The wires that connect the buildings together in the tenderloin loop low enough to throw a couple of cats over, (tied together by their tails so they fight) and from up here I can see all the living things that pass underneath them. Most of them grumble, but some shout. I hitched a ride from the north country this morning, and I’ve purchased a bottle of scotch and a hotel room on the sixth floor–dragged the desk to the window. The Susan’s Massage sign stutters below; pigeons dip and dive even this late at night. Kit Friday calls them “Hepatitis with wings,” but I am fond of them. I open the window with cold hands, no screen. I have no plans of leaving this room.
Across the way a fat man sits in a green tinted kitchen. He’s got his feet up, face flickered with white from the little TV on the table. The other fellow in the room faces the open refrigerator. The window above them frames bright lights and pink sheets silhouetting a dope plant; below them is soft orange on a bed, and what appears to be a small chicken perched on the pillow. I think I must be getting drunk. I just pulled a bandage off my right ear, and the blood is dry and hard like scales, because it’s been patched up for a few days.
Last fall was the first time I asked him if I could drive his little yellow motorcycle. I had just blasted an old computer into the woods with his shotgun (I’d never shot one), and I said, “Hey, let me ride your motorcycle.”
“No.”
“C’mon.”
“No.”
“C’mon!!!”
He looked at me up and down, and I stood up straight and tried to figure how I should hold the gun.
“No.” He pulled out his pocket knife, and trimmed his thumb nail. He looked up with just his eyes, and said, “Not until it’s down off the ridge where there’s a field.”
And that was that.
I came back to the North Country a week ago, and he had brought the yellow motorcycle down off the ridge. It was on the edge of the field next to the trailer. And it was time. The late morning in the bright valley was all blue and golden–field laid out just for me. The birds were watching from the branches and the dust was settled.
He had been trying to get it started since before breakfast. Me and his boy crouched on the edge of the field. We were burning the words quail tail into a two-by-four with a magnifying glass. After the last l, we singed a tick he picked off his leg.
I looked at the top of the boy’s head. “Did you ever break any bones?”
He didn’t look up. “No, but I saw a kid get stomped by a cow, and it made his ankle come out.”
We both had rubber bands around our forelocks to keep our hair out of our eyes. That’s how we got the idea for quail tail.
“Whew.” I chipped at the top of the ground with a rock.
“I broke my finger one time.”
He looked up.
“Could you see the bone?”
“Nah.”
The boy looked back down, then sprung to his feet and ran towards the junk pile by the river. I decided to go work in the shed where there was shade. I could see the motorcycle through the open door letting off blue smoke. He would tinker, then throw his weight on the clutch, then curse, then tinker. After a while the boy came back with an oil-stained cardboard box, and heaved it up on the bench.
“Look at what I found!”
It was mostly screws, and nails, and shards of glass for us to make a window with.
“Oooo.”
“But here’s the really good one!” he said, and he slowly pulled out a dirty, white, porcelain Santa Clause with nothing broken off.
“Wooee! That’s a find!”
We admired it, then he climbed up the table and put it on the window cill facing out.
At the tail-end of the morning the motorcycle finally putted and grunted, and a second later whined away. I stuck my head out of the shed and he was circling the horse field, and then then the apple orchard. The boy ran in his direction, yellow hair. He went around and around, and there were flickers of white shooting off the chrome. Then he came to me, revved the engine, and stopped. I pulled my pant legs up, stepped down, hitched up my belt, and flung my leg over the saddle . He hung on to the handle bars while I put my feet up and found the brake.
“Here’s your clutch. But just stay in first, huh? Here’s the gas.”
There was a little breeze coming down from the ridge. I laughed because I was scared to go.
“I’m scared to go.”
The kid hopped, and said, “Go!”
“But there’s a rut right there.”
He let go of the handle bars, and I tipped to lean on my foot. He crossed his arms and laughed a little, like he knew I wasn’t going to go. He shook his head, and squinted up at nothing.
I went.
I cleared the rut, and picked up a little speed, leaned forward, pressed down, smiled, went around a dirt pile. I was doing just fine, so I went ahead and moved into second gear. I circled the horse field, and then I was coming to the edge of the orchard. It was all laid out just for me. The ground was seamless; I was tall. Just a little faster, a little more weight, a flicker of light. I turned, grinned, and was just about to say “wooeee!” when it was too fast to turn. I couldn’t find the brake, and then it was dragging feet, a yelling boy, blurred grass… the blue gold turned to white as I hit a railroad tie, then an apple tree, ear first on the end of a just-pruned branch.
When I opened my eyes I was still upright on the bike with the railroad tie wedged underneath. I sat there, engine putting. I thought, How am I still on here? and my hand went to my ear, and from touching it I knew that it was dark red and shining. But all I could think was Thank God I’m still on here. He was walking over, not looking too worried. And I can still hear. I tried to pull the bike back without getting off, and burned the inside of my leg on the motor. My knees started shaking. I thought of the white Santa Claus looking out the shop window at me wedged here on this railroad tie.
