I had grabbed in a
handful from the jar, Hooper was leaning over me
and yelling at the toll booth operator.
[150]
“Lady! Hey lady! Lady! Hey! Hey lady!”
“What?” She said, with the least interest possible.
“Listen, me and my buddy here are looking for
the American Dream. Do you know where we
might be able to find it?”
She never broke face, but you could see a
faraway twinkle in that eye. She knew the dream.
She knew what we were talking about. She might
not be dreaming it anymore, or maybe she's
dreaming it now more than ever. She knew what
we were talking about, she KNEW.
“It isn't here. Seventy-five cents.”
Cop-out.
I couldn't decide if I wanted to laugh at the
robot, or cry with the forlorn. Had she given up?
Was it a lost cause after all? Was Hooper right?
[151]
Was the dream some sort of vicious delusion I was
only starting to tear the curtain away from?
We turned off the highway just South of the
Loop, parking the car at a gas station to refuel and
acquire heavily caffeinated drinks. We walked into
the place, with the fluorescent lighting that made
everything seem like we were on a movie set. We
selected our beverages, and went to pay the
cashier.
“Mister, I have a question for you.” Hooper said
to the bearded man behind the counter.
“Oh yeah?” The man did not seem pleased.
“My friend and I, here, are looking for the
American Dream. Can you tell me, is it around
here anywhere?”
“Hell no.”
“Well, you seem to have some sort of grip on
[152]
what it is, sir, don't you?”
“Yeah, and it ain't here. I know that much.
Ten eighteen. Got any gas?”
Damn. He had gotten me again. Two in a
row. Maybe the American Dream was dead. We
couldn't know for sure, not yet. We had to continue
on, through the night, through the city. We had to
go on until someone, anyone, could tell us where it
was. Hooper was intent on proving me stupid, I
was intent on proving that hope for a better
tomorrow wasn't lost on an entire country. Big
dreams in the lonely city.
We bought our energy drinks and we gassed
up and we continued North through the city,
eventually getting back on the Highway and
continuing to the Wisconsin State line.
We stopped, again, for a bathroom break. I
kept insisting that we needed to 'take a careful
inventory' in order to 'maximize our potential.' You
[153]
have to keep in mind that we had been drinking all
day. Even though we stopped in time enough to
drive, we were still in that after-drunk haze of
structured insanity.
We had entered a different State of the union,
and a different state of consciousness by the time
we reached Milwaukee. We stopped again for a
bathroom break, and we asked the clerk at this gas
station the same question. I was becoming bold
enough, and I asked this time.
“Excuse me, Miss. My friend and I here have
driven all the way from Kalamazoo, Michigan
to ask you a question.”
“Me?” She said.
“Sure, why not? Are you ready?”
“If you drove all this way, sure, I guess. Go
ahead, shoot.”
[154]
“Do you know what the American Dream is?”
When she didn't immediately answer, I knew I
had found our prize. She had the look.
“It's the hope for a better tomorrow!”
I turned to Hooper.
“You see! We've found it after all! It isn't a
thing you have, or a place you go, it's a State
of mind, right?”
I looked at her name tag. Carol. Then I
looked at her face.
“Right Carol?”
I kind of wanted to hug her in her stained
cashier's vest, and plant a kiss right on old, lonely,
Carol's cheek.
“Sure, I mean yes, I mean... yeah. YES. You're
[155]
right! It's a state of mind!”
She seemed proud of herself. She smiled
after she spoke. As if she had conquered her own
self-doubt in that moment. It was a confident
smile. She had passed a test.
“Have you found the American Dream at this
gas station in Milwaukee, Carol?” Said Hooper
with astonishing disdain.
“No, but I'm always dreaming it! I'll find it
some day!” She looked at Hooper like he was
trying to tear her heart from her chest.
I wanted to say something to balance
Hooper's gnarled sense of humor, so I said
“Keep your dreams alive, Carol- never give up
hope! There's a great big world out there for
all of us, we just have to make it happen.”
I was satisfied. We could turn back now. We
[156]
had found what we needed to find. We just wanted
to hear someone else say it in order to know that
we hadn't lost touch completely. We had to hear a
stranger tell us what we wanted to hear. We had to
know that there were other people living lives far
away from us, lives that were just as full of joy and
pain as ours were. Just as full of tumult, and
change, of longing and of regret. Of missed
opportunities, and of false starts. Someone who
dreamed the dreams of fame and fortune while
sucking the minimum-wage gas station runt cow.
That is the American Dream.
We drove home, less anxious and upset about
the assumed lack of opportunities in our hometown.
We drove home confident that the dream was out
there, and we drove home with a new determination
to find it.
We surely didn't know what we'd do when we
found it, but we needed to make the dream a
reality. We wanted to find satisfaction, we wanted
to find a sense of purpose. We needed a mission in
[157]
life. Growing old and dying wasn't going to be
enough for us. We had to do something. Anything
but sit around and complain about our lives without
doing anything to change them.
I would have driven all the way to California
asking random people about the dream until I heard
someone say it, you can be damn sure of that. I
couldn't stand to just sit idly by and try to legitimize
the idiots around me succumbing to this moronic
plague of lost hope. People all over the country
were growing belligerently frustrated with their
lives. Instead of trying to do something about it,
they relegated it to fate and disavowed themselves
from the pursuit of happiness.
I needed to hear someone tell me they hadn't
given up on the Dream. I wanted to believe in it.
We had to look hard to find it out there, because so
many find it easier to give up hope than to keep
dreaming. But if you look hard enough, if you keep
turning the next corner and going the extra mile,
you'll find the dream alive just the same. It's a
[158]
great big world out there, and those of us who
know; we know all it takes is a dream, a passion,
and boundless determination.
[159]
[160]
Chapter Nine – Arrival
Our world exists twenty four hours a
day, three hundred sixty five point two five days a
year in a state of perpetual movement and change.
The feeling of being a part of that power is
overwhelming and exhilarating. Knowing that
you're a part of something much, much bigger than
yourself. The inter-connectedness of consciousness,
and the collective identity of thousands of years of
human history culminating and condensing into
what finally became you.
Talk is cheap, they say, and lies are
expensive. The problem with these metaphors, and
with metaphors in general, is that most people just
don't understand them. You may think they do, but
they don't. Not like you wish they did. I could
never figure out why artists insisted on hiding their
[161]
message and intent behind a veil of metaphor and
speculative allusion.
Some artists hide their message in a cloud of
abstraction, and then they get even more upset
when no one has a fucking clue what they were
trying to say in the first place. Being intentionally
ambiguous, hinting at things you want to talk about
without saying them for what they are, and then
being surprised when no one understands what
you're trying to say.
Name the feeling. Name the thought. Name
the experience. SAY WHAT IT IS THAT YOU WANT
TO SAY. Art is about symbolic meaning, of course,
but increasing the layers of abstraction only
decreases the chances of people understanding the
intent.
We want a weekend read with a good twist,
we want a three minute radio hit with a catchy
hook, and we want a pretty picture on a wall of a
place we've never been. We want a song to dance
[162]
to. We want other people to dance with us. We
want genres, we want styles, we want beauty, and
we want variety. We want the new, the old, the
trendy, the underground, and the never-before-
seen. We want exciting, and we want state-of-the-
art, but that doesn't mean we've lost respect of
what came before, either.
These cravings don't come about because
we're spoon-fed or stupid, it's because we've
demanded choice and subsequently received it.
Beggars can't be choosers, no matter how much
they try. The only choosers in this life are the
artists. Those unabashedly fearless in describing
exactly what we should want and feel.
This is the world we asked for, and this is the
world we've received. Technology worship and
idiocy aside, looking past the famine and nuclear
proliferation, and ignoring the debt crises and
plastic oceans; at least we're still trying to make
things beautiful.
[163]
Some of us don't want to hear about the fear
and the violence; some of us take relief knowing
that we're not the only ones suffering. We want
feelings we can relate to, new ideas, greater
prospects, and a value to place on our personal
experiences. We want something we can digest;
understand. Something we can talk about with our
friends and say, 'did you see this?' Our attention
span lasts minutes, seconds even, but it's our
attention nonetheless. If you want it, you have to
come and get it.
We are the transient generation. The
vagabonds, off to 'find ourselves.' Our lives are our
forms of art. We want to belong, but we don't know
what to belong to. We want to work hard, but we
don't know what to work for. We want to love, but
we don't know how to love anyone but ourselves.
We want to fight, but we don't want to fight with
each other. We want to struggle, to anguish, to toil
and to sacrifice like those that came before us. We
want to soar high, to make dreams reality, and to
rid the world of whatever injustices we see. We
[164]
have the will, the commitment, the perseverance,
and the sparkle in our eyes. We want to take
control, but we don't even know what we're taking
control of. We want to reach for the stars, even
though we know the stars are light-years away. We
want to reach past the moon, because the moon is
what our grand parents reached for.
We are the dissolute, those without a
constant, the progeny of the past's good fortune.
We are the privileged, the sunrise, the dawn of a
new era. We are the future. We want you to listen
to us, we want to show you what we know, we want
you to be ready to receive us. We want to change
the world you left us with, because it isn't yours
anymore.
Art is our answer. The word possesses as
many definitions as there are grains of sand in the
desert. Arbitrary and contrived as it may be at
times, we all must appreciate it to some extent.
Life would be boring and depressing without art.
[165]
Walking through museums and galleries all
over the country, you'll see the same fundamental
concepts re-iterating themselves throughout the
centuries. Love lost, love gained, life lost,
knowledge gained, oppression from those above you
on the ladder, and indignation from those below.
Frustration alleviated, wickedness vanquished, and
longing requited. Vain sacrifice admonished or
beguiled. Metaphor twisted and changed, gnarled
and misguided. Misunderstood equivocation, and
obfuscation amidst layers of abstraction.
We explore the meaning of historical allegories
like mythic heroes, endless wars, winner's histories,
and loser's defeats. We express our opinions on the
past, present, and future. We establish moods and
conjure emotions. Through cycles of deliverance
and subjugation comes the distillation of new
creative ideas.
Anything can be art. View an Andy Warhol
exhibit. Watch a Kubrick film. Listen to John Cage,
hell, or even Merzbow. Good luck getting your
[166]
grandparents to listen to that stuff for more than
thirty seconds. Once, when I was in Washington
D.C., there was an artist who installed a Polar bear
in a suit pushing a shopping cart in the middle of
the National Mall, and there was a bomb squad sent
to assess the threat level. I couldn't decide what
the better photo op was: the polar bear with a
shopping cart, or a federal agent pointing an assault
rifle at it. Every day across the country, kids with
paint markers and spray cans create art on our city
streets and get arrested for it. Art is controversial.
Art stretches our boundaries. Art makes our lives
exciting. Art gives us a reason to live that exciting
life without fearing the hollow abandon it may
expose.
I see Art on the highway. In the way the
buildings appear on the horizon when you're coming
into a city. The subtle patterns used on overpass
bridges, or on the walls that block the droning
sound of the black snake of commerce. The
personal touches of the surveyors and city planners.
The cars we drive, they're works of art. The colors,
[167]
the shapes, the contours, the machinery, the
design. The billboards are art, the light poles, the
very things that we take for granted are art.
Architecture is art, infrastructure is art, the ships
and the subways, the trains and the taxis, the
furniture, the food we eat, and the drinking
fountains on the street corners – all art. Some
overly bland and utilitarian, but art nonetheless.
There's thousands of years of wisdom and tradition
in the things we build around ourselves.
I see art in the smiles of passersby that
haven't lost the thrill of being alive. Art in dancing
at the piano bars and nightclubs. I, we, see art all
around us; doomed forever to find the answers we
seek just out of reach. True art cannot be contained
or typified, just like true freedom. Not all of it
belongs in a museum, either. Not all Art can be put
on a wall and just looked at.
Thoughts, feelings, experiences, memories, all
captured in a fleeting moment by an artist's mind;
transposed to fit the tune of your own personal
[168]
moment with the piece. Some of that immortal
star-stuff transmuted into an experience that
transcends reality and affects us on an emotional
level.
We owe as much to the people that came
before us as we do to ourselves. We are the
progeny of history, the new iteration, and the new
ideal. For every crippling shortfall of society, there
exists another triumph. Our art is our pursuit of
life, liberty, and happiness. Our pursuits of truth
and justice; we're on a road to our own future. We
may never get it perfect, but we'll be damned if
that'll keep us from pining towards that very
unattainable goal.
Try as we might to dissuade one another from
ideas and opinions we find questionable, there is
always someone there to tear down the stage
curtain and show things how they really are. These
are the people that have found the main nerve.
Those who see something beyond the horizon,
those who greet a new day with zeal; ready for the
[169]
newest challenge.
It's our artists that make our lives worth
living, those people among us who endeavor to find
a new vision. They embark on an endless quest for
truth and beauty, manipulating and challenging the
timeless and shapeless concepts to which we assign
value and meaning. These people can take what we
know, what we're familiar with, and distort it and
shape it to make it their own new reality. A new
reality that becomes our reality. Our collective
interpretation of the world changes, ever so slightly,
with every new idea.
We may offer our opinions, as well as our
personal commendations, but art is produced and
created from things that already existed. The
struggle with art, now, is that we have pushed the
concept to such extremes that original ideas are at
a premium. You can't create something new
without using tools, resources, and knowledge that
you get from someone else. That's what makes art
such a culturally-significant enterprise. We place
[170]
our own value on the artistic output of our culture.
Our art defines us, it makes us who we are.
Sick of pretending you're something you're
not? Stop it. Sick of wishing your life was better?
Make it better. Wish you could make that change,
but don't know how? Maybe it's time to figure it out
once and for all. Sick of being told what to do?
Stop listening. Shake your fist, and make some
noise! Take a stand for once, and stop letting
things get to you. We've all got once chance to live,
one chance to make it, and one chance to live
forever. There's no reason you can't start today.
Get up off of your ass, figure out what you want to
do with your life, and get out there.
We say these things to ourselves, everyday, in
the back of our minds; sometimes even out loud.
We need to remind ourselves that we shouldn't be
afraid. That we do have the strength to persevere.
That we do have what it takes to survive.
I guess you could say that's why I was on the
[171]
road that Spring. I was there to see Hooper, of
course, but there was so much more going on in my
mind than that. Since I had quit my job shortly
before I left, I was looking for a sign as to what the
next step might be. I needed to get away from my
nest of familiarity at home in order to put myself
inside the larger framework of the world.
