To Shake the Sleeping Self

by Jedidiah Jenkins

  But for some reason, as I was setting off by myself for the first time, I didn’t feel like sex or boys. Maybe it was my spiritual stupor. My foggy thoughts about God and faith and family. Maybe it was the fact that I’d been in mostly rural places that were religious, or indigenous, distant-feeling. I hadn’t met a local person that gave me a vibe. Not once. Maybe I smelled bad from this bike. Maybe my busted Spanish was a turn-off. Or maybe it was my lack of confidence, my stumbling ignorance. What is less attractive than a guilt-laden weirdo testing himself against your freedom?

  I had heard that Argentina was one of the most developed countries in South America. Meaning I wouldn’t have to suffer chicken-foot soup anymore. I heard I’d get good coffee and steak and croissants. That was exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I decided to hitchhike right to the Argentinian border. I stood at a gas station on the edge of Sucré holding a sign that read “Potosí or Argentina?” A truck took me a few hours to Potosí, and then I was stuck, so I got a late-night bus from Potosí to the border. I reached the border at 6:30 a.m. and exited the bus into a little town that seemed to exist solely to serve the border. The morning air was perhaps 15–20 degrees. I wasn’t properly dressed, and unloading my bicycle from under the bus and putting the front tire back on caused my fingers to stiffen and sting in the cold. I started shaking. I rolled my bike to the line to cross the border, about twenty people long, waiting to get their passports stamped. I soon became the coldest I had ever been in my life. So cold that I was worried for my fingers. Seriously concerned about nerve damage, or something. My feet felt like blocks of petrified flesh. I had no feeling in my toes. Not even the phantom memory of them. I just had ice hooves. My finger bones ached in their blue-white stiffness.

  Damn. I’m all alone out here.

  As I walked my bike across the border, I did the now-familiar thing of filling in the visitor form in the margins where there was no bubble to color in. “Mode of transport: train? plane? bus? boat?” and I’d write in “no, bicicleta.” The border guard would always see that, look up at me, my bike, all the bags, and smile. They always smiled. It made me happy to give their monotonous day a bit of a perk.

  In my frozen-finger misery, I found the only open café on the Argentinian side of the tiny border town and waited until 11 a.m., when it was finally warm enough to cycle.

  I set out from town and rode into a new world: Argentina. I had been eager to see it for months. The Argentinian chefs had told me how wonderful their country was back when I tried mushrooms in Colombia. They said it was more developed than most of Latin America. More European. Wealthier. As much as I had loved the back roads, the small towns across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, I had grown tired of eating prepackaged food and sketchy roadside fare. I had hoped I would become the most nonmaterialistic human of all time, so at home on the earth that Andean poverty would no more affect me than New York City wealth. I wanted to be zen above it. Floating above the trappings and hardships of human life. Well, that didn’t happen. I was sick and tired of all the poverty. I felt bad for the thousands of souls that lived in mud. But the charm wore off, and I knew I could bike away and enjoy my good fortune of being born white in the world’s richest country. I still don’t know what to do with all that. The hardened soul of reality, dividing rich from poor like it does.

  All I can do is be honest. I was ready to see nice buildings well built, to rest in some of the creature comforts of an advanced economy.

  Setting out at 11 a.m., I followed a road that was flat to the southern horizon. Mountains to my right, hills to my left. A huge golden valley between, and a road right down the middle. The fields were mostly empty of human interference, apart from the occasional run-down mud-brick hut. I saw lots of llamas. Lots of cows. At one point, a hundred cows meandered across the road. Not being herded. No fences. Just walking across. No more developed and glorious Argentina yet, but I was happy in the sunshine and happy to be on the bike and the long straight road.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER MY FIRST cycling day in Argentina, my first solo day, my new country, my new life, I stopped after fifty miles at the only hotel in a tiny train-stop town and spent the night. I was still at 11,000 feet elevation and it was August, a.k.a. Argentina’s winter. I wanted to get inside before the temperature dropped again. My room had a small black-and-white TV playing the movie G.I. Joe. An Argentinian guy named Juan that I’d met once in LA had e-mailed me, “Hey, my friend from architecture school lives in the town of Salta, which isn’t too far from the northern border of Argentina. You can stay with her. She is great and she will like to practice her English. She is very smart and a good architect. Can I make the intro?”

