OneRoad

A real-time novel for the Internet.                                                     by Ward Mulroy

Part III

OK. So here's the deal. I limped back to Chicago, ate real  food, slept in a real bed, took a real bath and got a real weird infection in my face. It grew everyday for five days until one side of my face looked like Ward Mulroy and the other side looked like Ted Kennedy. When I went to the hospital they freaked me out. They discussed blood poisoning. When I asked if that is something they can control, they said "sometimes". Since the alternative is death I gladly took antibiotics for ten days. I'm fine, and I'm sure Ted is happy to have half his face back. While I was in Chicago, Fred and Laurie made a little girl and named her Elizabeth. I was at their house the night Laurie went into labor. Don's car was ready for delivery, but was not needed. I could not be happier for them. I could not be happier for Elizabeth, to have picked two such wonderfully people to be her parents. I had a few other surprises upon my return. Most notably, the stocks that I suggested Shelley sell as she needed cash had fallen from a little over thirty dollars a share to a little under ten. Oops. Now we have even less 'no money' than before.

So the stocks fell and so did I. I fell out of my bed on Saturday morning and dropped out of Chicago in a dizzying whirl of catatonia. Before I had fully awakened I continued my downward descent to I-94 and I-57 south. I rubbed my eyes and noticed Champagne Urbana whiz by. Whoosh. I didn't know which way was up as I bounced off the Mississippi River and fell southeast on route 60, through Kentucky. I think what woke me was a little town named Future City. It had a fire station, an insurance agency, a gift shop with ceramic lawn figurines and a couple of gas stations. I think they have a good concept of what the future holds. No space needles or monorails. I think their point was that it will be a lot like it is now. I think they are probably right about that. Anyway, I was still a little groggy as Don's car got on I-24 and plummeted headlong through Nashville and Chattanooga Tennessee. I began to realize that a big thing about Tennessee is that it's cities are named after songs about cities in Tennessee. I did not go all the way to Memphis for your 'information'. (Where the hell is Memphis?) Nor did I 'go to Jackson just to mess around'. I did not catch the 'last train to Clarksville' either. I simply continued my tumble to and through Atlanta in the wee hours of the next morn. At this point I just wanted something to break my fall. Luckily I hit the panhandle of Florida. It's not really a panhandle. Somebody thought it looked like something, but they didn't really know what. So they just said "panhandle". It would be a really stupid pan with a handle at a 120 degree angle. You couldn't cook with it. It's not a panhandle, it's a chicken leg with the thigh part being the rest of Florida. I bounced about eight times on the panhandle/chicken leg part before dropping right through into the Gulf of Mexico. Lucky for me there was a little island named St. George Island that I landed on. I am now a resident of site 60 in his very lovely State Park. I think St. George is the patron saint of not falling completely through things.

Falling completely through things is something that could happen to me. I like falling. I wish I could fall a little further. However, this white sand beach is a suitably soft safety net for my purposes. After a 28 hour misguided fall, I am at rest on this fine Sunday evening. I am very happy to be here.

After returning home with Kevin, Chris wanted to go. We went. Chris truly loved to hitchhike. It didn't matter where. We did a lot of one or two day trips. Chris was a funny guy. After getting bored with the truth about who we were, we began making up alternate identities. It was very entertaining for us. Each ride we would be totally different people. We would improvise elaborate stories and corroborate them with each other. It was tricky. We were never doubted. The thing was that nobody cared who we were, anyhow. It was entertaining for them as well. I got high on weed for the first time on one of these rides with Chris. I had smoked a few times before but to no avail. Some guy offered and we accepted. He also offered one for the road. We accepted for the road. We had been sitting three to the front seat in a pick-up truck. My left leg had fallen asleep in these cramped accommodations. I felt a little funny just as the ride ended. When we got out I swung my left leg as if I were going to walk on the earth, in that normal human walking motion. My leg missed the earth like a bad golf swing, and I fell on my face. It seemed funny to be looking at the road while laying on it. We laughed our asses off, for longer than made any sense. But, shit, we still had this other joint. We got a little paranoid about what to do if a cop lifted us. Our dumb-ass solution was to tie a string to it and put it off the road, like a dog. When we got a ride we reeled it in. Mans best friend.

I talked to Frank a couple of times while I was home. It was nice. He read this 'thing" and did not threaten legal action for using his name without permission. That was nice, too. I was near his home last night but it was very late, so I did not call. I have heard that Kevin is somewhere in Florida. Somehow I have a feeling that if I can find him, it would not be to late to call. Chris, I.'m calling you right now. If you can hear me, hitchhike down to Florida.

While I was young and full of me and lived my life in jeans till I was older than myself it seemed as if a dream From north to south, from east to west from mountain to ravine from ocean blue to desert red the colors I have seen Yes, I've been here and I've been there and I've been in-between What have I loved beyond the rest? The place I've never been.

For those of you who don't like to have your time wasted, just skip down to the part that says "Stop wasting my time." For the rest of you, let me tell you a useless bit of dream stuff. Just before Future City, just after crossing a bridge over the Mississippi River, I saw something that I had dreamt about. Not kinda. Exactly. It is not that significant. But it was something that I had seen so clearly in a dream, that it woke me up. Things narrowed. Trees became jungle. Brush became Tarzan-like. Day was turning to dusk. The X-axis was scaled to 70%. About 40 yards to my right I saw an old wooden trestle supporting a dilapidated train track through the foliage. Between myself and this apparition was a river. The river was partially hidden by extremely dense foliage. I had been in this exact place before. No shit.