While in transit, you become intertwined with
the push and pull of time and space. I needed that
feeling of movement; to be able to look at myself
from an outside perspective. When you go on to
make a big change in life, there's always that
moment of anxiety before the change comes.
There's another moment, though, just after the
change is made. The time where you're waiting for
the engines to rev up, or for the cake batter to
coalesce. That 'up in the air' time is what it's like to
be on 'the road.'
When people say they're 'on the road,' they
mean so much more than just driving. When you're
'on the road,' that means you're going somewhere.
[172]
Maybe you're in a band on the road, a trucker on
the road to make a living, a family on the road to
Yellowstone, or just someone with a lot of time on
their hands. Maybe you're on the road to escape for
a while, or maybe you have an important meeting
with someone. Maybe you've gone on the next
great journey; maybe it's the last. Hard to tell
while you're out there. When you're on the road
you aren't really anywhere. You just are. The road
is separate from our reality, distinct from our time
and space.
***
We went on the road to find the American
Dream, and we found a crisp shred of hope in a pile
of rotting lettuce. Only a short short time later, it
seemed that Hooper had found his version of the
American Dream in North Carolina.
My phone rang in my pocket, one day, several
months after our journey to Milwaukee.
[173]
“I just bear maced some fuckin' guy.”
“What? Why?”
“Pulled a gun on me. Fuck 'em.”
“What did you do in order to get a gun pulled
on you?”
“The bastard tailgated me for miles and then
cut me off, so I flipped him off, rode on his
bumper, and screamed 'redneck shit-dick
bastard fuck head!' out of the window at the
next red light. He slammed it in park and got
out of his truck in a rage.”
“Holy shit, so you bear-maced him when he
came out? Why did you have bear mace?”
“You never know what type of wretched
scumbag you'll run into in my line of work
these days; all sorts of mongrels roaming the
streets. It's best to be prepared. Bear mace
[174]
doesn't kill, it incapacitates from a safe
distance. He started coming at me waving his
gun like some fucking gangster, so I gave him
a dose of my spray-can reason.”
“Oh yeah, because that's completely rational,
Hooper. Blasting dudes in the face with
fucking bear mace? What the fuck?”
“He had it coming. Better than me with a
redneck bullet in my face. I was only
subverting the power structure of the
situation. Cheaters always win.”
“You're lucky you didn't get shot, you fucking
animal.”
“He was being chased by the police! I
assisted the pigs!”
“So, you pulled an assist by bear macing an
assailant you provoked. Surely, you deserve a
fucking Nobel prize. A medal of honor, even.”
[175]
“I'd settle for being on T.V. Maybe I'll just
start patrolling the city streets with my
vigilante can of bear mace, taking out muggers
and rapists in lieu of the police state's obvious
inadequacies.”
“Fuck, man. I'm jealous. I wish I bear maced
some poor bastard today, I'm in that kind of
mood.”
“It was a hell of a good time, watching that
poor bastard cough away defeated!”
“Damn.”
I didn't know what else to say. These are the
types of stories heard from Hooper Felonious,
patron saint of running amok.
“I'm gonna go fuck this bitch without a
rubber, and never tell her I nearly choked a
man to death with a cloud of noxious gas.”
[176]
“Don't get the HIV.”
“Fuck bitches. Talk to you soon.”
“What did you want?”
“Just wanted to tell ya I bear-maced some
fuckin' guy. I'm busy. Fuck off.”
I tried to respond, but the line had gone dead.
He had hung up.
Hooper Felonious was a true work of art. His
character was carefully constructed over the years.
He was the alter-ego of an otherwise rational
person. Coupled with my character, the borderline
vagabond, we were in the state of mind to create a
fantasy world for ourselves to live in. Even if the
dream would only last a weekend, it would still be
the dream. We would make it ours, play it by ear.
[177]
That's how I found him when I finally made it
down to North Carolina for a visit. An overnight
romp through Ohio and West Virginia to the sounds
of late-night pop radio and BBC chatterings. He was
drinking coffee and walking his dog, fresh in from a
morning jog.
I wondered if he was still Hooper. In that
morning glimpse, it seemed like his mystique had
dissipated. His aura of brilliant chaos had turned to
a pedestrian stumble of bills and gym memberships.
He was just another guy, another face in the crowd
dressed in running shorts and a white t-shirt. Had
he drunk the kool-aide of some sick fantasy he
himself denied the appeal of not so long ago?
“Why the fuck are you here? Go back to
Michigan. You're not good enough for this
place. This place is for achievers and all you
do is complain.”
He was still Hooper, after all!
[178]
“Why the fuck did they let you in, then?” I
yelled across the parking lot, walking toward him.
“Are you the fucking grounds keeper? The
Janitor? Did you threaten the management
with fucking bear mace or compound joint
fracture?”
“Some day I'll tell you that story. You're not
too far off.”
We shook hands vigorously.
“Hooper, it is a pleasure to see you again, my
friend.”
“Likewise. Let's eat biscuits and drink sweet
tea. This place has a nice balcony.”
We drove to some tiny biscuit hut down the
road from his Apartment. The menu was hand-
written on a piece of poster board.
“I grow plants.”
[179]
“Hooper, you've gone hippie on me, you
savage dog!”
“I want to eat plants that I grow, and I want
to watch them grow. Fuck you.”
“Nothing you grow will ever bear fruit.”
“I'm a pro gardener, motherfucker! I'm going
to win a fucking prize with these fucking
tomatoes!”
“Show me the fuckin' ribbon when you get it.”
“Oh I will. I grow shit, motherfucker, I'm
going to be so much better off than you when
the zombie apocalypse comes!”
“Hooper, you are a strange and terrifying
human being.”
“I grow shit.”
[180]
He had to work at Ten A.M., and that's when I
went to sleep on his couch. I'm generally not a
sleep-anywhere kind of guy, but if I'm tired enough,
I can make do with what I've got. I had been
sleeping in my car for the whole drive down, and it
was kind of nice to stretch out. I slept without
dreams, waking up to being called a pig fucker. I
had no premonitions whatsoever as to what the
next forty-eight hours would entail.
[181]
Chapter Ten – Morning
When I woke up in that sleeping
beauty's bed, and the first thing I saw was her face,
I knew I was staring at the Main Nerve. I was
cuddled in a hungover death-trap of bad decisions.
I was the borderline vagabond, the road-worn saint,
the antithesis of permanence; she the great rock
snagging the net. I was a temporary passerby on
the road; she a lofty dream superimposed over the
waking world. A carrot in the eye of the work
horse. The main nerve, seething, sending out its
sparking tendrils for those with the right eyes to see
and grab hold.
She opened her eyes.
“Good morning, vagabond!”
[182]
“Good morning, angel.”
She smiled, devilishly, looking at me over the
bridge of her nose with her head cocked to the side.
“An angel, am I? Some may disagree.”
“You sure do look the part, though.”
She smiled again, coyly this time, with her
neck sunken into her shoulders.
“I wondered if you'd still be here when I woke
up.”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
Did she know she was right to wonder? Did
she know I had debated fleeing into the stormy
night? How? A woman's premonition? A long
history of heartbreak? Did I tell her? Was I so
drunk last night I couldn't remember?
[183]
“You're the vagabond.”
Women have the most uncanny ability to say
something you'd never expect.
“Ha! I guess I am. Truth be told, though, I
was trapped. Couldn't have left without
waking you up.”
I looked around the room. Things usually
seem so different in the light of the day. It still felt
like we were inside some catalog. The surroundings
seemed so superficial and impermanent, like we
were on the set of a prime time sitcom.
I rubbed my eyes.
“So, I hope you find some humor in this, but
where the fuck am I?” I moaned.
“My apartment.” She smiled sarcastically.
“Ha!” I sat up as I laughed, and said, “I know
[184]
that, Jasmine, I just mean what city? Where
in relation to Chapel Hill?”
“Oh, haha, yeah. OK. You're in Durham. Do
you know where that is?”
“Yeah, alright. Fair enough. Just wondering.”
“I'm going to start some coffee.”
She got out of bed, and the light shone in
through the window and on to the side of her body.
In that moment, she looked like a live model in an
art class. Shadow and light danced and twisted
around her curves. The Sun would peek in through
the blinds, rays of light superimposing a
topographical map of her every feature.
She was almost too beautiful to look at so
early in the morning.
She opened the blinds on one of the windows,
to allow full light to enter the room. As she walked
[185]
back toward me, the Sun shone in from behind her,
casting an almost perfect corona behind her. The
sun was giving her it's power, and I wanted to know
how she managed to do that. The sun's power is
awfully hard to harness, you know.
“You've got that look like you're thinking
again.”
She stood there, glowing like the sun in front
of the window looking at me.
“Has anyone ever told you that you're so
beautiful you can draw attention away from
the Sun?”
“People tell me I'm beautiful, but only when
I'm on a stage.”
“All the world's a stage, Jazz. You've always
gotta shine like the fucking Sun.”
“What's the point of all of that? It's too
[186]
fucking depressing. I can get up in the
morning, and play my part – do the hair, the
nails, the makeup. I rise up to challenges I'm
not even expected to rise to.”
“That's why you do it, though, isn't it? Don't
you do those things to get what you want?
Why can't you value your own life? It belongs
to you, and whatever you do with it is
sacrosanct. It's yours.”
“I value my own life, doesn't everybody?”
“Do they?”
“Of course they do. Why wouldn't they?”
“Have you always felt like you were putting on
a show when you went out in public?”
Now she had a look on her face like she was
thinking. She grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a
hooded sweatshirt from the corner near the bed,
[187]
and put them on.
“Well, when I was growing up, yeah.” She
pause for a second to put on the hoodie. “That's
what all the girls do. We're trying to get you
boys to pay attention to us, and it works.”
“If you've got it, flaunt it, right?”
“That only works for so long. The guys that
are only into looks treat you like shit when you
wake up in the morning without your make-up
on. There's always another girl that's
prettier.”
“You don't have to paint your face and dress
up to impress me.”
“That's because guys don't have to spend
three hours every morning figuring out how to
dress yourself to present the best possible
image. You just walk out the fucking door.
You don't have to worry about what other
[188]
people say.”
“That's not true, I think about what other
people say. I'm a writer, Jazz, I write books.
What's more self-aggrandizing than that? I
expect people to want to hear what I have to
say. Isn't that just as bad?”
“No!” She climbed back into bed, sitting up against
the wall like I was. “At least you're giving
something back. I just get stared at and
wished for. All I get is money, nothing else.
These people don't want to love me, they
fantasize over a costume and a mask.”
“I'm here sleeping in my car outside my
buddy's apartment. I'm no hero, I give
something back that nobody wants. I came
out here looking for something better.”
“Yeah, so did I. A college education and a
chance to grab a hold of the American Dream.”
[189]
“No, it's not the Dream you hold on to. That's
the main nerve.”
“The main nerve?”
“You can never have the whole Dream. That's
what it is – a dream. You can only find the
main nerve and grab hold for a ride.”
“So all this searching for the American Dream
comes up bust? I wish I would have known.”
“Yeah, that's what I used to think. It doesn't
come up bust, though. That's the most special
and tantalizing thing about it. It's always
there, looming just out of sight. You can
always reach; but you'll never grab a hold of it
for real. You can only take its hand and go as
far as it will take you.”
“Then what happens?”
“You live, you learn. You give up, or you keep
[190]
fighting for another chance to grab hold. I
figure if you can grab a hold for long enough,
or find it enough times, it will eventually help
you get to where you want to go.”
“But what if I don't know where it is that I
want to go?”
“Then you just have to find it! There's a whole
world out there for us to explore, but mostly
we just kick it around our comfort zones, too
scared to give ourselves the chance to get any
more out of life. You just have to get out
there and deal with it. Searching for the
dream comes up boom and bust, fifty fifty, all
in the same. You can't strike it rich with every
plot, but if you keep searching long enough;
eventually you'll find the mother lode. You
can't take it all, only what you can carry back.
You may never find the place again, but you
can always strike up another search.”
“So is that why you're the borderline
[191]
vagabond? You only wander until you've
found something, and then you leave it there
once you've found it?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. At the
moment, I'm just along for a ride. I wouldn't
say I just leave the main nerve where it is,
though, because you never step in the same
river twice. I'll find it again soon, I'm sure.”
“Got any good leads?” She said with a smile.
This. This was my chance.
“I've got a few.”
I put my arm around her shoulders, and
kissed her on the forehead. If only I could find the
right words to tell her how many times I thought
those thoughts that were running through her head.
How many times I wondered what the point to all of
this was. The people, what they say, what they
think, what they do. We don't really know anyone
[192]
but ourselves. Sad, but true. You can spend hours
talking to somebody and think you know exactly
what they meant; then come to find out you weren't
really listening in the first place.
We're stuck on a sad and lonely Earth,
trudging along without cause or direction. We make
little games for ourselves. Fluid, ever-changing
'goals' to get the next promotion, or to pass the
next test. We try to represent ourselves through
our goals, but the goals are given to us by the
people we look up to. We want to be like them, we
want to know what they know. And when the road
finally leads us there, we don't know what to do
next.
We cop out, we act crazy, we get emotional.
We lock up, we can't keep going. We only know in
retrospect what we could have done or said to make
our dreams come true. The saddest part about a
dream is that it is not reality. It is a vision of what
reality could have been. A memory of something
that isn't wholly true, but only based on a true
[193]
story.
She looked up at me, with those eyes, those
eyes that I could have sworn were crying out to me.
The depth of her stare made me wonder if she
understood me more than I knew.
“What do you want out of life?” She said, but
with a different look and intent than she had the
night before.
“That's a good question without a good
answer. I want to be happy, I guess, is the
easiest way to put it.”
“What makes you happy?”
”Freedom to wander, being around people I
love, supporting myself, being well-liked, and
being successful in my pursuits of life, liberty,
and happiness.”
“Isn't that a circular definition?” She almost
[194]
sounded upset. “Being good at being happy
makes you happy? That doesn't make any
sense!”
“Have you ever studied philosophy, Jazz?”
“Not really, no.”
“Eventually, in every philosophical argument,
you have to realize that you can't win. There's
no such thing as winning. People have
opinions, and they change too often to nail 'em
down. There's multiple sides to every
argument, and that makes it so that nobody
ever wins in philosophy; there's only ever a
full set of sore losers getting down on
themselves for not being perfect.”
“What does that have to do with being
happy?”
