A veil of enchantment still hangs over these early days of miracle and wonder; a scorching summer coast to coaster across the southern states of the United and on a collision course with the inevitable turn of a century. Freedom is in the air, wafting through your hair with the promise of good fortune; hinting numerous possibilities with every mile you cover.
Your army buddy and your very own self, a couple of shirtless, fearless vagabonds in their early twenties, are easy-riding the hapless, breathless Chevy across the great state of Arizona, covering hundreds of miles of steaming asphalt on countless byroads. To be perfectly honest, this journey ain’t half as fabulous as it may sounds, but rather lengthy, dull and sunbaked stretches of nada connecting a whole bunch of one-horse towns.
Once in a good while, you’d come across a town big enough to justify a lonesome Burger King, or at least an In-N-Out joint; the budget traveler’s best of friends. Once in a blue moon, you’d even splurge on a diner’s special, but more often than not, corned beef and turkey sandwiches are on the menu.
And then there’re these shitty little byroads, all cracked and potholed. Then again, as lousy as they may be, these byroads do save you guys much on time and fuel expenses, yet come with a dire price in wear and tear. At this rate, you seem to be going through about a tire a day, and are far from eager to pop the hood open and face whatever catastrophe might be building up inside the belly of your old war-mule of a car.
Luckily enough, cheap second hand tires are easy to come by at any of the little scrappy garages on the outskirts of these now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t kinda towns; towns you tend to sooner forget as leave behind in a cloud of dust. And so, in a mad dash across hellish deserts, you also leave behind piles of burnouts; tires worn to the rim and torn from limb; a whole lot of used tires that, much like the second hand car, are cheap enough not to become a major obstacle on this improvised campaign to make every last grain in the barn count.
This one is a particularly blistering day. All windows are rolled way down. Way up, under the cover of piratical headbands and Terminator sunglasses, lazy cigarettes are burning out at mouth corners while, for once, the radio is actually picking something up, even though it’s but a local, country music station.
Your buddy is at the wheel, doing about a hundred mph down a narrow two way byroad, howling along with a particularly yee haw sorta song, while you’re slowly drifting away on the waves of heat and dreariness. You are hardly even conscious of the overtaking of a gigantic truck, in itself doing about ninety five along this open stretch of road. Suddenly, from as far as the gates of Nod, consciousness springs right back to top level of alertness, sending all of your mental resources to their prospective battle stations, as a sudden explosion rocks the very foundations of reality.
One of your rear tires has just blown up, while the Chevy happened to be fighting for acceleration along a particular lane belonging primarily to adverse traffic, and all of that took place right in the middle of overtaking this huge truck, now completely blocking any possible form of retreat to your designated lane.
The hair on the back of your neck jumps to a panicky attention, while your buddy is struggling with the wheel; fighting to keep the car merely rocking between a hammer and a very hard place. Meanwhile, your own mental resources, now fully manning battle stations, are powerless the do much more than to take a very slow motioned stock of the thin hair this thing called life really hangs on.
Finally, with the slamming of brakes, the car sharply twirls back to the right, seconds away from slamming into a dozen tons of roaring ferocity, which continues its straight forward charge, while you end up thrown into a ditch on the side of the road.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Fortune.
For your lives were just spared by nothing more than sheer luck.
When reality shall finally kick back in, you will silently step out, change the tire, take your shaken and stirred buddy’s place at the wheel, start the Chevy, thankful there is no apparent damage, pull out of the ditch and simply drive to live another day
Live to see another turn of the great wheel.
* * *
A nostalgic veil hangs over these last few days of freedom, caught in between two calls of duty as potato quality controller up on the British isle and a blink of an eye into a brand new millennium. An idyllic summer in the Balkans is behind you, and soon you’ll be expected back on the wrong side of country roads. What remains is just enough time for closure and recompression.
Truth be told, this is an underlying feature in your design. There has always been a desire for closure, especially in regards to romantic entanglements, ‘cause it just doesn’t make much sense that a person you once loved shall later be hated. The least two people who shared such a bond should do is stay friends; work around mistakes that were made; things that shouldn’t have been said.
