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Up North part 6: terminal ride
My next ride came quickly, before I was really settled in at the newest on-ramp, and I immediately knew it was the terminal ride when the driver said he was going to Manistee. He seemed reluctant to tell me when I asked where he was headed, but he had asked me first. He was older, a retiree, and a little gruff, and maybe having some buyers remorse about such a long ride with a stranger. His mood totally lifted though, when he asked me what I did when I wasn’t hitching Up North to get some space in a troubled marriage, and I told him I was a social worker by trade but between jobs right now. I told him about my last job in case management with adults and children with developmental disabilities and a job I had applied for working with adolescent refugees from Africa who were settling in Lansing.
“Oh, my son sees one”, he said, quickly adding: “Of course he’s adopted you know.” He was frustrated that it is so hard to get an appointment and then they just end up cancelling at the last minute. I told him one of the reasons I had quit was my caseload was too big and I didn’t have any time to help anyone like they really needed.
After opening up about his son he revealed he was going to Manistee to fix up his third home which he was hoping to sell. He knew the route well and mentioned several likely places to camp and suggested getting supplies in Naubinway. I broke out the steno pad and wrote on the last page:
Lake Michigan Campground
Brevort Lake
Hog Island State Forest
Campground
Black River State Forest
Campground
Naubinway
We were already across the bridge and driving west on Route 2 when I started taking notes. I started dreading my hitch out as we sped along Route 2, me thinking how similar it seemed to Old 72 I had walked 9 miles down, without getting so much of a hint of a ride. The now friendly driver suggested I go on with him all the way to Manistee and detailed its virtues. He said he had seen wolves, heard them howl, he knew the difference between them and coyotes he told me. I nodded agreeably but turned down the ride to Manistee. I could tell he just wanted the company and Naubinway is where I wanted to be. Miles and miles closer to the interstate in case I had to walk the whole way out because of the new fear.
He let me out in Naubinway which is really just a wide spot in the road with a post office and a half a dozen shops mostly selling smoked fish. I left my Up North Please sign in his van. I didn’t need it anymore. I was here.
I walked over to the post office and leaned my pack against the wall on the side, out of the way, as it was the middle of the “town” and I wanted to do all the shopping I could before heading into the wilderness. I walked down to the pay phone to let folks know I was safe and where I was. It was dead. I walked into the dried fish and hunting supplies shop, but they didn’t have any fire starters. The fish lined up behind the glass stared at me with their dead eyes, and I left without buying anything. I walked into the next shop with more than a little unease. It was a gift shop and I was hoping to get some postcards, especially as the phone was out, so someone would eventually know where I was at. A stiff older woman quickly greeted me with an icy “can I help you?” It felt more like she’d said ‘what do you think your doing here dirtball”.
Her postcards stank so I quickly left and went for post card stamps at the post office. “That your pack out there?”, the postal worker asked when I entered.
“Yeah.”
“Better move it before someone calls the State Police and your in a heap of trouble. I’ve already gotten a call about it,” he added, though I’d been in Naubinway for probably less than six minutes.
“Sorry”, I said. “I forgot times have changed. I just wanted to pick up a couple of things and didn’t want to lug it all over town. Well I’d better get my post card stamps and get my gear moved.”
After the stamps I lugged my pack up to the grocery/smoked fish/gas station to stock up on some groceries. Count Chocula was on salel and I picked up a box. Comfort food for a world of fear and distrust, and they even had soy milk.
I lugged my pack and the groceries to the gas station and picked up some smokes. I lugged my pack and the two bags of groceries to the DNR office at the end of town and confirmed that Hog Island State Forest Campground is still open.
I started walking the five miles or so back east to Hog Island down the side of Route 2, with my pack and a bag of groceries in each hand. No one stops. For some reason a blue beater caught my eye speeding along west and I noticed the passenger looked like Moses or some kind of Mountain Man. I prayed that a car would not cut over a lane and strike me dead as I watched cars pass at 70+ miles per hour. Everyone was driving so fast, passing where no sane person would pass.
I got off the road a couple of miles east of Naubinway at a quaint old rest area. I drank crystal clear water that was pouring out of an old stone fountain. I felt refreshed both body and soul of the bad energy of the speeding traffic and small town paranoia that had left me a little shaken.
I started back walking until one of the grocery bags ripped. I consolidated to one bag stuffing the excess into my already full back pack. I started walking again with my left thumb out, in case walking in the middle of nowhere with heavy packages is not enough indication that I would appreciate a ride. The blue beater I had seen earlier heading the other way pulled up in front of me. As the old man in the passenger seat made room for my bag and it and I started to get in, the driver made me promise I was not wanted and that he wouldn’t be reading about me in tomorrow’s paper.
