Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey

by Colby Buzzell

  While staring out the window, I could see my building across the way. It was a disorienting vantage point, one to which I was entirely unaccustomed. These rooms were nice to visit, but they were not where I belonged.

  As I gazed across at how my half lives—make that more like how my seven-eighths lives—Detroit came into stunning focus for me, and maybe the country, too. Metro Detroit really doesn’t have a middle class. Here, you either have a lot, or you have nothing. The few are loaded, and everybody else lives like the people in my building, paycheck to paycheck, or no check to no check. I keep on hearing about a disappearing middle class in this country, but in Detroit it is not in the act of disappearing, it is gone.

  Those who remain populate an increasingly barren landscape that once was one of the most fertile grounds of American wealth and ingenuity, and are now left to their own devices.

  A country that no longer has a middle class.

  My car has stopped working. I found out this lovely fact the next morning when I felt the need to leave town. I went to check up on it, to see if it was still there or if it had been towed. It responded with silence when I turned the key, and I saw that the back tires were now flat. Caliente, born in Detroit well before I came into this world, and here she will die.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nothing Further

  “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”

  ALBERT CAMUS

  At Wayne County Airport, the terror alert level was “High,” Orange. I was going on television, so my terror alert level was somewhat higher, but whenever I hear them announce the terror alert level at the airport, I hear that Fox News chime that they play whenever they have breaking news. I looked around to see if anybody else was concerned about the situation being Orange, which, if you think about it, is only one level away from “Severe,” Red. Nobody seemed to be like, “You know what, I don’t really think it’s safe for me to be traveling right now with the world being Orange, I have a wife and kid. Fuck this, I’m going home. I’m going to wait till it goes back to Green, maybe Blue.” One thing I thought for certain would happen after the election was that we’d get rid of all this silly terror alert level garbage, but sure enough, we still measure our fear on a color wheel.

  A while ago I was interviewed by a music professor out in New York doing research for his book on soldiers and the music they listen to while serving in combat. Now published, he was working on press for its release. He contacted me, asking whether I’d like to be interviewed alongside him on a show on Fox News. I agreed, and shortly thereafter, the Fox News people contacted me, confirming that they’d pay for my round-trip ticket to New York City and car service to and from the airport, and put me up in a hotel for a night. All I had to do in return for them was a brief interview, and after that, I could return to the airport to fly back to Detroit, or wherever I wanted to go.

  A free trip to New York is a free trip to New York. You can’t really turn that down, right? But there’s more to it than that. I also agreed to do this for my father, like an early Father’s Day present. I could see my father watching me on Fox News, shedding a tear of immense pride, thinking to himself that yes, “My boy’s finally made it.”

  My dad likes Fox News, he thinks they’re “fair and balanced.” My wife, on the other hand, can’t stand Fox News. Won’t watch it even for a second, and sincerely believes it to be the furthest thing from the news. “Entertainment.” Since I’ve not had cable, thus, reception, for years, most recently not even owning a television, I didn’t watch any network news until I moved into her place. Once I started to, whenever she would come home from a long day of work, turn on her television to find it on Fox News, she’d say things like, “What’s wrong with my TV? Why is it that whenever I turn it on, it’s always on Fox News? My television set never did this before!”

  I watch Fox News not only to see what the other half of the country is thinking but perhaps for the same reasons why my mother used to watch soap operas. The quick cutting from one dramatic scene to the next does create a nice break from reality.

  I flew Continental. When our plane began to descend, I looked out the window, and the world that we were about to land in looked colorful and pretty. All the houses were set nicely in rows, no burned-out shells of neighborhoods looking as though they had received heavy artillery fire. Homes painted in bright colors, clean streets, cars driving around, and all the factories looked operational. Newark, New Jersey, you are a jewel.

  I walked past baggage claim with my black duffel in hand, and came across a Middle Eastern guy wearing a suit, holding a piece of white cardboard with my last name on it. As we were walking to the parking lot, he asked, “So how is business in Detroit, Mr. Buzzell?”

  He must have addressed me as “Mister” because I like to travel light, but I sometimes like to dress up when I travel, as well. Though no one really does that anymore. I was now wearing my wool trench coat, suit and tie beneath, topped off with a fedora and my sunglasses. I replied, “Slow right now, but hopefully things will pick up soon.”

  “That’s good.”

  I started feeling a little déjà vu in the back of his black car, remembering being on leave from Iraq. I had spent that time in New York City, and as the driver maneuvered through Manhattan, I was feeling that same sensory overload all over again.

  Huge billboards, a sea of pedestrians, many well dressed, walking every which way, holding multiple shopping bags. And the buildings. All seemed inhabited and alive, the first floors operational retail stores, money being exchanged, a constant parade of consumers. Restaurants all open for business, on every sidewalk there were street vendors selling food—hot dogs, falafel, peanuts. People purchasing it, eating it, and loving it.

