Back on the Road... For Good

story

I have tended and picked, watered and trimmed, cleaned and refilled. I have fertilized, pesticized and euthanized. Above it all, I have sneezed.

And sneezed.

Holy crap have I sneezed. What time wasn't spent in the sudden expulsion of lung air was occupied fighting to regain it as asthmaesque symptoms seized my racked frame, leaving me hypoxic and wan.

Still, I LOVED IT!

After all, allergic has been what I am, for my whole life. If I could put a number on the total sneezes I have emitted since birth, I'm certain it would exceed the number of tissue boxes stored at the Scotty warehouse. It might be higher than all the people on Earth with colds at this very moment, and at least twice the times I have covered my mouth. No apologies, no regrets.

Sneezing is more than an affliction for me -- it's what I am. If I were a dwarf in Snow White's court (I'm several inches too tall for dwarfism, you bastards) I'm sure she would have dubbed me 'Horny'.

You didn't think I'd go for the obvious answer, did you? Tut, tut.

Regardless of the allergic reaction, I found the last few weeks of 'farm school' to be immensely gratifying. I really dug the 'fieldwork' education. All of my teachers were knowledgeable and patient and taught in slow, repeating sentences. There were no quizzes or tests. Best of all, they believed me when I told them, every time, that my homework had been burned to ashes. And it was, my friends, it was.

Have I learned everything on the subject? Not in that short time-- there's a lot of finesse that only time will teach. But have I learned enough to begin my own successful 'vegetable' garden? Yes, oh my goodness yes. But will I?

We shall see, oh curious ones.

But I have imposed on my host families for far too long. Yes, I've repaired everything that was broken in their homes. Yes, I paid my own way, and contributed to the households. Yes, I became the de facto dishwasher, and maid, and even manny. I cooked meals, and made fresh morning coffee, and stayed out of the way when my presence would have been awkward.

Still, this boy knows when to skedaddle. And skedaddling time is here. So, three cheers for me.

What's next? I've given that question a fair amount of brain power. I've thought about my reasons for vacating LA in the first place and what has changed over the past month that would cause an alteration in my master plan. I have pondered over my various and diffuse environments to select one which suits me-- the NEW me. And the answer which keeps coming back and back although I try to ignore it... is that I don't much like traveling alone. It's boring. There are, like, a hundred hours in a day to fill up, in between morning shine and bedtime. Sure, I take several hours at a wi-fi location in the mornings to chat with friends via laptop (and what a godsend it has been); I have my cell phone with me and can communicate throughout the day with people; but I'm sure you know that just does not convey the same closeness, the same sharing, as having a warm body in the seat next to you.

Add to that the recent realization that I am OLD. Okay, not old, but certainly not young. My head shows much more scalp than I prefer, what hair remains is tinged with grey, I'm paunchy and wrinkling and I hurt in places that, as a young man, didn't even exist on my body.

Why is that important? Because it's dawned upon me to my horror that I've become one of the invisibles... the people whom you don't look at if you can help it. Being an invisible makes it that much harder to get along as a person traveling solo. People don't rush to do you favors anymore (not that they ever DID; I'm just saying); pretty young women fail to look at you as potential bed bouncers; and cops don't hesitate to issue that ticket even beyond the flapping of my once-thick-n-lustrous eyelashes (that hasn't happened on this trip yet, thank goodness).

I don't know how aging people before me have gotten through it! Do you think I DON'T want to sleep with that long, flaxen haired willow NOT looking at me from across the restaurant? Oh, I do, I do. It's just that, at this point, it would take a Herculean effort to achieve. It's not like young attractive women have floating thought balloons above them filled with helpful revelations like 'I have daddy issues' or 'I nut for a guy with a gut' or even 'I want to fuck that wrinkled old 'tard and make him my sugar daddy'. Especially not the last one... I couldn't be a Nutra Sweet daddy at this point. Not even a Cyclamates daddy (remember that one?). I could possibly pull off a Saccharin daddy... but you know that there would DEFINITELY be a bitter after-taste to that relationship:

"Can I go shopping, honey-bunch?"

"Sure! Here's a 20. Hit the 99 cents store... bring me back a Nutty Buddy."

