In the Land of Good Living

by Kent Russell

  We stopped for Midori in “Morocco,” got sake in “Japan.” Roddy wanted to look at the weird anime crap in the Mitsukoshi department store; Noah offered to buy him a few packs of trading cards. Swimming through this bright abyss, the peace of my mind knew neither bottom nor surface.

  Roddy, too, seemed at ease. With the camera’s help, we got him to tell us how he was holding up. “Spiritually, man, I’m in a state of grace,” he said, fanning his cards and thumbing through them. “I don’t always feel it, but I’m feeling it now. I should have died so many times when I was using, guys. But He strengthens me so I can face my illness each day—and still being able to stay clean, you know? That’s an incredible miracle!” Roddy withdrew one card in particular, a riot of green tentacles.

  The exasperation of consciousness waned following slugs of limoncello in “Italy.” I defeated Glenn in a bout of arm wrestling; this, he took poorly. With pokes and thwaps, he attempted to incite a slap fight every few dozen feet. As we were in Jesus’ presence, I turned one cheek and then the other.

  “What’s you guys’ deal?” Roddy asked. “Are you Christians? Have you made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?”

  “I’m pretty sure somebody baptized me into something,” Noah said.

  “Papist,” I said, raising an index finger.

  “That’s not Christian Christian, though,” Roddy objected. “Did you know that the seven hills in Revelation, the end of days—there are seven hills in Rome?”

  “Ah ha…” I said.

  It wasn’t until we pushed into “The American Adventure” after sundown that people started coming to Roddy for pictures. I suppose they took him for a part of the installation? I’m not sure. I’d just then guzzled a Jim Beam frozen lemonade; my field of vision was beginning to tip and sway like the horizon seen from the bow of a boat. There were taking place one or two more things than I could successfully process.

  I do recall a fellow Around the World–er assuming Roddy was a kind of performance-art commentary. “Hypocrisy, yeah!” this drunk guy was saying, backslapping. Others, too, started to gather. Some lumbered like somnambulists; others wore the squint-eyed smiles of the soon-to-be horizontal. It was a bad scene there, man. I looked to my left and saw schnockered adults making out. Looked to my right: fully grown individuals leaving behind mis-deposits of barf. Or worse—they were dancing.

  Roddy removed his cap, ran a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and attempted to open up a line of communication with something else inside of him. I nudged Glenn, who slapped me back. “No, the camera,” I whispered.

  —

  EXT. THE AMERICAN ADVENTURE—NIGHT

  RODDY is pacing the pavilion like a shooting gallery bear, holding a revival for his audience of shitfaces. His demeanor: rampant and aglow. Words flood from him as though he has finally been allowed to write with his dominant hand.

  RODDY

  I died once. I died after I was shot. I went to the other side, where I was given a message with an androgynous voice. A bullet is still lodged under my tongue. I was released from the hospital a month later and went to stay with my mother in Atlanta, Georgia. Miracles happen every day. The point is that you have to look up and see them coming and catch them. Don’t let them fall at your feet. You’re living in the now, and now is where the future begins. On earth as a human being in your earth suit, there’s a lot of fear.

  Roddy downshifts his tone. He counterbalances this by throwing his shoulders and making rappy hand gestures. The crowd laughs, shouts affirmations, ebbs and flows.

  RODDY (CONT’D)

  People don’t want to hear the word “God.” They don’t want to hear the word “Jesus.” People who are in fear create their own fear, that’s why I can say that I love my enemies, because my enemies show me things in myself that I need to change. Everyone’s here for a purpose—the purpose is finding your own identity, your own purity, finding unconditional love, learning to forgive, accepting that you are a child of God. When you are in this place of learning and practice it every day, wonderful, amazing, beautiful things will happen to you.

  A blue-shirted Disney security officer joins the crowd and mouths something into a walkie-talkie. Roddy doesn’t notice. He holds his hands behind his back, pacing, while looks of frustration and then relief move like shadows across his face.

