by Kirsten Koza
“We should stay,” I said. “We are flexible and adventurous travelers.”
We didn’t spend much time in our shipping container that evening. We went out to celebrate my birthday and to consume enough adult beverages that we would be able to sleep later. We were unsuccessful in the latter of the two endeavors. I laid awake most of the night, buzzing with anticipation of the crane that would come and lift us berangan!—away!
But luck was not with us. Our crane never came. We awoke in the morning, still in Kuala Lumpur. On our second night, we upgraded.
For those ten extra ringgit, we got a less exciting room in the main building. It had a television, and a DVD player, and a stack of pirated DVDs, which were nice and all, but the room did not have the mold-scented air freshener that came with our shipping container, nor did it give us that special feeling of rugged adventure we seek in foreign lands.
So if you happen to be visiting Malaysia’s capital, and you stay at the 41 Berangan, be sure to request a courtyard room. And if you should have better luck than Kattina and I did, please send us a postcard from Nigeria.
Dave Fox is founder of the Globejotting.com global storytelling website. He teaches online humor and travel writing courses and has written two bestselling travel books—Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals and Getting Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad. Originally from the United States, Dave now lives in Vietnam and writes extensively about Southeast Asia.
JON PENFOLD
A Bad Day
The author goes on a 7,000-mile bike ride across the USA for no reason.
A BAD DAY STARTS WITH A HANGOVER—A POUNDING OF THE HEAD, LIKE a child throwing a rubber ball against your front door, except this annoying brat cannot be shooed away. Boom…boom…boom…it repeats itself, in case you didn’t get it the first time. “I am inside your skull,” it declares over and over, “in that space between bone and brain, and I will only escape with time and only when I feel that the time is right.” Boom… boom…boom…
Returning to sleep seems to be the logical thing to do. Close your eyes, Jon, try to ignore your wandering mind, the spliced memories of the night before, the montage of regret. But it’s not that simple. There is no mute button, and the soundtrack loops with unlikely instruments: jackhammers and hand grenades. Bury your head in the crumpled-up rain jacket, press your palms against your temples, and talk to yourself in the third person, Jon. But still, boom…boom…boom…
It gets hotter by the minute. The warm summer sun beats down on the thin plastic of a one-person tent, heating the stagnant air inside. Your lungs long for cool, refreshing oxygen, not the carbon-dioxide coffin that makes you feel like a sumo wrestler trapped in a sauna. Sweat bubbles on your skin, dampening the down sleeping bag into a moisture cocoon that you are responsible for creating. Time to get up, Jon, crawl from the cave and return to the first person.
I stand up and stretch my arms toward the heavens, except today I seriously doubt any existence of an afterlife. In fact, if there is a god, she can go fuck herself. It is an hour before noon and my morning is shot. Bright light pierces through the slits of my eyelids, penetrating my corneas and irises, sending a radioactive shock through my mind. I take a swig of water and immediately it throws itself in reverse, returning on the same course it went down. Taking down my tent has never seemed so complicated, packing my belongings has never been such a frustrating event, like trying to force the square block through the circle cutout. Finally it’s time to ride and still, boom…boom...boom…
The pavement might as well be wet concrete and I’m dragging a cinder block through the gray mess. Declines become straightaways, straightaways become hills, hills become mountains. I am the Sherpa and the hangover laughs at my struggle. Drooped over the handlebars, my ass off the saddle, I climb but feel as if I’m going nowhere.
It’s late May but the sun pounds with the hell-driven force of mid-August. Like a crooked judge I sentence innocent water into the prison that is my body. But only moments after the incarceration begins, there is a mass breakout, a thousand drops of sweat burrowing through my skin, my hair follicles their escape route, pouring from the mop of my head, the bush of my armpits, the rainforest of my crotch. Soon I am drenched, as if I have taken a shower fully clothed.