In my dream I had taken a train from Chicago into the past. The train stopped unexpectedly. The passengers were asked to get out and walk to the next station. It was a jungle and the only way to get there was on the wooden trestles. The foliage clogged that path as well, very quickly. Another person (an Asian/American woman) and I found that we could crawl below the rotted wooden structure. It became nearly impassible, but we made it in the dark of night. The woman was now a man. A very old man, who died right there. As dawn broke I crawled out to a clearing of Wagnerian proportion. It was a place. There were monuments. They had been lost to time for many years. One monument was a sculpture of William Howard Taft. It was about three hundred feet tall. Much of the rest of the area was a bizarre assortment of wooden tracks, much like circa 1920's amusement park roller coasters. The entire area was enclosed by a wonderful architectural element that I will attempt to describe. Imagine an iron parabolic arch rising about 500 feet. Rusted and black. Now imagine about twenty of those, in a circle, slightly overlapping each other at their bases. Now take their tops and bend then in, towards the center the center of the circle. Their bend is about the same arc as their arch. Can you see that? Wouldn't that be a powerful structure. It was barely visible because monstrous oak trees had encroached form outside the ring over the years. The ring was trying to hold them back. It was designed to do this job maybe a hundred years before. It was working. So there was this domed canopy of trees and iron-work, encasing what was a museum of planned anachronism. The anachronism was played out to me by one of the Taft dudes (William or his nephew, or uncle or whatever) who pulled up on a wooden vehicle on a wooden track. He gave me a ride about a mile or so, to another platform. He was pleased by how well it ran after all these years. The other Taft dude was on that platform. He was also pleased. We all rode on a different vehicle. Then another on a different track. They were like versions of the Wright brothers flyers. Each a little different, but sharing similarities with its predecessors. I guess these guys (whoever they should have been other than the Tafts) were to Henry Ford what  Tessella was to Thomas Edison. They loved their technology, but they knew it would loose out in the end. So they built a city-sized museum to that grand vision. I guess they were building roads for one vehicle, like coal cars. You rode on it to a given place. You did not choose where to go. It was very efficient. It was a very controlled system. I guess it died. I told Chris Okamoto about this dream at work the next day with amazement. I told him about the giant arched structure. I realized that it sounded stupid, like all dreams, unless you were there. I was there. I was there again last night. It was exactly what I saw in my dream. OK. Enough.

Stop wasting my time

St. George Island is a flat curved island below the chicken-leg part of Florida. It is curved because that is a good shape to catch things that fall off of America. If we were pinball's, and the flippers had failed to slap us back to Chicago, St. George would catch us. To drive there you would take route 319 to the four mile long bridge. Now you are in the commercial district. You know, sea food restaurants, video rentals and real estate offices. Start down the narrow curve and you will find many large and beautiful gargantuan homes built up on stilts. The stilts protect these homes from the ravages of the sea, but also serve to give these homes a better view of other large and beautiful gargantuan homes built up on stilts. They stand impressively like pink Florida Flamingos. If you drive eastward on the arch another five miles, you come to the most beautiful part of the island, which is nothing. The St. George Island State Park is within that beautiful nothing, which surrounds my tent, which surrounds me. There is ocean (or gulf) about 40 yards to the north or south. Don't you wish you were here.

There were eight boys in my family. With mom and dad we were ten. We took only one vacation in my life with them, for obvious reasons. I was thirteen. We went to the ocean. We took two cars. We should have taken three or four but only mom and dad could drive. As you can imagine the drive was a nightmare. It was well worth it. We rented a cottage for two weeks on the beach in Sea Isle City, NJ.  It was there I met my first love. Her name was Fran, but it could have been anything. She was tan and beautiful and had perfect poise and posture. I watched her for three days on the beach. I was mesmerized. I was in love before speaking to her. She spoke to me. She asked me to come with her brother and her to ride go-carts. I went. We rode and she kicked my ass and laughed all the way around the track, her white  teeth clashing with the sun and chrome. She smelled like the ocean. I was deeply in love with her. We saw each other every day for a week. There will never be a newer thing in life for me than she was. She made me into a different person. My dad made eggs one morning and I ate them. I thought about being a better student next year. I planned to write her, and call her and someday marry her. I was madly in love with her. She took my hand and I could not speak. I could not breath. My heart raced violently. I did not know what to do. I never kissed her.

In the mornings I would meet her at about 8:00am on the beach. We would swim and chase each other. Mostly I would just look at her. I would look at her and my soul would swell up and surround her and take her into its mouth and roll her sunburned body around its tongue. Then I would remember I was alive and she was standing there talking and saying things. I was further down a confused road and did not know how to drive. After waiting for about an hour one morning I saw her walking with a surfer I had seen all week. She was holding his hand. He kissed her. She kissed him. If the blood in your body is not running cold, then I have not conveyed the gravity of the moment. I walked quietly back to my cottage and cried for five days straight. I cried tears for about ten hours a day for those five days. The great Procol Harem song 'Lighter shade of pale' was on the radio constantly. It made things all the worse. Now I was really, really in love. I could not go outside. My family was wonderfully understanding. I was not. I did not get it. The day we left I saw her. She came to say good-bye. She said she would write, and she did. I was to numb to talk or write. I hope I never get it. The drive back was even more miserable. I cried some more and pretended to sleep while I cried. My tan had faded compared to my brothers, but I was burnt.

When we got home I was shocked at how small our back yard looked. It was about an acre, but it seemed to be half its size. New horizons can do that.

Speaking of islands named George, there is an island whose name was changed to George Bernard Shaw Island. Air Force missions had taken pictures from above. It was clear that the island looked exactly like George Bernard Shaw. I've seen the photos. It is him, in profile. They had to change the name. If they always named islands that way this one would be called Wiener Island.

