When the angel let me off when he turned off on I-16, I slept out in some piney woods. The next morning the was a heavy dew that left my clothes and all my stuff damp and clinging to my body. These clothes had not been washed since Texas on the way out to California and were smelling fairly ripe. I knew the chances of me getting a ride wouldn't be affected too much, but the smell of me was not going to enhance the chances of me getting a long ride.
Occasionally I would get a whiff of my aroma that others smelled. It was not an odor that stimulated strong affection of any intimate quality. For the most part, however, I didn't smell myself because I was acclimated to it. When I did smell myself though, it reminded me of some of the older people around in the small towns on the Coastal Plains of the Carolinas where tobacco is king.
Farming exists as the main source of income for the people of this flat country. When I was a child the physical work associated with this way of making a living was extremely laborious. Mechanized farming had not arrived yet, and all the work was done with mules, horses, and people. Just about all this work was accomplished with hand tools and a few horse-drawn machines. Lots of people were used, and there were a lot of people around to be used. Practically every farm of any size above subsistance level had houses for these people to live in. Many were not much more than huts with fireplaces and chimneys. Water came mostly from hand-dug wells and a few had pumps to draw the water, but the usual method was to use buckets to lift the water out of the ground. Quite a few houses were built near springs where the water came out of the ground year round. For the most part there was always plenty of water because the flat farm land were essentially just ridges between the huge swamps that surrounded them.
Taking baths was not as convenient an event as it is these days. In summer it was easier to bath because we would stand under the eaves of the roofs of the houses to take advantage of the water dripping down from there. Otherwise, taking a bath meant drawing water from the well a bucket at a time and filling the galvanized wash tubs used to wash clothes. If you wanted warm water to bath in then you had to heat it in big black cast-iron kettles heated by an open wood fires. To have the fires you had to have wood from the forest, and to have wood to burn from the forests you had to cut them down by hand, use the mules to drag it to the house, then saw it in pieces and split it up by hand. By the time you did all that you would be drenched in sweat, all of which made you and your clothes stink like crazy and exist as further need to take a bath and wash the clothes. In cold weather, it just got more complicated. I think this is why people took to dressing up to go the church on Sunday. Generally, baths were taken on Saturdays, so when they put on their Sunday clothes they would be fairly clean, and the Sunday clothes would only have to be cleaned every coupla months instead of weekly or semi-weekly.
I mentioned the way some of the old people around smelled. Being old meant that they didn't always have the strength to do all the work needed to stay clean. I was around old black and white men who wore the same clothes all year round both in warm weather and cold. Even on the hottest days of summer they would be wearing overalls, heavy long sleeve work shirts, and coats. They claimed they stayed cooler that way because it insulated them from the heat and the cold. The perspiration had turned rancid and even mildewed at times, and you could smell 'em coming twenty feet away. They didn't smell themselves at all, and laughed if you said something about about it.
I figured I was about at this stage of ripeness as I got out on the road again and tried to catch a ride. I was at the intersection of two Interstates, the traffic would be moving at high speed, and the chance of me catching a ride was unlikely. Even if somebody did stop for me, they were likely to tell me to get out and speed off once my unsettling aroma hit their noses.
Eventually though, I did get a ride down toward Florence where I-20 ended up at I-95. It was a short ride that only took me about fifty miles. I don't remember much about who I got this ride with, but they left me off at a crossroads in the middle of the huge fields of the coastal plains. There were a few stores there and a motel. I had stopped there many times while driving and I knew this area like the back of my hand. The old tobacco barns used for curing bright leaf tobacco were beginning to show up, and for all essential purposes I was home. I only had about 150 miles to go before I got to my house. Typically, this would be the longest part of the trip. By now, it was the only thing on my mind. Not only would I be able to clean up and rest, but most importantly I would be totally alone without anybody watching every move I made.
There was not a lot of traffic at this intersection. People stopped at the restaurants attached to the gas stations to eat. The local people used the stores there basically as a convenience to eat at the restaurants and get gas, but this intersection was surrounded by small towns that the Interstate had avoided and they usually did most of their business in these small towns. It was not the kind of place that a lot of distance travelers stopped at, so I stayed there at least four or five hours getting nowhere fast.
When I finally did get a ride it was in a pickup with an older man who liked to brag about how he had raised himself up from rags to riches. He was quite pleasant about it, and his tale was not told with condescension in any way. I liked him. His story was full of wine, women, and song. He was married to a woman that was thiry years his junior, and he had a coupla of children by her. Wnen he let me off a couple of intersections before we got to I-95, he gave me a five-dollar bill to get something to eat with.
The intersection he let me off on did not have any building there at all, and there was no entrance ramp. This put me directly out on the Interstate about ten miles from I-95. I started walking and hitch-hiking what little traffic there was, but didn't get a ride. When I finally arrived at I-95 I was wet with sweat, and very tired. I was starting to see the hallucinated streaks running across in front of me. I decided to get something to eat to see if that would help me relax, but again of I was at the intersection of two Interstates and there was no exits to where a restaurant or convenience store nearby. I had to walk about five more miles to get to a pancake franchise. My feet were swelling up from all that walking.
The pancake house was mostly empty. It was all plastic and chrome and designed for travelers on the Interstates, but the people working there were very kind. Despite the fact that I looked very seedy and stunk to high heaven they chatted with me and kept my coffee cup full. Despite my tireness and a little grumpiness at having to walk so far, I felt comfortable to be among the same kind of people I was raised with.
When I felt a little better and got back on the road I was faced with not being able to find a good place to stand where there was room for people to pull over and stop to pick me up. Nobody even tried. No blame. I started walking toward Florence on I-95. I didn't think it was that far away, but my judgement was based on driving more than walking. It was further than I thought. My feet were really hurting now, and the hallucinations come back. I started feeling sorry for myself and cursed myself and the wild wind for being the fool that I am. Finally, I got to the intersection of Florence and was in pretty sorry shape for the doing of it.
The intersection was one I have stopped at a hundred times and more. It was getting dark and I was worn out, and although I was only a hundred miles from home I decided that I'd better get some sleep and start out again in the morning. I knew exactly where to go because I had spent the night in Florence at the beginning of my trip. It was not an ideal camp site, but I was familiar with it so I trudged on past the motels and convenience stores, waded through the briars and underbrush to get to my spot. and collapsed on the ground to fall asleep.
Sleep simply wouldn't come. I laid their listening to the crickets and frogs for about an hour with my eyes closed, but my exhaustion was such that I was too tired to sleep. I thought about getting up and leaving my pack hidden in the bushes there and walking back up to the intersection, but once I stood up and felt the pain in my feet, I negated that and lay back down. After a couple of hours I eventually dropped off into a restless sleep full of dreams about home, and the reasons I had left to go on this crazy trip in the first place.
