Part I
First Part. Getting to New York
Section titled “First Part. Getting to New York”Desert Rider in Gray
Section titled “Desert Rider in Gray”Riding the broken asphalt of the desert highway, the vibration of the bike knifes me through my thighs and my pelvis and my guts and I feel hungry. I’m tired. How much longer can I ride? It could be forever, it could be that I can’t last another second. The possibility of not continuing chops at me, senses at me, sniffs at me until the cloak of the night can hide me no longer. I stop the bike just anywhere right now and realize that there are stars in the desert.
It’s that since leaving LA I haven’t stopped. I smell the highway and I’m alone. The stars are many. You know. The stars that hide above the smell of the city. The stars of the child campfires. The stars of the eyes of wild animals.
I’m hungry but penniless and I’ve stopped by some lights. So I haven’t really looked at all the stars. Where can I get food? And it’s gotta be with my Shell Gas Card they sent me last week. Pat pat pat in pocket.
Should I drop down now to the snake floor of the desert by the side of the road, hoping no-one will hit us, neither me nor my bike; that no snake will bite me. Better to move on. For some reason I wheel my bike silently into the bowling alley parking lot. There are lights on inside, there’s a coffee shop, there are people come out of the night. I can hear that flat giggling like the background music to a horror movie: it always sounds exaggerated.
I leave my bike by the door of the coffee shop (Sign says no credit cards after 6pm. Gulp) but walk in. It’s like a saloon door. I’m like a saloon boy. I am a boy. I am a hungry boy. I’m hungry but cashless in a saloon coffee shop in a bowling alley in the middle of the desert without having gazed properly at the stars. Bereft but above all hungry. I slouch unnoticed into a booth. Everyone is watching me. I move over to the bar, and slide into a seat. I’m hungry and penniless and observed. The waitress gazes at me and smiles.
—What’ll it be?
I am hungry and penniless in the Amsterdam of the LA desert, but can think of no answer, since I can pay for nothing. No light of food illuminates in my head. I am too guilty to think. Out of the corner of my eyes I can see a chunk of chocolate meringue pie under a glass cover.
—Pie.
—Sure you don’t want dinner? You’ve been traveling. I could fix a sandwich.
—No, just pie.
I eat the pie slowly, the flaky chocolate making my ears buzz in a sugar high which will last such a short time. Why didn’t I settle for coffee and cookies? I think I got thirty-five cents. Why did I come in here? I saw that sign. Why don’t I just leave right now and then stop in the middle of nowhere and suck cactus juice? Why am I here at all? Which is greater, the form or the content of the glass reflection of rainbow sucking at me from the corner of my eyes? Would it feel nice to have the cactus suck on me…
—More coffee. —Smile of teeth like the moon.
—No, er, yes, fine.
The spineless coffee buzzes me not but momentarily warms my heart. The frightening hospitality of the giggling waitress would otherwise invite me even though she be as untouchable as a roman priestess (are roman priestesses untouchable?) with her arms outstretched bearing ostrich meat and turquoise drinks in star trek glasses…
The waitress goes back into the kitchen, and muttering some bullshit to myself I get up. I slouch in the direction of the bathroom, then expertly slide out the saloon doors. I’m free. Actually, it makes no difference, no-one is watching me.
The rush out of the saloon coffee shop of the bright bowling alley makes me feel conspicuous as well as tired. There are four cars parked in the parking lot. One, further away, an unchromed 54 Chevy. I open the rear right door and lay down on the unleathery plastic, invisible and relieved. Hugging the night as if it were mother. I sleep for a while, but I cannot understand why the stars twinkle still and I am inviting an ugly scene if the owner comes out now and finds me in their car. Is the owner the waitress? Should I stay here comfortable as I am with the door against my foot, the bastion chassis retaining me, destiny breathing down my neck with the smells of the car, the oil, the gas, the cigarette lighter, the clock still working…
I’ve got to wake up and get out of here.
I stand by the side of the car. Is this some sort of game? I stand unseen, unfelt, unwatched, dirty and penniless on a desert journey. I must find some place to sleep, unkempt though unnoticed in the night.
Penniless and alone in the stormless desert, I move off, towards some buildings that are unlit, further away. There’s a bank, a supermarket, a post-office and a church.
A church! I slide towards the holy comfort of the unlit porch, the crickets chirping silently. If the church is open, I could sleep on its stone floor, linoleum floor, cement floor, or on the floor; bone bled but hungry in the morning, invisible with the sleep still in my eyes, unstretched, the daylight hiding the stars. Then I could go unseen on my way, return to the murmur of the bike between my legs, the suitcases piled back rack high between me and yesterday, far from the kissing ground. There are still some crumbs of pie on my lips for which I am grateful.
The church is closed: how can a church ever be closed, it must never be closed, must let me in and ask no questions; I need sleep. The stone of the steps where I’m lying is beginning to be very cold.
The door is of wood, sort of a poor man’s richly carved oak, but watered down by waves and generations of puritan refugees’ anti-baroque vengeance, blood letting of the unpassions; only the cracked sliver of the thin Amerikan lip remains.
The simplest hate filled Amerikan with that vacant expression in his eyes is actually remembering something, remembering his survival from the battle. He’s getting his own back this time. Behold the spoils of battle: the vacant expression in his eyes, the thin lip, the sense of humor, the always newly planted trees with the chalky green leaves inverted in the wind.
That is, if I am like my enemy, invisible as a hungry bike rider in a bowling alley under the spider woven lace cloak of the night, if i kill my enemy i will survive; if i love my enemy, if i be my enemy then the peace is assured and the moon light seeps through the lace though it unface the stars. The last thing I want is a rich carving I can’t understand, something else to look at; i want something simple.
The door is locked with a heavy iron padlock, see?, right out of the consciousness of revenge, the bitter joke of retribution. With the heavy chains it weighs down pendulous. I embrace the unmother wooden door with its simple carving, or try to, the padlock grinding against my heart.
How could the church door be locked closed and refuse me its floor?
I guess I’ve slept three or four hours on the non-stone cement steps, and then wake up. There are splinters in my hands from pounding every now and then on the door. The 54 Chevy is still in the parking lot. The lights are out and the morning is gray. I mount my bike and ride away roughly in the general direction of New York. I fervently hope the waitress will not have to pay for the piece of pie out of her own money.
Aaron Tells Them
Section titled “Aaron Tells Them”To this day I don’t know why I hurried the trip so much. Just four days to ride my Yamaha 350 from Los Angeles to New York City to start my career at the Rabbinical School. Even so, I felt I was moving slowish like, cuz I was afraid the motor wasn’t broken in yet (you’ll break it).
Also I didn’t even know how to ride a motorbike properly yet, how to lean taking the curves. But why did I hurry through crossing a whole rich continent in but four days? Why didn’t I take it in a bit, even just to see it changing, from desert to worse desert to mountains and forest to lakes, winding through cities and different trees and different hills and different peoples and let me see the sights, absorb the breeze, tell the time, smell it, be smelled?
That was the trip I needed. But that’s not how it happened.
Just 10 days ago I rode my 350 out of the Yamaha place. The salesman said he would teach me, it was easy. And he shared with me his wisdom.
—Make sure, make very sure, to break in the engine, bit by bit through every day, and a day at a time, over the next two to three weeks. —I nodded even though I didn’t really know what he meant. I got on. Could feel the leather straps and the settling seat firm against my thighs astride the bike. He showed me how to put it in neutral and turn the key and boil like being perched on a jack-hammer, surprised as if my body were a disciplined swarm of flies, but getting used to it and growing me first into a thick cloud, then a cloven-footed hunter perched on it, holding on with both arms and hands, getting ready for the trip.
So the salesman took me round the block a couple of times, slow like and solid. Literally. The second time, I leaned a bit like him into rounding the corners. Just a bit. Could feel my shoulders swaying which is when I stopped too quick at a stop sign and killed the engine, but remembered how to start again. Was grilling along, getting the hang of putting my feet on the rubber footrest pegs and holding on to the going of it.
Thanked the salesman, signed a lot of papers. Couldn’t believe I didn’t need any other license than my regular driving permit to ride this magic machine. Bought a helmet. And three luggage rope elastic bandaged strapping bungee cords for my set of green suitcases. Three suitcases of different sizes, each fit into another, while they were empty at least.
The suitcase set had been the last present from my parents (hint, wink, hint) before I left home for good, the day of my 21st birthday. Three green suitcases fitting into each other. Almost for the trip. To be opened and filled and tied down, used as furniture and then for moving, from one place to another, time after time.
Well, on the trip, they were all practically empty, except for the older briefcase that fit right in, also green, also initials on it; holding a couple books, some notebooks and papers inside; and then one decent change of clothes, and some at-home torn clothes. In the smallest one. There were two albums: The Doors (first album)) and The Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, that came out on May 26, 1967, two cherished possessions.
So the trip actually started when I told them. When I told them. When I sat down and told them. Then packed the new suitcases and left for good. The trip was simple:
א. Tell them
ב. Feel insulted, crumbled, spit out
ג. Leave home for good
ד. Odd jobs. Get some money for the trip
ה. Go to New York
ו. Study to be a Rabbi
ז. Settle down. Be a Rabbi
ח. If I want to, find a girl, get married
So, step א .
It all happened at the Mexican food restaurant; we went there for dinner, and I was decided to to tell them once and for all of us.
Clearer than the details of the dinner, and most telling, is this little excerpt from a letter my father wrote to Ruben right after I took the bull by the horns and which Ruben showed me years later.
Home Sweet Home
Sunday night
August 20, 1967
....Early this evening your brother sat in judgment on his parents; in response to my repeated question to him asking why he had decided to leave home on the eve of his 21st birthday he replied that he did so because his parents had never treated as a person. This to me is as mystifying as the news just now that a car sped by the American Embassy in London today and sprayed it with bullets from a machine gun.
The letter says: …because his parents had never treated as a person”.
The letter should have said “…had never treated him as a person”, but read ”had never treated as a person”.
The letter leaves out: me
Well, whether the general or the particular, actually from the general to the particular and back again, that’s what it was.
We sat down the three of us at a table. We had the menus in our hands. I excused myself and got up and went to the bathroom. My father’s face. My mother’s face. Considering the menu. In the bathroom I waited till the dishwasher left then rinsed my hands, the cool water, my skin feeling so clean; cupped water in one hand, rinsed the other, rinse and repeat with the other, saying
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך—הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל נְטִילַת-יָדָיִם.
Baruch atah A-donoy, Elo-heinu Melech Ha’Olam, asher kidshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu al netilat yadayim
Blessed are You, L-rd, our G-d, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands.
Returned to the table, sat down, and “him” spoke —So, I know what to do now. No more college, already graduated, no more draft exemption. But I know what I want to do.
—Graduate school. You’ll get your Masters in Education —interrupted my father.