If they named them based upon the most dominant inhabitant, this would be Raccoon Island. People are so funny today. We won't do anything violent directly to animals. We kill them indirectly with development. Raccoons know this. They are incredibly bold. They will walk right up to you in packs of four or five and eat your food. If you yell at them they don't care. They will look at you and eat. If you run at them they will stand up on their back legs like they are going to fight. Other animals would kill them for eating their food. I'm at war with these no good Raccoon bastards. They know it, too. I growl and run at them. If they stand up on their hind legs, so do I. It isn't working, though. I think tomorrow I will make a large sign that says beach front property with a picture of condos on it. That'll teach 'em. They'll get very depressed and crawl into their dumpster in total despair. They hate beach front property the way pioneer raccoons used to hate shot guns. There is not much room for them to migrate anymore. That goes for all animals. The roads we build to help us migrate have destroyed their ability to do so.

Shelley, Quinn, Ty and I had been camping in Canada. We were on our way back to Chicago via Michigan. We were making exceptionally good time until we ran into a mass migration of frogs. It started with a few. I tried to miss them. Pretty soon there were many more. They became hard to miss. All of a sudden there were fucking millions of them totally blanketing the highway. We pulled over. So did a few others. As other cars plunged past us we witnessed a holocaust of frog carnage. Tires making temporary grooves of flattened frogs on the road, quickly replaced by new three dimensional ones. It was sickening. There was no letting up. It became clear to us that this could go on for many hours. Some of the cars that had stopped began to go again. Pretty soon all of them did. OK, so did we. We had to get back. I couldn't call in sick the next day because of frogs. We were responsible for the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of frogs that day. They were three or four high in a panic to get to some ancestral pond. The car kinda' slid through them, nearly loosing control. For a while, we saw looks of horror and disgust on the faces of other car passengers. Pretty soon we were all just driving and talking about other things. We're all ass-holes.

Any trip I have ever made shares one ridiculous fact. No matter how long of a drive I make to get there, and knowing full-well that I will have an equally long drive back, the first thing I like to do after setting up, is take a long drive. Lately, I look for Wal-Mart's. Some times when I pull up to a gas station, they already know what I'm looking for. They get that a lot in areas with camping. Yesterday I drove to Tallahassee for two hours to go to Wal-Mart. I needed a towel. I could have made one in those same four hours. Some guy named Auto made the car so we could get towels. Or did a guy named Carr make the auto. I don't know. But if you need a towel, you don't want to walk to Tallahassee to get it. I never drive in Chicago. I am to focused to wander. I have very specific things I need to do every day. Cool things like downloading new drivers for my graphics card that support Windows98, or downloading new drivers for my sound card that don't conflict with my graphics card. Some times (every day) I go to work to do stuff like downloading new drivers for my Jazz drive that recognize my Jazz drive or call tech support about drivers for my modem so I can download other drivers. I ride my bike or take a cab or train for these wild-ass adventures. When I need to do these important things that is how I get there. The auto is a great tool to get nowhere in the fastest, most efficient way.

My mom is a very talented and creative artist. She showed me how to be that as well. But I'd have to say that the most valuable thing my mother bequeathed to me, was the value of totally blowing off everything. She taught me this by making my brothers and I work very hard. That showed me how to not work hard, as well. Every day and especially on weekends, while our friends were already out doing nothing with great intensity, we were washing walls. We washed walls so much that we needed to paint walls a lot, too. We did a lot of stuff. She loved Comet. We could have been their research and testing facility. While we worked I always had a vision of a moment in mind. The moment that I would be done. I would be done and I could run down the stairs, gain energy from centrifugal force of spinning 180 degrees around the banister hand rail, and propel myself out the kitchen door. While in mid air I would grab the garage keys off the wall on my way by. Those keys meant freedom. They had the power to unleash my bike from its lair in the garage. It waited there through the night, like a trusty horse for me. I would unlock the garage, liberate my bike, return the keys to their rightful place and be gone. Now the birds would sing. Now the sun would shine. Now my gray neighbors would animate with butterflies and rainbows. I was free.

Cities have streets. Streets are not roads. Streets are big sidewalks for cars. They were big sidewalks for horses that later became sidewalks for cars. Streets don't go anywhere. Nor do they go nowhere like a road. They are a grid that goes back and forth and in circles, mimicking the actions of humans on sidewalks. People taught horses how to do that. Then they taught cars. Now we bring immigrants into our country as cab drivers, to do that. A road is different. It goes from one nowhere to another, right on top of the ground. Trains don't do that. Either do planes. They  have very specific destinations and times of arrival. There is a lot of value in going nowhere. It's a lot like falling except you're falling sideways. I can't recommend falling sideways nowhere all the time, but I heartily recommend it sometimes. Someday aliens will come and drive over everybody wandering back and forth in the streets. They may wait for a little while. But they will proceed soon enough. They probably have to be somewhere the next day. They won't get me though. I'll be out nowhere falling sideways.

On a typically desperate evening, in my yellow cinder block college dormitory, Ray bet me a dollar that I would not hitchhike right then (10pm/November 1970) to Canton. I did. If the bet had been for say 80 dollars I would have had to think about it. I got there in the morning, said hi to my mom and left. I walked in, said "Hi" and walked out. I missed a day of school that I probably would have missed anyway. But I gained the pleasure of being chased down a highway by a farm dog at about 3am.

I can't remember the last time I swam in the ocean. I am near the ocean many time a year. Today I swam in the ocean. I started to laugh. A wave would hit me and make me laugh like a five year-old. It isn't really funny. I don't get it. Maybe I'm going sane. I forgot the taste of the ocean. It tastes like seafood. When I got out I smelled like that. I guess while I was in there, I was seafood. I forgot the rhythm of the waves. Besides coming in, they go out and build energy that crests sideways and even diagonally. They keep you bobbing about 40 feet out where they are at their highest point. They keep you bobbing like a cat playing with a small mouse, batting you back and forth with their crystal paws. They don't want to eat you. In a way, they already have. I wore myself out a bit. The waves wore me out some more. The sun finished me off.

