Headspace

On our victory day, we still stand behind the open doors of my old Ford.

There will be a breeze that makes the dancing trees sway like old  royalty waltzing to a minuet. It’ll lap over our faces and tussle our hair back. The air on that day will smell clean and warm and of dry grass.

The sun will still set in the west though everything’s changed. That ancient celestial orange will set the evening sky on fire. The purples, the reds and the yellows will be smeared like pastels and the clouds will reflect it all like dull mirrors. We’ll be able to see the moon, and the stars and all of it in all of its majesty.

Down below the muddy Ohio will wink at us with the reflections of the sun scattered across it like a shattered prism as it wanders along its meandering path.

And you and I will look down from the top of the hill, and see what we’ve wrought.

And then, we will live.

I felt the wind cutting at my face again today. It’s been a while since I’ve felt it.

Early this morning when I woke up, it was storming. Lightning trickled along the underside of the armada of clouds. I didn’t go into work. Instead, I climbed onto the roof and felt mother nature’s breath grace me as the storm passed by, high above.

After that, it was still and humid. The water in the air seemed to stop the wind in the tracks. So I got into my old Toyota, rolled the windows down and gunned it out of this damned crumbling town and out onto the highway. There, on the road, I felt the wind cut at my face again.

Font paraître court le chemin

But the only short roads are ones that have ends to them. Out past Versailles, Lafayette and Warsaw. The blank farmlands and crumbling barns. Fading Mail Pouch tobacco advertisements. Houses that could barely be considered lean-tos with gigantic satellite television dishes attached to them. The real American heartland.

If I had the money, and the gas, I think that I’d just drive across the country aimlessly, stopping only to sleep as I needed it. And not just on the highways. Through the crisscrossing county back roads, and rainy alleys. Sixty miles per hour, seventy, eighty, ninety. When it starts to rain I’m going so fast I don’t even need to turn on the windshield wipers. Running never solves anything, though. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

The farms pass in blinks as I weave in between the steel dragons carrying logs, fuel and frozen television dinners (competitively priced) across the nation. People’s lives, generations- lives, deaths, births, hard times and golden ages that I’ll never know are tossed like dry autumn leaves in my wake. I will never know them. I wish I could.

And so I move on, around the bends, barreling through the tunnels. The grinding engine, wobbling wheels and the incessant screeches of a serpentine belt needing replacement phase me not. If I can just go a little farther, a little faster, maybe all that’s behind me will lose its resolve and stop its pursuit.

I only ever really feel at home when I’m in motion. Until I can keep at it, I’ll let the wind cut at my face when I can.

For breakfast this morning, I had two lukewarm hotdogs and a Bud.

I think I first woke up around 9. Ian took his dog out to shit. Then I woke up at 10. CJ had started packing already. The apartment, as usual, looked as if it’d been raided by the FBI. The drive to the airport was short and uneventful. We made small talk about golf. CJ still couldn’t believe he was going back to Britain. The goodbye was brief. See you in a few months, or years. The goodbyes were appropriately manly but we were all feeling it. The drive back was even shorter. When I got back, the dog worshiped me as if she were Monteczuma II and I was Quetzacoatl come down again from the heavens. I distracted her with a bacon treat.

I found a few cold Budweisers in the fridge and pulled one out. Briefly, I considered the ramifications of drinking before noon. The couch was still asunder from my previous night’s slumber. I felt that the situation would warrant the beer only if I first rebuild the couch. I do so. For breakfast, I had two lukewarm hotdogs in an empty apartment with a cold beer to was it all, all of it down.

The Budweiser illicited a short series of staccato belches.

What is Lafayette now? Being around with just Ian and Rebecca feels like a throwback to last summer. I had no job, no money. I spent my time sitting on Ian’s porch blowing smoke rings from a briar wood pipe I’d stolen from my father with the entirety of the Cart family cattle farm layed out before me. There’s the manor, too, I suppose. It just feels like any other city.

The first time I came to Lafayette on my own, I was supposed to have been going to an Academy party. I remember that it was twilight, and that I’d put the newly acquired Tin Hat albums on loop. I gripped the wheel with tenacious aclarity: I was well beyond determined not to miss my exit. I did. Instead of winding up with old friends (almost like old war buddies) I wound up here. I helped move from one building to another. This place is like a home. The routes here from Bloomington and home are memorized and ingrained into my brain. I couldn’t forget them even if I wanted to.

No more cigarettes.

So here’s to Chinky Steve. Here’s to Beirut with Killians and the ever hateful Bacardi 151 in the top cup. Here’s to driving up in snow storms, 1000 miles over the oil change and stopping every 30 miles back to deal with Monteczuma. Here’s to dilly beans, menthol filters, cigars, hooka, and one liter daquiris. Here’s to Stacy the bitch. And here’s to us. All of us, Neil, Rebecca, CJ, Ian and me. Things may get better or worse, but they won’t be the same for a long time.

Memories from CJ’s last night in America

“Hey, man. A dog just shit on your bed.”

“Now I’ve got vomit on me. Lovely.”

“Oh look! His asshole is flaming!”

On French women

“What’s up, baby? You, me, and a Gillette.”

“There’s something VERY wrong with this nigga.”

“You can tell I’m drunk because I make wooshing sounds when I step over stuff.”

“Don’t put that in front of me! I’ll drink it!”

A hand rolled cigarette, stuffed to the brim with Bugler tobacco and a British menthol filter, floating in a solo cup filled with pre-mixed magarita from a bucket.

“Would you like a starbust?” “Is it a turd?” “Why, yes. It is.”

holding up CJ’s shorts

“Hey, I’m Jared!” “Fuck you!” “Where do you keep your bras? Ah, I’ve been ragging on him all week.”  “Ragging over me, more like.”

A mixed drink that tastes like sunscreen smells.

“What’s in this?” “I dunno, lemme taste it.” “You MADE this!”

The television always has the captions on.

“Did my frambroise survive?” “Nope.” “Just as well, I drank all his grape soda.”

All this typed lovingly from someone’s Acer laptop, with a broken C key and an overheating problem that would make it illegal in California.

Remember the television, the Iguagapault and the joke that made him shoot gin out his nose and hide in the bathroom for an hour. I’ve never shot gin out my nose and now I have no desire to.

It’s been fun. See you soon, guy.