Waiting for the Man (17 page)

Smoke and Mirrors

Pennsylvania is an odd kind of police state. Every few miles, a bend on the turnpike revealed a state trooper waiting in predatory ambush, drooling over the prospect of a chase and the public humiliation of being pulled over. We were like some clubfooted antelope to them, the poor animal the camera zooms in on when the big cats begin the hunt. I could hear Marlin Perkins’s nasally underwater voice: “On the turnpikes of Pennsylvania, the dangerous state troopers are forever on the lookout for the publicity-seeking simpleton from New York encroaching on their territory.”

We exited the turnpike where it veered north to Pittsburgh and headed toward Ohio. Night fell and I continued to drive, not at all feeling the effects of a full day of concentration, of steering, of looking out for the dreaded state troopers. Takeshi kept asking if I was OK, wanting desperately to be able to return home and report that he had driven the highways here, but I refused to give up the wheel. I was going to drive, even to the point of exhaustion, because each mile felt like another mile closer to something, closer to a meeting, closer to the one thing that could change my life forever.

Where was the Man? I would speak to him, think about him, expect to see him by the side of the road but he was nowhere, aloof, a memory.

“When does it end?” Takeshi asked.

I didn’t know. What could I tell anyone about the Man? As if this absence would allow me to forget him. As if I could forget why I was in this minivan to begin with. He was all I could think about. I was consumed by the thought of my promised meeting, by the promise itself, by the idea that my life would somehow improve, that it might actually mean something, something I could understand, and that this new meaning would enable me to live the rest of my life with some kind purpose. Direction. I wanted to be happy. Each mile was a mile away from home, a mile away from a life that meant less and less to me and seemed more and more foreign and bizarre. I realized the meaning of the words turmoil and chaos finally and understood the basic facts of my life.

“I don’t know,” I told Takeshi.

“Pennsylvania is very big,” he said.

And then he was asleep and I was witness to Takeshi’s horrific snoring. Driving that night this is what I thought: nothing. I had lived a life that meant nothing. I had drifted about, had been paid to be clever, had been paid well, and it had all meant nothing to me. And I thought this while driving to a destiny that was incomprehensible. My life had no meaning. And it was still meaningless, still out of my control, but at least, I felt it had a purpose. A direction. Literally. And though I didn’t understand that purpose, it was there. I could taste it and that was good enough for me.

And I realized I had never thought these things through. I still had not fully understood any of what was happening but I was projecting meaning onto all of my remembered conversations with the Man, creatively wanting things to come of all of this, and it made me feel good in a way. Passing over the hills of West Virginia, I thought, OK, I’ve made some rationalizations here, and that’s fine, it’s fine to make a few rationalizations out of chaos, out of the surreal nature of my life right now. I’m in West Virginia, for fuck’s sake!

And then we weren’t in West Virginia. Just like that. How could a state be that small? This was the only time during the trip I wanted to consult a map.

I pulled into a service station in Ohio and the black bus pulled in behind us. From it I saw the media run to the Burger King, eager to fill their stomachs with food, or a close approximation of it. Some of them looked at me and mouthed thank-yous. I got out of the Odyssey quietly, careful not to wake Takeshi. I walked to a small island of grass set amidst the concrete parking lot, a deserted, eerie place in the dark of night. I lay down and asked the Man for a sign. Somewhere overnight in Pennsylvania, the convoy had petered out to two cars. I was thrilled.

Dan walked over and sat next to me. “That was quite a stretch,” he said. “I think our drivers are trying to figure out what they’ve gotten themselves into.”

“You have two drivers?” I asked.

“Three,” Dan said. “Union regulations. Or something. I asked for a driver and he came in triplicate.”

“I’m not even tired,” I said. “I think I could drive around the world right now.”

“That would be a feat,” Dan laughed. I only understood his joke much later. He stretched his arms and craned his neck back and forth. He straightened his legs and touched his toes. He straightened up and leaned back on his elbows. He sighed, looking forward to when this would all end, I think. He wanted the hint of a conclusion. Maybe even more than I did.

“I don’t feel like stopping,” I said, closing my eyes, trying to summon the Man, pleading for help, a sign, direction. “It’s like it’s not even me when I drive.”

