Waiting for the Man (16 page)

Angie handed Dan a piece of paper. She gave me a wink. “People,” Dan said, holding a hand up for silence. “I understand all of you want to follow Joe and see what happens. To experience this event and tell your friends that you played a role in it. You want to be able to say you were witness to something that is consuming the nation. The world even. It’s an event we have here. Something huge. I know. But I can tell you this. Nothing is going to happen if you continue to follow him on his travels.” The news cameras were now aimed at Dan. Microphones were being thrust in his face. The media formed an inner circle around Dan and me. The followers, the people from the caravan, were craning their necks to get a glimpse of the proceedings. “Now, this isn’t a normal event. It’s extraordinary. But we need some rules. I’m not ordering anyone to stop because I can’t. It’s not in my power and this is a free country. That’s why we love it. But please, listen. No one is going to miss a thing. I promise you. Because my colleagues and I are committed to providing around-the-clock coverage of this journey. We’ll be interviewing people close to Joe. We have a website for instant news, a map of the journey, analysis. We have interactive features and a timeline. We have a place for the public to chat, talk about the meaning of this, upload photos. We’re doing this so as not to slow down the incredible voyage that Joe is taking. So what I’m asking, in the most respectful manner I know, is please go home. You won’t miss a thing.”

Dan’s public applauded. I wish I knew why. Maybe they appreciated the performance. Because it was, in many ways, masterful.

I felt sick almost. It was probably the air. I was sure this was some kind of speech Dan would have delivered in New York had I not left so suddenly. The two girls ran to the Odyssey and began touching it. News cameras followed them. The Honda people from Uniondale were already getting their money’s worth. I could see them in the dealership hailing the boss for his vision. Some Japanese executive was going to visit Uniondale and there was going to be an ad. The crowd stood around wondering what to do next. I stepped off the cooler and reached in and took out a bottle of Tropicana apple juice. I couldn’t drink it. The smell of the land around us was tremendous.

I walked back to the driver’s seat. An elderly gentleman reached his hand out and I shook it. “Good luck,” he said. Some of the reporters took notes. People in the crowd were being interviewed. The media left me alone. I felt awkward and quietly relieved. I was no longer the story; the events surrounding me were. This had probably happened in New York but I had failed to notice. And perhaps at that moment a bit of my resentment faded.

I decided I had to piss. I made my way toward the washrooms. Inside I stood at a urinal next to a short man with an impressive beer belly. He smiled. The awkward silence of two men trying to commit a private act in a public space. “That’s quite a scene,” he said finally.

“You’re telling me,” I said.

He shook himself dry and zipped up. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said and washed his hands and opened the door to leave. I heard cameras click.

I finished and went to the sink and splashed water on my face. I pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and dried myself. And then I felt a presence. I turned around and standing at the door was a Chinese guy. Or maybe he was Japanese. With sunglasses too big for his face and the kind of hipster wear the Japanese can pull off without looking stupid. I decided he was Japanese. He had a small brushed-aluminum digital camera in his hand, a Canon. “Hello,” he said nervously.

“Hi,” I said. I stuck my hand out and he looked at it and then shook it.

“Takeshi,” he said. He wore a big chunky Fossil watch on his left wrist.

“Joe,” I said.

“I’m from Japan,” he said.

“You didn’t come all the way from Japan just for this,” I said. Takeshi looked confused. “Just to see me.”

Takeshi managed a smile. “No, no,” he said. “I’m a tourist. I read your story online. I’m hitchhiking. Someone following you picked me up.”

“Where you headed?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Like you,” he said and smiled again. He had a nice smile. I think I knew he was a nice guy right away. “I’m starting a big job this fall. My first real job. Until then, I’m traveling.”

“Anywhere special?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m flying out of L.A.,” he said.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked. What do foreigners see when they come here? How do they picture us? Are their expectations met or does our country disappoint them? America is so embedded in the world’s psyche that our reality must be distorted.

“I’ve seen the Grand Canyon and Dallas and New Orleans. I took a bus to Memphis and then New York. Now I’m hitchhiking.”

He’d seen more of the country than I ever had. “You’re going west?” I asked, surprising myself with the question. I was going to get a companion.

Takeshi’s eyes lit up. He knew as well. “Yes,” he said.

“Want a lift?”

“I’ll get my bag,” he said quickly. “I’ll meet you.” He ran out and I followed him. Dan was at the door, ensuring my privacy. I’m not sure how Takeshi had made it inside.

“I’ve got company,” I said.

“Who?” he asked skeptically.

“Some Japanese kid,” I said. “He’s hitching around the country.”

“Is that safe?” Dan asked. He showed genuine concern.

