Chapter IXXX: Ride like the wind
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Ride like the Wind
Why not just give the car to Rachel and ask her to forgive the debt? She wanted a car. Though I had assembled the brakes in my basement and it belched exhaust, it was a car. But what about Mexico?
What about Mexico? After you've told everyone you would go, you can't stay. All those romantic adventures will be forgotten in place of one retreat. Like Buckner being remembered for one error. No one will want to remember what you've done, Oggy. You'll just become one of the football boosters who never left town.
Bonigan was right. At least three people, strangers, youngsters, had approached me at the New Years Eve party before the Darcy incident rendered me incommunicado. They had heard of my travels and their handshakes told me that I was part legend and part ghost. I was the one who had made it, who had traveled, who had defied convention. They pointed the length of my beard out to each other as proof of what a rebel I was, that indeed BHHS had produced a pilgrim of adventure. They asked me tell stories and I was so attention drunk I sold them Moonrise in Yosemite, Ben in Alaska, the Veteran in Colorado, the Peyote in Ecuador, beach volleyball in Florida with The Wackmaster. I sold them these songs for a handshake, an envious comment, a delicious request for advice. How had I survived? What did I eat on the road? Who was there to take care of me when I was sick? Did I meet any hot chicks? I'd predicted all these questions during the hundreds of hours waiting at a truck stop for another ride south or east. I'd predicted them in the cold nights under bridges when the traffic kept me awake. The prospect of admiration, reverence or the illusion of it kept me warm and all at once on New Years Eve my vision had been realized. A legend I had become, like Yoda or Indiana Jones or Kerouac. I was an authority on something, perhaps Adventure, perhaps sacrifice. If I backed out now they would say they knew I was just a fake, that I never intended to go to Mexico, that I was all talk. Bonigan was absolutely right. I would wake up and it would be 1993, and I would be known as the kid who never went to Mexico.
I put the court document in my desk then picked up my backpack and a copy of Ulysses by Joyce. The address for the violin store was in the car. What else would I need? My baseball glove lay on the carpet near the record player and my beloved Shaved Fish album. I couldn't play baseball without the glove and Mexicans love baseball so I threw it in with the three-sectional staff and Darcy's sock.
I gazed at the fake leather couch, so slick and smooth, plump and willing.
My father was typing another report on the computer.
“I'm off.”
“Will you be home later? I'm going to Queensland for dinner.”
“No. I don't think so.”
“Alright.”
There was no time to say goodbye to Cristo, no point anyway since I knew what would happen. I would write him a postcard from the road. Market Square no longer surprised me. Sitting on the benches in front of the old Sessions Music store wasn't the same anymore. The Moe's subs didn't taste nearly as good as they had when Kurt and I ate them in the summer before Junior High School. Gillies was now over-run with high school kids, a sea of ignorant punks who pissed on Clutcher's mom's mural when the cook wasn't looking. They didn't know their history and made fun of my rabbit fur hat when I limped by. They didn't know who I was and they didn't care. The name Ray Knight meant as much to them, maybe less, as Enos Slaughter. As I walked through the kitchen I had an uneasy sensation that my life, my real life, was taking place somewhere else and I was missing it.
Under overcast skies, I pulled the stiff tarp off Poncho and wished I'd put a little more time in the artwork decorating the rusting body. The Ninja Power symbol, for instance, looked like the Roman Numeral IV. The muffler dragged perilously close to the asphalt. The tires were balding. The carpet flapped in the breeze. A dozen metal spikes stuck up from the roof where Vance had taken the plastic top off. A giant Question Mark painted on the roof. It seemed to ask Why? What? Who? Where? Was the answer to those questions my mission? Was that worth deliberately missing a court case and almost certainly being arrested the next time I entered New Hampshire? Wasn't there an easier way to salvation? There was still a chance to turn back, to go watch Hogan's Heroes on television. I could try to put a little more juice into the ball Jim Rice hit to end the top of the tenth inning. An extra run would've been nice.
Mexico has warm skies and the dust of ancient wars. Mexico has a noble history, a history of peace, harmony with the land. You belong there. One day you can return to us and lead us back to your farm. We are not ready yet.
