It was morning when Monterey awoke to the familiar sound of the breeze, the birds, and the sun rushing through his eyelids like the blood in his veins. He rolled over on his filthy Styrofoam mat and tiredly groaned, frustrated that another day had found him. Despite his best efforts to hide, he couldn’t keep running from the advent of another box in the expired calendar which dangled by his mat.
Sitting up, he reached for his pouch of tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. Behind him, separated by a large piece of cardboard, his roommate Felt sat in a rusty folding chair spreading peanut butter onto an old apple he had found somewhere. Monterey lit his cigarette and stood so that he could see Felt better.
‘Morning, son.” Felt said, absently. He bit into the apple.
“Where’d ya find that?” Monterey wasn’t quite hungry yet, but he would be eventually. The hunger usually wasn’t so bad, not for himself. The fact of the matter was, however, that if you were afraid of germs, being homeless was not for you.
Starving to death in an era of wanton wastefulness and careless self indulgent littering was unacceptable.
“The tree’s finally starting to produce.” Felt said, nodding his head towards the far end of the courtyard.
Across the concrete littered with used needles, cigarette butts, and fast food wrappers, a sickly apple tree swayed in the wind with the green buds of fruits hanging low. Soon they’d start to fall and we’ll have to get more peanut butter, Monterey thought.
“Once they begin to fall, that means fall, and we won’t be able to sleep outside anymore.” Felt stood up suddenly and tossed the apple to Monterey’s hands.
“That’s fine. Maybe some housing will come down by then.” They were always waiting for subsidized housing to come down. That was always their plan, distant and far off in the safe future, where it may be bleak, but at least it was unstained by the fuck ups of the present. Eventually, spring would come, the bearer of hope and warmth, and they would sleep outside for a season or two, forgetting honey coated notions of roofs and walls.
“Worse comes to it,” Felt said, getting groggily to his feet, “we can just pry off some of these boards,” he motioned to the sealed windows and doors around them, “and take shelter inside. ‘Least it’s a roof over our heads.”
“As long as you’re under my roof, you’re going to follow my rules.” Monterey joked.
Felt didn’t smile. “We’re not under any roofs right now. That means no rules, huh?”
“You know how I feel about rules, man.”
Felt sighed. “Authority is such a cunt. I’m going to rush. You want to get loaded before you have to work?”
“No, I’m not working today.”
“Oh.” Felt began cooking up in an old aluminum can.
“I’m going to town to do some errands, then I’ll come back and nod off.” Monterey said, but thinking of getting high was making him lick his lips.
“Very well. It’s your existence. Hey, try to find some Gatorade?” Felt looked up hopefully. He always drank Gatorade after coming back to earth.
“I’m not making any promises.”
“A promise can be such a cunt.” Felt said, as he began tapping his arm, looking for a fat vein.
Monterey turned away quickly before he became completely subdued in its face, in its smell. Slinging his worn pack over a shoulder, he grabbed his black shoes and carried them quickly away from their camp, careful to avoid the mess scattered on the concrete. Weaving through the corridor between the boarded up windows of the old buildings, he stopped to pick up a used needle and heave it at one of the pieces of plywood keeping them from shelter. It stuck in the wood like a dart.
Reaching a chain link fence, Monterey stopped to slip on his shoes. Looking through the fence, he tossed his pack over, then placed his fingers through the links in the fence. Across the field, he watched the breeze softly move the grass and trees.
Before jumping the fence, he hesitated, letting his fingers rest upon the holes between the links. Everything was a fence in his life. And as his roommate would so eloquently state, fences could be such cunts.
But they could be jumped. No matter if they even had that sharp razor wire on top, they could easily be defied. Like crowns of security resting upon the summit, he could stand upon it with the razors digging into his soft shins, watching both sides of the divide at once. He could see the familiar and the failures behind him, and the almost elaborate clarity of Eden in from of him.
But even then, he could only take a few breaths as he gazed across all that was and all the could have been. For soon his lack of balance would over power him more than the divide, and he could merely hope to swing his back leg high enough to clear the wire, and avoid crashing back into the known and present failures. But rather he aimed to swing over in Eden and smile before the ground would knock it off his face.
Regards, Esortnom
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Final Thoughts
the next drip tears a new road
like the baphomet in fresh snow
first slow but as the pain eases
the tear accelerates speed
the final drop before the execution
like capicorn in the winter month
travels circular in its revolution
becoming such a wheel that no man
can long upon it stand
and as the months circle into years
here comes the wheel back again
Regards, Esortnom
like the baphomet in fresh snow
first slow but as the pain eases
the tear accelerates speed
the final drop before the execution
like capicorn in the winter month
travels circular in its revolution
becoming such a wheel that no man
can long upon it stand
and as the months circle into years
here comes the wheel back again
Regards, Esortnom
So it goes
I woke up late, around nine thirty so I had to quickly shower in order to be at work by nine. I jumped in and out of the water, and back into the cold air of the apartment to get dressed. My cat watched curiously as I ran furiously around looking for my work shirt which had all the keys for the store and my pen in it. I finally found it flung in a far corner underneath a stack of magazines. I poured some food and fresh water in the cat’s bowl and glanced at the clock. I had to be at work in fifteen minutes, and it was about a ten minute drive into the suburban wasteland.
I packed a small amount of marijuana into a little pipe and mixed together a small rum and coke. I took a hit of the high powered marijuana and held it into my lungs as I drank half of the cocktail. I exhaled and coughed furiously. I put on some music trying to squeeze in the last bits of freedom I’d have in a long while.
I finished off the marijuana and downed the rest of my drink. I poured a tiny bit more of rum into the empty glass and drank a straight shot of the stuff. It was good drink, expensive and imported from the islands, and it went down smooth and warm into my early morning stomach, making my head clear a bit.
