My first memory of it all is a crisp day in early October. I think Alex was driving, I'm not sure, but we were leaving my parents house in New Hampshire. Everything we owned was packed into a white Ford Tempo with a minor oil leak from a hole in the oil pan. It was spattered with asphalt, and the front left corner panel was primer gray. The theme to Shaft was playing on the oldies radio station.
To get into that car, I had worked 12, sometimes 13 hour days all summer and early into the fall, landscaping and building fences. We planned the trip over coffee and eggs and pie at a 24 hour chain diner in Woburn, late one night.
Our first stop was in Amherst, two or three days. On the last night, before our 6am departure, while I slept on the bedroom floor, I had a dream. There was a hedge, green and crisp and ten or twelve feet tall. In the middle of it, there was a small toolshed, old and rickety and built with wood. At places in the hedge, gaps had been cut. The sky was clear, and the sun was bright. And there were zombies. Gray skinned, but more animated than something from The Night of the Living Dead. They were quick, and smart, and they fought hard. And they kept coming. On our side of the line, I had soldiers. We were outmatched, but it didn't matter. I directed the troops, armed with tools from the shed, and we formed a line and held. I led, swinging a sword, and a garden hoe, effortlessly cutting down the zombies. And at last, the zombie king came. He had a suit of plate armor, with bright tassels on the helmet and shoulders. We fought. I can still see my move, my fatality. I lept higher than a man can leap, swinging in a backflip, twirling 180 degrees as I came over and around him. As I began to descend, I swung my sword, across from my right shoulder, and his head landed just as my feet touched the ground. As it rolled, the helmet fell open. Maybe it's the mythical archetype, or maybe I just watched The Empire Strikes Back one too many times. But his face was my own, pale and gaping. And then I was on a beach, the one I went to every night in Australia. The stars were out, and the space between them was black. I can still see my feet, looking down my body towards the surf from where I lay in the sand. Anna Pelrine lay next to me, the girl who played Juliet to my Romeo in the 8th grade play, the one I could never get to like me back, the first one I ever liked as more than friends. And we just lay there. And then I woke up.
At Niagara Falls, they wanted $10 to park, so we drove slowly and looked over the rail. The trees were changing across the Birkshires, through the Adirondaks, and into the Ohio planes. I got sick in Bowling Green. I barely remember Milwaukee, except for the frozen custard stand. Just past Omaha, sometime around midnight, a storm broke. I could see it coming across the blank plain, but there was nothing to do for it. It was hail at first, and thunder, and then rain so big that it might as well have been hail. When we rolled into Boulder the next morning, the oil leak was big enough that the engine was smoking. Down and around the mountains, through New Mexico and Arizona, where I forgot to replace the oil cap at one stop and almost killed the car. But it kept chugging, across the Mojave, where dawn began. The blue-gray light outlining the jagged arms of Joshua trees. And then down, through Bakersfield and the loops of LA. I got the first ticket just south of Fresno, tagged by an airplane. "Aircraft's got you going 70." They pulled 8 of us over, 3 cops walking the line. The second ticket was in Grant's Pass, at 3 in the morning. Estimated at 69. And at last, before noon on the last day, Seattle. It was a dream. I totaled the car 4 hours later, but it didn't matter. We were there.
Although I wasn't really on the road, I took a train that way, two years later. My friend killed himself. Then another three days later. A third overdosed later that month, and a fourth got married. First I took a bus to Spokane. (for that story, go here: http://www.doubledarepress.com/2001/10/stories/spokane.shtml) Then a train to New Mexico. My neighbor was an older guy, a Vietnam Vet who couldn't figure out why a gallon of gas cost less than a gallon of cola. Wish that was still a problem, but those were halcyon days. Central California rolled by, click clack, choo choo. Grapes, olives, strawberries, trainyards and boarded houses. It took 4 days. I took a plane home.
The next time I was on that road, it was southbound. Through Oregon, then west to the 101. Through Redwood and down the coast. That time my partner in crime thought he was a race car driver, going down the coast road at 30 miles over the limit. I held the oh-shit handle and looked out to sea the whole way. That trip was the first time I saw Vegas. It was 1030 at night and 101 degrees when we came over the ridge and I saw the strip for the first time.
The first time, northbound, 19, everything packed into a Ford Tempo with an oil leak, a few boxes, my best friend and I. Nothing worth keeping to lose. This time, southbound, almost 29. My girl. My dog. My cat. My snake. Everything I own packed into a 26' Penske truck towing a car. It was 330 in the afternoon when we got on I-5. It was sunny, clear, but cool. A few renegade maples bursting into color.
We stayed both nights in Motel 6. One in Roseburg, Oregon, the second in Modesto, California. We were gonna stay in Stockton, but there were bullet-proof glass windows at reception, so we pushed on. The first night, we ate dinner at Chili's, and I had a barbeque-ranch bacon burger. The first morning, we ate a Shari's and I took a cherry pie to-go. The truck topped out at 35 going up a slope, and we had plenty of time to watch the double peak of Shasta rise, shift, and fade. The plains of northern California could be in Africa. Slow, rolling hills covered in golden, sunbleached grass, marked with low, scrub trees. Throw in an elephant, take away an angus herd... By the time we hit Stockton, we were at each other's throats. We made up, sort of, over breakfast at IHOP in Modesto. We made up all the way on the walk back to the truck. We each pulled an olive right off the tree. She turned hers in her hand. I put mine in my mouth, just as she said, "I don't think you want to eat that." She was right. It wasn't in my mouth long. It was grainy, and bitter, and it left a purple stain on the pavement.
Just before the mountains flatten into the Mojave, above Bakersfield and below Barstow, the truck started beeping. I got in onto the shoulder just as the engine shut off. The hood started smoking.
"Oh my god. Oh god. We have to get the animals out of here. Oh god."
"Okay, I have the fire extinguisher in the back. You just get the animals out your side."
There wasn't much time to check the mirror. Cars blew past, and I raced to undo the lock on the door. I got the red tube and ran to the front of the truck. Opening the hood, I was greeted by a burst of chemical steam, but no smoke, no flames. "Looks like the radiator went nuts." She had both animals over the guard rail, breathing fast and shaking. The guy at Penske said someone would be there in an hour. The road was cut into the side of a steep face that dropped away and down. Below us, maybe sixty feet, train tracks ran and disappeared into a tunnel. Across a valley, another crest rose, topped with multi-million dollar homes. An arroyo cut a deep swath through the valley, deep enough to conceal everything but the crowns of cottonwoods and willows growing in its bed. "Look, a coyote." Sure enough, the old trickster himself was wandering along the rim of the arroyo, lolligagging in the sun. There was a golden eagle, and kids on mountain bikes. I texted my friends, asked them to send good road karma. Both of our motorcycles were in the back of the truck, illegally, and I really didn't want anyone to find them. I thought about the old lady I picked up and drove home one night. I thought about the hitch-hiker with the broken leg I took home from the Crosby, Stills and Nash concert. I thought about when my friend's motorcycle trailer popped a tire on the highway onramp and I went to help him. And it turned out, my road karma's in pretty good shape. When the guy showed up, it was just a busted coolant hose. We were back on the road forty minutes later.
When we crested the hill, there was some stupid disco track on the radio. I spent the last two miles at 35 searching for a good song, a memorable song, but it just didn't happen. I wasn't supposed to remember it I guess. I don't remember what was on the radio when we rolled into Seattle, or the first time I saw Vegas. I don't think I had a walkman when I took the train to New Mexico. That's just the way it'll be, I guess. The soundtrack's only important if you remember it, anyway. I don't remember the soundtrack, but I do remember the dreams.