We’re all human, all too human, shit happens and that’s just the nature of things.
As a matter of fact, you’re on your way to her home right now, confident that closure is within reach. Enough time has passed since that one cruel remark slipped out of its Freudian basket and sank its teeth, and the venom ought to have been diluted enough by now. You’ve driven down this path hundreds of times, and automatic pilot kicks in once again, freeing your mind for one last admission of guilt and a plead for forgiveness, while the car flies across a long stretch of farmland going right through the very heart of this neighboring village. You put your faith in the healing powers of time. Sheer, clear time; time which so often washes the memory clean, rinses away the aches of the heart, leaving a pure place to allow friendship to once again blossom.
Only half aware of the sharp bend you just took at close to eighty km/h, your mind quickly drifts back into the drafting of a closing argument, to hopefully be given in much more courteous circumstances this time around, and with a much better chance of acquittal. A whole year has gone by since that hellish fury, and the fair lady must be about ready to relinquish her scorn.
Later that dark and windy autumn night, you’re driving back the way you came; driving back from her house; away from what was, by all appearances, a peaceful tribune. Nevertheless, the peace pipe appeared to have been only half-full at best, and forgiveness seemed to have been given only half-heartedly. Deep down inside, you know you don’t deserve much more than that, yet there’s no harm in trying. You semi-automatically shift through the gears, in the very same way you are going through the notions. You were a bastard and are paying the price. Even deeper, downer inside, you also know that you still are a bastard, but have at least tried to do right.
The car cruises down that long stretch of farmland, as guilt is introduced into the emotional cocktail. Detachment follows, forever guarding the fragile ego, leaving an ominous question mark where certainty once stood. Detachment, however, is a remedy best serve cold, for it insolates body and mind from a burning heart, allowing the show to go on, while the flames subside of their own accord.
“Win some lose some, sonny,” you reckon. “That’s just life.”
Nevertheless, detachment, like all remedies, can also have serious side effects.
Thus, detached, you find yourself most curious as to how come there’s a sharp bend in the road coming at you at such high velocity, but knowing all too well what it did to the cat, you let curiosity slide and focus on the clearer and more present problem at hand. Luckily enough, you come prepared for just this kind of unlucky eventuality by a dozen or so years of experience in similar situations, involving a reckless driver, a vehicle flying at high velocity and a hard place, coming at you at identical, if not even greater, speed. Unfortunately, all that experience has to offer is a short prayer and an invitation to sit back and enjoy the ride. The seat is, after all, the best in the house.
A split second’s judgment sees no way of avoiding a full on collusion with whatever lurks ahead in the dark, beyond the wide ditch now closing in on you at incredible speed. If you’ll hit the brakes too hard, the car will be thrown against one of the houses on both sides of the road; if you’ll attempt taking the curve without hitting the brakes, the car will be thrown even harder. The only way is to try and reduce velocity as much as precious time shall allow, hold on tight and hope for the best.
Cool as a cucumber about to turn into tzatziki, you pump the brakes and take full advantage of the second or so remaining before eminent collusion. You quickly come to terms with the way things are, take a long look at your journey so far, cheer up some and even manage a grin.
“Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke after all,” is the final thought going through your mind. “And this last joke sure seems to be on me.”
And with that, you fly off the road, no longer aware of how fast you are going, blast through a most unfortunate bush, soar across the ditch and slam, headlights on, into a tree thick enough to bring the whole thing to an abrupt end.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Fate.
For your life must have been spared by something other than sheer coincidence.
What saved your life were seatbelt and airbags, plain and simple.
Once you’ll eject yourself from their grip and stumble out of the totally wrecked and fuming car, with but a couple of burns to skin surface, you’ll step out of that bush, light a smoke with a trembling hand, stare at the void for a while, then call in the cavalry.
In the end, you get picked you up and taken to a safe house.
The car is towed for scraps on the next day.
She never talks to you again.