I bid farewell to my cat and went out the door locking it behind me. Down the stairs and into my car, I hopped behind the wheel and opened all the windows as I rolled down the driveway as a neighbor eyed me suspiciously.
He was a dark haired man with skin like leather boots, middle aged, whose body looked as though he had spent the last twenty years or so mixing concrete and digging ditches. I nodded at him and flashed him a quick ‘peace’ sign with one hand and the other on the wheel. He quickly approached me, and made a motion for me to stop. I was late for work, but I held up and allowed him to walk over to me.
“Hey, I live across the hall from you.” He said to me.
“Is that a fact?” I asked, as a slight feeling of horror overcame me. Were the all night acid trips upsetting him? The loud music keeping him awake? Was he aware of all the fireworks my friends and I were responsible for illegally igniting? The constant smell of marijuana smoke? It could be a number of things I was doing in violation of everything he appeared to hold sacred.
“I notice you have a lot of people coming and go, pretty often. Pretty late at night sometimes.” He said.
“Right. I’m a pretty popular guy, I like to entertain. Feel free to stop if you wish, I’m just not sure if it’s your cup of tea. I run with a pretty low brow crowd, a man like you might feel embarrassed to be seen with us. Were you military?” I asked him.
“Correct. Marines. But that was a long time ago.” He adjusted a pair of sunglasses resting on his head, gazing across the street nervously before turning back to me. “Sounds like you guys have fun up there. I know you smoke, you blaze, right?”
“Absolutely.” I replied.
“Right, well that’s cool, the people downstairs seem like real strange jobs. Don’t worry about us, but I think you should know that your friends shouldn’t park here. Now, I don’t give a shit,” he said motioning with his hands, “but these people all around us do. Some guy came upstairs the other night and asked me if those were my friends, of course I denied it-why shouldn’t I?”
I couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t, so he continued.
“So yeah, just have them park somewhere else, I like the parking lot down by the old mill, lots of privacy and no one gives a fuck what happens down there. Cool?”
“Not a problem, sir. Anything else today?”
“Yeah, feel free to swing by for a drink sometimes. It’s just me and my girl, I work a hell of a lot, she does too, but now that we know at least one of our neighbors is cool, we should knock a few back.”
“Right on. Didn’t catch your name, though?” I asked.
He extended a tanned arm. “Mills.” He replied.
“Moon.” I said, gripping his hand. I noticed that somewhere he had learned that a man could be judged by the grip of his handshake.
“Well, enjoy your day, I’ll be sure to spread the word about the parking.” I sped off before I got roped into another conversation. Mills seemed nice enough, not too bright, yet sharp enough to realize that he was a phony. He was most likely a conman, trying to get something from me or exploit something out of me.
I played the radio loud and mean, tearing through the narrow back corridors of my town, passing through a couple of other meaningless, disappointing towns until I finally reached the outskirts of the urban sprawl. A hospital rose up on the corner and I hung a quick left, through the oncoming traffic of the green light and roared uphill until I came to the corner pharmacy where I managed.
Regards, Esortnom
I packed a small amount of marijuana into a little pipe and mixed together a small rum and coke. I took a hit of the high powered marijuana and held it into my lungs as I drank half of the cocktail. I exhaled and coughed furiously. I put on some music trying to squeeze in the last bits of freedom I’d have in a long while.
I finished off the marijuana and downed the rest of my drink. I poured a tiny bit more of rum into the empty glass and drank a straight shot of the stuff. It was good drink, expensive and imported from the islands, and it went down smooth and warm into my early morning stomach, making my head clear a bit.
I bid farewell to my cat and went out the door locking it behind me. Down the stairs and into my car, I hopped behind the wheel and opened all the windows as I rolled down the driveway as a neighbor eyed me suspiciously.
He was a dark haired man with skin like leather boots, middle aged, whose body looked as though he had spent the last twenty years or so mixing concrete and digging ditches. I nodded at him and flashed him a quick ‘peace’ sign with one hand and the other on the wheel. He quickly approached me, and made a motion for me to stop. I was late for work, but I held up and allowed him to walk over to me.
“Hey, I live across the hall from you.” He said to me.
“Is that a fact?” I asked, as a slight feeling of horror overcame me. Were the all night acid trips upsetting him? The loud music keeping him awake? Was he aware of all the fireworks my friends and I were responsible for illegally igniting? The constant smell of marijuana smoke? It could be a number of things I was doing in violation of everything he appeared to hold sacred.
“I notice you have a lot of people coming and go, pretty often. Pretty late at night sometimes.” He said.
“Right. I’m a pretty popular guy, I like to entertain. Feel free to stop if you wish, I’m just not sure if it’s your cup of tea. I run with a pretty low brow crowd, a man like you might feel embarrassed to be seen with us. Were you military?” I asked him.
“Correct. Marines. But that was a long time ago.” He adjusted a pair of sunglasses resting on his head, gazing across the street nervously before turning back to me. “Sounds like you guys have fun up there. I know you smoke, you blaze, right?”
“Absolutely.” I replied.
“Right, well that’s cool, the people downstairs seem like real strange jobs. Don’t worry about us, but I think you should know that your friends shouldn’t park here. Now, I don’t give a shit,” he said motioning with his hands, “but these people all around us do. Some guy came upstairs the other night and asked me if those were my friends, of course I denied it-why shouldn’t I?”
I couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t, so he continued.
“So yeah, just have them park somewhere else, I like the parking lot down by the old mill, lots of privacy and no one gives a fuck what happens down there. Cool?”
“Not a problem, sir. Anything else today?”
“Yeah, feel free to swing by for a drink sometimes. It’s just me and my girl, I work a hell of a lot, she does too, but now that we know at least one of our neighbors is cool, we should knock a few back.”
