gringoarnold

Preface: This is an excerpt from a story I am writing about driving across the country. It takes place on the last night we drove, it's a true story. The quotations all come from Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner." Enjoy

“And now the storm-Blast came.”

The appalling rates of hotels in San Francisco meant that we could spend only the afternoon there. San Francisco is much like Manhattan in that so many people live lavishly in a small area. Even the rich stay at Motel 6 when visiting. The finer accommodations are reserved for millionaires, and we weren’t millionaires by any stretch. C’est la vie, I thought to myself and started the car aiming for Santa Cruz, where it would be more affordable.

I thought about the one time I stayed awake the entire night, only so I could fall asleep in the morning. It was a drug. When I finally did sleep, it was the most satisfying rest of my life. No one could wake me from that nap. In that way, it made me helpless. It felt like I had been up for twenty-two days now.

Highway 1 was darker than most roads; I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my brown leather jacket. I wasn’t cold at this point, but it was possible that I would be, and I might forget to put it on later. There is a specific hour of the night when the air seems to become colder in anticipation of the day. As far as I knew, this phenomenon was actually biological. If that was the case, the shiver could come at any point. My internal clock was broken.

There was a road sign to the right, difficult to read. Whether on account of low flying, black clouds or maybe it was a new moon, I couldn’t say. The city was only seventy miles away, which is a jog. I glanced at the console, below the speedometer. The trip odometer was there, having not been reset since the car was purchased. It read thirty-six hundred something. I pushed it in, and then said zero.

Usually I enjoyed the road; I had for the entire trip. It was the ultimate blatant metaphor, but for what? We drove every day, along the interstate, along highways, dirt roads, over bridges, through tunnels, down and up hills, beneath buildings, and past the homes of an entire country, arriving somewhere new, where we would only be shortly. What was there to imagine now? It wasn’t long before we will have returned to a place that was familiar, and depressing. How could that be the end of such a bold trip? It was anti-climactic, god-damn anti-climactic. I hated the idea now.

Ambivalence burned my brain. Identidem. I shook my head, trying to expel the thoughts. It made the car go slower. Could I be happy with any of it? My two friends slept. No doubt, Jason was having a crazy dream. After much incoherent deliberation, the car approached seventy miles. Looking starboard and port, there was any number of lodges. It didn’t matter which we stayed in. I doubted I would ever remember this night, and that bothered me in no way.

Tommy came to, when I stopped the car, detecting the deceleration. He exited to inquire about prices and accommodations. I circled the block; he was waiting by the time I was back, aiming his head at the ground, shaking it.

“No vacancies.” He told me, as if his body language wasn’t enough.

“What about the others?” I asked, there were at least a dozen places to sleep within a mile.

“No vacancies,” he repeated. Down the street, I noticed a few of the cheaper motels had neon signs illuminated. NO Vacancies. I stared out the windshield, as if it was only a matter of time before the answer suddenly appeared, maybe walking past the car, smiling and waving in a non-threatening way. It didn’t.

“Why are there no vacancies?” I looked back behind me, Jason still slept.

“The garlic festival.” Tommy told me. “Everyone is here for the garlic festival.” I shrugged. We would drive on, if that was the case. Monterrey was only thirty or so miles away. It was late now, 11:30 even, later than we had checked into any of our previous rooms. As soon as Santa Cruz was gone, the side-view mirrors and most everything else out the window turned into a mixture of shade and obsidian.

It wasn’t until midnight, approximately seven hours before the sun would rise that we saw another light. It was a city, it had to be Monterrey. Closer to us, though, was a row of shadows, palm trees. I stared at them for a long time. It might have been the first palm trees we had passed; it may have been the first palm trees I had ever seen at night even. To see a column of the silhouettes, on such a dark night, backlit by yet another city that was not ours was unusual. It was spectacular. I didn’t think such a luminous plant existed at this depressing hour. Such is their fickle nature. It must be fantastic here during the day.

We found another hotel. Tommy went inside again. The car idled outside for a few minutes. He came back, shaking his head again.

“Garlic Festival,” He said.

“What?” I asked him this, even though I heard him clearly.

“No vacancies for thirty miles, because of the Garlic Festival.” The Garlic Festival? Who in god’s name goes to a garlic festival? Obviously, there were enough of them to keep us out of lodgings, in two major cities. “Salinas is east of here, let’s go there.” Tommy suggested.

“It’s out of our way. We’ll find another place.”

“Isn’t Salinas where that author is from?”

“Yes,” I said.

“John Steinbeck.”

“Yes, he is.”

“We should go there, then. They might have rooms.” I knew they wouldn’t. There were no other options. We had to persist. I was tired, but the unnerving darkness would keep me awake. Another hour passed.

“My stomach is killing me.” Tommy said. “Try to find a bathroom as soon as we pass someplace.” I promised I would, as soon as possible. Poor Tommy, obviously in pain, and in the height of the wilderness. What a wretched predicament. I knew there would be nowhere to stop.

