Peripatetic, Writer, Harbinger of Mirth
You drove for 7 hours. Got gas twice. Called 9 friends. 498 miles down, 34 to go.
Yes, that few. Only 38 mins.
But you’re tired. It’s 11pm. Why rush?
Pull over. Crack the windows. Listen to Neil Young. Sleep a full night.
Enjoy a final stretch. Then, tomorrow, finish it.
“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.
See bright spots of light. Can’t balance no more.
Closed out my phone call, “I love you. Uh, bye.”
Stumbled to my knees, my head hanging high.
Called my chum Em’ly, the reason I’m here
Coordinated as if drunk on beer.
“I’ll call you in ten,” she said and hung up,
so I wondered whether I was wrung up.
Am I concussed? I had seen stars. And my
neck mashed. From whacking it hard and uh, high.
Big ol’ thwackin’! A painful a-whackin’!
I pray the world fades not to, uh, black, and
but if it does, at least I’d’ve learned… Not
much of anything. An accident turned
me into a grave. A silly way to
die. In future, I’ll be A-More-Aware-of-Surroundings Guy.
Xfinity, you tease
In the unlikeliest of places
By stoking my hopes with the promise of bars
Then dashing them all with a “cannot connect!”
I must say I’d rather
Have no WiFi at all—
Be forced ‘pon my phone’s hotspot
Than hear your wispy false claims.
But sometimes, my dear,
You appease this old soul—
Like this ‘forenoon, when I video called
My boss from the street.
Though your robustness did waver
So we switched to “just audio,”
You did remain connected! Aye, you stood strong throughout,
Leaving boss none the wiser
That I’m a van-confined hobo.
Why do you toy so, dear Xfinity,
With me, of all people—loyal lover of your service
As I try to log in
With my dad’s friend’s account?
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when my faithful Roadtrip Companion challenged me. “Compose the opening paragraph,” he said to me, “of completely fictional history book chapter.” I did. Here’s what never happened:
Released from bondage, but no longer welcome in the land they once ruled, the exiled Klimbaugh people went west, toward present-day Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Their search for religious acceptance would frequently be met by hostility toward their unusual practices, most famously in the Great Hangings of Dushanbe. The Klimbaugh’s movements can be traced until 1400 BCE, after which most scholars agree that the pressures of their hostile surroundings, un-arable land, and lack of social acceptance drove the final vestiges of this once-great kingdom to assimilation or death.
I sailed five hundred miles today, of course to see a girl.
Docking tonight on this Pacific beach, pausing my quest ‘round the world.
She’s just one of many, and she knows it too, and that makes her mightily sad.
But if she wants more or less than I am, she best find a different lad.
Two long years I built this life: learned a trade, hired mates, built a ship.
Launching each day into uncharted lands—maturing is quite the trip.
If you ne’er stood alone on a beach in the night, you’re missing Poseidon’s roar.
The waves crash about you, scalp shivers in tingles and heart begins to soar.
You’ll thank every lighthouse and follow the wind. Try it. It’s what we are:
We’re conquerors, explorers, skullduggers and knaves. We pillage and rape and steal.
And when you’re done plund’ring your fill of the booty, pray the wench will cook you a hot meal.
You’ll only feel me by listening
to the same song,
but none better than the downtown boy
with hair like Dylan
accepted to Yale when I was
but dropped out
and now plays to a Farmers’ market audience–
an empty picnic blanket and me.
At 24 years old,
he looks more like twelve
and sings folk like a wizened bluesman.
Will he go anywhere
or stay in Fairfax forever,
wearing the same uncool shoes
as the classmate I bullied in 4th grade.
If America’s misfits come to San Francisco
and SF’s go to Oakland,
where go Oakland’s?
We’re only fifteen miles north of The City,
but you can believe astrology
and we’ll still believe in you.
If you move too quick,
you hit the speed of loneliness
like a too-fast car,
breaking the sound barrier,
collapsing personality,
emptying you out.
First night in my van,
Emptiness reverberates.
I am vast. Try alone.
… if only to ask for money.
“Can I borrow your phone? I need to call my mom. I’ll give you a dollar; don’t even need to touch it. “ This comes from Chris, the Chicago Bulls hat with misshapen teeth and meth sores.
I dial the number for him, put the phone on speaker. “It’s 3am in Ohio,” Chris’ mom tells him.
“I’m sorry,” Chris says. “I didn’t realize.”
“Did you get the hundred-dollar MoneyGram I sent you? Can you come home? I’m worried about you. Have you talked to your dad? Did he send you any money?”
“Not in a while.”
“Okay, here’s the code:”
Chris’ Mom gives Chris the number for the MoneyGram. Chris writes it on his palm using the pen I lent him.
“Thanks, Mom. I gotta work in the morning, but I’ll call you at lunch.”
Chris played online poker until the US government shut it down seven years ago. Now, he teaches tennis and plays poker in Vegas, but one-tabling live is not the same context or variance as twelve-tabling on the web.
I suggested he go international—like to Cali Colombia, where he can play online again and live like a king for $1k a month. As a bonus, I told him about two ¿cartel members? who lose $1k per day in the only non-profit casino I’ve ever heard of. (A money-laundering front for the cartel? Probably.)
Chris calls his friend Red. Red’s got something for Chris. Chris writes an address on his palm next to the MoneyGram code and the “HoHoHo” he doodled while chatting with his Mom. I don’t know what Chris is going to pick up, but my money’s on meth. When he asks me for $3, I don’t know why I give it to him. Maybe it’s pity. Maybe it’s hope.
I wish he would go to Cali. The cocaine cartel in one of the most dangerous cities in the world would probably be safer company.
(On New Year’s Eve in a Las Vegas Casino)
How does one celebrate in a predatory place? I evidently celebrate by feeling sad. The band didn’t play Auld Lang Syne as their first song of the New Year. Unacceptable, but not why I feel sad. I feel sad because I spotted a little girl. She’s celebrating New Year’s in a casino, which feels icky to me, bordering on harmful. My being here doesn’t feel icky, however. Is there a difference?
Maybe. Perhaps it’s bad to teach a child to associate predation with celebration, while I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I chose to be here. That’s one difference. It’s not particularly strong—it doesn’t justify the existence of casinos in general, but it explains a bit of the ethical difference in my gut.
The girl and her family stepped away. A mother and her two young children arrived. One, a baby boy in a stroller surrounded by stale cigarette smoke—you should have seen his thousand-yard stare.
Julian Wise 