  I wrote back, “Yes of course!” An architect? That sounds good. Maybe Salta was a pretty big city. I was just excited to get out of the hardscrabble countryside. The map said that Salta was a two-day ride. On day one I’d reach Jujuy, which seemed like a pretty big town, then make it to Salta by nightfall the next day.

  He introduced me to his friend via e-mail and she said she was happy to host me for a night. She wondered how many people I was traveling with. I replied saying it was just me, that I was very excited to get to know Argentina, and that I’d be a very good guest.

  She again replied, “Hi Jed! I’m excited too! As you may know Juan is a very special friend of mine so that you are very welcome here. I hope you have a great time in Salta eating empanadas and meeting new people ;) I’ll do my best, See you soon Jed! —Lau”

  The next day, the giant golden valley I was riding through began to change. I was rolling more and more downhill. It dawned on me: I was coming out the other side of the Andes. I had risen up them from the Pacific in Colombia, traveled down their spine all the way to Bolivia, and was now on the decline into the lower elevations of Argentina.

  I rode downhill for an entire day. A perfect slope. In the lower elevations, trees appeared again. I began riding through thicker air and heat.

  At the base of the Andes, the first sizable town in Argentina is Jujuy. As I rode in, I saw something new: big, well-constructed suburban houses. Stucco. Clean handsome construction, and a few that were even fancy, with Spanish tile roofs and swirling iron over the windows and on the gates, and clean cars in the driveways. The houses were still walled off. I realized that almost every sizable home I’d seen in Latin America was behind a wall. I wondered if I’d ever see a house with no walls or fences in Latin America. Like the ones I grew up with in Nashville, where the yard just blended invisibly with the neighbors’. I hadn’t seen a yard like that in a town since California, 6,500 miles ago.

  As I rode into Jujuy’s downtown, I saw tall office buildings. And cafés, with expensive lighting that wasn’t simply a dangling LED bulb on a wire. Such expensive building materials struck me as alien. I was encouraged.

  I booked myself a bunk bed at a hostel and had dinner at a proper restaurant. I had a glass of wine. I was alone and happy. I got an e-mail from the architect lady. “We are excited to have you, Jedidiah. You can perhaps stay two nights? We can make a bed for you. You can meet my husband and children. We have two dogs.”

  She recommended a more scenic route between Jujuy and Salta than the busy highway. This one was a winding road through forests and farms that many people enjoyed driving just for fun on the weekends. It was 35 miles. A perfect day’s ride.

  The next morning I took her advice and the scenic road was extraordinary. Old trees loomed over the road and cows ate in golden fields and people on motorcycles passed me on joyrides. It reminded me of Northern California, of wine country. It felt wealthy. I listened to Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird in my headphones and I rode, and felt very good. I imagined being a writer someday. I was alone and happy and could tell that this architect I was approaching would become my friend.

  After a full day of perfect riding, Salta came into view. The houses I was seeing were even ni
cer than Jujuy’s. When I pulled up to the address she gave me, I was met by a large gate and a guard. Not a gated house with barbed wire like Mexico City; a gated community like the kind you would see in Orange County, California, or Dallas, Texas. I told the guard I was here to see Laura, pronouncing it like an American would. “Lore-uh.” He looked at me strangely. I tried again. No luck. Then it struck him.

  “Ahh, L-ow-ra! Siiii.” And he let me in. On a printed map of the community, he circled her house, then handed the map to me. He stared at my dirty bike and smiled with curiosity.

  I rode through a maze of mansions. I had, for some reason, assumed she lived in an apartment. Maybe I pictured the apartment of my friend Beatriz in Mexico City. I simply didn’t know a fancy gated neighborhood was an option down here. I arrived at her beautiful house—tan stucco, modern and huge. As her dogs ran to meet me, she stepped on the porch, smiling. This was going to be great.