“What it takes to make me happy changes all
the time, just like the world around me, and
[195]
just like philosophy. Sometimes there really
isn't an answer, and I'm comfortable with
that. We grow, we learn, we experience, and
we use that to gauge what makes us happy. I
can tell ya right now, what made me happy
when I was an eighteen year old kid was a
whole lot different than what does now.
Ultimately, you just have to 'be.' There isn't
happy or unhappy, there is only what happens
and how you choose to deal with it.”
“I don't want to grow up. I wish we were all
still kids. Things were so much easier back
then.”
“I know what you mean, but do you really
think that? Are you sure you aren't just
wishing that things weren't so hard to deal
with?”
“No-”
I interrupted her, even though I hate it when
[196]
people do that. I was on a roll.
“Hold on. We're talking about equivalent
exchange here. Remember, the only thoughts
you can ever know are your own. You can't
think for other people. You know how much
things have changed over the years. Did you
think that other people hadn't? People don't
stay the same, Jazz. Even if you want them to
stay just as they are. They can't, they won't.
You won't either. Time changes us like the
seasons. We all grow old and we all die. All of
us. That's what we do. The whole fucking
world is our playground. We've got nothing
but time on our hands and lives to lead the
way we want to lead them. That's what makes
me happy. The fact that I know that
everybody else is just as fucked, and just as
blessed as I am.”
“Damn.” Her eyes widened.
We shared a silence. Not an awkward silence,
[197]
not a sad silence, not a comfortable silence, not
even a difficult silence. No, we were just silent
because there wasn't much else to be said.
“I think I'll go make that coffee now.”
She got out of bed, and walked out the door
into the kitchen. Sometimes the truth hurts.
Sometimes telling the truth hurts even more.
I can never just say what it is that I want to
say. I don't get the chance, or something comes
up, or the time doesn't seem right. I just can't get
it out; no matter how important it might be. If I
could have been perfectly transparent, and if I was
good on the spot, I would have said:
“Listen. I wish I could tell you how well I
know the frustrating feeling of not getting what you
wanted. For a long time, I thought I never would
either. I thought that the world was torturing me
through existence in some perverse way that I
couldn't see leading anywhere. I swear to god, or
[198]
to the sun, or to whatever it takes to make some
sort of change; I know exactly how you feel. The
only thing I want right now is to just sit here with
you, not saying anything. I just want to feel the
presence of another human being who has gone to
the edge of sanity only to crawl back on their
fucking knees, scraping their fingernails into the
mud and cursing the sky. I want to be with you,
right here, for ill or good. I want to keep feeling
like this. I want to stay here for as long as I
possibly can, and enjoy every minute just for what
it is.”
The morning had come, and the storm had
passed. The world seems a bit greener and a bit
more alive in the springtime. Throughout the
summer, the world around you lives out its seasonal
existence to maturity. In the fall, as the birds leave
and the trees die so beautifully, we take stock of
what we've found and what we've lost; and we
spend winter only trying to survive.
[199]
We are part of that same clockwork, that
fantastic machination of the cosmos. And in the
same moment that everything can be so grandiose,
so seemingly fluid, time flowing incrementally, with
the smallest changes from day to day. Things
changing so often that we take it for granted.
Gradually, over time, or in the flash of an instant.
Sometimes even too quickly for us to notice.
Sitting in that bed was one of those memories
I'll never quite be able to shake from my brain. I
wanted to tell her I loved her, but I didn't even
know what that meant to people anymore. To me,
it meant that I felt a strong urge to be around her.
It wasn't just because she was attractive, or
because she seemed honestly intelligent and
inquisitive. It wasn't because I could get lost the
color of her eyes. It wasn't because of her flowing
traffic cone hair, or her personality. It was all of
those things.
My feelings could not be generalized into
aphorisms. I was pulled toward her by an act of
[200]
gravity. It was a natural inclination to pursue
another few minutes of interaction which, in turn,
could potentially muster a few more days and
eventually turn into weeks and months and years.
The main nerve was running through her
Durham apartment that morning, and all I could do
was grab hold and not let go until this was all over
with. This wouldn't last, it couldn't. She was so far
away from me, from my home, from my reality.
She was a pit-stop on the long road home. I
couldn't have her, as much as I might have wanted
to. I didn't belong here. This was not my dream,
this was not my place.
I've made a good many mistakes, you know.
I'm sure you can sympathize. We may try, but we
can never be perfect. The sad truth is, I'd never
really known how to 'have' someone. I never knew
what it took to break through that barrier, to love
for what love was. I have a talent for wishing
things into my life that I know I can never really
have. She was on an altar, a higher place. Even if
[201]
it was only because I put her on it. I could look at
her, feel her touch, but I could never really have
her. She was just as lost as I was.
“I'm back!” she said, carrying two brown plastic
coffee cups. “Come on into the living room.”
She had no idea what I was thinking. Maybe I
took some comfort in that. More accurately, I
wished I knew how to say it out loud. I just wanted
to scream, 'I've been looking for you for so long,
where have you been?'
I just rubbed my eyes, and I stood up to
follow her. She turned around, and walked back out
the doorway. I took a last glance around her
bedroom. I find myself doing that when I want to
remember things that are important to me. Times
in my life where a fundamental change has
occurred, but I don't fully understand the context. I
wanted to be able to think of this day where I found
the main nerve again. The day when 'the road'
finally took me somewhere.
[202]
“I hope you like your coffee black”
“Fine by me, Jazz, thanks.”
She giggled, probably still finding amusement
from my not knowing her real name. It was
becoming a game to her. Was she playing a
character? Was I? Does anyone do otherwise?
What was the point of this exchange? Where would
it lead me? What was my lesson to learn? What
was I here for?
“What do you want out of life, Jasmine?”
I just kind of blurted it out.
She sat, pensive, for a moment.
“I want to find my road.”
“Ha! Now you're starting to sound like me”
[203]
“What do you mean?”
“I've been obsessed with the idea of 'the road'
for years now. What do you mean when you
say 'my road?'”
“I mean the right path to take. The solution
key. I want to find a way to do what I want,
and to balance that with what other people
want from me.”
“No man is an island.”
“Or woman,” she added.
“Right. Or woman. No person is an island.
What do other people want from you?”
“Sometimes I think I know, but I'm not always
so sure. I have things to give, you know? I'm
what I want to call a good person. I just don't
know why so many other people seem so
happy, when I can't find anything I want.”
[204]
“I wish I knew how to tell you how well I
know that feeling, Jasmine. Sometimes I
wonder if the people I see are really as happy
as they seem. Don't we all reserve a measure
of loathing for this existence? Don't we all
have bad times with the good? I mean, I like
to think of myself as a good person, too. Some
others may not agree with me, but as long as I
keep fighting for what I believe in, I can only
hope that I'm doing what's right.”
“Yeah, I just can't figure out a way to tell if
what I'm doing is right. I don't know what to
compare it to. How do you tell?”
“I'm sorry, but I don't know. That's where I'm
stuck, too. I'm starting to wonder if there
even is such a thing. I mean, I don't believe in
god, so I don't think that there's a moral code
for existence. There is no justice, there is no
truth, there is no suffering. Just reality, what
we have in front of us. Nothing else.”
[205]
She grabbed my hands, as I stood in the
doorway of her bedroom. There was pain in her
grip. Sadness in her face. Pain I could only level
with, and never truly understand. A pain that was
hers to feel, a pain that made life seem like it
wasn't taking its giant shit on me alone.
We shared a silent moment, hand in hand,
staring at the wall of her living room from the
doorway. What's the point of fighting? Wasn't I
where I wanted to be? Wasn't she? If tomorrow
were to never come, couldn't we both say we had
gotten what we wanted from this whole exchange?
Before I could say anything else, our moment
of silence was broken by the sound of my phone
loudly vibrating across the living room coffee table.
It was Hooper, naturally. I picked up the phone and
slid the touch-bar to 'answer.' Phones don't have
buttons for me to press angrily anymore.
“Speak.” I said, flatly.
[206]
“Fuck you! Where are you?”
“Jasmine's apartment, somewhere in
Durham.”
“Good. Durham. You aren't that far away. I
have to do some shit, so give me about an
hour and head to the Waffle House on Main in
Chapel Hill.”
“Cool, we'll head out in about an hour then.”
“Did you fuck her?”
Do I lie to prove my 'manhood' to my friend?
Do I tell him the truth, and make it seem like I
really couldn't get laid in a brothel with a grand? I
paused, but only for a second. Things may have
been complicated, but I had an image to uphold.
“Of course I did, what did you think I was
gonna do? Fucking play cards?”
[207]
I lied, even with her sitting right next to me.
Fuck it. I happened a glance at her face, which was
attentive but unreadable. I imagined her laughing
as I said it, knowing the truth, and watching me lie
to him right in front of her. We all play our parts.
It had been quite a while since I'd found the
inclination to get in a bed with a chick, and I
couldn't even bring up the concept of fucking her. I
didn't know how. I couldn't remember. When I was
younger, everything seemed so easy. Say the right
things, bring the flowers, and you're good. Things
aren't that simple with adults. The smart ones,
anyhow. We aren't giving up the fuck to whoever
walks by. We aren't gonna dedicate ourselves to
someone for a night of joy.
Our hearts have been broken too many times.
Some of us are simply too cynical to love others.
Our childhood innocence is gone forever the
moment our heart is first broken. There's a small
piece of you that disappears with every person you
[208]
start a relationship with, a piece you never quite get
back. They take it with them, even if they just
throw it away. You can never replace that piece, no
matter how hard you try.
Our adult lives are infested with
disappointment, tainted with sadness, to the point
where we sometimes forget there's even a good
side to life. We try, sometimes not hard enough, to
live day to day; forgiving yesterday's transgressions
and trying ever so hard not to regret what we've
done wrong, all the while adding more mistakes to
the list.
To those who've seen the other side of the
bridge, the silent confidence of a life fully
actualized, we; we do not see our time as
something we can just give away. We do not see
our spare time as anything but valuable increments
reserved for those we hold most high. We don't
take things for granted, because we know what it
feels like not to have them. We don't push anyone
as hard as we push ourselves, because we
[209]
understand that we are also human. We want the
bar to be raised.
On the other hand, we don't always need to
explain everything to each other. Sometimes you
can just solve everything by asking the right
question.
“Did he ask you if we fucked?” Said Jasmine,
abruptly, the second I set the phone back on the
table.
I nearly spit out my mouthful of coffee.
“Yup.” I said, trying to hide my awkward surprise.
“Why'd you say yes?”
“Because Hooper is an animal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because it's easier to lie and say 'yes' than it
[210]
is to provide the explanation behind 'no.' It's
what I'd like to try to call a noble lie.”
“What is the explanation behind no?”
“Well, that makes things awkward in a hurry.”
Nothing is getting past this chick.
“Well?” She said, like she was picking at a scab.
“Why didn't we fuck?” I asked, awkwardly
scratching at the back of my neck.
“Yeah, why didn't we fuck? I haven't had a
man in my bed without fucking his brains out
for a long, long time. How did you do that?
Was there something wrong? Don't you like
me?”
“Of course I like you! Are you out of your
mind? Why don't you tell me why we didn't
fuck?”
[211]
“This has been bugging me since we woke up.
Does your dick work?”
I can only imagine what kind of look I might
have had on my face when she said that.
“I just thought you might appreciate a little
tact is all.”
“I'll show you tact.”
She jumped on me, straddling my waist like
she had outside the club. We kissed, briefly.
“Ha!” I said out loud, when she took her mouth
away from mine for a moment.
“What?” She said, looking at me in the eyes, only
a few inches from my face.
“Long con.”
[212]
She smiled, and we kissed again. She held
me closer than she had before, tighter, and she
scraped her tongue along my lips. There's no need
to make this into some back-of-the-porno letter to
the smut editor. I'll allow you to imagine what
happened next, and you'd probably be right.
We had somehow managed to stop
intellectualizing ourselves, whatever was happening
between us, and even the whole world around us;
reverting instead to raw emotion and feeling. We
made love in a violently cathartic fashion, caught up
in the frantic nature of what people tend to call
“living in the moment,” and what I like to call
“pursuing happiness.”
[213]
Chapter Eleven – Pancakes
We Got Dressed, had the
perfunctory post-coital cigarettes, flopped into my
car, and drove towards Chapel Hill to meet up with
Hooper and Roxy for a greasy breakfast. It wasn't
very far away from his apartment, actually. I
started to recognize streets from our reckless drives
around town in past visits.
I figured we'd probably beat him there, even
though we had left nearly an hour after I told him
we'd leave. That's just how Hooper operates. He'd
done this to me a thousand times. There was no
real way to know when he'd show up anywhere.
He could already be sitting there, of course,
but he had probably loafed around watching
television for a while before getting up and around;
[214]
a bewildering routine of setting down and picking up
his keys, wallet, phone, sunglasses, and any thing
else he was trying to gather up from around the
house in a blur of spills and curses.
He lives in his own bubble of time. A few
minutes becomes an hour, an hour becomes a day,
a day becomes a week, and 'soon' becomes 'never'
before you even know it. You can't blame him, he's
got a lot of projects up in the air, too many things
on his mind, a lot of actionable items to check off.
Right now, though, the actionable item was
'meet up for breakfast.' When I saw the sign on the
side of the road in the distance, I was suddenly very
hungry for bacon and eggs.
The place was your standard grease-ball
breakfast affair. These types of places are
ubiquitous. Mediocre pancakes, overcooked eggs,
and shitty coffee. If you've been to one of them,
you've been to all of them. The food is cooked to
order on a gigantic flat grill just behind the counter.
[215]
You could watch, if you wanted to, your food being
slathered in oil and incessantly poked and flipped
and prodded by some ex-con in a stupid paper hat.
All manner of plans are hatched at these
roadside diners. Ill-conceived plans to change, big
plans to move on, small plans to meet up; plans to
actualize, and plans to ignore. Places made for
casual talk, for coming, and for going. Plans have
been, are, and will be made and broken, all over the
country, in the fluorescent glow of a Twenty-Four
hour roadside breakfast joint.
You could say that those on the other side of
the counter have seen it all, and you'd be right.
These people are the true representatives of our
culture. Keeping us fat and happy, diligently
trucking along in their cream cheese-smeared
aprons. Silently and patiently waiting for their
lunch break to catch a cigarette and a reminder that
there's a big world out there waiting for them to
take a piece of, someday, after serving the last
asshole his bacon and eggs.
