No More Dead Kids

by Thomas Marshall

  “Jesus Fuck.” I stammer, “Are you alright, Ken?”

  “Yeah, holy shit, you?”

  “Yeah, just a little shook up.”

  I drive to the side of the road and put on my hazards. It’s the dead of night, and no one else is around. We walk to the back of the Mustang, the glass or plastic of the right tail light is busted, but the light itself still shone, it looks like we were only grazed. We could wait until we got back home for a repair.

  After collecting ourselves, we didn’t want to drive much more for the night so we drove on to Houston and slept in a dimly-lit corner of a U of Houston parking lot and slept like death.

  . . . . .

  Day 5. We woke up in humid Houston, drove around, and then drove in the direction of New Orleans. There went the sound of the freeway as small, disordered roads led through the backwoods and we stopped on the way in a small Louisiana town, a place where we were immediately judged because of our California-plated Stang. We ate cracklins and boudin balls in an eatery/small convenience store/general gathering hall full of families, the old, and everyone white in-between, and we left quickly. The plastic and bleach smelling room was filled with folding tables covered in those generic restaurant red-checkered plastic table clothes and surrounded by those white plastic Monobloc chairs that were the same everywhere. We sat and ate quickly as all eyes were on us in that surreal, new-guy-walks-into-the-town-saloon type of thing that you’d think only happens in 1950’s westerns. The food was great though.

  We drove around the bayou and into New Orleans, making a visit to some random historical house, then into the heart of the city. Everything was crowded, but Bourbon Street was alive, it was electric. After several walks up and down the famed avenue, we settled at an outdoor jazz club at the Café Beignet. Ken enjoyed staying there, relaxing, and I’ll say I did too. It was a nice night, made even better by a hand-made cigar from a shop down the street. By about midnight, when the old band retired for the night, we headed back to the car to spend the night.

  . . . . .

  Day 6. We woke up covered in bug bites, itching all over. That’s one thing I absolutely hate about The South, the bugs. Well that and the systematic racism and homophobia, but that’s another thing altogether. We walked around the French Quarter and had shrimp po’boys and crayfish etouffee for lunch. Good stuff. More walking and driving. We stopped at another Civil War park, Jesus this place was just littered with them, and I found an almost full pack of KOOL Menthols’ below a Jefferson Davis memorial. I took the cigarettes, lighting one right there. I hardly ever smoked in high school, like I probably smoked less than a pack in all four years; but over the trip I found myself smoking more, still not a lot though, it just seemed so much more integrated into travel and these other parts of the country. From the Marlboro Red’s in the Southwest and now to the KOOL’s in the South, this was just another thing that changed slightly but remained congruent across the nation.

  I’m not for smoking, but I’m not against it either. Do what you want, and I’ll do the same. And of course it’s terrible for you, but so is a lot of stuff, and we do all die, but still, it is the literal worst thing for you. And if anything those bullshit ‘truth’ ads made me want to smoke more instead of less, but maybe it’s just a campaign funded by Philip Morris to make not smoking look as uncool as possible. But I digress.

  We made a visit to the closed-off Fort Macomb, just outside of the city, and found that it was completely desolate. We hopped the three separate fences that enclosed it and explored the ruins. We drove around (got lost) in the swampland, and then finally we were out of NOLA. One thing that caught us both off-guard about that city was the insane number of sirens, police, and paramedics. Drunk people abounded. Leaving NOLA, we headed to the coast and looked around the path of Katrina where the levees were and are. Did you know that hurricanes with female names do more damage and cause more casualties? It’s because people are less inclined to take the threat seriously. Anyway, onto Jackson.

  We parked for the night in a public park/baseball field, it seemed like a nice spot; it was open, although a bit dark, but that was okay, or so we thought. We settled down for the night, took our sleeping pills, put on our eye masks, and began to doze off. A cop car soon pulled up. Ken got out, shirtless and with an eye mask on his forehead, the officer asked what we were doing.

