The Slint Diaries [2007]

THE SLINT DIARIES

I had a bad feeling the drive down, but I attributed it to having a bad feeling about everything all the time. We got to Budget, parked, and went in. The line inside snaked the width of the building.

"Jeez," I said, "they think they're the Post Office or something? Some goddamned bank? Eight windows and two clerks--that's certainly doing it service-with-a-sneer style."

"Hush," Rob counseled.

We'd made our way to the front of the line amid the grumbling when a manager came out of the back to take a quick poll of how many people were here to pick up minivans. We were the first of three groups. How many were there to return a minivan? He said it almost like a punch line.

"Oh, man, Rob, tell me we're not fucked."

"Man, we are so-o fucked."

We got up to the counter and our clerk took my reservation information. I'd booked the minivan a month in advance. "You all don't have any minivans, do you?"

She just shook her head. She started talking SUVs, so Rob told her about our cargo requirements, adding how we had to drive up to Chicago for a big show tonight. She wound up walking us through the lot. We rejected the largest SUV they had first off, then wound up returning to it. It was really the only option at the moment. They might be getting some minivans returned later in the day. There was nothing larger to trade up to.

The clerk voiced her thanks that we were being so patient. "That's the thing," I said, "the whole national reservation and online stuff is fine, but it does kind of remove some of the local control over your own damn business."

"They book us like this all the time. Doesn't matter if we have it in, they rent it back out for us. I'm sorry but I don't know what else to say. Take this big guy home with you and see if you can fit all your stuff into it. If you can, then go. If not, maybe something will turn up in the meantime. I'll call you if something does, just in case."

There wasn't anything else to do. We went in so I could sign the stuff. And boy did I sign it! The original deal had us putting $350 on plastic. She showed us the circled figure. "No matter how this works out for you all, that's your amount, for your troubles." It was hundred-eighty bucks for six days! We thanked her.

On the drive home I hated everyone who would drive such a big piece of crap. I knew how it would play out. If an SUV couldn't take a band to a show, what use did they have? Guessing whether you're too fat to fit in your lane? If they really went four-wheeling, they'd tump over on the raw roads and be destroyed like toy cars.

Back home it did not look so good. We dutifully fed the back of the bastard our gear. Technically, all our gear fit in the bastard. That was a sigh of relief. But then we remembered that we all had our personal backpacks and pillows and sleeping bags, which then did fit, just barely.

We four climbed in, for an appreciation. It totally sucked if you were in the backseat. "But we could totally do this for Chicago," Rob championed, "and then swap out for New York."

"It's pretty miserable back here," I rebutted. "But do-able."

"I'd be willing to drive my car as well," Carrie pitched in.

The discussion about what to do was about to ensue, so I decided to take the time to drive my car around the block to park in front of my own damn house. I cut back on foot across the alley, and heard Becca calling from a distance. My name. I heard my name but not the rest until I was close enough to hear that Budget had called and they had a 12-passenger van waiting for us. We locked up, clambered in, and the all of us drove down.

It took us forever to decide to at least unload the SUV and get the worthless shit back out on their lot, mostly because the monster van was that unappealing. Rob knew, "The gas will kill us."

We actually went in and our friendly clerk pulled up the figures. 12 m.p.g. versus the average 19 for a minivan. There was a minivan now on the lot, so we went to have a look. It was--we asked--promised to a guy who'd come in an hour before we originally had, the pioneer of the minivan shortage. The back was perfect. You didn't have to remove the backseats anymore; they just folded down into the floor.

We debated just killing the dude and jumping the line.

The point got to where we had to make a decision. I overheard our clerk talking on the phone and heard the phrase fifteen minutes repeated in her voice.

I asked and yes it turned out that this guy might be returning a minivan in maybe fifteen minutes. All the convoluted alternatives sort of faded away, like a hologram weakened. That was my verdict. As late as we were, we still had time, so why not wait another fifteen maybe twenty minutes?

Unbelievably, the guy indeed did show up. We told them to skip the cleaning. We jumped on the fucker. It was perfect. We loaded just fine. I signed the papers and we split. It was a brief bit before the road spit me up a ramp and we were on I-65 North, about four hours late.

+ + +

I was kind of tired of driving, but I figured I could push through Indy and maybe then stop for some food. I figured wrong. Coming up a long rise the northbound lanes started thickening. And then stood still.

"Goddamn," I muttered, "if you can't drive, stay off the fucking highways. That's the first rule."

Rob looked at me like I hadn't finished explaining. "It's stupid drivers that cause accidents. There are no accidents. You can't call them accidents when stupid drivers are allowed on the road. There should be giant spatulas, or the roads should be hinged, something. Sorry about your broken neck, but--sproing--get off the fucking road you stupid fucking driver."

"Well, that's sort of harsh,"

After taking ten minutes to cover ten feet, I ventured, "Well, but maybe not harsh enough?"

"Definitely not harsh enough."

After half an hour I was ready to jump out and let the closest semi roll over my head. But then traffic started to flow a little, albeit quite gently. We still couldn't see what'd happened. Some stupid driver no doubt.

What we did start seeing was really weird. In the grassy spill off the shoulder were vibrant bursts and tufts of color. In an Impressionist landscape--think flowers. By the side of a highway, after the fourth or fifth we figured out they were stuffed animals.

"Isn't that Clifford the Big Red Dog?" Becca asked, having a four-year-old nephew. Could well be. It was certainly Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog red.

"Hey, there's a great big Tweety Bird! Hi, Tweety Bird, bye Tweety Bird."

"What's that blue one?"

"Look at them all!"

"Collect them all!" I piped up.

The traffic had slowed to a stop again--at least flashing lights could be seen in the vaguest distance. "Hey, look," Rob said, "there's a little Tweety Bird. That's a good idea; I'm going to go get it."

"Rob, no," but the dude was out the door. And back in before I had any cause to let off the brake.

"Say hello to Tweety Bird, our new mascot. Rescued from the side of a highway."

"Maybe we should pull over and get all of them and then we could throw them into the audience throughout our set." It sounded like a great idea for about a split-second, but then I was wishing I hadn't opened my mouth. I was holding Tweety. This Tweety was one nasty worn-out fucking plush.

"That is a great idea," Rob agreed, "let's do it. Come on, pull over; there's plenty of shoulder."

"No."

"What? Why not?"

I was handing Tweety off to someone else and wishing I could wash my hands. "Because then we'd have a van stuffed full of all these nasty worn-out stuffed animals, and if we threw them at people it would just piss them off. I'd be pissed off if someone threw something this nasty at me, that's for sure."

"Oh, but it's our Tweety," the gals in back cooed. I was glad to give it to them. "Don't squeeze him too hard unless you want grease stains in your laps."

"Oh, stop it."

"Look at it, the fucking eyes have been pulled out. This is one seriously messed up bird. Trust me, it's nothing to be proud of. Unless we had some baling wire and could strap it to the front grill and do the rest of our trip Trucker Style."

"Trucker Style?"

"You ain't lived till you done it Trucker Style."

"I already told you to stop. But look here on the back where it's been re-stitched," Becca pointed out. I had the driving time to look over and see the bad job. "Is that seam a drunk mom job, or are they transporting drugs in these things," Becca wondered.

"That's standard package," I explained. "It's called Tweety-ana-fren, you down? It's got two holes where the eyes used to be perfect for poking down a pair of straws. Either you're a hog, or you share it with a fren. Baby I love you so much I want you to help me snort Tweety's brains out tonight."

"You're scaring me," Rob remarked, "you sound like you've been there."

"Been there and back, baby."

Then we came upon the scene. There was a bunch of kids herded up a hillside. And a resting parade of a bunch of tow-along trailers. One of them was disconnected and burned to the ground, tires in melted puddles. There were a lot of fire trucks, cops, but no ambulances in sight.

It was a chastening landscape. And did no help in making anything make any sense. Stuffed animals to this? I must've missed the transition. We were all glad to be quickly past it. At length someone resurrected we should've grabbed more stuffed animals.

I was adamant. "When we passed all those kids I wanted to roll down the window and throw this fucker out. Hey kids, here's your stupid pathetic eyes-popped-out Tweety Bird back."

"Pathetic?" Carrie was gasping, "their Tweety Bird."

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm being harsh again."

Then we were free from the grip of traffic. After the long stall of course of no possibility not degrading, we quickly hit a big exit to pee. Becca brought up, "Is any one else hungry? because I sure am."

I thought and opined, "I toasted an English muffin like five hours ago."

I didn't know where to go; the Chorus spoke: There's a Taco Bell! I'd never eaten at a Taco Bell in my life. Apparently, if you'd done your research, you could instruct a pretty decent vegan meal out of the place. I hung back and watched them, through the thick glass, swaying slowly along the cord of the empty order line, faces focused on the menu plaques, while I sucked down a fast cigarette.