* * *
It’s the earliest days of roaming the southern of the American continents, sliding anticlockwise from country to country, until you finally end up in Ecuador. Independence drives you onwards, forever craving the premise of strange new worlds; as ever fearful of being reined in by anyone or anything.
Together with your travel companion, you’ve been riding this piece-of-shit Jeep from hell for nearly half a year by now; across thousands of kilometers of the Pan-American Highway; through dozens of scabby little garages and countless repairs, and “enough,” as he himself put it, “is more than enough.” He wants out, and you can’t blame him. Then again, there’s this stubbornness in the core of your being that refuses to admit defeat, and manages to convince the rest of you that you’re capable of fixing this noble savage of a Jeep once and for all. For that reason, you’ve succumbed to peddling only his part of the Jeep to other clueless travelers of your choice upon arrival in Quito, yet still hold on to your share.
Nevertheless, you’ll cross that bridge when you’ll get to it. Right now, you prefer to turn your attention to this fabulous bridge you’re crossing at the present moment; a stone bridge soaring over a seemingly bottomless ravine, which must be a thrilling platform for bungee jumping if there ever was one.
This so-called Pan-American Highway is nothing but patches of asphalt scattered between plentiful potholes and cracks as deep as this here ravine, but it at least gets you places. This last stretch from Otovalo; this charming little textile market town up north, has been nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful, with water gracefully cascading down dramatic cliffs, covered in an evergreen forest that remains largely untouched.
Once past the bridge, you begin to climb up a curvy road, going along a steep mountainside and following a bunch of tired looking camions. These freakishly multicolored monstrosities must have seen more layers of paint than Michel Jackson, and are so overladen that a snail wouldn’t hitch a ride with any of them.
Life around these parts also seems to move along in a well measured pace. Local folks, commonly dressed in traditional, alpaca wool based textile, seem largely unspoiled by the cultural epidemic of modern age known as Haste. They seem genuinely sweet, and you would gladly get yourself a local girlfriend, if not for the fact that they all look exactly the same. I mean, just imagine losing such a girlfriend in a crowd.
All and all, though, Ecuador is your kind of country.
Sooner rather than later, you run out of patience and are no longer able to cope with the traffic crawling up this mountainside the way it does.
Guess you’re as infected with haste as anyone.
You take a sneak pick beyond the caravan of camions weighing you down, see that the other lane is clear all the way to the bend, swerve the steering wheel and hit the gas. The Jeep accelerates well at first, but once you’re already cruising past the first of your behemoth nemeses, it starts throwing tantrums and refuses to embrace the next gear. By that time, you’re well into overtaking the second camion, and would have easily made it past the third and last one, if not for a forth camion, which unfortunately has just appeared from around the bend, galloping towards you with all the vitality that going downhill gives even the most outworn of engines.
“Mother………” you scream at the top of your lungs.
Your heart starts racing, pumping your body full of adrenaline, and you’re ready to flee or fight. Only thing is, there’s no one to fight and nowhere to flee. You’ve got a whole caravan of camions on one side, a solid rock wall on the other, a charging bull coming at you with a vengeance and a companion, frozen in mute terror by your side. Without thinking, you pump on the brakes and buy yourself a few split seconds. From the corner of your eye, a sharpened sense of sight catches an opening; a semi-safe haven of a shoulder against the mountainside that’ll barely fit a scooter. Nevertheless, with the charging camion upon you, you violently swerve to the left on sheer instinct.
“…fucker!!!” still echoes screamingly somewhere inside the belly of the Jeep, as it skids over the gravel, seconds away from being stampeded by ten tons of roaring ferocity. Throwing in the deafening sound of its horn for good measure, it misses the Jeep by a chicken’s wingspread, while the later winds up slamming into a massive boulder on the side of the road.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Prayer.
Only when the prayers end can the two of you breathe again.
When reality shall finally kick back in, you shall silently step out, crack the hood open and make sure ventilator and radiator haven’t bonded again, grateful for having gained some mechanical skill and that a Jeep can take such a blow and still come out smiling.
Your companion shall then take your place at the wheel, pull back onto the road and commence driving the rest of the way to Quito in utter silence; in silent eulogy and a somewhat more cautious manner than he usually drives.