[216]
The smell is a foul mixture of fried onions,
body sweat, burned toast, cheap air freshener, and
oven cleaner. The buildup of grime on the tile wall
casts a dusty glow into the dining room that makes
it seem almost smoky. A general haze that you
notice in passing and never think of again.
Casual places, where we exist as humans in a
plainly common type of way, are our true public
spaces. Not those stuffy metropolitan museums,
the austere national monuments, or the vapid state
park discovery centers.
'Oh look, honey! This is where an Indian
you've never heard of signed a treaty that got
trampled all over! Let's wander around aimlessly
and read some plaques!'
Our spaces. Those created to be occupied by
anyone, at any time, with no sense of attachment or
meaning to the surroundings. A place for people to
gather in groups, or alone, and abandon as quickly
[217]
as they came. A place to forget faces, or maybe to
see them in a different light. A place for the young
and old, rich and poor, lost and found, familiar and
strange. A place for any body, any where, to gather
any time and to feel at home. A true public place.
“Party of two?”, said the perky hostess.
She looked like a high schooler, wearing a
thick layer of gaudy makeup, the dark roots
showing on hair that wasn't bleached quite long
enough to be blond because it 'burned so bad,' and
those black, tight-fitting yoga pants. You know
which ones I'm talking about. Her name tag was
decorated with tiny pink star stickers, and read
'Misty,' in silver glitter puff paint.
“I'm meeting someone here.” I said.
“When will the rest of your party be arriving?”
“Soon, hell, he could be here already.”
[218]
She stopped and stared up at me for a
moment before speaking, with very glassy, very
doe-ish, eyes. She appeared to be calculating the
risk of saying something to me.
“So.” she said, flatly “are you that guy's
friends?”
“Yeah, probably.” I let loose the slightest hint of
an incriminating grin.
“You late-showing ass hole! Where the fuck
have you been?!”
I heard him yelling at us from across the
restaurant. Yeah, there were kids there. Mortified
grandparents, giggling high schoolers, scowling
socio-Luddites, and plenty of other oblivious or
otherwise ambivalent groups of nobodies. They
would all forget about it soon enough, retreating
back to their soulless banter and syrup-dripping
pancakes.
[219]
We followed little yoga pants down the aisle,
past the cheap art-deco stools, and toward the
booth that Hooper was sitting in. Jasmine excused
herself to the restroom, and I took a seat across
from Hooper.
“It's about fucking time! I've been here for
twenty minutes!” he said, looking down and
thumbing his phone.
“You said to be here an hour ago.”
“I've been waiting an hour!”
“You just said you'd only been here twenty
minutes.”
“Fuck you.”
He looked at the hostess, angrily stabbing his
index finger through the air in her general direction.
“And fuck you, too.”
[220]
He maintained eye contact with her for what
seemed like forever.
She kind of looked like she was about to cry
when a guy in his mid-twenties came up and put his
hand on her shoulder.
“I've got it, Misty, it's OK, don't worry.” He
whispered into the girl's ear. She was visibly
reassured, exhaling deeply and sinking her
shoulders as he said it.
She walked away, sulking, and went back to
her hostess' podium as Hooper laughed deeply.
She'd probably wonder what she had done for the
rest of the day. She wouldn't be able to understand
the humor, nor would she realize he said it for no
reason other than that he saw her standing there
looking like a mark.
We had not gotten off to a good start in this
place, but no one sitting in those booths adjacent
[221]
could have possibly imagined what circumstances
had transpired the night before in order to have led
us to this point in our lives. We were only the foul
mouthed twenty-somethings at the breakfast joint
that everybody tried to ignore.
“Dead pig, eggs, and potatoes.” I said,
sarcastically, to the waiter, expecting him to be a
rube like the poor little girl.
“OK, OK, before we get too hasty, let's start
this out right. I'm Chad,” he smirked, hand on
his name tag, ”I'll be your waiter, it's nice to
meet you, formality, formality, et cetera, et
cetera. Would you like your coffee cup half
full, half empty, full to the brim, or not full at
all? Would you like your dead pig sliced or
ground? Will the tubers be diced or shredded?
Care for some partially-burned bread?”
Jasmine quietly applauded, taking a seat next
to me, across from the empty seat next to Hooper.
[222]
“Full with room to breathe, sliced, and
shredded. I'll pass on the toast.”
“Cool, no up sell.”
“Nice. I like this guy,” Jasmine said.
“Yeah, he's cool,” said Hooper, “they know me
here.”
“Yes,” Chad interjected, gesturing with his book of
guest checks, “your friend here likes to
intimidate the naiveté out of our innocent and
unsuspecting youth. “ He turned toward Hooper,
“I'm assuming you'll be having the Denver
scramble, as per usual.”
“DENVER SCRAMBLE!” Hooper yelled through his
teeth, hitting the table with his fist and causing the
glass jars of condiments to shake and rattle, “And
some fucking GRITS, too!”
“Grits.” Chad scribbled in his notebook as he said
[223]
it, and pivoted on one foot to face Jasmine. “And
for the lady this morning?” he asked, skillfully
ignoring Hooper's outbursts.
“Pancakes.”
“No pig? No egg?”
“Pancakes.”
“Any kind of pancakes in particular?”
“Dealer's choice. I just want some pancakes.”
“I'll get ya something special, Miss, and I'll
assume you'll be treating the Lady to
breakfast this morning, sir?”
He looked at me, with a cocky grin.
“Naturally” I said.
“No way! I'm paying for myself. I always do.”
[224]
said Jasmine, tucking her chin down toward her
neck and looking at me villainously.
“Neither one of you is paying for this.
Corporate AMEX trump card. Fuck you.” He
leaned forward, over the table, with his card
extended from the very tips of his middle and ring
fingers. “We are conducting business here. I
said it, and that makes it true. The other chick
said she wants biscuits and gravy. Hot tea.”
“Coming right up, folks, anything else I can
get ya?”
“A bucket of fucking coffee. I still haven't
slept.” Hooper growled.
“One carafe, coming right up for mister
corporate AMEX.”
Chad walked away, tapping his pen against his
black notebook, and waving at the regular
customers seated at the bar, casually sipping their
[225]
cups of coffee and clearly staring in our direction.
We must have been like aliens to some of those
people. Sure, we were in a college town, but even
college towns reserve some decency during the
breakfast hours. A collectively reverent hangover, if
nothing else.
I kind of liked Chad, even though we had only
just met. He seemed intelligent, but not in that
lofty academic sort of way. It would be best
described as 'genuinity.' He seemed like he had
been around the 'real world' for a while. He reeked
of experience in making bad decisions. Did some
traveling overseas, maybe, or sniffed a few lines of
adulterated cocaine; played a few punk covers in a
seedy bar. It doesn't really matter what it was that
had turned him out. He seemed like he might have
had a good story. He had the look.
The booth next to us had a foreign couple,
speaking a very inflected Spanish. My best guess
was that they were from deep in the mountains of
somewhere in South America. I was trying to pick
[226]
out what they were saying to no avail when Roxy
walked up and took the empty space in the booth
next to Hooper. She was wearing a hooded
sweatshirt from her high school volleyball days. Her
hair looked like it had been frazzled from a night of
reckless abandon, then straightened up in a
restaurant bathroom. They'd probably been up all
night doing god knows what. I really wasn't as
surprised as I might have led on.
“Did you order for me, baby?” she cooed, batting
her eyelashes at Hooper.
“Yeah.” He replied flatly, putting his arms behind
his head and leaning back on the booth, knocking
the poor woman behind him with his elbow.
“Did you remember my-”
“Yes, for fuck's sake,” he interrupted her, “I
remembered the hot tea. You repeated
yourself enough to make a fucking bird
remember it.”
[227]
“Don't get angry, puppy.”
She pouted dramatically and batted her eyes
at him.
“Don't fucking call me puppy! I told you!”
They both burst into laughter. As they
chattered on, arguing playfully, I turned to Jasmine.
“They seem to be getting along swimmingly,
wouldn't you say?”
“Yeah, it's kind of gross, actually. Did she just
call him puppy?” She made a gagging motion,
pretending to stick her finger down her throat.
“Yeah, I'm pretty sure that just happened. No
good can come of this.”
“I don't know if I really like these greasy
breakfast places so much, to be honest.” She
[228]
said, visibly disgusted upon examining the place.
“What do you guys think about this economic
meltdown bullshit?” Hooper said, out of the blue,
thrusting us into an engaged conversation.
“Nothing too terrifying will come of it, I don't
think.” I said, tapping the table top with my fingers
along to the Big Bopper on the piped radio.
“What about the crazy unemployment rates?
The rising gas prices? Peak Oil? World
Government? What about Globalization, and
all that 'the World is flat' shit?” Said Jasmine.
“Damn, girl, you've been doing your
homework. I just don't want to get scared is
all. I just don't think that this type of thing is
beyond our capability. As a cumulative history
of people living on Earth, I'd say we've been
pretty good at figuring out solutions to our
problems.” I said.
[229]
“We haven't figured out any of our problems!”
Roxy interrupted, “we've only created new
ones!”
It's hard to talk about these things some
times. We're all trying to pay attention to the world
around us, to a certain extent. There's a lot to pay
attention to. World problems surely can't be solved
around a breakfast table in North Carolina, but it's
better to talk about these things rather than say
nothing at all. Or, much worse, talk about whatever
is happening on television.
“Isn't that the spirit of a good challenge? Can
you ever just know everything? No. Can you
solve all the problems at once? No. But what
you can do is work hard to fix what's wrong
instead of complaining about it all the time.” I
said, trying to fight for the 'conscious, pragmatic,
and hopeful' angle.
“What about our crumbling social structure?
The inner cities falling apart as the suburbs go
[230]
up only to declare bankruptcy? The widening
gap between rich and poor, or the destruction
of the middle class?” Roxy was visibly irritated.
“I'm going to school for urban engineering, I
know something of the infrastructure of the
United States, and we're completely fucked!
Soon enough, no suburban families will have
enough money to pay for gas to put into their
lawn mowers, let alone their S.U.V.'s. Can you
imagine walking ten miles to the nearest
grocery store with a little red wagon? These
areas of our country are going to become
ghost towns!”
“Says who? You're an urban engineer, why
don't you think of a way? Why can't we fix it
instead of stubbornly proclaiming its
inefficacies? How about developing
sustainable communities? That's what I want
to see. I don't see disasters in the choices
we've made as a society. I see challenges,
sure, but I don't want to think of that as a bad
thing.”
[231]
“Do you have any kids?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, I'm sure you have friends who do. Do
you fear for their children? What kind of world
do you think they'll inherit?”
“One that's better than it is now, if we can
give it to them.”
It was around this time that we began to draw
the attention of the general public surrounding us.
People were now more intrigued than they were
terrified, and some even wanted to take part in the
conversation.
Sitting at the table across the way were a
clean-cut young couple with an infant in tow. A
man, nearing thirty, doughy, with a receding
hairline. He was wearing an olive polo with khaki
shorts, a healthy spray-on tan, and a speaking-
[232]
louder-than-words-at-the-moment cross hanging on
his around his neck. I made accidental eye contact,
and he spoke:
“Let me tell you kids something, and you'll be
smart to listen. I've heard a bit of your
conversation, and I don't like what I hear.”
I saw Hooper's brow begin to quake. This was
a malleable moment in time, one that could turn out
in many unpredictable ways.
“Lay it on us,” said Jasmine, sensing the tension.
“If you would only trust in the lo-”
Hooper Felonious nearly spat coffee all over
the table in front of him, gulping it down quickly,
not wanting to waste the second of time before
becoming unglued on the poor man.
“Of all the preposterous things you could
possibly say, you start off with THAT?”
[233]
“Uh-eh- Excuse me?”
I don't think that's what he was the response
that he was expecting.
“Trust in the lord? To what? To make
everything better? To wipe that syrup off your
chin? If he could, and you'd better believe I
want to kick myself in the ass for even giving
this topic a single breath, then why the hell
doesn't he?” Hooper was cracking his knuckles
and staring directly at him.
“Well, the lord works-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, in mysterious ways, blah
blah blah. How many times have we heard
that one? Why don't you say that out loud to
yourself a time or two. 'My boss forgot my
payroll review again this year. Perhaps he
works in mysterious ways.' Yes. Or, maybe
he doesn't want to pay you any more money
[234]
because you're a worthless fuck that doesn't
deserve it. How about that? Or, maybe, he
doesn't exist. How about you mind your own
fucking business?”
“What's your name, man?” I was trying to
bridge the gap, preserving the semblance of a
structured conversation.
“Frank.” He said, coldly, without emotion – no
empathy, anger, nor curiosity.
“Well, Frank, let's not argue ourselves down
dead end paths. We're all non-Christians here,
right?” I looked at Hooper, Jazz, and Roxy
individually for some sort of look of confirmation
before continuing, “We'll have to establish that
before we talk about religion. If that makes
you uncomfortable, we'll never be able to talk
about this without making you very upset.”
“I appreciate that.”
[235]
His body language said that he was beginning
to calm down and listen.
“Now, what is it you wanted to say before you
were so rudely interrupted by my well-
meaning but foul-mouthed friend here?”
“If folks would just trust in the lord, all of our
problems will be solved.”
“Do you really think that's true?”
“Of course I do.”
“Why?”
“Because the bible says so.”
“Does it?” I looked him in the eyes. “Where?”
“Well, not specifically...”
He was beginning to get nervous.
[236]
“I get where you're going with this. God's
plan and all that. No matter what kind of
horrible shit goes down on Earth, we'll all be
OK in heaven, right?”
“Basically, yes. I trust in the lord to make
things better.”
“Has he?”
“Well, yeah, I mean we have wonderful
technology and doctors and colleges and all of
that.”
“And what does any of that have to do with
God?”
“Well, he created us!”
“So? What did he do after that? Wreck up the
place? Flood it? Get pissed off? Send off his
boy to get killed? If he made us in his image,
[237]
aren't we just doing what we've always been
doing? Won't he?”
“What do you mean?”
“What does god care what we do?”
“I thought you said you don't believe in god.”
Don't they teach debate in high school? This
man has children! Does he have any experience
whatsoever in the open exchange of ideas?
“I can say it for the sake of argument. I went
through all of this already, sir. God is not a
thing, but a word. A literary device, a
metaphorical abstraction on the possibilities of
infinity. I've had to answer all of these
questions for myself.”
“Well we know he cares because of his
unconditional love for us.”