I started to tell him his reverse lights were out as we accelerate, but at around 45 mph the car started shuddering and it was obvious it wasn’t going faster, and I decided to bite my tongue. The driver asked me what I was doing and I explained I hitched here to camp at Hog Island and escape the talk of war. The driver asked how old I was and after he guessed 26, I told him I was “33 but doing stupid shit keeps me young.”
The driver said, “it hasn’t helped me any”.
The old man agreed saying he was 58, and he looked about 70. As we pull into the campground the old man became emotional and apologized for trying to talk the driver out of picking me up. “I was scared”, he said. “The terrorists did a good job”. He told me he was frightened for me and hoped I at least had a bottle.
I told him “nope” and he gave me the last Busch out of the 12 pack, and I was alone. I had no time to sit back and drink the beer and enjoy it though. I had to get cracking to make camp before dark. Hog Island is in fact a peninsula and most of the sites are right on Lake Michigan. Terribly beautiful, truly sublime, but windy, so I took site 3, located squarely in the woods. I of course had the entire campground to choose from. I laid down my Mylar coated tarp, I had trash picked a couple of years previously, and pitched my tent on top it.
I walked down to the lake shore and looked at the lake. I thought about watching the sun set into the lake but decided to make a fire and cook instead. I picked some wood out of some of the other sites and made a fire. I cooked some food, ate, and took my weary ass to bed in spite of it being quite early. I was tired and dishes could wait until morning. I looked up to see so many stars.
up north part 5: talking ’bout 9/11
After being dropped in Grayling I again found myself on a pretty desolate exit. I again kept to the top of the onramp and took the opportunity to try to do some writing during the wait. I pulled out the red steno pad and started writing on the last blank line of page two:
“Narrative interrupted on on (sic) account of a ride. I’m gonna have to start writing more its brought me good luck. 3 rides in an hour and a half. The good news is I’ve made it to I-75. People are going where I want to go. The bad news is I’m at an exit in the middle of nowhere. Not even a gas station. I kind of wish I would have had breakfast when I had the chance. I’ve got a couple of apples though so I won’t starve. Better for me than fast food too.
Good folks picked me up. A nice couple on their way to Camp Grayling to take out the government garbage. I about jumped out of my skin when their dog came out of nowhere barking ferociously as only an enraged Daschund can. I was right to be cautious though. Daisy is a biter. They have to keep moving to save Daisy from execution for finger biting. When she calmed down I gave her my hand to sniff my fingers tucked away safely of course. The driver said he wished he”…
Once again my narrative was quickly interrupted on account of a ride. A nice silver haired gentleman in a big newish pickup truck picked me up and asked me what I was up too. I told him I was hitchhiking to get a feel for what people are thinking about the whole 9/11 thing. He told me he was glad the country had pulled together but it was a shame it took such a terrible tragedy to do so. We both agreed we were glad Bush was in charge. I told him I thought Gore (note the name) would have hit Afghanistan hard, without a plan, to prove he wasn’t weak and Bush had less to prove. He replied: “Gore’s a pussy who would’ve used sanctions, what’s sanctions going to do to a country that’s already ruined?”
I wanted to tell him that that proved my point. Gore would have been forced to act precipitously because of people like him and their impression of Gore as weak. I did not tell him this because hitchhikers are always agreeable, out of both self interest and gratitude. I instead said I read in the paper yesterday that we gave Saddam Hussein his Anthrax strains in the 1970s. The driver was not surprised to hear this and his tone shifted to where he was almost misty as he talked about how we had made an alliance with death when we export weapons. I told him we gave Afghanistan their Stinger Missiles and that the U.S. is the largest arms exporter in the world.
There was then an intimacy as we drove along talking of these things, somewhat similar to therapy. He was really beginning to be moved as he talked about how the Taliban treat “their women”. “Like property”, I said. I liked this guy though, he was not afraid to feel deeply. All too quickly we arrived in Gaylord and he was gone.
I broke for lunch (sub & chips) and did some shopping at a large strip mall complex anchored by a Normans, a discount sporting goods store. I picked up some thinner gloves, as my thinsulate ones were in my pocket because they made my hands too hot. I also bought a pair of orange wicking socks because they like the gloves were only a dollar. I also looked for fire starter sticks to use in my zip stove (a forced air chamber that burns sticks and runs on 2 double a batteries) but they didn’t have any.