“You’re possessed,” Dan clarified.

“I’m possessed,” I mumbled. I mulled these words over, turning them around in my head until they didn’t mean a thing. “I’m not possessed,” I said.

“You’re on a mission,” Dan said.

“Maybe,” I replied.

Dan lit a cigarette and I took it. “Since when do you smoke?” I asked. I took a deep drag and held the smoke in my lungs and felt lightheaded. “Wow.”

I smoked my first cigarette in high school. I can remember sitting underneath the stairs that led to the front door of my high school with Louie Jones, a hyper-sized black kid who played linebacker on the JV football team. We were thirteen, and we figured it was time. The episode ended with a fit of coughing, with Louie throwing up on his new Astroturf cleats, and with both of us wondering where the glamour was. And now this cigarette felt good. Transformative. I stared at it, the glowing tip, the long white body of paper, the orange filter, and the cigarette seemed somehow sexy. I’d smoked off and on since that first silly cigarette, but never really considered the art, or the object. I just smoked. Sometimes. Not even often enough to consider myself a smoker. I was a non-smoker who smoked. I looked at my hand holding the cigarette and it looked cool, sophisticated. Everything I knew about cigarettes, about how inane it was to smoke, about the values imprinted on smoking by the ad industry, evaporated like so much smoke.

“Where do you think this is going?” Dan asked.

“Addiction. Medical bills. Premature death,” I said.

“The trip,” Dan said.

“The trip,” I repeated. “I don’t know.” I took another deep drag and felt the heat of the smoke in my lungs. I exhaled. “I wish I did. I really do. We’re only in Ohio. Maybe it’ll end right here. In this parking lot. Maybe it’ll end on a beach in California. I have no idea. Every mile is new to me. I’m starting to really wish I knew where this was headed. I’m with you on that. I’d like to know. A sense of direction.”

“Some of the reporters are already losing interest,” Dan said, news that made me delirious with happiness. “I keep saying it’s only been twenty-four hours. Look what’s happened in one day. There’s great drama here. I’ve started to get inquiries from Japan. The web hits from Japan are through the roof. Doesn’t seem to matter. Some of the newspaper guys are going to get called back soon. They didn’t really think through their involvement. The broadcast guys can be easily replaced with the news. You’re fighting for space. For interest. Freshness. With the world. With the White House. The longer this goes on, the less it interests people. The convoy is almost gone.”

“And you think this bothers me?” I asked, smiling broadly.

“This event has lost its eventness,” Dan said. “One day out and we’re losing momentum. The news cycle is a vicious, nasty bitch.”

I inhaled more smoke and tried blowing it out my nose. I wanted to do all the cool things you could do with smoke.

“I know it doesn’t bother you,” Dan said. He punched my arm, which I found strange. “It’s going to kill me, though.”

“I’d say I’m sorry if I felt I had anything to apologize for,” I said.

Takeshi got out of the Odyssey and walked over to us, bleary eyed, taking in the parking lot, trying to place himself. “No McDonald’s?” he asked.

“We have food,” I told him. “Just open the back. There’s even some healthy food back there. Fruit.” For Takeshi, of course, this wasn’t good enough. Neither was Burger King. He was on the road in America and he wanted to consume the totems of our culture.

“We are where?” he asked, sitting down, rubbing his eyes.

“Ohio,” I said. “We’re in Ohio.”

“Ohio,” he said slowly, rolling the word around his mouth a few times. Saying the word silently, he looked like he was imitating a goldfish.

“Where?” he asked again.

“Buttfuck, Ohio,” Dan said, laughing.

“This is Dan,” I said. “He’s the press guy.”

Dan put out his hand and Takeshi looked at it and then took it and shook it quickly. “Takeshi,” he said.

“You should talk to Takeshi,” I told Dan. “His story’s as interesting as mine. It must be.” I knew this was, to Dan, completely untrue.

“You still don’t get it. No offense,” he said, looking at Takeshi, “but no one is interested in you. I mean, they will be. NHK called. I’m sure the Japanese media is going to be all over this. I’ve seen how crazy they can be.”