It was pretty cheap to order a chicken quesadilla and a small soda. My ticket said I was number 50. Carrie went to pee. 47 and 48 came up and Rob and Becca took their trays to a table. 49 came to the counter and two guys stepped up to claim it. I thought that number had to be Carrie, but I hadn't been paying that much attention. I got my tray and joined the table. Turned out Carrie's order had been snatched. She had the ticket, so there was no defense. "I already made that." "But I didn't get it."

We wanted it to be a quick meal, but how could you not discuss it? "Wonder what it's like to hang out at a Taco Bell south of Indy hoping to snag a free meal?"

+ + +

Rob was fiddling with his iPod and talking to Becca, but still I couldn't believe it when he blew the turn-off. Two lanes on the left doing I-65 north to Chicago and we're going right. It was too late when I stated, "Rob, I don't want to go to fucking Dayton."

"Oh shit!"

There was nothing to be done about it. We were on I-70 going east to Dayton. There was a bit of van panic until we realized, duh, just get off at the next exit and turn around. We got off the Interstate to find that the entrance ramp to the westbound lanes was totally closed. The ramp back to the easterly lanes was also closed. They weren't really ramps anymore, but just a bunch of rubble. A detour sign took us down a narrow crappy street that ran parallel to the Interstate. It looked like the kind of street where you're sure to puncture a tire. Signs kept saying we were going in the right direction, but there kept never being a way back up onto the highway.

Rob pounded on the dashboard, "I hate Indianapolis!"

"This town sucks," I agreed. "I don't know why all the people who live here don't just blow their brains out. I would. I'm ready to right about now."

"They have a pretty great art museum, though," Carrie announced.

"That's what I hear; all these years and I've never been to it. I've never set foot in Indianapolis--it's always been a place to go around or over."

"Your instincts are good," Rob said, "because this city sucks."

"What is it with this street, anyway? Where are we going? I wonder if this town has buses to take you on guided tours of Ridiculous Indianapolis."

"Suckass Indianapolis."

Then we were driving in the shadow of the veering I-65 overpass, and still no ramp. And then the highway turned at an angle and headed northward, while the detour signs kept us going westward.

Suddenly we were solidly downtown, trying to find more signs. "Man," I called up front, "just roll down your windows and tell all these people, hey you, know what?--your town sucks! Hey, stupid, you live in Kissmyapolis."

"Kissmy what?" Carrie asked.

"Ooh ooh, sign, sign," Becca jabbed at the windshield. Sure enough, a few blocks away, a daub of Interstate Blue amid the visual jumble of signage. The traffic was sucky so it took awhile to find ourselves sailing up an entrance ramp in the right direction.

"They should build a perimeter of levees all around Indiana, and then just flood the whole goddamn state. It'd be a mercy killing."

+ + +

When we got into town, we headed straight to The Chicago Diner to hook up with Becca's dad and stepmom for dinner. I knew it was vegetarian, but I still thought it would look like a diner. It didn't. It looked like a hip trendy little restaurant. The place was on Halsted, in the heart of Boys Town. I didn't even want to go in; I wanted to stay outside and people-watch.

"Ooh, this is like a real city." Across the street was a place called the Body Shop. I reckoned you didn't go in there to get primped up to look like Britney or Christina, unless in an ironic sense.

The parentals had been waiting and having refreshments in a tavern on the corner. "I can't believe they were having drinks in a gay bar," Becca grinned, "I wonder what they thought."

"Yea, man," I said, "well, I don't like the way your dad's looking at me."

Inside we were all seated outside, in back, under the glorious blue sky. I poured through the menu, hoping to find something that might tempt my appetite. Coffee was first order. It was Fair Trade coffee. I would've sucked it down if it'd derived from slave labor, some brutal drug-lord plantation. Then it was time to nail down an order. Everything sounded like something else, like something it couldn't possibly be. A barbecue bacon-cheeseburger? Philly cheesesteak sandwich? Pastrami on rye. Swap out for some soy cheese, and everything could be totally vegan. I wasn't very hungry, and was thinking about the comped meal waiting at the Abbey. I could've gone for a simple cheese quesadilla, but the closest thing involved a tortilla made with spinach. I settled on a pita-and-humus appetizer.

When the order came, there were all these huge fucking sandwiches, and my dinky little plate. I deflected the comments, "I'm a light eater." The sandwiches looked really good, and smelled great, and some fucking sheets of meat made out of bulgar wheat probably tasted pretty good, but damn they were huge. I'd've needed a five-hour nap to recover from so much food.

My little dish was so exciting I ate about half of it. I was ready to get back out on the sidewalk and have a cigarette and watch more people. We got to stand out on the street, waiting for Becca to emerge from the 7/11 next door--she went to get a stash of sports drinks.

A black drag queen came strolling down the sidewalk. Rob and Carrie turned for the walking-away view, and after a polite interval Rob announced, "Sometimes you can't be sure until you get the back view."

"Dude," I scolded, "if you can't tell from the front, it's a damn good thing you're already married."

+ + +

We got to the Abbey around seven, got an ace spot right in front of the place. Eventually we unloaded. We had hours to kill. We got our meal chits but I was still fine from the pita. I didn't want to eat my main meal too close to showtime, but I sure wasn't hungry yet. Carrie and I killed a little time at a thrift store across the corner. After forever, forever finally stopped, and it was time for us to set up and sound-check. By the time we finished it was too close to showtime for me to sit down and eat a big fucking pub burger. We'd been told the kitchen closed at midnight, but we went on at eleven, so I figured I'd have time to sneak in a final order. Instead the stage was so small we were informed that at the end of our set we'd have to load out all our gear, down some steps, out a few doors, and into the alley. And thus packed back into the van proper around the corner. By the time that was done, my meal chit was worthless for the day. I didn't feel like eating anyway. I took an active interest in the iced bottles of band beer, hoping to play catch-up to Carrie. I sucked three down fast, and then felt dizzy. I reviewed what little I'd eaten that day. I had a fresh free bottle, but I went up to the bar. They had a warming tower for bar pizza. It'd wound down to a single pie of cheese. When I finally got the guy's attention I showed him the ten-buck chit. "Can I cash this in for a slice of that?" Without a word he tossed it in the trash and gave me a slice. It was bar pizza; at best a frozen crust worked up on the spot. It didn't matter what it was. It was the best thing I'd put in my mouth for years. It was just the ticket. I took my fresh beer and found Carrie, and told her of my transaction. She nodded her head, "That works!"

+ + +

Just south of Indy we saw the last of an accident being cleaned up in the northbound lanes. We saw the moment when one lane was finally reopened for traffic. And then for miles and miles we passed the lanes so dead people were out wandering the median. They were thinking about giving up and pitching a tent city.

Becca was driving. "Watch out for the sharks," I pointed from the navigator's seat. The sharks, I explained. All the vehicles seemingly stuck trying to cross the grassy median. They were all actually gunning their engines and just waiting for a spot to cross and grab a slot in the southbound fast lane. I railed repeatedly, "Don't crash into us, motherfuckers."

We passed the point where the traffic was still fresh and congealing.

"So sorry, but still so glad it's their side, not ours."

Two hours later we were driving our familiar streets home. "Just look," I said, "this sucks. All the buildings are so small and stupid. You can just tell that this isn't a real city."

+ + +

I slept for twelve hours. Making noon coffee was so groggy. I used two cups to get stuff gathered together. I had to go out to get some cigarettes anyway, so I got some lunch from Subway because there was nothing in the house but maybe another English muffin. Then I grabbed my stuff, locked up the house, and cut across the alley to get back in the van.

+ + +

I thought I was driving but then Rob muscled into the position. I thought whatever. Took the navigator seat. Buckled my ass in. Becca had to fly to do the New York show. For the asphalt and concrete route we'd replaced her with Daisy, an excellent young friend. We'd tapped him last minute, and he was excited! He blew off band practices to do it. Long drives in band vans were his milieu.

I figured Rob would allow for how I really needed to do my driving during daylight, but he stayed on the wheel, carving out his chunk's worth of the trip up. He stabbed us deep into Ohio.

As the light waned, he was finishing up. "So what do you all think? Should we just snack-food our way up to New York, or should we stop for a real meal?"

"Real meal," I seconded. "Otherwise we'll arrive nearly dead. On these long trips, it's the scurvy that'll kill you."

"So we should add slices of limes to our alcoholic beverages?" Carrie queried.

"Absolutely!"

By now I'd learned that highway fast-food for vegans involved Subway or Taco Bell. Rob was giving Burger King the also nod. They'd just introduced a veggie burger, which he detailed as frozen and oily-looking and something he'd never sink his teeth into, because he was happy with the Whopper--no meat--and fries.

I shook my head, "Really?"

"Really!"

I could've gone for another one of those chicken quesadilla things, but everyone else was burned out on the Bell. So we were going to Subway. I didn't say anything about my lunch. I didn't care. There was a Dairy Queen I could've easily hoofed on over to, but really I simply did not care. It was just fucking food, something to stick in my mouth and chew. I decided to vary my diet by getting their crappy attempt at a meatball hoagie. I was pleased to see they had Sour Cream & Onion Baked Lays for my vegetable.