Friday, May 30, 2003
Wanna rant a little today about music. I didn't like much of the popular music when I was a kid. It only reminded me of the constant angst I felt as a typical teenager. I preferred the old folk songs I was taught earlier on about life in general that seemed broader than the puppy love stuff that came into being during my pubescense.
What I didn't know was that most of that stuff would be criminalized by the time I was in my mid-twenties, and I wouldn't be able to perform it publically any more. I was a child of my times. My whole way of life would be criminalized, much less the music. Stephen Foster would be no more. From "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny": "Gone are the days, when my heart was young and gay. Gone are the fields, of the cotton and the hay. Gone from this earth, to a better land I know. I hear those familiar voices calling, Ol' Black Joe." It was the State Song of Virginia. I lived and learned in that world.
I hated Beach Music, but I did favor Rock and Roll. I think Rock and Roll found dominance because of everybody getting sick of all the puppy love pop songs. Country music did have some appeal later when I was off in the Navy and getting drunk quite frequently. It definitely described those times in San Diego when I was hanging out at Carl's bar trying to pick up the Navy wives whose husbands were out to sea.
By my mid-twenties I got caught up in Timothy Leary's theme, "Tune in, turn on, and drop out. I listened to the Beatles "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album during my first LSD trip, and I was very impressed, but not nearly as impressed by that music as I was that same night with listening to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" with real cannons. That event was the real beginning of my attraction to classical music although I had played various pieces in the bands I had been involved with.
What I really hate presently, is how the commercial world won't let all that horrible music of my youth go the way of all good things. I hear it in TV advertisements every day. Practically every band that had a hit record has done some sort of revival tour, and those Oldie, But Goldie album offers drive me crazy. They remind me of my age constantly. I didn't realize I was middle-aged at 35 until the constant stream of advertisements for music of the 50's, 60's, and 70's kept blasting away at every bastion of denial I ever pretended to. By the time this pitch for nostalgia reached touting the music from the 80's and 90's, I knew I was an old man.
Now, I hardly listen to music of any kind any more. There is too much pain involved. All the new music reminds me of just how stupid I was when I was a kid, and the stuff that was around when I was a kid reminds me of how stupid I am now.
What I didn't know was that most of that stuff would be criminalized by the time I was in my mid-twenties, and I wouldn't be able to perform it publically any more. I was a child of my times. My whole way of life would be criminalized, much less the music. Stephen Foster would be no more. From "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny": "Gone are the days, when my heart was young and gay. Gone are the fields, of the cotton and the hay. Gone from this earth, to a better land I know. I hear those familiar voices calling, Ol' Black Joe." It was the State Song of Virginia. I lived and learned in that world.
I hated Beach Music, but I did favor Rock and Roll. I think Rock and Roll found dominance because of everybody getting sick of all the puppy love pop songs. Country music did have some appeal later when I was off in the Navy and getting drunk quite frequently. It definitely described those times in San Diego when I was hanging out at Carl's bar trying to pick up the Navy wives whose husbands were out to sea.
By my mid-twenties I got caught up in Timothy Leary's theme, "Tune in, turn on, and drop out. I listened to the Beatles "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album during my first LSD trip, and I was very impressed, but not nearly as impressed by that music as I was that same night with listening to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" with real cannons. That event was the real beginning of my attraction to classical music although I had played various pieces in the bands I had been involved with.
What I really hate presently, is how the commercial world won't let all that horrible music of my youth go the way of all good things. I hear it in TV advertisements every day. Practically every band that had a hit record has done some sort of revival tour, and those Oldie, But Goldie album offers drive me crazy. They remind me of my age constantly. I didn't realize I was middle-aged at 35 until the constant stream of advertisements for music of the 50's, 60's, and 70's kept blasting away at every bastion of denial I ever pretended to. By the time this pitch for nostalgia reached touting the music from the 80's and 90's, I knew I was an old man.
Now, I hardly listen to music of any kind any more. There is too much pain involved. All the new music reminds me of just how stupid I was when I was a kid, and the stuff that was around when I was a kid reminds me of how stupid I am now.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
I woke up to find myself laying on a soft bed of pine needles. The terrorist that had left me at this intersection long gone from my ex-is-tense. The noise from the trucks on the Interstate was far enough away that I could actually hear the birds singing. The rain that had plagued me for the last coupla days was gone and it was a fairly warm morning. I knew I was still in Georgia somewhere between Atlanta and Augusta, but exactly where I was I didn't know. I did know I had finally gotten some restful sleep.
I was still bone-weary and both my body and clothes stunk to high heaven, but the hallucinations were gone. I remembered that there was a gas station on the other side of the Interstate, and that if I wanted I could walk the half mile or so over to it and get some coffee. I didn't want coffee bad enough to take whatever they were serving at a gas station to walk over there.
Whoever designed this intersection must have been considering the future needs of the Interstate. The on-ramp was at least two hundred yards from the overpass bridge and it had a lot of room for shoulders on both sides of it. The road that melded with the Interstate must have been a half mile long, and there was a steady stream of cars and trucks using it. I figured I'd get a ride pretty quick. I picked up my stuff and headed toward it.
I don't remember the driver who took me to the next place I was put out. I remember the set and setting pretty good. I didn't like it. It had the same spacey setup that made it easy for any driver who wanted to pick me up to pull over without any problems. The trouble was that there was no traffic. I stood there for two hours and only one old pickup with three people in the cab used the on-ramp to get on the Interstate.
I still had a couple of dollars left from the money the guy in Meridian had given me. I decided to look for a cup of coffee. I did remember the guy who dropped me off here said there was a truck stop here. I didn't see any buildings on the other side of the Interstate so I turned left to see what was up that way. About two hundred yards away I saw a truck parked on the right hand side of the road and what looked like a driveway across from it.
As I got closer to it I began to see the signs that something was up there, but I had to get there to find that the supposed truck stop was burrowed up against a hill after you turned left on a small road that ran by it. When I saw the actual building I was disappointed. It might have been a thriving business at one time. It looked like the original owners had been possessed by a pie-in-the-sky attitude when they built it, but that must have been a long time ago.
There had been a cafe there once. Some of the booths were still scattered around, but it was easy to see that nobody was running it now. There were two doors in front. One entered the cafe and the other to do business with the service area. I tried the door to the cafe but it was locked. I went inside the other door to find a group of about four or five men sitting around the cash register in wooden chairs, and a middle-aged fellow black hair and greasy hands behind the counter. They stopped talking the minute I walked in the store, and just sat there glaring at me as if I had intruded on their plans to bomb an abortion clinic or a black church. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Predators.