There’s a lot to be said for staying alive.
To be continued...
Your army buddy and your very own self, a couple of shirtless, fearless vagabonds in their early twenties, are easy-riding the hapless, breathless Chevy across the great state of Arizona, covering hundreds of miles of steaming asphalt on countless byroads. To be perfectly honest, this journey ain’t half as fabulous as it may sounds, but rather lengthy, dull and sunbaked stretches of nada connecting a whole bunch of one-horse towns.
Once in a good while, you’d come across a town big enough to justify a lonesome Burger King, or at least an In-N-Out joint; the budget traveler’s best of friends. Once in a blue moon, you’d even splurge on a diner’s special, but more often than not, corned beef and turkey sandwiches are on the menu.
And then there’re these shitty little byroads, all cracked and potholed. Then again, as lousy as they may be, these byroads do save you guys much on time and fuel expenses, yet come with a dire price in wear and tear. At this rate, you seem to be going through about a tire a day, and are far from eager to pop the hood open and face whatever catastrophe might be building up inside the belly of your old war-mule of a car.
Luckily enough, cheap second hand tires are easy to come by at any of the little scrappy garages on the outskirts of these now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t kinda towns; towns you tend to sooner forget as leave behind in a cloud of dust. And so, in a mad dash across hellish deserts, you also leave behind piles of burnouts; tires worn to the rim and torn from limb; a whole lot of used tires that, much like the second hand car, are cheap enough not to become a major obstacle on this improvised campaign to make every last grain in the barn count.
This one is a particularly blistering day. All windows are rolled way down. Way up, under the cover of piratical headbands and Terminator sunglasses, lazy cigarettes are burning out at mouth corners while, for once, the radio is actually picking something up, even though it’s but a local, country music station.
Your buddy is at the wheel, doing about a hundred mph down a narrow two way byroad, howling along with a particularly yee haw sorta song, while you’re slowly drifting away on the waves of heat and dreariness. You are hardly even conscious of the overtaking of a gigantic truck, in itself doing about ninety five along this open stretch of road. Suddenly, from as far as the gates of Nod, consciousness springs right back to top level of alertness, sending all of your mental resources to their prospective battle stations, as a sudden explosion rocks the very foundations of reality.
One of your rear tires has just blown up, while the Chevy happened to be fighting for acceleration along a particular lane belonging primarily to adverse traffic, and all of that took place right in the middle of overtaking this huge truck, now completely blocking any possible form of retreat to your designated lane.
The hair on the back of your neck jumps to a panicky attention, while your buddy is struggling with the wheel; fighting to keep the car merely rocking between a hammer and a very hard place. Meanwhile, your own mental resources, now fully manning battle stations, are powerless the do much more than to take a very slow motioned stock of the thin hair this thing called life really hangs on.
Finally, with the slamming of brakes, the car sharply twirls back to the right, seconds away from slamming into a dozen tons of roaring ferocity, which continues its straight forward charge, while you end up thrown into a ditch on the side of the road.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Fortune.
For your lives were just spared by nothing more than sheer luck.
When reality shall finally kick back in, you will silently step out, change the tire, take your shaken and stirred buddy’s place at the wheel, start the Chevy, thankful there is no apparent damage, pull out of the ditch and simply drive to live another day
Live to see another turn of the great wheel.
* * *
A nostalgic veil hangs over these last few days of freedom, caught in between two calls of duty as potato quality controller up on the British isle and a blink of an eye into a brand new millennium. An idyllic summer in the Balkans is behind you, and soon you’ll be expected back on the wrong side of country roads. What remains is just enough time for closure and recompression.
Truth be told, this is an underlying feature in your design. There has always been a desire for closure, especially in regards to romantic entanglements, ‘cause it just doesn’t make much sense that a person you once loved shall later be hated. The least two people who shared such a bond should do is stay friends; work around mistakes that were made; things that shouldn’t have been said.
We’re all human, all too human, shit happens and that’s just the nature of things.