It was one of those crummy little original Subways they stuck in every stupid strip mall in America. Like the size of a real subway car--need to take a leak, go piss between the cars and avoid the third rail. There were three nasty little tables if you dared to sit down. There was additional dining en plein air in the form of a four-chair wrought iron patio set, set incongruously out in the strip mall's . . . portico?

There was only us and an old man, but that apparently constituted a rush. Behind the counter was this very large young woman, and another woman, younger and not quite so large, who appeared to be in training to become larger, and not quite so young. They just couldn't seem to make sandwiches; the cash register was like something the aliens had plopped down on the counter. They stood around and sort of giggled about how nothing was going right.

I was worried when Carrie got the first sandwich, finished and paid for, and immediately marched out of the building. I really didn't want to get into that whole eating meals in the van plan. All the trash, and the licking your fingers clean thing. The leftover stink lingering for a million miles. But no, she claimed the outside table. We'd be dining alfresco tonight, watching the burgundys and lilacs of the sunset.

"God, how much weed have they been smoking?" Daisy muttered sitting down with his sack.

"Man, it's how they get those big girls to work here," I said, "minimum wage, one-hits in the walk-in--on the hour. And at the end of the shift the biggest fucking sandwich you care to create."

It was funny. We all happened to turn and look in through the plate glass window. The rush was over, thank god, and the two of them retreated back into some secret place. "Look at them scurry," I barked. "Gotten to be late enough now, might be time for a little bump."

We focused on our delicious sandwiches. I thought about it some more. "But you know, if I lived around here," I gestured largely, "and I had to make my rent by working in a shit-hole like this," my finger pointed, "you can be damn sure I'd do the old get-high-before-work every goddamn day of the year."

"Sorry, I don't want service with that kind of a smile," Rob chimed, "I want to get what I ordered."

Cars kept coming into the lot but ignoring the parking slots, heading straight back down around the back of the structure. They never came back. We laughed about the gals selling weed out the back. That's when it struck me.

"Wait, isn't Subway owned by some sort of doctors' consortium? Like, peddling pills out the back-door is what makes the franchises so damn lucrative? Enquiring Minds wanna fuckin' know!"

"Damn, dude," Rob nodded like the great sage that he is, "shut up and eat your fuckin' sandwich."

"Bravo to continuing onward on our great adventure."

"Even a bad Subway's not so bad," Daisy remarked.

"Yea," Carrie answered, "they're pretty good for the fast thing." She got a broad smile and did a goofy shrug. "Actually, I had Subway for lunch."

"Really?" I said. "That's funny--so did I!"

"Really?!"

"It was lunchtime, and there was nothing in the house to eat, so I thought, oh hell, I'll pick something up at Subway."

"Me too!"

"The one in the Skid-City Mall?"

"Yea!"

I just shook my head. "Great minds and all that. Guess that's why we're in a band together." I nodded at Rob and Daisy, "What did you all have for lunch?"

"Not Subway," they chorused.

I shook my head, "Sorry guys, if you're not like-minded, we're gonna have to leave you all behind. Now, it might be hard at first, establishing a new life in Bumfuck, Ohio. But I'm sure you'll learn to love it."

Rob stood up grinning. On his way inside for the bathroom, he tossed something sparkly way up and then snatched its jangly ass right out of the air. "Daddy's got the keys."

The place had only the one bathroom, the very toilet they used at night to flush out the mop no doubt.

I was really ready to get the hell out of there when a large family showed up for sandwiches. But I was still on line for the john. Those people fucking wobbled on into the place. We were all in the van pulling back from the awful sight, but it was still there! They were all still wearing Jared's big-boy pants, from before he started eating smart at Subway. But they looked like they were there all the time. So no wonder. Maybe if you, as a family, think the perfect after-dinner snack to be a foot-long of even just the goddamned bare bread from Subway, like, you got a real big fucking problem. That's all I could ascertain. My fellow Americans just want to eat until they explode. Like a race of goddamned goldfish.

+ + +

We were somewhere in Ohio when there was suddenly a tall hill standing by the side of the highway.

"What the fuck is that?" Daisy turned to look to his left.

"That's called the Ohio State Motto: please send us your garbage so our state too can have a little contour."

"Seriously," he turned to me, "it's a landfill?"

"Check all the pipes poking out of the ground. You definitely don't wanna be huffin' on that shit."

Half a mile down we were passing the active edge of the landfill. "Damn," Daisy remarked, "and when it's all done, they'll call it Mt. Beautiful."

"Exactly," I nodded. "Shit, I bet they already have snow machines on the old end, calling the place a ski resort."

Several hours later, as we skirted Akron, Daisy looked again to his left, a vista of the lights defining the downtown in the failure of the day. "Damn, I didn't know Akron had a skyline."

Sure enough, there were three or four buildings poking up from the plain. "Well, you know how it is. Cleveland decides to knock down a tall building and build a new one, they make a call and then truck the old fucker over to Akron. Akron--they'll take anything. Hand-me-down high-rises, whatever. Dead cities can't be too picky."

+ + +

We were done with Ohio, basically, stopping for the gas-up that would carry us across Pennsylvania. "The thing is," Daisy muttered, "no matter how much you think Ohio sucks, Pennsylvania is always worse."

"It's like Indiana laid down and died and sprouted some mountains to make the truck traffic suck even more."

Carrie woke up and dragged her ass out of the van long enough to go pee.

I encountered Daisy as I roamed the aisles. I saw he was carrying a can of Red Bull, so I thought hmm. I was a virgin to energy drinks up until that moment. I too grabbed a can. The shedding of Ohio and the prospect of Pennsylvania took my cherry.

It did taste like downing a bottle of cherry cough syrup--however slowly, sipping at it, savoring it.

Then I was set for the night. It was just the two of us, powering it through Pennsylvania. Daisy grew too scattershot for CDs, so he turned to the Sirius band on the radio. We flicked through all 20 million stations a number of times, but there was nothing worth landing on.

"So, I'm kind of new to this Satellite Radio business," I declared. "I thought it was this new innovative thing. Is it really just like dish or cable, where you pay monthly to get a hundred times more crap than broadcast?"

"Basically, yea."

"That's what I was thinking. Man, capitalism fucking rules! Whether you like it or not. It fucking kicks serious ass to get at all your money."

As though in response, Daisy asked, "Where's Rob's iPod?"

It was right there in a bag, complete with the adapter so we could plug it into the van's cassette player. I didn't even want to know how shit like that worked. I took a moral stance against the file compression inherent in the mp3 format. The real problem, though, was that we couldn't figure out how to make the screen glow. We couldn't get the backlighting going at all. We tried pressing the few available buttons, but they just made the menu change.

"I hate technology," Daisy declared. "I text while I drive, sure, but there's this whole geek exoskeleton that pisses me off."

Our compromise with the modern age was that he'd hand over his open cell phone and I'd hold it so he could use the illumination to read the iPod screen. "Press any button when the light goes out."

That was the style we used to slay most of Pennsylvania.

+ + +

Carrie had been pressing the pedal for a several solid hours, and the bad knee was starting to complain. Daisy was supposed to be sleeping, but instead he'd finally given up and become the back seat chatterbox. He was ready to drive some more, but he refused to do so until we were out of stupid fucking Pennsylvania.

We got into Jersey and there was finally a rest area. We figured we'd take care of the pee thing as well as swap out drivers. I hung back to smoke and they returned back too fast. The place locked up at eleven.

None of us cared about pissing that much--there were a couple porta-pots aways away, but no one was that interested. I was thinking how this was the first rest area across the border, which was usually a bright and shiny welcome center in most states these days. "Welcome to Joisey," I intoned, "da Go-piss-behind-a-bush-asshole State."

"So you couldn't sleep?" I asked as we motored on.

"Fucking Red Bull--it's the shit."

"So I've learned."

"Yea, I noticed that."

+ + +

Rob had instructed us to wake him when we got in towards the city so he could direct us. We were going woo-hoo! in the tunnel, "Rob, dude, wake up--we're driving through a fucking tunnel!"

Then we were in Midtown--we nearly drove up a ramp that would've turned us into a Port Authority bus. I was telling Daisy go this way, go that way. I knew what I was doing. Rob was reading his instructions--they were fucked, predicated as they were on coming in through the Holland Tunnel. We then were supposed to go through the Battery Tunnel, which had to be right down there at the Battery. We got to 7th Avenue and I said hang a right. You just go south and then you'll get there was my message.

We were fucking woo-hooing it the full drive down. New York fucking City. Once we got down in the Village, Rob perked up and guided us, turning left and then again, and then we got a legal parking space to go in to Bagels on the Square as the dawn broke into full day.

As we opened the doors I said, "Someone call my wife. Break the news. Tell her I'm not coming back."

I stepped out of the van and lit a cigarette. It was 5 in the morning in the bustling city, and all of a sudden I was crashing really hard. I'd fallen off the bull. I got it together to go in and get a fresh garlic bagel, uncut and unadorned, and managed to gnaw away maybe a third of it. I really needed to have my head encased in pillows. I ushered the others on, I so craved sleep.