About all this place had to eat was some candy and ready-made snacks. They had soft drinks in a surprisingly new-looking refrigerator with a sliding glass door. The smell of leaked freon was strong. I guess the old cooler had run outta steam. I bought two giant-sized Baby Ruths and a Mountain Dew. The price was high. I didn't say a word, but paid up and got the hell outta there.
As I returned to the Interstate on-ramp I realized that my whole attitude had changed. If these guys decided to have a little fun with me I was pretty well screwed. There was no where to run and nowhere to hide. I could take to the woods, but they knew these woods mo' bettah than I ever would. I arrived back at the on-ramp feeling the fear. I wanted a ride out of there in the worst way.
I didn't get that ride all day long. I had calmed my mind to some degree, but I could still feel the tension that had come over me at the truckstop. Simply speaking, there was no traffic on that intersection, and the few cars and pickups that did get on the Interstate there were such that they only heightened my fear. They were all locals and some of them even slowed down to get a better look at me. I developed this rather complex notion that some of them were spying on me to see if I'd gotten a ride yet, and were just waiting for it to get dark to take me by surprise if I went off in the adjoining woods to sleep.
As the Sun got lower in the sky I had worked myself into a frantic jabbering mess. I kept looking at the Sun as it sank toward the treetops, and I figured that once it had gone down I was a goner. My reasons for moving to this state of mind was not without foundation. A group of similar types had trapped me and a female traveling companion just north of Lake Okachobee in Florida once, and we had barely escaped with our lives.
Just as the Sun touched the top of the pine trees and was threatening to disappear for perhaps the last time in my life, I was saved! A light-blue new Pontiac sedan came down the entrance ramp with it's headlights on and stopped with the passenger-side window down, and a high-pitched voice called out,"Where you going big fella?" God had sent his angel, and in that moment I gnew that the danger I had felt was very real.
I practically clawed my way into the car. The back-seat was full of stuff that looked like salesman's samples, so I put my bag in between my legs in the front seat. Immediately I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look at the driver in an attitude of gratitude. Turned out that we both knew each other immediately. That's the way it is with angels, they're all beautiful when they act in that capacity. Some of them even gnow they have that capacity.
This one did. He was about my age and had the look. Silver hair with blue eyes. It was too dark to see that he had blue eyes, but I gnew he did anyway. We had met a thousand times before. He shoulda been dead of old age by now, I had met him the first time in the Los Angeles County jail when I was eighteen years old, and he looked the same way forty years earlier.
He ignored my attempts to thank him for showing up, and instead started talking about this guy he had tried to befriend who had stayed in his house for a few months, and then stole his change jar when he had left that had contained at least two hundred dollars worth of silver coins. He said that was the thanks he got for trusting a guy who had been in prison. He had bought him a whole new wardrobe of clothes, introduced him to his friends, wined and dined him like royalty, and emphasized that he had not asked too much of him sexually. He had loved that boy! Still did!
After a while, he told me about his ex-wife and children, and his business that involved interior decorating. He was, in fact, on his way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to visit his oldest daughter right now. She was the only one that treated him with any respect after the divorce. The others simply could not abide with his decision to come out after they were all grown up and educated. He thought that was extremely fair of him. He should have done it way earlier. He had understood what a shock it must have been to find out that their father was gay after all those years, but his wife had known about it the whole time they were married. She had tried to discourage him at first, but soon accepted that things would never change, and took what she could get from him including four children. He had always provided for them in an extremely generous manner... why should she complain?
I decided to ask him a question that had been on my mind for a while. We had at least two hours to go before he had to turn off at I-16. I asked him how early in his life had he known he was "different", and at what point had he decided that the difference he felt was that he was homosexual?
Immediately he shot me a look of complete disdain. He didn't want me to ask him that question. I sensed that he had spent considerable time thinking about it himself, as I have. He hemmed and hawed for a while and changed the subject several times. He decided he should call his daughter on his cell phone and verify that she was expecting him to show up. they talked for a long time as we drove along. He didn't want to talk about my question. Instead, he began to tell me about all the men he had seduced in his life. Thousands. I asked him to clarify for me the expression "tricking". This is a term used by so-called homosexuals who seem to enjoy seducing "straights" into having sex with them. In effect, they "trick" them into doing something they really don't want to do just to show them they can be had. In a way, it's all about personal power.
My angel got quiet after this comment. When he began to talk again he said that he agreed with me. Sex was a medium for communicating with others on a much deeper level than was possible as "just friends". The trickery involved was a method to achieve the bond necessary to communicate something beyond the ordinary. He stated that when it wasn't possible to do this for others on the level of ordinary intimacy, sex was a way to make that connection to make it happen. When a need for intimacy arose in a situation between two men, most men have a tendency to think such overtures are sexual by nature, and if that's what they take the overture for, then it's just easier to let it go that way. His willingness to do whatever it took to get his work done was the real basis of his being "different".
By this time we were approaching Columbia, South Carolina where I-20 and I-16 cross paths. We rode in silence as he drove through the city. We discussed where I wanted to get out to be able to catch a ride at the intersection, and when we got there he pulled over to the shoulder of the road. As I prepared to get out of the car he put his right hand on my shoulder again, and then reached over to shake hands with the other. Very quietly, he thanked me for the conversation, and then I was back on the road.
This was the intersection of two Interstate Highways and there was no commercial places to get something to eat. I found a patch of piney woods to sleep, and closed my eyes on the often strange world of the senses.
I was still bone-weary and both my body and clothes stunk to high heaven, but the hallucinations were gone. I remembered that there was a gas station on the other side of the Interstate, and that if I wanted I could walk the half mile or so over to it and get some coffee. I didn't want coffee bad enough to take whatever they were serving at a gas station to walk over there.
Whoever designed this intersection must have been considering the future needs of the Interstate. The on-ramp was at least two hundred yards from the overpass bridge and it had a lot of room for shoulders on both sides of it. The road that melded with the Interstate must have been a half mile long, and there was a steady stream of cars and trucks using it. I figured I'd get a ride pretty quick. I picked up my stuff and headed toward it.
I don't remember the driver who took me to the next place I was put out. I remember the set and setting pretty good. I didn't like it. It had the same spacey setup that made it easy for any driver who wanted to pick me up to pull over without any problems. The trouble was that there was no traffic. I stood there for two hours and only one old pickup with three people in the cab used the on-ramp to get on the Interstate.
