California Gulls.

I fell asleep once we drove over the Nevada border. I was physically drained, emotionally embarrassed, and my body collapsed on itself. It was the middle of the day and it was hot. I listened to the Red Sox lose to the Angels and their season evaporated like the radio signal when we reached the California hills. I felt bad. Brandon was exhausted and Domenic was asleep too. I don't know how he drove the whole way. It wasn't the sleep so much as the escape that I enjoyed. I wanted to go home. I have completely missed the point of this trip. The Patriots lost to the Broncos and we listened to it. I don't like this place very much. It is red and hot and brown. It is just what I knew it was but I am not what I thought I was. I miss my bed.

The day was pulsing when I woke. My body felt hot. I felt like I was drowning in exhaustion. Domenic had been texting a friend and he said we might have a place to stay. The news didn't do much. I was staring out the window and the sun was rude and I could not escape it. There was an ad on the radio for tires or animal cruelty or cvs and I shut it off. I looked at Brandon. His cheek bones were barely hanging onto the skin beneath his eyes. It hung like saddle bags.

It was getting late but we gained the last hour we would in this country and it provided some relief but not much.

"I want to go home."

"Me too."

We drove for thirty miles in silence. When we reached the 405 the sun was waning but strong. I rubbed my eyes. Domenic slapped me in the back of the head and I turned around and starting punching at him. My body was tight and the sleeping bags were in the way so I punched them instead. It was not satisfying and I turned back around and felt my neck burn. Brandon laughed with half of his heart and we sat in silence again. I dozed off and then we pulled into a Jack in the Box and I ate half of a chicken sandwich because I knew I should be hungry. I wasn't. My stomach turned and I slouched in the front seat and put my legs on the dash. I needed to stretch but I didn't want to get out of the car. I heard Domenic speaking with Hanna outside the car in the parking lot of the Jack and the Box and Circuit city. It was muffled but I heard him say, "two lights - second right? and then what you will be ouside? Ok. Alright, yeah. We will see you in a few. Ok. Yeah we have it," he laughed, "see you soon."

I could smell salt. It was a light scent like mist. We parked and I got out. I immediately lit a cigarette. I saw a girl bounding towards us in the late afternoon sun.

"I can't believe you guys are here!"

Domenic hugged her and and I couldn't help but smile. Brandon hugged her too and rocked back from one leg to another while they embraced. It was nice to see. I introduced myself and we just started walking down the road towards a statue of a man holding a surfboard.

"How long have you been living here?"

"I have been at Imperial beach for a few months, living with my boyfriend and five of his friends from the navy.

"That must get crowded, are you sure you have room for us?"

"As long as it is only for one night," she smiled, "just kidding. Of course."

We walked towards a guy walking a pug puppy. "Xander!"

She ran towards the puppy. It could barely keep its legs beneath it. She picked it up.

"Come meet the boys. This is my boyfriend Justin. This is Xander, our new puppy."

"This may sounds iffy, but that is the cutest thing I have ever seen. Honest to God."

I pet his head and his whole face scrunched because the skin was hanging like play-dough.

We shook hands with Justin and walked towards the statue. When we reached the statue my eyes focused and I rubbed them. It was too vast. It was too beautiful. The sun was setting. It was setting over the water. I couldn't believe it. Vegas was washed away like that. Everything felt good again. We actually made it. Coast to coast. The ocean on the other side. The other ocean. Right in front of us. I took off my shoes and ran down in the sand. It was cold on my toes. I didn't stop. I ran straight in the water and dove into a breaking waves. I felt like a child. I was laughing and I swallowed some sea water. It tasted salty and warm. I lay on my back and a wave crashed over my head and spun me around under water. I planted my feet on the bottom and shot myself to the surface. I came out of the water and landed on my back. It felt wonderful. I looked and Domenic had already swam out a ways. He was laughing. Justin was laughing. Brandon was feeling the water out and like a child ran away from the surf, venturing back ever more curious. Hanna was laughing. Dripping wet we walked back to the apartment.

"Bloody Mary's anyone?"

"Over here."

"Yes."

"I'll do one."

We filled up our cups and walked back down to the water to watch the sunset. The sand was ice cold on my toes. The breeze blew light against my face. I was staring at the sun, it was red. The sky was purple and blue and pink and orange. We just sat for a while and I watched as the light slowly dwindled and we were left with the night. I watched a sea gull hop around the sand. It was a California gull. The first one I have ever seen. It was so familiar yet I knew it was the first. I smiled because nothing is too far from home even far from home. Nothing is untouchable and nothing is unknown. It is all here, all there, everywhere to understand. I am only here now but I think there is a part of me everywhere, like there is a part of everyone in me.

Vegas

We drove over the highway until we could see the strip in the distance. It was like a beacon or ant hill mounding out of the ground. I looked at Brandon and he smiled. It was four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday.

We left Las Vegas Sunday morning and I did not look at Brandon until we were halfway to San Diego.

Lake Mead and One Hell of a Desert.

The sun was setting as we drove across the hills of the Mojave desert. The climate has changed drastically since the Rockies - unrecognizable. It is the kind of change that makes everything that has happened before as clear as fog and the heat is so overpowering it is like I haven't ever known anything else. The wind beat on the car and the radio echoed softly in the background. I was sitting with my feet propped on the dash with a bandanna gathering sweat above my brow. We were soaked and the sun was exploding on the horizon line. We drove next to cliffs and into valleys, dry grass and plants scattered sparse as far as I could see. Nothing was taller than a few feet and looking at the dry brown color my throat felt dry and I sipped one of our last waters and looked at Domenic with concern. The excitement of this trip has faded. It isn't that we are bored, but having traversed more than half of the country less is left to the imagination, or at least the unknown. The feeling now is a false sense of understanding, a wisdom that doesn't exist except in our egos. A feeling of accomplishment though we have yet to accomplish anything.

Domenic was sitting in the backseat chewing on beef jerky in the heat. He was moving his mouth slowly, as if retiring to the weight of the day, in no rush, with no intentions. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and a cotton plaid shirt unbuttoned exposing a discolored undershirt with cargo shorts and untied hiking boots. We were all dirty. Covered in a film that almost felt normal and the thought of cleanliness was foreign and intimidating, "I feel disgusting but I like it," said Domenic nearly echoing my thoughts.

Brandon smiled, staring off towards the high cliffs now partially blotting the sun, "I like it too. I feel so far away from myself, I have been so lost in thought the last few hours. How far 'til Mead?"

"We are close, but I guess the driving gets slow up ahead."

The day was collapsing quickly like a tent, being propped up by only the stiffness of the sun and stubbornness of the heat. Climbing up a hill we reached the crest and the lake shimmered in the fading light and the heat. It looked inviting and dead - still - like the desert it entertained the notion of mystery despite more than anything a lack of something.

We had passed the last town before the park nearly forty minutes ago and had not stopped to buy alcohol or wood. We were frustrated when we realized this, but around the lake there were a few buildings that held promise. We slowed and pulled into a parking lot in front of a shabby hotel that seemed to be the center of civilization in the barren land and Brandon parked the car. I got out and strolled slowly, stiff from the drive, towards the doors. The day was gone but the night had not yet arrived. Once again, we would be setting up camp in the dark.

"Let's just stay here for like a week. I'm so tired of driving and breaking down camp and doing it all over again. Let's just do nothing for a few days." We all nodded in a subordinate agreement. Exhaustion wasn't the word to describe the feeling in my bones. It wasn't exhaustion. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't exhaustion. I suppose it was something like the string of sentences preceding this one, some kind of shrug of the shoulders and a concession to never understand.

As we walked towards the hotel a man in a white security pick up slowed down next to us and rolled down his window, "What can I do you for?" he said.

In the fading light he was difficult to make out. He had a thick black mustache and it was lighter than his skin. He was thin, and he had a soft face which I trusted immediately.

"Anywhere we can buy wood this time of night?"

"Firewood?"

"Yes."

"Well, damn now. You see the general store around the corner shuts down after dark. I don't know if you could catch it before the doors close. I got a friend who has got his own wood pile, lemme go swing through there see if I can help you guys out. As for the booze? Sorry fellas. They only sell that for four hours during the day."

The man smiled and his teeth were violently white in the dark. He looked younger than he was. I didn't expect anything but an interrogation when he pulled up but he seemed more willing to help before hello's were formally exchanged. His shirt was clean but old. It was just a plain t shirt with a thin plastic badge denoting his position. It was placed perfectly above his heart and although he was driving a Ford from the late 1980's it looked brand new.

Brandon went inside because there was free coffee. I walked away across the parking lot. I needed to stretch. My legs felt like firecrackers. I lit a Marlboro and walked into the grey blue towards the last strip of pink hovering above the cliff line in the distance. There was still light but I couldn't see ten feet in front of me. It was murky and the air had weight like cloth. There was no sound, no wind, nothing. It was just dead air and my heart slowed. The night was purple now and then black. I saw headlights turn the corner and let the smoke fester in my lungs. I turned back towards the hotel and walked - there were a few lights in the parking lot and the halogen was burning and heating slowly, creating a false orb that didn't offer any relief from the night. I walked towards the truck. It was idling and shaking rumbling barely audible in the night. I blew the smoke and saw it twist and twirl in the headlights and then disappear, so we do.

"Any luck?"

"Yeah, check it out in the back."

I pressed my forearms on the top of the bed and threw my gut against the side of the truck. I squinted in the dark and saw a few loose bundles of wood.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. You didn't spect me to drive all out of my way to not help you out," he chuckled lightly, "hold out your arms I'll start the stacking."

I followed his directions blindly and I could feel a rush of water behind my eyes. My back tingled and I don't know where I am or what I thought I was looking for but I am who I am and who I am is because of everyone else - everything else. He couldn't notice in the dark and after the wood was stacked I turned and walked briskly to the car. Brandon and Domenic came outside to help. We found a way to fit it in and I turned to face the man.