I really don't like Columbus Ohio. Not because it is all made of cement. Not because it is the home of the Buckeyes. Not because Columbus himself was one of the biggest turds in history. I hate Columbus because whenever I went there, I ended up in jail. Well, twice. Almost three times. Columbus is the state capitol of Ohio. They have a lot of taxation money for cement and police cars. When you have a lot of police cars you have to put police in them. 'Staties' we called them. They wore hats. Yeah, you know the hats I'm talking about. The ones with four dimples in them. The most un-natural of all hats. The more they didn't look like you or me, the more we were meant to fear them. We just wanted to not see them. That was hard to accomplish. They were everywhere. They never had a hitchhiker hitchhike through their city without putting them in jail for just long enough to think about never hitchhiking through Columbus again. I had to. It was on my way to Canton from Cincinnati. They didn't call it a jail. They called it a 'holding station'. The holding station held hitchhikers and old alcoholic men who slept on their hats as pillows while they urinated on the floor.

Once at about 10:00pm I jumped into one of those barbed-wire, fenced-in, electric-generator things because I saw a 'statie' coming towards me. My tax dollars at work. That time I got away. The only other time I succeeded in getting away when I saw them was with Chris. We were busted. We saw them, they saw us. Knowing we were pretty much fucked, I told Chris "Dance". He didn't ask why. He danced. We did a couple of variations of the swim and the monkey as they approached. They got out with billy clubs in hand. They explained some mumbo-jumbo about this ordinance or that pertaining to hitchhiking. "Excuse me officer, we were not hitchhiking. We were dancing." I explained. We continued to dance. "Well there is no dancing on the public highways either." he stated hesitantly. "I'm sorry, Mr. officer, sir, but there is no signage to indicate that... sir."

Well, they bought it. They were cool guys disguised as staties. They said they had heard it all, but had never heard that before. They told us to get the fuck off the highway if we wanted to dance. We did.

I don't know what time it is. I'm right about on the line for central/eastern time. Fred's laptop mentioned something about daylight savings time changing. It seemed to know. I don't. My watch says 10:45pm. It doesn't know either. Somehow computers know what time it is better than people or their watches and clocks. Seems kinda' funny that they won't know what century it is at the end of next year.

On New Years Eve in 1971 I had no plans. I was sleeping at about 9pm when Joe (a friend of my brother Tom) woke me up and demanded that we go out. I couldn't think of anything to do. We went anyhow. We went to a sleazy bar called the 'Rivera'. I met a sleazy girl whose name I don't recall. Now try to remember 1971 (if you were alive yet). Remember all the weird drugs that everybody took then. We took all of them that night. We also drank a lot of Jack Daniel's in a sleazy van. It was an exceptionally cold night. We weren't to aware of that. We left in her purple Mercury Cougar at about 3:30am. She drove. She drove about three blocks before we came to a light, where we started to make out. When we noticed that the light had changed she stalled the car. It wouldn't start. She asked me to try to start it. I couldn't. The battery totally died. We started to make out again. We went a little nuts, as was our condition. We were under the light in the middle of the intersection at 4am. After about 30 minutes, we were pretty much naked except for the fogged windows. There wasn't much else we could do. It seemed like a good idea until a cop lightly tapped on my window. Now I realized that it had been a bad idea. I rolled the window down and she said, "Benny!" Apparently, she knew the guy in high school. This was good news. I was not going to jail after all. He got his partner and they pushed us to the gas station on the corner and jumped the car. I loved that ride as much as any I have ever taken. It lasted only 20 feet. But I was 100% cop powered, drunk and naked. What a ride.

I swam in the ocean again today. Actually I floated. I floated for about an hour and a half. My dad taught me how to do this on our one vacation. Like everybody else, he had nearly died from Polio the year I was born (1952). He swam a lot to build up muscle tissue. His top half could swim but his legs had withered. He learned to float. I watched him laying motionless in the waves of the ocean, as though mystically levitated. I tried to do so, but went straight under. Gagging, I asked him to teach me how. "I can't do it dad". Sure you can. "I must be to skinny, I sink". You're human. Humans can float. He laughed as I tried again. My face was scrunched up just waiting for salt water to pour down my nose and throat. Put your head back. Put it under water. "Dad, that's the problem, it goes under water". That's because your trying to keep it out of the water. Put it back. Put it under the water. I paused. I thought. I believed. I tried again very slowly and arched my back and neck as far back into the water as I could. I floated. I stayed there in amazement for many minutes. I laughed. I looked up after a while and he was looking at me. He didn't say, See, or anything else. He put his head back and we floated. We floated out to sea and across the ocean. We floated east to Ireland and south to France and then back to Sea Isle City. Thanks dad.

Later that evening, in my sleep I learned to fly. I was in the yard with my brothers. I began to trot slowly to the east end of the yard. I lifted up my soul, which lifted up my body. I rose to a height of about twenty feet. My brothers were amazed. How did you do that? the asked. "It's easy." I said. "Dad taught me."

These experiences can work for you your whole life. Years later I went hang gliding with some friends. It was not an ideal situation. It was a rocky 45 degree hill outside Cincinnati. Our very lame instructor sent more that a few participants sliding along on their faces for many jagged yards, with a heavy hang glider on their backs functioning more like a plow than a glider. They were hesitant. They timidly began to pace down a hill that you wouldn't walk down without 50 lbs. on your back. When my turn came I tore as fast as I could down the hill, which ripped me up into the air immediately. I flew. It is a wonderful feeling.