  I tried to keep my promise and stay only two nights. But after the first night of testing me out, after wine and stories and plenty of laughter, she announced, “You cannot leave yet. Next weekend is the arts and crafts fair in town. You cannot miss the authentic arts.”

  “Next weekend? That’s in eight days!”

  “Is it too long? You truly cannot miss it. And then perhaps we go to our country house. You will love it. With horses.”

  “Laura, I cannot stay so long! It is an imposition!”

  “We insist. And it is good for our children to practice English.”

  I thought about it. No, I didn’t really have the time to spend several weeks in Salta, but this was nice. I liked being alone. And if I’m being honest, I really liked assimilating into a wealthy Argentinian family. I decided to stay.

  Over the next days, I created new routines. Every morning I would wake up and come down to the kitchen. The maids had made the coffee. Laura’s husband, Mauricio, would be reading the paper. His English was much simpler than his wife’s, so we would fumble over our words, and laugh together. I would say something pathetically primitive in Spanish, and he would reply in equally primitive English. But so much can be communicated this way. We had great conversations. We talked about politics and journalism and history. All with baby words and pointing and laughter.

  The days turned simple and beautiful. I would ride my bike the short distance into downtown Salta and explore. I would sit and read and write. I would go for walks around the neighborhood and sneak a cigarette.

  Every night, after a dinner at 10 p.m., Laura would send the kids to bed and come down for one last glass of wine in the kitchen. Then she would say “goodbye.” I knew she meant “good night.” But I loved that she ended the day with such unintentional intensity.

  I learned of two deaths while at their house.

  One, the suicide of Robin Williams. I was reading on Laura’s couch when I got a push notification to my phone. I looked at it, stunned. Just then, she came running into the living room. “Did you hear?!” she said. I remember being surprised that she got the push notification, too. A person in Argentina, eleven countries away from the United States, found out the same second that I did.

  She had misty eyes. “He is a treasure. I have water in my eyes. I am so sad. Why are so many comedians to die from suicide?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Mrs. Doubtfire. Patch Adams. He was one of my favorites. The kids love him.”

  “I wanted to be him when I was a kid.”

  She said, “I wish President Cristina, that crook, would commit suicide. Not someone like Robin Williams.”

  The next day, my Google alerts went off. Harry Devert’s body had been found in Mexico after a six-month disappearance. Harry Devert, the motorcyclist who vanished in Michoacán. The one I’d heard about back in January.

  Just the week before, an anonymous caller had directed authorities to a body found on a dirt path south of Michoacán—a path that led to a beach outside Zihuatanejo. A week later, DNA tests confirmed that the human remains belonged to Harry. His body had been dismembered, the pieces placed in several plastic bags. The VIN number on the green Kawasaki motorcycle found near his remains matched that of his bike. Alongside the motorcycle and body, small bags of marijuana and cocaine had been discarded.

  In my mind, I compared our stories. I had made it to Argentina, safe and sound. Harry had been on his way to Brazil for the World Cup. He didn’t make it past Mexico. I had made it without a scratch. Why him? Why not me? Was my bicycle safer than his motorcycle? Was I more cautious? Was it luck? Did God want me to make it, and not want Harry to? Here I was in a mansion in Argentina, enjoying wine and hospitality, while Harry’s dismembered body had been decomposing in a bag in the weeds for months. I thought about his mother, praying and worrying and searching for her son. I thought about my mom. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to hear her say “There’s my baby, safe and sound.”

  Laura and Mauricio took me to museums and their country house and a craft fair. I had felt welcomed and included. I had played video games with their kids. Then it was time to go. I needed to get to Mendoza. The land of Malbec. Wine country. It was quite far away, 700 miles. Looking at the months of cycling I had left, and the map, I realized how large Argentina is. It’s almost as big as the entire United States east of the Mississippi River. I had to get down to Mendoza by mid-September because my dad had booked a ticket, with his new girlfriend, to come visit me. They’d rented a couple rooms in a tiny boutique hotel.

  Harry Devert haunted my thoughts on the journey to Mendoza. He wasn’t just dead, he had been murdered. Did he do something wrong? Or was it chance? What should his experience tell me about mine? I wanted to understand who lives and who dies, but I didn’t. I just believed that I would always be okay. It was unshakable. Maybe some people just have that. Harry Devert certainly did, and he died. But I did, too, and I was still here.

