Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey (5 page)

When I checked the truck back in, I sat around and chatted with the grandma while her daughter went through all the ice cream in the truck to see how much we had sold. We talked about where I’d been so far, and where I was thinking about heading. She gave me some advice on places I should check out along the way, like the town in Montana where the Unabomber lived. When her daughter came back inside the house, she pulled up an Excel spreadsheet on her computer and started listing off what I had sold, handing me cash. I assumed I would be scheduled to work the following day since I had agreed to work the entire weekend, but she told me that wasn’t necessary and wished me luck on my travels. I thanked them all and left.

The amount that I made, on 30 percent commission, for a full nine hours of work was a whopping $10.50. Since I had paid $19 for gas, what I really made was a negative $8.50. I wondered how the other ice cream truck drivers made a living.

At the end of the workday I was mentally, physically, and psychologically exhausted. Back at the house, Pete’s wife had a steak dinner prepared for us. We stopped by the liquor store to pick up a couple bottles of wine with the money we had made that day, all negative $8.50 of it. We picked up four bottles of their cheapest. The four bottles of wine put us at a negative $36.

The steak was delicious.

Chapter Five

Changing Atmospheric Conditions

“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.”

PAUL THEROUX

S
hortly after crossing the Utah-Wyoming state border, I pulled off the freeway. I hung out a few hours, wandering aimlessly. I got back onto the freeway, then off again. Hung out. Back onto the freeway, off again. Gas station, diner, a motel or two, a couple chain fast food joints, maybe a Walmart, and residential houses with locked front doors, their inhabitants suspiciously closing their blinds as you walk past. That’s it. Then back onto the freeway, drive for a bit. Repeat. This went on and on, each time feeling more uncomfortable than the last.

It then hit me: I was totally fucked. This path that I was now on scared the hell out of me. It was just me and I-80, but I feared this might be the climax of my trip. I felt like I was stuck in some unreasonably long, drawn-out indie film, no plot whatsoever, and nobody could find the remote to change the channel. I was the main character, stuck living in this film.

So far the rising action, leading up to this potential climax, had been quite dull. That’s my conflict.
Nickel-and-Dimed in Salt Lake City?
Let’s see, since then, I’d played a game of bingo at a VFW hall, driven a lot, and witnessed the groundbreaking of a new library in Lyman, Wyoming, “A Great Place to Grow.” Three feet of gas station hot dog and dozens of energy drink containers later, I stopped in for some shitty Chinese. My fortune cookie read:

One of the first things you should look for in a problem is its positive side.

I angrily left no tip. Basically, what I needed to figure out was a way for me to hurry the fuck up and get to the climax, wherever and whatever the hell that is, then hurry up and get to the
falling
action part, “during which the tension is palpably eased; and then finally
the resolution
, or ending.”

You have to keep all this in mind while driving across the country working on a book for a big-name publisher out in New York City with in-house lawyers who would love to do their job and come after you for that book advance money that they kindly gave you in good faith . . . which you’ve now pretty much blown on booze. The thought of all this was making me want to drink, a lot. It also made me want to disappear, permanently. All this to say I felt like a man on the run, which maybe I’d pretend was the case, for now.

I was noticing a new sound coming from my engine, much like air being funneled through a plastic straw. I tried to not think too hard about that as I made my way to Green River, Wyoming.

S
lowly rolling into the gravel parking lot of a motel, I noticed that all the other vehicles were pickups, nearly all with blue-and-white Michigan plates.

The lady working the front desk looked straight out of a David Lynch movie. I requested to stay one night, and she told me that most of the folks who stayed there do so for a lot longer, a week, several weeks, sometimes months. She mentioned she had several who had been living there for nearly six months: “They come here from out of state to work.” With my wheels now spinning, I thanked her for the information. Dropping my shit off in my room, I made my way over to the bar I’d noticed by the train depot.