The Timewraiths wanted me on the run and their urgent whisperings bent the branches of the Dutch Elm tree. The last remaining leaves fell onto the snow. Elwyn Avenue was lined with the gray houses of ghostfriends, and fenced yards. The North Church steeple and the Junior High School were framed by the bare Maple branches. There was still time to walk down to the mill pond or open the rusty doors of the whiffleball courts. Or I could drive to Fort Stark instead of riding my bicycle. The Youthfire would burn from the recent logs I'd fed it, Mack, Gordy, The Dream Machine, JJ Newberrys, Stretch, Dwight Evans, People and places endangered by what? Progress? Age? 0-2 fastballs? Me? I only knew they were threatened, but so was I.
The road doesn't call; it lays silent
Kerouac? You never answered your own questions. You got me out here, but I don't know where to go.
The silence calls, Oggy. Can you break the silence, makes sense of the thrumming asphalt river?
No I can't even get a job. The Sox. They can't win. I've tried everything. It's the oh and two fastball. I know that's the answer.
Can you hear the highway silence?
No. I'm already lost. I'm ten feet from my front door and I'm lost.
Then you're already there.
Where?
Beatnik gibberish, but no worse than most advice. Nothing is irrevocable, except sacrifice. I can always turn around, right Jack?
The engine started up, I pulled onto Lincoln Avenue and accelerated toward I-95, southbound. Five minutes later I was back because I had forgotten my sleeping bag.
The snow covered fields soothed my eyes after the accumulated harsh images of Bone Harbor, the frozen piston housing, the Hall & Oates poster in my closet, the championship jacket that I'd outgrown, Red Sox memorabilia, the too familiar rugs in the bathroom, the couch I'd spent months on watching Game Six, the peeling wallpaper, Twain, Spiker. Distance from the South Street Cemetery was what I needed, distance from Leary Field and Gillies and Ogden's Point. The coastline of Maine stretched north into the Fort Stark fog and was replaced by Bay State hillsides and Constitution State billboards.
I finally got a cassette to stay in the tape deck and heard Yusif Islam's nasal voice hollering: “And though your dreams may toss and turn you now, they will vanish away like your dad's best jeans.”
Leave it to C. Stevens to write a nostalgic simile into a song. But, as I rolled westbound toward Connecticut, listening to my folk music mix tape, I wondered if the patches really make the good-byes harder still, or if the patches are what make you say goodbye in the first place.
Why not just give the car to Rachel and ask her to forgive the debt? She wanted a car. Though I had assembled the brakes in my basement and it belched exhaust, it was a car. But what about Mexico?
What about Mexico? After you've told everyone you would go, you can't stay. All those romantic adventures will be forgotten in place of one retreat. Like Buckner being remembered for one error. No one will want to remember what you've done, Oggy. You'll just become one of the football boosters who never left town.
Bonigan was right. At least three people, strangers, youngsters, had approached me at the New Years Eve party before the Darcy incident rendered me incommunicado. They had heard of my travels and their handshakes told me that I was part legend and part ghost. I was the one who had made it, who had traveled, who had defied convention. They pointed the length of my beard out to each other as proof of what a rebel I was, that indeed BHHS had produced a pilgrim of adventure. They asked me tell stories and I was so attention drunk I sold them Moonrise in Yosemite, Ben in Alaska, the Veteran in Colorado, the Peyote in Ecuador, beach volleyball in Florida with The Wackmaster. I sold them these songs for a handshake, an envious comment, a delicious request for advice. How had I survived? What did I eat on the road? Who was there to take care of me when I was sick? Did I meet any hot chicks? I'd predicted all these questions during the hundreds of hours waiting at a truck stop for another ride south or east. I'd predicted them in the cold nights under bridges when the traffic kept me awake. The prospect of admiration, reverence or the illusion of it kept me warm and all at once on New Years Eve my vision had been realized. A legend I had become, like Yoda or Indiana Jones or Kerouac. I was an authority on something, perhaps Adventure, perhaps sacrifice. If I backed out now they would say they knew I was just a fake, that I never intended to go to Mexico, that I was all talk. Bonigan was absolutely right. I would wake up and it would be 1993, and I would be known as the kid who never went to Mexico.
I put the court document in my desk then picked up my backpack and a copy of Ulysses by Joyce. The address for the violin store was in the car. What else would I need? My baseball glove lay on the carpet near the record player and my beloved Shaved Fish album. I couldn't play baseball without the glove and Mexicans love baseball so I threw it in with the three-sectional staff and Darcy's sock.
I gazed at the fake leather couch, so slick and smooth, plump and willing.