“Right on. Didn’t catch your name, though?” I asked.
He extended a tanned arm. “Mills.” He replied.
“Moon.” I said, gripping his hand. I noticed that somewhere he had learned that a man could be judged by the grip of his handshake.
“Well, enjoy your day, I’ll be sure to spread the word about the parking.” I sped off before I got roped into another conversation. Mills seemed nice enough, not too bright, yet sharp enough to realize that he was a phony. He was most likely a conman, trying to get something from me or exploit something out of me.
I played the radio loud and mean, tearing through the narrow back corridors of my town, passing through a couple of other meaningless, disappointing towns until I finally reached the outskirts of the urban sprawl. A hospital rose up on the corner and I hung a quick left, through the oncoming traffic of the green light and roared uphill until I came to the corner pharmacy where I managed.
Regards, Esortnom
Fatigue
Slapping her ass, she looked sadly back at me as we awkwardly existed together for the last time. I felt a twinge of guilt over leaving her. It was costing me her light colored eyes, her giant ass in tight shorts, and all the good pieces of furniture. Yet, in the grey between certainty and despair, I held my ground, trusting the choking urge that what I was doing was the best thing for both of us, because I knew I could not give her what she needed or deserved.
Belle Two was dangerously young and fragile, yet could have possibly been one of the best things to ever happen to me. But everything got so mechanical and so trivial so quickly, and she was right, I was all hung up still over Belle Number One, whom I didn't even bother referring to as "number one", because the original is usually better than the sequel, although in this case it was not true and I knew it, but still didn't care. Poor optimistic Belle Number Two, silently tolerating my habits and lifestyle despite not understanding or participating, it was like she was on the sidelines watching without knowing the rules, while I ran back and forth, diving for bad passes on a muddy field with no grip. Night after night, climbing narrow wooden stairs to our city apartment, I'd face her hopeful eyes, eager and anxious to please me anyway and anyhow, if not to make me happy than just to get me to stay at least another day, because we both knew it was true--I saw it in her eyes every morning when I rolled over to take a shower and drink my coffee and whiskey, I saw it in her eyes when I came home every night and she seemed surprised that I was back again--we knew it was all slipping away,
"Anything you want." She had told me just to get me to stay, offering up her body to me. What kind of sadness comes to be when not even kinky sex will keep a young man home?
And it made me sick and ugly inside. I had to turn away my eyes whenever she tried to tell me that she loved me, that she had grown to need me, to rely on me. I could not even rely upon myself, I could not even love myself, and I did not want the burden, the weight of another life which I would bungle and balance.
I could still hear the rising panic in her voice echoing in my head whenever a heavy decision had to be made, making me sore and tired. And fatigue can change so many things.
Regards, Esortnom
Belle Two was dangerously young and fragile, yet could have possibly been one of the best things to ever happen to me. But everything got so mechanical and so trivial so quickly, and she was right, I was all hung up still over Belle Number One, whom I didn't even bother referring to as "number one", because the original is usually better than the sequel, although in this case it was not true and I knew it, but still didn't care. Poor optimistic Belle Number Two, silently tolerating my habits and lifestyle despite not understanding or participating, it was like she was on the sidelines watching without knowing the rules, while I ran back and forth, diving for bad passes on a muddy field with no grip. Night after night, climbing narrow wooden stairs to our city apartment, I'd face her hopeful eyes, eager and anxious to please me anyway and anyhow, if not to make me happy than just to get me to stay at least another day, because we both knew it was true--I saw it in her eyes every morning when I rolled over to take a shower and drink my coffee and whiskey, I saw it in her eyes when I came home every night and she seemed surprised that I was back again--we knew it was all slipping away,
"Anything you want." She had told me just to get me to stay, offering up her body to me. What kind of sadness comes to be when not even kinky sex will keep a young man home?
And it made me sick and ugly inside. I had to turn away my eyes whenever she tried to tell me that she loved me, that she had grown to need me, to rely on me. I could not even rely upon myself, I could not even love myself, and I did not want the burden, the weight of another life which I would bungle and balance.
I could still hear the rising panic in her voice echoing in my head whenever a heavy decision had to be made, making me sore and tired. And fatigue can change so many things.
Regards, Esortnom
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Loss of the One Benefits All
laying on your bed, cold comes thru the window and says "hello" but we can't hear it, for we are beyond the reach of anything outside the circle i approach you and 180 degrees offering my share, doing what i could and fighting the good fight whenever it happens to stagger down my lonesome, twisted path but without hesitation, you still accept and by doing so gave birth to this divine union, the joy in the dissolution! oh my dear, let us stay awake until the morning rises and drift thru each other's minds, hoping we'll find and finding hope, as long as we open our eyes the dream will never die, if you know what i mean jellybean?
Thus Spake Thujonu
Thus Spake Thujonu
Sticks and Stones and Critiques
Dear *#&#*#,
You have set down some quite effective--even, sometimes, soaring--sentences here, which depict an alternate reality within the world we inhabit. Your narrator's reality is recognizable, but obscured. I mostly like that we cannot ever be quite sure what this narrator thinks of what he sees, or what he thinks of himself, that he exists in a haze he wants out of, but is helpless to leave.
You do a good job blending hope and despair, a good job showing us someone who is not so embittered by his experiences that he can't see beyond what's before him, in the dismal wee hours of a morning, as he sobers, and views his obligations.
Your narrator is spooky, but not gratuitously so (although here I must say that I found the uses of the words "nigger" and "cunt-fucker" gratuitous, and therefore offensive. The narrator's racism, is incidental in this piece; it doesn't play itself out in the way, for example, his attitude towards women is played out.)
There is a deep disturbance here, to be certain.