I think that everybody has hitchhiked. You did. Remember? You were hangin' out after school and missed your ride. You went to Burger King and called home. There was no answer. There were two things you needed to do when you got home. One was to read two poems for an English test first thing next morning. The other was to go to a friends house whose sister was having a party. You waited for twenty-three minutes. You couldn't wait any longer. You walked bravely down the asphalt parking lot to the well lighted road. You put out your thumb. You pulled it back in. You put it out again. A car stopped. It was a friend of your moms. She picked you up and brought you home. Remember? She was going to come in and tell your mom. You asked her not to, and promised that you would never hitchhike again. She told your mom anyhow four days later. Remember?

The sea and the shore have been married for many years. I wouldn't say they look alike. I'd say they look like they have been wearing on each other for many years. That's not so bad. At first glance you'd say they look alike. They both have those waves. One angles slightly up and the other slightly down. The sea pulls the sand down and the shore sucks water into it. They embrace in this rhythm for many miles. Here they are alike. Here the water and the sand mix like so much genetic material, into a suspension that is neither liquid nor solid. One angles up and the other angles down. There is nowhere else to go. Perhaps the sea is a little to wild. To mad. To unstable. That's what the shore loves about the sea. Perhaps the shore is a little to staid. To solid. To static. That's what the sea loves about the shore.

One angles up and the other angles down. There is nowhere else to go

If going nowhere is where you're going, then the ocean is the place for you. That's because once you get to the ocean you can't go anywhere. The reason for that is that we can't breathe under water. Try it. You can't do it. That must have been pretty obvious right when we came out of the trees. So there you are, looking at this ocean and thinking that you don't want to go back where you came from. What do you do? You just look at it and think. You think until the sun sets. Then you think "Man, if we had vans, that would look great on one." Since there are no vans yet you just stay there thinking. After a while you make a sign that says "BEACH FRONT PROPERTY." Now you are civilized. Other people start to come out of the trees. They want to know more about this beach thing. The best thing you can do is just nod your head and smile. "Just what were you looking for?" you ask. "Nothing"  they say. You nod again and say, "Were you headed anywhere in particular?" " No." they say. You laugh knowingly. "Can you breathe under water?" That's the hook. You got 'em. Just reel 'em in. Then comes another, then another. You hire an assistant, and a city is born. You move seven miles to the left and collect your sea shells. All because you were going nowhere.

Now you might say, "I'm an under grad at Drake university. My parents are paying a lot of money for me to complete my academic requirements. Are you saying that I should just blow that off and go nowhere? Two guys from my frat house left campus last semester and a Prof. I know said that they are in jail now."  No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I don't give a fuck what you do. You are doomed. There is nothing I can do for you. 

When Frank and I returned to Canton we were the talk of our small home town. The problem with that was the talk was equally small. I went to a bar that we used to try to frequent with fake ID's. Outside I was asked many important things. "We heard you take heroin." I was told. "No, I don't take heroin or any other drug." I honestly stated. "Dianne says you left because Shelly is pregnant." "No, I left because a dart hit the map." I responded. "I heard that you and Frank lived with lesbian witches." "No." "I mean homo warlocks." "No." "Well, I don't want to hang around with you anymore since you do those things and then lie about it,too." "No, Rick, we just hitchhiked, man. OK?" Rick left. Two weeks later he and Mitch followed my car and stopped me. "Ward, man, were we ever fucked up, man. We just didn't get it. You guys are to cool. We've been smoking pot lately. It is so cool, man We just didn't get it."  I called Kevin and left that day for the west. I have never seen those people for the last 30 years.

Tonight I made the most wonderful meal I have ever had. This will make your raccoons nuts with culinary desire. Consider this to be the recipe section. First you go to the bridge where all those dudes are fishing. Then you hear that if you want something good, you gotta go to the harbor where the fishing boats come in. Then you look for a sign printed in  magic marker that says, "Shrimp caught on our boat. Why pay more?" You give the guy 4 clams for 19 large shrimp and a little ice and head back to your camp site. On the way back you purchase a six pack of Guinness Stout. When you get back you drink a Guinness. Now bring about 3 cups of water to a boil. Throw in a pound of fresh leaf spinach. Yea, a whole pound. It cooks down to nothing. Now cut 4 mushrooms into really different kinds of shapes. Good. Throw 'em in. Boil it for a few more minutes. OK. Now take about five fistfuls of wild rice that you cooked yesterday and throw that in while it is still boiling. That's to kill any weird bacteria that may have developed in the sealed pan, in the trunk of your car, last night. Are ya still with me? Pick up eleven sea shells and start throwing them at the raccoons. They are already going nuts. Drink another Guinness. Let it run down your face a little. That's why those old German dudes had handlebar moustaches. They would never wipe the froth off it. The hops crystallizes on your stash, giving you you the benefit of the aromatic hoops. No shit. Turn the heat down about 64%. Pour in a half pint of half and half. Now a little more 'cause that didn't seem like enough. Stir like a wild muskrat. Now bite the heads off of 19 large shrimp. You could also use a knife. Spit /throw out the head parts and throw the remaining portion into your 'thing'. Great. Now, really blow it out with intense heat again for about 7 minutes. Drink another Guinness. Pick up a long handled axe and swing it wildly at the raccoons while growling like a bear. They may risk their lives, now that they smell the fetid stench of shrimp on your paws. When it is cool enough to eat, eat it. Tell me you've had better.

Kevin and I were starving. We had not eaten anything but dust for a day and a half. Now it was morning. We needed food. We were on the highway a hundred yards down from a seven eleven. There was food in there. We could buy it if we had any money. We talked about just asking for food. We realized how stupid and naive that would be. We talked about stealing some food. Then we began to plan how we could actual pull it off. We were hungry. I have never stolen anything in my life, but I came real close that day. You don't think right when you are hungry. Hungry like a crazed raccoon. I'd go in and say my car had busted down. I'd ask to use the phone. Kevin would already be in there looking at cans of beans and corn. He would fill his pockets and leave while I had a shit fit on the phone with an imaginary car repair shop who was supposed to be here an hour ago. It could work. If we went to jail they'd have to feed us, right?