The kid ran up to my good side so I said “I’m OK, kiddo!” and grinned, and got off the bike. They helped me pull it back, and I got back on, looking straight ahead to the horse field, so they wouldn’t see my ear. Round red drops were forming on top of the yellow metal. I took air in over my heart, and pushed off towards the path, a circle of dry clay pummeled by horse hooves. I went real slow. The wind was cold on my ear. I did one loop , then stopped and got off next to the kid. He hopped and his fingers spread.
“Hooo! Hoooweee!”
I climbed up to the house alone to run the cold water, to keep cover. I pressed a clean cloth to my head, and looked back through the window, through glass drooped with age. He was squinting at the shed, and the boy was crouching by the field. All those lines of charcoal apple trees twisted in and out. They all looked like hearts without flesh, except for the one I hit, which wasn’t dark and bare. On the edge closest to the horse field, it stood alone, spraying out with the prettiest little white flowers.
******
As it turns out, I had airline miles saved up and was able to get a free flight to Seattle and another out of LA. So I’m gunna keep my west coast shows and I’m leaving the gps lady (plus phone, computer– everything else that has a chord attached to it–) behind. Just after deciding this I cleaned out the van and found my shoe, smashed like a frog beneath the suitcase.
photo by meredith heil.
The acute pang of what could easily be interpreted as failure is by far more triumphant (in fodder if nothing else) than the grinding sisyphean task of managing a pissed off and scared pit bull at rest stop after strip mall after florescent-gas-station-over-hang across a gauntly jaundiced in color and unyielding USA. That is to say that, after Harvey-Sue lashed out at lovely boy in Asheville and again at a lovely girl in Nasheville; after he crouched to the ground and refused to pass by a cleaning cart outside of a hotel in Cadiz KY; after I’d taken him to a vet behind the Cracker Barrel and got him some seditives, (which did nothing but make his nervous pacing from front seat to back impossibly titubent so that he catapulted the water bowl into my lap more than once); after he peed into my messenger bag and would only look at me pleadingly and afraid; and finally, after I realized I’d dropped my new green Converse out of the van back in TN and now had but one shoe…..I decided to stop in Pedukah, KY amidst silent soy bean fields to make a decision.
I sat outside a coffee shop at a picnic table, and as I racked my surroundings for some sign of what to do, I was joined by a Pedukian named Michael who pulled up a chair and started smoking cigarette butts out of the ash tray. I thought he would surely hold the answer, but he only answered the questions seemed interesting to him (to the one “so should I keep going or go home?” he just let a half chuckle and squinted towards the road). The only question he asked me was whether I needed money and I said no, (but not “thank you” because I didn’t want to assume he was offering, which he was. There was a buzzard circling over our heads and Mike said, referring to the music, “so, guitar?” and I said “I think I should go home.”
The rest was easy. There is a great sweeping relief in surrender when such great efforts have been put forth to fight the defeat. So in giving in, Harvey and I made peace and he slept, and the sunset was stark and I drove fast. When I crossed over Nasheville I decided to look for the field where we had stopped the day before, marked with another old race track, so that I might find my new green shoe. I doubled around and exited. I pulled over and untangled myself from chords and gps lady (“rerouting. rerouting. rerouting. make u-turn. rerouting. you’re going the wrong fucking way. rerouting. u-turn.”) I got out, …..and lo and behold, in the nearly dusk, I saw….no shoe. I glimpsed around on the fences, like maybe someone would have perched it atop a post like they might a little deer skull. Nothing was there….. and we were on the perfect path.
Photos By Meredith Heil.
Ok so I can do many things and it would bring me great self validation to list them here. But instead I’ll list the thing that I’ve most recently determined I can’t do, which is control my temper when Harvey-Sue pushes my buttons. We may have possibly gotten in a wrestling fight behind the BP in some small town Indiana. So, if anyone has any advise on nurturing dogs who suddenly start rebelling against your leadership (he’s going nuts–acts like he’s on LSD; he’s quick to startle, has taken to barking and growling at people who approach the van, won’t listen to me a bit) it would be appreciated. Even better would be advise for me about dog-dealing temper control. I’ve got more to learn than he does, I know.
LEg One:
***
Here’s home. I miss it in the best of ways, and especially the people that come with it–all those bodies and hearts that have put so much into my home and also my departure. Before leaving I painted the hillbilly-chateaux stairs (twice–it rained) golden yellow to remind myself and everyone who passes that we’re on the perfect path.
****
Here’s Harvey-Sue in the autumn wash, on the way up to Richmond. I was asking a lot of him to come along, more than either of us knew at the time.
Richmond was sweet and kind. It was jarring to have the attention of people on me with no accountability of self; the slate on which to completely invent my presenting character had me paralyzed and I was pretty quiet.
I did some driving that night and didn’t realize I’d left my fanny pack in the back of my cousin’s car until I ran low on gas on the outskirts of DC. I was drudging through florescent 711s and Wa-Was trying to convince cashiers and even a cop of the truth–that I’d lost my wallet and would appreciate it if someone could take a check I’d found in my calendar–and nobody believed me. Tho the situation wasn’t dire (i had snacks and could sleep in the van) it felt as such if from nothing else but the desperate and hallucinogenic panic of not being believed that I was in a bind. Good perspective.