Up North Part 4 – riding and writing
I woke up early, showered (didn’t much need one but didn’t know when I might get another), ate an apple and walked to the highway. You have to maximize your daylight when hitching and early morning is the best time of day to catch rides. No one thinks they are going to get robbed at 7 am. I drew jack-o-lanterns on my sign for luck. A nice older gent who was only going to the next exit to a used tractor sale stopped and picked me up shortly. We barely had time to learn that and to remark on the cold before the ride is done.
I settled my pack made a few smiles and showed the sign. It’s a slow exit though, a lot of dead time, so I pulled the red steno pad out of my back left pocket where I had jotted down the plate number yesterday. On the first page I wrote: “10/19/01
“Waiting. I am standing next to the sign that says Motor Vehicles Only. My pack is propped jauntily against it. Silent testimony that I’d be walking if it wasn’t illegal. I am in Harrison Michigan, home of Michigan’s first road side attraction. A grizzled old bear baiter whose picture is hanging at the local Burger King. It closed in 1970 and only the ruins remain. My sign reads Up North Please, the please is important. More than once a ride has told me
Two guys in a pickup truck pulled over in front of me, shuffled some stuff and squeezed together to make me room as I tucked away the steno pad and threw my pack in the back. They were enjoying their day off and were on their way to pick up a snow machine. They both remarked on the cold. I told them as long as it doesn’t rain on me I’m fine with the cold. “It thins out the crowds.”
It was another short ride and I was again dropped in the middle of nowhere so I pulled back out the steno pad and wrote: “Narrative interrupted on account of a ride. A beautiful thing as I was growing tired of Harrison. It was getting hard to smile. Smiling is even more important than saying please. Hitching is like fishing and you bait your hook with your smile, your sign, and your overall appearance. Mostly its only the truly desperate who hitch anymore. Poor guys going to work, looking for work, and the mentally ill.
I wrote slowly stopping to look up and smile at the occasional passing car. I was pleasantly surprised when a brown van pulled over before I could write a paragraph. I walked up to the front and opened the passenger door and was met with furious barking and gnashing of small bright teeth. “Watch out, she’s a biter”, the driver said as he pulled back the ferocious little pudgy daschund. I slipped my bag in the back and we were off.
The driver was a chubby guy in his 50s and his wife had shuffled in the back when the y picked me up. After we introduced ourselves the driver said he wished he had one to burn with me. I concurred and added it’s too risky to carry in these troubled times when you have an ambiguous relationship with the law. He discussed the finer points of probable cause to which I could only agree but I added “Your in jail nonetheless.”
Moving on he asked me where I was heading. I told him I planned to hitch Up North to get away from everything and camp away from “all this” I added at a loss for words. He told me: “Solitude is the essence of sanity.”
Up North part 3 – First Night
Being thankful nothing came of the State Trooper drive by and my big old knife, then in my right front pocket quickly tucked inside my tent, deep in the pack, I was not unthankful when it started getting close to 5:00 and near dark this time of year. I had actually made some good mileage that day and was comfortably full of real experience. I started walking west as I had seen a sign saying State Park and there were several small locally owned motels that looked cheap. My first stop was a private campground, RV park sort of thing, but they wanted $17. I’d sleep in a ditch before paying that to lay on the cold ground.
Past the campground up a ways I came to The Acorn Motel and Yard Barn, this looked like my kind of place. I spotted an elderly white woman cleaning a room, propped my pack against the wall and asked her if she had any vacancies. She said, “Oh, I didn’t hear a car.”
“I’m walking”, I said. She gave a start but didn’t ask more and took cash for the room, $38. She also told me the bar across the street and up a ways had good food, “nothing fancy, burgers and stuff.” I used the phone in my room to leave Amee a message I was safe for the night and what my number was. I then called and talked to Brenda. When I hitchhike I like to talk to someone each night and let them know where I’m at and where I’m likely heading. Make it easier to track me down if I ever pull up dead in a ditch somewhere.
I was glad I called Brenda because she was bumming and had been leaving me messages all day not knowing I was going on this trip. It seems the Monroe City Attorney was giving my sister shit about paying for the damages on Mom’s, God rest her soul, car after a cop car had smashed into it. I commiserated some and then walked over to the bar for a couple of glasses of Bud draft, a patty melt (this meat stuff was starting to taste pretty good), and French fries with gravy.