We got back over on Seventh. "Just keep going south," I said. "The tunnels are down there somewhere." We wound up on West Broadway, which just sort of dead-ended at some fencing around a giant pit.

"Damn, so that's Ground Zero?" Daisy asked.

"Yup," I said.

"Hmm, I thought there'd be something more than a couple of cranes."

"Naw," I said, "it's got so much more value like this, as a photo-op background for whenever the assholes want to start blathering about freedom and terrorists."

"Jesus Christ," Carrie muttered, "it's been six fucking years. And this is all they have to show for it?"

"Well, if there were a bunch of shiny new buildings here, we'd forget all about the terrorists. Damn those freedom-hating terrorists! But you know what I really don't understand?"

It was a rhetorical flourish, which Rob answered anyway, "What?"

"What I don't understand . . . it just amazes me that after all these years . . . people haven't started throwing all their garbage down there. I would kind of expect to see a bunch of old tires and broken appliances, nasty mattresses and cat-peed carpets and shit like that down there. Hey, we're from Kentucky, let's show them how it's done, let's get them started, hey Rob, where are we going? Let's go back and clean out the van, fling all our trash over the fence."

I was babbling, and I didn't stop babbling even as Rob steered us down into the Battery tunnel. "See, the big delay is this. Some people want to put up this Freedom Tower; it'll basically look like a giant French fry and be like a big fuck you! to the terrorists and goddamn France. But these other people want to put up this Giuliani Tower, which would look like a giant Rudy Giuliani because he was so brave on that fateful day, but I tell you what, they build a fucking Rudyzilla tower, I'm driving right back up here to blow the damn thing up again and make the fuckers start from scratch!"

Finally we were parked somewhere in Brooklyn and walking blocks and blocks with our overnight stuff. I was carrying two packs and two pillows and an unrolled sleeping bag sort of draped across my shoulders. I struggled, falling further and further behind the others. I kept falling out of my body and standing across the street, watching the trudging line of us. Like a short-circuit, the phrase urban campers kept buzzing in my brain. Then it turned into urban slumber party.

+ + +

We were down in a very deep subway station and the guy was talking about our superpowers. The guy grinned and said something about how he was going to prove it by turning the station and tunnels back into the Mesozoic Era. He had us take the elevator back up to street level, and said he'd call on his cell when he was ready for us to come back down. He may have had superpowers, but they weren't superfast powers. We stood around for the longest time. Finally the nearby payphone started ringing. It was the guy, and he sounded far away. The line was crackling with static--I guess they didn't get very good reception in the Mesozoic Era. We couldn't actually understand a single word he was saying, though the tone of panic was clear. We got back in the elevator and pushed the bottom button. When the door opened, the first thing I noticed about the Mesozoic Era was that it was very dense--the vegetation was a mat pressed flat against the elevator door, like a fat green sponge. All these weird ferns and cycads. We could hear the guy; he sounded just a few feet away. We kept yelling at him to hurry up because all these vine things were starting to grow inside the elevator. His voice started growing fainter. I thought about pushing into the vegetation but knew that just a few steps in I too would be lost. I wasn't going to risk that. I kept poking and sweeping my arm through the tangled mess reaching to where I could barely still hear his voice. He had to be within reach, but I never managed to touch him. And then there was nothing, his voice had vanished. The only sound was that of the plants growing into the elevator. Before the vines got any thicker we decided to close the doors and get the hell out of there. We felt bad about abandoning the guy, but not too bad because we knew he was dead. As we rose I realized that he'd made a crucial error. He had turned it into the Mesozoic Era, but because he himself hadn't been alive in the Mesozoic Era, as it came into bloom he began to vanish and once the Mesozoic Era was complete, he simply ceased to exist. I learned the lesson not to fuck with time.

Back up on the street, no one believed in my so-called powers. Everyone scoffed at the thought that down in the subway it was the Mesozoic Era. I started getting pretty pissed off at one guy in particular, so I did sort of fuck with time. There was a large clock on the side of a building, about twenty feet off the ground. I thought about all my wording carefully. Afterwards I didn't want the guy to just drop to his death, though I thought a slight injury like a sprained ankle might help him remember. I had him stuck up on the clock; his arms and legs were windmilling around like a clock gone crazy. Then I had him let down, gently. You better believe he believed me after that.

I walked around a corner and bumped into my dentist. Dr. Bennet started nagging me about my appointment. I explained I wasn't done with New York yet. And then I remembered and told her that I had in fact rescheduled my appointment before I left, for when I was back. She just looked at me intently, as if she'd been speaking in code and assumed I knew what the fuck she was talking about. Then she suggested somewhat darkly that I should go talk to her sister. I didn't know she had a sister; how would I find her if I had no clue what she even looked like? Her sister turned out to be Becca's oldest sister Stephanie. Steph came up to me smiling and then informed me that I wasn't alone, that there were a number of us who had such powers. And as such I had to sign this contract--she waved it in my face--whereby I ceded the use of my superpowers to some greater authority.

I said, "That's bullshit, I'm not signing that."

"But you have to!"

"Who the fuck does this higher power think he is? I don't have to do anything. Signing some piece of paper--that's some bunch of fucking bullshit."

I walked away.

They did have their ways, though. They knew my mind. Right away they reincarnated Heady, my all-time favorite cat, dead for years. They were tugging at my heartstrings, but I was also scared to death. The damn cat was like two stories tall. It was stomping around, smashing cars and knocking over buildings with her swinging tail. I dodged into the confines of a fortress-strong building. If Heady found me, and decided to give me a lick, it'd be like being flayed alive. Big cat tongue the size of a bus.

Then there was also a giant horse, and the apocalypse was on. The whole city, all the buildings and bridges and highways were constantly collapsing and going up in flames, which sizzled even as the ocean rushed in to flood the crushed city.

I was wondering what could possibly happen next when Rob peeled away the pillow I held clutched over my head. "C'mon, man, it's time to rock."

I was so excited I sat up quickly and began babbling about my superpowers and giant cats and how the subway had been turned into the Mesozoic Era. The band looked at me like I was a Ming Vase--so precious, hope he doesn't crack.

Carrie looked at me most curiously. "Do you always sleep with a pillow over your head?"

I stared at the question for a minute. "Uh, yea . . . "

"Really?!"

"Yea . . . it helps me sleep to have my busy little head isolated from reality."

She laughed. "Maybe your head should be a little less isolated from reality, the way you wake up ranting about superpowers and the Mesozoic Era!"

+ + +

It took us forever to find our way back to the tunnel. Then we were in Manhattan once again. Rob had it all mapped out. Out of the tunnel we swing around and catch the FDR to Houston. That seemed excessive to me--you could probably drive up Broadway and get there in half the time. But then we were suddenly steering back into some fucking tunnel so I yelped and had Rob swerve right, which was totally wrong. We were just back down at the rump of the island. "Look," I said, "there's Battery Park, which is what the Battery Tunnel is named for, and it's the Battery 'cause inside the park there's some beat-up old fort that didn't do a damn thing when the British decided to stomp back up here."

I was making up history and hiding the fact that I'd steered us wrong. Rob made some comment. "I'm on 3-1/2 hours sleep and no coffee and think I have superpowers," I replied, "so if you listen to me it's your own damn fault."

Finally we got situated. The tunnel that would funnel us onto the FDR approached. "For god's sake, don't go in the tunnel," I shouted, "didn't I tell you before, veer right."

"Very funny," Rob mastered, taking us the right way.

Soon enough we were negotiating Houston Street. "So, like Houston is like an avenue, right?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "that's totally wrong."

"I know the streets start getting numbered somewhere, but the avenues are numbered too, right?"

"Yea, but Houston is perpendicular to the avenues. The avenues run north/south. We're headed west, and if we don't stop we'll wind up swimming in the Hudson River."

"But pretty soon we'll start hitting the numbered streets, right?"

"No!" I counseled. "Hang a right to hit the numbered streets."

"Huh?"

"Think of it like this--Houston as Zero Street."

"Ohhh, I think I get it."

It took us forever to find a parking space. All the streets we were driving seemed to have a street-cleaning restriction matching exactly the hour or so of the very day we wanted to go and have a late breakfast. It was such bullshit, as if the streets got cleaned more than a few times a year. It was alternate-side-of-the-street parking institutionalized into a fairy tale of clean streets. Finally we got a slot. We walked away hoping the van didn't get broken into. That would be a bummer.

Daisy was going crazy about the double-parking. "Is this even legal? Or is this just fucking allowed."

I whispered to Rob, "Just wait 'til he sees some triple-parking--it will blow . . . his . . . fucking . . . mind!"

Rob grinned and nodded sagely.