Discovering that I was a war veteran, a guy my age wearing a cowboy hat, Wranglers, and a huge belt buckle the size of a dinner plate kindly introduced himself as a “redneck from the sticks,” and thanked me for my service. He bought me a beer and started, “I don’t want to offend you, or anything like that, but can I ask you a question?” He hemmed and hawed, and given past experience, I thought I knew exactly what he was going to ask.
Why in the world did you join the military?
Shortly followed by his personal opinions on the war, all along the lines of how we should have never invaded Iraq, the war was wrong, I support the troops but not the war, etc. Especially by those who say, “Well, I’m glad you’re back,” which is always said with a subtle implication of being against the war, as if the gas-powered vehicles that they’re driving all have a “Bring the troops home now!” bumper sticker placed on the back of them, which they’re not telling you about. I’ve heard it all a million times over. Instead, the complete opposite happened. He asked me, “Why’d you come back?”

I just stared at him blankly, not knowing how to answer that one.

“I’m serious, why’d you come back?”

While I struggled to think how to answer, an intoxicated female stumbled over, eyeballing his cowboy hat. She took his hat off, exposing his bald head, and jovially told him that she liked his hat, a lot, and wanted to wear it. Irritated by the interruption, he politely agreed, getting up from his bar stool, telling me he’d be right back. A couple minutes later, he returned, wearing a mesh camouflage hunting cap, and picked up where we left off.

He explained to me that there are no jobs anymore in this country, and at least over there, I had the opportunity to make some pretty good money. He said he had looked into driving a truck in Iraq, and had been serious about it, but at the last minute he chose not to, as he felt it’d be too dangerous. He said he didn’t want to go over there unless he could bring his firearm with him; as a contractor, he could not do so legally.

“The Armed Forces provide firearms,” I told him. I caught him off-guard when I asked why he hadn’t simply enlisted in the military. I told him I was sure he could have driven a truck for them, no problem. It was as though that thought had never occurred to him. He stuttered, dumbfounded, unable to explain why he hadn’t joined up.

After a few more beers, he changed the topic by asking whether or not I knew what a jackalope was. When I told him that I didn’t know this creature, forgetting for a minute that I’m not at home, I expected him to pull out his iPhone and update his Facebook status with something like, “At a bar next to another dumb Californian who doesn’t know what a jackalope is. LMFAO.” Instead, he kindly informed me that jackalopes are the result of bored antelopes. “They fuck jackrabbits.” Since I told him that I was driving through Wyoming on I-80, he asked me whether I had seen the wooden things on the side of the freeway on my way into town. I told him I had, and that I had wondered what they were. He told me that they’re there to break up the wind during snow season. “People from the West Coast and East Coast are stupid,” he told me, which is what some people from both coasts think of Middle Americans. For fear of being escorted out, I keep my mouth shut on that one. He goes on, “When they come here, if you tell them that those things are bleachers to watch the jackalopes, they’ll believe it! They’re stupid. People here, they remember your name. You watch the news, no one gives a fuck about Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. You only hear about those states when they get to the weather report, that’s it. ‘Oh, it was windy today in Wyoming.’ ”

With my car windows fully rolled down, I felt a liberating breeze as I left Green River. By the time I got to Cheyenne, Wyoming, I was just as lost as when I began.

Chapter Six

Down and Out in Cheyenne

“Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.”

COCO CHANEL

O
ne of those bronze plaques greeted me by the main entrance, declaring that the building was a registered historic landmark. Behind the concierge desk hung an oil painting of a Native American. He looked proud as I walked across the marble lobby floor, toward the front desk, passing a well-dressed couple rolling their airport luggage along. I was quickly getting the impression that I was walking into Cheyenne’s version of the Waldorf-Astoria, which made me want to step into character, adapt to my surroundings. Head up, as if I’d just left my keys with the valet, I radiated importance; the spotlight was on me. I belonged here, I possessed a confidence others envy. No one here needed to know I’m just some unemployed drifter, with a limited vocabulary, driving across America in an old, beat-up car in search of a plot.