—Well, kind of… I’m leaving for New York in just a few weeks, the first week in September. I was going to get my Masters first, and then go to New York, but I’ll get drafted if I do that. They’ve just announced you can’t get a deferment for regular graduate school.
—Wot?
—I’m going to study to be a Rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary. They’ve already accepted me, it’s all set. They helped me complete the application here at the Jewish University. I’ve been studying there. I decided to be a Rabbi some time ago.
My father looked at my mother in amazement. —Doll, he’s going to be a Rabbi!— He laughed.
—Tell him Benjamin— My mother looked steadily, first at my father. Then at me —We all knew all about this. Why didn’t you tell us before yourself? What did you think, we didn’t know?
My father smirked. Then he looked at me too. —You can’t be a Rabbi, son, it’s no future for you. Rabbis only make 20K a year and they have to kowtow to the congregation in everything they do. It’s not a future for you—. He looked at my mother. —He’ll listen to me, doll. Like ’e always does. ’E knows. Don’t you son? Just go to graduate school, like you said, get a master’s in education.— He shook his head in disbelief —I can’t understand you. When you can still be a wonderful educator? Come on, let’s have dinner.— He took to studying the menu and making suggestions to my mother.
The night I left home, I did leave the door open, G-d knows why; I did do that.
As I was leaving the house I could imagine my parents saying…
—wot, e’s gone, doll?
—e’s left the door open. Who knows wot ’e’s gonna do?
Rider Glitter
Section titled “Rider Glitter”The diamonds are there in the sand on both sides of the road. If I stop the bike again in the void of night black the glitter will go and the horizon will get further away, so no, even though I want to. Oh, a red shimmer there in the road lens. There’s that red shimmer somewhere. If I stop now, it will only slide further away. The sky stills around it as I still, slowing down a bit, but I do not stop, must not let the star glitter pinpoint in focus. The red mass getting just a bit bigger on the horizon challenges me, I’m tired, but I want to get there before I do stop today.
The sky stars mass as I knead the dizziness out of the crick in my neck. My mouth is open and dry. Water glitters. It is dark now and I can see my face in the chrome of my bike. Let’s keep going.
Miles further down, I see the road is straight, and very few roads are straight. This one is straight, and I see I am doing no work. I see I am going on down the road, the glitter passing through my eyes like stuff yet there is always more, more glitter passing through me yet stays there to meet me as I go on down the road. It meets me, I eat it as it gathers to the point I have just left and converges at my heart in my body.
There are no hills any more, only my blotch of headlamp, and it is frightful to be the fruit of your own perception. As I move, it lights the ones who must come from where they were, with their own headlights, illuminating the white dashes of the lane dividers, and now, more delicately, the center concrete divider, urban like. On my side there are several of us now too, we are a constellation of going, getting a move on. There will be no time to stop if suddenly we come head on to a black brick wall. Even though that will not happen, it seems that it might happen. It could happen, just as a stick could go through my head at any moment, a broken arrow, a bullet, a label, a bible, a cross.
This is effortless fun now, so much light. I don’t know where I am, I just know there is enough gas to get to the next gas station because it would be irrational to sell me gas at the last stop and not tell me I could get nowhere on it.
Suddenly the red shimmer is a whole glimmer that ruins the star sky like a blotch. The stars are overcast, and the usual urban lines fade through into recognition, like a constellation. Now is that the runaway headlamps of a oncoming car? Unconsciously I move further to the right of the road, off the center divider seeing now where I am going. The glimmer has spread across all the sky, then passes over me turning the stars off. It is a city. It is ridiculous. But it’s on my way.
The highway takes me automatically through the main drag of the city. It is as though the main drag were the only street in this city, maybe it is, and from the height of my motorcycle seat I can see a strange thing. The monster lights arise in patterns, in thin panels on each side of the wide road and the monster panels are very high and behind them there is absolutely nothing. Behind the mangle of lights, the many colors that come on strongly but can barely imitate the colors of the stars, behind it all on each side of the road there is nothing. The lights on the big city panels grow denser and stronger and then after a time, there are spaces between them. In one space there is a little green park. I stop in the park. I unroll my sleeping bag. I get into my sleeping bag and sleep next to my blue bike on the grass. I am dead tired.
A cop car comes and shines its lights on me in the dark; a cop reads the driving license particulars from my back pocket wallet. Finding nothing, he goes without saying a word. It is not clear whether it’s ok to sleep in the park or not. I sleep again. I am dead tired.
In the morning, it is bright gray in the park and I am soaking wet from the sprinklers. When I get up and move my bike away from the wet, I move towards a path. The Municipality of Las Vegas has put up a sign “Municipal Ordinance. “No Niggers. No Jews. No Dogs.” ) 1 (the part about Niggers and Jews added by hand, but erased by nobody).
I roll up my sleeping bag and ride on to the next town for breakfast.
Automat sans Angel
Section titled “Automat sans Angel”I’m moving along this road, I’m living in move, the bike’s purring, purring, getting there. —But I need that plan, I need that piece of string laying on the map knotted at points, a knot for each night, where to stop, rest then move on from. A knot for each night. And what highway am I even on? A little sign appears: I-15.
—15, I’m on the I-15, on the interstate, Las Vegas behind me, still wet from the sprinklers in the park. What comes after the I-15? (And you gotta know what highway you’re on when you’re on it! And what’s coming next). We got Bunkerville, Mesquite…
Whoa, new State, what state?, where state? hold on, Arizona State? Well, welcome to you, too! No, it’s OK we’re staying, stay, stay our way. But what’s Arizona got to do with it? Scary. Ah, right, it was just a shorty diagonal cut of a few miles, just passing through, to cross from Nevada, thru Arizona, any minute now on to Utah, the Mormons, a people and not just a religion, with their own Bibles. Hmm, they had to leave a kind of Egypt, crossed many rivers, before they all got to Utah. They got houses too. Here it is already, Utah. Still on the I-15, but it’s Utah.
Nothing different, the dust is just dust. And it’s just me, alone on the road, going, going, not coming, a broken yellow arrow line dividing retro mirror from onwards Galileo lense. Looking through a tube that is the highway, that goes up to the horizon behind those high rocks and bracing myself to see the dark gray circle where the road go. Or else more road, whatever’s there, whatever’s coming. Sometimes a broken white line, not a yellow line, a white line, just another broken arrow, while all around the realest nature we’ve ever seen, mighty huge rocks spaced oddly, a wall all along the road, huge rocks that don’t move, rocks I’d never looked at, a maze I’d never seen before, and am not seeing even now. No, look at this huge wall of rocks; so cut off from all I’ve ever seen and smelled, untouched ever, such thick void, but there, there, so solidly there always.
I know where I am. Passing through the town of… what? Toqueville? Ah, can’t forget that, the home of Democracy in Amerika, 1835, Toqueville and his friend, on a Yamaha like me, studying “a democratic revolution caused by industrialization, as exemplified by America” (take that smirk off your face, it’s the historical, positive ascent of capitalism phase, it was positive then, jerkface, remember Lincoln and all that correspondence), must have stayed the night here, so they called it Toqueville, birthplace of “a new political science… to reanimate its beliefs, to regulate its movements… the science of affairs… modify it according to circumstances and men… those who direct society…”. (He can’t remember where ‘e is but he memorizes that? I dunno…) Well at least I’m laughing. Did I memorize that? Where are those words coming from…? OK, bye Toqueville, bye bye.
And where breakfast? So I can sit down and draw that map, need that route, gotta things straight. Then it’s gonna be breakfast, road, and a snack at night, breakfast, road, and a snack at night, smack, smack, until I get there (where you going? do you even know where you’re going?) —Yes —Aaron patted his pocket, patted it, a photo of the JTS. Down under the photo it says:
Visit the Jewish Theological Seminary 3080 Broadway New York, NY 10027 212-678-8000
That’s on the left hand side at the bottom. On the right it says:
Motto וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל
Motto Veha’sneh einenu u’chal And the bush was not consumed – Exodus 3:2
—The bush, the senna, was not consumed, cuz it’s not edible and Yahweh is no fool, nature is no fool. (What’s Yahweh? That sky bowl up there and this earth bowl down here, this planet bowl against bowl, this solar system, etc., etc. That’s Yahweh) it won’t suffer, wither and die, it won’t eat the senna bush. No but it means, something just like what Mordecai says, ‘snot anthropomorphic, whatever that means; and “No, no, we will not be moved, no, no, we will not be moved: we are that senna bush and we will not be consumed” (what are you talking about? Speaking of consuming, you´d better get something to eat for breakfast)
And you guessed it, you guessed it, there’s a sign, not just a little sign with a number but a sign for breakfast, lunch and dinner:
Sandwich and pie for a dime Ice cream, coffee, milk, chocolate, tea for free Breakfast, lunch, dinner, for under a dollar Horn & Hardass Automat
I go in and it’s light, cold white bright, uniform, without shadows anywhere. Another kind of nowhere. Like a hospital with no nurses, with metal rimmed square tables. There’s no-one here but me. Well, a couple of people with their coats on, silent and far between at their tables. The place just opened. In the racks lining the walls everything is labeled and each piece of food is in its cold white reflections box, each with its little glass door and its non-shiny handle. The spigots for drinks, along another patch, lining the walls too. You drop a nickel, a dime, a quarter maybe, to open up and grab what you want, to put on your gray plastic tray, then you go and choose your own square white topped table place, and consume.
What I really want: bacon (oops!), eggs, sausage and/or ham, eggs with hash browns… or pancakes.
What I ate every day as a schoolboy in London, first for economy, then for boredom: baked beans on toast; then here in Amerika: Beinz!
What I’m getting now:
- tea from the spigot (two bits)
- corn flakes and milk (two bits)
- egg sandwich was fifty cents, we’ll get one every other day, just with tea, spending the same
- toast and jam (two bits)
Let’s get that then. Then, let’s get the route together, let’s get everything straight, let’s unfold it. I’m on Highway I-15. That much I knoweth. Where to from here? Breakfast for under a dollar on the table, and the photo of the JTS, and the map. (Wotya think? It’s a boardgame? Think ya playin’ Risk?) Spread the serious map and route it out. Route it out, write it down, on your own piece of paper. The route. Wasn’t it the I-70 or the I-80, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York?
Aaron unfolds the maps, sitting at the Automat table, unfolding a plan in his brain, a map on the plain of the table. A string to lay on the map, with knots for each night. The thing is to attain, gain, and get to the next knot following the sky. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s… really go! —Plan, plan, plan like a jazzman jam, jam, jam.
He spreads the raspberry jam on the toast and eats the whole piece, downs half the dark tea paper mug (no milk for the tea! no Brits here!). —There’s a route there, let’s get it plain. Some other time we can then drive back and see the rocks again. Right now, eat these crunchy and/or milk sodden flakes, eat this other piece of toast and jam, drink this tasteless tea. Yes, get the route on paper, in pencil, on paper, and then follow it and get there, to the JTS, 3080 Broadway, NYC.