[238]
“So wouldn't that mean that no matter how
bad we fuck up down here on Earth, we have a
chance to be saved in heaven? Isn't that what
unconditional means?”
“Yes.”
“So why would he care what we do? What
does it matter if he even exists when we won't
find out until we're dead, and he'll forgive us
anyway? We're just trying to live out our
lives, sir. We mean no harm. If you know
more about the world and the nature of the
divine than we do, then by all means let us
know about it. I'm sorry if our language
offends you, but they are only words, and this
is a public place. Can I be comfortable to
speak freely in public?”
The man was speechless. He looked at his
wife, shrugged, and took a bite of his pancakes. A
few chews later, he muttered,
[239]
“Just try to keep it down, OK? I'm trying to
eat with my family.”
I looked around the table, again, at the other
three around me, glancing at Roxy a little longer.
“So, what brings you here this morning? I
have to say that I didn't really expect to see
you here.”
“I like Hooper, he's my little puppy,” she said,
smiling.
“I told you not to call me puppy!” said Hooper,
pointing angrily again.
“So, Roxy, you said you were studying Urban
Engineering. What are you planning on doing
with that degree?”
“Oh, I don't really know. Hooper and I were
talking last night about sustainable housing,
[240]
I've been kind of interested in that. My family
in Virginia just bought a new house that's self-
sustaining.”
I looked at Hooper, who caught my glance and
flashed me a knowing smile.
“What do you think about the
Suburbanization?”
“Ugh. The worst idea ever. Just another
reason for the car companies and utilities to
get rich selling us commutes and power lines.”
“What about re-urbanization and
gentrification? Light rail?”
“Too slow, too unpredictable. Besides, it just
relocates the low-income families and
indigents to another area. It doesn't actually
solve the problem. Even shovel-ready light
rail projects are decades in the making.”
[241]
“Fair enough. What do you think we can do to
make a change?”
“Ugh, I don't even know...”
She let out a long sigh and looked off into the
distance.
“I'll tell ya what we need to do,” said Hooper.
“We all need to get to work on solving our
problems rather than sitting around and idly
chatting about them.”
“Preach it, brother,” shouted a grungy looking
man from the bar, raising a fist in the air.
“But how do we do that? Where do we start?
Who do we call? How do we raise money and
invest it? Where do we invest it? How do we
measure success?”
No one had any answers.
[242]
This was the first lull in our conversation,
where no one had dared to change the topic, or to
elaborate further on fixing 'our problems.' The truth
is that no one even knew what 'our problems' were.
This time in history, like all, was a strange
one. For a bit of historical context, this was about
ten years into the second millennium of the
common era. We lived in the United States of
America, where the citizens were constantly at each
other's throats on moral issues while losing sight of
being trapped on a rock in space and the fact that
we're all gonna die anyway.
We were the generation coming of age in this
strange world of exponential technological
advancement ballooning into potentially dangerous
manifestations of Orwellian dreadfulness and levels
of human idiocy and fear that Orwell himself could
have never predicted. The economy was in a
tailspin, and civil rights were being threatened by
the very high technology that advanced our abilities
to reach out to each other in the first place.
[243]
Maybe we felt like something wasn't right on
Earth, and we were sure that others felt the same
way. We had been led into this modern lifestyle
without really coming to grips with the implications
of, or understanding the full cost of some of the
processes we relied on so heavily to maintain our
progress. We didn't really expect god to do
anything about it anymore, and we all sort of
figured it was time to start putting our heads
together to make a better life for all people, and not
just a few of them.
“Alright, alright, here we go.” said Chad,
coming up to the table with a platter of food. I
don't think any of us had noticed him approaching.
“Fuck yeah, Denver scramble!” said Hooper,
staring at the platter and rubbing his hands
together.
“Denver scramble,” said Chad, barely setting
down the plate before Hooper began devouring it.
[244]
“and some biscuits and gravy for you, my
dear.”
“Oh, thank you, Honey” cooed Roxy.
“My pleasure. And here ya go, man.”
He set down my food in front of me.
“Thanks, dude.”
“Pancakes. Just pancakes. Chocolate chip.
Figured you'd like that.”
Jasmine giggled when he set them down in
front of her, clapping her hands together quietly,
with wide eyes.
“Yay! Chocolate chips!”
“Spot of tea for one, coffee for the rest. I'll be
back in a bit to check on ya. Try not to upset
the natives, OK? Some folks around here are
[245]
just trying to eat, not get a religious
dissertation, OK?”
“Fuck 'em,” said Hooper, with grits falling from the
corners of his mouth.
“We'll try to keep it down. Thanks, Chad.” I
said, trying to be upstanding.
We all sat gorging ourselves for a moment
before we slipped back into conversation.
“That Chad guy kind of reminds me of you
back in your foodie days.” said Hooper, pointing
at me with his fork.
“Oh yeah? How so?” I responded, as if to an
accusation.
“Look at him. He's so good at his job he has to
make it interesting by challenging himself.
He's busing the tables twice as fast as the
busboy – look!”
[246]
He pointed at the busboy across the room,
whose pants were sagging below his ass cheeks.
He was waddling slowly around the dining room,
picking up plates one by one and walking them to
the bus station individually.
Chad was the only server in the place, from
what I could tell, which gave him thirty or so tables,
depending on how you counted the bar seats. He
was practically running circles around the kid, on
top of doing his own job – which was probably the
job of at least two people.
“You used to do that shit, too. I remember
sitting back there and watching you handle
groups of twenty people, from cash register to
cooking to the bar. You called the polo shirts
'sir,' and you hit on chicks for good tips
without breaking a sweat.”
“It's all true.”
[247]
“He's got one foot out the door, just like you
did. That guy is way too smart to be working
in this shitty place.”
“Let's ask him.” I said.
“That's a good idea.”
Hooper stood up at once, and looked around
the room for Chad.
“Chad! Yo! Come over here for a second.” He
bellowed, over every one else's conversations.
He held up a finger at us, without looking
back, as he finished up the order he was taking at
another table.
“What's up? Everything tasting OK?”
“You gonna work here for the rest of your
life?”
[248]
“Heh.”
I knew that laugh.
“I went to UNC for a while, studied History and
got fed up with the bureaucracy.”
“Think you'll go back?” said Hooper.
“Fuck no, man. It's a racket. I'd rather just
work here and focus on my music.”
“A musician!” I butted in. “I should have
known! Keep on fighting the good fight, dude.
We'll let you get back to work. Sorry to bug
ya.”
“No sweat, wish I could stick around and chat
a bit, but there's work to be done and dollars
to be made.” Chad said, impatiently tapping his
notepad with his pen.
“Fuck them, let them wait. We're much cooler.
[249]
I think we're done here. You should run my
tab now.”
“Will do. Be right back.”
He trotted off to another table that had just
been seated.
“So, what's next?” said Hooper. “I've got to get
out to a job site today, what are you guys
doing? How much longer will you be in town?”
“I figured I'd leave tomorrow afternoon, what
do you have going on after work?”
“I'm going to take a long nap, then watch
some T.V. And scratch my nuts for a while.
Then, I'll probably go back to bed.”
“I'll drop by your place before I take off, for
sure. I think I might kick it around Durham
with Jazz for a while today. I'll catch up with
you in the morning.”
[250]
“Sounds like fun.”
Chad came around and dropped off the check
without a word. Hooper signed his receipt, left a
large tip, got up, and left, as he so often does. I sat
at the table with Jasmine and Roxy.
“Well, what are y'all gonna do with your day?”
She said, chomping on gum and twirling her hair
with her finger.
I looked at Jasmine, waiting for her to make
the first move.
“I don't know. What's your plan?”
She looked as if she might have had a great
deal on her mind.
[251]
Chapter Twelve - Lucidity
“So, what is this? What do you want
from me? Where do we go from here?” she
said, as we walked out of the Pancake house.
“I don't want anything from you.” I said, facing
forward. I said it calmly and honestly. Maybe I
thought I was being cool. Sometimes I don't know
why I say certain things. The scene could play out
like a trashy made-for-television movie. Dramatic
camera angles and wide pans from my face to hers
as I continued to say stupid things.
“Oh.”
She seemed let down. She exhaled deeply,
put her hands in her pockets, and stared at the
ground. I thought it had been the right thing to
say. I'm never good at these things. In this movie,
[252]
I was supposed to be the mysterious vagabond, the
man that left as quickly as he had arrived.
I was just happy to be inside the moment,
taking hold of the main nerve. It was all symbolic
to me, all about living life and nothing about real-
world consequences, much less the feelings of other
people. I just always had to assume that if I was
having a good time, so was everyone else. We're all
in this together, but we can't read other people's
minds.
She broke the silence.
“I don't know how you could say something
like that,” she mocked me, “I don't want
anything from you. Are you a human being?”
“I, wha-?” My face fell and I fouled all pretense of
being the mysterious stranger. I should have never
been acting like someone else in the first place.
“What do you do, just go around stomping on
[253]
people's feelings all day? Fuck them and
leave? Is it nothing but insults and cold
indifference with you?” She hunched over and
pointed at me, accusingly. 'Jesus,' I thought, here
comes the inevitable sadness.
“Where is this coming from? I didn't mean to
be cold. I just mean that I don't want
anything from you. I'm just happy to be here,
no requirements. I don't mean any offense, I
think you may have misunderstood me.” I put
up my arms in protest.
“No requirements? How can you say that, the
man with such big ideals and goals? Not going
to ask me out for drinks? Your buddy is going
home to sleep off a long night, what are you
going to do before you head home? You said
you have another day, right?”
Oh. I'd been had.
I smiled.
[254]
“Where to, Jazz?”
“Anywhere that has booze.”
“Want to get some liquor and bum around
town, maybe hit the bar and make fun of
people watching football?”
“Your call.”
“I feel like drinking a pint of whiskey and
putting my feet in some water. Know a good
place?”
“I know a perfect place. Let's get some booze
and head out. I'll give you directions as we
go.”
We got in the car and headed to a liquor store
to find a cheap pint of whiskey and some ginger ale.
Jasmine led us to a small picnic area on a stream
outside Durham, and we mixed some drinks in
[255]
water bottles.
“I like to come down here and think
sometimes.” Jasmine said, getting out of the car.
She stretched as she spoke, bringing her arms out
to her sides and throwing her head back, letting her
orange hair fall free and gently float in the wind.
She really was beautiful. I still couldn't quite
believe all of this was happening. When life takes
its strange turns, all you can do is stare at the
surroundings and try to remember everything you
can – you never know what might be important
some other time.
“Seems like a good place to think,” I said,
taking a small sip of the whiskey and walking in the
general direction of the stream.
“Let's go for a walk!” she caught up with me and
grabbed my hand, matching my pace and slowly
swinging her arm.
[256]
“Sounds nice.”
We walked down a path into the woods,
following the small stream leading to a lake. There
was a green painted wrought-iron bench near the
bank off the stream, and we sat down on it.
“I love nature,” she said, “The birds and the
water and the trees and stuff. I wish I did this
kind of thing more often.”
“Yeah, me too. I've done a fair share of Eco-
tourism in my day. There's a lot of good
looking land around here.”
“It sounds like you've done an awful lot. I
kind of wish I had done more than just move
here and go to college.”
“We write our own stories, you know. My life
hasn't been as glamorous as I make it out to
be. I mean, I've done everything I said I've
done, but there's always really shitty parts
[257]
between the awesome parts. I try to only talk
about the awesome parts.”
“What do you mean by shitty?”
“All the shitty stuff that's a part of life, you
know? Being broke, getting rejected by chicks
and literary agents, puking in stranger's
toilets, friends dying, struggles with addiction,
depression, health issues, all of it. I just try
not to dwell on it. I try to remain in constant
forward progression.”
“Yeah, I guess nobody's life is perfect.”
She sat down on a picnic table near the edge
of the water. She grabbed her legs, pulling them
close to her body. She rested her chin on her
knees, staring out at the lake. I sat down behind
her on the table, resting my hands on her
shoulders. The sky was exceptionally clear that
day. Everything just seemed so vibrant and alive.
[258]
The way we see and interpret the world
around us is affected by our mood. When
everything around you seems to be crashing down
all the time, it's hard to look up and see anything
but a shit storm on the horizon.
That day, everything seemed so inspiring.
The blue of the sky was so deep and expansive, the
clouds so perfectly rounded and randomly
distributed like tiny little cotton balls glued up there
by a toddler at summer camp. The sun hung like an
ornament, perspective diminishing its raging nuclear
fury to a paltry drop of lemon meringue among the
cotton.
I rubbed her shoulders, slowly, and she laid
her head on to my leg. I wanted to leave with this
moment forever etched in my memory, like many I
had experienced on this trip South. I could have
stayed there in North Carolina, easily, at that
moment in my life. I could have found a job like
Chad's, and I could have crashed at Hooper's place
until I got my feet on the ground. I could have
[259]
carved out a new path through life with Jasmine, in
a new place far away from the Mitt and the
snowstorms and the past. I could find new friends
and start everything over. I could save up some
cash and break my lease, and sell all of my music
equipment back home. Bring it all to a pawn shop
and get a check for a quarter of what it was all
worth.
“What are you thinking about?” she said.
Maybe it was obvious that I was thinking big
thoughts, weighing the causes and effects, and
putting myself face first into a hundred different
possible futures.
“All sorts of stuff. About everything.”
“Be more specific.”
“About you, about Hooper, about breakfast,
about last night. About where I'm going and
why. About the American Dream, about what
[260]
I want to do from this moment forward, and
about why I want to do it.”
“That's a lot to think about on such a beautiful
day.”
“I can't really help it, I guess. I've always got
my head in the clouds.”
“No you don't,” she laid her head on my lap,
pointing upwards and smiling, “the clouds are
way up there!”
We sat at the edge of the lake, talking about
the things that people talk about when they're
falling for each other and they both know they
shouldn't be. We talked about life, about loves lost,
about personal conquests, and about our hopes and
dreams. We went home just after nightfall, and
passed out in a warm heap.
The crickets might have been chirping, the
owls may have hollered, but I never would have
[261]
known. We slept like children in the humid southern
night.
[262]
Chapter Thirteen - Ghosts
I Left Jasmine's house the next
morning with mixed feelings. I felt like I would
never again be able to reconstruct the
circumstances that led up to this crazy moment in
time. I thought that maybe I had just used up the
last of my magic on conjuring this road trip fantasy.
What if I could find a way to re-live the past?