I still had a couple of dollars left from the money the guy in Meridian had given me. I decided to look for a cup of coffee. I did remember the guy who dropped me off here said there was a truck stop here. I didn't see any buildings on the other side of the Interstate so I turned left to see what was up that way. About two hundred yards away I saw a truck parked on the right hand side of the road and what looked like a driveway across from it.
As I got closer to it I began to see the signs that something was up there, but I had to get there to find that the supposed truck stop was burrowed up against a hill after you turned left on a small road that ran by it. When I saw the actual building I was disappointed. It might have been a thriving business at one time. It looked like the original owners had been possessed by a pie-in-the-sky attitude when they built it, but that must have been a long time ago.
There had been a cafe there once. Some of the booths were still scattered around, but it was easy to see that nobody was running it now. There were two doors in front. One entered the cafe and the other to do business with the service area. I tried the door to the cafe but it was locked. I went inside the other door to find a group of about four or five men sitting around the cash register in wooden chairs, and a middle-aged fellow black hair and greasy hands behind the counter. They stopped talking the minute I walked in the store, and just sat there glaring at me as if I had intruded on their plans to bomb an abortion clinic or a black church. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Predators.
About all this place had to eat was some candy and ready-made snacks. They had soft drinks in a surprisingly new-looking refrigerator with a sliding glass door. The smell of leaked freon was strong. I guess the old cooler had run outta steam. I bought two giant-sized Baby Ruths and a Mountain Dew. The price was high. I didn't say a word, but paid up and got the hell outta there.
As I returned to the Interstate on-ramp I realized that my whole attitude had changed. If these guys decided to have a little fun with me I was pretty well screwed. There was no where to run and nowhere to hide. I could take to the woods, but they knew these woods mo' bettah than I ever would. I arrived back at the on-ramp feeling the fear. I wanted a ride out of there in the worst way.
I didn't get that ride all day long. I had calmed my mind to some degree, but I could still feel the tension that had come over me at the truckstop. Simply speaking, there was no traffic on that intersection, and the few cars and pickups that did get on the Interstate there were such that they only heightened my fear. They were all locals and some of them even slowed down to get a better look at me. I developed this rather complex notion that some of them were spying on me to see if I'd gotten a ride yet, and were just waiting for it to get dark to take me by surprise if I went off in the adjoining woods to sleep.
As the Sun got lower in the sky I had worked myself into a frantic jabbering mess. I kept looking at the Sun as it sank toward the treetops, and I figured that once it had gone down I was a goner. My reasons for moving to this state of mind was not without foundation. A group of similar types had trapped me and a female traveling companion just north of Lake Okachobee in Florida once, and we had barely escaped with our lives.
Just as the Sun touched the top of the pine trees and was threatening to disappear for perhaps the last time in my life, I was saved! A light-blue new Pontiac sedan came down the entrance ramp with it's headlights on and stopped with the passenger-side window down, and a high-pitched voice called out,"Where you going big fella?" God had sent his angel, and in that moment I gnew that the danger I had felt was very real.
I practically clawed my way into the car. The back-seat was full of stuff that looked like salesman's samples, so I put my bag in between my legs in the front seat. Immediately I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look at the driver in an attitude of gratitude. Turned out that we both knew each other immediately. That's the way it is with angels, they're all beautiful when they act in that capacity. Some of them even gnow they have that capacity.
This one did. He was about my age and had the look. Silver hair with blue eyes. It was too dark to see that he had blue eyes, but I gnew he did anyway. We had met a thousand times before. He shoulda been dead of old age by now, I had met him the first time in the Los Angeles County jail when I was eighteen years old, and he looked the same way forty years earlier.
He ignored my attempts to thank him for showing up, and instead started talking about this guy he had tried to befriend who had stayed in his house for a few months, and then stole his change jar when he had left that had contained at least two hundred dollars worth of silver coins. He said that was the thanks he got for trusting a guy who had been in prison. He had bought him a whole new wardrobe of clothes, introduced him to his friends, wined and dined him like royalty, and emphasized that he had not asked too much of him sexually. He had loved that boy! Still did!
After a while, he told me about his ex-wife and children, and his business that involved interior decorating. He was, in fact, on his way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to visit his oldest daughter right now. She was the only one that treated him with any respect after the divorce. The others simply could not abide with his decision to come out after they were all grown up and educated. He thought that was extremely fair of him. He should have done it way earlier. He had understood what a shock it must have been to find out that their father was gay after all those years, but his wife had known about it the whole time they were married. She had tried to discourage him at first, but soon accepted that things would never change, and took what she could get from him including four children. He had always provided for them in an extremely generous manner... why should she complain?
I decided to ask him a question that had been on my mind for a while. We had at least two hours to go before he had to turn off at I-16. I asked him how early in his life had he known he was "different", and at what point had he decided that the difference he felt was that he was homosexual?
Immediately he shot me a look of complete disdain. He didn't want me to ask him that question. I sensed that he had spent considerable time thinking about it himself, as I have. He hemmed and hawed for a while and changed the subject several times. He decided he should call his daughter on his cell phone and verify that she was expecting him to show up. they talked for a long time as we drove along. He didn't want to talk about my question. Instead, he began to tell me about all the men he had seduced in his life. Thousands. I asked him to clarify for me the expression "tricking". This is a term used by so-called homosexuals who seem to enjoy seducing "straights" into having sex with them. In effect, they "trick" them into doing something they really don't want to do just to show them they can be had. In a way, it's all about personal power.
My angel got quiet after this comment. When he began to talk again he said that he agreed with me. Sex was a medium for communicating with others on a much deeper level than was possible as "just friends". The trickery involved was a method to achieve the bond necessary to communicate something beyond the ordinary. He stated that when it wasn't possible to do this for others on the level of ordinary intimacy, sex was a way to make that connection to make it happen. When a need for intimacy arose in a situation between two men, most men have a tendency to think such overtures are sexual by nature, and if that's what they take the overture for, then it's just easier to let it go that way. His willingness to do whatever it took to get his work done was the real basis of his being "different".
By this time we were approaching Columbia, South Carolina where I-20 and I-16 cross paths. We rode in silence as he drove through the city. We discussed where I wanted to get out to be able to catch a ride at the intersection, and when we got there he pulled over to the shoulder of the road. As I prepared to get out of the car he put his right hand on my shoulder again, and then reached over to shake hands with the other. Very quietly, he thanked me for the conversation, and then I was back on the road.
This was the intersection of two Interstate Highways and there was no commercial places to get something to eat. I found a patch of piney woods to sleep, and closed my eyes on the often strange world of the senses.