Then the noise starts, a high-pitched squall that pierces my ears like a rusted drill into tooth decay, like a picnic beneath an electric line. At first I am confused. What the hell is making this god-awful sound? Is it a turbine engine with a cracked valve? Perhaps it’s the rusted steam whistle of an early locomotive? Maybe a loose fan belt in a 1983 Cadillac Coupe de Ville? Or an alarm, warning society that Russia has finally pushed the button, unloading a blitzkrieg of nukes on the United States? No, I realize that it can’t be any of those things, because it’s not isolated. The disturbance is not coming from a single source. The sound is everywhere—to the left and to the right, up and down, in front and behind. Something in my mind clicks, a flashback from tenth-grade biology class, and I realize nature is to blame. “EEEEEEEEEEEEE,” they scream.
I can’t see the culprits; they hide in the woods, hanging from tree branches, crawling up bark, longing for the sky. They are known in some parts of the world as “jar flies,” the locals call them “dry flies,” and oftentimes they are mistakenly referred to as “locusts,” but they are cicadas. They have large eyes, wide apart, and transparent wings with visible veins. They don’t bite or sting, but can be as annoying and troublesome as any insect that does. Their disturbance is their sound and their sound is my plight, and it only helps to amplify the banging in my head. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…boom…boom…boom…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…
This noise, this nearly intolerable nature cry, is commonly referred to as the “cicada song.” And though it may sound slightly more pleasant than a Japanese man singing karaoke in an airport lounge, it contains no melody or rhythm and by no means holds any musical qualities. Unlike the grasshopper or cricket, which make noise by rubbing its legs and wings together, the cicada vibrates its tymbals: membrane-like structures on its nearly hollow air-filled belly. It is only the male cicadas that discharge this wailing noise as a mating call. And though I can completely understand the desire to get laid, the “song” only magnifies the violent misery in my head. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…boom…boom…boom…EEEEEEEEEEEEEE…
I’m dog-tired but I’ve only been riding for about an hour. On any other day I would pull to the side of the road and lie down beneath a large tree in the cool shade of an overhanging canopy of leaves. But today there is no choice. There is a corkscrew-driving pain in the center of my skull, an alcohol-induced virus reprogramming the computer in my brain. It tells me to go on, to keep pushing out of the woods and away from the cicadas’ “song.”
I am barely paying attention to my surroundings, but suddenly I realize that the noise has faded, dissolving in the void I have left behind, becoming fainter with every pedal stroke. I cruise into a small Tennessee town without even realizing that I had crossed the state line. For the first time on my journey I welcome the sounds of civilization: the beeps, clanks, and rat-a-tat-tats of automobiles, the bangs, pops, and thuds of industry, the groans, moans, and shrieks of society.
I pull into a supermarket with the belief that adding some food to my stomach will replenish my energy. What is normally one of my favorite parts of the day suddenly becomes a frustrating dilemma, a battle between mind and body. I think I’m hungry but have no appetite. I roam the store, staring blankly at shelves and coolers and freezers chock-full of every kind of food imaginable. And though I know what I like, I haven’t the slightest idea of what I want. Nothing looks appealing, so I settle on a container of store-made macaroni salad, hoping that the carbohydrate packed noodles will give me a much-needed boost.
As soon as I step out of the store, I wolf down the macaroni salad without so much as tasting it. My tongue, just the same as the rest of my body, still hasn’t recovered from the substance abuse it endur
ed the night before: cigarettes, beer, women, whiskey, and such. If not for the texture, it could just as well have been dog food that I shoveled down my throat. My taste buds wouldn’t have noticed the difference.
It’s Friday of the Memorial Day weekend and traffic in town builds with workers getting out early and families on the move. I hit red light after red light, never settling into any sort of rhythm. I receive dirty looks, honks, and needless language shouted from open car windows, as if for some reason it is solely my fault that the streets are gridlocked, that somehow a lone bicyclist is to blame for a million pounds of steel moving as slow as sap on a cold day.
I make it to the west side of town and the discomfort in my head journeys south through my body. It transforms into a gurgle in my throat and a clawing at the inner smokestack of my windpipe. Then it works its way into the chest, a slow burn surrounding the blood-pumping factory that is my heart. Finally it arrives in the stomach as a churning, curdling rot-machine, grinding away at the linings of my gut. Then instantly, without the courtesy of even asking, it decides that it’s coming back up.