I reflected back on the day mostly walking and waiting but then suddenly punctuated with this intense human interaction of meeting, sharing, bonding, and parting, over and over again. During the waits sometimes I read at slow exits. It passes the time, shows your literate, self contained, content to wait as much as needing a ride. It allows one to look up from the page and try to meet the gaze of the driver and perhaps a smile, a smile of invitation.
I’d been reading the Circle of Stones, one of the Clan of the Cave Bear novels. In it it spoke of thanking the Goddess for the game that sacrificed its life so that the eater may live. I bowed my head in thanks of the anonymous cow, from the feedlot to the slaughterhouse, so that I may march and secure shelter and survive the cold to live another day.
What I like about hitchhiking, and backpacking, and camping is it shifts you to The Now as only a struggle for the means of survival can. It is good to think of these things as not assured, what will I drink and eat and where will I lay my weary head? What steps will I take to survive the elements? It puts a lot of emotional modernity into perspective.
I returned to the hotel and watched some TV, channel flipping: Anthrax, Spock erasing Kirk’s sad memories, anthrax, Buffy bumming over a dying vampire lover, Angel perhaps, anthrax, the weather, anthrax, the increased popularity of the band Anthrax’s web page, anthrax.
Amee called, which I took as a good sign. She enjoyed the play she had gone to after work and Lucee was one pissed off cat for both of us being gone all day. I told the cat I was going for a week or two, depending on the weather and entertainment value of the UP, but you know cats, they just don’t listen. Cats Just Are, in spite of planes crashing into buildings, marriages ending, the survival imperative, they Just Are. As I am. I too have a warm spot to curl up in, a good day behind me and an adventure in the morn.
Up North part 2: first days’ rides
The sedan was driven by a Korean gentleman in his 40s. A lot of people who pick up hitchhikers are internationals because frequently hitchhiking is more culturally appropriate in other countries. He was on his way to Mount Pleasant to hit the casino there. After we made small talk he gave me his card: Kim, Hyunjoo: Media and Communication Arts Associate Professor at Kwangoon University. He told me he was on a yearlong sabbatical as a visiting scholar at Michigan State where he had done his doctoral work. His research specialty was new media, the internet, cell phones and such. I told him no one on a cell phone had ever picked me up, they already had someone to talk to you. He wasn’t surprised.
He asked me if I had ever been to Korea and I told him I had heard Koreans didn’t like Americans. He agreed this was so but quickly added they were very sorry about the terrorist attacks and actually passed on his condolences. He then said that now Americans knew how it feels in the rest of the world. He talked about his childhood years, spent in air raid drills and Kim Il-sung’s threats to turn Seoul into a “fiery pit of rubble”.
I asked him about the Sunshine Policy, as much to prove I wasn’t an ignorant American as to find out his views. He spoke with a passion that surprised me denouncing it as a stupid idea as it strengthens Kim the Younger’s hand. “There are 27 million people in North Korea but he only has to make 1.3 million happy to stay in power with gifts and favors, no?”
We talked of language acquisition and Chomsky’s idea that it’s nearly impossible to learn a language properly after puberty. His English was excellent but he bemoaned the fact that he could not express the subtleties of his thoughts in English. He claimed it wasn’t a problem as a student but his thoughts are more complex now and he struggles to find a way to express them.
All too soon we were at Mt. Pleasant and he thanked me for making 70 miles very short. I thanked him for saving me from a very desolate exit. I took an opportunity to piss at the local McDonalds and quickly crossed the street to the top of the on ramp heading north. A lot of hitchhikers had worked this on ramp judging by the huge number of cigarette butts and candy wrappers.
After a short wait a long haired guy in his 20s pulled over his van and offered me a ride to Claire, The Gateway of the North. He claimed to be a welder but was on his way to Claire to install a furnace. We talked about the war after I mentioned that I thought rides had been bad because of the threat of terrorism. He claimed he had a brother in the Special Forces-Marines and he has been sent to parts unknown for at least a year. He also claimed the FBI was looking for two suspects who had been seen videotaping the Soo Locks. He offered me a Basic Menthol, which I took, though I’d rather have smoked another of my Winstons.
The Claire exit was not as busy as Mount Pleasant but still looked promising. Nonetheless I scanned the area for places to possibly bed down as the short days of October can easily leave you stranded. The 220 acres of scrubby pine looked promising and there was an array of fast food joints as well in case I came to live at this exit. Idle speculation as it turned out.