To change it? Would I really ever want to? Hadn't
the whole point been about the pursuit of
happiness? What would I do now that I'd found
some? Why would I stop and settle down at the
mere sight of a place to do it? Was the pursuit of
happiness more engaging to me than the catch?
We have to reassure ourselves that we're on
the right track. It's easy enough to get distracted,
and I'm sure I could have distracted myself for a
[263]
good long time down there in North Carolina. I
couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't belong there,
and that I had to keep on moving if I was going to
find a purpose to this madness. I was far beyond
the point of no return, and any road back was a new
road forward.
I had built a life for myself back in the Mitt. A
journey that, even though I complained about it,
was mine alone to chart and navigate. An
experience that it was up to me to cultivate and
interpret. A life that I wanted to continue living to
its organic conclusion. My purpose was not to stay
here in North Carolina, but to visit and leave.
Our lives become so convoluted and
disorganized over time. We make friends and lose
touch with them, we love and never remember to
say it outright, we get into fights and do things that
we don't understand, we labor for goals and achieve
them and then move on completely, and we
sometimes sloppily swim about the vast seas of life
without proper navigation or charts.
[264]
We get lost in the movements of time, of
identity, of success, and of the view from our own
corner of reality. We forget that we're parts of other
peoples lives as much as they are parts of ours. It's
that common link between humans that some of us
refer to as 'collective consciousness.' The idea that
we're all metaphysically connected in some
imperceivable way. Some of us are more aware of
it than others, and some of us ignore the connection
completely and insist that other people have no
influence on us whatsoever.
Maybe I was the problem. Maybe it was my
own inability to choose or decide a particular path
that was holding me back. Whatever inability I
might have previously had to find the main nerve
could have just been attributed to my own lack of
vision or experience.
If you want to walk somewhere, but you never
pick a path, you'll never get anywhere. Life as the
vagabond could have eliminated all of my ties to
[265]
work, relationships, home, and reality in general.
Was that really so appealing? Why would I abandon
everything I cared about? As much as we might
like to pretend that the world is all adventures and
hunts for metaphorical dreamlands, it's nice to drop
by your folks' place every once in a while and have
a chat over tea about Aunt Myrtice's cataracts.
My life had become a manifestation of some
Greek Myth where I was destined to travel around
forever, seeking what I perceived as a higher
evolution of self-identity, but was doomed to find it
forever out of reach. Or maybe it was like the hunt
for El Dorado, Atlantis, The Fountain of Youth or
Lemuria. Pick your poison.
Those Mythological aspects of our heritage are
supposed to remind us that some things aren't
meant to be pursued, and that human beings aren't
always creatures of perfection and higher ideals.
We have to be humbled to reality. We have to
remember that we eat, shit, and die like the rest.
[266]
Those times after the show is over, when the
set is being taken down and the wigs are all crated
up. After the crowds go home. After the bar
closes, when the floors are swept and the vomit
mopped. After the party is over, when the drunk
model shits the bed. After the inaugural address,
when the trash of three million fat Americans is
cleaned up by the downtrodden municipal workers
that will never see the fruition of campaign
promises. The crying toddler that just realized
cartoon characters aren't real. The guy that gets
passed over for the promotion. The caller right
after the person that won the tickets.
On the rarest of occasion, if we press on far
enough, just around that next bend, we prevail. We
get the prize. We win the championship. We fight
the cancer into remission. We overcome our
demons. We live to fight another day. We lose the
battle and win the war. We stand up on our own
two feet, we grab destiny by the throat, and we
overcome the impossible to forge ahead into the
unknown.
[267]
These conquests don't come without a price.
The sacrifices we make to become who we are can
sometimes be innumerable. The most difficult part
of seeking impermanence is the denial of chances to
come back down to ground-level.
My heart goes out to those that can find
silence in the noise. To those who can settle, who
can take what they have and be happy with it. To
those who can live vicariously through others. To
those who can let the years melt by like it's no big
thing, like it was meant to be that way. To those
who can ignore the gross injustices in our society, to
those who can just 'let it all happen' without even
giving 'it' a second thought. To those who don't
wake up every day with the urge to change the
world around them, and to those who are happy to
just 'stay where they are,' 'go with the flow,' or
'leave it up to fate.'
My heart goes out to them, and I feel sorry for
them. They don't know the thrill of being wrong
[268]
and then finding out a new way. They don't know
the thrill of pursuing an impossible goal – and then
making impossible possible. They don't know what
it's like to be hurt so bad you'd be willing to sacrifice
everything you have just to feel whole again – and
then feeling whole again by the strength of their
own will, no sacrifice necessary. They don't get to
learn from those 'terrible' experiences that you look
back upon with a transcendent understanding.
They don't get to progress through the
metamorphosis of seeker to finder. They don't get
to find their own road, they just take whatever one
looks nice and easy. They never stop, and so they
miss everything along the way.
[269]
Chapter 14 - Goodbyes
I walked into Hooper's apartment with
some biscuits and sweet tea from up the road, and
we sat at the dining room table for some straight-
talk.
“You just gonna leave that chick here? She's
clearly into you.”
“I've got to get back home, dude. I don't
belong here. That shit never lasts anyway.
We're all on different paths.”
“You belong wherever you are, dude. Aren't
you out here looking for the Dream? This
could be it.” He sipped his tea and looked me in
the eye.
“I live the dream every day, dude. I'm not out
[270]
here looking to stay, I'm looking to find
meaning in my life for once.”
“Your life has been full of meaning, you
privileged little whining fucking twat.”
“Whoa.” The truth hits kind of hard sometimes.
“We're so blessed by the last few thousand
years of history, and you're the one that
should know it best. You've been studying it
your whole life. You should be happy you
have the time to think about – and process -
how bad you're getting fucked. You could be
stuck in a third world country drinking shit
water and trying to grow food in the fucking
desert and still finding enough time to teach
your kids how to do the same thing when you
don't really even know it yourself. All this
carrying on and moaning about the meaning of
life has really gotten old. A hundred years
ago, average life expectancy was like fifty.
That would put us well into adulthood.”
[271]
“What's your point?” I was wondering where he
was going to take this.
“Point? Point, you fucking prick? My point is
that we – meaning you and I - like to sit
around and talk up a bunch of bullshit about
how we're going to take hold of our main
nerves and dream our dreams, but when it
comes down to it – most of those nerves have
already been grabbed and the dreams have
been dreamed. Those are just words. We're
just gonna grow old and die, man. We're not
gonna conquer the stupid world. It can't be
done!
We're just gonna be dudes. Nothing
special to anybody but the people who know
us personally. That's good enough for me. I
don't need fame or fortune, or eight fucking
houses. I don't need a fucking yacht, and I
don't feel like fucking around with the stock
market all day like a shitty religion that costs
[272]
too much money.
We have to dream our own dreams and
live our own lives within the framework we've
constructed. It's time to stop thinking and
start doing, dude. It's time for us to stop
talking about how bad we want the things
we're totally capable of getting for ourselves.
I want a family. A chick to fuck without a
rubber, and snot-nosed little brats to feed. I
want to create little humans. I want to feed
them food and watch them grow like smart
little house pets. I want to teach them how to
fuck with people and get their money. I want
to have a garden, I want to own a house. I
want to raise my family in my house. I want a
job that I can do for the rest of my life without
worrying about whether or not it's going to
pay the bills. I want to save my money for
when I get even older and my kids are all
grown up. I want to through-hike the
Appalachian trail. I want to go to Italy.
[273]
I have dreams, dude, and they're as
attainable as any metaphor could ever put it.
I still grab a hold on the main nerve, but I
don't want to take any more than I can give
back. I want other people to live their dreams,
too. We can sit and whine all day about how
bad we have it, and how loathsome it is to be
surrounded by stupid people all day, and how
awful the over-commercialization of our
society is. We can get drunk and womanize
and party and have a good time, but we're still
going to be held accountable for our actions.
We still have to get old and die. We still
have to work jobs and eat food. We have to be
around idiots we can't stand, but we also get
the rare chance to find friends in what seems
like a sea of people who don't understand us.
We're fucking blessed just to be alive. To be a
part of this. To be human beings, and to have
been a part of this world. So what if you don't
become famous? So what if you don't get
[274]
rich? So what if you never go on the road
again? Who cares if you never find the main
nerve, or the dream, ever again? Who cares if
you just left it in some Durham apartment?
Who gives a shit?
I'll tell you what. I'm your fucking
friend. I care about you. I want you to
succeed. I'm not going to turn my back on you
if you don't become a famous author. If your
band never goes on tour, I'm not going to
make fun of you for it. I'm going to be pissed
off at whoever blocked your path, even if it's
you. I'm still going to be your friend, because
that's what fucking matters to me. It's about
sharing our life experiences with each other,
and scheming up new adventures. We could
both die tomorrow, and none of this will have
mattered even the slightest bit. Why the fuck
are you so worried about the future when your
past has been great, and the present isn't even
that bad despite your stupid squabbling over
philosophy and 'the good life.'”
[275]
“Wow. That's pretty fucking profound,
Hooper, I've gotta say.”
This is why I hang out with this guy. The
truth flows from him in a fountain of 'fucks' and
worldly insight.
“I just feel like you're making a big deal about
nothing, man. You've got a lot to be thankful
for, don't forget it.”
He sipped his tea again, looking at me over
the rim of the cup and waiting for a response.
“I'll never forget it, Hoop, but it won't stop me
from dreaming bigger and bigger. I'm glad
that you know what you want out of life, and I
hope that you get it. I don't think I can settle
down into a situation like yours. That isn't my
goal. I don't want children. I don't want a
wife. I don't want to work at the same job for
my entire life, or even for an extended period
[276]
of time. My interests change daily. I want to
experience a wide range of possibilities.
I don't want to live in a house in the
suburbs, or on a stupid farm. I just want to
keep a house somewhere for my stuff to be
safe in while I'm out on the hunt for
adventure. I want to buy food at a grocery
store, I don't want to grow it. I don't want to
go to church, I don't want to re-live the eight-
hundred-billionth iteration of 'Dude on Earth.'
I want to be with the people who stood out far
enough to get a few to follow them off the
beaten path. I want to set new ideas into
motion, I want to change the world around
me, and I want to influence other people to
make their own changes. I want to see what
they see, and I want to help them make their
visions into reality.
I have things to say, and I want to stand
up and scream them out loud in a crowded
public space. I want to get angry. I want to
[277]
be wrong and be able to change my mind. I
want to broadcast my feelings and my beliefs
because I value them. I want to keep my
friends and make more. I want my friends to
see me as a successful person who does what
he says he's going to do. I want to make my
parents proud to have created me. I want to
make the world proud for having had me be a
part of it. I want people to remember my
name because I made a difference. I want to
live forever, dude.”
We were both standing, now, pacing back and
forth around his kitchen like we always did when
things were starting to get real.
“I know you do, and I wish you the best of
luck. I hope you achieve every goal on that
list with time to spare for new ones. I just
don't want you to place the value of your
existence on the way other people see you. It
just isn't worth it. If I ever teach you a
fucking thing, I want this to be it: What other
[278]
people think doesn't matter at all. They are
shit. Lie to them, steal from them, treat them
like the stupid fucks they are. If they get in
your way, stomp on their faces as you climb to
the top. You're going to do everything you
want to do, dude, you're doing it right now.
Don't worry about a fucking thing. None of
this matters. It's all in what you make of it.”
“You're right, Hoop, in your own crazy little
way. I don't need to lie, cheat, or steal to get
what I want, but I see where you're going
with this. I have to leave at once. I have to
get home to where I belong. I have to stop
complaining, stop fantasizing, stop dreaming.
It isn't about the dream. Dreaming happens
while you're asleep and waiting. Living is
about actualizing your dreams. It's about
what you're transmuting into existence with
the tools and the material you've been given.
Someone has to be around to stretch the
limits, and to look at things in a different way.
I have to go home and get to work making my
[279]
dreams come true.”
“That's what I'm talking about, dude. I finally
got it through your dumb fucking skull. You
spend some time dreaming, and then you act.”
He was right, and I knew it. We would surely
see each other again, but our halcyon days were
over. We were adults now, fully engaged in the
worlds we spent so much effort creating around
ourselves. If we were to wander, it would be for a
purpose of mission.
Hooper was destined to hang up his character,
to settle down and live a quiet life of personal
conquest and familial satisfaction. I was destined to
march ever onward in search of a new thrill,
tomorrow's sunrise, and the next adventure.
[280]
Chapter Fifteen- Truckers
“I had a girl, I had a girl.” I said out loud,
slowly shaking my head. To the silence, maybe to
the road. I missed Jasmine, which is what I didn't
want to have happen. I wasn't even sure if that
was her real name. I tried not to think about it. I
had to press on. Constant forward progression.
The last thing I had said to her was:
“Maybe we'll see each other again some sunny
day”
Nice and melodramatic.
A misty rain began to obscure the horizon as I
carved my way through the United Sates, home to
the Mitt. I couldn't help but let my mind wander
toward what lay in wait for me there. I had quit my
job just prior to this crazed expedition, which left a
[281]
laundry list of actionable items for me to complete.
Finding work was obviously something that needed
to happen, but I wasn't so worried about it. I just
didn't see a purpose in worrying about such
ultimately trivial things. Sure, I'd find another job.
I was a skilled and able employee. I'd work there
and eventually leave that one, too. No big deal, life
goes on. I was beginning to think, more and more,
that small details weren't really as important as the
entire picture. Like these gorgeous mountains -
why focus on the fact that it's raining? Does the
sun have to be shining on the mountains for them
to beautiful?
Life was going to remain dynamic. Things
would inevitably change again and keep right on
changing. There were books to finish writing, books
to start writing, bills to be paid, and a long stretch
of time where I, rest assured, would not be on the
road – either literally or metaphorically. My car was
beat up from the tens of thousands of miles I put on
it in my roaming over the years, and my bank
account was drained from a long few weeks of
[282]
shopping at truck stops and buying gasoline. Then,
of course, there were the frivolous alcohol and drug
purchases, the chain-smoked cigarettes, the energy
drinks, and the expenses of eating at restaurants
several times daily. All things I should not have
been doing considering that all of my money was
going out, and none was coming back in.
I had turned off the radio driving into West
Virginia, and I was enjoying the sound of the tires
rubbing the pavement at high speed as I exhaled
my cigarette smoke from the cracked window and
stared blankly ahead at, and sometimes through,
the gathering mists.