As a matter of fact, you’re on your way to her home right now, confident that closure is within reach. Enough time has passed since that one cruel remark slipped out of its Freudian basket and sank its teeth, and the venom ought to have been diluted enough by now. You’ve driven down this path hundreds of times, and automatic pilot kicks in once again, freeing your mind for one last admission of guilt and a plead for forgiveness, while the car flies across a long stretch of farmland going right through the very heart of this neighboring village. You put your faith in the healing powers of time. Sheer, clear time; time which so often washes the memory clean, rinses away the aches of the heart, leaving a pure place to allow friendship to once again blossom.
Only half aware of the sharp bend you just took at close to eighty km/h, your mind quickly drifts back into the drafting of a closing argument, to hopefully be given in much more courteous circumstances this time around, and with a much better chance of acquittal. A whole year has gone by since that hellish fury, and the fair lady must be about ready to relinquish her scorn.
Later that dark and windy autumn night, you’re driving back the way you came; driving back from her house; away from what was, by all appearances, a peaceful tribune. Nevertheless, the peace pipe appeared to have been only half-full at best, and forgiveness seemed to have been given only half-heartedly. Deep down inside, you know you don’t deserve much more than that, yet there’s no harm in trying. You semi-automatically shift through the gears, in the very same way you are going through the notions. You were a bastard and are paying the price. Even deeper, downer inside, you also know that you still are a bastard, but have at least tried to do right.
The car cruises down that long stretch of farmland, as guilt is introduced into the emotional cocktail. Detachment follows, forever guarding the fragile ego, leaving an ominous question mark where certainty once stood. Detachment, however, is a remedy best serve cold, for it insolates body and mind from a burning heart, allowing the show to go on, while the flames subside of their own accord.
“Win some lose some, sonny,” you reckon. “That’s just life.”
Nevertheless, detachment, like all remedies, can also have serious side effects.
Thus, detached, you find yourself most curious as to how come there’s a sharp bend in the road coming at you at such high velocity, but knowing all too well what it did to the cat, you let curiosity slide and focus on the clearer and more present problem at hand. Luckily enough, you come prepared for just this kind of unlucky eventuality by a dozen or so years of experience in similar situations, involving a reckless driver, a vehicle flying at high velocity and a hard place, coming at you at identical, if not even greater, speed. Unfortunately, all that experience has to offer is a short prayer and an invitation to sit back and enjoy the ride. The seat is, after all, the best in the house.
A split second’s judgment sees no way of avoiding a full on collusion with whatever lurks ahead in the dark, beyond the wide ditch now closing in on you at incredible speed. If you’ll hit the brakes too hard, the car will be thrown against one of the houses on both sides of the road; if you’ll attempt taking the curve without hitting the brakes, the car will be thrown even harder. The only way is to try and reduce velocity as much as precious time shall allow, hold on tight and hope for the best.
Cool as a cucumber about to turn into tzatziki, you pump the brakes and take full advantage of the second or so remaining before eminent collusion. You quickly come to terms with the way things are, take a long look at your journey so far, cheer up some and even manage a grin.
“Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke after all,” is the final thought going through your mind. “And this last joke sure seems to be on me.”
And with that, you fly off the road, no longer aware of how fast you are going, blast through a most unfortunate bush, soar across the ditch and slam, headlights on, into a tree thick enough to bring the whole thing to an abrupt end.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Fate.
For your life must have been spared by something other than sheer coincidence.
What saved your life were seatbelt and airbags, plain and simple.
Once you’ll eject yourself from their grip and stumble out of the totally wrecked and fuming car, with but a couple of burns to skin surface, you’ll step out of that bush, light a smoke with a trembling hand, stare at the void for a while, then call in the cavalry.
In the end, you get picked you up and taken to a safe house.
The car is towed for scraps on the next day.
She never talks to you again.
* * *
It’s the earliest days of roaming the southern of the American continents, sliding anticlockwise from country to country, until you finally end up in Ecuador. Independence drives you onwards, forever craving the premise of strange new worlds; as ever fearful of being reined in by anyone or anything.