 

 

Shelley and I were driving. Actually I was driving and Shelley was passengering me. We were driving and passengering down Lake Shore Drive. Grace Slick was singing on the radio. We passed a Yugo (the car not the country). Shelly said, "Look how much that Yugo looks like a Rabbit (the VW not the bunny)." I agreed. Then Shelley made this wonderful connection. "Hey, did you hear that?" she asked, pointing at Grace Slick. "Right when I said 'Look how much that Yugo looks like a Rabbit' she sang 'So when you go chasing rabbits'." I was amazed. I was amazed how much I did not hear that. We talked about how that stuff probably happens thousands of times a day, but we don't notice. If we were smarter we might notice. If we were taught how to, we might be smarter.

A government, when done correctly, governs. It does not not rule. It governs, like the governor in your car. It must know how to speed up and slow down at the right times. It has a more complex job. It must balance between many factors with relative impartiality. Just like the way your brain should know how to talk to you other brains, so should a government. The Articles of the Confederation attempted to do that in a very noble fashion. What are the rights of the state? What is the responsibility of the national government? Later the Constitution delt with issues of how the three branches of the government would govern each other? The thing about those guys (Madison, Hamilton, etc.) was they were actually thinking about it. They wrote each other with fine arguments. They expressed their lack of conviction about some of their own opinions. They weren't afraid to show some doubts. They wanted to get it right. Well now it's done and we don't have to think about it, right? We can just push and pull a little on the system that we have. Do you know your Senator of Representative? Do you know what they know about the Constitution or law and history? Do they know anything? Some do. Many do not. What criteria will they use to decide the future of things like the internet. There is a lot of interesting history about how the railroads, canals and highway systems were built. Governments gave a lot land and mineral rights away to investors with capitol to ensure the growth of these systems. That is a good thing when balanced with other factors. Sometimes things were not balanced. We live with the legacy of some very poor decisions from more than a hundred years later. They are somewhat irrevocable. Who will speak to the needs of people with no capital in these future choices? Who will listen? Who will speak out against the current trend in Washington of attacking unpopular large industries. What about the current anti-monopoly case of The Justice Department vs. Microsoft? This is a very interesting philosophical debate, as well a a legal one. Software is very different. There is another point to consider. Who is the government of the future? Is it a constitution or an operating system? If it is an operating system, who do we want to decide if that's OK?

Frank and I got a ride in Boston. It was around 3am. We wanted a quiet ride. We wanted to sleep. What we got was a ride from hell with a crazy-as-shit lawyer freak, intent on beating the system. I like driving fast. He liked driving 135 mph. That's to fast. We were frightened. He had a good scam. He would get off the highway and re-enter at the toll booth where you get a ticket telling where you got on. He would back up, go over the detector again, and get another ticket. Then another, then another. He kept them in a very organized box according to entrances. He had like a hundred for every entrance. Then when he needed to really get off at an exit, he would supply the closest preceding entrance stub. It worked. He saved probably tens of dollars a month. I'm sure he made a lot of dough, professionally. I'm sure he wasted a lot of time getting on and off exits and going back and forth over the detector. I know he wasted a lot of our time and scared the shit out of us.

Inside my body, I have these cells that have these very complex systems. I manage them as best I can. The thing is, there are billions of them. I use a basic set of  rules to deal with things like when to kill of an old cell or build a new one. I have cells that patrol other cells to distinguish when correction is required. It gets more complex as we go up a level to where I have these combinations of cells that work as units to form other systems. I'm not sure how I do it. I'm able to take these same cells and make them into really different things. Things like muscle tissue, skin, blood or bone. These systems have their own set of laws and rules to govern things like body temperature, heart rate, rapid growth, boners or exchanging gasses in my lungs. I handle a lot of the really complex management in my brain. I use this system of nerve cells to fire electro/chemical signals to these other systems. The end result of all this is that I'm able to do stuff like reach into my pocket and feel the difference between a dime and a train token, or temper my lymphatic system with just the right combination of red and white blood platelets. I am not adverse to complex systems.

When all these systems are humming along, I pretend that they are just me. I pretend that I am in charge and that my name is Ward. This allows me to mesh within other systems as a more recognizable entity. Systems like marriage. Shelley and I have our own set of rules (actually, only one for each of us: I can't buy a motor cycle, she can't be a thespian). Go another level up and my family has a set of laws. Laws that have existed for many generations, like don't wear hats. I have parallel systems on similar levels like having a job, living in a country or being an interesting person. The problem is that sometimes all these systems, at all these different levels, begin to conflict with each other. That is when I make careful choices by rolling the dice or flipping a coin. I am not adverse to random systems. 

When all is well with the world, my country of interesting working people tries to co-exist with the interesting working people of other countries. There are two primary systems employed to accomplish this complex set of behaviors. The first one is the United Nations. The second one is war. Sometimes they both come into play. But ultimately, war is the deciding factor. Each is governed by the largest and most powerful collection of other systems within themselves. It works from the bottom up like this; a cell gets overheated and asks the brain to secrete water from a sweat gland to cool it down. The brain does this, but kicks in other systems of neurons to produce rage and panic. Rage and panic communicate with elected officials to produce tanks and diplomats. Tanks and diplomats send signals to other appointed/anointed officials who produce lengthy legal documents that are in essence, threats of retaliation. Within these threats a thread of hope and compromise is woven in. Now you either have a war or you have peace. The problem is that sometimes all these systems, at all these different levels begin to antagonize each other. That is when they make careful choices by rolling the dice or flipping a coin. I am not adverse to political systems. 