  * * *

  —

  ARGENTINA IS SHAPED like a slice of pizza—the top wide and the bottom narrow and pointy. The Andes run down the western side, separating Argentina from Chile. At the top of the pizza slice, the northern border, the foothills of the Andes flatten into Amazon jungle and swamps. Then as you move south, the plains, or pampas, fill up with cattle and farms. To drive from the mountainous west to the coastal east can take eighteen hours. The geography of Argentina reminded me of the United States. It had all the same things we have. Deserts. Snowcapped mountains. Cattle ranches. Wine country. Big-city living. Thick forest. Ski towns.

  As I followed the Andes south from the border, the land got drier and drier. The moisture seemed to come from the west, and I knew that over the mountains lay Chile, wet and lush. But here, on the east side, Argentina was dry as a bone, with snow visible from the hot floor of the plains. This dry rocky land was perfect for grapevines, though. I was excited to go wine tasting and spend time with my dad. I was looking forward to getting to know his girlfriend better.

  I was happy they were coming. I was happy he wanted me to approve of Kelley. I was worried after he quit talking to my sisters that in his newfound unapologetic life he would cut us all off.

  I cycled and camped and popped tires and broke my chain and made my way down to Mendoza in a week. At one point as I cycled, I reached the anniversary of starting my trip. August 28. I’d been out here a year. I looked back at photos of Weston and I missed him terribly. I would’ve given anything to have him railing in my ear against the prison-industrial complex or the benefits of mescaline. Wow. Absence really does its clichéd trick. It turns nagging into charming idiosyncrasy. It turns frustration into character.

  I arrived in town a day earlier than my dad and Kelley and stayed at a hostel near the hotel my dad had booked. I had tried to prepare my dad with driving directions from the airport. He had insisted on renting a car. I told him the map on his phone would work if he would just preload it with Wi-Fi. He said he didn’
t know what I was talking about or what that meant. He said he had walked across America and he would be fine.

  The next day, I biked to Chacras de Coria, the quaint historic town where the hotel was located. Fat hundred-year-old sycamore trees lined the narrow streets. Some of the villas, behind beautiful walls and driveways lit by gas lamps, looked like they’d been built in the twenties. I checked into the tiny hotel, just eight rooms, and the concierge said that my parents hadn’t arrived yet. That meant they were late. I sat in the lobby, getting worried. I waited for four hours before they pulled up, honking the horn.

  Kelley was the first one out of the car, already recounting their trials. “Your damn father will talk to anybody, Spanish or English!” she howled. “We stopped about fifty times trying to find this place. Peter just had the name of the place on a piece of paper—like everyone in this town knows the name of this tiny hotel? We must’ve asked fifty people. At one gas station, a whole biker gang came up to us, and I thought we were gonna die, but Peter was best friends with them in five minutes. I don’t think they spoke a word of English and Lord knows your father can’t speak a lick of Spanish, but they were pointing and going on and laughing and then we got here. Can you believe it!? Hi, sweetie!”

  All of that seemed to arrive in one breath, then she wrapped me in a tight hug.

  It was so great to see my dad. Suddenly, Mendoza felt like Spring Hill, Tennessee. “Hey, Shluh!” He always calls me Shluh, which is a nickname derived from years of revision. Jedidiah first became Jedishliah for reasons unknown, then became Shluhshluhshliah, which found its final form in Shluh. It felt good to hear it.

  Kelley loved her wine, so we booked tours at several wineries. These were huge buildings, with high ceilings and art on the walls. Wandering around, our shoes clicked on the polished cement and marble floors. Tasting rooms were packed with tourists and the walls were adorned with plaques detailing this billionaire or that who owned the winery as a hobby. We learned about soil quality, and that grapevines like dry rocky soil. We learned that twist caps are just as good as traditional corks. We learned that Argentina’s socialist president had so heavily taxed imports that the wine casks, which were only made in France, now cost double what they used to. It was almost cost-prohibitive. Almost.