  “Changing the oil,” the scrawny, shirtless, Ken replied.

  I put a shirt on and got out to address the officer. I explained to him that we were traveling, and traveling through and that we’d be leaving in the morning.

  “This ain’t’ a good spot to say” he started explaining, “it’s dark here, and you see that?” he said pointing to the tree line at the edge of the park, “right on the other side of those trees, that’s the hood. It isn’t safe at all here. Staying the night in Jackson? This isn’t a nice place; go to a Walmart parking lot or somewhere well lit, not here.”

  “Thank you, officer,” I replied.

  “You boys know you’ve got a busted tail light, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “You should get that fixed soon.”

  “Thank you, officer, have a good night.”

  And so we left, unintentionally high on Diphenhydramine, we drove to the parking lot of a local Walmart, and we spent the rest of the night there.

  . . . . .

  Day 7. I found myself doing more and more of the driving as Ken would just listen to his own music on his phone and sleep while I drove. I didn’t mind though, I loved the road.

  We also listened to the same music at times too, blaring it over the car’s speakers, cranked up to eleven or whatever. Ken was the kind of guy that if a Foo Fighters song came on shuffle after a Nirvana song he’d say ‘man, Dave Grohl’s sure getting a lot of air time.’ And I appreciated that. We’d also sing along unashamedly to all the terrible songs I remember listening to in middle school.

  I drove from Jackson to Memphis. In between there was a short stop for food and then more driving. Once we arrived in Memphis, we stopped by Graceland, the commercialized home of the dearly departed king, Elvis Presley. Old white people. That distinct population’s love for this one man astounded me. For them, Graceland was a destination, they could have saved for a year to be able to come here, this was their mecca, and they had made it. For us, it was just another pit stop.

  We spent some time at the river, a lot of time actually; we cast a line into the Ole’ Mississippi like Tom and Huck, and we just sat there on the rocky, sandy bank and enjoyed the time. I made good use of the straw hat I’d bought at the 99¢ Only Store when we passed through Arizona. We talked to another guy fishing there, a nice ancient guy who left us a sinker and the rest of his night crawlers when he left. He was there before we were, and he’d be back again; we wouldn’t. I began to feel the transitory nature of our existence sink in at this point in our journey. After giving up on catching ghoti, Ken and I skipped stones and threw firecrackers into the water for the rest of the afternoon, eating the last of the beef jerky we’d packed, and taking a good dent out of the nut mix we’d brought too.

  We drove on to the cemetery (closed), and then to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel (in the process of closing). It soon closed. We will return tomorrow. Now, we sit in a nice, clean, well-lit McDonald’s, and sip our one dollar big plastic cups of Coca-Cola from same cups we’ve been saving all day for the free refills. I enjoyed entertaining the fantasy of being homeless.

  We parked and slept in the parking lot of a CVS, because apparently, according to the woman protesting outside the Lorraine Motel, Memphis is the 5th most dangerous US city. This woman, Jacqueline Smith, has been sitting in her hovel outside of the Motel, which turned into the Museum in 1988, since she had been evicted after having
lived in the motel as a young girl working at the front desk when King was there. She refused to leave after the assassination, and after she was evicted and the Motel was converted, she defiantly stayed on location. 25 years, 126 days, and counting. She sits in protest of the gentrification that the museum caused, and the money used for it that she says should have gone to helping the impoverished, “this is what King would have stood for” she argues. It made sense, but I just don’t know how much I could’ve agreed with her because of how truly great the museum is.

  How stupid is racism? Race doesn’t matter, or at least it shouldn’t, we’re all just people, that’s all. Ethnicity should matter, because that’s what makes us who we are, and that should be celebrated, but race itself as a divisive descriptor just shouldn’t exist. We are all just people, and it baffles me that people think there’s any difference between any two people; to put it into perspective, we’re the only species that does this, zebras don’t give a shit what each other’s stripes look like, dogs or cats don’t care about each other’s fur or even breed, but we humans care about how much melanin one another possess, and for years we’ve separated, segregated, enslaved, and injusticed each other because of it. If an alien species could look at us doing this, they’d think we’re insane, and we are. I hope it can change, I hope we can get past race, to simply celebrate who we are as people, but I don’t know. And I know too that I can really only say or even think this from a place of privilege. Oh well, though.