Yuch.

So what have I learned? That traveling around the wide, wonderful world with nobody to talk to is roughly akin to having hot, sweaty sex... with a mannikin. There might be lots to ooh and ahh over, but there's nobody to hear it.

That's why I'm mounting the saddle of my frumpmobile and pointing it south, towards my home. This trip is officially over. Save for the next 20 hours in the car, that is.

Is that really it? Is my great 'Freedoming' over? Have I collected enough data for my own version of Kerouac's 'On The Road'? Well... nothing Earth-shattering. Certainly not the Great American Novel-- more like a Dummy's Guide To The Pacific Northwest-- If You Don't Know What You're Looking For And Don't Mind Completing The Trip Having Not Found It.

Blast. At least it was a summer away from the computer. Oops... I can't make that claim, either. Took the damned thing with me, in the form of an easily rechargeable notebook. On an aside, am I the only one who thinks the natural course of events in the miniaturizing of computers HAS TO BE their implantation within us? I'm certain we'll soon live in a future where if I should want directions while I'm driving, I need only think of them and they would somehow appear clearly in my field of vision;

or if a lovely young woman asks me a question of ANY difficulty, a Google search within my brain would pop out the amazingly correct answer for me to impress her. Not that it would; with my computer purchasing skills I would probably end up with a slower baud rate than everyone else on the street and would still be hearing the sounds of dial-up ringing in my brain as that handsome young guy with the speedy MindMac provided her with the info, and then his own info. Drats, foiled again!

In an attempt to salvage this not-quite waste of a summer, I throw a query online: Would somebody like to join my rapid drive to the City of Angles? Oops, I meant to write Angels. Nobody will notice, I'm sure.

My first response comes quickly: "Where is the City of Angles? THE PENTAGON?"

Ho, ho. We got us some smartasses in Seattle, I see. The other posts are more promising, and I settle on one who seems the most mature and responsible. We settle on a time in the morning to meet; he's going to get a ride to my part of town. Good, good.

An hour after the meet time and eight phone calls later I find him hung over and apologetic on the other end of the line. I'm not giving up on him. I say a fond goodbye to my Seattle hosts and drive to HIM. He won't answer the door but answered his phone: "I'll be right out."

Five minutes.

Ten minutes. What the hell does 'right out' mean to this dude, anyway?

Fifteen minutes. I go back to his door and knock again, this time less politely. He answers. He's young, perhaps 25. Tall and reedy thin, a mop of bushy light brown hair, VERY rumpled. Looking past him into the apartment, I can see it's typical for a student: Broken, disheveled furniture, piles of festering clothing bursting up from the floor, half the doors sporting fist-holes.

"Sorry." Accompanying his apology came a burst of last night: Sour beer, spicy chips, vomit. Morning breath. I winced.

"Nice to meet you. Got a toothbrush?" I was irritated and pulling no punches.

"Sorry, sorry. Yes. Be right back." He tripped on a t-shirt, righted and pulled himself into the bathroom. "It was an impromptu goodbye for me," he yelled through the damaged door, words slurred by toothbrush movement. "I was helpless to say no. They left an hour ago."

"I see." I said, sounding like my father disapproving of my own troubled youth and checked myself. What did I care about this guy, besides where his life intersected mine? "Let's just get on the road, okay?"

The door opened. "Yes, let's." He dove into a pile of clothes and I realized that was his CLEAN mountain. He stuffed them into a series of plastic shopping bags and said, "Done. Let's go."

Finally. We swung into and out of a fast food joint and then popped onto the 5, where we would remain until hitting the artery leading to San Francisco. I wasn't getting a rider all the way to LA as it turns out-- he needed to get to San Fran, but some quick recalculating and a new plan was in motion. "We'll stop for gas and to switch drivers, and with luck should pull up to your uncle's pad at around midnight."