OK, finishing the meal, we finish it, and now let’s finish the route is the shortest path: LA -> I-15 -> Las Vegas, NV -> I-15 -> I-70 -> Denver, CO -> I-76 -> I-80 -> Omaha NE -> Des Moines, IA -> Chicago IL -> Cleveland, OH -> I-76 -> Pittsburgh, PA -> I-76 -> I-99 -> I-80 -> NYC
Even though the routes flash like a hotel sign on the map on the paper (actually a good fit here in the Automat) the routes are in place, blinking red strings on the map with their night knots. Almost the same but not quite, one a bit longer and winding, the other shorter, more inviting. Winding where? Through East Lansing, Michigan.
Cuz there’s just one last thing: Am I adding in a pass through East Lansing? Or not passing through East Lansing on my way? Ah, that Lynn is another story. Those photos. But yes, got to finish that too.
—Well it’s not a week just a couple of days. And setting Lynn straight is part of the plan too, set her straight, get her out of my mind, get her into her own life and get me into mine. Moving on, moving on, getting there, getting there whole. No angel looking over me here now, in this white near blinding bright place but I got myself my plan and I’m doing it! וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל. Veha’sneh einenu u’chal And the bush was not consumed!
I get up, fold the good map, it’s in my pocket.
As I walk out, preparing to abandon the white light for the night, there is a woman in an orange-yellow straw hat with broad sides bending to cover her ears, with a shadowy face, dull red lipstick, pretty, pretty in her green coat with the fur lapels and fur cuffs, legs bare from the knees down as she’s sitting, just a glimpse of her grayish skirt. Rather than drinking, she’s holding as if to caress her cup of coffee, gazing a bit down just above the cup, gazing towards nothing…
The main door out a bigger version of the racked glass glass and white trimmed food boxes, holding us all on sale. I look back and she is still gazing that way, at nothing. I take a few steps towards the parking lot. I hear a rush behind me and it is the green maiden. —Can you take me? —Where? —Don’t care —It matters —I say, showing off my plan. —Don’t care, please take me and drop me off there, that’s all, please! —Sorry, I’m on my bike —I say, showing her. —Bike OK. —No, it’s full of suitcases, a couple of bags. All my life, actually.
For the first time I see her unblinking black eyes. She drops her arm which was outstretched towards me, for added emphasis, floating on her emptiness. I wish I could take her. She turns and walks away, off into the night, into the nowhere, then taking quick clicking steps until nothing.
I get quiet and my route in my pocket. My map. Straight. I turn. I go to the bike. Start the engine. On the bike, start my day. Next stop knot: Denver, CO (I-70)…
🎵 I’m on the road again… 🎵
Mosquitos Night Brain
Section titled “Mosquitos Night Brain”Riding the cracking asphalt of the desert highway still, the engine purring through the gas tank just under the seat, familiar like already, steady on and on, nothing different. The dust is just dust. And it’s just me, alone on the road, going, going, not coming, a broken yellow arrow line dividing retro mirror from onwards Galileo lens. Looking through a tube that is the highway, that goes up to the horizon behind those high rocks and bracing myself to see the dark gray circle where the road go. Or else more road, whatever’s there, whatever’s coming. Sometimes a broken white line, not a yellow line, a white line, just another broken arrow. While all around the realest nature we’ve ever seen, mighty huge rocks spaced oddly, a wall all along the road, huge rocks that don’t move, rocks I’d never looked at, a maze I’d never seen before, and am not seeing even now. No, but look at this huge wall of rocks; so cut off from all I’ve ever seen and smelled, untouched ever, such thick void, but there, there, so solidly there always.
Carry on down the road, follow our route, follow our plan, the real road. I’m not tired, I’m not tired, this is cool, cool and fresh, fresh and windy… drink sum water from my bottle, drink sum water from my bottle, the sum of all waters… running to NYC like it was into my Daddy’s arms, into my Daddy’s arms when I was a little boy. Water’s good (make sure you close the bottle top tight before you put it in your pocket). Put it in my pocket. Got it in my pocket. And got my map in my pocket.
So, if you want solid, on the real road, we got Sulphurdale right ahead of us… got to bear right, bear right, right around Sulphurdale (—where you from? —Sulphurdale) bear right, right into I-70, not missing it. East, East, East now, big turn, look at this big long string on a map, but just a broken sign, barely readable, I-70 (could’ve missed it if you weren’t looking out for it; be careful)… OK. Let’s stop here and rest just a few minutes… at the Fremont Indian State Park and Museum parking lot… no, can’t be stopping every minute, got to get to Denver by tonight and it’s a ten-hour ride… should be taking those side roads near the cliffs and rocks, not this highway, being on this highway is like being nowhere, Janis Joplin singing to me from my cassette player, she’s singing to me, listen to her, and ride… she’s talking now, listen to that Angel!
I don’t understand how come you’re gone, man… I mean, if you got a cat for one day, man – I mean, if you, say, say, maybe you want a cat for 365 days, right – You ain’t got him for 365 days, you got him for one day, man. Well I tell you that one day, man, better be your life… You gotta call that love, man.
Don’t cry asshole
If you got it today you don’t want it tomorrow, man, ’cause you don’t need it, ’cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, tomorrow never happens, man. It’s all the same fucking day, man.” Janis Joplin, Kosmic Blues
It’s all the same… Utah, the Mormons, a people and not just a religion, with their own Bibles. Hmm, they had to leave a kind of Egypt, crossed many rivers, before they all got to Utah. They got houses too.
So, I got this thread. I got this map right here in my pocket with the main thread in red and the knots for rest overs. And where I came from, passing from Nevada with just a touch of Arizona, to get from Nevada to Utah. It’s Utah, all the same Utah. And there’s that sign, so bear right, bear right, keeping to the I-70… got it! Motor, motor, motor (don’t break it, break it in, break it in) I’m breaking it in, sweetly… engine sounds good and sharp… sound and fury… sound and furry… furry (like a skunk?). Got my map, can feel it right here in my pocket, pat, pat, follow the thread, then everything just floats.
Question: how is it I so surely push on through, up, up and up, along this road? With what confidence do I follow and follow this broken white arrow?
Cuz a man or a woman once drew this line, a wagon pioneer, even if they were coming the other way, back, away from the big cities; whilst I am going. Or an architect road builder, with a mission, gazing at those rocks just like me now. They’re not going, they’re coming, but I’m going, that’s why I’m sure, I’m going. So that’s how do I know.
The hours pass and the rocks change shades but not color, shadow. The thread whirs by me in real rocks and spent signposts, so I’m keeping to my side of time, on, on my time, me just getting there. It’s good.
Wait, is it nighttime? Nighttime throughing Colorado. All the same Colorado? Are those stars already? We should stop the bike and look at my watch and listen to those stars… and rest a bit. When did it get night? But got to get to Denver, sleep there. We got our plan. We got our route. And I’m on the thread. But are the knots in the right places? Maybe we could pull the Denver knot a little closer home. Well, don’t feel at home yet. Just a bit tired, that’s no lie. Whir, Whir. I’m tired. Whir. Whir. I’m tired, really, tired, got to stop. It’s night here and now. No Denver tonight…
Clincher: That other sign, a line leading off the highway thread, drawing down to a resting place… a cracked sun worn green sign I hadn’t seen saying:
Time to night camp
Find your spot ⤵
Gotta rest it. With others now, along a funny dusty straight path heading down, there are several of us waved on down onto a road by the thickset man or woman in a cowboy hat. What? No Name Lane? Are you kidding me? No Name Lane? No Name Lane. I am waved along down No Name Lane, which on top of everything, is a circle road, a round road. And down there is the rest area. Pick your spot. We are waved into a corner near a real square little rock of our own now, our little group. I unroll my sleeping bag, lay down in it.
I do not hear the murmuring resentful Culicidae, it’s my personal cloud of mosquitos around me as I lay me down to rest abashed closing my eyes in front of, well, I can still see the massive wall chipped in changeless moon yellow shades.
I wake up to light of morning, the colors of the rock wall still the same, but in a new, rustless shade. I’m waiting for morning hunger to greet me, but there’s something else: my forehead is thicker than it used to be. How is that? I touch my thick forehead, it is soft to press, soft here, soft there, and it is full of mosquitos still biting me. I smack in pain my wonky head, then look at my hand. It is full of crushed insects. I rush over to the tap by the tin shed there, and wash, wash, wash away the little monsters from my head, from my hair, from my ears, from my plan. They’re gone now, I’m clean of them. I can’t hear them anymore. I look around, others are doing the same. Wasn’t so smart to sleep outdoors.
I’m not stopping for breakfast, just eat that warm cheese and the crackers I have in my backpack. We’ll stop later, let’s just move on, the vibration and the wind make me forget my wonky head. I shut my eyes to the rocks, I have no eyes but for the broken arrows, don’t know if yellow or white, just flashing. The only thing I look at. I shut yes my eyes to the rocks, but the rocks aren’t there anyway, it’s hills now. I don’t count the lines, I’m not crazy. Hope my brain isn’t swollen like my forehead. It feels big in there.
Put the key in. Turn on, Tune in and Ride! Until you purr like the engine, soon be there (where?). Ah, right, Denver, near! Ride!
I’m on the road, again.
On the Road Again
Section titled “On the Road Again”So, that’s how we get things straight, and a soft swollen wonky head, into the bargain. And I’ve been on this highway 2 minutes but it could be 2 hours… Yes, I’ve been on this highway 2 hours but it could be 2 minutes… Yes, but it’s the route… But I can never grasp how far. I should be able to, for sure, but I only know about the next knot, with no grip. I don’t know the miles or their minutes and hours so much; much less the whole days, or even my history… but just cool it, take it steady on the route, we’ll just see how things turn out… but is that enough…? the main thing is don’t ride if your tired, don’t tire if you’re riding, that’s what the Yamaha man told me. So let’s just get there. Tapping my fingers on the RPM dial… what’s it for…? I guess the experts think in terms of RPM, I’m thinking in terms of threads and knots and the next big knot is Chicago… and on one of those little knots in between, I’ll be tired and stop and sleep over… roll me over… in the clover… next big knot is Chicago, that I know for sure.