Then we were in this fucking vegetarian diner. I didn't care: the place had coffee. I was still adjusting to the fact that I was in a band with people who cared about breakfast. Breakfast for me maybe involved bacon, not fakin. All I really wanted at that hour was a slice or two of toast to help settle the cups of coffee poured into my stomach. I asked for an order of hash browns as well, which I sort of picked at because they were big chunks of diced potatoes sporting twigs of rosemary. Who needs fucking rosemary in the morning?!! Salt, pepper, period. When Carrie ordered a glass of orange juice, I jumped as well. It was a bodily craving, like I was about to fall victim to scurvy from our long voyage. The waitress brought Rob coffee with dairy creamer, and then she forgot the juice; I finally stood up and went looking for them. I stopped, seeing our waitress back in the kitchen trying to scarf down her breakfast. The view was like a painting: Madonna and Hash Browns. Updated to Moderna with Tofu Scramble. Drinking her fucking orange juice. Just then some guy came around the corner and I relayed the complaint to him.

The two glasses arrived with apologies. She hadn't been scheduled, called in at the last minute. Implied was a long night with little sleep. I kept it inside, but I wasn't having much sympathy. Eighteen hours up and then barely three hours of crazy sleep--top that, bitch!

Daisy was talking about how fit everyone was. "It's like there's no fat people in Manhattan."

"It's against the law," I said.

He thought it had something to do with the pedestrian environment. And then he remembered the fat woman in a muumuu we'd seen when we were circling for parking.

"A muumuu," I said, "that dates her--she was definitely grandfathered in. Back when Giuliani bought all the ugly people bus tickets to Baltimore. Madame Muumuu, fuck, that was probably the wife he ditched."

"What I can't understand," Rob broke in, "is how all these young and beautiful people can afford to live here?"

I could tell he was developing some sort of theory. I developed mine first. "Dude, no one who lives in Manhattan actually works, see? They all live on trust funds. See? Look outside. It never changes, they're all just walking around. Thinking of all the ways to spend their goddamned money."

"Yea, but a couple grand a month just for housing, seems like you'd run through it pretty quickly."

"Rob, we're talking trust funds, not trust piggybanks. Say five million pulling in 10%, that's 300K chump change after taxes." I let that sink in. "Though everyone in Manhattan does work one day a week, in a restaurant, but that's more of a social outing than a real job. It's an obligation; it keeps all the restaurants working . . . in the City That Never Cooks."

+ + +

We circled a few times, then pulled in behind a postal truck and a blocked hydrant, fully otherwise in the loading zone. There were a bunch of muscular black guys hanging around outside smelling like they'd smoked a fat one about five minutes before. They didn't bother us as we started carting our stuff inside. Up the mass of steps, and then another stairway inside. I left my heavy-ass amp on a landing when I realized everyone was inside lugging shit up the stairs. Someone had to stay down at the van. Right then all the guys outside came alive. We'd shocked them by showing up on time. They got their buzz in order and started carting our shit up all the stairs. Once the van was empty I locked up and went back to the landing to finish delivering my amp. It was gone, done.

Rob had control of the van. I stupidly let him transfer the powers to me. It wound up being nearly two hours before we could get the van parked in a legal spot on the street. We had to cut off an old lady who just sort of showed up and thought she'd take the space. She complained that she lived on the street. Well, bitch, we'd been on the street for a couple hours. She lived on this tiny scrap of street and owned a car that she had to keep re-parking. What was she? Fucking crazy?

+ + +

I'd walked past it a million times, but I'd never gone to a show at the old Ritz. So once inside I spun around in circles trying to soak it all in. The history was easy enough on the Internet. But it didn't compare to actually standing in this Deco ballroom dedicated a century ago. Gold paint seemed to be a motif. Plaster figures bolted out the walls frozen, ecstatic, terrifying. I thought immediately of Gustav Klimt on too many 'shrooms.

+ + +

Our dressing room was pink and actually two rooms--two rooms together the size of a real room. There was a door out to the balcony, though we came up the cramped little staircase from the stage. It didn't strike me as particularly sanitary in there. There were hardly any chairs. The crowning luxury was the type of worn black vinyl sofa I've never much favored. Sticky nasty couch. Daisy had staked claim to it but then decided to hit the streets instead. Everyone else was going out for not-icecream.

I'd brought two bags up from the van. One was mostly clothes. I'd stuffed a feather pillow into the other. No guess what happened next. The clothes were soft enough to lie on, and I burrowed into my pillow cave. I was hoping I could just pass out on that couch, but I could never quite get there. For one thing, it quickly became apparent that our dressing-room was the main way from the stage to the sound board up at the end of the balcony. Guys kept cutting through. I didn't care. To get more comfortable, I took off my shoes and socks. Big naked feet hanging off the end of the couch. Guys kept cutting through--yep, that's right, dude's from Kentucky . . . they don't wear shoes down there. I never did fall asleep; I just lay there and rested, which was the next best thing.

About an hour later Becca showed up, so I thought maybe I should quit hogging the fainting sofa. The techs were starting to work on the drum sound, so I thought it the perfect moment to go walk a few blocks for a slice of pizza.

The slice of pizza was the carrot ahead of this goddamn cart.

I'd done the googling weeks before--unfortunately the closest Ray's was the one right at St. Mark's Place Tourist Plaza. And damn the march of time--Ray's had co-branded with some damn Bagel Express, and instead of here's your fucking slice they had about a million specialty pies out in the warming cases.

The slice was totally worth 800 miles in a van. I ate it out at one of the sidewalk tables. For about ten minutes I was a cool New Yorker. To finish my soda, I took a detour down to see the circus on St. Marks. It was all goddamn tattoo parlors and hair salons and piercing parlors and nail salons. Boutiquerie Gone Wild. Even St. Mark's Bookshop had relocated to new construction at the corner of Stuyvesant--it was nice inside, a little too nice.

I realized that the New York I still really wanted to live in had been superceded. What I cherished no longer existed. It was liberating to have my last vestige of wanderlust killed off. The edge of the place had been filed down. The somewhat sketchy streets . . . now the most dangerous thing that might happen is you'd get trampled to death by a shopper. Or seeing someone who spent too much time in a tanning bed might ruin your day, a dozen times a block.

+ + +

When I got back, the dressing-room was supplied with a case of Corona on ice in a busboy tray. Carrie was on the couch already working on one. "No fair," I exclaimed, "you're getting a head-start." She about spit beer out her nose.

"I swear, I'm not gonna get drunk before the show," she laughed, "I promise."

Then this dude rapped on the door while walking in. He was in uniform. His name was something I immediately forgot. He was security on our wing of the thing.

"The only thing I ask," he said, "is keep the glass bottles in the room."

I got that right away.

"Friends you want to come in, fine, just keep the bottles in the room. That's the only rule. That's what the plastic cups are for. I'm here to keep people from coming in you don't want coming in, and for keeping the glass bottles in the room. Otherwise," he gave the big fucking wink, "feel free to do whatever you want in there."

We concurred about the glass and the guy left. There were two sleeves of plastic cups poking up. "Look," I said, pointing, "the table looks like New York, before 9/11."

Then Becca came in. We relayed the news that we'd been officially told we were free to do whatever we wanted to do, except for the bottle thing. "I said," I said the lie, "you know where to get some free to do whatever we want? 'Cause I left all mine at home."

"So we can do whatever we want in here," Becca seemed piqued by the challenge.

"Yea," I said, starting to fling my limbs, "we can dance! We can like dance like crazy all we want!"

And then we were all dancing, like crazy.

"And look at the practice pole they provided," I exclaimed. It was some structural element, one-inch pipe that tore down through the room. "C'mon gals," I urged, "let's get our moves on the pole down right."

We were doing tag-team pole-dancing when Rob walked in.

"What's going on?" he wondered.

"Having a real good time."

"Yea, well, I can see that. How many of these Coronas have you guys put to bed?"

"Rob!" Becca corrected, "we're just dancing."

We showed him what pole-dancin' was all about. Then Becca flopped down on the couch winded. She touched base with what I'd told them all. "So this place used to be the old Ritz, that right?"

"Some say it still is the old Ritz."

"Didn't like Madonna play here?"

"Who do you think greased up that practice pole so good it never needed oiling again?"

"Eww, yuck, why'd you say that?--don't touch it!"

+ + +

We had to immediately escort all our stuff off to the side of the stage. That was our encore. And then it was right up those crummy stairs 'cause I really needed a fresh beer. Which I poured into a walk-around cup. I took a few swigs then stashed it out of harm's way. What I wanted most was a cigarette or two, which the city still allows you to do outside. It was two grand marble staircases down and the same damn two back up. The exercise cancelled out the bad effects of the smoke, I was pretty certain on that point.

Back on the VIP-only balcony I saw where Tara was parked as I doubled back to my beer. I wasn't inclined to stay in the dressing-room. There were people I didn't know, talking to my band-mates about all sorts of stuff I knew nothing about. They were their friends.

And the set had started.

I strolled along, loping like an exhausted rock-star, in case people didn't notice, until I found Tara where I'd pinned her. I went up and batted at her shoulder. She seized me in a hug--"You guys were awesome," she shouted in my ear.

I stood back and shrugged, "Thanks!"

We talked some more through the song, until she mentioned, "I got some pot, if you know any place that's cool."

"You got like a one-hit?"

"Naw, I had to roll a couple. You never know--a lot of clubs have metal detectors."