"Thanks. I don't know why you just did that, but I appreciate it."

"Of course, I'll be around later so if you need more flag me down, maybe I'll swing by for a beer."

"If we had some," Domenic smiled.

"We have whiskey," said Brandon reaching behind the seat and pulling a half full bottle in the haze of the heat.

"What is your name, sir?"

"Phillip."

"Phillip. Nice to meet you, Phillip. I'm William. This is Brandon and Domenic."

"Nice to meet you."

"You have been a big help, actually made my night."

"I aim to please."

"This man aims to please," said Domenic.

"Thanks again."

"Not a problem. Don't act so surprised. There ain't nothin' to do around here. Don't flatter yourself. That whole wood thing was out of sheer boredom nothing else." He smiled and his teeth shimmered. We laughed and shook hands. I walked away with a jog waving into the blinding light and squinting as I got in the car. We drove away to find a camp. I never saw him again.

Moab and the Colorado.

Boulder was beautiful. Denver was fun. We spent one evening camping in the foothills right outside Boulder and went into town to see a movie at a cinema. It was a nice break from the outdoors, and the movie was entertaining as hell. Inglorious Bastards, we saw. I was riveted. After the movie we had a light fire and it rained a little, so we called it an early night and slept on the hard ground. Joeb was leaving the next day and it was bitter sweet. It was nice - the extra space in the car and the vanishing need to be anywhere except California but we still had a month for that. It was sad to see him leave, though. You can never be sure when you will see someone again, and as we part ways I knew it was the last time this version of ourselves would cross paths. It is said people grow apart, but that is silly. It sounds like a weak attempt to sound profound. It is just one of those messy little details of our overlooked lives. This world is too large - our lives too little. Sometimes we wait for things that will never arrive. I am sad to see him leave.

It was back to the three of us and for the first time we had no real destination and didn't know a soul west of Chicago, east of San Francisco. It felt like a culmination of what we were waiting for. We left Denver around noon and started driving South to the Grand Canyon. Brandon checked the weather at the North Rim and saw it was hovering around zero. We put the brakes on that idea. Where to? - we thought for a while. Domenic spread out the map on his lap in the front seat. It was tearing at the folds and had a soggy appeal from all of the highlighter marks. Scanning the area a concerned look came over his face because of all the nothing in that part of the country.

"To be honest, I'm tired of the cold." We were driving through the Rockies and as we past Vail thought of stopping, ending the trip right there. "I'm just not ready for winter, not yet," I said as we passed the stick evergreens dipped in snow like splattered paint, dripping and drying in the cold winds under the singe of the sun.

"Utah?"

"What about it?"

"Do you want to go there? I see Arches National Park. I don't know much about it."

"Yeah, anywhere is fine."

We were disappointed in missing the Canyon, definitely. Maybe because we had never been, but being able to change the direction of the car to southwest without any repercussions or people to tell was a more exciting prospect. I had lost service on my cell phone when we came through the Rockies and I had yet to see more than a bar for more than a minute. I was starting to feel very alone and disconnected from my life, or at least what is familiar. I began worrying about the choice to distance myself from my friends, the ones I respect, because I feel like what I learn from them is invaluable and I will be a different person because of my decision to leave. In lieu of their absence I try to focus on what is good, because until God stands in front of my face nothing else feels remotely real.

"Can we camp here tonight?" Brandon asked the attendant at the entrance to the park.

"No. We only have about twenty sites and they are full."

My heart sank a little. The park was beautiful, canyons and cliffs swelled like muscles of the earth. They were a red clay and the sun intensified the color. It was warm, and when we were driving the breeze felt light on my face.

"If you drive south another four miles and take a left on 28, you can camp along that road. It is along the Colorado river. You can camp in all sorts of pull offs and what not along the river bank. You can have fires there too."

"That sounds wonderful. Thank you Ma'am you have been very gracious," Brandon said animated, "This is for you."

This summer we worked on the beach. All kinds of things wash up because of the way the currents work in and out of the bay. It is like the ocean's version of a closet - a dead body washed up at the beginning of the summer. It was a floater, and to be honest we had often discussed dealing with that. I couldn't believe it happened, but I didn't mind not being the one that found it. We had collected action figures and green guys and bathtub toys and spacemen and set them up in the beach shack because we were bored and it was entertaining. We brought those figures with us, and were handing them out at each toll across the country. This was the first and last park ranger to receive one and I am not sure if that is relevant to the story, but it is a part of the truth of it. She smiled and thanked Brandon and we drove away feeling cheated but I didn't know why.

The weather was nice. It felt like late August. We were nervous about not finding a place before dark once again but there was less concern because we were tired and Domenic said, "We could drive all night if we had too," and I realized we had spent most every night somewhere and we didn't have to spend it anywhere except on the road. It is a home for anyone who needs it and I find it rarely discriminates - perhaps never. It has been weeks since we've been settled. I have found solace in this. I lit a cigarette and turned up the dial on the radio and Bob Marley filtered through the car. The road will do just fine tonight.

As the light fought as a fire red we pulled off the road and found a place to camp. I exhaled and my hands relaxed as Brandon turned off the key and there was silence. Quiet and still we sat with the sunlight reflecting off the canyon walls in the late hours of the evening. In Utah we were able to laugh and it was warm and we began drinking wine as we set up the camp. We had stopped for firewood so in the evening we stacked the wood and began burning it slowly. Domenic was casually emptying the car, rearranging and asking for advice as we now had opened up so much of the car. Everything was loose here.

We sat around the fire and passed a jug of wine around and sang songs. We were playing the guitar and the drums and they were loud over the rush of the river. After a few hours we explored and Domenic fell down the bank and almost in the water. I laughed and the cliff gave way and I fell too. It was pitch black and we were laughing next to the raging Colorado drunk as we'd ever been sipping wine that made our mouths a maroon black in the night. We sat down by the fire and I looked at the highway of stars exploding above my head, constricted by the high walls of the canyon. It isn't much this night, I thought. We are just sitting in an obscure place and nobody knows where we are. There won't be a record of this and it won't ever be a great achievement in my life but right now is good and I don't want to be anywhere else. I looked at Brandon's face with shadows dancing with the rhythm of the fire and I tapped my toes to the beat of the guitar and we laughed until we fell asleep in our chairs. I woke up to the simmering coals and shaking I woke up Domenic and Brandon and we went to sleep on the warm ground.

The Rocky Mountain Range

"Why does it feel like everyone is evacuating?" Brandon asked nervously as a steady stream of headlights was cascading down from the mountains as we drove solemn deep into the cliffs. It was dark, not black, but the light was hidden by the rocks and any minute it felt like the curtain would be closed on the day. The long drive had taken its toll on all of us and Domenic was hugging the wheel close and his eyes were being tugged at by two black bags.

"I don't know, maybe because they aren't complete idiots," Domenic said frankly, too tired to lighten the increasingly smothering night.

"Do we even know where we are going?" The road turned sharply and Domenic slowed to ten miles an hour. The cliffs hung above us like a canopy and a river tore through the crevice angrily - I shivered.

"I'd say up." The road continued to wind and switchbacks brought us ever higher and after each corner I held my breath just to find another cliff and another crevice and another corner. Another breath, another cliff, another crevice, another corner. It is hard to say what I was expecting but a notion began seizing my chest that I just wanted to know something. It all seemed so unreal I wanted it to end and I wanted to know exactly what was happening. It was then the snow started.

We didn't say anything to each other. I could feel gravity pulling on my chest urging us to not climb any higher. I looked behind us and saw tail lights. We should probably turn around, I thought.

"Jesus it's cold," said Joeb as he stuck his hand out the window.

I smiled meakly, "At least we are dressed for it."

"This will be fun." Brandon had been sitting in the back and I had not noticed how loose he had remained. Actually, everyone seemed to be accepting the situation and I was able to relax and it was then we reached seven thousand feet and the entrance to Estes National Park.

"I can't see a thing." The snow was attacking the car almost intentionally and the headlights barely pierced the night ahead. We pulled up to an empty ranger kiosk and there was a sign that warned of weather and below it a map with some suggestions of where to camp. Domenic rolled down his window and snow began whipping in the car and he quickly grabbed a map and closed the window silencing the howling night.

"What do we do?"

"What does the map say?"

"It looks like we can take a left here then four miles down there are places to pull off and camp. This weather is bad, man. I don't know how I feel about this."

We were all nervous and waiting for someone to admit that we were not prepared for a night in the snow, but nobody would say anything.

Domenic pressed the gas and I heard the tires spin in the snow desperately grabbing at the road. They caught and we lurched forward and I could hear the transmission wine and my stomach rolled a little.

As we entered deeper into the night my nerves became dull - which could possibly be explained by the cold. There was something hiding in the night, and we all felt we were on the verge of some kind of discovery. We had food, clothing, the car was warm and we were far from home. I looked at Joeb and he nodded and I knew we were really doing it and the night became sharp. I felt a tingle in my fingers and I realized my face was nearly pressed against the windshield and then without much warning Domenic stopped the car and got out. He disappeared in the night and I could hear his laughter over like an echo and then we were all standing in the snow and it was cold and I could feel it in my spine and the air was clean in my lungs. Snow was falling fast and accumulating on the ground. Domenic popped open the tailgate door on the station wagon and brandon took a spade and began clearing out an area for a tent. We worked in silence and in the cold. The snow was soft. It didn't fall like it had when we were driving - like it was attacking us, but instead it landed on our heads and our arms and it was a cooling sensation which was relaxing. Joeb was staking the tent in the ground and I laid a tarp down on the already damp canvas bottom. We quickly tossed our sleeping bags and pillows in the tent to keep them from getting wet and the rain cover looked like it would be sufficient for the snow. It had been a long day, and when Brandon and Domenic had also set up a tent we all climbed back in the car and changed out of our wet clothes. As we sat there catching our breath the snow lightened and we could see very clearly because of the reflection of the moon on the snow. There was only a few inches on the ground but the intensity of the storm had ignited something old inside us.