I’ve already done a good bit of it now. If we’re gonna do the route, we got the plan, we got the thread and the next knot, Chicago… Omaha, Des Moins, Chicago, got it down pat. No way I’ll get to Chicago today, of course. But if I’m tired, then I’ll just stop in between those big knots. We can even redo the knots in the thread if we have to, how about that? Whew! Why not? The red knots in the red string laying on the map on the next table we get to. I’m on top of things, just like that gull flying up there, turning into the wind, beelining for a knot. Knots. Like a ship does knots, doesn’t it? I’m beelining to Lynn from E Lansing so I can be free to beeline to the JTS the jay-tee-es, the jay-tee-es… How did Lynn come to be the thing? I know, she’s a cross between Rachel and Mandy, her thin pressed lips are Rachel and Mandy. Poor Lynn. Now I’m on the road… like a gull beelining to poor Lynn. And now on one of the hills a flock of birds alight somehow those little specks float and keep on floating, a whir, the same color as the rock backdrop, just a shade lighter… and… Rachel’s red hair… whatever happened with Rachel exactly? She was in my life, she was in my life… until she wasn’t. She drove me to the summer camp, with my stuff. And then there was just Lynn. I wonder, where is Rachel right this minute? What’s she doing? Thinking, her brain and her red hair flying, and her eyes; and not her… arms…
I’m driving my reddish beige Toyota down Sunset and I’m going to turn left on Rodeo and park… I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse… I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse… I’m Rachel and I wanna be… there… I’m Rachel and I wanna turn left on Rodeo… I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse and be there and turn left on Rodeo… that’s my song… turn off the radio and I sing I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse, gonna nurse Jerry, gonna nurse Jerry sweet, then he’ll go to war and then… I wanna be a nurse and I’ll be a nurse… I’m Rachel, I’m Rachel, I am, I dance with my red hair flying, I know, I know and I want to be a nurse. I care. Well I don’t care. I care and I don’t care. Cuz you don’t care, do you? I want somewhere to care. I want somewhere to care. There! Turn left on Rodeo… and here’s my house! I’m going in and up the steps, in and up, then the stairs and in my room and shut the door and throw myself down on the bed and call my friend Mandy, my sister sister Mandy… hi Mandy, this is Andy 😄. Everything going your way? Me? I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse. I’m Rachel and I wanna be a nurse. Agggghhh! No, I haven’t heard from Aaron, somewhere in the wilds of the desert back roads on that bike of his… I know, did you see him, he kept on passing by Hillel on Hilgard Ave…, a blue Yamaha 350 and he doesn’t know how to ride it… so weird, who knows where he is actually… Well, you know what we say, one day, one day, one of us will be with him… maybe you maybe me… I know, I know… No, gonna spend two weeks with Jerry, he’s leaving for Vietnam, couldn’t talk him out of it, I know, I know, I know, but I want somewhere to care… and it’s gonna be there… yeah, I’m gonna be there, with Jerry, sweet with Jerry…sweet, before he goes
Not tired, not tired, listening to music, motor purring in sharp, moving on the I-70, next stop, next knot, Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois.
My ass feels numb. My ass is numb. Sign says “Spotted Wolf Canyon View Area”, so let’s stop and view and drink mo’ water. Sit on bench and gaze at those red, red, red canyons and cliffs all around, not so high now, not so high. It’s feels so good to be still a spell. No-one else is here. It’s a spell. No-one else is here. It’s all flatland now… with an occasional cliff and canyon here, cliff and canyon there… remains after time? remains? That red rock though, always, or else yellow. OK, enough, Chicago here we come, let’s get on the road, on the road again. The rocks before and the cliffs and the canyons put a spell on me.
I put a spell on you
Because you’re mine
Stop the things you tell
Watch out, I ain’t lyin’ (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, 1956 I put a Spell on You lyrics)
And for miles and miles, miles and miles, it’s all flat with a cliff and a canyon in the distance, some of them have no color at all, no color at all, no color at all… but they’re so strong, you spell you, (U-Turn? No!) and there’s a unity between that same color beneath the soil of the entirety of the thing my legs and my brain grow out of, that gives me my strength, as in “Lord give me strength”. Not just the rock ‘n roll, not just “I play the flute therefore I am, I am Pan” Pan, not that Pan, but rather the “the-ism” of Pan-Amerika (oops, they went bankrupt) Pan, the non-man, that Pan the-ism, a dirty cloud we both breathe and blanket, that’s the Lord, that’s the Lord I’m talking about: I need holiness here, surging from a motor wholeness as a part of those cliffs, like the rocks we’ve been in the presence of all this time, all along this road, rocks and canyons, shorter yellower cliffs and canyons, in action here, in action here and not just words, and certainly not alone, but in a crowd, at least a semi-circle round a stage, something, wannabe in solid groups, not competing with the bushes and in time, as I grow, as I grow, with the trees. With a minyan.
Yeah, I am tired. But just change the cassette, and keep going.
When I was five my motha said I was gonna be the greatest thing alive… I’m a man child, I’m a Rollin’ Stone” Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy (Audio)
Thompson Springs… all right! Earth is getting browner, browner, browner… earth is browner, browner, browner, say it like a bracha, like a blessing, a blessing before washing your hands in the earth, in the good dirt, this ain’t desert anymore, son; before eating, before starting your day, before getting back on your bike and the motor works, in humming sharp, humming sharp, my butt feels numb, my butt feels numb. Blessed are you oh Lord, King of the Universe (actually who art the universe who art that lord, Pan the-ism and shoin), who bringeth forth my numb butt, who brings forth my numb butt. But the rest of me isn’t tired, at all, just grin. Chicago, here we come! We’re gonna make it today. Grand Junction town, now, coming up, just pass on through, pass on through, pass on through, like the hot wind, yet another little town…
Here’s another one, another little town. It’s not night, but it’s not day either, not even afternoon and… I am tired, tired, my thighs and my back, it’s all numb now. I really should stop, let’s just pull in here, it’s the wise thing to do (Yamaha man nodding) off what they’re calling in this modern 1967 yet, the Grand Army of the Republic Hwy but actually it’s just the I-70, and let’s go to this Village Plaza shopping center and buy a box of donuts for dinner from the gas station store… there’s no-one here… from the ten donuts, I save three for breakfast, and there’s no-one here, spread out my sleeping bag bad on the bench right here by my bike, no-one cares, that’s fine… it’s self-service, a Twilight Zone thing, and it is kind of black and white at this time of day… it’s not Chicago, that’s for sure, but it’s what I can do, what I can do, and it’s so good to lay me down, lay me down, lay me down… accommodate like; now on my side; now on the other side. 🎵All night long🎵
Next morning. In whichever town this is, it’s not quite light yet, I’m staring at the route in the parking lot lights, sitting up now on the bench with my route in my lap, measuring around my thumb how far I actually got yesterday to here. Then I can shift my thumb over and the next knot will come from my body, not my brain. Here could be any one of more than ten little towns: Big Springs, Ogallala, Maxwell, Gothenburg, Cozad, Lexington, Kearney, so be it. Wait a minute, no. I’m in Gothenburg now. Look around me, don’t see any signs. But the address on the gas station receipt shows me I know where I am after all. Let’s do that, let’s move my thumb to the next knot, let’s get real, let’s not force it, next knot after that can be Des Moins, Iowa and after that Chicago and after that it’s just a short run to E Lansing. Then a jump to Pittsburgh and another jump and I’m getting to New York City!
Question: Where d’ya get money to buy donuts?
You see, my gas tank is magically full, too. It’s the magic of capitalism. An executive of Shell attended some meeting sometime somewhere with some other executives and their secretaries and butlers and he presented on a magic whiteboard with a felt pen a series of revolutionary ideas with the aim of helping Aaron and those like him, including the plan of striking them down if they got too frisky. He presented the idea of giving away free Shell credit cards that could only be used in gas stations… to a sub-population of sub-populations, for now: college students, but not just any college students… college students who graduate, but not just any college students who graduate: those with a 3.6 GPA or higher (maybe not too high, Aaron like tops). Can’t remember when the envelope came. Mummy (not “Mum”, “Mum” was Nana, Mum’s Mum. Got it?) handed him an envelope with a face of mock scorn (so you’re getting mail now?) and it was the first of a whole life procession of thin white practically empty white envelopes with a piece of plastic inside and weird instructions for something called “activation” and how to make payments. A free Shell gas card, only to be used at gas stations (but donuts included, yes, from the 24-hour mini mart; and maybe a cup of coffee; or tea; they think of everything, actually an idea from one of the butlers). Aaron had read the activation part, and activated the activation; didn’t bother reading the payments part yet, can do that in New York. Can’t I? So far I’ve used it on the trip three times. OK! Up and at ‘em. On to… wait a minute, what was that again, ah yes, Des Moins, Iowa, dude, on to Des Moins, Iowa and after that Chicago covered by my thumb (move it) and after that just a short morning run to E Lansing, just to get real with a hole in my head. Aaron kicks off the sharp humming on the road with Elvis, and A Whole Lot of Lovin’ S coming on… S S S S SSSS…
(So what happened with Denver?) Oh, I just went around it, it was morning so I just went around it. That’s the thing with all the big cities, they got these highways circles around them, and when it’s not a night knot anymore, just a city and you’re not going to sleep there, it doesn’t count, you can just go round it, as you pass through you don’t have to go straight through, you can just go round it, and move on, keep moving on. (I s’pose he knows what ‘e’s doin’).
But Chicago, no, Chicago no, we’ll need gas there, and I need a bit of urban, getting as far as Chicago yes is a big deal, a big deal, I’m really doing it, let’s go through it, sleep there, get gas there, more donuts and an egg sandwich for breakfast big time… next morning; on the road.
Towards a Tabula rasa
Section titled “Towards a Tabula rasa”Wanna get to see and feel that Chicago moment again. That Union Station (not the LA one). The Union Station Transit Center. Stepping out through that sliding glass door arm in arm in surprising camaraderie, step by step down to the sidewalk, Evelyn and Benjamin and the boys descending those stairs in no hurry, four jaws dropped and eyes wide at the traffic, the traffic lights, the buildings, the colors with overlay in grays and browns, the noise overlaid in honks and millions talking, murmuring, breathing. The family’s first glimpse of Amerika. Newness.
The Wirth Sandlers. Aaron and Ruben 12 years old. Emerging from downtown Chicago Union Station Transit Center on that stopover, the family of passengers on a 🎵California here we come 🎵 3-day train from NYC to LA. Los Angeles, here we come. No, San Diego, actually, home of the US Navy and Aerospace giant Convair, Benjy-Dad’s new home and master, a few extra hours south on the train headed for the cracked asphalt of El Cajon Blvd. On a sun hot day in the almost desert city, the two boys out exploring their new city like, where are we? Aaron and Ruben then returning to the rented apartment on 54th St. (Where’ve you been all this time?) sunburnt and liberated somehow, actually a little shocked at being reproached. Hey, we’re in Amerika now. Just blocks away from Primary School. (Had to switch primary schools just a year later, but never mind that now). Just blocks away from High School. Just Blocks away from the Jewish Community Center. Tifereth Israel Synagogue just 15 minutes drive. Cantor Jacob running us through the bruchas and prayers from the Bar Mitvah service Aaron and Ruben were to deliver so convincingly just a year later, the Cantor’s yamaka always at a slant, always looked like it was about to fall off his copious white steel wool head of white hair any second. Evelyn and Benjamin so proud of the boys, all agreeing silently to turn a deaf eye to the sparkling Christmas trees at their London home every December, just a few years before.