There is a grandeur to your diction (word choice) that works well quite often, and promotes the sense of departure from reality. But be wary, please, of passing judgment, of using your writing as a place to indict people. It takes the adventure out of reading, and alienates your reader. Be open to surprises, and we will be too.
Hope this is helpful and best of luck in your endeavors. Happy holidays,
Best,
Noy
You have set down some quite effective--even, sometimes, soaring--sentences here, which depict an alternate reality within the world we inhabit. Your narrator's reality is recognizable, but obscured. I mostly like that we cannot ever be quite sure what this narrator thinks of what he sees, or what he thinks of himself, that he exists in a haze he wants out of, but is helpless to leave.
You do a good job blending hope and despair, a good job showing us someone who is not so embittered by his experiences that he can't see beyond what's before him, in the dismal wee hours of a morning, as he sobers, and views his obligations.
Your narrator is spooky, but not gratuitously so (although here I must say that I found the uses of the words "nigger" and "cunt-fucker" gratuitous, and therefore offensive. The narrator's racism, is incidental in this piece; it doesn't play itself out in the way, for example, his attitude towards women is played out.)
There is a deep disturbance here, to be certain.
There is a grandeur to your diction (word choice) that works well quite often, and promotes the sense of departure from reality. But be wary, please, of passing judgment, of using your writing as a place to indict people. It takes the adventure out of reading, and alienates your reader. Be open to surprises, and we will be too.
Hope this is helpful and best of luck in your endeavors. Happy holidays,
Best,
Noy
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Right and Left, One Leg at a Time
"You eat like a fucking slob." I judged Waters.
"All you do is shit on me, man."
"Yeah, well then use some toilet paper, if not a napkin." I sighed.
We had been on the road for about two weeks when I began to realize how sick of everything I had become. My foreign made car held us cramped inside smoking cigarettes and drinking alcoholic energy drinks for ten, twelve, fifteen hours at a time. We'd stop almost every night in a different place in a different town, leaving pieces of ourselves behind and bringing a little bit with us like the sloppy viral parasites I felt like we truly were in that moment in a sandwich shop somewhere near the Oregon/Washington border.
Waters had a piece of beef hanging from his lip. He cleared his throat, his hands grasping the meat sandwich between bulky fingers, mangling the bread as red sauce seeped through his white knuckles and onto the counter top. His elbows were sprayed far apart, parallel with the counter, almost comically so, as if he was trying with all his brute strength to crush the sandwich rather than eat it. I felt dangerously close to either maniacally laughing until I cried or just letting out a feral scream like the dog that I was.
I felt so lousy that I didn't even feel like drinking a beer.
I jumped out of my chair and walked by a couple sitting on a couch picking at a salad with a fork while starring nervously at me, leaving Waters with his pile of sandwich. I wondered vaguely if I looked nearly as bad as I felt, so I strolled aimlessly to the bathroom and stood hypnotized with my back to the toilet starring at a giant Ansel Adams piece on the wall. A black and white snowscape covering a trickling river lay before a vast mountain with clouds slightly obscurring its tip. It seemed outdated and boring to me, a pointless display of a moment which will occur over and over again, mocking the mortality of the men who decided to appreciate it.
Damn, when I got like this it was best for me to be left alone. I kicked at the trashcan, knocking it around the bathroom, then turned on the facet and splashed water everywhere making a hell of a mess. Spitting on the floor, I turned out the light as I left.
I sat heavily back down at the counter where Waters was finishing up. He nodded at me and mumbled some type of acknowledgement, as though the god damn sandwich had satisfied him in some sick and twisted way which I would never understand and no woman would ever match. I vaguely recalled my 300 pound friend telling me once that he'd take a good sandwich over a woman any day.
I tightened my scarf and stood ready to leave. I wasn't hungry, and we still had several hours left to drive before we finally concluded our little mission here. It was exactly two weeks ago to the day, perhaps the hour despite any complications the shifting time zones would present, since our departure from the Pioneer Valley near Hadley, Massachusetts until our arrival to this little town somewhere along the Hood River.
Waters started smoking a cigarette as we walked out onto the street built into the hillside overlooking the river. Small boats and people surfing dotted the thick, green water as cars lazily drove through the one way streets, surrounded by ancient forests which no doubt smirked an old man grin of amusement at the little monkeys below getting their computers repaired and their sandwiches eaten and their cars filled with gasoline.
We passed some people on the street as we smoked, making our way back to the car. If I had been in another mood, anything other than the total darkness I felt right then and there, I would've enjoyed a walk down to the river to dig the sounds of the water lapping against the rocks and the cries of the windsurfers as they collapsed back to earth in a splash of frigid green liquid. I wanted to lay down in the crisp and clean looking streets and block all traffic and inconvenience everyone just so I felt justified existing, just so I felt needed.
The road had taken my mind somewhere in Utah, then the final straw was in Idaho when we had staggered into a budget motel at two in the morning from the freezing mountain air. It was early October already, and the summer freedom was slipping away from my understanding as winter was quickly approaching especially in the dense and desolate ugly air of Idaho where nothing lined the roads except the smell of rotting fish for some reason.
"Hey." I said to the man at the gas station somewhere outside of Oxbow.
"Hi there."
"Why does it smell like shit outside?"
"That's the fish hatchery a few miles up."
"Trout?" I asked.
"Steelhead. Rainbow."
"How do you tolerate that?"
Starring straight back into my eyes, "Can't change it. You learn to live with it. You learn to love it."
So said the little bald man who gave free showers to truckers only, otherwise it was two dollars for fifteen minutes of hot water and soap included, plus a towel. He had learned to live it and to love it at his dusty fuel pumps where the wind blew like it probably would on the moon if there was wind, as he starred strangely out at us as we piled back into my blue car with the Massachusetts license plate and we roared another two hours. Under a clear Idaho sky with illuminated planes flying low overhead, heavy with people and aluminum, we finally found a cheap looking hotel that we could stay at. Idaho was one of the few states that we stopped in that we didn't know any locals so a hotel would have to do.