I pull to the side of the road, hop off my bike, and bend over. My palms against my knees, my chin at my chest, I let my body do what it wants. The contents of my stomach project from my mouth like water from a fire hose. I paint the earth at my feet an off-white. Macaroni shells are splattered throughout the puddle. I dry heave with drool hanging from my lower lip. My stomach makes certain that it is empty. I look closely at the ground and realize the mess doesn’t look any different than when it was prepackaged at the market. Did I even attempt to chew the noodles? As I straighten back up and walk toward my bike, I consider the lesson that I just learned: perhaps when hung over and exerting physical force on a near hundred-degree day, consuming anything that contains a mayonnaise base is not the best of ideas.
I feel better now. My head has cleared, as well as my stomach, though I continue to sweat profusely. I have made it out of town and am pedaling at a nice pace. I stop at a small country store and purchase a couple of sports drinks, pounding back one of them before I make it out the door. I tuck the other one away in my bag and consult a map of Tennessee. The road that I’m on appears to circle northwest, miles above a large lake, forming an arch-shaped line on the paper. Directly to my left though, there is a road that is not on the map. The road to the left appears to go straight, just above the lake, which according to my shoddy calculations would cut off a good ten miles and save me about an hour. A shortcut! But why isn’t it on the map? Because if it was on the map, then it wouldn’t be a shortcut.
I swing left. Million-dollar homes climb out of green hills on both sides of the road. I pass a country club, its parking lot filled with Cadillacs, BMWs, and Mercedes Benzes, its greens crowded with doctors, lawyers, and trust-fund babies. As for golf, Mark Twain once referred to it as “a good walk ruined,” and I couldn’t agree more. But on this day I am glad to see the course, because after all, these links must be the reason this road is not on the map: so its wealthy members don’t have to deal with us commoners passing through their manmade paradise.
I see the lake on my left, blue and choppy, motorboats pulling water skiers in circles. I appear to be on the right path when abruptly the paved road turns narrow—one dusty lane. The green hills evolve into thick woods with jumbled trees, their leaves blocking the sun. Million-dollar homes are replaced by ramshackle cottages with boarded-up windows and screen doors without screens. There are no fancy automobiles, only drives filled with barely running beaters, skeletons of classics on blocks, and heaps of rusted-out parts. This is the poor South; this is the Tennessee I had been expecting.
I take my time through the backwoods slum, inspecting the jerry-rigged construction and do-it-yourself home repairs. I notice shingles piled beneath a roof’s edge, blue plastic tarps taking their place. Arff…arff…arff… I hear the deep barks before I see the beasts. I pump my legs as hard as I can, shifting gears and riding high on the handlebars. Arff…arff…arff… Out of the corner of my eye I see a blackened streak, a wave of darkness on legs. It chases my rear wheel, lunging for rubber, stretching its neck, and longing for flesh. I push as hard as I can until the arff…arff…arff… begins to fade. When I finally feel that I am out of danger, I turn my head and see a half-dozen Rottweilers, as big as they can be, huffing and puffing, angry as all hell that their game has pulled away. Arff…arff…arff…
There must be a paved road coming along soon. It’s been miles since I’ve seen any water to my left, and there haven’t been any drastic turns on the path. But what the hell is that in front of me? I slow down. I stop my bike. Motherfucker! You’ve got to be fuckin’ shittin’ me! Fuckin’ son-of-a-bitch cocksuckin’ motherfucking’ bullshit! How the fuck did this happen? Fuck…Fuck…Fuck…Fuck…
I breathe in. I breathe out. I breathe in. I breathe out. I work to regain my composure and assess the situation. On one hand, I’ve just ridden ten miles down a dirt road and have discovered where it goes. On the other hand, where it goes turns out to be a dead end. On the bright side, I finally understand why this road is not on the map. But unfortunately the bright side is merely a speck of light, barely blinking on this dark fuckin’ day. I need to keep my composure. Oh shit, I’ve lost it. Fuck…Fuck…Fuck…Fuck…
There is nowhere to go except back from where I came. I turn around and head down the dirt road. This time I’m ready for the dogs. I give it all I’ve got, flying full speed ahead. By the time the beasts notice me, I am well past them. Though they do give chase, I leave them in the dust, only to hear their arff…arff…arff… trailing behind me. I pay little attention to the ramshackle cottages but am downright disgusted as I pass the country club. I now have a slight understanding of what it must feel like to be one of the poor souls who lives on the dirt road, forced to pass the green grasses of a capitalistic land grab every time they leave their homes.
