Crossing the Susquehanna River near Gettysburg. Skirmishes breaking out all around me; the ghosts of Lee and Lincoln on my flanks. Caesar falling in the Forum … 2052 years ago today.
Route 68. Rolling hills from 1200 to 2800 feet. Up and over, up and over. The VW slows to 50. That’s not fast enough.
The sun sets oversize, full orange behind light haze as I come into Morgantown.
Maxwell’s, 1 Wall Street, Morgantown, West Virginia. Dinner for $13.52. “Sinfully Nutty Tofu” for $8.50 or “Chicken Pie” for $9.50. Who in their right mind could make a decision like that?
The moon rises oversize, more pale-orange than yellow, above the Hotel Morgan as I climb the breathless steps up to the University. The view is stunning. The students are oblivious. I am invisible.
At some point you have to realize you can’t blow on your own embers.
March 16, 2006: Morgantown, West Virginia to Morton’s Gap, Kentucky. 556 Miles. Okay. Everyone who’s been to Morton’s Gap, Kentucky raise their hands.
Just as I thought.
After checking into a motel behind a truck stop, I go for an out-and-back bike ride. I prefer loops. Most bikers do. Especially guys. It’s a corollary to the not-looking-at-maps thing. You only do an out-and-back when you’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s late in the day, and you realize that if you get lost you might be literally in the dark; or you find yourself in an area with lots of strange dogs (and perhaps even people) who aren’t used to bikers and might consider you fair game.
Ordering Irish Whiskey in Kentucky is like saying the Sh’ma under your breath while everyone else says the Apostle’s Creed. Which is something else I’ve done. Fortunately, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, so they take pity on me and find some Bushmills. I pass on the corned beef and cabbage.
The mornings are the hardest. I always cry a little—not about anything; just something in the throat that flutters. It’s begun to feel natural, like brushing my teeth. Feel cleaner afterward. Should brush more often.
The evenings are best. Probably the whiskey and/or the exhausted relief at having survived another day … and/or the anticipation of sleep.
William Styron wrote:
The evening’s relief for me—an incomplete but noticeable letup, like the change from a torrential downpour to a steady shower—came in the hours after dinnertime and before midnight, when the pain lifted a little and my mind would become lucid enough to focus on matters beyond the immediate upheaval convulsing my system. Naturally I looked forward to this period, for sometimes I felt close to being reasonably sane …
Earlier today, past Lexington, Kentucky, I repeated, “I feel great” for ten minutes or so and had my first few calm moments of the day. I tried that same mantra an hour or so later. But this time my mind vehemently disagreed. It became like some kind of discordant bluegrass call-and-response.
March 17, 2006: Morton’s Gap, Kentucky to El Reno, Oklahoma. 768 Miles. There’s no legitimate reason to drive 768 miles by yourself in a VW Camper. Especially one with a reputation for blown gaskets, leaking fluids, failing fuel pumps, and countless other things that bump, grind, shriek or—worst of all—make no sound at all before stranding you in the middle of nowhere. A place that, perversely, can be very claustrophobic. Still, I keep going.
Between satellite radio coverage of a murder trial in Vermont of all places (I paid particular attention to how the wife allegedly drugged her husband with Ambien before killing him. Huh, maybe I should give it another try), a very good Michael Chabon resurrection of Sherlock Holmes, and occasional rock and roll—primarily an homage to St. Patrick’s Day from U2, Van Morrison, and Sinead O’Connor—I keep going. Sometimes wondering what I’m doing. Other times wondering why I’m doing it.
I figure I’ll spend the night close to Oklahoma City; see if I can pick up any illuminating vibes from one of America’s many Ground Zeros of fear.
Under the circumstances, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to March Madness. Rooted for West Virginia last night, since I’d stayed at home court the night before. I feel like an honorary Mountaineer.
Turns out there’s also an NCAA wrestling tournament going on … and it’s going on in Oklahoma City. Who knew? On my fourth or fifth call looking for a room, the motel guy says unsympathetically, “Hey buddy, there aren’t any rooms in Oklahoma City tonight.”