Then it was us, alone, two near-strangers trapped in a rolling metal box, shoulders a foot apart. Let the learning begin. I quizzed him for awhile and found out he was a quiet young man, considered and intelligent, though a strong candidate for some ADD study. Scatterbrained was a good descriptor for my young passenger. I tried to help, as any good obsessive-compulsive would but I just made things worse, so I backed away slowly and waited. Watching him attack his literal baggage from a safe distance, sending items askew, I was reminded of nothing more or less than a dog frantically digging a hole. At every gasoline stop the back hatch was up and tearing plastic bags were askew, emptied, as he searched for a document or a garment or a piece of electronic equipment. Eighteen hours, I thought to myself. This guy can't just take a nap or bring a book along for a lousy three-quarters of a day? But whatever he needed, it was the most important thing in the world for him, and in eighteen hours I'd never see him again. Zen wisdom prompted acceptance, and so I waited patiently for his every search to conclude.

We had a couple of other stops, to revisit my previous hosts and thank them again, and to share a meal and take some photographs. I had planned for this and timed everything, but the consistent searches were slowing us down. Lunch at the first home became an early dinner by the time we arrived. My other host family was also planning to feed us, and because they were just an hour down the road from the first, guess what? We ate two meals.

Now stuffed and driving, Asleep At The Wheel became less a band that occasionally showed up in rotation on my iPod and more a very real and dangerous possibility; we scrutinized each other's driving until the effects of overeating passed.

His first effort behind the wheel came with the precaution, "I haven't driven in years." White-knuckled and staring through sweat-soaked hair I could see he needed to relax, so put on some cool driving music, some forty-year-old light jazz by George Benson. Eventually he stopped hitting the brakes and gas simultaneously and settled into the task. Now it was my turn to stare wide-eyed at every near miss and lane stray during the soliloquy of his life, accompanied with wide hand gestures and long bouts of eye contact.

"Watch the road, not me, pal," I insisted, doublechecking my seatbelt and verifying my car had a passenger side airbag. He didn't kill me or destroy my car and I was grateful for that, but there may be a few hard-to-shake nightmares coming up in my near future.

I made one error I should have handled prior to the trip. One of my headlights had gone out, even though both hi-beams were present, so instead of changing the bulb I told him to just drive with the hi-beams on.

Big mistake. We were on the 5, the most congested north-south artery in the west, a roadway packed with truckers. Talk about OCD! Those boys are in a club of their own, and you ride alongside them at your own risk. Break one of their rules and pretty soon every one of them are onto you. Thank you CB radio! I could imagine the conversation... well, without knowing trucker lingo I couldn't, but it probably sounded something like this:

"Yeah, we got a christmas tree rolling at mile marker three six five... box 'em in, ladies!"

I'm only guessing a car with brights would be called a Christmas Tree. Maybe an Angry Poodle would be more appropriate, I don't know. In any case, my poor ride-along was treated to some terrifying behavior for about fifteen miles. First, a truck rode up on our ass and seared our eyes with his high beams. It was like the fire of God the Punisher. When our beams remained high, uncooperative, they began Phase Two. I call it the Squish.

In a concerted effort, two more trucks pulled up. One got on our left side, and the other on our right. The guy in back began pulsing his high beams, firing them like Photon Torpedoes. "Speed up!" I shouted, making another mistake. These truckers weren't done with us. The matched our speed and were counting on it, because in a few seconds a fourth truck in front of us slowed down, fell back and closed our only avenue of escape!

"What do I do what do I do what do I do?" my rider stammered, obviously freaked out. I figured we could be pushed around by our jailers or fight back, and I was getting pissed.

Even though I was clearly wrong.

And though it was a suicide move, I told him what to do.

"I can't!" His wide eyes proved him honest-- I believed him. That's why I did it for him. I threw my leg into the driver's well and jammed on the brakes at 80... okay, 65. Still fast.

The truck behind us reacted with a professional's hone, and blue smoke poured from his wheel wells to avoid us. As I suspected, he didn't have time to CB my plans to the other truckers and they pulled ahead, opening up a hole you could literally drive a truck through. I pointed and he took over, gassing it away from our blue-collar bullies and off the freeway, right at an exit.

I won't lie. There were long minutes of hesitant breathing and staring straight ahead as we assessed our lives to this point and forward, double-crossing our deals to God and simultaneously thanking the powers for this continuation of our lives. I let out a whooshing breath right then, turned to him and said perhaps the smartest thing I've said this whole 'vacation':

"What do you say we get us a headlight?"