The Road is my mistress, and I'm going to ride her until I get my rocks off!
We find four hopeful young men fresh out of the bubble of suburban life in Southern California and onto the unforgiving back roads and interstates of contemporary America in search of experiences unattainable through television and textbooks. Through the eyes of post-graduate Nathan Irving and his three best friends, Matt, Jeff and Chris, you will witness everyone and everything in their frail reality fall apart one mistake at a time. The lessons of life outside the box are force-fed in swift and unforgiving doses throughout the course of their journey across 13 states. From endeavors with the traveling magazine salesmen, to the add-water-and-stir party life they become wrenched into, and even into the slimy pits of a Utah jail cell, it will be a summer that they will never forget. You will join these four best friends as they smell and taste every aspect of the open road and push their bond of friendship to the limit.
Excerpt
The decision to escape came sudden. A heated argument between my slob of a roommate and I had forced me out of his apartment and into my Ford Explorer where I had nothing but my irrationality and anger to keep me afloat. It may have been the Lithium I was taking at the time, (I had just been released from the mental hospital) or the fact I was stuck in the most miserable, rat-bastard town in America for the past three months that made me act on such drastic impulse, but as soon as I left the steps of his apartment, I was in my truck and driving like a maniac the nearby Maverick gas station.
Mountain Home, Idaho is the shittiest town on the planet. A dusty little desert turd sitting sidesaddle on the back of Idaho’s forgotten history. The whole town is mobile, by mobile I mean made up primarily decrepit trailer houses and equally decrepit people. You could seriously move the whole town overnight if one had the gumption and equipment. Personally, if I had my way, I would move it due south about five miles and dump the whole godforsaken town into the currents of the Snake River, but that’s just me. The town is really just an eyesore though. If it weren’t for the Interstate and the nearby Air Force base, the town wouldn’t even exist. There would be no commercial traffic other than sightseers maybe taking a wrong turn out of Boise and ending up 50 miles east. The town would shrivel up and die overnight, but since that isn’t the case and there is in fact an Interstate and an Air Force base, the town had a pulse of about 13,000 wretched human beings. 18,000 if you include the flyboys.
Meth heads, white trash and fat slobs. Ugly bearded men in trucks with gun racks and a little brick and mortar library all set against the high desert cradle of a woebegone Southern Idaho horizon. Remnants of the Wild West, pioneers and outlaws still with their voices stapled to the breeze and with the right kind of ears, you can still hear them riding hard through the moonlit desert en route to riches on the Oregon trail. I was a pioneer and an outlaw that day myself, with my own rendition of a punch-drunk tale to tell but first I had to write it. Albeit, rip it off.
When you don‘t have any money for gas there are a few pointers you should know. For one, make sure yours isn’t the only car sitting at the pumps. Check. Two, try to pick a gas station where the clerks are young and dorky. Check. Thick rimmed glasses and pocket protectors are always a good indicator. And if at all possible, don’t drive away until they are helping a customer; it’ll give you a head start.
I returned the gas nozzle to its cradle with clink and closed my car door with a clank. I took a quick mental inventory of my escape options and chose the one I knew I would choose all along. The Interstate. I minded my speed while anticipating the onramp, heart singing with the melody of machinegun fire the whole way. It was the longest two miles I had ever driven and I saw my abrupt end when I was passed by three Mountain Home squad cars traveling in the opposing lane of traffic. No way they could have called the cops that fast and had a response unit combing the streets for me, I was safe but I had to purse my lips so my heart didn’t leap out.
I shouldn’t fail to mention that it isn’t smart to do it in states you may ever want to live in again. I mean, its the two thousands and every goddamn gas station in the Country has surveillance of some kind. They will get your plates, but not in time to catch your coattails as you journey victoriously out of their state jurisdiction and into the next. Which also reminds me, try to gas and go as close to the next state line as you can get so you can, simply board the onramp and be in a new state before they look out the window and see the nozzle swinging from the pump.
I mean, what the fuck anyways? Gas prices are fucking ridiculous thanks to the bureaucracy that is American price fixing. They are the crooks if you ask me. I mean, all this Saudi oil and all of that oil in Alaska and we monitor all of it thanks to that warmonger Bush, but we still pay $3.50 per gallon. For my Explorer, that’s like 65 bucks a tank almost! They really have your nuts in a vice.