When I was a freshman at The University of Cincinnati, hundreds of my fellow students took to the road and attacked  a gas station. Here is how it unfolded. It was a year after Kent 'boom-boom' State. Many people enjoyed the camaraderie of handing out leaflets and setting up folding tables. As summer approached these people also started to call in bomb threats to my dormitory. The calls would come at about 2:00am. We would have to evacuate the dorm. I lived on the twenty second floor. The entire process of evacuating, waiting outside and re-populating the dormitory took about two hours. Some times this would happen twice in an evening. This went on for a week and a half. We were sleep deprived to the point of rage and panic. Then one day when we got outside, there was a large bonfire waiting for us surrounded by folding tables and leaflet-handers. We accepted the leaflets like zombies. They corralled us around the fire where people who looked like us were talking loudly on megaphones. They seemed to have some answers that we were sorely lacking in the state we were in (sleep deprived/Ohio). At the right moment, they started to ask us to talk loudly and chant back the phrases they were yelling. Phrases like, "Hell no, we won't go!" But we did go. We went with them as they lead us down the road. We walked down the road chanting to their cadence. We were now violent mindless zombies. They lead us to the area on the edge of campus where the R.O.T.C building was located. We were instructed to burn it down. I saw a guy holding a lighter to the corner bricks, to no avail. Then everybody started to throw whatever they could find through the windows of what they thought was the R.O.T.C building. My senses crept back to me for an instant. "Hey, that's the Psych lab. I got lab there tomorrow!" I pleaded. The crowd responded. They screamed louder and headed back to the road and attacked a gas station. They grabbed a lot of tires that were on racks and began to throw them through the widows of the gas station. They threw some down the hill that lead to the city of Cincinnati. They bounced and careened off homes and cars on their way to nowhere. With this noble deed accomplished they headed back to the dormitory and slept the sleep of noble warriors.

Yes, I swam in the ocean again today. I always swim at about 11:00am. I will do this every day while I am in this blessed place. When I return home I will swim in the ocean in my mind at 11:00am every day. Part of my brain claims that the ocean is in me. When Frank and I left, the ocean was where we were going. Kevin and I set out for the Pacific, but we never got there. I am there now. Here's something weird. Our blood contains exactly the same percentage of salt as sea water. That's gotta tell you something.

There are many phenomenon that exist on the highway, that translate directly to real life as well. Let's take passing. It's a good indicator of leadership capabilities. Some people just have to get out there and pass everybody. This may make them a good leader, or it may make them a total ass-hole. The distinguishing factor is what do they do once they have passed you. If they keep going the speed they passed you at, or greater, they may be a good leader. If they pass you then slow down in front of you, then they're ass-holes. Most passers are ass-holes. If you pass them again they will speed up. Ass-holes. I've worked with and for a lot of people like that. They just gotta be in charge, but then they just get in your way. They won't pull over and let you go ahead. They don't know how to lead but insist on doing so. In the other corner we have natural followers. They like to be behind big trucks like a baby duckling. They are always in danger of unconsciously getting off at those weigh stations. They may not necessarily drive slowly. If you notice one on your ass speed up to like 120 and see what they do. Now slow to about 40. Yep. Follower. Lucky they weren't in Jonestown (or didn't like Kool-aid). These folks like Rush Limbaugh. Ditto-heads. Then we have the overt-driver. They like convertibles and vanity plates. They splay their arms across the passenger seats and look at you when you go by. They may even be singing. They had the lead in The Fantastics in their high school drama class. Conversely we have the covert-driver. They wear sunglasses under any conditions of weather. They pull the sun visor down. They flip the rearview mirror to that 'looking at the roof' setting. When buying a car they get nervous about that 'objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear' warning. They squint. They drive exactly 2 mph under the speed limit. If you work with one of them, you may not even know it. There is the pacifist driver. If you reach an intersection as much as 14 seconds later than them, they will wave you by with a big dog like smile. They actually compute and obey that thing about how many car lengths to be behind at different speeds. They wear seat belts at home. You remember them for college. They said "Why can't everyone just love one another?" during a very small argument. Their nemesis is the crazy-as-shit driver. These drivers are crazy as shit. They somehow drive sideways in heavy traffic. They don't turn, they slide left and right into spaces no larger than their car itself. If they hit a clearing they'll lay the hammer down till their engine makes that screeching wail with actual bits of flame coming from the exhaust. You will never see them again. They used to be in your church, until they jumped over a card table and punched out the preacher in front of a bunch of kids. But with out question, the worst driver out there the omni driver. They do all these things at different times to suit their needs. You will find them somewhat unpredictable. That's how they gain their edge. If it is a race, they're winning. In real life they own the city you live in. Me? I'm the karma patrol. That title was given to me by my good friend Jim. I will behave until somebody doesn't. Then I become a wild axe grinding monkey driver. I'm not proud of that, I just can't help it. It isn't road rage. I am very calm and complacent 99.9% of the time. I actually believe that justice must be done.

My Uncle Jack was a very wealthy guy. I liked him a lot. He was 6'6" which qualified him to be a guard at The Trial at Nuremberg. He was outrageous at all times. Money can make that possible. It can also buy you a real nice car. My mom and dad told me a lot of great stories about him. I guess once he was pulling into a parking space in his really nice car, when a cab driver came from behind and took the spot. We've all seen or had this happen before. Jack got out, went to the cab drivers window and asked him to give him back his spot. I guess the cab driver gave him the finger. Oops. Jack quietly returned to his car and put it into reverse and rammed into the cab. The driver freaked out as we can all imagine. After pulling forward he slammed into him again. and again, and again, and again. All this time a Chicago cop was standing right there watching the whole thing. He slowly walked over, giving Uncle Jack plenty of time to finish the job and told him "I've been waiting my whole life to see that." and gave Jack a ticket.