I figured a nice hotel in a small town ought to be as much as a mid- to low-range hotel in a big city; that was my logic, anyway. I approached the front desk, where I asked the lady on the other side—well dressed, hair pulled back—how much it’d cost me for a night in their swanky establishment. She told me it’d be $120 for the night. I immediately forgot I was in character and asked for a discounted rate. She apologized, telling me that wouldn’t be possible. I gasped, and quickly told her thank you. I debated for a second whether or not I should inquire as to where the closest Barneys New York is located, but decided not to be an asshole. As I headed toward the door, setting my sights on the Motel 8 I’d noticed getting off the freeway, she quickly pitched me on the surrounding location and its several restaurants, one of which apparently served the best steaks in all of Wyoming. She told me that this hotel was located in historic downtown Cheyenne, which didn’t impress me at all—so far, all historic meant was a bunch of old buildings with For Lease signs posted on them. My eyes remained at half-mast. Working hard now, she quickly typed some stuff into her computer, telling me that they did have some rooms available that evening, and if I wanted to, I could have one at a discounted rate of only $70. I debated this for a minute. Seventy dollars a night is still way over budget, but my logic kicked in, and I rationalized that it might be the equivalent of a $700-a-night hotel in New York City.

All along I-80 the going rate at a seedy roadside motel had seemed to be in the vicinity of $35–$45, plus tax. It would be nice to pay not that much more for a night where I didn’t have to wake up itching with bedbug bites, or worry about bedsheets with old cum stains. It would be nice to have a warm shower that worked. I didn’t want to be impulsive, so I told her thanks, but I’d think about it while I took a walk around the neighborhood, see what else was here. If I decided to stay, I’d be back in a bit.

H
ead down, I made my way back to the parking garage, wondering what I should do next. Should I stick around, or keep on driving? A block away, I come across a doormat advertising a hotel.

I stop and look up, seeing one of those red, white, and blue “Support Local Business” stickers by the door handle; it looks like somebody has attempted to peel it off, failing. Below it is another sticker stating that the building is a smoke-free environment.

There was absolutely nobody around, no foot traffic, no cars driving by or even parked on the street. The building looked vacant, deserted, like all the others I had passed. When I put my hand on the door, I was surprised that it actually opened. An old wooden staircase, lined on both sides with mirrors, led up to the hotel lobby. At the top of the stairs, I could see a mounted deer head poking out from behind the registration desk. The suspense—What could possibly lie ahead?—was killing me. I began the climb up, each step creaking, almost deafening in the silence. I looked over to my left and saw my reflection staring back from a shattered mirror. I noticed that I had put on a couple pounds since the start of this trip, at least five, and I debated whether this was healthy weight or whether I needed to go on a diet. The place had a smell somewhere in the range of an old bookstore located in a condemned building. Once I had made it to the top of the stairs, I saw a note hung below a small American flag: “Back in 15 minutes.”

I could now hear a loud commotion echoing from one of the rooms down the hallway, like an out-of-control party. A voice behind me asked, “You needin’ a room?” Stunned, though the voice had a tone of kindness, I quickly turned around to see standing before me, wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, a kind fellow with a mustache. He was so skinny, it looked as though walking was a true effort. I told the guy yes, I was, and he reached out his hand to shake. I gave him a firm shake, fearful I might do him harm. He guided me to the manager’s room, which also had a note stuck to the door stating “Back in 15 minutes.” He turned around and, looking back at me, motioned for me to follow him. “Come on down to my cell, I’ll let you hang out down there till she comes back.” So I followed him down the hall, over to Room 136, the source of all the noise echoing up and down the hallway. On the way, he told me that a handful of other residents were also hanging out, waiting for the manager to show up. When he opened the door to Room 136, the tiny room, the size of a janitor’s office, was filled with the fog of tobacco. I said hello to everyone, five others completely wasted on Schlitz, the room littered with empty aluminum cans of similar quality. I was handed an empty to ash in, and a guy wearing a “Hooters, Fort Lauderdale” T-shirt offered me his chair in the corner. I thanked him and as I took the seat, was asked if I’d like a shot. Quickly handed a plastic bottle of cheap vodka I took a swig. As the gang began to introduce themselves, I was handed a Schlitz. I was thinking I might inquire about weekly rates.