"Really?!" I was genuinely astonished.

"Well, for guns and stuff, I guess," she paused, "but probably to also fuck with pipes."

I shrugged again. "Don't forget the terrorists. Let them get stoned: watch out."

"Yea, them too."

"I guess we could go out on the street and just go walking a couple blocks."

She gave me the yea--right! look.

"Really!? Giuliani's been gone how many years? . . . and yet the city remains cleansed. Dude is major kick-ass antibiotic."

The song kicked into overdrive so we watched for a few minutes.

I bent down to her ear. "Well, now that I think about it," I told the security dude story. "So as long as the glass bottles stay inside, I guess the dressing-room is like Vegas."

"Such is the nature of the dressing-room," she chuckled.

She rounded up Tim while I remained standing next to their friend Ira. The dude knew who I was but couldn't be bothered to nod. I'd been snubbed by him so many times, it was like getting snubbed by a tree. He was a derivative motherfucker same as he'd always been, so what did I care?

I ambled along to the dressing-room with my friends.

I was surprised when we walked in and the rooms were empty but for Rob. The band was playing, but still.

He didn't care if we smoked a joint. I realized it was probably the first time he'd ever been in a room with the two of them. Who wouldn't be suddenly perky at the prospect?

She didn't mess around with her weed--the three of us were done halfway through. While we were still passing it she'd slipped me the spare joint. And then I got the big fat half roach. Stuffed down the cellophane trouser legs of my pack of smokes. Then we all dispersed to watch the last half of the set.

I hung close to home because I wanted to cash in on the last of the Coronas. I was in there fetching another, and fumbling because there wasn't a fucking bottle opener laying around and I would have to dig around in my bags to find a set of keys, when Carrie came in for her next. I didn't have to dig around my bags to find a set of keys--the way I knew. She found a hard edge in the other room, made a bang sound, and brought my bottle back open.

"Heh-heh," she said, "I've decided my job is to make sure we don't leave any Coronas unopened."

"Girl," I said, "I'm totally your side-kick in this endeavor, if not your mortal competitor."

We clanked bottles before we poured them into plastic cups.

+ + +

I started waking up around seven. About five feet from my head there was a fucking monsoon going on in Thunder City. It was already daylight, but even so the bolts of lightning were rather dramatic. The rain was relentless, just fucking pounding down. What a great morning for a drive. Finally I got up and went for a pee. Then I fell back asleep until right after nine. Rob had woken, and decided to turn on MTV really loud. It was a gentle, if awful, alarm.

It was still raining buckets.

I wound up downstairs and outside, smoking under a leaking canopy. The rain just wasn't giving up. I kept pretending that the clouds seemed to be breaking up in the direction I guessed was west. I didn't know if it was the rain or what, but the small street was totally clogged with mostly trucks. The trucks just crawled. They got impatient. The people traveling the cross streets got pissed off by the gridlock. It was a helluva lot of traffic going nowhere. I lit another cigarette because I didn't even want to think about joining all this in a van.

But then the rain did stop. We drove all around Brooklyn searching for specific spots for breakfast. Finally we found one that was open. Parking was only like blocks away.

The place was like an old Greek diner that'd gotten hip to the vegan thing. Though you could still get bacon. Everyone ordered these huge healthy breakfasts. Again, I was more interested in the coffee. I knew I needed to eat something but the greasiness of bacon and hash browns held little appeal.

I'd definitely had at least my share of the Coronas last night. I didn't have a hangover. I just felt a little fragile. I got a bagel and cream cheese and worried over it.

Even then, food was not over. We drove over the Williamsburg Bridge and went to some place that sold excellent vegan dessert items. For the trip home. For the trip home, Daisy was suggesting buying a bunch of bagels. That sounded great to me. In theory, at least. I was still full from most of a crappy bagel. There wasn't any place good around, so I was content to just get the hell out of the city. Instead Rob drove us over to our starting point. Back at Demo Square, parked illegally this time. The rest of them thought about their fancy orders. I just wanted four garlic bagels to take home. I stepped out on the sidewalk and gnawed on one. I only wanted a taste.

The rest of them kept being in the place, so I decided to hell with it, why not? Next door was a pizzeria. Their marquee proclaimed that they were the Best Pizza in New York. I knew they weren't. The place was packed with Asian tourists. I went in and got a slice.

Outside Daisy asked for a big chomp. I certainly didn't want to eat the whole damn thing myself. Suddenly I was trying to finish a slice of pizza while everyone else sat waiting in an illegally parked van. The crust was overcooked. I finished what I wanted and dumped the rest.

I sucked down half a cigarette walking to the van.

"Dude," Rob greeted me, "we could've waited. You threw away nearly half a slice."

"I got what was good. The crust wasn't very good. I just wanted a last taste."

As I strapped in I glanced down the street. I saw the overhanging sign. "Damn, we missed out. There's a Subway right down there."

+ + +

"Oh shit," Rob shouted.

"What, what?" I roused from the back seat.

"Guess we better get some gas."

"Is the light on?"

"No, but the needle's in the red."

Jesus! I thought. I'd checked the gauge when we were leaving the city--pretty close to a quarter tank. Finally I'd settled back and decided keeping an eye on it was the driver's job, not the worry-wart in the back seat. I've never seen the sense in running the tank that low, but that was just my driving style. I didn't mind not having any miserable ran-out-of-gas stories in my repertoire. And I was sure as shit gonna be pissed off if I wound up with one on someone else's account.

"Well, just pull off at the next exit," I said pointedly as he blew past an exit.

"We have to make sure it's an exit with a gas station," Carrie mentioned. She was up front in the navigator's seat.

"Come on," I replied, "this is Amurica--there's a gas station every other block from sea-to-shining-sea. Sez so in the Constitution."

That got some laughs. But the truth was we were past Paterson and we were skipping exits because there was no development. The interchanges were access points for industrial areas that loomed miles in the distance. I was starting to get nervous. The Delaware Water Gap was on the vast green signs as too close--that would be the most suck-ass place to run out of gas.

I saw a bunch of houses quickly off the approaching exit, and was about to say something when Rob began drifting across the lanes to get over. "I don't really see anything," Carrie ventured.

"Look at all those houses!" I said, seconding Rob's turn down the ramp. "There has to be gas. Somewhere."

We came down this road that was like a stub of a street extended for the access forty years back when the Interstate suddenly roared through the hills a quarter-mile south of town. Town was small. It looked like the town was well old enough to have a history. Not that I wanted to hear it. It was too far away to have become a bedroom community. I did notice that what people I saw were Hispanic. It seemed insane that the city's service workers would live so far out. Maybe they drove the Interstate a few exits and worked in the industries. I couldn't imagine a life more dismal.

Once we got into town proper, we slowed to a crawl, peering down all the cross-streets for any sign of things commercial. It was all a bunch of fucking houses. Eventually, like a mirage, a blue and red lighted sign appeared a few blocks ahead. It turned out to be a corner grocery, like fucking Norman Rockwell. Except such things were extinct. The signage alone noted that it was a bodega imported from New York City.

Everyone was sort of groaning. A town so small that a corner grocery could still exist. I was the cheerleader: "All these people have cars; there has to be a gas station somewhere."

We drove a few more blocks and there was nothing. Nothing new. A bunch more houses. In the face of such a desert we did a T-turn, and headed back to the Interstate. "There has to be a gas station," I insisted, "Let's just stop at that store and ask, that makes sense." It made sense, but there was minimal applause. "I'll be the one to go in and ask," I added. Once that was settled, it was universally a good idea.

I immediately started wracking my brain for what little Spanish I'd ever learned. Yo estoy petrol I guessed. I am gasoline didn't make much sense. Maybe petrol was all wrong. Yo quiero la gasolina. Maybe if I said it in a way that the initial upside-down question-mark was implied. Being an American, I knew by instinct that the louder you talked the better you'd be understood.

With that background I slid open the side door and jumped out of the van. I went in the store. A Latina was behind the counter, an hombre on the other side, and then a pair of black chicks also buying corner-store crap. I thought to move to the back of the line, but then I saw that as bullshit. "¿Maybe you can help us?" I announced. "Any of you know where's the nearest gas station?"

I got the fucking directions. We'd turned back too soon; a couple more blocks and the street ran down a hill to another main road where, to hear tale, there existed a mecca of gas stations.

We did an illegal turn and then headed back the way we'd been going. A couple blocks further on we crested a hill and could see where the street ended at a real road. There was a tiny gas station at the juncture. It was no name we knew. But it was there. Despite the directions, there weren't any other gas stations in sight. We waited through a weirdly placed stoplight, then pulled into the sliver of land that housed a pair of pumps and a tiny triangular building that definitely dated back to the days of our nation's first gas stations.

"Wow, great gas price," I remarked, "better than home."

"Well, yea," Rob replied, "'cause they water their gas in Jersey."

There was an old dude out there to pump the gas. "Is this like the windshield wipers in New York."

"It's this weird law in New Jersey and New York," Rob counseled, from experience. "Full Serve is the only option." I remembered that as something I'd know before, but hadn't thought about in ages.