Brandon had been quiet all day. I looked at him now and he was peering out the window at the mountains now visible in the light of the night. He was smiling and the he looked content in the shadows of the night. The snow stopped completely and we all got out of the car and just walked around the camp for a little while, until I saw Brandon reach down in the snow and form it with his palms. I knew what was coming so I ducked behind the car, but Domenic, mesmorized by the moon, stood exposed to the airborn snowball and it hit him in the side of the face. I laughed violently and began forming one of my own, and popped up from behind the car and hit Brandon in the back of the head. It was a blur after that, our laughter and panting echoing over the cliffs and exploding across the earth. Brandon was tackled by Joeb and his face was pressed in the snow. Domenic was running towards me and he slipped and fell down a small hill. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. We were soaking wet again but it felt like it should.

I can remember one night when I was younger a storm rolled in unexpectedly. The moments before the storm started felt electric, like there was energy pulsing through everything outside in the grey afternoon. The wind picked up, and the trees whispered to each other as if to prepare for the looming storm - and then the snow started, quietly and small at first. The heat of the asphalt instantly melting the first brave flakes that dared settle on its surface. The threat of the storm was so powerful they had already cancelled school the next day. I convinced my parents to let me go to Timmy's and when I got there the flakes were like feathers, falling with force and overpowering the earth. Margaret had plugged in a halogen lamp in the bathroom and placed it in the window. It lit up the whole yard. We were climbing up the hill and sledding down until eventually the whole neighborhood was there. Margaret stood outside in boots and her bathrobe, smoking a cigarette and watching us regress in the night. She didn't say anything, and at one point after I was thrown from the caravan of sleds and tubes flying down the hill I sat in the snow and I watched her. She looked empty. She was just there and that was it. I saw her dip her stunted cigarette in the snow and light another. She was staring at me but I could tell she couldn't see me. Or maybe she could. Maybe that was the point. I sat in the snow until it soaked through my clothes and I was cold. I was just looking at her. The snow had covered her shoulders and her hair and she started to transform until she retreated out of the light into the night. I don't know where she went but when she came back she was calling for Timmy and they both disappeared inside the house. Some of the kids sled for a while but the snow had let up and the intensity of the night had vanished, so I walked home wet and shivering in the cold. Nothing else happened that night except my mother was baking cookies when I was home. The storm was finished and we went back to school and it felt like nothing had even happened at all. I suppose nothing has ever happened - or everything has too many times to change anything. That night was different than this one. I'm not sure if it was because of who I am or who I was, but everything is different now. Everything has changed.

25 or 26 or 27 South: Cowboy Country to the Rockies.

"I don't know if we will make it before dark," the day was burning quickly as we drove across the plains of Wyoming. "I mean, whatever, but it may get interesting."

The day was hot. We were driving south. Tumbleweeds were pinned against the fence next to the road and occasionally one escaped and rolled quickly over the unimpeded flat of the land. The plains looked a dead yellow, and antelope occasionally galloped gracefully across the hills. Cliffs hung out over the road in some areas, but it was mostly just soft hills rolling towards the horizon.

"This is cowboy land."

"I know, I keep thinking I am seeing them perched on horses on the top of cliffs, like we are driving into some kind of lone ranger ambush," said Domenic as he drove the car in a straight line along the black asphalt.

Joeb was passed out in the back seat. I was sitting in the front and Brandon was scribbling in his journal behind me.

"How long until we get to the Rockies?"

"At least five hours, I think."

The day had started out peaceful. We parted the badlands in a grey morning and a lonely wind which made my jaw ache in the cold. Since then we had entered a seared part of the world and the flatness was monotonous and I could not wait to get to the mountains.

"Do you know what the weather is like?"

"Cold. Snow. Should we still try to make it?"

"Hell yeah, it was cold as shit last night we were fine."

Up ahead I noticed a man in construction clothes holding a stop sign surrounded by nothing. We stopped and Domenic rolled down the window, "Hey man. What's going on?"

"Howdy, construcion, the next ten miles. You guys just missed the last train going this way, going to be about twenty minutes. You may as well get comfortable."

Domenic looked relaxed and he put the car in park and turned the key. We got out and left Joeb asleep in the backseat but eventually he woke up and joined us in the warm afternoon.

"Where are you fellas from?"

"Back east."

"What are you doing on this road?"

"Who knows." Domenic smiled slyly and the man studied his expression and I saw a smile try to penetrate through the weathered skin hanging like dough on his face.

"You from around here?"

He laughed and his gut shook through his clothes, "What do you think?"

We all smiled and I could see in the haze headlights off in the distance.

"We better get going," said Domenic and he shook the mans hand and tucked a cigarette in his pocket, "I'm sure this gets boring," and we drove away without looking back.

Domenic was the one who convinced me to take this trip over the summer. We were sitting on the beach with a bottle of bourbon as the sun was setting behind the sand dunes. I was looking at him and he was staring out at the water and there was a concerned look on his face as if our conversation was one of utmost importance. We had spent the day in the sun and I could see it in his face. It was one of those late august nights when everything is the way it should be except you can feel it ending and there is a hole somewhere deep in your stomach.

"This has been one hell of a summer," he said as I drew circles in the sand with my finger. "All the bull shit idealism I have been reading about, I just don't believe it. It is almost like I have been waiting for something to happen and everything to be perfect. This is perfect, isn't it? I hate when I do this. Am I even speaking out loud right now?" He let out a yell to pierce the evening and it was smothered by the wind and he didn't look satisfied.

I looked on at the water. The waves were rolling slowly and creeping up the sand. I sipped the bourbon, "I want to write. I want to do it forever. I want it to be my thing. But it doesn't matter what you do or how you are remembered or any of that because we only have what we have while we are alive and everyone else has what they have and that is it. There isn't much more than that, right?."

"What the hell are we doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"This. Time is just moving and I am getting the feeling we shouldn't be expecting an apology for it any time soon."

"Yeah but we can't do anything about that."

"Look at that wave right there. It just rolls in with so much force and then eventually just recides. To what?" Domenic looked older and like he was tearing apart from the inside. I felt it too, and I didn't know what to say or what to do or anything. "Life feels so bland and then it will be over and then nothing."

"It is more than that."

"Says who?"

"Or not. Either way we'll probably never know."

"Let's just go somewhere."

"Where?"

Domenic looked straight ahead at the water. A gull was strolling awkwardly along the sand, scanning seaweed for some kind of dinner. A gust of wind made my hair dance on my head and I shivered but not from the cold. He just motioned, not with his hand but more his whole body and murmured something under his breath and then he laid back in the sand and closed his eyes, "I don't know. Anywhere."

We both fell asleep for a while and when we woke up the emptiness was gone and it was completely dark. We didn't speak any more of it that night but we both felt different about our home and it may have been because the aura of summer was dissapering like a thin mist and it was hard to tell when it was gone but one day we woke up and knew we had to leave. That was it, we just knew we had to leave.

Joeb snored loudly, so loudly he woke up. I could breathe peacefully and it was enough to make me smile. The car was quiet and I could sense that emptiness again but it was smothered by some kind of excitement like we knew we were as close as we'd ever be to an answer and that had to be enough. We knew it had to be.

The Badlands.

"You sure you fellas want to do this? We got hotels ten miles back towards Wall." The ranger's breath slowly moved his moustache when he exhaled. He sat back in his chair and the squeaks echoed loudly through the station.

"I think we'll be alright," smiled Domenic wearing a plain white t-shirt and aviators, "been gettin' cold lately though?"

The static from the radio broke the silence. The ranger twisted the volume until it clicked off. He paused, "last few nights its been about twenty-five or thirty, 'bout the same tonight I reckon."

"Fires?"

The ranger chuckled, still concerned, "Not in this wind."

I looked at Domenic, he didn't seem phased.

"Well we better get moving and set up before dark." Brandon had just opened the swinging screen door to the ranger station. He looked inquisitive and I shrugged my shoulders.

"What's the deal with parking?"

"Pull off the road, can't be seen at your camp from the road either. Hike it in at least a half mile once you're ready to go. No fires, other than that, you fellas can do whatever ya want. We got buffalo at the northwest rim of the park. May want to head there."

Domenic turned to face the three of us, "Let's do this," and we nodded in agreement.

Outside the day was bright like a storm had been lingering for weeks and the sun had finally chased away the clouds, but it felt volatile- like at any moment the clouds would return and the sun would be gone again and this would feel like a dream. The wind tore across the plains. It was damp and cold. We stood around the car quietly and took turns digging through bags to find our warm clothes we had packed away and we were silent because of the wind and the slight urgency that the sun would disappear before we had found a place to sleep for the night. I saw Brandon in his long underwear, boots untied, chasing an empty plastic bag across the parking lot towards the empty gas station. Nobody was around, and Brandon's hair looked like a sail in the wind. I buckled my belt and was very secure in my fleece and layers and I felt nervous despite this.

When we were all ready Domenic put the car in reverse and we pulled out onto the road, heading towards the rock formations looming on the horizon. From what I could tell we had almost two hours of daylight left and at least a forty five minute drive to the northwest rim. I watched the plains roll by the window and then we hit a dirt road and slowed down even more. I checked my watch and then looked back out the window at the sun vibrating above the land. It flashed in my eyes. I squinted and smiled as the shadows grew longer on my face. We turned right and passed a sign welcoming us to the park, Welcome to Badlands, Nat'l Park, it said. I looked ahead and saw the road winding across the plains and the vastness was too much to take in but it looked beautiful. As we turned a corner a few bighorn sheep crossed the road. Domenic slowed and Joeb started taking pictures. Brandon whistled, "This is pretty nuts." I laughed.