I knew Waters didn't have much money so I walked in to the front desk, my breath visible in the cool mountain air, into the warmth and bright lights of the lobby like a man on the run. No one was at the front desk so I banged the little bell that I didn't know they still had in hotels, and a woman's voice called out from behind some door and she emerged, a beautiful young looking lady motherly carrying a load of white sheets which she had apparently been folding.
She starred sleepily at me and donated me a smile as I met her eyes, momentarily without a thought in my mind as I got lost in her, I didn't know that Idaho had such a goddess within it, I never would have guessed from the dusty moonscapes and the frost glazing my car windshield which had Waters sitting inside of it smoking cigarettes and eating candy bars. I realized that I was very far from home, that in fact I didn't have a home anywhere, I had forfeited it nearly two weeks ago in the dim light of hoping idealistically that perhaps I should chase down some type of fleeting notion of freedom and deliverance thousands of miles away from the town of my birth.
But all of these truths and realizations were nothing elese but mere moss at the base of a pinnacle of beauty which lay before me in the incarnation of a gentle light haired angel vibrating at a level well beyond my understanding, so with my mind, I lost my thoughts.
Once again, I said "Hello, my friend."
And she said in slight puzzlement, "Hello," again.
I had turned my back to my life back east and in a moment such as this I could not remember any of the good things it once was, and now I was face to face with someone who could show me peace and the stars, or at least how to properly fold bed linen, but instead I settled on a handshake.
"Staying awake?" She asked me.
"I'm always awake," I started, thinking again of the peace and the stars which I saw presented so clearly in her light eyes and light hair.
"But now, I'd like a place to sleep, and rest my head."
"You've been driving a lot?"
"All day and night."
She donated me another smile, my palm still warm from her only touch.
"Sounds about right."
"You've been working hard." I said, and it wasn't a question. Her hand was soft, but it was a worker's hand.
"All day and night."
"When do you get off?"
"Morning. Five hours." And she donated to me my final, weary smile of the evening and I wanted nothing more than to lay down with this lovely working woman outside, in the freezing mountain air and stare at the stars which were so bright and clear in the lonely empty sky, and get the back of my clothes all wet from the damp ground and frost as we embraced peace up in Idaho, the top of our country.
But she already had guessed that, because what she said next was, "I have to meet my boyfriend at eight."
And I'm sure my face must've sank and became sickly and hollow, because coast to coast some things just don't change, so I gulp my breath and say, "Ah, why don't you lose him for a bit? I've got a bunch of scotch in my car."
But she just sadly shakes her head and doesn't offer me any more smiles but merely takes my fifty dollars and gives me a key. When I go back to the car to get Waters and our stuff, she is gone, back behind some doors folding linen. Waters takes the elevator and I take the stairs and we race each other to the third floor. By the time I reach the landing I am out of breath and my satchel is heavy as I kick open the door to the hallway and Waters is already off of the elevator and waiting for the key and I in front of the room. I unlock the door and kick off my shoes and we relax, sipping sexually frustrated scotch and ice while smoking high powered marijuana in the little room, twenty four hour news coverage pouring out of the television box as we recharge our bodies and all our electical equipment.
The next morning we leave at nine and the woman is long gone, some fat old man is behind the desk and he takes my key and makes me sign something which I just throw away immediately anyway. Waters and I climb back into my blue foreign made automobile and crank up the heat to get rid of the ice on the glass until it gets really hot inside, then we carry on again, heading west like always until we hit some small town on the Hood River near the Oregon/Washington border and I feel lousy and hateful and angry, and I know it has something to do with the little lady from Idaho who sadly took my fifty dollars like she does from people everynight, knowing that she'll most likely never encounter them again as they scatter to far off place that she's never seen, some to places she can't pronounce, awaiting for what never will be...
And I'm paranoid and weird because suddenly there seems to be cops all over the roadways and I have to slow down and go the speed limit. It's as though everyone in the damn state of Idaho is on the road at the same time, all heading west on I-84 for some reason, and the cops are hiding in their dark corners and little nooks in between overpasses waiting to trap the faster commuters while violent crimes are no doubt being committed somewhere. I tell Waters this, and he agrees, and to take my mind off the lurking pigs we crank up some loud music on the radio and packs some marijuana into our little pipe as we cruise, and soon we're out of the city limits of Boise and into the desolate wasteland which is most of the country again, away from slow stupid middle American drivers and the swine which enforce their laws.
And now with all that behind us and my mind an egg from all the days driving and drinking and sleeping on the ground and the floor and the couch, memorizing people's names because they're letting me sleep in their blankets and trying to bite my tongue so I don't offend them and get kicked out like I used to do back East all the time while pretending to like their pets, their giant dogs and prickish teenage children and roommates who join the navy. Luckily Waters is on public relations, hooking us up with lodging and quarter from Iowa to Wyomming because I move and talk like a magnanimous madman from constantly sipping alcoholic energy drinks, and despite the fact that Waters and I are driving across the country with no concrete reason or justification other than answering the question with the question, "Well, why not drive across the country without having a plan? Want to see some pictures, I have a beautiful shot of Lake M-something from Madison, Wisconsin?"
