hi hi hi
I'm home and I will be blogging a travelogue I am writing about Caesar's Head, Asheville, dead birds, Club Hairspray, Pure Gold (a XXXX club), uncremated bodies, jacuzzis, burgoo, Zorrid, and blowback. Here's Part 1. I'll post a new installment each week. (I'm guessing it will run 5 to 7 pieces.)
Two Tanks To Asheville
Copyright 2002
I arrived at Zorrid’s half out of my skin. 8 a.m.
I found him in the bedroom.
“You’re excitable.” he said.
“What’s up? Let’s go. Why are you still in bed?”
He starts to speak in a monotone: “I’ve found it. There are no more questions, no more answers. Finally I get it.”
“You goof, what are you talking about?”
“Hibernation.” he paused. “Are we home yet?”
“Ohmigod. Why are you acting like this?” I started to walk out of the room.
“Why are you leaving? Get in with me.” he said as he flipped back the blankets.
He had on a wifebeater, his bare legs scorching me through my low riders, as he scooped me into the bend of his body.
After a stop at White Hen for coffee, Dominick’s for ice, and the bank for a $1000 in twenties, we took off. It was 12:30.
We shot into the heart of Chicago, Zorrid driving through six lanes of citydrivers, crossed the bridge up onto the Skyway, ghetto housing down below, smashed out windows, boarded-up ramshackles, a penny for hope. If you break down, do not get off, you could die.
Two hours behind the wheel and Zorrid had stiffened up again. At Fireworks! Fireworks! Fireworks! Merrillville, Indiana I took over. Zorrid is very funny. He puts my seat up as high as it can go, and the back is like a Puritan pew. I buzz it back down, relax the back and take off.
It’s February, right after Valentine’s Day, brilliant sunshine, no snow, no sleet, bare and dry, easy driving, 80 m.p.h. Our music is a big mix: DMB, John Prine, liz phair, ween, Wilco, The Cranberries, Violent Femmes, Aliotta and The Groove Machine, Live, and a spoken-word Kerouac. He likes to talk and listen, so we go for long stretches musicless.
By 5:30 we are zooming through Cincinnati… wooden houses built on hillsides, pink mercury vapor lights, crossing the Ohio River. Just south of the city we get off in Florence. Zorrid likes it because it is brightly lit and everything is in one spot. Dream Street, for real, that is the actual name of the street. Four motels, eights restaurants, gas, and a liquor store…perfect for the traveler.
“It looks okay.” I say as we cruise down the strip, “but it’s too early. I’m not even tired, are you?”
“No.”
“Okay, let’s get farther south before we stop.” Roadtrip Rule One: Get as far as you can the first day. You have the most energy and are totally excited, so the time passes quickly.
I strike a bargain. “How about if we stay here on the way back?
“Okay.”
Spanish moss is smothering the planet. It is devouring the woods even as far north as Cincinnati. I’m guessing that the moss was a foreign introduction, possibly as a cash crop, or perhaps brought in to kill off some other forest pest. Just like sparrows and purple loosestrife that are the banes of the north. We fight them though, tooth and nail. Well, the loosestrife. That’s what my pal Nellie does. She goes around Minnesota plotting out the patches glued to the edges of waterways. Her degree in one she made up, something like Doctor of Beautiful Wildflowers.
(Part 2, next week)