We pulled off the road at a turnaround and got out of the car. We could see it now, the badlands, stretching off in the distance like volcanoes with no end. We walked down a path and out onto a ledge that felt dangerous. On either side the rocks jutted down fifty feet into crevices and the hard dry clay flaked under our footsteps. We didn't say anything, all of us just scanning the horizon for some kind of feeling or understanding but it just brought a smile to my face and the wind picked up but the rays from the sun were baking us in our clothes. I thought we should probably keep driving and I noticed the same look on Joeb's face so we trekked back to the car.

The drive was slow, but we were captivated. The rumble of the dusty road was deafening and silent. The shadows were long now, in their last stages before they blend with the night. The sun was just above the rocks and when we came into the northwest we drove down in a gully and the sun disappeared. It was dark but we could still see the side of hillsides glowing in the light so it was a small comfort. Without warning Domenic slowed and I looked up and saw an American Bison ahead next to the road. It was grazing and enormous. We drove by it slowly not wanting to provoke it, but it barely lifted its head and lazily continued to eat in the waning hours of the day.

We found a turnaround and pulled off to the side. Domenic shut the car off, the wind was the only sound and it was strong. We started unloading the car and gathering our tents, sleeping bags, pillows, flashlights, the Jetboil, water, food, and of course whiskey. Joeb was looking off in the distance at a few peaks which created a small valley between them. The dry rock was at the horizon and looked to be about ten miles away. We were standing on rolling plains that had dried in areas and we could see prairie dogs poking their heads curiously out of their holes.

"I think we should head that way," said Joeb and we all began walking in compliance. There was no sun anymore but the night had not settled and as we began walking through the knee high straw grass I saw a full moon lingering in the sky which had a fuchsia hue. I followed Joeb with Brandon behind me. I could hear the crunch of the dried soil and breaking grass beneath my feet. Domenic was still gathering things and locking the car and he eventually caught up and the four of us paced through the flat lands until we could no longer see the car and we came upon a dried up creek a small puddle of water still stagnant at the center. We followed the creek bed and found a tree standing solitary in the grass.

"This looks pretty good to me."

"Yeah the tree is a good landmark, and I don't feel comfortable just sleeping in the middle of the grass in case we get trampled or something. Did you see all the buffalo shit?"

"Oh, that is what that is. Gross."

With the light fading fast we frantically set up the tents. The ground was hard and we had left the mallet in the car so it was difficult getting the stakes in the ground. Brandon used his knife to cut open a few cans of chili and when we had set up he had already ignited the jet boil beneath the tree. We sat quietly around the small flame and waited for the chili to boil. After a minute Domenic and I tread through the grass around the camp to make sure we hadn't set up to close to any critters or reptiles that could surprise us in the night. The wind had been subdued by the heavy night. There was a false mist that hung all around us but it was clear and I could see the brightest stars fighting for their position in the sky. They hung in a canopy of burning fire and the moon like a beacon over our heads. We were alone and I felt safe when I was at the camp.

We all ate the chili out of the pot and laughed at how decisively we finished it. We hadn't eaten much since we left Chicago and the chili was delicious. After dinner we scraped the pot clean and made sure we didn't leave any traces of scents that would draw unexpected visitors to the camp, and I sat on the ledge next to the creek and let the dark settle like dust around me. I had my flask and eventually the three joined me and we sat in the silence and I cannot remember true silence other than that night save the occasional gust of wind or cricket.

"So, this is it," said Brandon. I thought of Margaret, "this is it."

"Where the fuck are we?" laughed Joeb and I thought about the nights I'd spent in my bed and the hours I'd spent worrying about different moments of my life and they both seemed very distant and I don't know what this is at all. Even if this is it, it seems like it is not definable anymore like time and it feels humbling to not know.

"A fire would be great."

"You said it."

"I like the dark, though."

"Yeah, it is nice, a fire would be great."

I laughed, "You're right."

I took a sip of whiskey and swished the liquid in my mouth and felt it boil in my stomach-"Shh - did you hear that?"

"What? I didn't hear anything, don't mess with me."

"Shut up. Listen."

As we sat in the night a howl echoed across the plains, followed by the howling of seven or eight other coyotes.

"Way off in the distance, crazy." I quickly took another sip of whiskey.

"How far away do you think?"

"A few miles at least."

"They move quick."

"We're fine guys, relax."

"Do you think that a pack of those could take down a buffalo?"

"No chance. Those things are solid muscle."

"So where are you flying out of, Joeb?"

"Haven't thought about it, where to next?"

"We were going to go to Yellowstone, but I don't know. It's snowing there."

"So what then, the Rockies?"

"Yeah we have it marked on the map, I think we can swing south and hit the mountains by tomorrow night if we want, end in Denver? You could fly outa there."

"That works for me," and Joeb's face jerked towards the hill closest to our camp and in the silhouette atop the hill there was movement and then it was gone like it came down over the face. We could hear running and then a single, long, loud howl that pierced the night and was close, closer in the dark. Then more howls, until it was impossible to differentiate a single howl and they were getting closer until we had jumped to our feet and Joeb had unzipped his tent and we all climbed inside clutching our whiskey and fear with white knuckles.

"Are they in the camp?"

"Shut up. Listen." It was eerily silent like we had imagined the whole thing. We sat breathing too loudly for our sanity and Brandon hung his headlamp from a strap on the roof of the tent and we sat in the awkward light.

"At least I have my first line of defense," said Domenic as he tipped his flask back up over his head and let the copper liquid drain down his throat. We laughed from our nerves and I repositioned myself and we all sat with our legs crossed like in a powwow and temporarily forgot about the threat until our whiskey was gone and we had courage.

"Fuck those things, chasing us inside. I could probably take one down with this guy," said Brandon holding his knife in the fluorescent light.

"We should have held our ground, they wouldn't have all out attacked, probably just circled for a while."

"Probably what they are doing now."

Brandon laughed, "Yeah, probably."

"Well," said Domenic stretching his legs, "I could use a smoke, whose with me?"

"That'd be me," said Brandon.

"Me too," I said. Joeb shook his head, I smiled, "It's the whiskey my friend."

We all stood out in the night cautiously until our eyes adjusted. The moon was brighter than I even remembered and it didn't take long. There was nothing around us that we could see, and we stood smoking and laughing.

"Set up a perimeter with your pee."

"Yeah, that'll be the difference."

I looked off on the hillside and thought I saw movement. I turned on the flash light - eyes. Eyes scattered all over the hillside. Sets of eyes moving and floating in the air. Bright green and flashing, I held the light frozen completely captivated by the sight. We looked at one another, "Time for bed?"

In the tent I lay on the ground feeling sleep bite at my toes and safe despite the thin canvas of the tent. As I lay I heard Joeb unmistakeably start to snore and closed my eyes. Brandon nudged me as I drifted.

"Did you hear that?"

"No."

"Look, look, look at that!"

I watched as shadows cast by the moon slipped across the tent and I could hear a rustle over Joeb's snoring.

"They are in the camp. No doubt." Just then I felt something rub against my legs against the tent. I held my breath.

"Yeah, I'd say so."

All night it went on like that, or at least I think so, because despite the terror that gripped my chest sleep was stronger and I woke up to the sound of a zipper being pulled slowly as if not to wake anyone.

"My head hurts."

"Did you or Domenic wake up to the coyotes in the camp last night?" I said to Joeb.

"I did," said Domenic, "I just laid here literally shaking until I fell asleep. Joeb snored the whole time. It was awful."

"Shit. What time is it?"

"I don't know but check this out," and I poked my head out of the tent and I could see Domenic standing outside he and Joeb's tent, staring off behind us. I climbed out and looked towards the plains we had walked from and saw twenty or thirty buffalo grazing in the grey morning.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

We were all up now and we broke down camp and I was chewing on beef jerky and granola for breakfast. I was tired and the sun was hidden by a thin film of grey clouds that stretched across the whole sky and the wind moved slowly across my face. I noticed the peak which the coyotes had come down from was only a few hundred yards away and I shivered at how alone we were.

"Anyone want to hike it out before we drive again?"

"Absolutely."

"How about that peak," I pointed to the hill, "I kind of want to see what is beyond it."

We started walking and it was not a long hike but at times it was nearly vertical and we all struggled in the morning. When we reached the top we could see for miles and buffalo were everywhere, though not quite the dominance I'm sure I could have witnessed when these plains were covered in herds. So many that one herd would shake the ground for days as they traveled past. So many that it seemed like they were infinite. Now they graze scattered and lazy as we stand alone and in the cool air.

"This is beautiful in a very empty and hollow way."

"Yeah, pictures won't do this justice. It is almost not what you see, but what you don't see. Or something."

"Let's rest here for a while." We sat atop the hill in the silence and the wind. I picked at the dirt and thought about my friends and how I missed them. I imagined walking home and how it would take days to move within my sight and sighed at how it doesn't seem to matter where I am, my feelings are always the same. It is not the place that changes anything at all. In fact, it only makes everything more acute and clear. I do not stand like a pioneer, but as myself in a place which is unfamiliar but I am happy. I can tell like at night when the dark stretches across the water and in my guts I feel something there. We sat for a while and then walked down, back the way we came.

let me die in my footsteps.

The sun is hovering behind rain clouds by mid-afternoon. We are driving due west into it. I am sitting under blankets and pillows in the back with Joeb. Domenic is in the passenger seat picking a wood-grain traveler's guitar Brandon picked up before the trip. As Domenic begins to strum I'm tired. I hear Brandon cough and the trees are passing us quickly but there are so many of them.