Together with your travel companion, you’ve been riding this piece-of-shit Jeep from hell for nearly half a year by now; across thousands of kilometers of the Pan-American Highway; through dozens of scabby little garages and countless repairs, and “enough,” as he himself put it, “is more than enough.” He wants out, and you can’t blame him. Then again, there’s this stubbornness in the core of your being that refuses to admit defeat, and manages to convince the rest of you that you’re capable of fixing this noble savage of a Jeep once and for all. For that reason, you’ve succumbed to peddling only his part of the Jeep to other clueless travelers of your choice upon arrival in Quito, yet still hold on to your share.
Nevertheless, you’ll cross that bridge when you’ll get to it. Right now, you prefer to turn your attention to this fabulous bridge you’re crossing at the present moment; a stone bridge soaring over a seemingly bottomless ravine, which must be a thrilling platform for bungee jumping if there ever was one.
This so-called Pan-American Highway is nothing but patches of asphalt scattered between plentiful potholes and cracks as deep as this here ravine, but it at least gets you places. This last stretch from Otovalo; this charming little textile market town up north, has been nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful, with water gracefully cascading down dramatic cliffs, covered in an evergreen forest that remains largely untouched.
Once past the bridge, you begin to climb up a curvy road, going along a steep mountainside and following a bunch of tired looking camions. These freakishly multicolored monstrosities must have seen more layers of paint than Michel Jackson, and are so overladen that a snail wouldn’t hitch a ride with any of them.
Life around these parts also seems to move along in a well measured pace. Local folks, commonly dressed in traditional, alpaca wool based textile, seem largely unspoiled by the cultural epidemic of modern age known as Haste. They seem genuinely sweet, and you would gladly get yourself a local girlfriend, if not for the fact that they all look exactly the same. I mean, just imagine losing such a girlfriend in a crowd.
All and all, though, Ecuador is your kind of country.
Sooner rather than later, you run out of patience and are no longer able to cope with the traffic crawling up this mountainside the way it does.
Guess you’re as infected with haste as anyone.
You take a sneak pick beyond the caravan of camions weighing you down, see that the other lane is clear all the way to the bend, swerve the steering wheel and hit the gas. The Jeep accelerates well at first, but once you’re already cruising past the first of your behemoth nemeses, it starts throwing tantrums and refuses to embrace the next gear. By that time, you’re well into overtaking the second camion, and would have easily made it past the third and last one, if not for a forth camion, which unfortunately has just appeared from around the bend, galloping towards you with all the vitality that going downhill gives even the most outworn of engines.
“Mother………” you scream at the top of your lungs.
Your heart starts racing, pumping your body full of adrenaline, and you’re ready to flee or fight. Only thing is, there’s no one to fight and nowhere to flee. You’ve got a whole caravan of camions on one side, a solid rock wall on the other, a charging bull coming at you with a vengeance and a companion, frozen in mute terror by your side. Without thinking, you pump on the brakes and buy yourself a few split seconds. From the corner of your eye, a sharpened sense of sight catches an opening; a semi-safe haven of a shoulder against the mountainside that’ll barely fit a scooter. Nevertheless, with the charging camion upon you, you violently swerve to the left on sheer instinct.
“…fucker!!!” still echoes screamingly somewhere inside the belly of the Jeep, as it skids over the gravel, seconds away from being stampeded by ten tons of roaring ferocity. Throwing in the deafening sound of its horn for good measure, it misses the Jeep by a chicken’s wingspread, while the later winds up slamming into a massive boulder on the side of the road.
For a timeless interval, reality freezes and all becomes as silent as Prayer.
Only when the prayers end can the two of you breathe again.
When reality shall finally kick back in, you shall silently step out, crack the hood open and make sure ventilator and radiator haven’t bonded again, grateful for having gained some mechanical skill and that a Jeep can take such a blow and still come out smiling.
Your companion shall then take your place at the wheel, pull back onto the road and commence driving the rest of the way to Quito in utter silence; in silent eulogy and a somewhat more cautious manner than he usually drives.
There’s a lot to be said for staying alive.
To be continued...