  RODDY (CONT’D)

  This came through me from Him: Your love inspires me to give you a fondue of my heart. A thankful position is the way to be in your own personal freedom, with your own personal power, that is thankful for everything you have been through, for everything you have done, everything you’ve failed at and everything you’ve accomplished. It’s all okay. Everything’s good. Your truth, which is undeniable, never fails. Power and freedom comes from your spirit. Spirit creates power, freedom, and truth, and power, freedom, and truth create love. And love is God.

  A few more guards arrive. They see the three men filming Roddy and approach.

  POTATO-FACED GUARD

  This a friend of yours?

  NOAH (O.S.)

  We’re just filming.

  KENT (O.S.)

  We’re just making home movies.

  RODDY

  That’s faith: Fantastic Adventures in Trusting Him. But some of you don’t want to trust Him. You don’t want to give up your vices. Your vices are the deepest thing you have. If I attack your vice, I attack your very being. And you can never forgive me for this. The devils who control you can’t forgive me for wanting to destroy them in my way and not theirs.

  The guards leave the men in order to position themselves around Roddy. Slowly, they move in.

  GLENN (O.S.)

  So should we…

  NOAH (O.S.)

  Free country, bro. He’s free to do what he wants.

  GLENN (O.S.)

  We’re not in America. We’re in Disney.

  KENT (O.S.)

  We still got a few more countries to visit.

  GLENN (O.S.)

  (sighing)

  Fine. If only to have a sense of accomplishment about something on this trip.

  RODDY

  That’s truth: Taking Real Understanding to Heart. And that’s trust: Talking Realistically, Understanding Sacred Truth.

  FADE OUT

  —

  * Adapted from the writings of David Bentley Hart.

  MILE 661 — LAKELAND

  THEY CALL THEM “PRIVILEGED”

  FOR WHOM THE SYMBOLIC WORLD IS

  CONGRUENT WITH THEIR FANTASIES

  Hungover and squinting in the gold-meshed sunlight, we pack our gear. We hit the road that once contained innumerable branching possibilities but has since been compartmentalized, made insular. Laden with our ill-shaped sacks of stuff, we accept again the yoke of Logistics.

  We walked southwest and then west. We tracked the movements of clouds overhead with the enthusiasm of deadbeats at the racetrack. We cheered our picks whenever they were poised to overtake the sun.

  Either there’s less stuff to notice now, or the road is pinching every last ounce of perceptivity out of me like toothpaste at the bottom of the tube.

  “Keep an eye out for the big domestics,” Noah advised. “Them’s the elderly who are going to punch our cards.”

  Glenn remains unwilling to guerrilla-camp on any owned plots of land. To him, stealing a few hours of sleep on private property is as potentially deadly as poaching game on a lord’s estate. I’m sure he’s right. I’m sure we’d be blown away for our trespass. Still, having to find vacant lots or for-sale houses on the Zillow app most every night is a true pain in the ass.

  Between Orlando and Tampa, suburbia gave way again to oaky scrubland, some of it developed but most of it in the process of being prepped for development. Wherever we could, we lef
t the roadside to walk on wooden boardwalks laid down for earthmoving machinery. Soon, the sprawl stretching from the Gulf Coast and the sprawl stretching from the interior will meet here at the midpoint.

  For a few days, I was able to forget my body while pushing my jogging stroller. My conscious mind bobbed above it all like a balloon stringed to a kid at the zoo. My body, however, refused to forget me. There was, for example, the plantar fasciitis I dealt with every morning. Though of course I didn’t know that that’s what it was. I self-diagnosed only after Googling: terrible A.M. pain + feet feel like lumps of ground beef with bone chips in them??