“The NCAA?” I ask, now in the know.
“That and the big Farm Show.”
(I didn’t know about the big Farm Show.)
You’d think a guy who spent all that time and money buying a used VW camper would, upon learning this, cop to the fact that he’s gotta stay in the back parking lot of some Walmart, open up the pop-top, and huddle in his sleeping bag as the temperature drops into the thirties, stumbling out at 3 A.M. to pee and see stars. Instead I keep driving. And calling motel after motel. Finally, thirty miles past Oklahoma City, this voice says, “You got a bed.” It feels like I’m starring in a Motel 6 ad. After handing over the credit card, signing the form, and returning her cheery smile with a wan one of my own, I go to the room, turn on the TV and start writing. I keep thinking I have to be in some modicum of balance to write. But actually I don’t. I can keep writing just like I keep driving.
March 18, 2006: El Reno, Oklahoma to Roswell, New Mexico. 468 Miles. Fifty three years, nine months, and three days after appearing on planet earth, I finally get to meet my people … in a place where humans make parodies of themselves in the process of trying to make parodies of “aliens.”
I have many deep insights while walking around Roswell:
Humans make a lot of money off said aliens without paying any royalties—something which could have some pretty interesting unintended consequences.
It’s perfectly clear who the real aliens are.
If they are here to possess our brains, they’re in for quite an unpleasant surprise when they get a hold of mine.
On my way here, I drive past White Sands National Monument where they tested the first atomic bomb. And we’re afraid of them?
While driving I continue to listen to Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution in which he points out how the blitzkrieg would expose both the rats and the small treasures that were hidden in the bombed buildings. That’s what cataclysm does. Hope he’s right. About the treasures, that is.
March 19, 2006: Roswell, New Mexico to Lordsburg, New Mexico. 317 Miles. On the way out of Roswell, a friend calls and tells me that Teddy Roosevelt line about the Black Care. I laugh and tell him that the Black Care seems to be having a pretty easy time outrunning a VW Camper.
I’ve tried to avoid any blatantly New Age perspectives, but sometimes it seems that everything is a manifestation of my inner state. Just after I hang up, I see an arch of dark clouds with the sun shining through in the center. Like I’m about to enter heaven. I’m not about to enter Heaven. I’m about to enter Las Cruces, New Mexico. But I do manage to find a decent lunch and latte there, although only after many quizzical looks and finger pointing from people who’d never met a dysphoric manic from Vermont. By later in the day, the cognitive dissonance returns with a vengeance and, for reasons I still don’t understand, I check into a motel in Lordsburg, New Mexico—a town that’s only one “u,” one “e,” and one half-decent restaurant away from being my salvation.
I’m staying here based on the twisted rationale of the road rather than common sense. I’m not due in Phoenix until tomorrow. And I don’t have another 600+ mile day in me. Even restless agitation has limits.
So here I am, stranded at a Best Western in a dry, cold, windy, lifeless-on-Sunday town in southern New Mexico. After checking in, I go for a jog. I hate jogging, but think it might get the agitation out of my throat. It doesn’t. So I come back to the motel, take a cold shower, and do a few muffled screams—keeping it down so I won’t scare the family in the room next door.
I just had a shot of whiskey, a Valium, turned on the TV, and am now doing my best imitation of a post-modern existentialist. W
ho knew that Teddy Roosevelt was depressed?
March 20, 2006: Lordsburg, New Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona. 305 Miles. There are very few things from those two years that I really regret. Sure, some of the things I did were maniacally stupid. And I did cast a pall over certain events that deserved better.
But I do have some regrets from my visit to my godfather in the somewhat depressing Phoenix suburb of Sun City.
Larry was a youthful 94-years-old at the time, a well-respected, old-school labor organizer who was still flying around giving rabble-rousing speeches at Steelworker conventions. Faced with intolerance, insensitivity, and/or idiocy (usually real, but occasionally perceived), he would get a guided-missile look in his eyes and start verbally eviscerating the offender.