After a short while a beater pulled over with a couple of small flags prominently displayed. This poked a hole in the thesis I’d been turning over in my head about hitchhiking in a post 9/11 world. My theory was that flag waivers would not stop for a hitchhiker because jingoism is based in fear. But this guy was not your typical flag waiver. He had numerous jailhouse tattoos for example with the heart on his right cheek especially striking.
He immediately began a tweeker type spiel about how he was a trader and he liked to trade stuff. All without barely even a nod from me, he told me he had this hunting knife that he just knew I should have and he started reaching desperately under the seat in a way that was nothing short of alarming, even if he were just looking for a pack of smokes and not a knife. Not coming up with it he immediately pulled over on the side of the interstate quickly damping my secret joy at the not finding of the knife. He comes up with the knife, sees my barely restrained alarm, and assures me he is not going to cut my throat. He tossed it to me buckled safely in its leather sheaf. I am pleased to have it in my possession and in his near monologue on the sale of the knife it comes down from $10 to $5. I counted my singles, have five and buy the damn thing. I certainly wasn’t going to hand it back. He asked me if I have any drugs and I told him I had Maxalt, migraine medication that makes your joints ache and gives you a three day hangover, just to fuck with him. He asked, “what’s the buzz like?”
He is only heading as far as Harrison and he insists on dropping me off on the interstate just before the exit even as I tried to tell him I was staying off the interstate and he was going to the top of the exit anyway. I get out stuffing my new knife into my front pocket. Instant felony sure, carrying a concealed weapon, but it’s better than waving it around on the side of the highway. I pulled out my pocket size steno pad and jot down his plate number TVQ 771, just in case, as he pulled off. Of course a State Trooper then immediately rolled by slowly, but he kept on going by me and my big old hunting knife.
Up North part 1: getting started
On Thursday morning I had Amee drop me off on what I thought was 27 North, just north of the I-69 loop. Turned out it was Old/Business 27. I found out at the Marathon Station 27 was a mile East of there up 69. I stood by the on ramp for about half an hour watching the commuters tear by with looks of disdain on their faces. The gas station attendant had said Old 27 rejoins 27 about 2o miles north so I started walking.
About 11:00 I was getting pretty tired and hungry when I spied the Knob Hill tavern. They were just opening up for the day and the smell of bleach was strong in the air. I ordered a Coke, lit a smoke and looked at the menu. I had been a vegetarian again for a couple of years but I ordered the half pound Olive Burger with some fries, as a grilled cheese was not going to cut it, and honestly I was a little mad at the world.
I was the only customer and management was cleaning and putting things out so I turned my attention to The Price is Right, my eyes drawn to the light gleaming from Bob Barker’s feaux leather shoes. The hand woven rug I nailed at $1,400 and knew I was in the zone, had found the flow. Hitchhiking can do that, even when you haven’t gotten a ride. There’s a spirit to it, a survival focus, a different way of looking at the world, of looking at life.
I turned my attention to the second customer of the day who entered large. He ordered “liquor” as a beer would not warm him up as he had already tried that. As the barmaid poured a shot I set aside the fact that the gentleman was on his second drink, at least, at 11:15 and struck up a conversation in hopes of humanizing myself enough to be offered a ride. I said I’d been walking and worked up a sweat and now I was freezing. A hustler I am not but I have come to terms with putting myself in a position to be offered things I would like to have.
He didn’t offer me a ride but he mentioned he’d seen 14 deer that morning and I reflected on my long morning walk through deer country without spying nary a one. I did see two big dogs about half an hour later. You see what you’re looking for mostly and my gaze was mostly within. I also spied a sign St. Johns 5 Miles. That meant I had walked nine miles and impressing a passer by with my diligent walking was not going to catch me a ride on Old 27 so I headed off down a country road the sign said led to US 27. In a couple of miles it did.
There was a sign, Sleepy Hollow State Park 6 Miles, with an arrow to the East so I figured I’d give it a couple more hours and then hoof it down to Sleepy Hollow. I was hitchhiking Up North to camp and if I only made it 15 miles, and walked all of that, so what. I sat down on a guard rail near the sleepy on ramp and decided to jazz up my hastily drawn sign I’d whipped out at the Marathon Station back in Lansing. I drew thick black lines around UP North and I squeezed in a small please at the bottom.
As I filled in, a wild eyed but gentle young man walked up. I had just come to terms with never getting a ride and saw my chances plummet as it is more than twice as hard for two gents to get a ride than one, especially for we of the wild eyed sort. Then I remembered I didn’t need to get a ride and no cars were coming to this dead exit without services anyway. He asked me for a cigarette and said he was out walking picking up butts off the side of the road. My heart softened as I thought about this young madman isolated in the country without even the dubious comfort of a cigarette.