Was I running away from something? Was I
trying to find a road that had never crossed my
path? What was I doing out there, wandering
around the country, aimlessly searching for some
abstract concept that no one seemed to be able to
pin down? Had I found it? If so, how could I have
had the hubris to find it and run away? To ask the
gods for something, and then to back away from it
[283]
at the last second? Had my answer been the girl,
the experience, both, or neither?
At this time in my life, I had repeated this
scene a thousand times. Always chasing some girl
or some crazy adventure. I would come to some
'realization' that life wasn't so bad, or that tomorrow
would bring a new hope. This time, however, I felt
empty and hollow. The road seemed to stretch on
forever, and instead of seeing opportunity in that
road on the horizon, all I saw was the long stretch I
still had to travel. The trip had turned from
idealistic pursuit to a sad homeward retreat.
My only realization was that I probably wasn't
going to live a life of endless pleasure, but one with
an equal portion of painful sadness. Things would
never be like they were before, and things around
me would remain in a constant state of change until
I was dead. You never step in the same river twice.
I pulled into a truck stop on the side of the
road, sort of wishing I had gotten more distance
[284]
before my first stop. I had only been on the road a
few hours. I needed to take a piss, get a cup of
coffee, fill up the gas tank, and settle my nerves. I
opted to take a seat in the restaurant, at a stool
near the counter. I idly listened to the chatter of
the waitresses.
“... s'all gone to hell 'round here anyway,
Sheila, what with the T.A. gone in up across
the way and taking over all our business.”
“People think they can come in here and walk
out payin' nothin'! It ain't right! Not gonna
happen on my watch, shug!”
There was tension in the air. From what I
could gather, someone had just tried to leave
without paying. Old Sheila, here, had stepped in
the man's way and confronted him. He had argued
with her, saying he could have gotten the same
breakfast at the T.A. for a dollar less. Some dumb
jackass trying to get something for free. They come
in all shapes and sizes.
[285]
“He can drive himself up there tomorrow and
get himself a breakfast if he wants to. To hell
with him!”
The daily monotonous routine of trash-talking
customers. I knew it well. They must have been
having one of 'those' days. Bound to happen. I
tried my best to make it really easy on the poor
lady, considering I'd been in her shoes too many
times to count.
“Mornin', Shug, 'kin I gitcha?”
“Mornin'. Coffee. Black as night, bitter as my
ex. How's your gravy today?”
“Nice'n fresh. Ol' Howard done cooked it up
just a few minutes ago. He makes it the best.”
“Perfect. I'll go for half an order of biscuits
and gravy and some rye toast with butter, if
you've got it. If you don't have rye, whatever
[286]
else you have will suit me just fine.”
“Rye it is. Anything else?”
“No, ma'am, that'll do it.”
She walked back towards the busing station to
sort out a few fresh piles of used dishes, dropping
off my ticket in the cook's window as she walked
past it. She was performing flawlessly. You could
tell she'd been at this for years. There's a good
chance that old Sheila had been working at this
restaurant since before I was born. Who knows
what she might have seen in that time.
I was staring blankly through the window on
the far side of the room, watching the Interstate
traffic buzz past in the distance. I thought about
how many people there were in all those cars,
trucks, and buses. Hundreds of them every few
minutes, I'm sure. All of them off to somewhere,
each one a different place. Maybe one of them was
just like me.
[287]
“You look like you've got a story, buddy.”
I heard a voice from behind me just in time to
feel the heavy smack of a man's hand on my
shoulder and hear the sound of a large stack of
paper being dropped on the counter to my right.
“You could say that.” I said, over my coffee cup,
not turning around.
“Nice 'n melodramatic, too, I see.”
I laughed. It was funny. I wasn't really in the
mood for conversation, but this guy didn't seem like
he was going to waste my time with pleasantries. I
offered my hand.
“I'm Zach. What's your name?”
“Don the Trucker, Don for short,” he snickered
with a deep, throaty laugh of fifty years' tar.
[288]
Anyone could have guessed that he was a
trucker. He had the stereotype down to a near
science. Rose-tinted gold-frame glasses that looked
like they were purchased in the eighties, a canvas
ten gallon hat, a black vinyl vest over a long-sleeve
red flannel shirt with a bulge in the chest pocket
and a worn ring in the shape of a Skoal can, a long
handlebar mustache, and the wretched stink of a
thousand gallons of gin. Oh yeah, and foul coffee
breath.
I suppose he buys clothes at truck stops and
wears them until they're utterly destroyed. Maybe
he'd wash the set on the rare occasion he visited his
home, wherever it was. His world was the tractor-
trailer and the open road, neither of which care if
you stink like the dead.
He was an alright guy, despite his pungent
aroma. One you knew wasn't going to give you a
line of shit, at least.
“What are you here for, Zach, Business or
[289]
Pleasure? Coming or going?”
“Sounds rehearsed.”
“It is. Don't be cynical, I'm friendly folk.”
“Fair enough. All of the above, you could say.
Headed away from Chapel Hill, I know that
much. Headed home to a fucknest of misery in
the State of Michigan, eventually, but have
plenty of time to get there. I came down
mostly for pleasure, which, as far as the
present is considered, is my business.”
“I hate Michigan. Fuckin' roads are shit.”
“You're telling me, man, I lost track of how
many ruined tires I've had from those fucking
pot holes.”
“What were you doing in Chapel Hill? Got
yourself a college girl? Nice tight piece of
ass?”
[290]
“In town to see my buddy. Met a girl, too.
Had to leave her, though. I don't belong here.
I need to figure some shit out.”
“My opinion, and you can take it for what it's
worth, would be to stay where the pussy is.”
“I'd say that's a solid opinion, Don, and I'd
normally agree with you. Michigan pussy is
remarkably similar to North Carolina pussy,
though, and I've got to get home.”
“Ah, big dreams back home in the... what'd
you call it? Fucknest of misery?”
“Well, I suppose that's a bit of an over-
generalization.”
“I would have never guessed.”
“I sometimes forget that I exaggerate some
things and that people don't understand I'm
[291]
exaggerating them to make an example and
further illustrate my point.”
“That'll happen.”
“Sure will. What'cha haulin'?”
“Socks.” He said it flatly, without emotion, and
took a short sip of his coffee.
“At least you're getting paid.”
“I don't do gratís, cabrón.”
“Hablas Españól?”
“Hablo fuckin' Mexican.”
“Spend a bit of time south of the border, did
ya?”
“Sure did.”
[292]
“Haulin'?”
“It's the vida.”
“How do ya like it? Hauling, I mean. Not
Mexico. I've kind of heard mixed reports
about the gig.”
“You'll hear mixed reports about both.
Hauling seems to suit me just fine, but I can
see how it might not cut the mustard for some
folks. It takes a certain kind of beast to do
this job properly and not lose yer mind. Much
like any job, I guess. Some people are better
at it than others.”
“I can imagine. Whole lot of idiots on the
road, man. Shitty weather, long periods of
time spend alone in silence. That could render
some folks insane, I reckon.”
I slipped into the accent for just a second
there. I never say reckon, but I'd spent a few days
[293]
in the South and had started to absorb the
vernacular. Kind of like when I get drunk with
Mexicans and start speaking Spanglish.
“Maybe not insane, but you have to have a bit
of a crazy streak in you to make a living at
this. Gotta be able to deal with a whole lot of
bureaucracy, too.”
“Plenty of red tape, sure. That kind of shit is
everywhere. Gotta take scheduled breaks and
all of that dumb shit, too?”
“Oh yeah. You bet'cha. I can only be on the
road fourteen hours a day, and that includes
time spent queued up at the weigh-ins and the
breaks. Damn near cut what I can make in
half. Back in the eighties, man, I'd pull down a
few twenty-four hour days in a long week and
make bank. That shit never happens these
days. Bunch'a pussies complaining about a
few long days. There's no room left in this
world for a real man; only thieves, liars, and
[294]
suckers.”
“You don't have to tell me that, Don, I'm of the
opinion that humanity has reduced itself into a
mass of spoon-fed idiot debt slaves. Myself
included.”
“Yeah, same here. Gotta include ourselves in
that awful generalization, too. I'd say we're
both part of humanity – every savage bone in
our bodies. Just like the rest of 'em.”
“I had a buddy of mine that I worked with,
used to point at hot chicks when he was drunk
and say 'that chick's hot, huh? Betch'ya
wanna fuck her, too. But guess what, dude-
somebody, somewhere, is totally sick of her
bullshit. Everybody's an asshole in some
fucking way. Don't forget it.' I didn't. I agree
with him more every day.”
Sheila snuck up on us while we were sitting
there talking. I nearly knocked the carafe out of
[295]
her hand, and I would have if she wasn't so
responsive. I was frantically gesticulating,
mimicking my friend telling me those words with a
wildly pointed finger waving in a way that only a
man drunk on half a bottle of Ketel One can point.
She expertly backed up on her heels, my hand
missing the carafe by fractions of an inch.
“Whoa, there! Calm down a second! I'm
trying to get'choo boys some coffee!”
“He don't mean no harm,” said Don.
“Oh, I know it, Shug. Spooked me a bit, is all.
I won't be taken down so easily.”
“Sorry, Sheila.” I really was sorry. I have a
tendency move as I speak, and gesticulation is
frantic and haphazard. It sort of fucks things up
sometimes.
“No problem, kid. Here's your half'a biscuits,
and some rye toast. 'Kin I gitcha, Donny?”
[296]
“Bacon and eggs, Dearie, sunny side up.”
“Toast?”
“English Muffin. Why don't ya just go ahead
and top off my coffee up while you're here,
too, sweetie.”
“Limey biscuit. Comin' right up.” She scribbled
on her pad of guest checks, and dropped it off to
the cooks.
“Damn, that's archaic.”
“Not down here. This is the bible belt, son. If
your skin isn't white, or you don't pray to
Jesus every night, you'll get nowhere with
some of these folks.”
“I say that's a god damned shame.”
“True, but you can't change it. You can't get
[297]
through to some people. You can't fix stupid,
only show it how to get smarter on its own.”
“I know.” I looked down at my cup again, turning
it in circles between my hands.
“So, tell me, how do you make yourself a
living, Mister Zach?” Don said, turning toward
me after blatantly watching Sheila's old wrinkly ass
as she walked back toward the bus cart. That kind
of grossed me out a little, but I guess old people
think other old people are attractive. I shook it off.
“That's a bit of a loaded question these days,
I'm afraid.”
“How so? Runnin' something? I won't tell
nobody. Gotta do what'cha gotta do. Can't
say my past is free of it.”
“No, no. Nothing like that. My drug use is
mostly relegated to infrequent dabblings these
days. Lost its fun a while ago.”
[298]
“So what's the score, then?”
“Well, I'm an author as it stands, but the
money is shit. Couldn't possibly live on the
few bucks I've made doing that.”
“What's the plan then? What did you do
before that?”
“I've worked full time since I was eighteen.
Hit the ground running. Dropped out of
college at twenty, tired of the irony in being
surrounded by worldly ineptitude in the
academic environment. Probably not going
back. I've kinda been driving around on my
spare time the last few years, trying to figure
out exactly what it was I wanted to do with
myself.”
“Find anything?”
“Only more questions, really.”
[299]
“That's how it goes. Coulda just stayed at
home! Once you get what you want, then
what do you do? Where do you go from
there?”
“On to the next adventure, I guess.”
“So where was the last one?”
“I've been a restaurant man by trade. Not so
sure if that's gonna be my life's work, though,
you know? My dreams are so much bigger
than customer service. I drained my savings
account when I came down here. Word has it
my unemployment claim might go through, but
it's hard to say. I don't like to count my
chickens before they hatch. The guilt of
Unemployment Insurance will definitely eat at
me until I find something to do. This kind of
uncertainty is weird for me. I've never had it
before. It was always 'do work' and 'get paid'
for me. Always depending on someone else to
[300]
stamp a signature on a paycheck. I don't want
my life to be like that anymore. I don't want
to live for other people. I want to make
money for myself, doing things I'm good at.
I've made other people hundreds of thousands
of dollars, at the same time only tens of
thousands for myself. I don't like that. The
money was made on my back, my leadership,
my ability. I know what I've run away from,
but I don't know what the next step is.”
“What is it you want to do? You can't find
anything that you aren't looking for, you
know.”
“I have no idea what I'm looking for, Don. I
always used to just take it as it comes, to keep
on trucking, but I'm starting to feel a bit old. I
want to find something to do for the rest of my
life and be proud of. I don't want to wander
around aimlessly anymore. I want to wander
around for a purpose.”
[301]
“You've gotta figure out what it is you want
before you can go out and get it. You'll find it
soon, don't worry. Sounds like you've got the
heart for it.”
He was right, I would find it soon. I had to.
The whole damn purpose of this trip had been to
find the American Dream, and it all connected right
there over coffee with Don the trucker. Plainly
speaking, I was searching for something that didn't
exist. Not that I thought that the American Dream
was a farce, but more of a hypothetical kind of thing
that people only wished for.
It's a tired message, but it's still true: Rags to
riches takes a lot more work than riches to rags.
There are no free rides. No free lunches. Nobody
can spare much more than a dime, and they don't
even want to give you that much. No matter what
you get, it's never enough. There's never any
capital for your wild ideas unless you work hard and
make it for yourself. People want things that sell.
Ideas that intrigue. Until you prove you have what
[302]
it takes to come up with those ideas, no one will
pay attention to you. There's plenty of livestock at
the market, it's all in how good the lipstick makes
the pig look.
The American Dream is just another dumb
metaphor for hipster poets to jack off onto a page.
Some cheap phrase to knock about at parties and
bars as if you know something that someone else
doesn't. You don't. How had I decided that 'finding
myself' by wandering around aimlessly for years on
end was a good idea? It almost seemed childish, in
this context, sitting among my elders. Both of them
sure were working a lot harder than I was at the
time. Sheila was slaving away at the restaurant
game well into her sixties, Don had to have been
my father's age, both of them still working their
asses off, just like I'd be in another twenty-five
years. I just wanted to be slaving away at
something I enjoyed, even if only passively.
All that time I spent wandering around, and I
could have been like Don the trucker. He wanted to
[303]
drive around and see the sights, like me; so he did,
like me. The thing he did differently, though, was
the really good idea that had never dawned on me.
He got paid to do it. That's the problem. I wasn't
getting paid to empty my savings account and fuck
off to North Carolina on some fruitless holy roller
quest to find an intangible concept. I should have
been at home working hard to make my dreams
come true. I wasn't going to find my dreams on the
side of some rutted out patch of mountain road in
the rain.