But on the road again, that Chicago on my mind. Wanna get to that Chicago and see it, hear it, feel it, like that first time, and then get to New York City and get to my new first time.
Chicago on my mind, on the road. Actually, floating across, somewhere on a backscreen, the San Diego rooted Bar Mitvah reception, Stephanie and Stacy sisters in glittering dresses almost like matching twins for Aaron and Ruben, we men now. Whatever happened with Stephanie and Stacy? G-d knows.
So why East Lansing, why not immerse a night in Chicago just a bit, at least, then straight on to NYC where I’m aching to be now?
Cuz Lynn. From East Lansing. E Lansing. Now? Yes. Lynn from E Lansing, Lynn of the white spots (d’ya mind if I finish eating?).
Lynn on the beach, both of us on the beach, hearing the waves, the moon faintly shining on Lynn’s face, those lips of hers thin and compressed together, always a hard kiss; hard kisses, reaching far, pounding far.
It was summer Jewish camp where we met. Colleague newbie counselors. Virgin counselors, you might say (Wot camp?).
So well liked by all the adolescent girls under her care, in her assigned bungalow, excited at being there with her at the Jewish summer camp, girls who were either getting their first period, their first boyfriend, or both. She is young, smart, genuine. Loving like a mother, liking like a friend from camp. Engaging easily in trust, seeing her proteges grow in life and in moments. All the activities.
First date. First date camp?
Lynn is very very cute. Is very very lovable. She’s so refreshingly non-intellectual, that’s the thing. Washes the intellectual completely like a wet dissolving hydrogen peroxide wave through the brain; this coming, from her, in all our embraces. Nothing intellectual going on, and if there is, there you are, it gets washed away by the willfulness. Everything is motion, action, muscles pressed, be it lips, brains, legs, pubic purpose. Everything is keyed into satisfying wants, her wants, begging me to bring just my wants, our arms full, anyway; feeling and pressing, from lips to toes; to our private bunk of confidence there in the bungalow with her girls and my boys out canoeing on the river for a couple hours still.
Then later, back in LA, aftercamp.
—Wanna get a coffee? —She says yeah in her inimitable way.
Driving my Oldsmobile all the way down the Sunset Strip from University of Judaism to the ocean. Often alone. Now with Lynn. To an empty comfy dark wooden restaurant bar there that’s always open, right there on the beach when you get to the end of Sunset, wait for the green light, turn into the parking lot. Hope it’s still there.
—Wanna go to the Renaissance Fair?
Agoura Hills, less than an hour’s ride from Santa Monica, you take the I-405, Ventura Blvd, then the I-101, or else the CA-1 that stays follows the ocean, takes a little longer. The Fair is just before getting to Westlake Village, in the Santa Monica Mountains… will give me a good chance to take a ride on my Yamaha 350 on a trip that’s not so short, let it help get me ready for the trip to see you, Lynn! All the way to E Lansing Michigan. How about it? She answered me in the affirmative the way she always did, by flashing the corners of her lips pressed into that line, and microscopically nodding her head then her jaw tilted up, prompting a kiss from me, of course, she made a point of not softening those lips. Well, other times, not so much, we had softness, yes, we shared softness, but mainly it was clasping, clasping, hard, hard, bone against bone, with all of Lynn, we liked that. We press hard, therefore we are.
At the Fair, The wrestler Buck Kartalian (“Hercules Magnificus”) danced on the stage, juggling Bibles (Catholic, Protestant, Puritans, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and some others, can’t remember, he even had, too, Tom Paine’s Common Sense; no he didn’t have Toqueville, writings of the early Marx or Portnoy’s Complaint). He stopped several times to see which one ended up in his right hand at the end of the juggle. He would then turn to show it prominently to everyone crowded in a semi-circle all around staring. He did this about three times, can’t remember which one he held up each time.
After camp ended, Lynn’s grandmother, aghast at Lynn, aghast at me, drove her off on that last day while I watched from some distance, and I never saw her again.
We exchanged some limited correspondence… in her first letter, Lynn told me what her grandmother had said that day —I said I would put you up in the motel on Sunset Blvd so you could be a counselor. No more, no less. Well, it was what it was. And that’s over now, you’re goin’ straight home.
In her second letter she told me she wanted to end her virginity, she was sick of it, fuck that bible. And was going to go ahead and just do it, with a good friend of hers (anyone, as she said), she was sick of waiting for me to make up my mind whether to get there, go there, or not, or when. Next, she´d already consummated as she said, so it was done. In yet another letter she enclosed a photograph of the lips of her vagina, shiny, with some white spots on them… they had looked it up in an illustrated medical journal. She explained that it was an authoritative journal, to be trusted, they knew. Her and her friend. And it wasn’t really serious at all, so no biggie.
After a worried examination of myself, and after one last letter with Lynn clarifying that no, it had nothing to do with me, I could relax just a bit. Then again explaining, OK, she had found that friend, that she was sick of being a virgin, that it didn’t matter who she did it with, that she especially didn’t feel like waiting to see if I was ever going to pass through E Lansing… So why am I going there now instead of living just one day, in that Chicago?
—Why a plan? What’s the plan for, plan, plan, plan, with a clear route route? If we’re going to waste time in E Lansing?
Really. The photo with the white spots on her that she sent me in that last letter, that her friend had taken, to find out what she had caught and what medication she needed… Really, I need to pass through East Lansing like I need a hole in my head right now. Wait a minute I do need a hole in my head to drain this thickness out of my wobbly forehead head. Yes, I do need a hole in my head. Air my brain out from bibles with white spots on them. Let’s pass by E Lansing and straighten out everything with Lynn from E Lansing, freeing her up for her own adventures, for her own life. And above all leaving me alone, in my mind too. I can breath now, a couple of times, and have a regular smile on my lips. And relax my lips. And ride into NYC, get to the JTS, and just be.
OK, it’s all for the better. And here I got my route! I’m moving, I’m moving on, Chicago, here we come! On the road. On the route. Again. Moving.
And we’re getting there, in the middle of all this… Omaha, NE. Yes sirree! This one we are going to go around. Round and round…
🎵But, mama said, “You can’t hurry love, No, you just have to wait”, she said “Love don’t come easy… You’ve got to trust, git it time, no matter how long it takes.
But, how—🎵
—Watch it! watch it, changing lanes in the round…
Just went around Omaha, NE, and straight on.
Just went around Des Moines, IA, I and straight on.
Just went around Davenport, IA, and straight on.
Chicago! We’re not going round again! We’re going in! Straight to Union Station, sit on those steps!
Sign says: W. Ida B. Wells Dr. sign says… Now we’re on S. Federal St… traffic light. Car drives up one lane over. Executive car. Suit. But smile. Driver, older executive, driving. Looks at my bike. Looks at my suitcases, admiringly.
—Where ya headed?— His face beams out in the dark.
—NYC, en why see!
—Wow, I’d do anything to be on the road, just leave everything, pack up a few things in a couple of cases and tie it up on the rack, jump on and hit the road! How I envy you.
I smile, nodding my wonky head, say nothing, nod. Press my lips together, Marboro Man style, saying nothing, nodding, smiling,
—Well! Good luck to you! I’ve always wanted to do what you’re doing. Best of luck to you.
Lights green now.
—Oh, Union Station? Transit Station, yes!— He spits out directions. We drive on, a couple blocks later he smiles, nods looking me right in the eyes, waves and turns right. I wave, wobbling a bit on the bike, but it’s OK.
And in minutes I’m there… and there’s a place to park motorbikes right there… and a bench to rest my numb butt! Even though it’s dark, it’s all well lit. 10 years ago and daytime, it was different, somehow. Well, it’s great being here. Tonight I can say, I’ve come a long way…
To rest up somewhere? Or not? Why don’t we get E Lansing and Lynn over with, rest there and move on. We gain time that way instead of losing it. No, we won’t lose it. Let’s do it, three hours more and a bit. Better give Lynn a heads up, I can call now it’s not too late.
Taking a Load Off In E Lansing
Section titled “Taking a Load Off In E Lansing”Pocket bulging with receipts from gas stations convenience stores… Numb butt roundish again. Phone booth right over there… yeah, better call Lynn. Ah, standing up is hard to do. Just a few ungainly steps to the phone. Dialing, dialing. Ringing, ringing. Just three rings. But it isn’t Lynn that answers the family phone.
—Hey Lynn’s brother! (Tim!) How are you doing, Tim?
—Good, good! Hey, bad news, Lynn’s not back yet, but by the time you get here (where are you..Union Station, Chicago… ah) … by the time you get here, she may have gotten back too… we can eat something right here at home and wait for her… hey, can I check out your bike, ride it… just round the block? great! ok, I’ll be here waiting for you, Aaron… (directions…).
Good bye shiny colored clean car doors in the night and rolled up windows, oh streets of Chicago, IL. Glad to have rested my numb butt and wonky head here on the train station steps! Singularly unimpressed. Bit disappointed. Now straight on. On to E.
On the bike, on the road, almost on the water… not going round a city now, going round a lake, going round Lake Michigan… in the dark! can’t even see it… water’s black… OK, not so close to the lake any more… few blocks back from the lake… just don’t fall asleep… Kalamazoo??? Are you joking, I’m in Kalamazoo? Ah, that’s right, he said… so we’re near, we’re near… just up to Battle Creek and here we are…
Hey bro! I had met Tim one time, and sort of laughed inside, Lynn and Tim, Lynn and Tim… none of the dignity of Aaron and Ruben, to be sure. Yes we’re twins!
—How do?
—How do Tim! Eat?
—Eat!
—Lynn get here?
—Nopis… Hey, let’s take your stuff inside. Can I just take your bike around the block before we eat?
—Why don’t we eat first (I gotta say, I’m famished, broke my individual record on the road today too! Let’s eat, then sure, I’ll rest up a bit, you take it for a spin. A short spin, mind you, OK? —Sure, sure…
We eat.
He takes it for a spin. Smashes it up. I can see him coming back out the kitchen window while I’m eating ice cream… something’s not right…
We take it round the corner, the mechanic isn’t there. Tim calls him, they know each other, so he’s coming soon. Can only feel my head where the top lid of my skull is boiling.
Aaron goes back to the house to wait for Lynn, while the mechanic comes to take a look at the bike. Hope they can fix it by tomorrow!
Aaron’s alone on Lynn’s bed, lays down… beats off… falls asleep… wakes up, can hear Tim getting back, cleans up as best he can (napkin scrunched up, thrown on the floor), pulls on his pants
Lynn back yet? No? How weird! OK, he’ll have it fixed tomorrow lunch time, it’s gonna be fine, I’m paying for it of course… Feel like watching TV or anything? —No, I’ll just sleep, see you tomorrow morning, can I just sleep on this be? Yeah, sure, it’s Lynn’s 😄. OK, see you tomorrow morning
—Got to tell you something. Got to own up.