Monday, May 26, 2003
I don't seem to remember much about what kind of rides I got from Meridian. My fatigue was building up to the point where I had gone on autopilot. Sometime I think this state of being was the real reason I went on the road hitch-hiking. To get to this very state. When I get this way the world seems very different. It's like I have to deal with what's sot before me one task at the time. I can only gather enough energy to perceive the immediate situation, and if I survive that, then I become immediately emerged in the next situation without remembering the last one. This has always seemed to be announced when I begin hallucinating those streaky colors that flash across my vision. Exactly how much of the world around me exists as real in a normal rested state is gone with the wind.
I do have some vague memory of a young black man picking me up and giving me a ride. He was studying for the ministry. He came on to me with his spiel slowly as if he were attempting to bushwhack me with it in some vulnerable moment. He appeared to have a quiet demeanor in general, but I could sense the intensity brewing just below the surface. He seemed to be at a point of flux where he could go one way or the other with the ministry thing. It was for sure that someone had gotten hold of him and was trying to lead him into the clerical life, and he was not all that sure he was cut out for it.
Our encounter was not the best thing that could happen to him if he expected me to support his decision to go into the ministry. I didn't care one way or the other. I had more or less made my peace with God after a long time. I felt like all he wanted was somebody to tell him how they honestly felt. Honesty doesn't seem to show up on that regular a basis in many people's lives.
I don't remember much in particular about our conversation. I only remember his intensity and his eyes. I think he was taken aback when I told him I thought most preachers held the Bible above God. I asked him about the church he worshipped in. He told me exactly what I expected to hear, and indeed, was pushing for. He said the pulpit was elevated above the church pews and that a large Bible was plopped above it as the highest object in the room so that the audience had to look up to it physically. The actual altar was below the pulpit. The only thing higher than the Bible in the room would be the preacher when he stood there. We talked about graven images. I asked him if he could tell me the difference between worshipping a Golden Calf that was lifted up on a pedestal and worshipping a book lifted up on a pulpit with the only thing above it being man. I saw the light change in his eyes.
We rode down the road quietly for some time. I asked him how far down the road he was going. He told me that he had passed his turnoff a good ways back, but had kept going just to be able to talk with me. We were on that long stretch of I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta. Intersections were far and few in between and I knew if I got put out at one of the more isolated ones I could be there for days. He said he needed to turn around and go back to catch his exit. The place where he pulled off the Interstate was one of those places. I asked him if I could ride back with him to a little better intersection for catching rides, and he agreed. He seemed intent on getting me out of his car. I knew why. He was the sort of person who needed to get off by himself to replay the conversation we had. I saw signs by the road that announced a coupla service stations at the next exit and told him this exit would be fine. He took the exit ramp and stopped at the top to let me out. He said he would pray for me. I figured he really would, but also, that he would be praying mostly for himself. No blame.
I caught a ride with a bread truck man almost to Atlanta. He told me all about how he was getting ready to break up with his wife. I told him it wouldn't do any good, that the next woman would just become the same woman he wanted to rid himself of just to please him. What his women became to please him did not please him.
He got worried about somebody reporting him to his company for picking up a hitch-hiker, so he told me he needed to let me out before we got into Atlanta proper. He pulled over and let me out. It was about a mile and a half before we got to the exit for Six Flags Over Georgia. It was a good walk. Traffic had gotten heavy this close to Atlanta, so the walk was a kind of wobble because the draft of the big semis passing within three or four feet of me would whirl me halfway around as they hurried by.
Once I had made my way to the intersection and got set up on the entrance ramp to the Interstate a man who sold vegetables at the farmer's market picked me up and took me on into the city. When he got off to go the market he couldn't find a place to pull over because of the traffic, and so I ended up about two miles from the Interstate. The farmer's market wasn't very busy. I found a restaurant nearby and got some coffee.
In a little while I found a halfway decent place to hitch, but the traffic was going fast so they could merge with the traffic at the bottom of the on-ramp. It took a while to get a ride. When I did get a ride, they took me to the first big intersection just east of the loop around Atlanta.
This intersection had a lot of gas stations and convenience stores there. It served a bedroom community for Atlanta. There was a lot of traffic going to and from Atlanta, but there was very little traffic headed east from it. I stood by the road for a while, but I didn't have any luck getting a ride. Behind me was a open field that had a fence separating the intersection from a group of apartment building. Just inside the fence on the Interstate side was a concrete drainage box with a flat top that stood about a foot off the ground. I lay down on it to try to catch a nap. I felt like somebody had beat me up for a good long time. I dropped off for a little while, but the Sun was so hot I woke up sweating. I was too tired to sleep, so I decided to get back on the road.
As I crossed the field to get to the on-ramp I heard some tires squealing. I looked up and saw an old '56 Ford Fairlane had slammed on brakes and backed up to get me. The guy inside was waving at me to hurry up and get in the car. I half-heartedly jogged over to him and got in. He took off fast spinning his wheels and the combination of the old car and the wheels squealing reminded me of my youth.
The only way I can describe the driver is frenetic. He portrayed an intensity that seemed appropriate to all that tire squealing. His face looked like a hawk. He seemed frozen in time, and his body was lean from the intense energy that drove him relentlessly. Immediately I knew he was a predator,and I felt a deep sense of danger. I was too tired to go on full alert, but I knew I should have. The only thing for me to do was to act calm and go along to get along, and maybe I would come out of this okay.
He kept asking me what I thought of his car. He wanted to know what I thought of it's power and speed. All this time he was dodging in and out of traffic at 75-85 mph. He seemed to be trying to scare me and ask him to slow down. I wasn't about to confront him. I went into a good ol' boy mode and told him how impressed I was. I wasn't exactly lying. I do appreciate how some people like to rebuild old cars, but it ain't something I find myself attracted to.
He told me that he was going about fifty miles down the road, but that he had to stop and cash a check so he would have some cash money where he was going, but if I would be patient he would get me to a good place to hitch. I had already decided to just go along with him until he decided to let me go. There was no sense in trying to get away from him. I was a stranger here, and there was nowhere to run.
He stopped at a number of banks trying to cash a check. I knew the checks weren't any good. He had a perculiar way of going into these banks. He would park outside, leave the motor running, go inside the bank, take a pretty long time in there, and then come back out, stick his head inside the driver's window and gawk at me. Then, he would get back inside and tear off to the next bank.
He began to tell me about his being in prison and how rough it was in there, and about how he had learned to survive. I believed every word. His talk about prison was the only thing he talked about that I did believe. I knew that if I ever did end up in prison, this was the type of guy I would dread to deal with the most. Extremely explosive in his actions, but putting on a calm face to deal with the world. He smiled and even laughed a lot, but his eyes never changed.