“You're right, Don, I will. I know it. I have to
figure out what it is I really want out of life
before I can expect to get it. That might be
some of the best advice I've ever gotten.”
“See, now you're thinking. Maybe a few of you
dumb fuck kids can learn, after all.”
“Don't get me started on my peers, man.”
“Heh-heh-hugah-cagh” He was laughing so hard
[304]
he nearly choked himself “EEEE-HEE-HEE
HEEEEEEOW. “ He punched his chest a few times.
“Yeah. We thought stickin' daisies in rifles and
growing out our hair was rebellious. You
damn kids gotta go off hanging yourselves
and cutting your wrists because your single
mother worked two jobs and 'wasn't around'
to keep your ungrateful ass in check. Rebel
rebel.”
“Watch out, dude, my mother is a fucking
saint.”
“Oh, you know I'm not saying shit about your
mom. She obviously did a fine job.”
“Damn right she did.”
“It's easy to teach people how to do things,
but it isn't easy to teach them how to think.”
“I never want children.”
[305]
“You will.”
“Doubt it.”
“You will.”
We had our first silent moment in quite a
while, both of us watching the steam rise from our
coffee cups.
We parted ways, as people so often do, not
too long after breakfast. I had to get home to
figure out what the hell I was going to do with
myself, and Don the Trucker had to keep on
truckin'. I had liberated myself from the job I had
hated, and I set out to find the American Dream.
Had I found it? All I was sure of was that I had
found myself in hot-blooded pursuit of what I had
casually referred to as the main nerve, which had
manifested itself in an electric little fantasy girl that
reminded me a little too much of what I didn't want.
I was now headed home to find a way to make
sense of it all.
[306]
What was next?
[307]
Chapter Sixteen – Mountains
As I grew further into my twenties, and the
long weekends of staying out and partying started
to take heavier and heavier tolls, the shotgun blast
of life was beginning to lose its momentum. Things
in my own pocket of the universe were starting to
slow down, and yet life in the world around me
seemed to increase speed at an ever more frantic
pace. Every year seemed to fly by faster and faster,
spinning further and further out of control. I
wanted to hit rock bottom with my feet on the
ground.
Realistically, the least-wise thing I could have
done upon losing my job was pack up and leave
town. Any sane person would have recommended
that I stock up on food and supplies for the coming
hardships, but I drew on experience. Some people
[308]
spend their whole lives preparing for hard times
that never come. Hard times came to me early in
my life, and never seemed to be far off the horizon.
I maintained a firm and constant grip on a vision of
a better tomorrow, even if I did acknowledge a
chance of failure.
I can do hard times. I've had no shortage of
them. Times of eating oatmeal and hot dogs, times
of saying 'no, guys, I can't go out tonight. I've got
to save my money.' I never had a problem
pinching pennies, and entertaining yourself is never
really that difficult. In fact, my intellect seems to
thrive when I'm experiencing hard times. The
immediate need to deliver yourself from point A to
point B can be a strong motivator. It's only once
you've hit rock bottom that you can begin to plan
your climb out of the hole. You'll always find a way
to get by if you try hard enough, keep your
discipline focused and ready for change, and set
your sights on the horizon.
With every mile I grew closer to my little
[309]
corner of the Mitt, the more I understood that
things would never be the same. I wasn't headed
back home to go to work, and I had no immediate
prospects of finding any when I got there.
For some reason, I didn't really care. I had
worked so hard for so many years, I had forgotten
how to just live. Maybe Hooper was right. I was
just a dude on Earth. Maybe, in the great scheme
of things, none of this really does matter. Maybe I'll
never amount to a fucking thing.
I actually had a high school teacher that told
me that, once. I can't remember why, or the
context, but I remember the scene vividly. She sat
at her desk, correcting papers, and I was standing
in front of her, handing in an assignment. She
asked if I planned on going to college.
“I don't know. Maybe. I was going to go on
tour, but I quit the band. I'll figure something
out. It's just on to the next adventure.”
[310]
“You're not going to amount to anything if you
don't go to college.”
“What? Excuse me?”
“You don't have a chance.”
“I disagree.”
“Disagree all you want.”
“I will.”
I've always held a pointless grudge against
her for saying that to me, unprovoked. Who knows
what was crammed up her crusty ass, but she had it
out for me that morning. You shouldn't walk around
for the rest of your life trying to prove wrong all the
naysayers you encounter along your path to
greatness. When someone is trying to bring you
down, it means you're miles above them. Let the
doubters dig their own graves.
[311]
I drove North, through Ohio and into
Michigan, for the lonesome and familiar drive West
along Interstate 94, home, to Kalamazoo. There, I
would come back to all that I had left behind. As
far away from what I perceived as 'the road,' 'the
dream,' 'the vagabond,' and 'the main nerve' as
could possibly be.
I had to find a way to stop associating the
concept of 'home' with the negative feelings I felt
toward 'the familiar and unchanging.' There had to
be other people I knew that had this same kind of
hope that I did. Hope for building a new way of life
for themselves. A hope that we could rise above
this recurring nightmare of twelve hour shifts and
rising prices with wage stagnation. Maybe we could
work together.
I had been there for four years without a
raise, watching the cost of living rising ever higher
and never seeing my wages move a bit. Working
tirelessly to create new ways of doing business, new
products, new services, new infrastructure, new
[312]
financial approaches, and new everything. The
improvements and profits continued, along with the
raising of prices, and the increases of responsibility.
Where was my piece of the pie? What was my
effort going to support? The precedent had been
set for my job to require ever-increasing growth,
with no defined reward structure whatsoever.
“I don't believe in raises,” the guy told me, once.
“I hire people to do a job, and they do it.
Their job doesn't change, whether profits go
up or down.”
Somehow, at the time, I failed to realize that I
was part of that group of people he was talking
about. He forgot that the people worked harder to
make him more money with the expectation that if
they worked harder, they would be rewarded in
some way. If they weren't rewarded, everything
regressed into reckless and dissolute repetition as
they trudged along, waiting for it to be time to go
home. They saw the futility in going the extra mile,
[313]
towing the line until they found another job, never
having the desire to improve. It only seemed
logical.
Rewards and incentives don't even need to be
direct infusions of cash. They can be a few extra
vacation days, a trip to a ball game, or maybe a
new employee discount. Different things work for
different people. It's about knowing your
employees. If a reward was given, it shouldn't be
given as a display of power, but as a token of
gratitude. Not just to one favored person, either,
but to everyone who deserves it with equal
consideration.
He relied on us to make him his money, why
shouldn't that effort be rewarded in some tangible
way? He was expected to progress, while we were
expected to stay the same forever. We all busted
ass to get the job done, we all deserved a bit of the
gain. I'm not talking socialism here, I'm talking
about rewarding honest effort. If we don't reward
those who perform above our level of expectation,
[314]
what's the motivation to do better in the future?
There's no reason for us to do anything but tow the
line.
“I want to start my own business.” I said it
almost out of frustration. “I want to make
money for myself.”
“You can't start a business just to make
money, you know.”
“What?”
“It's about meeting new people and doing
good in the world. It's not about making
money.”
That's easy to say for someone who has
always relied on other people to support their lives.
The true hypocrisy was that he expected himself to
improve forever, and everyone around him to stay
the same.
[315]
“What do you mean? Businesses are designed
to make money. You provide a good or service
in exchange for money. That is exactly what's
happening. You make money through
business. There's no other reason to start a
business other than to make money. All
mission statements and concepts are
secondary.”
As I move forward in life, this story has
become a polarizing topic of conversation. I own a
business now. I started it to make money.
Granted, I do something I love to make that money,
but the fact remains the same: I started the
business to make money. Business, to me, exists
as a conduit for the exchange of assets, currency,
goods, and services between humans. This has
been going on for thousands of years.
I had to get home, sort out my affairs,
calculate my needs, organize my wants, and
assemble my lists of actionable items. I needed a
reassessment of my goals. I needed to figure out
[316]
what it was that I really wanted. I had always been
thinking too narrowly, too immediately, or too
specifically. I was looking for a route without ever
seeing the map as a whole.
I was in West Virginia, headed North on
Interstate 77. I would travel through the obnoxious
flatlands of Ohio for the hundredth time, and across
the beaten patches of Interstates 80, 90, 75, and
94 from Cleveland to Toledo to Detroit to
Kalamazoo.
Ultimately, the goal was to get home. I would
pass through a hundred or more cities on my way
through. I could make the distance seem less
daunting by making secondary goals in line with my
primary goal. It would seem less time consuming if
I focused on how the minor goals added up to the
major one. There were a thousand different routes
to take, but I chose the most direct. I wanted two
things: to get home, and to do it as quickly as
possible.
[317]
Sure, I was worried about not getting a job.
Obviously, it was a legitimate fear. If I had gone
home and sat in my room thinking about not having
a job, I would have never found one. I needed to
get out and find work.
It was like getting from Charleston to
Marietta on the way home from Hooper's. It was
only a leg of my larger journey. The ultimate goal,
of course, was and still is to make a living for myself
doing things that I enjoy. Just like that stretch of I-
77 through the top of West Virginia was only a small
step on the road back to the Mitt, so was getting
that first job I got after finding the Dream. It was
the first rung on my ladder to the top. The first
stone on the river crossing. However you want to
put it, that's what needed to be done.
If I wanted to find gainful employment to
finance the execution of my actionable items, I had
to get out there and find it. If I wanted to get
somewhere in life, I had to take the first few steps.
I had to make it so. I had to establish secondary
[318]
goals that further progressed the primary ones.
The new found satisfaction of knowing exactly
what I wanted to do was enough to keep me going.
Perhaps some minor frustrations along the way, and
another shitty job or two, but nothing so horrid as
the existential dread of going to the place that
provides you with the means of supporting a life you
can't enjoy.
After a long stretch of hard work and
concentration, we can begin to regain our strength
and footing. We can begin construction of our own
personal empires. We cast away the burdens of the
sins from our misguided youth. We shrug off our
grudges and aggressions. We can forgive those
who have wronged us. We can become better
people by learning from our mistakes, and by taking
advantage of what we have going for us.
It was these thoughts of business, of the
future, and of 'bigger and better things' that
occupied my mind on this lonely drive home
[319]
through the mountains. A drive I'd come to
recognize, where time starts to blur as I move
through the mists. Is it the first time I've been
here, the sixth, or the twelfth? In these mountains,
I can see time. I can see myself existing at
different points in my life, growing from boy to man
as the mountains stay the same.
In transit, with the feeling of momentum in
my gut, is when I feel most alive and in control.
Like I could grab the reigns of destiny itself. The
raw feeling of forward progression through space
and time; with velocity manifest in both figurative
and literal aspects.
If the American Dream could be described as
a thing, it's a television set. Not the machine that
you look at, but the temporary room in the back lot
of some Los Angeles studio. You assemble the
props: the couch, the lamp, the shitty art, the
Berber carpet. You assemble the cast: the dude,
the chick, the dog, the best friend. You assemble a
plot: We're living out our dreams!
[320]
You assemble the lighting rig, the scenery.
It's late summer, early fall, who knows. Maybe
some sunny spring day. It's any body's dream any
how. We are the directors of this show. We are the
stage techs, the camera operators. We are the
editors and the cameras. We're watching the world
we create as it manifests around us.
We can change the set, and the actors may
come and go, but the show must always go on. The
budget must be followed, the demographics
pandered to. The audience is waiting for the next
episode, and they expect to be pleased. The
greatest of the dreamers can transmute their vision
into reality. Some inevitable day, though, they'll
come to cancel the show and strike the set. No
matter how much fun everyone is having, and even
though the show must go on, it must also one day
come to an end.
In our youth, we feel as if we'll never be held
accountable for our actions. Bad things eventually
[321]
happen to bad people, and the good guys always
win. As we progress, we feel as if we'll be able to
turn the tides of karma and that we're the only ones
that won't have to be held accountable for our
actions. Like we've somehow found a way to cheat
the system.
There is no good or bad, we imagine, only
moral choices inside the larger framework of a
culture. In a cold and lonely universe, there is no
great measuring stick with which to determine what
was good, what was bad, why, and whether or not
anybody cared.
There is the one inevitable day where you will
feel all of the burdens of your past hanging off of
you like a leech that won't let go. Every lie, every
misdeed, every false witness; all sucking the pride
right out of you. All the people you've wronged will
come back to haunt you in the most miserable of
ways, and all the bad intent you've had along your
path will one day be reflected back to you in the
actions of another person.
[322]
We have to learn to treat other human beings
the way they deserve to be treated before we can
expect to be considered one of them. How are we
supposed to live together peacefully on this rock in
space without settling our grudges, accepting each
other, and finding ways to compromise? By working
together. That's the culmination of 5,000 years of
religious and cultural traditions.
I've had a table since my first apartment. It
started out as trash on the side of the road, until
my dad and I found it and sawed the legs to make it
a coffee table. Some years later, I painted it with
chalkboard paint and began carving things into it
with a linoleum knife. One night, shortly after
Hooper abandoned his Republican hookers in
Washington, D.C., while he was crashing on my
couch, he drunkenly carved a phrase with his knife.
This is how I know that we went through the
same struggle. On my way home, I couldn't think
about anything else. It took a year's time to
[323]
understand what he had meant. It was the only
phrase on my mind. A new mantra for a new
generation:
And so are we all, friends,
so are we all.
[324]
After stories have been told,
and the actors all grown old,
so do we, too, wither away
with wisdom learned on the road.
May those with the light
shine brighter than the sun,
and those with darkness hide
in shadows whence they come.
Precious children of Earth,
the ever aloof and mislead.
We, ever inquisitive
with thoughts inside our heads.
We are the music makers,
the movers and shakers,
creators and destroyers of worlds,
pinions driving the gears of time.
[325]
And I, dearest friends,
I am the vagabond.
He who sought, and found,
that he was both wolf and lamb.
The Beginning
[326]
Zachary Kyle Elmblad
Zach got off the road at the end of 2010, and began keeping a long
list of actionable items which included writing and finishing this book. For all
intents and purposes, the stories are true. Some sections are exaggerated for
dramatic effect, leaving it up to the reader to decide what was real and what
was only 'a dream.' Think critically about what you want to do with your life.
You only get one chance, so you might as well shoot for prolonged and
exciting experiences that make the journey worthwhile. Be ready for what's
coming next, and want it. Even if you're not sure what it is.
[327]
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