Finally a construction worker named Bo over heard me and lead me (in his tractor) back to his site where I slept until daylight, when his boss gave me $40 for the check. I spent all morning convincing the long-lined bank to allow me to withdraw $200, half of which I spent on the drab boredom and Sabraro/Starbucks gauntness of the turnpike going north. By the time I finally made it to the city it was dark and I was on the wrong bridge in traffic boxing with maps, hazards on, raining, late to the show, Harvey-Sue trembling from all the lights and sounds…and when I pulled over to ask for directions he startled and barked at the man approaching and peed all over the front seat. I yelled at him and feel horrible for it.
As for the gig: I’d not quite explored my capacity for self-deliverance until then, exhausted and spent on a stage alone in NYC. I couldn’t tell whether the jam-banders were clapping along in support or because they thought I was a joke. When I clambered down I felt like I could probbly take on anything. My friends Maxwell and Jess passed a bucket and made me $50 (including the $20 the bar owner slipped me), which inspired me to get out of New York as quickly as I could, expendable as that city can make the biggest of souls feel….so me and Harvey drove, each tied up in separate grumbling knots, and I didn’t quite make it to the GW bridge before I had to pull over for bed. Here we are the next morning.
I can’t quite figure out why I hate New York so much. I love drab metallic decomposition and wild colorful outcasts and slabs of vast possibility. And NY is brimming with these, but I always feel beat by it and washed numb by the time I stumble away. It reminds me of a bottle of rancid oil being forced through tiny tubes, and I’m the little dead fly stuck immobile in the thick of all of it. ok so the obvious question is why did I go to NYC? I’ll refrain from answering and just say there is no better feeling than leaving it behind.
I was so giddy to be driving away that I overshot Philly by two hours got exasperated again. I decided to define the lessons I was learning. Still raining.
Moody rumination conclusion #1: My current problems are those of a privaledged kid. I should stop crying.
#2. I’m totally riddled with self doubt, the lot of which was undetected until I set myself up for self reliance.
#3. Self reliance is cool; rugged individualism sucks.
I decided to do work on my self doubt later, and spend the rest of the cash on a replacement GPS. (By the way, I had bought one a couple weeks ago for the trip, which got stollen and I had replaced it the morning I left with this one: 
So I called my mom to look for a Best Buy in Jersey and overshot Philly going north by another hour. The overshooting / re-overshooting can only be justified by a ragged kid-tantrum exhaustion mixed with a fervor that felt like addiction to just get the fucking GPS–like everything would be magical if I could just have a machine tell me what to do. I heard something once about technology being an attempt to make the world a better place without us having to be better people.
I arrived on empty, having used the very last of the ash tray change for the last toll (and then driven in exactly two small circles at the command of the almighty GPS), disheveled, exhausted and feeling alone.
Then…. low and behold …like sudden shelter I found beloved friends from Durham and New York who grabbed my drum and guitar, took Harvey around the block, parked the van, gave me hugs and pats and supper! And then the sweetest boldest music from CAl Folger DAy and her friends, and there was Charles Latham, who’s songwriting I’ve fetishized for years, and a tiny little dancing kid, hot coffee, and elbow room. These things turned frantic emptiness into contented freedom at the speed of sound and warmth and after the show I tucked my ears into my toboggan and walked Harvey all over west philly past the high school with brick and an old football goal. We slept on the PA turnpike just on the other side of the toll booth. I set off the car alarm and clambored out in the rain to disarm it, sopping socks and boxers…and I finally laughed and the next morning was beautiful and grey and brand new.
Somerset PA: The hottest cup of coffee and most delicious egg sandwich I’ve ever had …maybe the freest I’ve ever felt–first time in a while that not a soul in the universe knew my whereabouts
Dry Run PA: Me and Harvey have found some creative ways to run around in fenced in areas. I was shocked to hear later that some folks think this drive along I70 is boring
****
…
Hwy 70: That evening was the first time on the whole trip that there was a spit of color through clouds..
Bloomington IN: … and yesterday just outside of Bloomington we found the deserted fair grounds. I’m dizzyingly contented. It’s warm and crisp and the color of carrots. Rocky beginnings make mundane, spacious time at the used-to-be races feel ecstatic. I’m loping in the strange aimless love that feeling free affords.
I like thinking about someday living in some new town that’s been meticulously constructed for and by people I haven’t met yet.
A huge map of the world arrived at my friend, Meredith’s house yesterday afternoon, at the same time I did. We tacked it up in her room and studied it for a long time. The size ratio of the map is printed in the corner; me and Harvey-Sue have traveled 36,384,000 times the size of my finger.
This is me and Harvey Sue (the dog not the band). He’s really nice.
We’ll be leaving Durham at the end of September to embark on a six-week cross-country tour with our Boombox / Stomp-Kit-Woah-Man Band + Dog = Scavenger Dark Folk project. We’ll be fervently learning lots of things, creating blogs of alter-egos, and collecting interesting scraps and sounds (here’s an example of a song made out of a file cabinet, some rice, and some splitting wood. oh and some scotch tape).
For more tunes you can click here.
We’re full of gratitude and love, and hope you will have us.
Œ