I have a fear of other people, and I need to not project that fear when I enter a room filled with strangers, since people can pick up on it. I reminded myself to be friendly, outgoing, positive.

“Hey, how’s it going? My name’s Colby.”

Some nodded, others said hello and stuck out their hands for a shake. I began sizing them up, speculating on their career choices. Truck drivers?

“Coleman? Nice to meet you. You want another shot?”

Sure. We passed the plastic vodka bottle around the room for another round, and I tried not to think of the possibility of contracting some nasty incurable disease transmitted via saliva. I was feeling a bit proud of myself for making the effort to turn over a new leaf, be more sociable, all those annoying qualities I somewhat dislike in others.

The bottle made four or five laps around the room, me turning it down that last trip. “Pussy!” exclaimed Hooters guy, next to me. I changed my mind and took one last shot. He cheered.

The guy with the southern accent then asked, “Where you from, brother?”

Depending upon my geographic location, answering this question could, in some situations, get me killed. I knew that, and heart skipping a beat, I decided to go ahead and tell them the truth.

“California.”

I knew full well that answer wasn’t going to be good enough; I could have sworn I heard one of them exclaim, “Strike one!” They wanted specifics. The guy in the opposite corner, leaning up against the wall, barely able to stand, raised an eyebrow, heavily observing me.

As I walk through the shadow of the valley of death . . . fuck it, just tell them. No one lives forever.

“San Francisco.”

The guy holding himself up in the corner released an “Ewww”; another looked equally disgusted, as though he’d discovered his beer can was in fact actually filled with piss.

“San Francisco?” Skinny asked, “Whereabouts?”

So far, I’m liking him the most. When I mentioned I lived in the Tenderloin district, I was shocked to find that a couple of them knew exactly where that was, and had lived there themselves.

One of them went on to tell a story. “I drive a truck, and one time I was there getting fucked up. I hired a couple Mexicans, and we went down there. One guy was like, take a walk with me, and I was like, goddamn, man, fuck that.”

He was wasted, moving from one thought to another. “I say I’ma buy me some, how much a hundred dollar get me, buy what you want, you know? So I buy me an eight-ball for a hundred dollars, you know, and I got me fffuuuccckkkkeeeddd uuuppp!!! This was in ninety-fucking-eight. I was in Idaho, and I bought that rig. I, um, go to the massage parlor, and then get me two hookers out of them yellow pages over there, snorted all that shit and got me laid up there in the motel for three days and flew back to Idaho and told them to fuck themselves and gave ’em the truck right there.”

He then went into talking about his ex-wife. “She got all my fucking furniture and my car, you know. She wanted half! And I want half of what’s mine, right, you know, I work my ass off for all that mutha-fucking stuff. That goddamn living room set cost six fucking thousand dollars man, that shit ain’t cheap. Ethan Allen mutha-fucking shit! You know, I paid six hundred fucking dollars for a damn end table! It’s killing me, man, I want my mutha-fuckin’ shit, man.”

When I told them how I was going to head down to the day labor place the following morning to find work, they all knew exactly where that was, and a couple of them told me they were banned from there for life.

Not only were they all drinking the cheapest alcohol money could buy, but I noticed that they were all smoking the cheapest generic-brand cigarettes, too, one right after another, straight out of soft packs, lighting up with free matches. I smoke Marlboro Lights. For fear of appearing too bourgeois, I decided to keep my pack in my pocket; I didn’t want to offend my new friends. Instead, I offered one of them fifty cents for a smoke. He handed me one, turning down the two quarters I offered. I thanked him and I pulled out my lighter, ashing in my empty Schlitz can.

E
ventually I felt I was on the way to drunk, so I excused myself by saying that I was going to check to see if the manager was back. She wasn’t, but her husband, Joe, was. He looked like a Joe. He wore an old sun-faded American-flag do-rag, and told me that they did have a room available—cash only—and if I wanted to take a look at it, I could.