Let's think of all these drivers as blood cells. Think of them as the red or white cars (platelets) blowing through the roads (arteries, blood vessels and capillaries) that make up our glorious highway system. The heart pumps them into offices, malls or factories (organs) on a regular basis. There they repair damage, supply needed raw materials (oxygen) and help to construct things (cells) and deconstruct things (Uncle Jack). At the end of the day, they pump home to be re-oxygenated in their suburban garages. They pump through this circular system over and over again. Even though the architectural similarities between the systems is considerable, I think it is an accident. I think somebody was just trying to go from point 'A' to point 'B'. Or maybe no point at all. As millions of others were going to other places, the highway just evolves. The reason they seem so similar is that the circulatory system probably evolved in much the same way. If you look at capillaries under a microscope, you'll see that they have very poorly defined boundaries. It is more like finding the path of least resistance through other cells. These dudes are just pushing their way through whatever they need to, to get somewhere. They don't have a plan or place they are headed, they are just being pumped. They accidentally supply oxygen along the way. They accidentally take out the trash. As time goes on, the friction along the banks of their migration forms a clearly defined boundary. If more platelets use that particular thoroughfare, the vessel is expanded. Sooner or later, you've got an aorta. Someday you'll have a city. The day after that you'll have one road.

When I was in college, I took some film making classes. I was pretty good at it. I made one movie in particular that was much appreciated. My professor wanted me to enter it in the Ann Arbor Film festival. He wanted me to stay another semester, past graduation to make more movies. I did neither. I still have it. Like any movie, it requires that you look at it and listen to it. Since I have faith in your imagination, let's re-make this movie together right now:

It is 1970. Seems like morning. There's a guy in 70's freak attire. Look at that backpack, man. Oh, wait, it's a gym bag. He's walking towards me backwards. He's hitchhiking. He's trying to hitchhike but nobody is lifting on the other end. Oh, shit. Look at this freak, he's lighting up a joint. Close up. Now back to wide shot. Pan way down the highway. It's a car. It's a blue 1970 BMW 2002. Tight shot of drivers hand flicking cigar ash out the window. He has the same face as the hitchhiker. It's the same guy. He's wearing a pretty expensive suit. He looks at his watch. Reverse the pan back to hitchhiker. Tight shots rotates around him, exploring his clothes and paraphernalia. As we sweep around his ass, we see him pull a tattered map from his back pocket. The camera moves are long and detailed. Back to the driver. He's got some things to work out, man. Check out the way he angrily punches the radio presets with angst. Look at all the shit stuffed in his glove compartment. He's got all the stuff I all want, but I don't want to be him. Back to the hitchhiker. He's singing with an air guitar, works the imaginary crowd. He doesn't have anything, but I wouldn't mind trading days with him. Seems like the cuts back and forth are getting quicker. Yeah, they are, most defiantly. Seems like noon.

In intermittent shots we see the hiker sitting with shoes off, shadow boxing, smelling his shirt, eating a banana, walking like Frankenstein. These shots are cut in-between intermittent shots of the driver removing his tie, winding his watch, searching dashboard for bifocals, smelling his shirt, putting his tie back on. The back and forth cuts are becoming very fast, like one or two seconds. We cut to each guys eyes. Hiker sees the car way down the road, driver sees the hitchhiker. They both experience a flash of some nebulas hope. Both are shot from behind, to reveal the other guy in the shot. The pace quickens to the beat of the heart which swells up in the background. The driver slows end eases off the road. The hitchhiker grabs his bag and steps back 4 feet. The car gravel-slides to a halt. Dust settles. Cuts stop with a long pause. In this long cut the driver leans to his right window and can not see anybody. He's pissed. The shot dissolves slowly to the same locked down camera with no car and the hitchhiker standing alone in a swirl of settling dust. He's pissed, too. Cut back to the driver flipping off the non-existent hiker. Cut to hiker flipping off the now leaving car in a new dust cloud. 

Seems like dusk.

Fourty days and fourty nights I have wandered. Just noticed that. Since there is no logical conclusion to this 'thing' maybe I've reached the end of the road. Fred and Laurie have had their baby. Fred and I will start a little company, which may turn into a bigger company, etc. Shelley and I... who knows where that road goes now. Maybe it's 'road repair for next 40 miles', maybe it's 'dead end'. I thought I might be able to figure that out while I was out here. I thought that in 1970, too. It will be nice to see Ty, again. I will continue to miss Quinn. I've seen a lot of exceptionally beautiful places on this trip. Places I may have never seen. I met a lot of exceptionally beautiful people out here. People I would have never met, otherwise. I was looking for somebody. I didn't know who that was. I am lucky enough to have the entire matching set already, a mom, a dad, seven brothers, a wife, a daughter, a son, friends. Still something was missing. In the 'conveinence store of the mind' there was a milk carton with my picture on it. Looking back in my life for these stories was a journey in itself. I traveled two roads every day. Two medicines. I feel better now. I've fallen far enough.

Let's try this again:

While on my journey, to where's unknown

                            From where I was, there was no way back

on dotted highways, that some call home        I met a man

                            I look inside, and my eyes see black                    one place

a constellation, as yet unshown                       that I could not see            no where

                            I look forward, but it's ward I lack                    one time          one road

was drawn before me, by hand, my own         he was what he was           no way

                            I look backward, but ward's still not back         one soul

to rendered clear, the celestial dome               and now he is me.

                            I close my eyes, to to my hearts attack.    

and make a pattern, to show me home.

 

 

 

The End

This was written and illustrated for the internet. For free. Please E-mail any comments to   ward@wardmulroy.com  

© Copyright 1998. Ward Mulroy. All rights reserved on copy, poems and illustrations by Ward Mulroy, so watch it.