Finally, he went into this one bank and they cashed his check. I sensed that it wasn't a problem of finding the right bank, but of finding the right teller. Poor woman, and yet, that's the way the world is. This time when he came out of the bank with the money he said something that cleared up some of his previous actions. He looked at me with this incredulous, baffled look on his face and told he couldn't believe I hadn't stolen the car while he was inside the bank. He had left the motor running, why didn't I just slide over under the wheel and take off. That's when I realized that's what he had done.
He whipped out of the parking lot and got back on the Interstate. He started driving real fast and moving in and out of traffic in a very reckless way. At times, he would be going over 120 mph, and was weaving in and out of some pretty heavy traffic, he alternated from cutting people off and making them slam on brakes to getting cut off and having to slam on brakes himself. I realized he was trying to scare me, and if I showed any fear, then he would try to make me his bitch and I would have to fight him to the death. I was certainly tempted to give it up, but I knew if I did it might be the end of me.
When he finally convinced himself I wasn't going to give it up, he pulled off the Interstate and let me off. As I got out of the car, still keeping my composure, he asked me what the hell a guy like me was doing out bumming around. We both knew what he was talking about, but I knew there was no way in hell I was going to tell him anything. He would be back in his cage before long. It was the only way he knew how to live.
Although there was a coupla hours before sunset, I knew I had to get some sleep. the intersection was a good one for that. There were trees all around it. I picked out the most obvious place I could between the on-ramp and the Interstate, and crashed for a good 10 hours. It had been quite a day.
I do have some vague memory of a young black man picking me up and giving me a ride. He was studying for the ministry. He came on to me with his spiel slowly as if he were attempting to bushwhack me with it in some vulnerable moment. He appeared to have a quiet demeanor in general, but I could sense the intensity brewing just below the surface. He seemed to be at a point of flux where he could go one way or the other with the ministry thing. It was for sure that someone had gotten hold of him and was trying to lead him into the clerical life, and he was not all that sure he was cut out for it.
Our encounter was not the best thing that could happen to him if he expected me to support his decision to go into the ministry. I didn't care one way or the other. I had more or less made my peace with God after a long time. I felt like all he wanted was somebody to tell him how they honestly felt. Honesty doesn't seem to show up on that regular a basis in many people's lives.
I don't remember much in particular about our conversation. I only remember his intensity and his eyes. I think he was taken aback when I told him I thought most preachers held the Bible above God. I asked him about the church he worshipped in. He told me exactly what I expected to hear, and indeed, was pushing for. He said the pulpit was elevated above the church pews and that a large Bible was plopped above it as the highest object in the room so that the audience had to look up to it physically. The actual altar was below the pulpit. The only thing higher than the Bible in the room would be the preacher when he stood there. We talked about graven images. I asked him if he could tell me the difference between worshipping a Golden Calf that was lifted up on a pedestal and worshipping a book lifted up on a pulpit with the only thing above it being man. I saw the light change in his eyes.
We rode down the road quietly for some time. I asked him how far down the road he was going. He told me that he had passed his turnoff a good ways back, but had kept going just to be able to talk with me. We were on that long stretch of I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta. Intersections were far and few in between and I knew if I got put out at one of the more isolated ones I could be there for days. He said he needed to turn around and go back to catch his exit. The place where he pulled off the Interstate was one of those places. I asked him if I could ride back with him to a little better intersection for catching rides, and he agreed. He seemed intent on getting me out of his car. I knew why. He was the sort of person who needed to get off by himself to replay the conversation we had. I saw signs by the road that announced a coupla service stations at the next exit and told him this exit would be fine. He took the exit ramp and stopped at the top to let me out. He said he would pray for me. I figured he really would, but also, that he would be praying mostly for himself. No blame.
I caught a ride with a bread truck man almost to Atlanta. He told me all about how he was getting ready to break up with his wife. I told him it wouldn't do any good, that the next woman would just become the same woman he wanted to rid himself of just to please him. What his women became to please him did not please him.
He got worried about somebody reporting him to his company for picking up a hitch-hiker, so he told me he needed to let me out before we got into Atlanta proper. He pulled over and let me out. It was about a mile and a half before we got to the exit for Six Flags Over Georgia. It was a good walk. Traffic had gotten heavy this close to Atlanta, so the walk was a kind of wobble because the draft of the big semis passing within three or four feet of me would whirl me halfway around as they hurried by.
Once I had made my way to the intersection and got set up on the entrance ramp to the Interstate a man who sold vegetables at the farmer's market picked me up and took me on into the city. When he got off to go the market he couldn't find a place to pull over because of the traffic, and so I ended up about two miles from the Interstate. The farmer's market wasn't very busy. I found a restaurant nearby and got some coffee.
In a little while I found a halfway decent place to hitch, but the traffic was going fast so they could merge with the traffic at the bottom of the on-ramp. It took a while to get a ride. When I did get a ride, they took me to the first big intersection just east of the loop around Atlanta.
This intersection had a lot of gas stations and convenience stores there. It served a bedroom community for Atlanta. There was a lot of traffic going to and from Atlanta, but there was very little traffic headed east from it. I stood by the road for a while, but I didn't have any luck getting a ride. Behind me was a open field that had a fence separating the intersection from a group of apartment building. Just inside the fence on the Interstate side was a concrete drainage box with a flat top that stood about a foot off the ground. I lay down on it to try to catch a nap. I felt like somebody had beat me up for a good long time. I dropped off for a little while, but the Sun was so hot I woke up sweating. I was too tired to sleep, so I decided to get back on the road.
As I crossed the field to get to the on-ramp I heard some tires squealing. I looked up and saw an old '56 Ford Fairlane had slammed on brakes and backed up to get me. The guy inside was waving at me to hurry up and get in the car. I half-heartedly jogged over to him and got in. He took off fast spinning his wheels and the combination of the old car and the wheels squealing reminded me of my youth.
The only way I can describe the driver is frenetic. He portrayed an intensity that seemed appropriate to all that tire squealing. His face looked like a hawk. He seemed frozen in time, and his body was lean from the intense energy that drove him relentlessly. Immediately I knew he was a predator,and I felt a deep sense of danger. I was too tired to go on full alert, but I knew I should have. The only thing for me to do was to act calm and go along to get along, and maybe I would come out of this okay.