"Let me die in my footsteps, before I go down under the ground,"

grass as far as i can see, Mississippi soon, not like footsteps but more so like carbon, "I will not go down under the ground," the window smears my breath rain is falling now, the wipers squeak in the mist "cause someone is tellin,'" cyprus trees, every morning - "me death's comin' round"

"And I will not carry myself down to die, when I go to my grave my head will be high."

Joeb is asleep his face against the window. Brandon lights a cigarette and the rain is falling hard now like marbles and we slow. The defrost makes it hot in the car, but the glass feels cool except my breath which fogs like _____.

"Let me die, in my footsteps, before I go down under the ground," the rain is cold and the car is warm but damp like dew. in the summers at night i lay in my bed and my sheets warm ripped off my body it has all happened so fast, and we are leaving so that is why the sand still sticking to my clothes the ocean is gone then pacifica.

"There's been rumors of war and wars that have been, the meaning of life has been lost in the wind," i've been here before but not really once just here as we were there and then weren't like that song or penelope? i love or heard since before it was written, it was before it was.

"And some people thinkin' the end is close by, 'stead of learnin' to live they are learnin' to die," for is now just another now and another n-breaking like birds on a wire since the first and now not the last and the past is real but not more than shutter-flash, something brought here to me and this is not a dream until now is tomorrow again.

"I don't know if I'm smart but I think I can see, if someone is pullin' the wool over me," she looked pretty in the moonlight i thought that night would last longer than what is gone. Awake in my mind I have it still and I look at it, then at Joeb who is asleep. I am sweating. It doesn't matter. My eyes are closed and I know I won't sleep because I am too comfortable and when you think about it you can't ever fall as the pebbles crash like rain in the car and a wave i crash under and swimming whish, whish, whish, wipers wiping the water my arms propel through the sea and i can see the land now and crash over head a wave and then resting on the sand, now.

"And if this war comes and death's all around, let me die on this land 'fore I go underground," panting i lay in reigning sun, she laughs, i see her face but cannot reach and floating my legs like stones and then up and on the moon they don't touch ground, "there's always been people that have to cause fear, they've been talkin' of war for many long years," and domenic sings i sing but my head rolls like an anchor can't stop and the waves stopped crashing i see desert and the rays warm, an iron then searing off my skin sweat beads my brow i taste salt and thirst quenched by sand, cough, dry, coughing, i'm coughing, dying, and eyes burn in my throat i have read all their statements, swallow and stone and said not a word but now Lord God, i pity but terror let my poor voice be heard, sweat puddles and drinking nothing choking nothing laughing nothing i cry and puddles now i am swimming hot water, burning and breath breaking ribs and bursting and the surface is down i am spinning let me drink from the waters where waters mountain streams flood and the surface, cool let me smell of the relief of wildflowers flow free through my meadows and the clouds like a puppy, pant, laughing,- blood.

The window feels cool on my cheeks. Perspiration is pouring down my neck and face. My eyes closed. My head spins. My heart slows. I sigh.

"Let me die in my footsteps, before I go down under the ground."

My eyes open slowly and the car has a pulse and a pounding reverberates in my head. Domenic placed the guitar between his legs and I heard Joeb snore in the silence. Brandon flicked his cigarette and rolled up the window. I left my mind on the side of the road somewhere. The rain pours down like God around us. Our tires spin on in the silence. The rain pours down around us. My mind paces slowly, somewhere on the side of the road.

61 North

Chicago stands solemn like an oasis. After driving another five hours through cornfields the city had a uniquely foreign appeal. It was a pleasant sight and I felt a comfort as one who is removed from home feels. When we left Rochester a few days prior, I hugged Joeb and patted him on the shoulder, "Thanks for having us."

"My pleasure. You know I'm flying into Chicago to leg out some of this trip with you."

"You're serious?"

"Of course. You didn't think you were the only one looking to have a little fun."

I looked briefly at the car, "Well, alright. That works."

"My friend Ashley offered us a place to stay. Don't worry," Joeb saw me eying the car, "I pack light."

The traffic into the city was heavy like lead, but a welcomed change from the empty roads dividing the farms of Indiana. After so much time in a car, hours evaporate and blend and minutes cease to matter. Brandon patiently rocked with the traffic admiring the evil that exists in the exhaust of those in a hurry. We all sat quietly, listening to the soft sound of the radio while my mind wandered to vague feelings of home.

To speak of Chicago in declarative terms after spending only one night and a half of day would be ambitious and false, so this is an account of our life this night in the rich setting of Chicago. After arriving nearly precisely when Joeb paid the cab driver for his services we unpacked our routine necessities and in a sluggish manner, one we have seem to have adopted well, brought our things up the stairs to Ashley's third story apartment.

After a few minutes of mulling around I head back out to the car for my toothbrush and to smoke a cigarette. The neighborhood is brick and crimson in the night. Steam pours out of a manhole and whisks down the street. Cars packed tightly and a dog barks in one of the apartments across the way. I noticed a few blues clubs on the drive in. This feels right, this place. This night is cold and holds much promise in that I am tired and not expecting a thing.

Inside the walls feel alive but it is just us and the whiskey tastes warm.

Ashley says, "So what are you fellas' going to get into tonight?" caught up in the thrill as we all are.

"Live Music," says Brandon and Domenic nods in agreement feeling a thirst only temporarily quenched by the whiskey. I smile in compliance.

Ashley is younger but impossible to know. Or as impossible to know she was older. Age has become as hollow as tin and I remember not in time but in flashes of moments stacked on top of each other like tick, tock.

The television echoes in the background but we are laughing and I see Domenic nearly fall off the arm of the couch and we laugh more. Suddenly, the television is off and I am closing the door to the empty apartment and we are on the street diving into the night.

The first bar is too dark and smells like mold but we walk straight to the bar. Two men are plugging their acoustic guitars into amplifiers and tuning with an electrical tuner. The bar is mostly empty but a few groups sit at the small tables dimly lit with fake candles and christmas lights.

"Five shots of tequila," laughs Ashley and Brandon puffs his cheeks and blows air out slowly in a whistle.

"You sure about that, hun?"

"What, don't tell me you big bad boys are afraid of a little tequila."

"No, we'll do it, but yikes," Brandon looks and Domenic and they both laugh timidly.

The off colored liquid smells of a fruity turpentine. It makes me nauseous to even think of it. I hold up my glass, "To Ashley."

"To Chicago."

"To tonight."

"To this whole Goddamn trip."

"To all ya'll."

The burning in my gut is like acid and I see Joeb's eyes go wide and he runs into the bathroom. When he comes out his eyes are glossed and I know he vomited but chuckle softly to myself. Sitting in front of the stage the guys begin to play their set and it is a song I recognize from the radio and Domenic elbows Brandon and we all look jokingly at one another. The man could sing and they could both form decent chords but they had missed the mark long before tonight so I try to speak over the noise, "What about those blues bars?"

"We could go there,"

"This is terrible."

"Whatever, did someone say blues bar?"

"Yeah I saw two, down the street."

"Hey. We should get out of here."

"No kidding, blues bar?"

"There are blues bars around here? Any Jazz?"

"Jazz?"

"No blues bars. I saw two down the street."

"Let's get to it then."

We head out on foot a few blocks to Kingston Mines. Domenic stops along the way and I seem him disappear behind a bush. He is much more comfortable when he returns. At Kingston Mines we give the bouncer our id's and three dollars, and he ushers us inside and we immediately find a table. The lights are on and instruments shine like gold and the band is between sets. A group of girls is laughing near us and we all smile and laugh and everyone seems very happy. Joeb walks towards the table of girls and begins to talk with them and he looks awkward but he is smiling so we all laugh and stay put. Brandon says, "I am looking forward to the drive tomorrow,"

"I know, first road due west for, what is it? Seven hundred miles?"

"Something like that," I say.

"My dad's friend broke down in the Badlands and said it turned out to be the greatest night of the trip - like God dropped acid on the plains, is what he said. Spent the night under a perfect bowl of stars," says Domenic.

"Chicago reminds me of Boston," and we laugh and the waitress has our drinks and a man walks onto the stage who is black as the night wearing a bucket hat and a belly full of booze, "It's ladies night tonight, so Monica, get on up here and sing a tune or two with us. Monica, c'mon, get up here."

Applauding the band breaks into The Thrill is Gone and Joeb is dancing with the girls and we are laughing. My body moves in the seat and I smile because the music is in me. They are spinning and laughing and drinking and I am burning and happy and alone. I am with everyone and I am alone in my mind for a while and I step out for a cigarette and I meet Mike.

"Got a light?" I toss a lighter, "M'name's Mike."

"You from around here?"

"Nah, from the bayou, but been traveling around the past few years workin' at Exxon plants and playin' shows with some bands. When I make enough money, I pick up and move out to play music 'til I need money again then back at another plant. Just left Alaska a few weeks ago. Been bummin' around this place a bit too long."

"Not a bad gig."

"No, that's for certain. Cash in my pocket, can't stay in any one place too long."

Brandon stumbles out of the door in hysteria and he and Mike begin speaking. I go inside.

The lights come on and Joeb is still dancing and we head across the street to another club that apparently stays open all night. We miss the music but the night is cold and our laughter still has echoes and we pay to get in. The music wafts from another room and it is quiet at the bar. We all speak and drink and I see Mike headed into the music room. We soon follow and we enter the room and it is like diving underwater the sound so smothering. The lights are out except on the stage and it is hard to see but we manage to find a table and I see Mike and wave him over. We all sit down and watch the night becomes progressively vibrant and I drum on the table.

The waitress brings over a bucket of ice and beer and we pass them around carelessly, I see the girls Joeb had danced with dancing again. Monica, the singer, is here and so is the other band. In fact, everyone I see now has come over and that is encouraging.

Mike's shirt is untucked and hangs loosely from his bones; his hair to his shoulders. He leans across the table, "There is soul in this," and leans away tapping his foot to the rhythm.