Daisy and Carrie went in to inquire about the facilities; there was one bathroom around the side. I hopped out and followed them. Carrie got the girls-go-first pass. I smoked a cigarette, moving away from Daisy so as to not tempt him off his nicotine gum, while also keeping a clear distance from the pen of LP gas canisters. I looked across the main road at a park carved into the landscape. I was struck by a large sign that read clearly across the distance: Do Not Feed the Ducks. Circling back towards Daisy I mentioned the sign.

"What a friendly town. Go to the park and first off: Do Not Feed the Ducks."

Daisy opined, "That's fucked up. Don't feed the ducks. What, let them starve?"

I walked away and read more signs. I waved Daisy on in next when Carrie came out of the bathroom.

"What a friendly town," I reiterated for her. "Go to the park, and it's all Do Not Feed the Ducks! and No Ball Playing Without a Permit!" Carrie looked over and read the evidence. "What a message for the kids," I continued, "it's like in a town where there's nothing for the kids to do except go to the park where they can't play. You might as well just give up right now, son," I intoned, "and go get on the pipe."

"Get on the pipe," Carrie snorted, walking her way back to the van.

I got my chance at the bathroom. Daisy warned me to keep the door cracked 'cause the light didn't work. I came out and lit another cigarette. It'd be my last for many hours, full tank and all. Rob waved me over and I waved my cigarette in return. Then the van pulled away without me.

I waved as they drove away. They got stopped at the light, then turned back my way to fetch me. Rob opened the door and growled like a Mafioso or a Terminator, "Get in the van." My smoke was done enough I crushed it out and climbed on in.

Driving away, I glanced back. I saw the big sign that said it was Pennington Park. "Look, look," I shouted, "it's Rob's park." Everyone agreed. "Man," I said to Rob, "you're such a fascist. You and all your rules. You can even squeeze all the fun out of a park."

The discussion died off as we made our way back to the Interstate.

+ + +

It was actually kind of nice driving eastern Pennsylvania in the daytime. While it sucked having all the trucks clotting things up on the inclines, sometimes you'd come over a ridge and there's this whole fucking splendid valley landscape spread out before you. It's like euphoria on the road.

But then the clot of trucks scabbed over and we were crawling. Down into the valley and up the next ridge, nothing was moving.

"Just get out the gun and kill me," I spoke for us all, "right now."

Progress was so fucking groaning. Shit just piled up and died. And then slowly moved up a little bit. Finally things started flowing and we whooped it up, relearning speed for a quarter-mile until the next log jam. After an hour or so of that, a rest area appeared and Rob pulled off. He was done driving, and with waiting and wanting to drive but otherwise being thwarted.

Daisy was ready for the wheel. But he was also still hungry despite everything he'd already eaten. He offered me five bucks for one of the garlic bagels I was packing.

"Dude," I said, "I'm taking them home to my wife. It's a romantic gesture. Some guys send flowers; some come bearing garlic bagels only a dozen hours out of the New York ovens."

By the time we were all piled back into the van I was feeling pretty fucking miserly. I reached into my smelly bag. On top was the one I'd torn off and eaten maybe a third. Less than that. I pulled it out, flipped it over to him: "No charge."

His eyes got wide. "Really? You don't want it?"

"Eat it before it goes stale. That's a command."

Daisy did just that, as he jockeyed us down the ramp into the lanes of nearly stalled traffic. We were boxed in by fucking trucks and trailers, crawling along with a view of nothing but tail pipes. Sometimes traffic would start to flow for a small while, but then stop. Daisy got impatient and asked for the atlas.

But then things let up again. Before long we were approaching some crappy county road overpass. There were a bunch of workers atop. God knows what the fuck they were doing up there. One guy was standing up there with one of those hand-pivoting slow/stop signs. That was all.

"Jesus," I snarled, "some dude up there with one of those flimsy signs, and all these retards not just ignoring the asshole. It's probably just a bunch of locals with pickup trucks and a stolen sign and a lot of beer and no goddamn jobs just having fun, fucking with the Interstate."

We were home free, until traffic stalled again. I was ready to hop out and storm down the shoulder smoking a whole goddamn pack of cigarettes.

Daisy went back to studying the atlas.

We were coming up on a US highway where we could dodge five or ten miles of this mess, if we could just get across this river. That sounded sorta good. But that interchange was, at the continuing rate, so goddamn far away.

There was another earlier exit we were seeing signs for now, but from the atlas it looked like you'd really want a more detailed map of the area. Daisy was pitching it. Rob was agreeing in principle, but he wasn't wanting to get lost on some dumbfuck county roads any more than I was.

With all the fucking trucks all around, it was hard to get a view of how the road ahead played out. I kept thinking I was getting glimpses of a better world, but that damn boxy trailer in front of us made it a chore to even see daylight.

Finally I made my declaration. "No!"

"Why not?"

"Look ahead, up the hill." The brief sightings were of a whole mess of trucks going pretty slow.

I really didn't want to get of the highway, but I wasn't making my case. "It looks the same to me, two lanes of asshole trucks barely moving," Daisy offered.

I wasn't at all convinced myself, but still, "Look. See see! They're going really slow because it's such an incline. Check out how things are spacing out. If nothing else," I assuaged, "and I'm totally wrong, we get over the river and definitely get off at the next exit on the US highway, and probably not get lost."

Traffic stayed fairly slow. We crested a ridge and came down. Work crews had been doing some major repaving of the bridge over the Susquehanna River, but it was quitting time. Across the valley, the trucks were laboring against the grade, but the cars were shooting along like bullets.

No one thanked me for keeping us on the fast lanes. My own sighs of relief were thanks enough. We already knew Pennsylvania sucked. Now we were finally up to speed to get across the piece of shit.

+ + +

We'd barely gotten back to being used to highway speeds when Daisy coined the phrase and started calling every truck the Suck Truck. They were all being total assholes. Looking through the windows at them, you could tell they were all totally fucking tweaked. They were having big-rig drag-races on hills so steep it was a wonder the weight of their freight didn't drag them backwards.

I just shook my head. "Call me unpatriotic, but to hell with the American economy--I really don't feel like I should have to be sharing the road with a bunch of meth-heads and coke-fiends.

Nearly immediately there was a lot of signage to the side of the road. Accident Ahead. "What," I wondered allowed, "they're planning ahead for our traveling pleasure?"

We went down to one lane. There was a whole blocked off scene. Apparently some drug-addled trucker had tried to take a banked curve at too high a speed. The whole thing was tipped over and tumbled down an embankment. It must've happened hours ago. The truck must've been transporting some extremely durable goods--the operation now was devoted to the ant-like procedure of transporting all the undamaged product by hand up the ravine and restacking it on pallets on the shoulder.

"Look," I said, "it's the worst job in the whole fucking universe."

+ + +

We stopped for gas at this huge travelers' plaza, the kind where the big-rigs are welcome. The place had a restaurant and a convenience store the size of a supermarket. Plus the special hallway where the long-haul dudes could go take showers. The gang took the cash inside; I stayed out to pump. We staggered through the mart and restrooms in stages. I bought a Red Bull, a Gatorade, a bag of pretzel Combos and a packet of Beer Nuts.

None of us blended into the crowd. We were four freaks suddenly invaded their store. I ran into Rob and just pointed at him and laughed. His t-shirt, what he was buying, his scruffy unwashed looks.

"What?" he asked.

I nodded my head at him. "No hiding who's the biggest freak in the store."

He grinned. "That'd be you, in that shirt."

Which I'd totally forgotten about. I'd worn it onstage, then slept in it. I woke up wearing it, and most of the day gone I still hadn't changed. I was standing around all these truckers in a travel mart in rural Ohio wearing my fucking Liberace t-shirt. Treat your best friend like a queen indeed!

+ + +

Not much further down the road we decided we should probably stop and have a real meal. We'd given up and were looking for Taco Bell signs. The thing about Taco Bells, though, were they were never there when you decided to sink to that level of eating. That's what they told me. Between the three of them they had about a billion touring miles, and I quickly witnessed how correct they were. I was ready to eat at a Taco Bell for the second time in my life. But we kept passing exits because they weren't listed. At one I actually saw a Taco Bell, but too late. "Fuckers too cheap to pay for the highway sign," I said, "fuck them, I mean: fuck 'em!"

There were Subway signs all over the goddamn place, spreading like mildew across the nation. There was a half-hearted debate about whether we could bear another meal from that place. The consensus was please god no. Then they started talking about Burger King. The new BK veggie burger. Dripping oil Rob reminded us, though he too added his voice to Burger King.

Next exit had one advertised so we pulled off. It was the Kent exit. From the back seat Rob and Carrie started riffing off the song "Ohio." I was paying attention enough that when we came up the ramp I saw how if we turned left the Subway was .2 miles away. We went right, the Burger King 1.6 down the pike. It was that goddamned Interstate trap. They advertise, and then you wind up driving into fucking Kent before the Burger King appears. You had to pass numerous strip-malls just to get there. Probably, in season, the place was packed with college kids.