So anyways, I know my car gets 300 miles to the tank or so. Some states are tricky, but most you can breeze through, from one end to the other on just one tank with the exception of Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Also the best time to drive is at night because you get better gas mileage keeping your foot south of lead; anywhere between 45 and 60. Anything over 60, there is a dramatic climb in wind resistance and you’ll drain your tank twice as fast. May I also recommend drafting behind big rigs, get close, like a cars length away from his tail and you’ll easily cruise an extra 50 miles, no sweat.
I didn’t take my own advice through the first couple states. I hit Interstate 15 south around dusk and watched a tangerine sunset all the way into Ogden, Utah, which was when I noticed my fuel gage reading dangerously low. I tried doing things the honest way first, knowing good and well it would prove fruitless, but I thought I might get lucky so I stopped at the local police station and rang their buzzer until they let me in from Ogden’s windblown streets.
“Listen, I’m traveling through Utah on my way to Wisconsin. I had all my money stolen out of my car in Ogden at the Wal-Mart. I was told the police help out with gas vouchers for stranded motorists.” Make sure your tone is subtle, yet desperate enough to make them raise an eyebrow.
The middle aged cop was a woman who wore a sloppy uniform and exhibited all the warmth and well wishes you’d expect from a cop. “Sorry. Someone told you wrong, we don’t help out with that kind of thing. I don’t know what to tell you, other than there’s a homeless shelter down on Pine St. You’d have to wait until morning to get an appointment but they may be able to help.”
“Thanks for nothing,” I said in a tone more becoming my attitude toward cops and with that I was on my way to gas station number two. In the back of my mind, I knew I should try a church in the morning because usually they’ll help with emergency gas vouchers and in past days predicament I would have, but like I said, my mind was twisted on a new medication and I hadn’t a shred of patience to spare. That, spliced with a self-deprecation I harbored towards myself after yet another abortive attempt with that lunatic roommate of mine. These two forces in my life created a cocktail for disaster.
That dog shit stupid roommate of mine had spooked me out for the last time. I really wanted to beat the brakes off him before I left, but I chickened out due to the fact my muscles felt like noodles from the medication and my head felt like it had been dropkicked by a nefarious gang of jack-booted thugs. But he deserved it. Ryan Wilson was a bonafide douche bag through and through.
They had dosed me something fierce at the mental hospital and it was still riding a crazed bull through my bloodstream at the time everything went down. When I got home, everything went haywire, starting with Ryan‘s rotund ass blocking entry into my room. His breath carried the reek of cheap beer when I got close and tried muscling past him to get my stereo system. I repeatedly ran into his sweaty, fat stomach like some line-backer roped into a game of redneck rugby. Ryan wasn’t exactly the daintiest petunia in the garden. Finally, the bastard just pushed me over and I fell. His nostrils flared when he barked, “Nathan! You’ve brought the devil into this house! My fucking house! Now, you’re going to leave before I get wicked fuckin‘ clowny on ya!”
“Eat a dick, Ryan!” I snapped back.
“I burned all your cards and weird shit. All your devil shit! You know what was happening while you were gone? You want to hear what demonic shit you brought into my humble home?”
“What, you slammed your dick in the fridge, so what?” I said, regaining my footing.
“No! The cupboards were opening and closing again! I heard a little girls voice over there by the fireplace. A voice like someone screaming, in the fucking chimney! You know what the voice was screaming? Your name, asshole!”
“You really need to lay off those Oxy‘s, man.”
“Wrong, you devil worshiper! You need to leave this fucking house before I shoot you dead! Right in your black, Pagan heart!”
If I hadn’t already mentioned it, Ryan is a big, fat redneck who is obsessed with Insane Clown Posse. Rotund, bearded, Republican, and completely gripped by insanity. His personality was like this big giant melting pot of sewage. Raised by devout Mormons, he was given to foster care at five after his Dad tried killing his Mom with an ice-pick. That’s the first thing he’ll tell you, because that’s what he tells everyone when they first meet him. Try going to the bars with Ryan and see how popular you are for just being within a rocks toss of him. At age seven, Ryan was adopted by this black family who sold smack. They thought adoption was one of those get rich quick schemes, and at age 12, he was taken an put into foster care again because the whole family, minus the dog, went to prison. At 16, he was shown the light of Jesus at some youth group rally called Teens Encounter Christ in Boise, and ever since then, Ryan was on fire for God. And Oxycotin. When I met Ryan, all I needed was a room to rent. I had 200 bucks, and Ryan was a friendless screwball who had a two bedroom apartment in Mountain Home. At first, I thought he was just some gamer geek with an idiot savant IQ, but as it turned out, he had the Dungeon and I was the Dragon. Two months after I moved in, things got screwy and when I say screwy, I mean downright weird. He began taping up bible versus in the bathroom that he had printed off the Internet, so every time I went in to take a crap, Jesus was watching. Next came refrigerator evangelism. Every jar of food, zip-lock bad and Tupperware had a bible verse attached to it. Spooky verses too like, “Lot was ordered by God to take his daughters into a cave and fornicate with them.” After the refrigerator incident, I spent a whole lot more time in my room, writing and buying Top Ramen. But the insanity didn’t end there.