Brandon and Mike are up for a smoke and I sit alone and smile as the room begins to spin. An Aussie joins the band and with his harmonica duels Mannish Boy and is accepted by everyone. I stand up and head for the door and I see Ashley and her friends and she hugs me and we are dancing as the night has become hole punched, and Joeb is dancing with the girls he had met from Spain and I see Domenic and Ashley's friends and Brandon and Mike and Ashley and I we all twist and spin around and laugh until it became a blur but the sun was out when we were home.

90 West

In the 1800's the state of Ohio, along with a few other frontier states, paid men cents on the heads of the bears and wolves they could hunt and kill. There were just too many of them, and they were dangerous. Eventually, they became less dangerous as they nearly disappeared all together and eventually the land was plowed for agriculture and as far as I can tell Ohio only needed to grow corn. Miles of corn rippled like waves in all directions, everywhere. It was mesmerizing like a pendulum and eventually I became dizzy and closed my eyes.

"We sure as hell need a lot of corn, don't we?" Domenic moaned in his sleep as he shifted his weight in the backseat.

"Yeah, and I thought Nebraska was the corn capitol of the universe."

"I wonder what this looked like before we just cut all the shit down."

"I have no idea, this is wild though."

Brandon was right and I looked out the window to try and grasp the utter vastness that spread before us like space. The horizon was a bowl and uninterrupted except by the occasional silo or farmhouse or tractor.

"This is just not a world I know."

"What if you were just standing in the middle of that field? You aren't doing anything for like a day. Nothing you can do about it. Just walking for a whole day. At least."

We rocketed past a man tinkering with the mechanics of a tractor, his back bent in a position that after years of labor appeared to be one of comfort.

"It is such slow work. Imagine waking up and looking out your window at these fields knowing you were just going to ride back and forth until the sun disappeared. Then doing it again."

We tore past rows of stalks streaming outside our windows.

"I don't know, man. I like this lifestyle I think."

"What lifestyle is that, delinquency?"

Brandon smiled and turned his head but kept his eyes focused on the asphalt, "Something like that."

Sometime around nightfall we cut off the highway outside Cincinnati. The landscape had changed drastically. Concrete enveloped the earth like cellophane and we were driving up a thirty degree incline, the Taurus straining for the first time all day.

"What is with all of the fucking hills?" Domenic grunted and appeared perturbed as usually is when he wakes.

"Relax, man. Jesus," Brandon rolled his eyes.

"You can see Cincy over there," I said as I pointed out the window through the houses built inches apart from one another. A few skyscrapers and neon lights burned through the night and it almost didn't feel like darkness.

I wouldn't have thought to stop in Cincinnati, but Brandon and Domenic had gone to high school with a girl who was now living there, and I obliged to the visit. As far as I can tell, people are places anyways.

I've spent hours, ironically, trying to put a day in perspective. Not in a deeply philosophical sense, but more frankly how one breath or one step or one blink of our eyes can vault us to a moment so fundamentally different than the one before.

We passed by an abandoned home which was surrounded by what looked to be a temporary chain link fence poorly set up and decrepit as if it wasn't so temporary after all, and I admired the shimmering metal in the night. For the first time in as long as I could remember I thought of Margaret and I felt uneasy. I didn't know how long the fence had stood but I didn't care. I noticed one side completely broken and useless as to the point of any fence and I wondered what the intention of it was in the first place, and why nobody seemed to care about it anymore. We took a right at the end of the street and I noticed a girl standing in the road on her cellphone waving in our direction. It had been a long drive, and we had finally arrived.

Emma's apartment was warm and I was very relieved to be there. She seemed genuinely happy to see my friends and it made me smile. I don't know when it happens in relationships that they become unconditional and unassuming, but it is nice to witness and I was very happy that evening.

After we settled for a little while and readjusted to the stillness of her apartment we walked up the street to have a few drinks so we could all catch up and meet and laugh and forget about any bull shit we were keeping hidden in the back of our minds. Emma's friend Nel met us at the bar and the five of us drank beer for a little while, but long enough to, on the walk to the bathroom, after the bartender looked me straight in the eye and said, "Dude, be careful. I just painted the left side of the floor so stay right," I walked directly over the newly painted floor and traipsed white footprints all over the bathroom tiles. Embarrassed I apologized and walked back to the table where we all laughed and decided to leave because Emma had to work in the morning.

The end of the night is unclear but I am quite sure the three of us ate an entire jar of Kosher Dill pickles before we slept. Even though I woke with stomach pains the next morning, I am very fond of that night.

The previous evening had lead us to the conclusion it would be in our best interest to catch the Reds vs. Cardinals game the next night while we had the chance. I have never been to a ballpark outside of Fenway and I was intrigued by the prospect because, well, I love baseball.

I can remember vividly the first Red Sox game I ever attended. I couldn't have been older than five or six. It was late May, and the sun was unimpeded by clouds and the day was warm. I sat on my fathers shoulders slapping my glove and admiring the waves of people waiting in line and walking with purpose and laughing and cheering. I can remember the slow anticipation as we walked around the park and to the tunnel that brought us somewhere out in right field. I could see the daylight from the dampness of the tunnel, and as my father paced slowly moving with the tide of the crowd the field exploded into view and I smiled and my brother tugged at my fathers shirt, pining for a view.

We finally found our seats and I can recall not being able to comprehend how many people were inside the small stadium, and I looked at my brother, his blonde hair yellow in the sun, "My favorite player is Tim Naerhing," I said with conviction.

"Mine too," said my brother sitting by my side looking at me wildly.

"No! He is my favorite. Yours should be John Valentin." He was shocked and disappointed.

"Why?"

"John Valentin is only the best player on the team, and he has your favorite number, duh."

"Thirteen?"

"Yeah, like Dan Marino," my father was looking on and smiling.

"Ok. John Valentin is my favorite."

I don't remember much of the game except when I forced my father to take me to the bathroom just before Mike Greenwell hit the games only home run twelve seats in front of where we sat. We watched from the television outside the bathroom in the dark and uneven sewer like halls in the bowels of Fenway park. I felt bad but my father smiled and picked me up on his shoulders again and we headed back to our seats and I ate a hot dog and spilled relish all over my shirt. I remember nothing and I remember everything and the way the grass bent in the breeze and the water dripping in the tunnels and my glove and hot dogs. The commotion and excitement that is only real in dreams and taller than anyone like a giant I could see more than I understand. Flashes, like still frames of faces and laughter and the crack of a wooden bat and cheers. Flashes, like seconds in disarray and jumbled but there like a ball of yarn unraveling and tangling in knots but all the while there. My brothers face has changed but I remember his hair and his tooth which I knocked out and how he loved sipping through a straw through the toothless hole with a grin and it is gone but I remember.

The game was fun and we had skyline chili dogs and watched as the Reds beat up on the Cardinals and bought overpriced beers but our seats were free and that was fine. After we left we drove back to Emma's neighborhood and went for beers at a bar in which we met a man with whom I immediately became involved in conversation. He was drinking vodka, straight. Full cups emptying faster than anyone would want to digest, and it became apparent in his stories.

"Back in the seventies I ran away from home and ended up doing heroine on the balcony of Andy Warhol's apartment. They were all there, Vonnegut, Warhol, just hanging out getting smashed and those were the days, let me tell you. You think you know what it is like to live now? Those were the days, studio 54, I was there for that. Blowjobs in the bathroom, I was there for that. You have no idea. I can see you, I know you already before you even speak. You are young, naive, searching for something you ain't gonna find honey, you just ain't gonna find it anywhere until you know yourself. You pride yourself on your penis, and you love it. What do you think you are doing? You are heading to Tahoe? Let me tell you. They are ruthless there. They will chew you up and spit you out like you don't even know. The only real decision you will have to make is if you want to be bottom or top, they'll put a kilo of coke in front of you and let you do what ever you want. You are just bait out there for them, honey.

"Look at this girl, here. Why are you leaving her? All she wants is a man to pull his own weight and have good conversation. Why would you leave? Oh honey you are so young. I know, I've been there and back and you better watch out because you are just bait."

Barely able to get a word in we were entertained at first, but eventually as the vodka took effect it became more apparent that, as this six foot four inch man who weighed a solid two hundred thirty pounds and named Josh, was not going to stop.

Brandon had stepped out to have a cigarette and I noticed Josh was waving his arms and Brandon backing up, slowly become distressed and Domenic and I joined him to make sure he was alright.

"Dude, get this guy away from me. If he touches me again I swear to God."

"See you fellas aren't going to know what hit you. I can turn any man gay and that is just the truth, I've done it before and you don't have no peg to stand on."

"Alright, probably no."

"You say that now, but you just wait," Josh advanced a little closer, "you just wait, this ain't the first time for me ."

"O.K. Let's get out of here, please, Domenic go get Emma. This is ridiculous."

We walked away in silence and then burst into laughter as we disappeared around the corner.

"It was funny at first, but Jesus, if he touched me again, Jesus. I honestly felt like he was going to try and rape me. I'm not even kidding."

"That was so weird. It was pathetic, I'm embarrassed for him I think. And I liked him at first too, he was funny."

"Yeah. Right," Domenic and Emma laughed and Brandon appeared too rattled to find the humor in it but eventually we were back in the apartment and all laughing and Brandon was able to relax and we listened to music until we fell asleep on the couch.

We drove north to Chicago the following afternoon.

15 North

We are in the desert. It is as hot as hell. The kind of heat that you embrace because it is the only way to feign comfort. This past week has been a blur. It is difficult to know where to start.