Still, he was among the most lovable and loving people I know. I’m sure he didn’t approve of my long hair in college, many of my subsequent life choices, or even how I used a chain saw, but those eyes just couldn’t quite maintain that penetrating glare with me, and his heart couldn’t ever manage to get fully behind the criticism. Being his godson forgave more sins than I care to remember.
During my visit, he told me his stories about organizing textile workers in the 1930s, steelworkers throughout the 1940s into the 1970s, and even the ferry workers at Martha’s Vineyard. This was a guy who, as soon as he retired and moved to Arizona, started organizing retired union members, appalled by their inexorable political drift to the right.
I’d heard most of these stories before; many were full of braggadocio and exaggeration; a few of his perspectives on people I knew—including my father—were a little skewed; and, of course, I could barely get a word in edge- or other-wise … which was a relief under the circumstances. But, hey, that’s the whole point of hanging out with people who’ve been around longer than you have … especially when they have something to say that’s still important for you to hear.
So I regret that part of me was always wondering how much longer I could sit in the chair across from him without jumping up, moving my body somehow, screaming. I regret that part of me was always wondering how I could come up with an insightful, coherent, or even relevant response when so much of my attention was always being wrestled back to earth by this weight I was carrying.
I’m sure my mother had made some reference to my bafflingly fragile state in one of their occasional phone calls. But I’m equally sure that he would have considered it an affliction that, while troubling in someone you love, should simply be overcome—whether through medication, hospitalization, or preferably, sheer will. Certainly, he had more to be depressed about than I did. Most of his comrades in arms had died. Most of the citrus trees that surrounded him and my godmother Lil when they moved there, had been replaced with developments.
That was, of course, the last time I saw him. I don’t regret forgetting the stories. I’m terrible at remembering stories. I just regret not really being able to be there.
I know full well that this regret is more for myself than for him.
March 21, 2006: Phoenix, Arizona to Santa Monica, California. 402 Miles. The trouble with listening to books on CD is that if I miss a single sentence, I have to go back and play it again. And again. And again. Until I can keep my attention there for the entire five seconds it takes to comprehend it. A combination of obsession and a tenuous grasp on the literal.
Susan Orlean has traveled more and to stranger places than I ever will. And writes about them better:
There’s nothing that has quite the dull thud of being by yourself in a place you don’t know, surrounded by people you don’t recognize and to whom you mean nothing. But that’s what being a writer requires … I know where I’m heading. I’m heading home. But on the way there, I see so many corners to round and doors to open, so many encounters to chance upon, so many tiny moments to stumble into that tell huge stories that I remember exactly why I took this particular path.
I hear that, burst into tears, pull into the next rest area, and look at the display maps of Arizona Highways, hoping that somehow they’ll tell me where I’ve been and where I’m going.
Something in me just hasn’t surrendered yet. There’s too much to take in … too much to know. You can’t know every little thing. You can’t be aware of every little thing. I have a Talmudic brain and I’m trying to grasp instead of experiencing. I’m trying to remember things without even seeing them. I’m worrying my way across America, trying to parse out the lives of all the people I see … and mine. What are they doing? Why? What am I doing. Why?
Most of the time I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going to sleep. I don’t know where I’m going to get a cup of decent coffee. I don’t know the names of the plants. I don’t know the names of the mountain ranges. The people in the cars passing and being passed feel so insubstantial.
It’s a fool’s errand. But who better?
March 22, 2006: Santa Monica, California. I emerge from the Arizona desert late in the afternoon, white-knuckle the van down various LA expressways at rush hour and find my way to my cousin’s house in Santa Monica. The next morning we take a walk in the Santa Monica hills with her jet-black retriever.
Like most geographically-distant relatives, we rarely see each other, but are inexpressibly close. Once we get past the basics—in particular, what our kids are doing and how they should meet each other someday but probably never will—we get down to the serious business of our shared emotional gene pool. My father described it thirty years ago, in a welcome-to-the-world letter to her one-year-old son: “I guess what I’m trying to say, and I’m not saying it very well, is that this family is emotional, but tries to keep the fact a secret.” (My dad treated all children as adults—he wasn’t always so generous with actual adults.)