  I felt a little woozy.

  He dropped me off at my hotel, located in the middle of Times Square. The lobby was packed, many dressed to the nines; I imagined some being on their way to one of the few three-star Michelin-rated restaurants, having booked reservations months in advance.

  I left my dark glasses on as I walked toward reception. As she pulled my reservation, the receptionist kindly asked, “Is this your first time staying with us, Mr. Buzzell?”

  It was, but since there were people standing kind of close, well-dressed members of the same club, game face on, I told her, “No. I’ve stayed here several times before, you know, whenever the Waldorf is booked up.”

  With a smile, she handed me my door key and said, “Well, welcome back, Mr. Buzzell.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  The room was nice, real nice, and after dropping my shit off, I quickly changed back into some street clothes and exited the hotel. I inhaled deeply and exhaled. I don’t know what it is, but New York City has this certain smell that I can’t really describe, and you can only smell it here. Steam from the street vendors, air forcing itself up from the subway, the surrounding water, people, life; a unique smell. Just then, a lady took off her headphones and asked me if I knew directions to Seventh Avenue and Forty-sixth Street. I pointed her in the right direction.

  I then stood for a second as people all around me walked by—without even noticing me standing there. I remember there used to be a time in my life when I tried to call this city home. No matter how hard I tried, it just never felt that way to me. Shortly after 9/11, I decided to leave. I moved back home to my parents’ house. That no longer being an option made me feel more lost than ever. I shook that thought out of my head and started walking.

  I u
sed to live here, and when I did, I avoided Times Square as much as possible. Way too many people and tourists around these parts. Instead of taking the subway, I decided to just walk it, and on my walk through New York, I still couldn’t believe how many people there were, all moving, some fast, some slow, and people doing stuff, whether it be eating outside at a café, or working a job doing construction, selling hot dogs, police officers on the street guiding traffic, bike messengers weaving in and out of cars, kamikaze cabdrivers competing for fares, vendors pushing their wares in and out of stores on dollies, women pushing baby strollers, men in suits, women in high heels, and over there, even a fashion photo shoot going on down a side street, people stopping to watch, eventually moving on to the crucial drama of their lives. I don’t know what I expected or remembered, but living in Detroit had not prepared me for this.

  It all reminded me again how I was once in love with this city. I then wondered if I could ever move back here. Probably not, for the same reasons why I decided not to go back to Iraq—I’ve already been there—why do it again? If I moved here, I’d wonder what else was out there and start feeling the pull to leave again. The same feeling I used to get every time I moved back home. I thought about this as I made my way.

  I used to live out in Brooklyn. On Bedford Avenue. Not the Bedford Avenue located around the “hipster trolley” L train station, but the Bedford Avenue over by the Marcy Projects, over by where Jay-Z and Biggie grew up. Nice neighborhood. Really was.

  When I lived blocks away from the Marcy PJ’s, I used to grab my skateboard many a night and by myself skate down Bedford, through the Hassidic neighborhood all the way to Williamsburg, and when I got to the L train station, I’d quickly stop at the corner store, pick up a six-pack and smokes if need be, and after my purchase, exit and make a left heading west toward the direction of Manhattan, down N 7th Street. I’d take that all the way to the DEAD END sign.

  The DEAD END sign is still there but the wooden pier off to the side that stretched beyond it, the one that was old, decrepit, and barely alive, is not.

  Posted on the chain-link fence was a NO TRESPASSING sign which I’d ignore and I’d walk out onto the pier all the way to the end, by myself, sit down, light up a smoke, open up a bottle, and just sit there under the stars drinking while staring off at the Manhattan skyline. The lights radiated from the city and those two ominous tall towers that stood there side by side over by Wall Street.

  It was peaceful and I used to love hearing the sound of that bottle splashing every time I finished one and threw it out as far as I could into the East River. Then I’d open up another bottle and sit there and continue drinking. I also remember how I used to sit there and think to myself how there had to be more to life than this, but had no idea what in the hell that was so in the meantime, I’d figure I’d just sit around and wait.

  For a while doing this became a part of my routine. Two or three times a week I’d go out there to that pier, sometimes for hours. At night, every time, I’d be the only one there and it made me feel like the loneliest person on earth. Here I am living near and around a city of millions and here I am, the only person doing this.

  Don’t know what happened to it, but the last time I was here and decided to walk down memory lane while holding a six-pack, when I came to the DEAD END sign I sadly discovered that the pier beyond the fence was completely gone.

  Everything else appeared to be the same except the professional-looking signs posted all around indicating new high-rise condos to be developed sometime in the near future.

  Since that pier is no longer there, I make it a point to go to this particular bar every time I go back to New York. I’m scared to death, like the pier, of someday coming back and finding it no longer there,* what with all the redevelopment that’s been going on around that neighborhood the last several years—the new upscale condos, the Whole Foods behemoth a block away, etc. CBGB was once around the corner, but that’s become a museum piece in Vegas; luxe restaurants and John Varvatos have moved in.