We left Manayunk, PA in the morning and arrived at Valley Forge by noon. The Grand Parade was a dry orange and we played catch for a while in the long grass. It was as warm as I could remember in the past month and we enjoyed it lazily without much discussion or excitement. For a while I stared off at the horizon and tried to imagine that winter of 1788 but it was difficult in the heat and a bee landed on me knee which was distracting. I watched as Domenic sprinted across the field and dove after a ball which he missed and it rolled down the hill. He lay in the grass on his stomach and slapped the ground with his fists. We left after an hour for Gettysburg.

We didn't arrive at the campground until dusk. Small particles were suspended in the air and it reminded me of snow. In a rush we set up camp. We had stopped for firewood and Domenic was fumbling with matches while Brandon and I set up a tent his mom had used in the seventies. It was in great shape and durable, but the pull cord on the door was rough as twine and difficult to use.

"Tonight is like practice before we really get out there."

Domenic had already burnt through half of the matchbook.

"Yeah, we need it. I'm a bit rusty," and Domenic smiled again striking a match and watching as it fizzled out in the leaves and twigs he had gathered in a small pile, "Toss me that lighter, I'm being ridiculous."

After we settled down Brandon carved open a few cans of chili and we boiled it over the fire. It tasted delicious and I thought how chili might get sickening after a month but right now it warmed my gut like coals and it felt nice. We were all tired and content and we sat around the fire quietly. I watched the smoke curl into the night sky. The flames were leaping as if to try and escape but the most they could muster was this thin, grey, transparent wisp that became the night and then was gone. I think home is here or wherever you let it be. That night we fell asleep to the sound of light rain and the darkness.

In the morning we drove north to Rochester. I was behind the wheel. As we came into the Catskills autumn was in full rush. Oceans of red and yellow rippled across cliffs and glistened in the day. Roads tore through valleys like scars and our tires were melting on the concrete. Ray Lamontagne's voice poured out of the speakers like smoke.

Our destination was Joeb's, my college roommate, to whom I had promised a visit since the day we met it seemed. He is my closest friend, a large part of my fondest memories of my life in New York. His interest are different than mine so we rarely compete and are able to offer objective views for each other.

Honestly, I don't know what it is - our friendship. As I write it I cringe at how matter of fact it sounds. As if that reason alone explains why I trust him like gravity; a few too many nights spent with John Jameson when we were younger and more reckless could lead to an innate feeling of home.

After a night in the city we drove half an hour to Joeb's house on Canandaigua. It was raining when we pulled down the long drive. The day was dreary and the nights were already catching up to us. Silently, we collected our things and hurried for shelter as the rain fell psh, pht all around and puddles formed at our feet. Joeb opened the door and the four of us hurried inside for shelter, breathing heavy and stomping our feet. I could sense the silence of the dimly lit house. It really wasn't a house in the way you could imagine one unless you hung out with George Jung in the late seventies. The entire west facing side was glass and it stood on a cliff with a pulley-like elevator to bring people down the rocks to the dock. Artwork lined the walls while statues and gargoyles posed in different corners threatening and strangely enticing. I stood in the kitchen corner and stared at the grey clouds and white capped waves pound the shore in wonder.

"So what are we doing tonight, Gatsby?"

Joeb smiled. "I don't know, poker? I have wine. I have a lot of wine."

"Well I'm happy."

Joeb brought us down a spiral staircase to the basement, "Remember I told you Paul's family had that old hard cider recipe? Well I ordered these guys from Kentucky."

He opened a door into a cement room and flipped the light. Standing in the buzzing halogen were four fifty gallon cedar barrels, so large I began scanning the room for an explanation to how they arrived in the basement in the first place.

"Yeah, these held one batch of Kentucky bourbon, which is what the recipe calls for. Brewing two hundred gallons of this shit."

"Send us some when it's done."

"I think I am going to brew one barrel for six months, one for a year, and the other two for three years."

"Wow. That is quite the project. You didn't want to start smaller in case you mess it up?"

"Hey. Johnny Tsunami. Go big or go home."

We talked about cider for a while but it didn't last too long because none of us knew anything about cider or cedar barrels so Joeb told us a story as he took us through the rest of the house of the gay couple that had owned the house before him. They had installed a window in the shower.

"They said it was so you could see it from every room in the house."

All of the bedrooms were beautiful. Each were enclosed by one back wall and three walls of glass facing the lake.

"The sun is a bitch in the morning."

"Oh. I'm sure it is," I saw Domenic roll his eyes sarcastically and I muffled a laugh.

That night we drank wine until we could barely keep our eyes from closing. It was raining indoors was comforting. We played cards and joked until inevitably Joeb and I found ourselves in a conversation we would usually discover just before we went to sleep.

"It's been a long time now, but I still think about it, yeah."

"You alright though?"

"Yeah, I don't know what that means, but yeah. I guess I am just hard-boiled about the whole thing, which I guess is the strangest and in a twisted way the hardest part."

"I saw she has a new boyfriend."

"Yup."

"So what was all that talk about figuring herself out?"

"You tell me."

"It is so weird how time ticks along by so slowly but so much shit changes so fast, or at least it feels that way. Just thinking back, I mean, I just never saw any of this. I guess I don't even know what this is, really."

"Yeah, it's all fucked up. The more people I meet, the more people I miss, the more people I start worrying about, the more I go crazy."

"We're young, though."

"We are young as hell. Cheers. Let's get sleep."

I woke the next morning to the sun showering through the blinds. It was early, and I tried to ignore the heat but it was like a blanket and I was sweating and awake.

I went downstairs and Domenic was drinking coffee and writing in his journal. I saw him take a sip without lifting his pencil from the page. Joeb was pouring a cup for me, and Brandon was sifting through laundry slowly and breathing slowly to try and focus.

"How long have you been up?"

Brandon shrugged, "No idea. Twenty minutes?"

"You guys want to take the boat out?"

"Hell yeah."

We rode the elevator to the dock and waited under a gazebo for Joeb to lower the boat into the water. We were all pretty disorientated but the coffee helped. As soon as we launched out to the middle of the lake and picked up speed, the sun vanished behind a thick film of grey.

"Sonofabitch."

"This is still the best way to start the day," said Domenic as he dove off the side as the boat slowed and he disappeared under the colorless water. It consumed him completely, and he emerged spouting water from his mouth at the back of Brandon's head.

"What the-? You oaf."

Domenic laughed, he looked up at the sky and with his arms thrust forward and propelled backward with his toes poking through the surface towards the sky.

"Throw me them there ski's, there."

We spent the rest of the morning taking turns water skiing until it became too cold and our stomachs were sick.

At one point while Brandon was skiing he kicked off one ski with the intention of riding slalom. Joeb was driving, and we he turned he saw the ski spin off and assumed Brandon was falling. He released the throttle slightly, and Brandon's weight lurched forward the foot he had not fully managed to land on the ski began to extend back behind his now off balance body. When Joeb realized his error he pushed hard on the throttle, and Brandon's body was jolted forcing his back leg to shoot upwards until it was parallel, like his panicked torso, to the water. For one instant, an image I will never forget, Brandon skied content, in his size 32 white Hanes boxer briefs cuffed around his thighs like a diaper, as perfectly as a figure skater, his face torn between excitement and inevitability, he balanced himself the only way he could without thinking, before he lost a grip on the toe rope and it skirted across the surface like a stone and his face pounded the wake like a drum.

We left Rochester that afternoon for Cincinnati.

95 South

It has only been four days since we left and I have already found a way to forget a part of myself. My thoughts have shifted, however slightly, from concerns and trinkets with which I find ways to occupy my consciousness. I had originally planned on maintaining this journal every few days, but due to the lack of Internet access and the living of life it has become less realistic. I will, however, post whenever I can.

As we left Plymouth on the same roads we had spent a large portion of our lives circling like hamsters on a wheel, Domenic received a text message from a close friend. In it contained a few lines from Kerouac, which I will recite here, "What is the feeling when you are driving away from people, and they recede on the plain until you see their specks dispersing? - It is the too huge world vaulting us, and it is good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

As we sat, the three of us, gliding fifty miles per hour under the sun burnt sky, I saw Domenic turn his head. I was sitting comfortably in the backseat, and his feet were resting out the window on the side mirror. He looked at me and smiled, holding the phone so I could read the screen. I felt my bones go hollow. They drained entirely. Brandon craned from the driver's seat, curious and eager.

When we left his house I noticed his mother crying. She hugged him hard. It hurt to watch. As we leave, onto whatever, I think of those with who I have said to much, and those not enough. We are bearing down on time with enough force to watch it cascade like a waterfall. I feel I will never spend enough time with anyone before it is done. The wind was slapping hard. The sun was soothing on my cheeks. Brandon read the message and I thought he would cry. Instead, he pounded the wheel three times, and we laughed. We laughed so completely unaware of anything except ourselves. I suppose the journey starts here.

We headed south to Brooklyn. Domenic had friends he wanted to see before we left - Brandon and I thought we may as well start somewhere.

As we drove the sun followed our car. It arched through the sky as the trees ran still as statues by the window. Thousands of pounds of metal hurling towards each other and I fell asleep under the heat of the day.

I heard a horn blast and bus hydraulics release as my eyes opened in Brooklyn. Brandon was standing outside the car, directing Domenic into a tight spot somewhere on sixteenth street. The car was packed so full the frame was resting on the rear wheels. I stretched as Domenic put the car in park. He turned around, "Well, look who's up. How was your nap," under his breath, "you little bastard."

"Grow up." I opened the door and rested my arms on my hips and rocked to the tip of my toes, "That may have been the best way to start this trip."

The wind was blowing softly, weaving through the streets and dipping under cars and swirling around the street lamps. Domenic's friend, Austen, had been living in Brooklyn since they left college. I had met him before and I had enjoyed his company. We drank Tequila all day and after quite a bit of the bottle we ate dehydrated pea pods from Trader Joe's and laughed deep in the night.

"He's still at work I think," said Domenic, checking his watch, "He said his roommates were home."