I said, “in that case you’d better take two.”
He asked me where I was headed and I told him I was hiking north to camp and write poetry. He told me he liked riddles and puns and word games on account of his name being Dan. Not following I asked him to explain.
“You know in Yankee Doodle Dandy, he calls a feather a macaroni”. He went on to say Daniel was a hard name to live up to meaning blessed by God. And then there was Daniel the prophet who gone and got himself thrown in the lion’s den and all that. In the pause as we drew on our smokes I told him I had been reading Daniel chapter 7 the night before last and it was some pretty heavy stuff.
“You see Daniel has this dream of four ‘great beasts’ that are really empires with iron teeth who eat their victims, crushes them, and tramples the remains underfoot.” I quoted: “The fourth beast is to be a fourth kingdom on earth, different from all other kingdoms. It will devour the whole world, trample it underfoot and crush it…. He will plan to alter the seasons and the Law.”“And that’s what we’ve done Daniel, altered the seasons, we’ve broken the weather”. He sagely agreed but it appeared neither of us felt much a part of it, though we talked freely of living in a great beast. There is a separation that comes with madness, much akin with the disengagement Buddhists seek, I believe. The conversation moved on to the meanings of our names by our second smoke, until it was interrupted by a late model sedan pulling over to be my first ride of the day, and I said goodbye to Daniel Thomas Faivor, truly believing he was blessed by God and praying this increasingly cruel world would be gentle with him.
going crazy part 5
After a long night of restless wandering I returned to the mind spa. Everyone was up and rolling, cleaning up and packing. The first night we had arrived our host’s partner Rose had told us to “remember what it looks like” which in my then unspun mind was a simple admonition to clean the place up when we were done. Now i saw new implications of needing to remember what was here, what had transpired. I placed an Israel Regardie book on the shelf of metaphysical classics in thanks for the memories. Debbie seemed a little out of sorts as i put the last few of my things in my pack, doublechecked to make sure my ticket was still in my bag. I remember a couple of Aaron’s friends who hadn’t come over with us were there. I thought one of them might want to carry Debbie’s bag as they also only had one. I was remembering the Fishbone CDs left over from the show at the Melkveg. I was remembering Jennifer dipping CD sized sheets of hash into a large pot of boiling wax the night before. I was remembering that i’d brought Debbie’s bag over from the states. I felt very tired, that now i was ready to sleep, and told myself not yet. Its not yet safe. I’ll sleep on the plane when i know i’m safe. We left for the train station. Debbie was disgusted when i mentioned i was broke again. Jennifer asked what happened to the 100 guilders she had given me and i told her i spent it teaching an immigrant what “frivolous” meant. Debbie bought my ticket and we boarded the train to Schippol. I kept thinking about the 300 CDs, the CD sized sheets of hash, this whole extended dangerous practical joke i had fallen into, the vagaries of friendship – and who in fact where my friends? I had no clear plan but i knew i wasn’t rolling that bag through customs. My thoughts ran slowly through my sleep deprived befuddlement. As the train pulled into Shippol I pulled the roll away behind me, last in line, moving towards the door. I felt like i was walking through molasses. The doors closed before i could de-board the train with everyone else. Flooded with relief i waved to my dumbstruck friends as the train pulled away from the station. There was another passenger stuck behind me, seperated from her guy at the airport. She seemed nice and uninvolved in this mess. I thought i would ask her advice. We had decided, of course, to ride up to the next stop, change trains and return to the airport. On the ride I quickly explained i believed that i had fallen in with international drug smugglers and thought the bag i carried was filled with Hash and wondered on the ethics of checking. She considered my dilemma. She said, her guy would be at the airport when she returned however long it took because he loved her and would wait. If my friends were at the station i could trust them and if not then well….