  My original blisters have continued to heal, thanks to the frictionless shower sandals. Of new concern is the plantar wart on my right heel. I know it’s a plantar wart because plantar warts used to pop up on the weight-bearing parts of my feet all the time when I was a kid. Somewhere along the roadside—or at Epcot, or a hotel bathroom, or a gas station bathroom, or?—human papillomavirus entered my right foot through one of my wounds, resulting in a crusty button of concentrated pain pressing into my sole. With each stride, it zaps me like I’m on the other side of a Milgram experiment. Glenn and Noah are treating this development as though it’s a blight on my actual soul, something plague-like I contracted because of moral turpitude. They’re terrified of communicability and upset that I’ve summoned this affliction into our camp.

  But aside from all that, this stretch has been a peach. The sky: as blue and unpolluted as a baby’s gaze. Herons frequently materialized out of it, drifting to earth as if weighted with the absent clouds’ white. Dirtbag-looking scrub jays kicked up shindies in the live oaks. Meathead squirrels with well-defined trapezius muscles watched us from a distance while doing little squirrel push-ups, dallying like city joggers waiting for a stoplight to change.

  Mostly what I did was drift into and out of the present and material I while making one with the road. Until Glenn stopped short in front of me, and I plowed the front wheel of Jog-a-bye directly into his Achilles tendon. He inhaled sharply but didn’t otherwise react. He kept his head canted toward the phone in his hand. “Hey,” he said. “Americans. You do realize the election is the day after tomorrow, yes?”

  A better person, a person less certain of the position life has afforded him, would’ve used this long walk to foster…something. An awakening. A better understanding of this American Experiment. He’d’ve sought out the Native Americans from whom we obtained this very land. He’d’ve recorded the stories of the African Americans who continue to bear the brunt of state discrimination. He’d’ve advocated for the immigrants who are terrified of deportation. He’d’ve commiserated with the Experiment’s human remainder, who find themselves ready to revolt against the fatuous leadership caste. He’d’ve reached out to that caste, who often mouth the right words about the common good but exist in a world insulated from (and frequently contemptuous of) the realities and beliefs of the remainder.

  He’d’ve been fearless in the face of radical human brokenness. He’d’ve walked toward his fellow Americans, asked them without judgment about their lives, and with their cooperation and consent, he’d’ve made art. He’d’ve spoken truth to all with dignity. He’d’ve worked to show the world that the America they see on the nightly news is not the real America, or need not be.

  A better person-slash-artist would’ve licked a finger, stuck it in the air, and recognized at once the apocalyptic tenor settling upon this land. The rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem! He’d’ve fought that beast.

  I, of course, am not that person. I ordered the three of us to a rental car agency.

  * * *

  —

  Despite the temperature hovering in the mid-sixties on Election Day, we three began to perspire in the space of the twelve steps that separated our motel room and our rented Nissan Sentra. For once, the humidity was negligible; even so, the observable world felt as though it was on the verge of splitting open like an overripe peach.

  The radio news informed us that every scenario in which Donald Trump captures 270 electoral votes and thus the presidency includes a win in Florida. He had to carry the Sunshine State, simple as that. According to the polls, he was close to doing so. He trailed Hillary Clinton by a single point.

  Glenn was behind the wheel for our two-hour jaunt back to Gainesville, where Noah and I were still registered to vote. (Swing state, baby.) As soon as we hit the highway, distance reverted to time. It was remarkable. We were instantly upsized, like Super Mario eating a mushroom. Proportion returned to our world.

  “It’s almost giving me vertigo,” Glenn said as we blew past covered territory at relative warp speed.

  Noah grunted his assent while keeping his eyes on his phone. “You guys don’t do Facebook, right?” Glenn and I said no. “Yeah, because it’s not looking good. Everybody’s swiftboating everybody. I got an uncle here linking to a post from something called USADailyPolitics dot com. I got a cousin screaming at him in the comments. And he’s screaming back about how it’s no less reputable than the Tallahassee Democrat.”

  “The posttruth state,” Glenn said. “It is upon you.”