—‘morning! What? Don’t tell me the bike?
—No, the bike’s gonna be ready lunchtime.
—(sigh of relief). What then?
—Well, I didn’t wanna tell you yesterday… I knew Lynn wasn’t gonna be here or even call or anything else. She told me to give you this note, that’s all. Really sorry.
Note (Aaron can see Lynn exploding in laughter, her lips gone soft as her mouth scoffs wide open, writing this, showing it to her friend, laughing even more):
You know, it's over. No use crying over spilt milk. I'm not going to be there, spending some time with my friend. Have a great life. --Lynn
—Do you mind if I sleep a couple more hours?
—No, no, I’ll wake you
—How’s that for closure, Lynn? Some on the bed-sheet still too. Bye Lynn. I will have a great life. Hope you do too.
Aaron scrunches up the dry note inside his fist, throws it on the floor, it falls right next to that other piece ball of paper lying there, still damp.
Couple of hours later: Knock, knock —Good news, I brought the bike back, it’s working fine, bit bumped up, but it’s polished up and the main thing is it’s working fine.
Aaron sleeps till lunch
Tim says… let’s go and I can show you E Lansing… Aaron says: thanks, I’ll just say no, I’ll jest get on my way.
The two men nod, clasp hands, part.
So here’s my bike. Feels like home. Happy to see you! OK, key goes in the lock like always. Twist and shout. Start. Coughed but it’s OK. Sounds the same, maybe fraction of a note lower, am I right? Guess it’s part of the breaking-in process. Gun and go, I guess. Gun and go… Wave to Tim! Nice smile! On to Pittsburgh. Road. Road. Are you joking? Linn Road??? Lost your tail and your mouth is closed, sans firm lips. So many turns to take, so much to remember else I’ll lose my way. Twenty, thirty turns, this is nuts. Stop here and fix these papers to the handlebar, let’s not get lost emerging from where I was totally lost. OK, with the list taped on, it’s workable, workable. Left, right, left right. And Lynn’s receding countenance in my mind:
0What a relief. A sad relief, but we’re both growing now. Or not. By leaps and within our copious bounds, yes. 🎵Just naturally… 🎵 You know, how we are, she’s got hers, I’ve got mine, we no longer give or share, if we press against each other now it’s just gonna be a brick wall. Her words, bubble voice, and letters blow out, dark butterflies in the wind behind me on this road. Your countenance is now becoming that highway lens friend, that one tiny transparent gray spot at the far end of the visible stretch of I-90 highway we’re on now. And yes, gradually, elastically, your little face detaches and floats on out and shifts back behind me, gazing just for a fraction of a second into my back (Goodbye!) before the fading; and I’m fixing in whole on where Pittsburgh will be and growing into that; in about 5 hours, Pittsburgh, you last knot, you! That gonna feel like a whole day… a whole way…we’re on it.
Shelling It In Pittsburgh
Section titled “Shelling It In Pittsburgh”I-96 E, ay ninety six Eeee, ay ninety six Eeee… motors, I got two motors, cuz I’m a twin, one’s Ruben, and it’s working okay, nice and sharp but the other one, me, Aaron, keeps wavering, working, seems okay, but changes way, it sounds quivering then jumping and sinking trumpet notes, the higher note is C octave 8, too high, the lower, A ocatave top, both cough too… but let’s just lean on through, to the last knot, Pittsburgh, be there soon, and can grow. Up.
Okay, they’re settling down now to normal (You call this normal?). They still don’t sound exactly the same, but each one is working, I’m going good, I’m going good “turning left” to get on the I-475 E, Toledo here we come… Woah! I’m in Ohio, oh hi! oh! Toledo, Toledo, just going round you… 🎵 everything gonna be all right 🎵 repeat, repeat, rinse and repeat… boring, boring, boring a hole in the highway, boring a rail furrow in the highway, boring my route to my last knot… Now onto OH-2 … what’s all that water? Water … tired slopping water washing over me… if I closed my eyes right now I’d be nicely flooded over my head. Am I over my head? This is like infinite, and what is this water? Ahhh, Lake Erie my little piece of paper stuck on the handlebar says… I should know I wrote it myself, the handlebar is an extension of my brain (look where you’re going)… knots and sub-nots, haves and have nots, notes on sheet music… and it’s still miles and miles to Cleveland. Such a big effort just to go around you, but this is like sailing, so much water, you erie lake you, you erie lake, you erie lake, you… no, no U-turn, onwards to round round Cleveland; no, but seriously, gotta stop just to rest a moment, gotta stop, just for a sec. Just a bench and I can have the last donut, the last nut, the last not, not knot, knot. It’s just a bench, I’m sitting here on a bench. Nothing’s moving and my ears don’t understand, there’s no traffic and no sound, weird ears, Pennsylvania, weird back, Transylvania, my head resting, and glad of it, on my back, a rock sitting there, but that doesn’t rhyme with Copenhagen. No, no, it doesn’t. I wish I could sleep, but got to get going, this isn’t rest, somehow, anyway, well, it is a bit, but gotta make that last knot not later, not tomorrow, but now, knot, or soon to now. Where’s now? This is Sandusky, OH, Sandusky Oh hi oh! Just three hours, three hours, along this ol’ I-90 and we can rest in Pittsburgh… Ruben and Aaron can stop our motor duet; each one with their slightly different, their own distinguishing voice. Each one on their own single bed embraces silence and a pillow and shut up, gazing at their own wall; each one will have their own tomorrow. Yes, we’ll enter downtown Pittsburgh, and then, delicious stop! We’ll stop. And fill up the tank. And sleep. Well, to stop we need to start, up and at ‘em, stop; up and at ‘em, stop. After that (can’t think) after that, tomorrow morning (really?) it’s just a step over to NYC and we’re there. There there. There. A lightning shudder thrill scares all through my back, my ass, my heart, as I restart the bike, or try to… okay, yes, it restarts, I got somewhere moving to sit on… motors Ruben is on and Aaron had a bit of trouble but we’re on… we’re on. Ride cowboy away from all this Erie and down to Pittsburgh, industry town. Last box of donuts to buy, fill ‘er up on donuts and gas and tea and we’re off for NYC, we’re off for JTS, yes.
Cleveland, OH. Just go round it! Round it like I have before. Ooops! No more lake, no more lake… Erie gone, Riverside Cemetery on the right side, Cleveland kind of, almost behind me now, winding river to my left somewhere but I can’t see it. The cemetery yes. Ooops, yes, it is me… Aaron motor spitting, something even banging down in that motor’s lungs… weird noise, uneven noise, internal battering, much coughing the twins, better grab this off ramp before it explodes between my legs or something. So don’t take the OH-176 to Youngstown, turn off to the right here, right lane, neither OH-176 or I-71, head to Pearl Road, Highway 42, we gotta stop and see what’s happening with Aaron motor, we’ll get back to the 176 South soon, soon, just stop for a sec, and then on to Pittsburgh. Keep on to Pearl Road. OK, bearing round in a circle to the right, looks like there might be a place to stop soon. Aaron’s still coughing and it’s weird to ride this way. It’s okay, we’re getting onto a regular street soon. Intersection, let’s just turn right. Main street but no gas stations. Let’s grab that regular looking street, there’s a Church, it’s kind of a country lane, Willowdale Avenue, right here, left here, must be a way back to where maybe I can find a gas station, this is all just residential little houses, back onto Pearl Road, up a ways. Oh, there’s grass and a kind of park, let’s park in the park, we gotta stop now… make a left into the park… just stop sit down on the grass. Oh, it’s a cemetery! Riverside Cemetery! Somewhere like I was visiting Ma and Pa in the cemetery like a local, everything’ll be all right, just got to stop, turn off the engine, stop the motors, hold our horses, sit down and stop everything whirring in front of me like I was the motor.
Pretty much quiet, couple of kids riding down Pearl Road on their bicycles, try not to look at me. I rest my head in my hands and close my eyes, my heart is coughing like the motor. Stop coughing (Spit it out, boy!). The stop and the quiet is good. Leave it for like half an hour just like that. Every now and then I open my eyes and just see the grass, every blade and some brown around, damp earth, it’s the earth. Earthen. Grass. I breathe. That was the problem, forgot to breath all this time. Smell the flowers, haha. Well, the grass anyway. Smell that green grass, gently. Okay, now, that’s better. Plan. Start the bike up, if it’s better, let’s ride a tour around this cemetary, no-one here, just to check out the ride, see if it’s okay. I turn the key and press the button, and it starts! And sounds okay! Let’s ride it slowly through these lanes of memory, everything’ll be all right, let’s see. It’s working fine, actually, but the sound is both okay but different, somehow. I get off without turning it off and look, touch where I can, hear with my ear, stand on one side of the bike, then the other, sounds different on the two sides, different, why? Ah, only one motor is running, only Ruben is running, the bad sound is gone because Aaron is dead. The motor, I mean. Motor Aaron makes no sound, that’s why overall sounds normal. So, can I go on one motor, just one motor, just to get to Pittsburgh at least? Let’s ride it around and see. Riding, passing graves, along the lanes, the trees. It’s working! Everything’s working, just that I have a Yamaha 175, half short of 350.
If it klunks out here… I guess I’ll just get a job. Never done that before.
OK, stop that boiling heart and breast. Just don’t push it, and I bet we can get through to Pittsburgh. Get back on the OH-176 south and get to Pittsburgh. Come on!
A few turns and I’m on the OH-176 South. Yes! Going back up Pearl Road did the trick. I still got my dick. Resting between my legs, curly like. Warmish in all this cold. Okay, let’s see how we are on the highway. So, everything’s working, but power is weak, 55 mph I can do but it’s getting close to a high screech if I get up to 60, so let’s do this, we just travel on in the right lane doing around 50, and that sounds normal (This all sounds normal to you?). It’s working. I can get to Pittsburgh and see what I can do at the next Shell station. Shelling it. Just shelling it out. Shelling it out. Slower but surely. Shelling it out.
Youngstown coming up, go round. I’m going round Youngstown, that’s not a lie. Now it’s a short jog along I-80, can’t believe how well this is working (Shut up!), at 50 mph anyway, later it’ll be a question of turning right on the I-76 and we’ll ride into Pittsburgh, last knot! And be made whole again, shelling it, shelling it.
Finished going round Youngstown, on the I-80. It’s a breeze. Just good old divided highway, nice little shrub like trees on both sides, no-one is on the road but me, in my right lane, doing 50. Just shelling it. All right.