My father was typing another report on the computer.
“I'm off.”
“Will you be home later? I'm going to Queensland for dinner.”
“No. I don't think so.”
“Alright.”
There was no time to say goodbye to Cristo, no point anyway since I knew what would happen. I would write him a postcard from the road. Market Square no longer surprised me. Sitting on the benches in front of the old Sessions Music store wasn't the same anymore. The Moe's subs didn't taste nearly as good as they had when Kurt and I ate them in the summer before Junior High School. Gillies was now over-run with high school kids, a sea of ignorant punks who pissed on Clutcher's mom's mural when the cook wasn't looking. They didn't know their history and made fun of my rabbit fur hat when I limped by. They didn't know who I was and they didn't care. The name Ray Knight meant as much to them, maybe less, as Enos Slaughter. As I walked through the kitchen I had an uneasy sensation that my life, my real life, was taking place somewhere else and I was missing it.
Under overcast skies, I pulled the stiff tarp off Poncho and wished I'd put a little more time in the artwork decorating the rusting body. The Ninja Power symbol, for instance, looked like the Roman Numeral IV. The muffler dragged perilously close to the asphalt. The tires were balding. The carpet flapped in the breeze. A dozen metal spikes stuck up from the roof where Vance had taken the plastic top off. A giant Question Mark painted on the roof. It seemed to ask Why? What? Who? Where? Was the answer to those questions my mission? Was that worth deliberately missing a court case and almost certainly being arrested the next time I entered New Hampshire? Wasn't there an easier way to salvation? There was still a chance to turn back, to go watch Hogan's Heroes on television. I could try to put a little more juice into the ball Jim Rice hit to end the top of the tenth inning. An extra run would've been nice.
Mexico has warm skies and the dust of ancient wars. Mexico has a noble history, a history of peace, harmony with the land. You belong there. One day you can return to us and lead us back to your farm. We are not ready yet.
The Timewraiths wanted me on the run and their urgent whisperings bent the branches of the Dutch Elm tree. The last remaining leaves fell onto the snow. Elwyn Avenue was lined with the gray houses of ghostfriends, and fenced yards. The North Church steeple and the Junior High School were framed by the bare Maple branches. There was still time to walk down to the mill pond or open the rusty doors of the whiffleball courts. Or I could drive to Fort Stark instead of riding my bicycle. The Youthfire would burn from the recent logs I'd fed it, Mack, Gordy, The Dream Machine, JJ Newberrys, Stretch, Dwight Evans, People and places endangered by what? Progress? Age? 0-2 fastballs? Me? I only knew they were threatened, but so was I.
The road doesn't call; it lays silent
Kerouac? You never answered your own questions. You got me out here, but I don't know where to go.
The silence calls, Oggy. Can you break the silence, makes sense of the thrumming asphalt river?
No I can't even get a job. The Sox. They can't win. I've tried everything. It's the oh and two fastball. I know that's the answer.
Can you hear the highway silence?
No. I'm already lost. I'm ten feet from my front door and I'm lost.
Then you're already there.
Where?
Beatnik gibberish, but no worse than most advice. Nothing is irrevocable, except sacrifice. I can always turn around, right Jack?
The engine started up, I pulled onto Lincoln Avenue and accelerated toward I-95, southbound. Five minutes later I was back because I had forgotten my sleeping bag.
The snow covered fields soothed my eyes after the accumulated harsh images of Bone Harbor, the frozen piston housing, the Hall & Oates poster in my closet, the championship jacket that I'd outgrown, Red Sox memorabilia, the too familiar rugs in the bathroom, the couch I'd spent months on watching Game Six, the peeling wallpaper, Twain, Spiker. Distance from the South Street Cemetery was what I needed, distance from Leary Field and Gillies and Ogden's Point. The coastline of Maine stretched north into the Fort Stark fog and was replaced by Bay State hillsides and Constitution State billboards.
I finally got a cassette to stay in the tape deck and heard Yusif Islam's nasal voice hollering: “And though your dreams may toss and turn you now, they will vanish away like your dad's best jeans.”
Leave it to C. Stevens to write a nostalgic simile into a song. But, as I rolled westbound toward Connecticut, listening to my folk music mix tape, I wondered if the patches really make the good-byes harder still, or if the patches are what make you say goodbye in the first place.
posted by Oggy Bleacher | 8:18 PM
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