We arrived at the airport and there was her guy, happy to see her and in a hurry to catch the flight. My “friends” were no where in sight. I pulled off my backpack to check the ticket for the time and gate. No ticket. I had seen it that morning, double checking it was in the flap it had rested through this whole ordeal, now it was gone. I checked the flight listings and went to the appropriate gate. We had been cutting it close and the flight was departed, no one was in sight. I was stunned, exhausted, not thinking clearly. I needed some air and went outside and sat on a bench to collect my thoughts. There was this rhythmic pounding of a huge piledriver at a nearby construction site. I felt drawn there. I had been thinking about the hypnotic quality of techno music and the risk involved in opening your mind to hypnotic suggestions enclosed in the “music”. I felt drawn there, i felt like our host would be waiting for some kind of final confrontation. As i walked towards the pounding i realized this was insane. He would not be there, trespassing on a construction site would only draw attention to me with possibly a huge amount of hash in my possession. I sat down more to think. I opened the large duffel and pulled out a cloth shopping bag with some of Debbie’s souveniers contained within. I consciously did not check the CDs. I felt it was safer not to know. I zipped the duffel back up, left it next to the bench and walked away. I saw an exit sign leading to a highway. I thought i would return to the known of hitchhiking. I saw i was on an on-ramp heading east. Home was to the West. Or was it, East would get me there too, it would just take a little longer. I felt ready for the journey. I felt beyond want, beyond fear, beyond even need. I walked as the 4 lanes of traffic, those funny little European cars whizzed by. I found a lighter in my pocket, from the Mind Spa. I wondered if this was how they tracked my movements? My sinuses were clogged, i felt like i could barely breathe, i felt exhausted. I thought if only my sinuses hadn’t been clogged i could have done progressive relaxation and shut off this barrage of thought and rested and i wouldn’t be so damn tired. I thought it would be over by now but here i was a stranger in a strange land still. I thought i didn’t know what was happening to me. Had I been drugged, hypnotized, had my mind blown by mindblowers. Had i touched the face of god? I felt powerful as i breathed air into my lungs. I felt i had to be a powerful magician to have survived or maybe i was an angel? I was uncertain, and i felt there was power in this uncertainty, that if i knew it would all crumble into dust. I realized i loved the unknown and did not fear it. I said quietly, “I whisper when i want to hypnotize and I shout when I want something”. I didn’t know if i was listened to by a microphone planted by mindfuckers or the god who made the universe or if i was being listened to at all but I was angry. Angry at my exhaustion, my clogged sinuses, my fear of pursuit as a drug smuggler though i had done nothing. I shouted, my spirit self grew to scrape the clouds, i found myself ten thousand feet tall and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that at this moment i wielded all the power of the universe. I shouted. “If i don’t get a ride right now! I will destroy Phillip Morris”. Bamn, instantly a van in the far left lane cuts through 4 lanes of heavy traffic. “Would you like a ride?” the driver asked.
Wilco Redux
On Wednesday Amy, Eric, and Sarah and I saw Wilco play an outdoor show on 9th Street. It was pretty good the third best of the four times I’ve seen them. It put me in mind of the first time i’d seen them and one of my more memorable hitchhiking trips.
I had been doing some field organizing work in Missouri and found myself in St Louis on my way to a SEAC regional conference in Mississippi. The day i needed to leave Sarah convinced me i should wait another day so i could see Wilco at Mississippi Nights. I think I was down to my last $5.00 and i really wanted to get to this conference where i was scheduled to do some workshops and I really liked Brian the conference organizer and felt for him doing radical environmentalism in the deep deep south but when Sarah said it would be a date and she would get my ticket i decided to stay. I’d had a big crush back in that era (94-95) but i knew Sarah didn’t mean anything by it we had too different views of relationships and i think she was chasing Jeff Pavlik back then and he was around and we and Jillian i think and some others caught the show and it was great. We were all really into Uncle Tupelo and Wilco was prety knew and it was a kick ass show and i drank way too much beer and i spent $4.00 but was still a little melancholy because it was certainly not a date. We were out late and i couldn’t sleep and i wanted to leave way early as i still had hopes of making Mississippi by the next day. I was crashing at Sarah’s in University City. I woke her at 4:00 to tell her i was leaving. I told her since it was our second date i deserved a kiss and we kissed a sad kiss goodbye and I gave her a Pooh Bear stuffed animal i had dumpstered from the Columbia Good Will and set out walking to the highway.
Hitching out of St Louis is relatively difficult and I had the choice between spending my last dollar on a metro link ride to East St Louis, no picnic, but i’d had good luck there it was on the other side of the city or getting a pack of cigarettes. I voted on the cigarettes and got a buy on get one free special on Mistys of all things. If you took the filters off them they weren’t too bad.