Entering the city of Pittsburgh, no going round any more. The air lends whole new meaning to the term “East Coast”. Smell of coal in the birds. The rain is warm from the factory smoke chimneys. Lends whole old wasted but comely meaning to “breath of fresh air”. Love that chimney welcome. No more black butterflies, no more.
Got off the highway, and then crossed the Allegheny River over the David McCullough Bridge, turned right into downtown. Stopped and asked a cop about motorcycle repair. He asked me a lot of questions, then walked on and told me to do the same. An old lady had been watching and she came up to me and gave me directions to Cheyanne Cycle, where her son worked. Got there. Left them scratching their heads over the death of motor Aaron, and they were kind enough to let me leave my bags under lock and key. Told me to come back the next day, late morning like.
I’m gonna get to NYC and the JTS, no matter what! If no bike, I’ll do a sit in at the nearest synagogue or temple, or whatever. They’ll help me. But I will be riding in, riding in.
For some weird reason I wasn’t tired, the fuel of optimism I guess, well, just a little, but spritely like. I was loving the walking. My legs rested not resting but walking. Nice day in Pittsburgh. Crossing the 10th St Bridge on foot was somehow so peace gifting, so much, well, a breath of fresh air, call it what it is, a walking rest. The Monongahela River rang a bell in my historied head, but couldn’t remember anything, sorry Mrs. Sylvester. Just felt like giving the peace sign in the breeze. (Get used to it!) Restful, though. In half an hour I was back in downtown. And kept on walking. Feeling rich with 75 cents in my pocket, I needed a cafe or a bar or something to eat a sandwich, drink a soda. Or tea. Or whatever.
Found myself back near the River. Searching for the peace, I guess. River side, cement highway bridges, trees on a ridge on the other side. Went down and walked near the river. An asphalt way (missing you! see your broken route face soon!) to walk, a wire fence, rusted railway tracks rubbing right near the river, I just walked alongside that river. Ah, a historic sequence of rocks laid out like benches, but rocks. Sat down for a while on one of the rocks that wasn’t too slanted. Over and on the other side, bridges, much river, trees and downtown. Continued my walk down the walkway. A sports stadium on the other side of the river. Then bare embankment on the other side of the street, sparse trees now, a car park on the right. Like walking in along by a shopping center car park for a few blocks. Oh, it is a shopping center, or a bunch of spread out businesses. Red Port Authority buses passing by. Passing by. Empty, always. Until I started a Controversy.
Well, there’s this small, totally out of place building, or large shack, spruced up with a fake brick wall on the front with no signs, just a battered metal door on the side with a sign lit up by some lamps shining. It’s dark now. The battered faded red wooden sign says Controversy in white broken letters, some hanging at an angle. Not a single window in the building. But loud music and I can almost hear voices singing or shouting. I kept on walking, and then the fairly large parking lot comes into sight, with several cars in it. and a spruced up white and dark red ceramic front, and a big set of neon letters: “Controversy”. With a proper double green door protected by a hotel like porte-cochère as much out of place as the whole place. And a blue convertible parked at the door.
I approach the door and just to the left of the door there are four or five notices, black boards with white print. One says “Audio & Video surveillance on duty at all times” in capital letters. Another is a rather lenient dress code which would even let me in. No Smoking. No Firearms or Weapons. No Exceptions. Thank you.
Well, on the other door, the right-side door… is a menu!! For 65 cents I can get pie and a coke. Weird place, but I’m not carrying firearms much and I don’t see any other places nearby, so, let’s do it! Spend the last of my cash and leave me with a dime! Literally.
No-one outside. I boldly go through the doors, into the sound. 🎵 Walked into a bar. Then it began to rain. California dr— 🎵 ah, but fuck California. And I’m not dreaming. Until I see this velvet underground madhouse noise inside.
Inside, pure David Lynch Blue Velvet reduced (sorry) to a nightclub (¿de qué hablás, boludo, Aaron está en setiembre de 1967 y Blue Velvet no aparece hasta 1986, de qué hablás?).
Inside, all blue and all velvet. I mean, not the place to be looking for a sandwich and soda at all, especially your last one according to the change you have in your pocket. There’s even a stage, fortunately not occupied at the moment. Looking around though, plenty of explicit content. The female waitresses exposed and smiling. But hey, I’m hungry, and they mostly do not want to look at me because they know I’m just hungry. I understand. As usual I slink over to the tables and slide into a seat. Two women come over as waitresses (interesting approach), giggling in tight green bodices and wearing green cowboy hats. After checking what 75 cents will really buy, I order that real lunch: sandwich and a soda. They tell me no hurry, to take my time. And leave giggling. Looking over at the other side, there is like a whole battalion of chrome poles, deserted, no-one sliding, just the blue light. And an occasional pink. A thin inflammable looking curtain oscillates over the bar. Gotta get out of here. Eat pie first. Drink soda. Then shell for gas. Sleep somewhere. Tomorrow NYC and the JTS!
A couple started grinning at me from another table. One of them knocks on his head with his fist three times and cracks up, smiling broadly at me. I touch my head in the same place. Oh. I’m still wearing my helmet. (I dunno) They see me touching it and looking surprised they crack up again. They motion me with their arms, inviting me over to their table. After a while (where I con-commitably take off my helmet) I slink over, sit down, and tell them the story of my life. Boring!
They giggle all the way through my story, but for some reason are really into it and entice me to continue, waving still with their arms. At a certain moment they both laugh and squeeze hands briefly on the table top. Then I make as if to go. One of them says right out —No, don’t go, we’re just good friends. Actually, looking to get Linda here laid.
That smacks me, I’m a little taken aback, but Bert slaps me on the back. —Nah, don’t get worried, just kidding. After listening to all you had to say, well, never mind that. We’re all just friends, and another friend is welcome. So— squeezing my neck —you’re welcome to sleep the night at my place, hey, sounds like you got nowhere to go until you leave tomorrow.
Linda came along too. She squeezes my arm as we were leaving.
Blue convertible. Is that your car? They crack up. Bert takes a crumpled paper out of his pocket and now in the light I can see it’s a bus schedule or timetable. “We’re in time, the bus stop is right there across the street”. I smile to myself. We got a Port Authority bus route!
We got there, to the living room. It was pretty dark, and I just threw my body onto the couch. What heaven. Then Linda came in.
We didn’t actually haaaave sex? Bert went to sleep in his room and Linda and I made out on the couch. Or did Bert sleep on the couch cuz there wasn’t any bed anyway? Actually don’t remember any rooms, any bedroom or anything like that.
So out of sight, on the floor, we silently rubbed and rubbed, fully dressed, and Linda encouraged me to cum, in my jeans and everything. She was very happy I did.
—So, Moving on so quick, not staying here even a week or something…? —passing through —I looked up at Bert, but it was ok, he was still asleep, our voices weren’t waking him —but you must come and visit me in New York.
She was nodding vigorously, but a little crestfallen for such a bright young night, so I added, nodding my head —Soon
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and then rubbed that last bit more against me.
Love is all there is. It makes the world go round. It does. All that impotent propaganda about “human nature” and “man is naturally selfish” is bullshit. Bullshit. Love is all there is, indeed. Love, and work. But, rub unto others as you would have them rub unto you. Pan.
Pulling In To NYC
Section titled “Pulling In To NYC”We woke up latish and had breakfast together. Bert had gone to work (but left me directions on how to get to Cheyanne Cycle on the red Port Authority bus). Linda kissed me (on the cheek, weird) after trying to give me money to help me on my trip. I said no, I got my Shell gas card! And I’m almost there.
Just as I was leaving, she gave me a little envelope. —I wrote a poem, read it later —she smiled sheepishly. Kind. Kind. Heavenly. Kind.
So I’m riding the big red bus, a whole bus to myself. Almost asked the driver if he could drive me to New York, I was in such a good mood. (What ‘bout the cases?)
Good news at Cheyanne Cycle! The brothers (didn’t know they were brothers) had found a broken connector or whatever and now I had twin motors again! All right! Sun shining and city moving. Industry. Yes! And they took my Shell card (since it was a gas station, in a way, G-d knows) to pay for the repairs. Whoopie!
It wasn’t until I was about 100 miles across the I-76 in the middle of, what, Pennsylvania, that I realized that, oh, yes, I did know Linda was her name (with a Y or an I? I wondered. To myself.) but… I had forgotten to ask for her phone number. Had no way of reaching her afterwards. Maybe she would remember where I was going (Do you even know?) and get in touch with me. Yes, in touch indeed! Sweet Roy Orbison YT In Dreams (hear with lyrics) touchie feelie…
🎵🎵🎵
In dreams I walk with youIn dreams I talk to youIn dreams you're mine all of the timeWe're together in dreams, in dreams
But just before the dawnI awake and find you goneI can't help itI can't help itIf I cryI remember that you said goodbye (Roy K. Orbison, In Dreams)(Why don’t you stop singing and get some gas in that bike? How d’ya think you can get to New York with no gas? I dunno…) Oh! Yes. Absolutely. I started responsibly searching for a Shell, right here in Cucumber Falls territory. But it was another fifty miles before I saw one. Off ramp a few miles before Harrisburg, PE, a Shell of mine. In we go, shelling it, shelling it, just when the twins seem to be close to coughing their little motor guts up soon; so, we better get some gas right now, yes!
(And that’s what you did to her, not what she did to you. Get that straight! Of course, maybe she could care less!)
I ride in and park. Donuts first, then, eat a doughnut and put some gas in the bike, enough to get where we’re going! I park my bike and go in the store and walk down the second aisle to the right, opposite the cold drinks and realize it’s a funny thing how the donuts are always in the same place in all the shell convenience stores… No matter what the state. Weird. No chocolate ones today, though, like there were back in Pittsburgh, so white sugar frosted it is then… cardboard box… everything comes in cardboard boxes… cash register (got to pay for the donuts or whatever separately from the gas, I’m a pro by now).
The well jowled, unshaven and copiously cheeked gas attendant working the check-out took my card, ran it through the card reader then said —One sec, be right back. —He looked jumpy, in a blue velvet way.
Came back smiling broadly. —It’s no good. Your card’s no good. So I got to take it. You know, we get a reward for turning these in? Wait! Look! —He ceremoniously broke it in half and put it into a drawer. He closed the drawer, still smiling, guffawing even. —Go on, clear out of here! And leave the rest of those donuts right here on the counter.
Aaron goes out, sits on a bench, looking nowhere through his eyes. Lost in space now… He remembers the Automat just a few days ago. There’s a plate. A white plate on the table. Baked beans on toast. That’s what Aaron wants. There’s no song for it that comes to mind, only the plate and the knife and fork, but that’s what he wants, that’s what he’s eating, in his mind, like. As Aaron eats the food in his mind at least, he remembers breakfast every morning back in England in the fifties; he and his brother Ruben were made to get up, wash their hands and faces, put on just their underwear (white cotton vests and stretchy fitting cotton underpants), come down to the kitchen and eat the same thing for breakfast every day, just like what he was eating now: baked beans on toast, except there was no knife and fork at the Automat, was there? Now he was serving a portion of beans onto a piece of dry toasted rye bread with his finger. Living a whole life sustained on Baked Beinz; on toast. He can taste it. He remembers the poem from the morning; may as well read that now, relax the mind a bit…
—Actually didn’t even want them donuts (Whatdya think, your mid-western now? Whadya want then?).