“I’m getting a good vibe.”

“He’s really Japanese? From Japan?”

I could see the spin he was ready to put on this. He was concocting story lines, preparing for the invasion and interest of the Japanese media, going over the logistics, of international media, all the while dollar signs in his sights grew larger. Now they included Yen.

“Stop drooling,” I said.

“Oh, shut up,” he said.

“Also, your speech was quite something. Insincere is a good word for it. But I also want you to know I appreciate whatever it was you did to get the troopers to heel.” I didn’t want to come off as spoiled or pampered. I didn’t want to ever do anything that would allow Dan to call me a diva.

“You’re being nice to me now,” he said. “I’m touched.”

“I’m being civil,” I said.

We walked back to the Odyssey and I got inside. I closed my eyes and the Man was nowhere. I was worried. I had to admit that. If he was gone, how would I know where to go?

A cordon of state troopers had shown up to keep the public at bay. Takeshi came running toward me, a huge electric blue backpack in his arms. The parking lot had lost about half its cars. The caravan had thinned. Dan’s pronouncement had worked to a certain extent. And the presence of police always thins a herd.

Takeshi got in and threw his backpack onto the seat behind us. The media took this in with a frenzy of camera work. Questions were being directed toward Dan. There was shouting and shrugging and confusion. Arms were raised. Pencils to paper. Voices to recorders. I pulled out. In the rearview mirror I could see the media running to their bus. I began to laugh. I pulled onto the highway unable to contain my laughter. I had no idea what I found so funny.

We drove through the Pennsylvania countryside in silence. I think Takeshi was busy assimilating what he’d gotten himself into. “You need gas,” he said finally.

The needle was pointing toward empty. I called Dan. “I need gas,” I said.

Silence. “Should be about five miles,” he told me.

I pulled into a gas station and Takeshi agreed to fill the tank. The bus pulled into the station as did the caravan, now trimmed to about a dozen vehicles. A gas jockey came by and asked if he could take my photo and I rolled down the window. He held a disposable camera and snapped off four before he turned to Takeshi and did the same. Then he asked Takeshi if he would take a photo and the jockey stood next to the window and Takeshi snapped one. Then Takeshi asked me for his camera and I reached over and threw it to him. He took a photo of me and the gas jockey.

Dan walked over and gave the gas jockey a credit card. “That’s the deal,” he told me.

“This must violate some sort of journalistic code,” I said.

“Maybe ten years ago,” he said and returned to the bus.

We drove by Harrisburg and deeper into the mountains. We got on the turnpike and that decimated the caravan. I called Dan. “The entourage has left the building,” I said.

“Why pay when you can get this for free?” he said.

Takeshi crawled over the seats to the cooler and came back with a bag of Doritos. I watched him open it and he caught me looking at him.

“Can I?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. I reached into the bag and then decided not to eat. I wasn’t hungry.

“America doesn’t have enough chip flavors,” Takeshi said, crunching into a Dorito. “In Japan, we have your flavors and then we have our flavors and we already have more kinds of chips than you to begin with.”

“I’m not eating shrimp-flavored chips,” I said.

“Americans are both open-minded and suspicious of foreign things,” he said.

“And the Japanese aren’t?” I asked.

“We like foreign things,” he said. “But don’t like foreign people.” The minivan was taken over by the sounds of Takeshi’s eating. Chips are incredibly noisy. Beyond the crunch, the bag. If someone could invent a silent chip bag, I thought. “So different,” he said.

“What is?” I asked.

“America,” he said. “It’s so empty. There’s so much of it.”

“Wouldn’t you rather experience it?” I asked. “Instead of driving through?”

“I don’t have time!” he said, shaking his head. “I came over for a quick look. I saw the Grand Canyon and Hollywood. I saw The Rock at House of Blues!”

We passed through a tunnel that took us deep inside the mountains. In the darkness, I half-expected to hear from the Man but heard nothing. I was driving through places I’d never seen, through country I thought I knew, and I saw none of it except the mysteriousness of what lay ahead. I drove blindly in many ways. Meaning I shouldn’t have been driving at all.

We exited the tunnel and within a few miles were in another one. And then another. And after each tunnel I was expecting the land to change somehow, for something miraculous to happen, but nothing did; it was just the road ahead of us, the endless road and the land was always the same, with the sharply sloping mountains rising from the highway like dark green shower curtains and behind us, always, the hulking black media bus. Maybe the Man had never left New York.

Takeshi looked out the window, transfixed by this giant country, by the immensity of the land. We passed a sign for a place called Breezewood. Takeshi whispered the name, as if studying for an exam.

“Are you tired?” Takeshi asked.

