Something just feels right about things when you’re on a stretch of road in the middle of the desert. There’s the sweet hum from the tires rushing along the boiling pavement, radiating inside the walls of an old station wagon. Most times it could be considered a droning sound, annoying and constant. But when you’re on the run from where you’ve been, it’s the sound of sweet, sweet progress. I’d been taken with a girl earlier in the year, back when the winter winds were just a distant thought. I’d followed some bad advice from her, tried to strike out on my own, and in doing so had dropped out of college “just for a break.” Everyone’s heard the story in one form or another, and everyone knows the result. Things ended badly, crashing down with a screaming match and me having to file a restraining order. Such is the way of the world. After that I decided that the southern lifestyle wasn’t the way for me anymore. So there I was, twenty two and headed west, just like the 69ers and the pioneers and the cowboys. There I was, twenty two, full of piss and vinegar, and ready to make something out of myself.
I’d left east from home a few weeks before, scouted out Florida and the Keys, met with friends and family and saw a few things that pleased my eyes. I remember distinctly walking drunkenly down the streets in Key West, talking with the cross dressers as if they were old acquaintances, and writing a beautiful note to the waitress who happily set down beer after beer for me. I’d seen lush, green valleys filled with fog and reptiles. I’d seen the bayous and swamps and the Everglades. Wherever I went in the South, it was green and warm. The smiles implanted on people’s faces had never been touched by the harsh November winds. But after having been in that environment for two decades the charm wore off. I’d grown tired of the same old routine and the same old people. Riding on the back of a tractor every summer with the whirling tines of a hay rake not 6 feet from your tender flesh gets kind of old. And when the hardened veteran at the wheel isn’t affected by the holes and bumps in the ground, you find you get tired of almost being thrown to certain death on a daily basis. I needed a change, from the women to the mindset to the way of life. So, having saved up as much cash as I could in an old Glenfiddich can, my dog Eins and I started out west from Arkansas, her nose to the windows and my hands on the wheel.
Now, for those not in the know, after you drive through the Oklahoma panhandle, you cross into a thick section of Texas. Oklahoma’s not a bad state, with high alcohol content beer and a few tornados here and there. But Texas... Oh god is Texas the bunghole of the entire country. A collection of shitty drivers and filthy cities, it mirrors my own home state, but there seems to be an almost genetic disposition against the place. So it’s safe to say that I have a sort of grudge with the state. But I will say one thing in its favor; they make it easy as hell to leave. So I burnt through Texas at about 80, straight past Amarillo and on towards New Mexico.
As soon as I hit the border, the land began to drop. The sparse grass that covered the filthy Texan floor disappeared, replaced by sand and scrubs. The dog and I kept descending, our ears popping now and then. But to see miles and miles ahead of you, not a single curve in the road, perfectly straight lines of paint stretching into the distance, you realize just how much the earth’s horizon isn’t a flat bar supporting a skyline. It’s grandiose in its imagery. Most people think of nothing but desolation and heat and thirst. I find it pure. A place with no people. No sound of the interstate echoing through the streets. No neighbors with a drumset and insomnia which are often the only neighbors you get back home if you’re unlucky enough to live in town. Just a place where you can pull over on the side of the road, pee on a cactus, and collect your thoughts. Silence that thorough, that clean, is a hell of a commodity. If it were possible to bottle it and then market it to parents of colicky infants someone could make a hell of a lot of money off of it.