He kept asking me what I thought of his car. He wanted to know what I thought of it's power and speed. All this time he was dodging in and out of traffic at 75-85 mph. He seemed to be trying to scare me and ask him to slow down. I wasn't about to confront him. I went into a good ol' boy mode and told him how impressed I was. I wasn't exactly lying. I do appreciate how some people like to rebuild old cars, but it ain't something I find myself attracted to.
He told me that he was going about fifty miles down the road, but that he had to stop and cash a check so he would have some cash money where he was going, but if I would be patient he would get me to a good place to hitch. I had already decided to just go along with him until he decided to let me go. There was no sense in trying to get away from him. I was a stranger here, and there was nowhere to run.
He stopped at a number of banks trying to cash a check. I knew the checks weren't any good. He had a perculiar way of going into these banks. He would park outside, leave the motor running, go inside the bank, take a pretty long time in there, and then come back out, stick his head inside the driver's window and gawk at me. Then, he would get back inside and tear off to the next bank.
He began to tell me about his being in prison and how rough it was in there, and about how he had learned to survive. I believed every word. His talk about prison was the only thing he talked about that I did believe. I knew that if I ever did end up in prison, this was the type of guy I would dread to deal with the most. Extremely explosive in his actions, but putting on a calm face to deal with the world. He smiled and even laughed a lot, but his eyes never changed.
Finally, he went into this one bank and they cashed his check. I sensed that it wasn't a problem of finding the right bank, but of finding the right teller. Poor woman, and yet, that's the way the world is. This time when he came out of the bank with the money he said something that cleared up some of his previous actions. He looked at me with this incredulous, baffled look on his face and told he couldn't believe I hadn't stolen the car while he was inside the bank. He had left the motor running, why didn't I just slide over under the wheel and take off. That's when I realized that's what he had done.
He whipped out of the parking lot and got back on the Interstate. He started driving real fast and moving in and out of traffic in a very reckless way. At times, he would be going over 120 mph, and was weaving in and out of some pretty heavy traffic, he alternated from cutting people off and making them slam on brakes to getting cut off and having to slam on brakes himself. I realized he was trying to scare me, and if I showed any fear, then he would try to make me his bitch and I would have to fight him to the death. I was certainly tempted to give it up, but I knew if I did it might be the end of me.
When he finally convinced himself I wasn't going to give it up, he pulled off the Interstate and let me off. As I got out of the car, still keeping my composure, he asked me what the hell a guy like me was doing out bumming around. We both knew what he was talking about, but I knew there was no way in hell I was going to tell him anything. He would be back in his cage before long. It was the only way he knew how to live.
Although there was a coupla hours before sunset, I knew I had to get some sleep. the intersection was a good one for that. There were trees all around it. I picked out the most obvious place I could between the on-ramp and the Interstate, and crashed for a good 10 hours. It had been quite a day.
It was sprinkling rain in Meridian, Mississippi when the old man and I got there. I walked out of the station and looked toward town. I had lived there for a little while. Less than a year. Although I had kin all around the place we were not close. We hardly knew each other at all.
Now, on that cloudy afternoon there was no one to go see. Besides, I was pretty filthy and had no money to pay my own way. This wasn't an unusual situation. I had passed through Meridian a hundred times over the years and never stopped to visit. I had cousins there, but they never knew my parents because we had gone too. My aunts and uncles were all dead.
Truth is, not many people have ever known me at all. I never stayed anywhere long enough to give them the chance. Many people who thought they knew me didn't even know my legal name. I made names up as I moved around. None of the people I made acquaintance with knew each other. I lived a compartmentalized life. Each group knew a completely different person. I kept imitating people I admired for one reason or the other. Since nobody on the road knew my family history there was no way for them to know if the person they thought I was got based on any reality they understood. They had no choice but to deal with the particular person they met me as.
I guess I was trying to decide which of the combination of personality careactoristics suited me best so that one day I could be that person. It never really happened until I created felix. I like him pretty good. By then, it didn't matter to me whether anybody else liked him or not. By then I had already figured out that people only see themselves in others anyway. If they liked themselves they would like me, and if they didn't like themselves they wouldn't like me either. What difference did it matter how I acted if all they saw was themselves. This was the real freedom I had looked for. In my opinion this is what Gautama awoke to.
Kristofferson wrote that "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...", and I really liked that description. When I proved to myself in my own way that people project their own opinion of themselves on to others without knowing it, I found myself free to be whatever I liked. The fact that people don't know they're projecting amazes me to this day. They really think you are what they would think of themselves if they acted like they think you do. They think you do what you do for their reasons, or at least the reasons they feel like they would have if they were like you. They couldn't be more wrong, because if I told them my reasons for doing and saying what I do and say, all they would perceive is what they would be saying if they were me. This is a crazy world.
The next ride I got didn't take me very far, but it turned out to be a pretty good ride. He was a young man in his late twenties or early thirties who had just gotten out of prison a coupla months before. He had been in prison for robbing people with a gun. He said he picked me up to give me a ride to a better hitching spot. I've heard this a lot during my time, most of the time it doesn't work out that way. I think he picked me up to tell me he envied my freedom. I get that a lot too.
He told me he was going to do me a favor. He reached in his pocket and picked out a twenty dollar bill. He held it in his hand as he explained to me who he was. I got the impression that he had robbed somebody to get it. He repeated his name several times to make sure I understood who he was. I suspected he wanted me to remember his name because he expected it to appear in the newspaper soon. He handed me the twenty dollar bill and told me to remember him, and let me out at an intersection about ten miles out of Meridian. I don't need to remember his name. I knew exactly what he wanted, and I'll probably do what he wanted down the line. I'll come and get him when it's time.
The intersection he let me out at had an eerie feeling about it. In one way it was good because the truck stop had a franchise hamburger joint inside of it, and I went inside and got a hamburger and a cup of coffee. It was starting to get dark outside and I knew I would probably spend the night here.
After I had eaten I walked back to the intersection to look under the overpass bridges to see if I could find a comfortable place to lay down. The way the bridge was built didn't exactly allow this, and besides it was pretty dirty under there and wet from the rain. I walked across the bridge to check out the other side. I did find a dry spot, but there was no level place to stretch out. I was too tired to keep looking and it was too dark to see anyway. The clouds covered whatever light from the Moon to find another place, so I made myself as comfortable as I could. It wasn't very comfortable because I had to lay at downward slope, and the big trucks flying by kept kicking up a constant moisture from the road. They were loud as they passed under the overpass. The best I could manage were a few naps, but everytime a truck came through it woke me up. I was dirty, wet, and miserable. I took refuge inside myself as much as I could.