I wasn’t. Not a cell in my body wanted to stop driving until we had arrived somewhere, until something was resolved. “I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”

Guest Room

Athena has given me an office. Of sorts. It’s in the basement of the main building, beneath the lobby. It is a large windowless room, square, unfurnished save for a desk and chair. In the darkest corner is a stuffed mountain goat that has been violated, sporting a maroon baseball cap of the University of Montana. Its fur is mottled by age and neglect, a lonely thing in a lonely place. The phone hasn’t been hooked up yet and that might take a few weeks. This makes my evolution official. I’m out of the kitchen. Athena has also hinted at an apartment upstairs, next to hers possibly, but for now, I’m stuck in the trailer. And perhaps that’s not a bad thing. If I live and work in this building, I may never get outside again.

Scattered about me on the floor are reams of papers. I have printouts from marketing campaigns and branding initiatives Athena admires. And the one thing that unites all of these efforts is . . . everything. It is all the same. A hotel is a hotel, whether it is in Bangkok or Boston. All of these hotels, at this level, are after the same clientele in the same demographic, sharing similar psychographic profiles, all being chased by the same pitch, employing the same tools. Every property, every brand, promising the same thing, the same luxury, the same service. Every room looks the same. Every website follows the same basic architecture of information. The same hierarchy of services. Every beach view, no matter what body of water one sees beyond the white curtains, looks the same. Every palm tree. Every hotel, whether it labels itself an inn, a ranch, a spa, a chateau, a hideaway, a lodge, a resort, whatever, announces its exclusivity and uniqueness by drawing from the same phrase book. The vocabulary at this end of the hospitality industry is remarkable for its poverty. I am staggered by the whole thing.

I walk into Athena’s office.

“I need to study this place,” I tell her.

“Be my guest,” she says, laughing. Does she laugh every time she says this?

“You’re going to see me walking around a lot. It might seem like I’m doing nothing.”

“Then I appreciate the warning.”

“I also want to collect guest data.”

“I’ve given you everything we have,” she says. “I’ve found all the statistics and numbers I’m going to find. I’ve also ordered shelves for you. And a computer.” She smiles. Her eyes are a lake in sunshine. She’s naturally flirtatious. She has no interest in me. “I’m happy you’re doing this.”

She’s thrown money at me. I’m surprised by what she’s willing to pay. Especially since I have nothing to spend it on. And this kind of analysis is not, strictly, what I’m good at. My experience lies elsewhere. “Are there expansion plans?” I ask. There must be a reason for all of this interest in my supposed skills.

“Not here, no,” she says, hinting at something broader.

“I’m just a copywriter,” I say. “We just write.”

“That writing is a message,” she says. “We need to stay on message. I think you are capable of helping us craft it.”

“Content is just the base. Floorboards.”

“I believe content is everything. It’s the soul. It’s where the meaning comes from. The story. And with the story you have connection. And then you have something to market.”

“When I really get going, I get very insecure,” I say. “I need validation.” I take a step back. “I’m just warning.”

“That could be charming,” she says.

“I’ve always thought it annoying,” I say. Why, exactly, I’m saying this is a question I can’t begin to ask. “It’s a sign of weakness.”

“Or it’s a sign of your creativity,” she says.

“You’re being nice,” I say. Is it possible that I’m flirting as well? When you know you don’t stand a chance, flirtation is like a gift certificate to your favorite boutique.

I walk through the lobby. It is quiet and even here I can see some problems. The furniture is nice but it’s too angular, too European, to match the bits of rustic here, like the lasso that snakes along the wall behind the check-in desk, candles set around it, each one set atop a spur. The carpet. The marble floor with wood trim. Even the staff, in their western chic, look odd in this room, like interlopers. This whole lobby is like a pair of gorgeous pants that are tight in the wrong places.

I step outside. I drink in the sun as it warms my face. The sun feels warmer here, as if it were closer to the ground. The light is brighter. There’s a purity to this place that marketing can’t touch. And it’s why it should be central to any marketing effort. The quality of light is a promise that a brochure can keep. The taste of the sunshine. The majesty of the mountains. The feeling of the wind.

I walk through the grounds toward the stables. Two guests watch as the stable hands prepare the horses for an excursion. The guests are Japanese. They wear chaps over their jeans. The Japanese, especially, want a Wild West kind of thing. They want to experience an America they have seen in their dreams. Though their getup is proof of the limitations of that dream. The bars here are stocked with fine single malts and cognacs. The Japanese are very fond of the steam baths, the saunas, the Thai pressure point massage. They want an America that conforms to their desires. Here, finally, they can bend America to their will. And they will pay handsomely to do so.