  “There was a time when I might have celebrated the arrival of ‘posttruth,’ ” I replied. “Now, not so much. Now, all facts have their alternatives, and feelings carry more weight than either. But, I mean—you dance with the devil, and…”

  “ ‘It’s right there in the name!’ ” Noah said, exaggeratedly impersonating his uncle. “ ‘The Tallahassee Democrat!’ ”

  We rolled down our windows. The deafening rush of air helped to dry my sweat, temper my queasiness. Then I recalled the Trump premonition I’d had on the shrimp boat. A hot coil of unease rose in my throat.

  And—look. I’ve talked to enough Trump supporters throughout this state. I understand that class division now manifests as geography. Rural, exurban, and suburban vs. urban, with all that that entails. I understand that Trump-forward partisans believe a nation should give preference to the interests of its current citizens over and against the interests of noncitizens, much as a corporation prioritizes the interests of its shareholders. Men like Noah and my father did not volunteer to fight on behalf of borderless nonjudgmentalism; they fought for the United States of America. I understand that.

  Furthermore, I recognize that Donald Trump, like any demagogue worth his salt, reels off a moral inventory that is not entirely fraudulent. A lot of Americans have seen their economic prospects decimated, their communities hollowed out. Their religion deemed cruel and atavistic. Their yearning for a common culture (in which they recognize themselves as well as their ancestors and descendants) condemned as racist, sexist, a stumbling block to progress. Their desire for newcomers to assimilate to customs and procedures that may be alien to the newcomers’ old ways of life—this does not seem like too great a burden to them, much less an injustice. If newcomers come to a place, it’s because they hope to gain by doing so. Is it therefore unreasonable for the hosts to ask something in return?

  I understand this. As well I understand that you cannot reason a man out of a position he was not reasoned into in the first place. Clearly, this Cold Civil War is going to seethe onward regardless of electoral outcome. The fake-news dismediation will continue apace. Cross-camp communication will become that much more difficult. The gyre’ll widen. Things will continue to fall apart.

  However, I cannot abide a leader who construes evil as a malignant, external thing, alien to himself and his people. I was going back to cast my vote against that.

  * * *

  —

  The unimaginable is unimaginable until it happens. Then—like the fall of Rome, or the return of the undivided waters—the unimaginable reads as inevitable. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

  Noah’s and my polling place was at the southwestern corner of the University of Florida campus. The students there st
eered very clear of our ghastly threesome, affording us the crescent berth you normally see New Yorkers grant to street people. Once in line, we had ample opportunities to consider ourselves in UF’s shiny new surfaces. In spite of all the Circle K hot dogs, I have lost much weight—weight in my face, weight in my torso. All three of us, in fact, have shed many pounds of friendly fat. Our new, pointed selves appear to have been whittled out of something formerly benign, like prison shanks.

  “I don’t get it,” Glenn said, turning to me. “If you’re so adamant about how much you love this place, why did you leave to begin with?”

  “The University of Florida is primarily a sciences school,” I answered. “An engineering school. Most of its graduates go home and ply their trades there. Where was I supposed to go for writing except New York?”

  “Fair,” Glenn said.

  But he had got me thinking. Back when I left, I’d thought I was leaving Florida for greener pastures. You know—the old saw about how the confined must run away in search of freedom, fulfillment. What I was actually doing, I realize now, was sending myself into exile. On a subconscious level I’d understood this, and wanted it. My vain hope was something akin to James Joyce’s: that I could write in Zurich, Paris, or New York while nonetheless becoming more Floridian than ever, a dream cracker on the page. I don’t think I could endorse that vain hope today. Months now of Florida’s tangible air filling my lungs, pervading my blood—with each breath I feel I am becoming more fully myself.

  Glenn filmed Noah and me before and after we cast our ballots. Defense of democracy done with, we interviewed some giddy first-time voters. At dusk, I drove us back to the rental car place in Lakeland.

  “Can you imagine how great it would feel if this place were actually beautiful?” Glenn said while aiming his lens at the sped-by roadside.