  When I stepped inside the bar, I was relieved that it hadn’t changed much at all—still a dive, still dark, still a shit hole loaded with drunks, still the way I like it. “Let’s Get Fucked Up” by The Cramps still on the jukebox. I took a seat at the end of the bar, and once I finished my shot and a drink, I stepped back outside for a smoke break.

  It then hit me: I’d made it. I’d made it all the way across the country.

  The last time I was here, in this bar, a guy wearing a parka and Yankees hat asked me if I was interested in any “party favors.” I was, so I bought an eight ball off him, did a couple bumps in the bathroom, and since I was about to board the train from Grand Central to D.C. on my way to Obama’s inauguration, I figured there’d be cops and sniffing dogs crawling all over the place, so I gave the rest of what I had to the bar back. We’d had a nice chat that evening, and I remembered the time a while back when he had crushed up some Valium that we shared in the bathroom. When I told him I was on my way to the inauguration, he asked, arms folded, “What for?” I told him to witness history, and he seemed unimpressed. “Don’t get me wrong, Obama is a good morale boost for our country, and I think we need that right now, that’s good. But people are fucking stupid, nothing’s going to change, people still aren’t going to do shit and it’s going to be the same shit, only now Obama’s fault. Watch, nothing will change. Nothing.” And when he told me this, I remember thinking, “What a shitty attitude to have. I want my fucking coke back!” But maybe the bar back was right.

  I thought of all this while smoking outside the bar, as life went on. People walked by, some by themselves, some in couples, some in groups. As cabs drove by, drinks were being poured and consumed inside the bar, as well as every other bar across the country, and world. A couple pushing a stroller passed by.

  People have told me that as soon as their kid was born, their life changed, how they “just knew,” and how they all had some kind of realization, or something like that, about their purpose in life, their plot. Some have asked if I’ve had some kind of similar epiphany with the birth of my son. I can honestly say no, I haven’t, and honestly, I think that’s a lot of weight to put on the little guy.

  All that really happened to me when he was born was me thinking, “Holy shit. He looks just like me.” This kind of scared the hell out of me, though it did eliminate any potential doubt that I was the father, if there was any, which there wasn’t.

  After the doctors handed me a pair of steel scissors for the honor of cutting the bloody umbilical cord, setting him free from his mother, they took him off to the side to clean him off. Shortly after, they called me over.

  A look of horror spread across my wife’s face as the doctors informed us all, “Not to be alarmed,” but that he was having a difficult time breathing due to fluid in his lungs, and that they were going to take him into the intensive care unit next door. He also had jaundice, which I had also had when I was born.

  As Mom went into recovery, I followed the doctors next door to the ICU, where they placed him inside a tiny baby hospital bed, surrounded by preemies and a bunch of other babies dealt a bad card upon arrival. I stood there uncomfortably next to him, feeling awkward as I just stared at him, not knowing what to do, or what to say: What do you say to a newborn? “Hey, how’s it going, I’m your father—hey, stop crying, it’s not that bad. I didn’t get to choose mine either. Yeah, this sucks, I know, but once the doctors here get you all good to go, we’re outta
here and you can be back with Mommy again.”

  He looked terrified. If my mother were there with me, she’d probably yell at me, “Do something!” My father got that a lot from her, as well, so I did. I kind of stuck my index finger out for him, and with his tiny, tiny fingers he instantly grabbed it and stopped crying for a second as he held on tight, real tight, and did not let go. As I watched, the nurses came by to shove an IV into his arm, sticking him with needles, one right after another. He cried, all the while still holding on to my finger.

  I felt sorry for him—what a crummy way to start your life off, first being introduced to me, and then all this. Poor kid.

  It was a bit surreal for me to all of a sudden go from hanging out inside hospitals witnessing my mother die a very painful death to, almost overnight, being thrown into the hospital to now witness the joy of bringing a new life, which I helped create, into the world.

  When the nurses started taping monitoring devices and tubes to him, I remembered how my mother, while doped out on pain medication, would rebelliously yank all the IVs and cords from her arms, with a look of satisfaction on her face that things were going to be her way or no way.

  Now my tiny son did the same, defiantly yanking them from his tiny body. This kid is 100 percent my son. I smiled, chuckling. I love him.

  The story goes that when my wife was all fixed up and they wheeled her in from her recovery room, I was seated on a chair next to his bed, passed out from exhaustion, his hand still tightly wound around my finger.

  Previous generations tuned out by running away, further from whatever was going on in their lives. Though it’s tempting, and I fully understand the reasons why—hell, I’ve done it—I wonder if you could do the opposite, tune out and dive headfirst into whatever was coming at you. For me, the direction of my son. Focus on that.