chapter 4
- - - - –- - – - - -–- road trip -- - -– - - - - - - - - -
I  felt good for about two minutes. then i didnt feel so good.
if she was just a girlfriend, no big deal right? drive to athens, have
fun, we’ll see how it goes when i get back. but this is a partner, with
whom i have created a new person. a life entanglement—
but you gota
watchout for metaphors, theyll take over if you lettem. and i tended to
lettem. now my life was an entanglement, a network of vines, suffocating
me. they even had thorns i think.
So the plan for tonight—
start driving. when you get tired, pullover at a rest stop.
before you go gettin all worried, let me make a few quick points about sleepin in a resstop. one, its fairly safe, as far as sleepin in the car goes, just dont go tellin your mama your doin it, nor your partner-slash-babymama. two, saves money, or in my case makes it where you can aford to travel without breakin into the J-A or even worse the savings acount, which you might as well call the baby acount. and three, you dont waste time sleepin, not nearly as much as you do in a motel. you can drive till two a-m, pull into a resstop, and youll still be up by seven, with the sun and the old people walkin by and all that.
the plan went well excepfor one thing: when i got
tired, there wasnt a resstop. i drove and drove and there just wasnt a
resstop. this is I-20, a major thorofare, youd think theyd have one
atleast evry hundred miles, c’mon globecap—
course this was louisiana.
and mississipi.
eventially i started lookin for a
motel6. i might have to break into the J-A, true,
but it would put claire’s
mind at ease,
it would put us both at ease,
it was the responsible thing to
do, it wasnt just me i was takin care of now etcetera, which reminded me
i still needed to make that doctors apointment. i took out my phone and
put in a reminder for monday,  which almost caused me to run off the
road and realy need a doctor.
the near-accident gave me a burst of energy [ adrenalines an amazing drug, i just hope they never figure out how to make it ] which temporarily putoff the need for a motel.
i kept driving.
in vicksburg i had to stop for gas. theyv got this weird offramp that looks like a regular exit, then it seizes your car and makes you drive a mile down this highway and drops you off at their mall. the mall was closed ofcourse, but there were two mega-gastations. i opted for the biggest, brightest one.
While the gas pumpt, i headed inside. for further caffeine
i guess. or maybe just to briefly experience humanity. sory if this sounds
like a lucinda williams song, but there was a sign on the the door that
advertised
.
The
cashier
was laughing to himself.
i dont know what tickeld him so. he was lookin at his lap, but i’m
not gona go there.
well letim ignore me. i’ll just use the bathroom and not buy anything.
the bathroom was the size of a closet, basicly just a hole for
mechanics to piss in. but somebody had attempted to remodel it by
going to the clearance shelf at homedepot and buyin some vinyl tiles,
imitation italian marble, which they glued to the floor and also to the
walls, mosta the way up til they ran out of tiles, then it was just flaky
old cinderblock.
i was gona head straight back to the car, but then. . .
i have this habit i get from my dad—
when in doubt, ask a stranger.
i approachd the register and waited for the guy to
lookup, which he didnt do, not right away. he was watchin a video on
his phone i think, tho i didnt get a good look since it was in his crotch.
just when i was gettin ready to clear my
throat he lookd up. i decided to give conversation a try.
—What’re you watchin?
—teevee.
—you can watch teevee on your phone?
—if the 3-G’s workin. sometimes it dudnt,
bein so close to athens.
—whada you mean?
—they jam it.
—they jam 3-G signals in athens?
—4-G too.
—why?
—their comunist.
—i see.
if you were to do a demographic study
of conspiracy nuts, i bet youd find convenient store cashier the
number one profession.
so do you go ahead and ask directions?
like i said, i get it from my dad.
—i’m actualy on my way to athens, ive never been there...
[ hopefully that put me clearly in the noncommunist camp ]
—...but, so, is it best just to get back on that big highway...?
[ what was the number? somethin to do with the bible ]
—three-sixteen?
—yeah.
—well you can go that way.
—is there a better way?
—now you come this far, might as well keep comin on twelve,
thats what your on now. hit athens inbout eighteen minutes.
—so which way do i turn outa here?
[ a stupid question. but my sense of direction is almost as bad as my memory ]
—keep goin the way you been.
he checkd to see if i was gettin it. my expresion
was i’m sure as blank as any ive ever seen on a college freshman
tryin to interpret literture.
—make a left.
As you may know, conspiracy nuts tend to be good at predicting how
long it will take you to drive somewhere. in eighteen minutes on the dot,
i saw a sign—
athens
shity
limits
or thats what i thought it said, but
i was basicly a 5 hourenergy-zombie
at this point, so who knows?
i rolld down the window to let in the
morning, it was a nice one, the birds were up but nobody else was
movin. reminded me of some other morning, i thought it was dejavu
at first  but then it came to me—
gettysburg.
i drove up there once, to visit a friend
who went to gettysburg college.
i drove all night, got there just before
sunrise. we drank robitussin, threw our stuf into a backpack [ cigarets,
journals, a copy of the last gentleman ] and headed for the battlefield.
as soon as i climd over the
split-rail fence, i was overwhelmed. by history.
not as in the channel,
but personal histry. i had been here. somethin happend to me here.
i dont believe in past lives or
anything, and my sober mind was later
able to write it off to the
combination of dextromethorphan hydrobromide and walkerpercy.
especialy since it never happend again. unless you count now. which
i wasnt sure i was ready to do that yet.
the speed limit dropt to thirtyfive, and the road [ it was calld
odd street ] got residential. you started seeing old clapboard houses
with sagging porches— millhouses probly. the yards were patchy,
but they had good trees. water oaks i think, or pin oaks. with some
age on em.
judgin from the yards and mildew and the peelin paint, i’d say it was a student neighborhood. or a student getto. lota the porches didnt even have railings. thats against code, bytheway. in just about any place that has codes.
there was a guy on one of the porches playin banjo
with his eyes closed. i could hear it long after he was out of sight,
it was prety bucolic.
then the trees cleard out and odd street turnd
comercial— a traffic light, a goldenpantry, a donut shop calld the
taco stand [ dont ask ] then finely at the top a the hill, like a beacon
like a flag—
I had never been so happy to see a super 9 in my life. i didnt know you could be this happy.
pulld up to the office.
put it in park.
stept outa the car.
stretcht
it felt good to be outside, aloose in this beautiful morning.
i took a deep breath.
comforting, familiar
like walkin into the house
of a childhood friend.
i had the sudden thought—
i’m gona like this town.
the thought was less than a second old
when the geo’s engine shudderd once—
then died.