“NHK?” Takeshi asked, his bleary eyes suddenly awake. “They’re interested in me?”

“I can set up an interview if you want,” Dan said.

Takeshi thought about this. He put his hand to his chin and stroked the few strands of hair growing there. “No,” he said finally. “No interviews. My father would be very upset if he found out I was hitchhiking.”

“I’m sure he already knows,” I said.

Takeshi considered this. “I’m not here to be on the news in Japan,” he said.

“I can’t stop them,” Dan said. “No one can stop a story from getting out. Or from people getting interested in it. We don’t have that right.”

Members of the media started to file out of the restaurant, stretching, yawning, checking their watches. They walked back to the bus in twos and threes, looking like a bunch of drunks kicked out of the bar after last call. They eyed us, the tiny assemblage on this island of grass. They entered the bus ready to sleep again. I had no idea what time it was and I wasn’t interested. Time didn’t matter anymore and this idea gave me a profound sense of freedom. A cameraman toted his camera on his shoulder, a hulking video apparatus that looked a lot heavier than it needed to be. He aimed it as us. Three guys talking under a tree. To be beamed to an uninterested world.

Wasn’t that signal, the absolute uselessness of it, a kind of pollution?

Angie walked slowly toward the bus and waved. I waved back, embarrassed for some reason. “How’s Angie?” I asked.

Dan shrugged. “She’s a big help. I couldn’t manage this thing without her. I’m doing phone-in shows every few hours with radio stations all over the place. She handles everything. She’s a natural. She’s handling some of the video feed, too. The vlog. Stuff like that. Still can’t get her interested in me, though. And now some young intern from AP has his eyes on her. He’s good looking. He looks like the kind of guy who’s going to get posted in Europe some day, some nice place like Paris.”

“But how is she?” I asked again.

“She’s being a bit too professional about everything,” Dan said.

“I’m ready to go,” I announced. I stood up and stretched. My legs were stiff and this was the only physical indication my body offered that I had just driven nonstop to Ohio.

“Wait a bit,” Dan said. “Let the boys get back on the bus.”

“Ohio,” Takeshi said. “It’s a fun word.”

“If you look at it long enough, it starts to look strange,” Dan said.

“Arizona,” Takeshi said. “Another good word. And Ellay. Not Los Angeles. It doesn’t sound like the name of a big city. But Ellay is a good word.”

“I want to say something about L.A.,” Dan said, for no reason.

“El Paso is also a good word,” Takeshi said.

I walked back to the Odyssey slowly, staring at the stars, thinking of nothing, thinking of the Man. “You filling up?” Dan called out.

“I’m filling up,” I said.

I opened the door to the minivan and climbed in. Takeshi got in as well. “What’s in Ohio?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. And I guess it didn’t. Only one place mattered and I didn’t know where it was.

Borderline

The winds are definitely changing. They aren’t warm anymore. They threaten frost and ice and snow. They threaten dislocation, a change in the chemistry of things. It feels sinister, like waiting for a punch you know is coming. You need sweaters and jackets at night now. Sweatshirts. Layers. Nothing heavy but enough to ward off the chill. Feet get cold faster. Our rooms are getting colder. The fireplace concierge is a busy man. Locals are saying it’s a sign, that the warmth of the days doesn’t mean anything anymore. Heat evaporates, they keep saying. It rises. It goes away.

Athena has put a carpet on my floor. It’s a brown and white irregularly shaped faux-cowhide thing. There are shelves along one wall. She put up a nicely twisted piece of wood on the opposite wall. The light bulb has a shade over it. My desk now comes equipped with a small halogen lamp. The stuffed goat remains in the corner. I have taken to calling it Jacques. The thing just seems French.

The air in here is awful.

Tomas has put clafouti back on the menu. The ranch is full now, probably for the last time this summer. Japanese cowboys and Canadian oil men and women with obvious enhancements. A couple from England. A minor German celebrity. I can only imagine what one must be to attain the height of minor celebrity from Germany.

As nights get colder, activities move indoors. The restaurant stays open later, as does the bar. Movie nights include double features. For whatever reason, they showed
Gigi
and
A Touch of Evil
last night, an oddball combination that I’m sure worked. A bartender in the movie room dispenses cocktails. Tomas serves what he calls tandoori chicken nuggets. Mathilde has made some caramel popcorn dusted with Spanish paprika.