He was under the wayward impression that I was doing spells in my bedroom because I burned a lot of candles and incense and stuff like that. I also had this chick friend who liked to bring over Tarot cards and do readings for me, which I never took seriously, but it was her thing and she was pretty so I let it ride. Ryan thought I had filled his house with demons, when in actuality, it was his own pseudo scrupulous integrity, and over all physical and emotional lackluster that drove him to a private addiction with Oxycotin a few months back.
Ever since then, he‘d been seeing things that weren‘t there, and undergoing wild mood swings ala Jekyll and Hyde. The fact that I went to the mental hospital alone, just nullified everything for Ryan. I was the spawn of the Dark Lord. Twisted, insane, and sure to slip a pillowcase over his head as he slept.
It was when he went for the shotgun underneath the sofa that I scampered out the door with only a handful of clothes. Maybe I am a bit crazy because I was laughing all the way down that flight of stairs and to my car. I turned my head one last time to observe Ryan standing at the top of the stairs all blubbery and shaking his shotgun around. His words made no sense, they were jumbled and incoherent but the rhythm his stomach made as it bounced, like a really hairy bouncy ball, made me laugh even harder. Some images stay in your head forever, tattooed on your mind as sort of a go-to picture if you’re having a shitty day and just need to laugh. That’s mine.
It’s a tough thing to admit, but I was looking for a way out of Mountain Home. I was stuck there by accident when my car busted a timing belt, so everything I had saved to get to New York went to Earl and Tim’s Auto Body and Repair shop on Whittaker St. But the time had come. Three months is long enough to decide you either like a place, or you don’t. It was time to make my great escape. There was a season in me about to expire, and another season ready to take form. I had been feeling it for awhile now. Itchy feet. Itchy to travel!
UTAH, BUT I’M TALLER
The Exxon in Ogden felt the next plague of my wrath. With the nozzle carefully placed back in its iron holster, careful to not alert the sensor, I made my getaway back onto the Southbound 15, heart sprinting faster than my RPM’s and a bloodstream thirsty for nicotine.
It was the rush of the gas n’ go that made it a last ditch effort that I morbidly looked forward too. It wasn’t stealing gas or pissing off the help, although that did have its bent appeal, rather the first 25 seconds after peeling out of the parking lot in a furious rush for the Interstate on ramp. In the grips of this kind of chaotic joy, it‘s easy to take a wrong turn, spill out onto a one-way going the wrong direction, or just erratic driving, neglecting the use of turn signals therefore arousing the attention of nearby police. Stay calm, just roll with the punches of your adrenaline and board the freeway.
The twinkle of Salt Lake City at night is preferable to the actual city in the daytime. My past encounters with SLC have been either maddening or a horrifying crucible. We won’t go into that because I’m sick of telling that story, but believe me, in the early part of summer 2000, Salt Lake City was nearly my death. I never left a Utah State line in any direction without feeling scared or pissed for one reason or another. The people in this city are anchors; their eyes capsize you with judgment especially if you look the least bit different. Not typical of a big city, but Salt Lake was like a big city with down syndrome much like most of the Mormon minded Cretans that populate Zion. I was scared this time because I knew I had 60 miles to drive before I hit Wyoming. 60 miles of uphill traffic into Park City which was a firing squad of Highway Patrolmen whose only task was to zip up and down the winding pass from Salt Lake to Park City all day long pulling truckers over for missing tail-lights. I only hoped I hadn’t overlooked a dead brake light or something. That would be a stupid reason to get pulled over.
The glow of Evanston Wyoming manifested itself in the distance like an answer to a prayer never said. My headlights shot out over her from behind the last fleeting crags of Utah. Safety, for the next 250 miles.
Just as life during the pandemic was color-coded with different hues representing different levels of danger, life in its aftermath has become shaded in similar ways. As a self-styled “Seeker of Beauty with Beauty,” (borrowing from a quote by W.E.B.