Absent mindlessly puts his hand in his pocket and takes out the envelope Linda had given him, with a poem. He sees that there’s no poem, no paper, it’s empty. He almost throws it away, except feels a little bulge in the bottom. Something folded many times into a little piece of… paper is it? The poem? No! It’s a bill! A ten-dollar bill. He gets up. —Linda! Wow with eyes closed! Linda, smile of teeth like the moon. I’m not spending it here, though, even if I do need the gas (What’s this, a boycott, haha?). —He sees another gas station across the street. —Yes, the Big “T”. —He looks up at the yellow shell with the red border (how come gas station logos all have red in them somewhere?). —Bad shell! Bad shell! Good T, good T. Bastards!
Aaron gets the gas wheeling his bike across the pedestrian bridge, a weird moonly white even in the early afternoon bright sky. All set now to start up, gun and rev up and out of here now. —Sure hope that’s a Linda with an I and not a Y. Keep things simple. Thanks Linda, really. —Aaron can’t help looking up at that cloud covering the afternoon sun and smiling; Aaron smiles back, and bows his head. Shuts his eyes just for a moment. He gets his keys out of his pocket, and starts up the engine. Only one of the motors works (Aaron motor this time). (Ay, there’s the rub.) —But that really doesn’t matter, somehow, though… I’ll get there, it’s just a couple of hours. I’ll get there.
On the road again 🎵. Staying in the right lane though. Now to reach NYC, cross the bridge and get to the Seminary. It must be okay. Or else just leave the fucking bike, G-d knows.
Still on the I-76, there were moments then, there, that the second motor kind of kicked in for a bit. As fitting in a nation of progress. But then nothing.
And never again. But with the one motor almost sounding normal, rounding Harrisburg, PE, nearer now.
The bike is suspended in the same place, but the highway is being pulled under me like an inner tube. Like an asphalt ribbon. Like my heartstrings, my veins, and to be positive about it, my arteries. Like a studio filming surrounded by empty green windows, anxious to see what will dance on them and how. As if I’m not even moving, but the wheels do go round. Tired, yeah.
Hey, we’re rounding Allentown, NJ; another town in New Jersey, I need a new jersey, and a few more things, a few more places, more often passing down a main street than rounding round, but on a move, on the road! Getting there. And it’s still afternoon. Latish, but afternoon. Still.
Throughing Newark, NJ.One sign says to go north for Ridgewood, NJ. That wood, Ridgewood. Distracted, I’m taking a turn here and there (Don’t get lost!) feeling so close. And then. That sign: George Washington Bridge. New York. Could it be?. Yes. This is it. My red heart fills the whole of my Jewish chest, and this is no green backed movie filming! (What sign?). George Washington Bridge. That sign. This is the way to the George Washington Bridge, my way through to Manhatten, through to the JTS. Getting there, we!.
George Washington Bridge I-95 N
Motor Aaron is pushing us through; getting to the JTS! Riverside Drive… long drive, down by the river. River on my right, cement benches carved into the dust. Sometimes a huge building, then down by the river. On my left, apartment buildings a hundred years old, or else new, or else bridges and open intersections, with buildings around, or suddenly just trees, or trees on one side and buildings on the other, then that switches, forget where the river is, ah, there it is, or must be. I really don’t care, where, or what’s on each side, just want to get there.
Then a village of brick buildings, different shades of reddish and yellowish and grayish, some fifteen stories, some four stories, turn here, turn there, following my route, and there, there, there it is, a five story reddish brownish block and on its corner facing the Broadway, a ten story towerish, brickish but office-ish, it’s the JTS, gonna turn left on 122nd St. and park right there just passing the corner, a bus stop, just after the bus stop a place; to park my bike, I parked my bike, there. Turned off the engine and never started it again for… never started it again… ever. But it did stay there for six months. Then, the gas cap went missing one night as I gazed down from my dorm room 3 floors up; then a few days later the whole bike. Was gone. Amazing six months. But first I’ve got to get into the building. It’s not night yet. Untied the cases on the rack, put them on the sidewalk, slid out the collapsible luggage cart, loaded the suitcases on that, big one first, medium one, smaller one, briefcase on top blinking with its eyes at the brick walls all around, we ain’t in UCLA any more!
Now I can wheel in through the front door. Almost as though wheeling my bike. But no, it’s the luggage cart, with my three dark green suitcase set and my briefcase with papers and a couple of books. Do that, wheeling it in; and Introduce myself to receptionist person behind a kind of front desk.Looks at me and thinks it’s a delivery of some kind at first, but I explain I am a student, you know, checking in?
Dubious at first, but he finds my name on some kind of list and tells me to go to Room 307 on the third floor. That’s my room. I feel contained and almost ready to hug the reception person; who is speaking to me in a very low tone reserved for important directions, so anyway I have to lean closely to hear well.
—There’s a room in the dormitory assigned to you. Your roommate Renzo is already here. He’s from Italy, and speaks very good English. So you should get along very well together. Walk through that door, turn to your left, and take the stairs at the end. Now, very important, very important: At eight thirty you must meet with Rabbi Erskin in his office, you’ll pass it along the corridor right there along the way. Very important, have a good night’s sleep, but eight thrity. Please don’t be late. That’s going to be your formal admission and arrangements.
Thanks so much. In answer, I am waved on through to the corridor.
I walk down the corridor; about half-way down to the end there is a kind of wooden archway and from then on it’s student dorm rooms. In one room, some students having a heated discussion and close the door as I pass. On another door, one of the last ones before the stairs, I see a huge poster on the door. It is of someone in their late twenties or thirties, a bearded young person in kind of unoffic military garb, bearded and with an earnest look in their eyes, earnest but firm. Mental note to knock on that door and ask who it is. Right now, need to get up to 307 and sleep, sleep, sleep.
Happy to get to 307. A roof. A roof! No more route anymore. A roof. I open the door, no room to wheel in my things, but there are two beds on either side of the narrow-ish room, separated by two desks side by side at the end. Happily the room is empty right now, and I am joyous to be able to bring in my cases and things one by one, collapse the luggage cart and rack it behind the largest suitcase, close the door and throw myself onto the bed. Just like that. And say hello to the white acoustic tiled ceiling, say hello to every one of the dots on the tile my eyes are resting upon, until I sleep, sleep, sleep, breathing gently…
Next morning I wake at six after sleeping ten hours. There is someone snoring in the other bed, I must not wake Renzo. Just need to get up, wash my face and find out about breakfast… oh yes!!!! And then the appointment with Rabbi Erskin.
Ger up quietly… wash face in the adjoining wash room. Without changing clothes, creep out of the room to find breakfast Breakfast in an empty, quiet cafeteria, totally on my own; no-one else in large hall. An oldish, quality semi-shiny white painted and bulb lighted but high ceilinged room with lots of dark wooden piecings but modern ceramic flooring. Laid out on tables there are bare but generous servings of cereals, tea and coffee, toast, scrambled eggs in a heated tray… you know… heavan for me! heaven for me! Oh, my G-d. Heaven for me.
I read the student admissions brochure after eating a couple of servings of everything. Oh, my G-d. A roof and no more route. Toast! Eggs! A room. Arrival!
At eight twenty-five I venture out and find Rabbi Erskin’s office.
—Hello Aaron! Very nice to meet you, I’m sure.
Earthling salutation. Interview seating across a desk. Mix of books and office papers on desk, more books than office papers, some open; pen and paper-pad; no in-out boxes; and a black telephone. Huge library of old and new books behind the Rabbi’s chair. Photos of Rabbi’s, one of Mordecai Kaplan, one of Martin Luther King; one of President Johnson and Jaqueline Kennedy; one of Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, leader of the seminary and of Conservative Judaism; all thisdecorates, that is, officiates the walls of the room. Modern ceramic floor. No windows in office. Door closed. Papers.
—Would just like to ask you one question, Aaron. Feel free to take as much time as you need to answer, very much interested in your answer.
Rabbi Erskin beamed at Aaron. Like a Rabbi. And asked. —Why do you want to be a Rabbi?
—Well, Rabbi Erskin, I think the best answer is given in my admissions application. I took quite some time to gather my thoughts in the clearest possible manner there. I would be happy to discuss it, at length, if you would like?
—I have read it, yes, of course, very interesting, very well written. Yes. But, Aaron, I would like you to answer freely, now, in your own words, not as a research topic at university, but rather how you… well, how you feel about wanting to be a Rabbi, from the bottom of your… soul. —Rabbi Erskin leaned straight back in his chair and raised his head to countenance Aaron directly. And asked again. —Aaron. —Eyes to eyes. —Why do you want to be a Rabbi?
Why do you want to be a Rabbi?
Section titled “Why do you want to be a Rabbi?”Well, this Rabbi is really waiting for my answer. I’m looking into his eyes and he’s looking into mine, and no-one is flinching. They really want to know. What I really need to do is close my eyes and win some time… to think through this… it’s okay, there can be a bit of silence, I still have some time… and it’s okay if I blink again and he can see I’m thinking… why do I want to be a Rabbi…
—Rabbi Erskin, I can see myself walking around the huge campus at UCLA, usually after class, when I was thinking through things, when I was searching for answers. The answer to your question goes back to me walking round that campus with my briefcase in my hand, searching for answers.
How far back now does it go? The trip here? What’s behind what I wrote in the application? What is? OK, that’s why the briefcase, I need to proudly share that emptiness, that confusion, and then the pride I feel for being able to reach firm steps on that new way with doing, action and not just words, making it and not just reciting, embracing the best and the whole and what we need, instead of resigning. OK, so telling it like it is. And when it was that I learned important things.
—Aaron, tell me about when you were a child. —Rabbi Erskin is asking me to delve deeper— Did anything happen when you were a child that you remember that made you feel like wanting to be a Rabbi; maybe when you were very young, or a bit older, like 10, or in early adolescence, or later, before you graduated high school or college? What memories do you have in your life of wanting to be a Rabbi, or things that happened to you as you were growing up that might have something to do with your wanting to take this very, very difficult, hard, and demanding path?
So I am closing my eyes and digging through me, mind and brain, through my heart, through a collage of motion pictures projected onto the inside of my skull, there, just above my forehead, so I do have my eyes open but vacant; the images appearing, some of them, for the first time, and I am relating all I see, all that transpires really, at a very slow pace, in words…
Footnotes
Section titled “Footnotes”© Victor Opas Kane. Some rights reserved. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License