Almost two hours after the fact, I am back where I started. With the sun creeping toward the horizon, I push hard, hoping to make up for lost time. Soon enough I am tired, so I stop at the remnants of a burned-out restaurant. I sneak around back to take a piss, hit a pipe, and calm my nerves. I peer through the cracked glass of a window and examine the devastation inside. The charred skeletal frame is coated with dark soot, the drywall gone, blackened two-by-fours climb out of the gray concrete floor, which is partially hidden beneath a paler shade of ash. There are no tables or chairs, no booths or stools—only the gutted remains.
With every hit of weed and every cloud of smoke that escapes my lungs, the more disturbing this place feels. In stillness I see movement: objects warping and contorting, and bending with vibration. In the quiet I hear noise: thuds, trickles, and laughter, plus ghosts of people who never died or never lived in the first place. A stream of paranoia creeps into my soul and forces me to question the nature of everything around me. The focus of my eyes fades backward, until I am no longer looking inside the ruin but at a person with long hair, stubble, green eyes, and pupils as big as the moon. I am afraid of this man until I realize that it’s my own reflection. I regret, I mean if I could go back, if I know what I know now, I never would have smoked that shit in the first place. And I don’t know why, but I want to get out of here now!
I take off and the farther I get from the burnt-out building, the less paranoid I become, though an anchor of insecurity continues to weigh me down. The sun is fading fast, and I have to find somewhere to sleep. I hit a “T” in the road. A sign ahead points to Knoxville on the left and some place I’ve never heard of to the right. The last thing I want is to be caught in a large city after dark, so I take a right.
A few miles down I see a sign for a “Wilderness Area” so I swing a left and head up into the hills and shadows of early dusk. The road twists and turns into the backwoods until I finally arrive at my destination. I scout out the perimeter and decide that it’s a safe place to spend the night. Then I remember that the only thing that I have eaten all day didn
’t stay in my body. My stomach is growling and my mouth feels as if it is filled with cotton balls. All my water bottles are empty, but I remember the sports drink I tucked into my saddlebags. I open the cover and find only an empty bottle. How could this be? It must have leaked out somehow. I inspect the gear that is tucked underneath. Nothing is so much as damp. I don’t remember drinking it, but I must have, that’s the only logical explanation.
Oh shit! Jon, you’re going crazy. You’re doing things without thinking, remembering things that didn’t happen, and forgetting things that obviously did. You’ve been making decisions on instinct. You haven’t looked at a map in hours. And not to mention, but to mention, you’re talking to yourself in the third person again. Snap out of it! Bring yourself together! Wait, bring myself together. This was the hottest day that I have ever experienced in my life, temperatures over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit—the closest to hell that I’ve ever been. It’s not the ganja that has fucked up my mind (though it probably hasn’t helped), it’s dehydration—sunstroke. I need water!
I head west, past a house that’s set back in the trees. I know that I should just stop, knock on the door, and ask to fill my water bottles. But I can’t bring myself to do it, too paranoid—visions of Southern stereotypes. I’m a “Yankee” in Tennessee. What if they don’t accept my accent, my long hair, my beard, my bike? I pedal out of the forest, into the rolling hills of farmland, golden wheat as far as the eye can see. A “T” in the road; I take a left, then another, then a right, another, and another, until I have no idea where I am. And the sun is gone.