By early morning when there was enough light to see where I was going I climbed out from under the bridge and walked back down to the truck stop and got something to eat with the money the boy had given me. I kept drinking coffee to try and wake up, but mostly to have an inside place to be outta that drizzle. After I stayed there as long as I could I went outside to get back on the highway. I was in bad shape. I was tripping on fatigue and hallucinating colored streaks flashing across in front of me.
I needed to get some real sleep.
On the other side of the road toward Meridian was a patch of woods. I walked around to where I was out of sight of the truck stop so no one there would see me go into the woods. What I found there was fairly interesting. There was a bunch of junk stuff, a couple of dog pens, and some kind of little shack.
I took my time approaching this place. I didn't know whether anybody stayed there or not. I went in a semi-circle around the edge of it. Ripped my only pair of pants on a barbed wire crossing it. There was a dirt road that led into it, but there wasn't any fresh tire tracks on it. I decided it was abandoned and walked around looking in the dog shed and the little shack. They were all filled with old boards and stuff that looked like somebody had used it for a storage place. It hadn't been used for a long time and everything was covered with dust. I could see I wasn't going to be able to stay inside of them, and I didn't really want to be inside if somebody drove up.
I dragged an old door behind some bushes to try to lay down and get some sleep. I knew that I was so tired that if I did go to sleep I might not wake up if they did. There was some old plastic I used to cover myself from the drizzling misty rain. The door itself was dry from being under the shelter. It wasn't very comfortable, but at least it was a flat place to lay down. It took me an hour or so to relax enough to be able to drift off to sleep, but when I did I was out like a light.
Now, on that cloudy afternoon there was no one to go see. Besides, I was pretty filthy and had no money to pay my own way. This wasn't an unusual situation. I had passed through Meridian a hundred times over the years and never stopped to visit. I had cousins there, but they never knew my parents because we had gone too. My aunts and uncles were all dead.
Truth is, not many people have ever known me at all. I never stayed anywhere long enough to give them the chance. Many people who thought they knew me didn't even know my legal name. I made names up as I moved around. None of the people I made acquaintance with knew each other. I lived a compartmentalized life. Each group knew a completely different person. I kept imitating people I admired for one reason or the other. Since nobody on the road knew my family history there was no way for them to know if the person they thought I was got based on any reality they understood. They had no choice but to deal with the particular person they met me as.
I guess I was trying to decide which of the combination of personality careactoristics suited me best so that one day I could be that person. It never really happened until I created felix. I like him pretty good. By then, it didn't matter to me whether anybody else liked him or not. By then I had already figured out that people only see themselves in others anyway. If they liked themselves they would like me, and if they didn't like themselves they wouldn't like me either. What difference did it matter how I acted if all they saw was themselves. This was the real freedom I had looked for. In my opinion this is what Gautama awoke to.
Kristofferson wrote that "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...", and I really liked that description. When I proved to myself in my own way that people project their own opinion of themselves on to others without knowing it, I found myself free to be whatever I liked. The fact that people don't know they're projecting amazes me to this day. They really think you are what they would think of themselves if they acted like they think you do. They think you do what you do for their reasons, or at least the reasons they feel like they would have if they were like you. They couldn't be more wrong, because if I told them my reasons for doing and saying what I do and say, all they would perceive is what they would be saying if they were me. This is a crazy world.
The next ride I got didn't take me very far, but it turned out to be a pretty good ride. He was a young man in his late twenties or early thirties who had just gotten out of prison a coupla months before. He had been in prison for robbing people with a gun. He said he picked me up to give me a ride to a better hitching spot. I've heard this a lot during my time, most of the time it doesn't work out that way. I think he picked me up to tell me he envied my freedom. I get that a lot too.
He told me he was going to do me a favor. He reached in his pocket and picked out a twenty dollar bill. He held it in his hand as he explained to me who he was. I got the impression that he had robbed somebody to get it. He repeated his name several times to make sure I understood who he was. I suspected he wanted me to remember his name because he expected it to appear in the newspaper soon. He handed me the twenty dollar bill and told me to remember him, and let me out at an intersection about ten miles out of Meridian. I don't need to remember his name. I knew exactly what he wanted, and I'll probably do what he wanted down the line. I'll come and get him when it's time.
The intersection he let me out at had an eerie feeling about it. In one way it was good because the truck stop had a franchise hamburger joint inside of it, and I went inside and got a hamburger and a cup of coffee. It was starting to get dark outside and I knew I would probably spend the night here.
After I had eaten I walked back to the intersection to look under the overpass bridges to see if I could find a comfortable place to lay down. The way the bridge was built didn't exactly allow this, and besides it was pretty dirty under there and wet from the rain. I walked across the bridge to check out the other side. I did find a dry spot, but there was no level place to stretch out. I was too tired to keep looking and it was too dark to see anyway. The clouds covered whatever light from the Moon to find another place, so I made myself as comfortable as I could. It wasn't very comfortable because I had to lay at downward slope, and the big trucks flying by kept kicking up a constant moisture from the road. They were loud as they passed under the overpass. The best I could manage were a few naps, but everytime a truck came through it woke me up. I was dirty, wet, and miserable. I took refuge inside myself as much as I could.
By early morning when there was enough light to see where I was going I climbed out from under the bridge and walked back down to the truck stop and got something to eat with the money the boy had given me. I kept drinking coffee to try and wake up, but mostly to have an inside place to be outta that drizzle. After I stayed there as long as I could I went outside to get back on the highway. I was in bad shape. I was tripping on fatigue and hallucinating colored streaks flashing across in front of me.
I needed to get some real sleep.
On the other side of the road toward Meridian was a patch of woods. I walked around to where I was out of sight of the truck stop so no one there would see me go into the woods. What I found there was fairly interesting. There was a bunch of junk stuff, a couple of dog pens, and some kind of little shack.
I took my time approaching this place. I didn't know whether anybody stayed there or not. I went in a semi-circle around the edge of it. Ripped my only pair of pants on a barbed wire crossing it. There was a dirt road that led into it, but there wasn't any fresh tire tracks on it. I decided it was abandoned and walked around looking in the dog shed and the little shack. They were all filled with old boards and stuff that looked like somebody had used it for a storage place. It hadn't been used for a long time and everything was covered with dust. I could see I wasn't going to be able to stay inside of them, and I didn't really want to be inside if somebody drove up.
I dragged an old door behind some bushes to try to lay down and get some sleep. I knew that I was so tired that if I did go to sleep I might not wake up if they did. There was some old plastic I used to cover myself from the drizzling misty rain. The door itself was dry from being under the shelter. It wasn't very comfortable, but at least it was a flat place to lay down. It took me an hour or so to relax enough to be able to drift off to sleep, but when I did I was out like a light.