Highway 84 winds right next to the Hood River near the Northern Oregon border, through the dust colored mountains and trees until finally the water disappears and we're lef talone in winding moutain roads, going up and down comically, making Waters and I believe that there must be some better way, and the emergency ramps for run away trucks make us believe that everyone will someday have their day to die, but not us, because we're driving so fast and crazily that everything is left behind. Some young kid in a green Japanese car with Oregon plates passes us on the right on a two lane highway straight-away, so I clomp my foot down heavy on the pedal until we pass him again. Then, there's construction which closes the second lane every now and then, so we pass each other back and forth making the other wait behind us until the second lane opens up again to pass. The curves and bends in the mountain are harsh and unforgiving, and I have big Waters lean this way and that to try to balance the car and fight the "oh shit here we go" feeling that happens when you take a really sharp corner at a really high speed. The kid in the green car passes us and pulls away at over a hundred miles an hour, breaking the century mark and I finally refuse to match him because the curvy moutain road is begining to scare me a bit. Then as we turn a corner we see his car on the shoulder stopped for some reason, and he's sitting on the trunk smoking a cigarette; we're driving far too fast for me to read his facial expression but I do beep the horn at him and Waters waves.
We reach Portland and get stuck in traffic, it's early afternoon now and the rain starts to fall. Bumper to bumper, we're trapped, and it makes me feel like I'm back east, late for three separate consecutive job interview in Boston because I've been up all night with two crazy beautiful and beautifully crazy girls snorting pills and drinking tequila, and for some reason I decide to take them with me to the city for my job interviews but the traffic is just too thick and we get too lost so we instead just turn around and head back to smoke opium and snort more pills and I land a job so depressing and unfulfiling but so well paying that I quit a year later to drive across country with Waters for no reason in particular other than to escape and check out whats going on in the other direction, because I have a large hunch that the people are up to something fine and good and I don't want to miss it at all.
Waters stirs awake, he's been sleeping ever since we left the sandwich shop town on the Hood, which is fine, I prefer to drive anyway, and he sparks up a cigarette and stars out the window, craning his head and turning it in different directions trying to eyeball up any and all pretty ladies in the other cars which I'm sure creeps them out almost as much as it annoys me. I light a cigar for myself, because I know that I'm about a week away from smoking cigarettes again after quitting for a year, so I'm gradually easing myself back into a good tobacoo regiment.
Finally, the traffic clears and we exit onto another highway which will take us straight into Eugene, our final destination where we'll meet up with Julio, our good friend from our university days back east who dropped out of the university to do some living out on the west coast, much like ourselves but only with slightly less dedication. Flat farmland lines the roads, and the rain lets up a bit and finally clears onto our right side, over the farmland and distant mountains beside the road way. A rainbow appears, and Waters asks me,
"What color is it?" Because he's color blind and tends to mention it frequently.
"ROY G. BIV." I tell him, and then proceed to explain to him what that means.
I stop somewhere to buy a taco because I'm starting to get really hungry, and Waters fills up with gas and cleans the windshield for me to prepare for our final descent. We can start to smell the finish line now, it's been a long time, we've both had a while to think a lot of things over, but now everything in the past is in the past, as we are approaching the endzone. I steal a drink from the taco store and I eat my lunch as I drive twenty miles over the speed limit, the radio blasting loud music from local stations as we attempt to learn the culture.
Waters is finishing his last cigarette and talking excitedly about something as we pour off the highway system into the city of Eugene, Oregon, which we note looks somewhat similar to Madison, Wisconsin in all the right ways and Debuque, Iowa in all the wrong ways. We miss our turn for Julio's street, so we turn around on the main strip and go back, down his road with our car windows down, also noting the strange pine tree aroma of the state which is thick and moist and gross. I call Julio on my phone letting him know that we've arrived, finally, 10 days behind schedule but that's fine because there was no real hurry. Julio is at work but he tells me that there's a key underneath the mat and to just let ourselves in even though his roommate/cousin is home.
"Won't we scare him?" I ask.
"Yeah, but who cares?" Julio responds.
Regards, Esortnom
"All you do is shit on me, man."
"Yeah, well then use some toilet paper, if not a napkin." I sighed.
We had been on the road for about two weeks when I began to realize how sick of everything I had become. My foreign made car held us cramped inside smoking cigarettes and drinking alcoholic energy drinks for ten, twelve, fifteen hours at a time. We'd stop almost every night in a different place in a different town, leaving pieces of ourselves behind and bringing a little bit with us like the sloppy viral parasites I felt like we truly were in that moment in a sandwich shop somewhere near the Oregon/Washington border.
Waters had a piece of beef hanging from his lip. He cleared his throat, his hands grasping the meat sandwich between bulky fingers, mangling the bread as red sauce seeped through his white knuckles and onto the counter top. His elbows were sprayed far apart, parallel with the counter, almost comically so, as if he was trying with all his brute strength to crush the sandwich rather than eat it. I felt dangerously close to either maniacally laughing until I cried or just letting out a feral scream like the dog that I was.
I felt so lousy that I didn't even feel like drinking a beer.
I jumped out of my chair and walked by a couple sitting on a couch picking at a salad with a fork while starring nervously at me, leaving Waters with his pile of sandwich. I wondered vaguely if I looked nearly as bad as I felt, so I strolled aimlessly to the bathroom and stood hypnotized with my back to the toilet starring at a giant Ansel Adams piece on the wall. A black and white snowscape covering a trickling river lay before a vast mountain with clouds slightly obscurring its tip. It seemed outdated and boring to me, a pointless display of a moment which will occur over and over again, mocking the mortality of the men who decided to appreciate it.
Damn, when I got like this it was best for me to be left alone. I kicked at the trashcan, knocking it around the bathroom, then turned on the facet and splashed water everywhere making a hell of a mess. Spitting on the floor, I turned out the light as I left.
I sat heavily back down at the counter where Waters was finishing up. He nodded at me and mumbled some type of acknowledgement, as though the god damn sandwich had satisfied him in some sick and twisted way which I would never understand and no woman would ever match. I vaguely recalled my 300 pound friend telling me once that he'd take a good sandwich over a woman any day.