Secret isn’t really the right word. We can be extremely sensitive and compassionate. We just don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves and aren’t all that fond of public displays of psychosis. More important, we’re all committed to finding humor in virtually any situation, no matter how dark. So, while my cousin and I both have a vague idea of what the other has gone through over the years, neither of us is aware of the severity or how our respective families dealt (or are dealing) with it.
We also spend some time speculating about the degree to which our siblings, cousins, and children avoided that particular family gene (up to 100%) and trying to track it back through several generations.
“Remember how he used to sit there in that chair like he had never moved and never intended to …?”
“Her? She died before I was born, but I have this picture … she’s standing with her hand on some kind of wrought iron gatepost holding flowers—so beautiful—but her head is tilted a little left and down, and those eyes … I know those eyes … I have those eyes.”
“Now that guy … he was never depressed a day in his life! Probably adopted!”
“I used to wonder about her. But that wasn’t depression. Or if it was, she channeled it into the fine art of loving intolerance.”
“Now he was a drunk. No question …”
“Cut him some slack … he was married to her.”
And so we laugh our way through our family tree.
We don’t bother talking about the so-called Depression Gene (5-HTTLPR) which, allegedly, makes it easier to transform stress into major depression. Considering that some of these ancestors took considerable risks getting out of Lithuania and Romania during 19th C. pogroms, there was certainly plenty of stress going around.
But we know that nurture and nature are just two of many sides of a three-dimensional coin. And we’ve both paid our dues.
March 23, 2006 to March 26, 2006: Anaheim & Laguna Beach, California. You’d think that a Natural Foods Expo going on within a precious-crystal’s throw of Daffy and Grumpy, wouldn’t be the best place for a manic-depressive. But, actually, as outer events go, it goes pretty well.
First of all, things happen way faster than my brain can keep up with or run away from. So, I’
m constantly distracted from the discomforting signals being sent by errant neurons.
Second, there are a lot of people selling products that use top-secret natural processes to extract top-secret vital components that contain top-secret energetic vibrations that, if taken in precisely the correct top-secret dosages and sequences can help even a blatant psychotic like myself. (While I don’t have a chance to try everything, the free ice cream and chips cheer me up quite a bit.)
People constantly come up to our booth and ask deeply perplexing philosophical questions about the products my partner and I are selling: “Is it all natural?” “Does it have _______?” (Fill in blank with whatever natural ingredient some magazine just said would either shorten or increase your lifespan.) “Is it cruelty-free?”
In spite of my beleaguered cranium, I feel compelled to inject these repetitive conversations with some contrarian, albeit well-meaning insights.
“Well, depends what you mean by all natural,” I respond. “You know … no artificial ingredients … stuff made from petrochemicals,” they explain. “Petrochemicals come from way-ancient plants, you know,” I point out, feeling an uncommon solidarity with primordial ooze.
“Ingredient X?” I respond thoughtfully. “It’s hard to get it out of the formula, because it’s one of the primary ingredients in water. Besides, what did oxidants ever do to you?” (It even takes me a few seconds to understand what I mean by that.) “Cruelty?” I ask with, I admit, a certain degree of indignation. “Have you ever heard a flower scream when you pick it? Believe me, it ain’t pretty.”
When the next person comes up, I switch gears and explain that our products actually are all natural, cruelty free, and don’t have any of that nasty ingredient. I’m not trying to deceive anyone. I just like entertaining different points of view—if you haven’t noticed.
Just up from downtown Laguna Beach, California there’s a long, narrow oasis of calm in the midst of the touristy storm. It’s called Brown’s Park. You’d think it was just an ordinary alley except for the mosaic brickwork wall and the bronzed chairs, table, and book at the entrance. The boardwalked alley leads to a low ironwork railing that looks out over the Pacific. In the center is a poem that’s written in wrought iron and set in a stained-glass frame:
David's Inferno Page 5