The beginnings were subtle. The path twirled more violently and dangerously, slowly at first, I didn’t notice. Soon it was elevated, and a sign to the right cautioned me.
“Roads curved: Next 63 miles.”

As if the road was now excused from any kind of etiquette it was supposed to abide by, we broke into the mountains. Clearly, color didn’t live here. The trees were now pine, well acquainted with the night. The fog became dense, limiting the visibility to the blurry darkness and the ghosts. Apparitions stood in the middle of the road, reaching their pale arms at the car, grimacing faces, frozen in their pained last expression, trying to distract me, so that I would join them.

“These hills are haunted.” I said. Tommy didn’t answer me, so I slowed and looked to him. He slept, holding his stomach, groaning quietly in his dream. Jason slept. There was no question that there was some terrible curse on this maniacal road. The issue was, of course, how many, and whether these spirits were murderous or benevolent.

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.”

My mind played tricks on me; maybe that was my unconscious way of staying awake, and not crashing the car. If even for a second I was distracted, we would go plummeting, off the mountain, and into the ocean. Only a puny metallic rail guarded the road from the cliff. Even in immaculate driving conditions, it was a danger. We drove through a column of fog, with a gaping mouth and gigantic stretched hands with lanky fingers ten feet behind it. Las Vegas was still optimistic, placing our odds of survival on the night at two to one.

I wanted to sleep, but I had never been less tired. I couldn’t watch the road, except out of the corner of my eye. At any moment, a crazed murderer would come scuttling from the shoulder, blood streaming from his eyes in some impossible unholy fashion, and I would be powerless. If I was asleep, at least I wouldn’t know this happened until it was over.
Be wary. He is a madman. He is the Zodiac.

“I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away,
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.”

By now, reversing was worthless; I didn’t know whether we were still entering or if we were now exiting. I turned the radio on, but this high in the sky, it received only one broadcast. A monotone told me about the grocery stores of the future. Obviously, it was a recording, and I didn’t even know if a real voice had ever said such things.

I sighed. For some reason the grocery store of the future made me sad. As far as the future went, grocery stores were the least important thing in the world. The pretentious robotic voice droned on. He was probably thrilled to be saying what he was, but completely oblivious of how much I hated him. It served to support my theory that nothing in this car was alive, least of all me.

“In the grocery store, of the future, there will be no necessity for the use of paper money, or, even credit cards…”
My automatic companion spoke for an hour. Finally, he stopped, and so did any façade of humanity. The station signed off, and it was more silent than anything I had ever tried to hear. The car drove further, but not by choice. I forced the gas down with all the vigor a desperate fool has after not resting for as many hours as I had. Even the ghouls ceased their shrill shrieks, and the car’s slight hum was less than the flapping of the wings of an albatross. I may have finally been asleep.

And then I saw the illumination, two separate instances; colloidal in the fog, slithering around the bends at me and closing deliberately. I stomped the breaks and clapped. An enormous truck guiding the radiant beacons stampeded past, blowing his horn at me as he prepared to enter the hell. I beeped twice in response. It was the first person I had seen in god knows how long.

I knew it was possible that I would see the sun rise in a matter of hours.

The road began to weaken. Jason woke up.

“Man, I just had the strangest dreams.” He told me.

“I did too.” I answered to him, but really it was to assure

myself.

“Did you stop and sleep?” He asked me.

“No, I don’t imagine we would be as far as we were now if I did.”

“Did Tommy drive?”

“No. I drove.”

“What did you dream about?” The roads began to expand into a highway once again, lowering themselves from the mountains.

“I dreamt of ghosts and supermarkets.”

“Huh.” He said, and lowered his head again.

“Dreams aren’t real, Jason. You’ll only forget them.

The elevation began to lower, and there was another sign to the right.

“Speed limit checked by radar.” My morale was lifted, because this meant I was victorious. Only a suicidal fanatic would have any reason to speed in the roads I came from. The ocean was once again visible.

Another sign told me we were near a small beachside resort town, Cambria. I drove there, gratefully and calmed. When we arrived, parking spaces faced the beach. All of them were available at this hour, so I had my pick. Both Tommy and Jason were back to sleep, but not I. I watched the water. The monotonous predictability was a soothing beacon to my tired body. The waves ran along the shore silently, and I watched for what was probably more than an hour. It wasn’t enough time. I turned the key in the ignition and the console lights flickered. More ghosts. It didn’t matter, I would be ready. My mind would not rest tonight, tomorrow, or even the next day.

chavos

nice...it's a great device to have the confinement of the car, and the drama that creates.

I didn't get a very good sense of the characters of tommy and jason-for a while i thought it was just two people int eh car. Look for details or themes t assign to each, so they stand apart better.

there are some great lines about the voice and the supermarkets-you've got a understated style that works well for that. thanks for sharing, it was a great read.