There’s an odd feeling of emptiness inside me I can’t shake. This is the feeling of autumn. Anything that is empty can only bring disappointment. The symbol of that windswept whiteout is easy to understand here. We refer to winter as bleak but we’re really describing ourselves. Our inner world. It was emptiness that got me into my situation. I needed something. Someone perhaps. And I went out in search of it. My need was so strong I was willing to follow its dictates, despite the risks. Which is brave. I can see that. This is something I’ve learned. I am here through a combination of boredom and bravery. Restlessness.

I’m sitting in the employee lounge, nursing a beer, and Keith walks in and sits beside me. “You mind?” he asks.

“Why would I?” I say.

Keith shrugs. “You’re management now. Or something,” he says. “Whatever you’re doing. That’s some kind of slick promotion.”

He orders a beer and sits back.

What is his story? The lower end of the kitchen staff is mostly Latino. The chambermaids are all Latino. The guys who pick up the horse shit are Latino. How did Keith get here? “You’re Indian, right?” I ask.

“Blackfoot,” he says, pulling on his beer. “Me and Ben come from the same place.”

“And that’s from around here?” I ask, ashamed by my ignorance. The reminder of the Native loss is everywhere around them. Especially when anyone opens their mouth.

“This is our land,” he says. “Here. On the Canadian side, too.”

This is a kind of permanent displacement I can’t quite grasp. I might be feeling that here, but that’s just loneliness. How long can you feel like a refugee before getting on with your life? When is it time to move on? “So what are you doing here?”

Keith sighs and puts his elbows on the bar. “I had to get away,” he whispers.

“From what?”

“The reserve. I lost my status. I’m not a Native anymore. According to the fuckin’ government. But I had to leave. Everyone knows everything about everyone else. It’s a small world on the reserve and I want something bigger.” He downs his beer. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Who would I tell?”

He shrugs. Again. He doesn’t look Latino. Why wouldn’t someone be curious about him? Or me, for that matter. Has the curiosity been sucked out of everyone? We are a nation of passive voyeurs. Perhaps that voyeurism ends when we are asked to participate directly.

I order another beer. I look around this room and I could be anywhere. But I’m not. My journey to this very spot, my voyage, has meaning. It must. All our lives must. They do. Everything is burdened with meaning. Every step. Every gesture. Every breath.

“I keep thinking of going up to Canada,” he says. “That might be a good place for me to end up. That or south somewhere. Up in Canada, I’d go to the oil fields. Make some money.”

“I know a place where there are no border guards,” I say. “You’d think with Homeland Security and all, the border would be secure, but there’s this place where it’s just a lonely dirt road. No sign of anyone. You just drive through. You’re on a road and all of a sudden you’re in a different country. When you think about the state of the world, it’s actually a little surreal. Or it should be. Changing countries should be more dramatic. If it’s not, what’s the point of having a different country?”

“The border’s not a problem for me,” Keith says. “I’m Blackfoot. We come and go, it’s not a problem.”

“So the border’s not there for you?”

“We were here first.”

I take a pull of my beer. “I can’t argue with that.”

“We have treaty rights.”

Whatever that means. I know nothing about Indians except a lot of them died. “Really? You don’t need to sneak around?”

Keith smiles at this. “Away from the family maybe. Old girlfriends. But not across the border.”

“The white man’s border,” I say and immediately I feel like the kid in school who tries just a bit too hard to fit in.

“We don’t really call it that,” he says. “I think that’s a Hollywood thing.” He gets up. He finishes the last of his beer. “I’m guessing that’s how you got here,” he says. “I know the place you’re talking about. How you found that dirt road is kind of weird.”

I shrug. “I have no idea,” I say.

“And then you walked here?” he says. And laughs. “Fuck, man.” He pushes his beer bottle away. And he leaves.

I return to my office and do a little more research. It’s what I do now. I want to learn about this place. This land. Rocks. Indians. History. And luxury beddings. It’s who I am here. I’m fine with it.