Now that I had a room, I needed my own liquor to go with it. Joe gave me directions to a store nearby, around the corner and down the street. As I was leaving the building, I noticed that there was now a police officer looming in the very same hallway where I had just been. Instead of sticking around to find out what that was all about, I quickly exited back down the wooden stairs. Once outside, a slight buzz on, I came across a used bookstore, which had a sign on its front door advertising a sale on all Western paperbacks.

The owner of the shop welcomed me in, telling me that he had purchased the place a couple years ago. I asked if he had a copy of
On the Road.
He guided me to the literature section, telling me that he probably didn’t have a copy right now, that it’s really popular with high school readers—when he gets a used copy, it doesn’t last too long on his shelves. The only related books he did have were a couple biographies on Kerouac, and a vintage paperback edition of
Maggie Cassidy.
Since he went through so many copies of
On the Road
, I asked him if he knew about Cheyenne’s connection with the book. He wasn’t aware of any folklore or anything like that, though he told me with a smile that he did remember Kerouac doesn’t speak too highly of Cheyenne.

I told him I was traveling across the country and when I mentioned the hotel around the corner, he shook his head, disgusted. “I would never . . . send anyone over there.”

He went on to tell me he knew exactly what everybody who stays at the hotel drank because all they did all day was walk past his bookstore, back and forth to the liquor store a block away; I made a mental note to find an alternate return route after my own walk to buy liquor.

“People die there all the time.” Not too long ago, he told me, three residents passed away in one month. “People who stay there are on their way out.”

Did this mean I was on my way out? I decided to go ahead and make it a bit awkward, telling him that I was actually staying there. He changed it over to a story about a sixty-something-year-old resident living there who pretty much stayed in his room all day long, a bit of a loner, but every morning, like clockwork, the guy stopped by his bookstore and left him a copy of yesterday’s newspaper. If the shop owner was not there, or if the shop was closed, he’d leave the paper on the doorstep. He’d apparently been doing that for years. He told me that if Obama’s face was on the front page, which was quite often, this guy would always draw glasses and a mustache on him.

They had a bunch of music downstairs, so I went down to check out their vinyl LPs. While I was flipping through them, a guy came down to ask me if I was the guy asking about Kerouac earlier.

He looked like a construction worker—mesh hat, worn blue jeans, sleeves removed from his shirt, a rolled-up newspaper sticking out of his back pocket along with a pair of construction gloves. He started off by telling me, “I’m a first-edition kind of guy myself, I like to collect me them first editions. I even got me an
On the Road
first edition.” We talked about Kerouac and
On the Road
for well over an hour. Afterward, I purchase a few Steinbeck hardcovers, some of them first editions:
The Wayward Bus
,
The Moon Is Down
, and
The Winter of Our Discontent.

I ran into the Kerouac fan again outside the bookstore, on my way over to the liquor store. As I walked away, his last words for me were, “Yep, once upon a time he was here.”

S
ince there was no fridge in my room, I had picked up half a dozen bottles of cheap wine. The manager was now back. “Sorry, I was at Curves,” she said. I handed her the $120, in cash, for the week-long rental. She handed me a door key, as well as a complimentary roll of toilet paper—the first one free, every roll after would cost me fifty cents. I thanked her, not bothering to ask if they had a Wi-Fi connection, wondering whether I’d even be able to find a bar in Cheyenne with this amenity. I got to my room: flat red carpet, a bit dirty, but whatever. I turned on the plastic Daewoo television set, seeing that the person who lived here before me had left it set to CNN; I left it that way and cracked open a bottle of my wine. The room came with an empty metal soup can to be used as an ashtray. I sat there in a chair Goodwill probably wouldn’t even accept as a donation, smoking my cigarette. I thought about the smoke-free-environment sticker I had seen on the front door as I ashed on the carpet. Between commercials for insurance policies and something called “pajama jeans,” I watched Anderson Cooper tell me how bad the economy is, and how everybody is losing their jobs. For the first time in a long while, watching television didn’t make me depressed.