We gathered clothes and items we figured we would need that evening, locked the car, and headed on foot to his apartment. Brooklyn breathes. It has a pulse, alive in the concrete and the leather which pounds it like tick, tock.

We rand the bell when we arrived at his apartment while a man in Rollerblades skated by being pulled by his pit bull on a red leash. As we waited, Brandon grabbed Domenic at the base of his neck and smiled wildly. He was holding a bottle of whiskey like a baby and I felt a grin inch across my face.

Someone came bounding down the stairs and with tremendous force swung open the door.

"Hey!"

"Oh my God! I didn't think you would be here!"

Domenic hugged the person who had sprung out of the door like a bat and the bag he was holding fell with thud on the sidewalk.

"When Austen told me you were coming I came straight over. How have you been buddy?"

"Incredible, I think... we may be treading on euphoria?" Domenic laughed.

"Hey Brandon."

"Julian. Great to see you."

"Bill, this is Julian. He was Austen's roommate in college. We have shared many a bottle together in the past."

We shook hands and I was impressed by his enthusiasm, we all felt as though this day was slightly different than yesterday.

"Austen told me about your trip. Are you really headed all the way?"

"Every inch."

"Oh wow. I'm jealous. I went on that sixteen day road trip with Smokesty through New Zealand. Best two weeks. No, the most free two weeks. I don't know how to explain that kind of free. No cell phone. Whole life of necessary in your car. Adventures. Damn, I'm jealous."

"It is hard to know what to expect, but I am damn glad you are here," and Domenic lead the four of us up the dark stairs into Austen's apartment.

We all sat around for a few hours and had a few more laughs. We couldn't seem to relax so Brandon poured a few glasses of whiskey and we had nonsensical conversations which made us all smile and forget about everything else.

We decided, when Austen arrived, which at the time created an atmosphere in which my eyes watered, to head into Manhattan for the evening. I have a little experience in the city, but each time feels like the first time I have set foot there. The bustle, the knife of the night sharpened by the bright lights and heavy shadows, and motion - constant movement which makes the city streets feel like a jellyfish, forming and molding like waves in a maze, and my heart beats quick.

We set off for the west village to meet another college friend of Domenic's, who works as an ad spotter for Cartoon Network, and had appeared in Plymouth a few times over the years. I have grown quite fond of him. He is unassuming. I suppose it is impossible to explain that anymore.

We took the F train to twenty-third street and walked towards a row of bars. Brandon nearly fell to his knees with laughter.

"Dude, I have been here before! The Slaughtered Lamb! That friggin' place. I blacked out there with Finn and fell off a table. I honestly never would have remembered that if we hadn't walked down this street. My fuckin' God."

Domenic was bent over with his hands on his knees laughing. I couldn't help but collapse in convulsions. Brandon shook with a sincerity rare to find like diamonds. We took to the stairs across the street into a bar coined, 'Off the Wagon,' and we joked at never getting on.

"Two dollar Pabst!"

"I really only drink vodka, man."

"Two dollar Pabst."

"Alright."

We walked through the door which was more like a cavern and the night became fuzzy. We all stood around and ate hot dogs while Austen tried to occupy the bartender the majority of the night. She was wearing a tube top and had spotted glitter intentionally near her eyes, and he actually held her attention long enough for her to take a picture of us. As we stood, Domenic looked at me and tipped his glass as if to say he wasn't thrilled, but he had succumbed to the moment like a moth to a lantern, leaving any questions looming in the starry sky masquerading in Christmas lights strung above our head. It was free. It was fun.

I don't remember much more about the evening except falling asleep to the melody of Domenic and Austen reassuring each other they had not in fact lost their minds, and left for Manayunk, PA in the morning. We left a note, but could not do much more to express our gratitude for the hospitality.

That night we landed at the home of a close friend's sister. She was more than gracious and took us out to an open mic even though she had to be up at dawn. The night was exciting and the music teetered on bearable for a few hours. We had decided to sustain from alcohol due to our exhaustion and a general feeling of disgust, but one dollar yuengling's and the electricity of life lead us to a few glasses of Maker's Mark.

As we sat I noticed a girl stroll slowly to the folding chair parlaying as a stage. She picked up the guitar resting on the case and strummed very lightly a few times, glancing around to make sure nobody was watching. I was. I leaned back in my chair. The whiskey tasted musky and fine. I stared. I waited. Never expecting much - but intrigued by the sensation of something like a pot of water before it boils. She played.For many, conversations grew louder until they slowly lost steam and were smothered by the silence. For two minutes it was beautiful like a cloud of smoke. It felt mysterious and chilled. I don't know what this is but it is different. I don't care about time but it goes tick, tock. I love every moment because of this one. That night my eyes closed without questions.

A Dawning Preface

First, don't expect too much because this is not for you. It is only for myself, and I don't even care too much about it. When we decided - Domenic, Brandon, and I - to leave the Northeast for an indefinite amount of time I thought about not writing at all. It occurred to me spending too much time hunched over a notebook may cause me to lose track of my priorities, which are as follows: sunrise, music, avoiding fast food, visiting people i have lied to about 'making a trip' for years, cigarettes. I am not sure if it is the quitting or the smoking part but sadly the bottom wrung of the latter will be a major part of this adventure.

I also hesitate to refer to this trip as an 'adventure.' With it the word carries a pomposity like a jet plane carrying microwavable dinners and one thousand gallons of gasoline. Nevertheless, it has also occurred to my feeble mind the immeasurable value I would gain from the documentation of the next x months. As a species the restrictions of our intelligence is depressing, and writing things down helps. Try it.

I have staked the intention of this journal, after a long discussion with Domenic over a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon, will be honesty, which is bull shit. I will be as honest as I can about what has happened, who I think my friends are, and who I am, which is really only a sad reflection of what my interpretation of reality and my petty illusions of morality are lacking, however misguided.

I take insult at my 'American-ness.' The way it is exploited and that I find it just. I am disgusted by the truth that despite any rants I punctuate or sparks I ignite with my words it is still in itself hypocritical. I write with my ego. A gruesome, pathetic, powerful influence. I have accepted this and chosen to overlook the hypocrisy because I'd never get out of bed if I didn't.

I am reminded of an old friend with whom I attach a respect I can say with certainty I do not, nor will ever, associate with anyone else on this earth. Her name was Margaret Pilsner, like the glass, and she was a bold, obnoxious, dim-witted, motherly, brilliant Atheist who succeeded in inspiring me to stop trying to speak to God. She'd say, "If it is the way they say it is, there ain't nuttin' you can do about changin'. If it isn't, well then you are walking around muttering words to yourself like a fool, while enough other fools make you think you are somethin' you ain't to make you sleep better at night.'

Shortly thereafter I stopped attending Catholic Mass. It may have been around the time the pastor at my parents church was guided from the alter in handcuffs because the man had decided to unbuckle the belt of an alter boy and put his mouth on his pecker before his sermon. This same man would then step out from behind his sacred robes and remind my parents and a whole flock of other croons to take care of business in the morality department by giving the church a few extra dollars so they can continue to spread the "good" word.

Margaret was stubborn. She blamed most of what she referred to as the 'fecal matter' of the world on the way in which we are tragically wired. She rarely held anyone accountable for anything. Her two sons, one who had joined the Marines after September eleventh and was killed in a training mission three months later, while the other took to a heroine addiction and still frequents McSorely's and with who I still have a chat from time to time, left home and rarely spoke to her.

When we were younger I can remember the three of us sitting around her table while she brewed coffee and smoked cigarettes until the kitchen appeared to be engulfed in a dull blaze. I was reading the funnies on the back of the newspaper Margaret was reading across the table. I would try to finish reading each strip before she became bored with whatever headlines she was reading and turned the page. Margaret knew it too. She used to enjoy playing that game with me. We never spoke of it, and I would never complain when she turned the page before I was finished. It just was that way.

After about half an hour of silence save the ruffle of newspaper and the tick, tock. of the clock, Margaret, who had been deflecting my eyes and shooting anxious looks across the table, slowly folded the paper on her lap. She stabbed her cigarette in the ash tray amid the ten she'd already inhaled that morning.

I sat patiently. I could recognize her look of discomfort, as if what she wanted to say was poking her softly but firmly in the small of her back. After a deep breath and long sip of coffee she parted her 'cherry fever' coated lips and smiled, "William, don't ever apologize for anything. I mean it. Don't ever apologize for who you are or what you did, even if it is the most foul or selfish thing you can imagine. Promise me that. I want to hear you say it. Say, 'Margaret, I will never apologize for who I am.'"

I remained silent. She continued without more than a pause.

"If anyone ever makes you feel like you need to apologize, Fuck 'em," and she swung her arms across her body and her bracelets rattled as her fingers slowly gripped her forearms like dominoes.

"It ain't anybody's fault, and there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it, but people think we are all rushing to somethin'. By the grace of Tuesday I don't have the slightest of what they think they are heading too but it ain't nothing different than anything. Listen to me: this is it. It won't ever be more or less. You are just sitting here, and that is how it is always going to be, and it isn't your fault. It just is. Don't waste your time apologizing when there isn't a soul on this planet who could sit here and tell you different. Me and you, we are here, and we are going to be alright."

Margaret died on a Thursday six years after that. I was older and I didn't go to the funeral. I don't even know if there was one. I was busy and I had not spoken to her since Timmy died in that training mission. Truthfully, the whole business of her death didn't rouse in me much emotion. Last month I pulled in the cemetery in which she was buried. I'd drive by it every day on my way to work. I walked along the headstones until I reached her barren grave. Her tombstone read, quite perfectly, "Here lies Margaret Pilsner, honestly." I smiled and walked slowly back across the lawn. The sun was boiling the earth. I have grown to hate a lot of things. I am leaving on Monday with my two friends. I do not apologize for what has happened. Thank you Margaret, this is it.