I tightened my scarf and stood ready to leave. I wasn't hungry, and we still had several hours left to drive before we finally concluded our little mission here. It was exactly two weeks ago to the day, perhaps the hour despite any complications the shifting time zones would present, since our departure from the Pioneer Valley near Hadley, Massachusetts until our arrival to this little town somewhere along the Hood River.
Waters started smoking a cigarette as we walked out onto the street built into the hillside overlooking the river. Small boats and people surfing dotted the thick, green water as cars lazily drove through the one way streets, surrounded by ancient forests which no doubt smirked an old man grin of amusement at the little monkeys below getting their computers repaired and their sandwiches eaten and their cars filled with gasoline.
We passed some people on the street as we smoked, making our way back to the car. If I had been in another mood, anything other than the total darkness I felt right then and there, I would've enjoyed a walk down to the river to dig the sounds of the water lapping against the rocks and the cries of the windsurfers as they collapsed back to earth in a splash of frigid green liquid. I wanted to lay down in the crisp and clean looking streets and block all traffic and inconvenience everyone just so I felt justified existing, just so I felt needed.
The road had taken my mind somewhere in Utah, then the final straw was in Idaho when we had staggered into a budget motel at two in the morning from the freezing mountain air. It was early October already, and the summer freedom was slipping away from my understanding as winter was quickly approaching especially in the dense and desolate ugly air of Idaho where nothing lined the roads except the smell of rotting fish for some reason.
"Hey." I said to the man at the gas station somewhere outside of Oxbow.
"Hi there."
"Why does it smell like shit outside?"
"That's the fish hatchery a few miles up."
"Trout?" I asked.
"Steelhead. Rainbow."
"How do you tolerate that?"
Starring straight back into my eyes, "Can't change it. You learn to live with it. You learn to love it."
So said the little bald man who gave free showers to truckers only, otherwise it was two dollars for fifteen minutes of hot water and soap included, plus a towel. He had learned to live it and to love it at his dusty fuel pumps where the wind blew like it probably would on the moon if there was wind, as he starred strangely out at us as we piled back into my blue car with the Massachusetts license plate and we roared another two hours. Under a clear Idaho sky with illuminated planes flying low overhead, heavy with people and aluminum, we finally found a cheap looking hotel that we could stay at. Idaho was one of the few states that we stopped in that we didn't know any locals so a hotel would have to do.
I knew Waters didn't have much money so I walked in to the front desk, my breath visible in the cool mountain air, into the warmth and bright lights of the lobby like a man on the run. No one was at the front desk so I banged the little bell that I didn't know they still had in hotels, and a woman's voice called out from behind some door and she emerged, a beautiful young looking lady motherly carrying a load of white sheets which she had apparently been folding.
She starred sleepily at me and donated me a smile as I met her eyes, momentarily without a thought in my mind as I got lost in her, I didn't know that Idaho had such a goddess within it, I never would have guessed from the dusty moonscapes and the frost glazing my car windshield which had Waters sitting inside of it smoking cigarettes and eating candy bars. I realized that I was very far from home, that in fact I didn't have a home anywhere, I had forfeited it nearly two weeks ago in the dim light of hoping idealistically that perhaps I should chase down some type of fleeting notion of freedom and deliverance thousands of miles away from the town of my birth.
But all of these truths and realizations were nothing elese but mere moss at the base of a pinnacle of beauty which lay before me in the incarnation of a gentle light haired angel vibrating at a level well beyond my understanding, so with my mind, I lost my thoughts.
Once again, I said "Hello, my friend."
And she said in slight puzzlement, "Hello," again.
I had turned my back to my life back east and in a moment such as this I could not remember any of the good things it once was, and now I was face to face with someone who could show me peace and the stars, or at least how to properly fold bed linen, but instead I settled on a handshake.
"Staying awake?" She asked me.
"I'm always awake," I started, thinking again of the peace and the stars which I saw presented so clearly in her light eyes and light hair.
"But now, I'd like a place to sleep, and rest my head."
"You've been driving a lot?"
"All day and night."
She donated me another smile, my palm still warm from her only touch.
"Sounds about right."
"You've been working hard." I said, and it wasn't a question. Her hand was soft, but it was a worker's hand.
"All day and night."
"When do you get off?"
"Morning. Five hours." And she donated to me my final, weary smile of the evening and I wanted nothing more than to lay down with this lovely working woman outside, in the freezing mountain air and stare at the stars which were so bright and clear in the lonely empty sky, and get the back of my clothes all wet from the damp ground and frost as we embraced peace up in Idaho, the top of our country.
But she already had guessed that, because what she said next was, "I have to meet my boyfriend at eight."
And I'm sure my face must've sank and became sickly and hollow, because coast to coast some things just don't change, so I gulp my breath and say, "Ah, why don't you lose him for a bit? I've got a bunch of scotch in my car."
But she just sadly shakes her head and doesn't offer me any more smiles but merely takes my fifty dollars and gives me a key. When I go back to the car to get Waters and our stuff, she is gone, back behind some doors folding linen. Waters takes the elevator and I take the stairs and we race each other to the third floor. By the time I reach the landing I am out of breath and my satchel is heavy as I kick open the door to the hallway and Waters is already off of the elevator and waiting for the key and I in front of the room. I unlock the door and kick off my shoes and we relax, sipping sexually frustrated scotch and ice while smoking high powered marijuana in the little room, twenty four hour news coverage pouring out of the television box as we recharge our bodies and all our electical equipment.