I was still somewhat drunk from the night before and stopped and puked walking toward the highway. I had an old army duffell that i’d been living out of and I had my organizing materials so I was probably packing over 100 #s but I didn’t realize i hadn’t packed any water until i puked. I walked onto the first exit which was dead at sort of pre-dawn in a light mist on a Sunday morning. I started walking down the highway under the assumption that there are more nice people than cops, I was still in Missouri a notoriously tolerant state to hitchhikers, and I was in a hurry. I ended up walking 9 miles down the highway before I got my first ride. I had found a Harley Davidson water bottle half full on the side of the highway. I’d rinsed my mouth out but hadn’t dared drink any but was greatful for the bottle figuring i’d fill it at the next exit with services. I didn’t dump it out, just in case, although I’d never hitched a day without running across a bathroom. There was no real place to pull over the lane came right up next to the raised foot wide cement shoulder i was walking down. A guy in his early 40s in an old beater pulled over and there wasn’t much other traffic so it went pretty smoothly. He was out just cruising, drinking straight out of a pint bottle of Canadian Club Whiskey. We shared his bottle and he agreed to drive me to the first decent exit in Illinois. He ran a small embroidery firm and had been a youthful radical grown jaded and feeling like a sell out. He said he had sewn the patches for the ATF that had killed all those people in Waco not too long ago. We talked a lot of politics and parted too soon at an exit with good traffic but no services. I’d put my buzz back on with the Canadian Club and was feeling pretty good about life again in spite of not getting any water. I started walking again and didn’t go but a couple-few miles before my 2nd ride a guy in his 50s with an Amish type beard in an old beater van pulled over and i was off again. Coincidentally he was drinking a pint of Canadian Club whiskey and I joined him as we cruised across Illinois and maybe Indiana. He was nice, a retired truck driver and when he learned my Pops was a trucker he hung out with me until he got me a ride on his CB. I don’t remember the rides the rest of the day but eventually i hit Cincinnati. I still had some daylight left but I was beat. I’d walked 15 miles been drunk all day and hadn’t had a drink of water. I felt I was getting old. I really needed more miles to have any hopes of getting to Mississippi but i just couldn’t do it. I knew then i was getting old. I’d always prided myself on being able to knock out 20 miles heavily packed, but not that day. I was in some kind of industrial wasteland, I stashed my gear and wandered around looking for water but nothing. I rolled out my bedroll under the overpass and broke out my little sterno stove and the last of my food a pack of ramen noodles. I managed to scare up some wild onions, dandylion greens, and this other edible plant i’d just learned in Missouri but have forgotten and cooked it all up in the Harley Davidson water i was glad i’d saved. At least it was boiled.
I slept torn between utter exhaustion and the roar of highway traffic echoing through the underpass. I was up before dawn packed up and down on the side of I-75, North instead of South. I’d written off Mississippi and decided to go home. I’d never make my conference on time and I was now flat broke. I was a little hungry, but confident. My old Modus Operandi was to stay out hitchin’ till i was flat broke and then head for home. It had never failed that my first ride of the day when i was broke would offer to buy my breakfast. After making a new sign i got a ride after a not intolerable wait though I was in a bit of a construction zone so i couldn’t walk down the interstate, plus i was in Ohio were those kind of shennanigans are not allowed by law enforcement. It was another bearded guy in a van but no Canadian Club. He was a fundamentalist Christian, an active anti-abortion activist. We had some great talks as we puttered through construction traffic headed north. He didn’t try to preach when i told him my christian background and where i had evolved since then, though we did have to agree to disagree on a lot of stuff. We shared some commiseration on our common organizing problems, group dynamics and such and debated pro-choice and gay rights and we both respected the other’s sincerity and compassion in spite of our polar differences. He asked if he could pray before he dropped me off but it was for me to see the truth and have travelling mercies so i could get behind that. He also gave me a fat peanut butter and jelly sandwich which hit the spot. My only gripe with him is he debated changing his route to get me all the way home and then decided it was too far out of the way. He should’ve kept those thoughts to himself and not gotten my hopes up.
After a few piddly rides (I’d finally gotten to some services got cleaned up, filled up my new water bottle, and i still had a few smokes so i was feeling good) i was up in the Lima area when i got picked up by this real smooth looking character in a newish lincoln. Travelling salesman type, with leather seats and in a suit. Turned out he was a gay guy doing a little cruising on his way north. I was a little flattered as he was a good looking guy but still not interested. Except for having to put his hand on his side of the front seat a couple of times he was pretty friendly if a little pushy and it didn’t get really scary. I told him about my first sexual experience as no one rides for free but was strict on the no touching thing. The story must be better than i thought as he gave me $4.00 when he dropped me off. That got me a pack of Marlboros and a Mountain Dew and a couple uneventful rides later I was home.
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