Driving alone is cathartic. Driving alone with a dog is even better. You at least have someone to talk to then, other than the ghosts of friends and family and lovers who just happen to be sitting in the seat next to you. It makes you look slightly less crazy at stop signs and red lights. You tend to replay everything in your head. Those moments where you realized you had a head resting on your chest, rising and falling with your every breath, their arms wrapped around yours, when the world was right. Those moments when you could feel the rattle in your throat as your voice lashed out towards them. The good and the bad, there’s nothing to buffer your thoughts from delving into both subjects. Anyways, you can talk a lot out with yourself (and with your dog) while you’re spending that much time in a car. It’s not as quick of a trip as I’ve let on, as by this point I’ve already stopped and camped out twice, huddled up in my sleeping bag with a 30 pound dog standing watch over me. Our first night, we stopped in Oklahoma at a KOA outpost. Cheap and effective camping spots with public showers and restrooms that are at least hosed down every couple of weeks or so. Eins had been sleeping a good portion of the way, at least in between her frantic bouncing around in the back seat, her small brown eyes drinking in every sight she could. This was her first night out away from home. No fence, no warm bed, and only a small 4’x6’ tent to accommodate her vast need of space. While not a big dog, she refused to come into my sleeping bag, even at 20 degrees. She sat there the whole night, ears perked up, keeping a vigilant watch over me. I woke up a few times at the night, not yet accustomed to having rocks jabbing me in the head while I slept, and could make out her silhouette against the canvas of the tent. She took care of me, and made sure the squirrels didn’t disturb me too much. This was the first night that I felt ok being away from an actual home. Dealing with leaving everything behind was so much easier when I brought one of the most important things with me. Having someone, anyone to talk to was a big help. 48 hours alone in your head. That’s a lot of time to spend kicking around your frustrations and your hopes for the next day on the road. Spend enough time alone, and yes, your dog will be the greatest conversationalist you will ever hope to meet. It’s a little alarming when you realize the only people you’ve spoken with in two entire days have been handing you fries and a large shake. It’s great to have that kind of time, when you’re forced to take a step back and work through every angle of a memory, of an idea. You learn a lot about yourself when there’s nobody else around to show you their assumption of your character. And when there’s nothing but harsh land around you, plants that would rip your clothes to shreds, and wildlife that would do the same to your ill equipped organs, you start to feel a little harsh towards yourself too.
And sometimes, that’s what we need. If anyone’s going to hold us accountable for who we are, it might as well be ourselves. Spending a week driving through the deserts stretching from Santa Fe to Los Angeles made me realize that at twenty two, my shit most definitely was not together. I remember distinctly driving past Santa Fe, not noticing the adobe colored city to my right until I started to descend into another sandy valley. A city of seemingly nothing but brick filled the entire hillside, running from the top of a slow slope all the way down. Across from it is quite possibly the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen. When the day begins to slow down to a crawl, the shadow of the mountain lays down over the city in a sheltering fashion. Everyone in the city has a view. And nothing has ever made me feel smaller or more insignificant. My purposes in life were nothing compared to that inevitable shadow falling down over a city thriving with brilliant minds. I realized that the destinies my young mind had hoped for perhaps weren’t in the cards for me. When you drive out west, and see towns off in the distance, no more than a huddle of huts that are broken down and abandoned, you start to realize that some things just don’t work out as they were intended. And then there’s that moment of introspection, and you start adding up all the things that haven’t worked out the way you dreamed they would as a kid, digging holes for the sake of digging holes, and poking dead creatures with a stick. I never thought as a kid I’d be running from the South, that I’d end up camping out in 10 degree weather in the desert, that I’d ever see snow fall into the Grand Canyon, or that I’d climb the walls of Death Valley in a station wagon. I’d be accomplished and graduated by this time; I was so sure of it five short years before.
So the desert did me some good. It gave me a reality check and vistas that I’ll never forget. So, 22,000 miles later I’m sitting here in a basement apartment in Ohio, rattling out these words as the mist wipes away the snow outside. The squirrels are out aggravating Eins, and I’m thinking of that desert heat and the smell of the wind as it picks up over the salt flats and races along the canyon walls. And I’ve yet to forget that things simply don’t work out the way we had hoped. But that’s not always a terrible thing. I left Arkansas with a sense of entitlement. I left thinking that trip would give me what I needed to succeed. But that long trip through the desert broke me, like a well-seasoned rancher hops on that wild stallion and breaks him. It becomes usable, respectable. It gave me all the time in the world to think, and all the scenery to put my thoughts into a better perspective. So don’t fear a little desolation, a little loneliness. Disillusionment is a hell of a thing to handle, but I’ve just come to accept it as a fact of age. And it makes those genuine moments even better. And now when I grab her leash, Eins bounces off the walls. She’s ready to go again. And that gets a genuine smile.