The next morning we leave at nine and the woman is long gone, some fat old man is behind the desk and he takes my key and makes me sign something which I just throw away immediately anyway. Waters and I climb back into my blue foreign made automobile and crank up the heat to get rid of the ice on the glass until it gets really hot inside, then we carry on again, heading west like always until we hit some small town on the Hood River near the Oregon/Washington border and I feel lousy and hateful and angry, and I know it has something to do with the little lady from Idaho who sadly took my fifty dollars like she does from people everynight, knowing that she'll most likely never encounter them again as they scatter to far off place that she's never seen, some to places she can't pronounce, awaiting for what never will be...
And I'm paranoid and weird because suddenly there seems to be cops all over the roadways and I have to slow down and go the speed limit. It's as though everyone in the damn state of Idaho is on the road at the same time, all heading west on I-84 for some reason, and the cops are hiding in their dark corners and little nooks in between overpasses waiting to trap the faster commuters while violent crimes are no doubt being committed somewhere. I tell Waters this, and he agrees, and to take my mind off the lurking pigs we crank up some loud music on the radio and packs some marijuana into our little pipe as we cruise, and soon we're out of the city limits of Boise and into the desolate wasteland which is most of the country again, away from slow stupid middle American drivers and the swine which enforce their laws.
And now with all that behind us and my mind an egg from all the days driving and drinking and sleeping on the ground and the floor and the couch, memorizing people's names because they're letting me sleep in their blankets and trying to bite my tongue so I don't offend them and get kicked out like I used to do back East all the time while pretending to like their pets, their giant dogs and prickish teenage children and roommates who join the navy. Luckily Waters is on public relations, hooking us up with lodging and quarter from Iowa to Wyomming because I move and talk like a magnanimous madman from constantly sipping alcoholic energy drinks, and despite the fact that Waters and I are driving across the country with no concrete reason or justification other than answering the question with the question, "Well, why not drive across the country without having a plan? Want to see some pictures, I have a beautiful shot of Lake M-something from Madison, Wisconsin?"
Highway 84 winds right next to the Hood River near the Northern Oregon border, through the dust colored mountains and trees until finally the water disappears and we're lef talone in winding moutain roads, going up and down comically, making Waters and I believe that there must be some better way, and the emergency ramps for run away trucks make us believe that everyone will someday have their day to die, but not us, because we're driving so fast and crazily that everything is left behind. Some young kid in a green Japanese car with Oregon plates passes us on the right on a two lane highway straight-away, so I clomp my foot down heavy on the pedal until we pass him again. Then, there's construction which closes the second lane every now and then, so we pass each other back and forth making the other wait behind us until the second lane opens up again to pass. The curves and bends in the mountain are harsh and unforgiving, and I have big Waters lean this way and that to try to balance the car and fight the "oh shit here we go" feeling that happens when you take a really sharp corner at a really high speed. The kid in the green car passes us and pulls away at over a hundred miles an hour, breaking the century mark and I finally refuse to match him because the curvy moutain road is begining to scare me a bit. Then as we turn a corner we see his car on the shoulder stopped for some reason, and he's sitting on the trunk smoking a cigarette; we're driving far too fast for me to read his facial expression but I do beep the horn at him and Waters waves.
We reach Portland and get stuck in traffic, it's early afternoon now and the rain starts to fall. Bumper to bumper, we're trapped, and it makes me feel like I'm back east, late for three separate consecutive job interview in Boston because I've been up all night with two crazy beautiful and beautifully crazy girls snorting pills and drinking tequila, and for some reason I decide to take them with me to the city for my job interviews but the traffic is just too thick and we get too lost so we instead just turn around and head back to smoke opium and snort more pills and I land a job so depressing and unfulfiling but so well paying that I quit a year later to drive across country with Waters for no reason in particular other than to escape and check out whats going on in the other direction, because I have a large hunch that the people are up to something fine and good and I don't want to miss it at all.
Waters stirs awake, he's been sleeping ever since we left the sandwich shop town on the Hood, which is fine, I prefer to drive anyway, and he sparks up a cigarette and stars out the window, craning his head and turning it in different directions trying to eyeball up any and all pretty ladies in the other cars which I'm sure creeps them out almost as much as it annoys me. I light a cigar for myself, because I know that I'm about a week away from smoking cigarettes again after quitting for a year, so I'm gradually easing myself back into a good tobacoo regiment.
Finally, the traffic clears and we exit onto another highway which will take us straight into Eugene, our final destination where we'll meet up with Julio, our good friend from our university days back east who dropped out of the university to do some living out on the west coast, much like ourselves but only with slightly less dedication. Flat farmland lines the roads, and the rain lets up a bit and finally clears onto our right side, over the farmland and distant mountains beside the road way. A rainbow appears, and Waters asks me,
"What color is it?" Because he's color blind and tends to mention it frequently.
"ROY G. BIV." I tell him, and then proceed to explain to him what that means.
I stop somewhere to buy a taco because I'm starting to get really hungry, and Waters fills up with gas and cleans the windshield for me to prepare for our final descent. We can start to smell the finish line now, it's been a long time, we've both had a while to think a lot of things over, but now everything in the past is in the past, as we are approaching the endzone. I steal a drink from the taco store and I eat my lunch as I drive twenty miles over the speed limit, the radio blasting loud music from local stations as we attempt to learn the culture.
Waters is finishing his last cigarette and talking excitedly about something as we pour off the highway system into the city of Eugene, Oregon, which we note looks somewhat similar to Madison, Wisconsin in all the right ways and Debuque, Iowa in all the wrong ways. We miss our turn for Julio's street, so we turn around on the main strip and go back, down his road with our car windows down, also noting the strange pine tree aroma of the state which is thick and moist and gross. I call Julio on my phone letting him know that we've arrived, finally, 10 days behind schedule but that's fine because there was no real hurry. Julio is at work but he tells me that there's a key underneath the mat and to just let ourselves in even though his roommate/cousin is home.
"Won't we scare him?" I ask.
"Yeah, but who cares?" Julio responds.
Regards, Esortnom
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