  . . . . .

  Day 8. We woke up muggy and musky in the car in that same CVS parking lot, the same CVS parking lot across this whole country. We went to a McDonald’s and had a breakfast, it was nice inside. I can’t believe how curt people in the service industry are in these parts of America. But I guess they do have to deal with a lot of shit. Inside, it was the same McDonald’s across this country, just in a different but same place, with different but same people. I am struck by how similar and how different the places in this country are. I could sit inside the tiled walls of a McDonald’s bathroom and open the door back up to anywhere. American Placelessness.

  The Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” soon became the song of the road, or at least it did because Ken kept playing it on loop in the car. He heard it on the radio, downloaded it, and fell in love with it. I didn’t mind much though; I came around to liking it pretty fast. It is a Bob Dylan song after all.

  On our way to Memphis city, we pulled over to watch a ten-story-tall construction crane monster devour an entire apartment complex.

  My vision fogs up each time I step out of the car, it’s that humid.

  First off, we went downtown to the Peabody Hotel to check out the famed Duck Walk, but it wasn’t time yet so we walked down the street to the Southern Folklore Museum; we were lead there by a curator who just happened to be sitting around the Peabody. He heard us ask a concierge about directions to the Museum, he interjected and said he could take us; he was very apologetic for eavesdropping. But we didn’t mind, he walked us there and opened up the small basement museum and gave us a little tour. It was really nice. The walls were all painted, and bottle caps were haphazardly nailed everywhere, it was all very folky and eclectic, it was fantastic. He played us a short documentary about Beale Street and the music scene there in the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s, and then he showed us a short video of pigs obeying a folky old man. Aretha Franklyn’s personal piano was in the museum, it was just up against a wall, behind some tables and trash cans, gathering dust and growing old; that was the kind of museum it was. After a little while longer, we left in time to catch the morning march of the Ducks at the Peabody, and Ken enjoyed that a lot; Ken really does like ducks.

  From there we looked into the lobby of the far too expensive Rock + Soul Museum, and then to the stunningly beautiful Gibson guitar factory. We walked down Beal Street, stopping in the bars lining the street and listing to all the live bands; when we reached the car, we drove back to the MLK museum where we got in at a student discounted rate after some haggling. It was great, any amount of money would have been worth it, and it was absolutely fantastic. We then toured the still-in-use historic Elmwood Cemetery, home to a shit-ton of confederates. After driving around the heavily paved cemetery, we made it to Mud Island and a weird model fountain of the Mississippi River. We waited for the park to close, and then Ken and I once again said ‘fuck it’ and bathed in our underwear in one of the fountains. We hadn’t showered since Texas.

  We left the park promptly and then slowly made our way to the Peabody Hotel, where the ducks now resided in their coop-house on the roof. Ken stayed with them for a while I roamed the hotel in its entirety, floor by floor. I managed to eat pretty well from the room service leftovers on each of the different floors of the hotel. I was also able to pick up various Peabody and duck-themed swag, like stickers and a notepad, from the maid carts and conference rooms for Ken. We left the hotel for the last time and drove across the bridge to West Memphis, which is actually in Arkansas.

  By the time we left the hotel it was completely muggy outside, wet and thick. And by the time we were in the car and on our way, a plain mutherfucker of a storm had erupted in the sky, and it was pouring buckets as percussive lightning lit up the sky. It was terrifying, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Once we made it over the bridge, we made our way to the first rest stop in the state, a really nice one, and planned to stay there for the night, I really didn’t want to drive in rain like that anymore.