I hung outside and smoked a cigarette while they stood inside and studied the menu board. Then I went inside and ordered my meal right behind them. I went for the bacon cheeseburger, fuck 'em. My body needed some uncomplicated protein. They all sat down with their meals while I stood so long waiting for mine that Rob came up to the counter, bearing his sandwich, opened up. It looked so naked. Like he'd gotten the glitch in the Whopper-making-machine, the one wrapped up without a patty. No but he'd asked for no mayo. I couldn't believe that the mayo in such a place was anything but totally a petroleum distillate. They remade his unsandwich without the mayo. A Whopper without the meat and cheese and sauce was vegan. It was a big bun with some crappy shredded lettuce and slices of white California tomatoes and some onion. Fast-food fries lost their five stars when they quit using lard.

I ate at a separate table, so they didn't have to smell the meat I was putting in my mouth. I scarfed down my meal. It was nine in the evening; twelve hours before I'd eaten a bagel & cream cheese. I'd chowed down that half a slice of pizza right before we left town. I needed something in my stomach to talk to the can of Red Bull I'd sucked down twenty miles back.

Done first, I dumped my trash and hit the restroom. I thought about it as I did my business, but there wasn't a vent fan. So I came out, grabbed my drink off the table, and went out the front to go have a smoke. I managed to gain an angle where no one inside could see me. I pulled the Tara roach from the cellophane of my pack and touched it to the amber glow. I took two quick long sucks, put it out, exhaled, then turned the corner and Carrie was sitting out there. Surely she smelled it. Then Daisy came out. He'd taken a Burger King crown from the kiddy highchair trays. I of course put it on. Carrie snapped a picture with her cell and she installed it as the image that would pop up anytime I happened to call her. I rarely ever called her. "Now I'm going to have to call you five or six times a day so you can see that beautiful picture." She giggled, "Yea."

I was hoping for a change in the seating arrangements. Even with a Red Bull under my belt, I felt pretty sure I could sleep through most of Ohio. That would be so sweet. But Rob and Carrie clambered back into the cave of sleeping bags and pillows in the backseat. Daisy was behind the wheel. So it was back to the navigator's seat for me.

+ + +

Daisy started getting restless with the stupid satellite radio, like he was jonesing, "Where's Rob's iPod, where's Rob's iPod?"

We dug it out and got it hooked up. Then Daisy dug out his cell and handed it to me. I reached, then stopped.

"Wait. It has to light up. Just ask him now before he's dead asleep."

"Rob, Rob," he barked. "How do you make the iPod display light up?"

"The, uh, the upper button--one of the buttons--you press it."

"Damn," I said, "it hardly has any buttons, and I know I pushed them all."

"Not push, press, hold it down."

And then the face was glowing up at Daisy's face. Daisy's face was smiling. We looked at each other and shrugged and grinned. Morons at the Dawn of Time: Fire Discovered. I was just glad to be off fucking cell phone duty.

We talked and listened to songs; we shut up and ran through a bunch of snippets. Carrie was active from the back seat for awhile, but then she too succumbed to the pillow-kiss of Morpheus. The two of us carved our way through Ohio. The effort was totally that strength of will kind of thing.

I started worrying about way-distant lightning showing how parked the night sky was with thick banks of dark opaque clouds. Weather-wise, our trips had been fairly blessed. Surely nothing too bad would suddenly happen.

And it didn't. The windshield started getting spattered and then lightning was crackling all around and the rain tore down so hard that every fucking vehicle on the highway was in the snail lane doing 30 tops in a 65 zone. It was astonishing to witness so much water just dumped out of fucking clouds!

We crawled along and marveled. It stretched out to nearly twenty minutes. Nobody was the wise-guy roaring past in the open lane, it was that bad.

But then it was done.

Back up to speed, we were all man, what was that all about?

"We get all the shitty wet weather of a 5-day tour squeezed into 20 minutes, I'm totally down with that."

Daisy concurred, "Yea, that's about perfect."

"What a weird planet we live on. Why isn't the water content to stay in place? What's with all this going up into the air to then just come back down out of the air? We're driving through southern Ohio and Sven Svenson's farm pond from Minnesota suddenly crashes down across our windshield--where's the sense in that?!!"

"Water," he agreed, "it's fucked up stuff."

"What's fucked up, I'm worried about," I said, "is that long slow crawl where all the truckers had the time to lay a mirror in their laps and chop up some more lines."

"Oh, this hour, we're definitely giving truckers wide berth."

We shrieked by one in hyper drive.

"Dude, did you see that?"

"What?"

"That truck. Dude had a mirror the size of a briefcase, and he'd already mapped out lines for the Louisville-to-St. Louis leg."

After that cleverness I started to fade. I'd been paying attention to signs so I knew the blue "Last Rest Station 54 mi." awhile back would be coming up before Cincinnati. When the signs started showing, I asked Daisy to pull over. We didn't need to stop for gas; I wanted to pee before the final strike home. Hit the vending machines for a Coke.

Daisy wanted to stop somewhere where you could actually buy something. He was interested in a can of Red Bull for the drive home. That was good enough for me. We skipped the rest area and went for the next exit.

There was a vast gas-mart plaza that was totally empty, yet open. It wasn't completely empty. A cop car was parked among the pumps. The officer was inside hanging out with the clerk. I let Daisy go in first, hanging out at the van for a smoke and to stand guard over my sleeping band-mates. Then I was done with the cigarette and left them to fend for themselves. I had to go pee. Daisy and I waved in crossing. Then I too went to the coolers and bought a can of Red Bull.

Back on the highway, I took a sip off my can and Daisy said, "Damn! You got the big can."

I didn't know what he was talking about. Red Bull--you bought a goddamn can of it, right? We compared cans, and indeed I did have the jumbo. There wasn't much to do but finish it off.

+ + +

We tore through a deserted Cincinnati.

"God I love diving through cities this time of night," I said, "all this fucking empty concrete."

"It's the best," Daisy agreed, "though you really have to be wary of the guys driving trucks this late."

We took a wide berth around a swervy one.

"That's right," I agreed, "don't want to bump him and make him spill the whole mirror in his lap. That'd probably just piss him off. And we'd have to out-run him for a couple miles before he decided to pull over and snort at the creases in the seat."

"Damn straight."

Then we were on a fucking bridge. The goddamn Ohio River was way down there below us. And then we were back in Kentucky. We drove on like a pair of red bulls.

For music, Daisy kept on pushing various buttons. We'd hear snippets of a hundred songs every couple minutes. He laughed and admitted to being a bit ADD in the listening department.

"Really?" I said. "I never would have guessed that."

We drove on and then were finally in the final county before ours. That was where the deer appeared. There were signs, but Deer X-ing doesn't really convey a countless herd gathered at the edge of the Interstate at three in the morning nibbling the tender shoots of the mown grass.

"Slow way the fuck down," I said like the word of god.

It was awesome, like a roadside statuary store that stretched for miles. All those does and their fawns nibbling the clipped grass.

Daisy braked a bit, but then kept on.

"Dude, totally, like right now, take it down to forty." I nearly shouted these words at him.

He did, astonished by my order. "Beautiful to look at, but man you want some braking room if one decides to spook and bound across the highway." I nodded like the sage I was. "Hit one of those fuckers doing 80 and it comes through the windshield feet first--I don't wanna die because my heart got pierced by a motherfucking hoof!"

Finally we got past them, accelerated, but then there was an encore. Daisy slowed way down.

"Dying this close to home because a fucking deer jumped in front of your vehicle, you see what I'm saying?" I asked.

Daisy nodded. "We're totally on the same page here."

We got past the fucking wildlife and got back into our own goddamn city. Driving the highways when they were splendidly empty. We were coming up Taylorsville Road to drop Daisy off when he thought it would be funny if we woke the other guys up by lying that we'd made the wrong turn and wound up lost in Lexington.

"Do it!" I hissed.

And he did. Rob and Carrie were barely cognizant when I sustained the lie by being Daisy's Easy-E. I started babbling about how yea, we wound up in Lexington, and now we're on this damned New Circle Road that we can't get off because it just keeps going 'round and 'round.

We were performing for a not-too-bright audience.

Daisy grabbed his gear and got. I replaced him at the wheel and drove the rest of us back to the spot on the street where we'd started. We weren't unloading. Rob had to get up in two hours and drive to Lexington for school. Carrie and I left it at I'd let her see me in a BK crown sometime after sleep.

"Sleep, man," I said. "I hope Kate left me a couple beers in the fridge. I need something to battle back the Red Bull."

Rob laughed. "Your wife is going to be so mad at us. We took you up to the big city, and you came back with a little something. Got a taste, a little habit."

"Be like, 'Honey, what do you want for dinner?' 'Red Bull!'"

We grabbed the essentials, waved off, and went our separate ways.

Around the block three bottles of beer sat in a fridge. I sucked on the roach. It took me two hours to unwind. I smoked cigarettes nearly nonstop.

I was shutting things down, going to bed right as my wife was getting out of bed for work. We sort of waved in passing.