  It was pouring, and bugs swarmed around the lamppost that was above our car, and as soon as we opened the door to get out and use the bathroom, a group of those bugs swarmed inside of the car. So, we had to abandon our home and sleep inside of the rest stop for the night. We brought in our sleeping bags and laid them out in a corner in front of two closed and locked restroom doors. We slept on the ground that night; I used my shoes as a pillow. I know now that by the time we’re home I am not going to be the same person that I was at the beginning of this journey, and I know Ken won’t be either.

  All night, and I mean all night, people came through the rest stop to use the bathrooms, one took a picture of us, another asshat just talked out loud really loudly “oh, I wonder where the bathroom is” and so on. One guy tried the locked bathroom doors several times, stepping all over us as he confusedly fumbled with the concept of a door that wouldn’t open before noticing the clearly open ones that didn’t have two homeless teenagers sleeping in front of them that were directly adjacent. Most people just walked by though. Ken wrote a note and hung it up on the wall beside us with two duck stickers from the Peabody.

  “Hello,

  We know this is irregular, but our car filled up with mosquitoes which refused to leave, and we don’t want to be eaten alive tonight while we sleep. We are very thankful for this rest stop and its shelter from the storm. We’ll move ourselves first chance we get tomorrow morning. Thank you, and we apologize beforehand for any disturbance our presence may cause. Thank you again.”

  And that was my night.

  . . . . .

  Day 9. We woke up a bunch during the night, but eventually, we woke up for good sometime in the early morning. And for sleeping on the ground with a pair of old loafers for a pillow, it wasn’t that bad. We drove back across the state line to Memphis and then onto Nashville, on the way stopping at some Native American burial mounds, or ‘Indian Mounds’ as all the signage said. Then we made a stop at a plantation, Belle Meade Plantation, our first real southern plantation, slave quarters and all; onto a quick drive through the Vanderbilt campus and then to Nashville.

  I’m beginning to understand the obesity problem in this country; the cheapest food, the easiest food, is always the worst food. Fast food and soda. Salt, fat, and sugar. And that’s pretty much all we ate too.

  We entered Nashville from the roundabout way of coming from Vandy,
we drove around, circling the city center like a cat until finally parking and finding a visitor center. We walked in and out of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and then we walked down the main drag, sitting in on some of the musicians in bars, good musicians, really good musicians. There are so many good musicians, but so few lucky ones.

  We walked by the Cash museum and then to the waterfront, after which we visited Jack White’s Third Man Records shop, which was really cool. Ken bought a Sixteen Saltines 7” vinyl, even though he doesn’t have a player; record shopping was fun though. We did a few more circles around town, and then we left.

  I drove The 24 through the mountains and trees, dipping into Georgia, and them swinging back up into Tennessee, driving through the cut-stone mountains, the roads like scars across the earth, with dense forests shrouded in fog and mist and clouds hanging low over the vistas and lush green valleys. We settled in our final resting place for the night in a parking garage in Chattanooga. There is nothing I’d rather be doing.

  . . . . .

  Day 10. Waking up in Chattanooga, we left the car in the parking garage and walked around the town center. It was really nice, like wow, it was like the Portland of the South (I’d propose that as their new town motto if there wasn’t already an actual Portland, Tennessee). There were bike shares everywhere, a gorgeous waterfront, plants and shit, and organic food ‘bistros’ and ‘eateries’ everywhere, probably ‘artisanal’ too.

  We checked out the Choo-Choo, a hotel where the rooms were in train cars. That place would’ve totally been the shit when I was a kid, but now, maybe not as much. We drove up to Rock City, which was just ridiculously expensive, so we didn’t go in, but we were still able to see the Seven State view from another place on Outlook Mountain, where we walked to a Civil War park that commemorated ‘The Battle of Outlook Mountain.’ It was a park that had no trashcans in it whatsoever, which was weird and sucked because I wanted to clean the car out. The park, however, was a perfect place to see a really quality slice of Southern Americans. I really do wish they all could be California Girls.