At the exact moment I pulled up to the log cabin office of the Grand Canyon RV Park, it started to rain.  Not a little mist that you merrily frolic around in, like a god watering the flowers rain; rather it was a torrential downpour that dents cars – like a God smiting the Christofealyites rain.  I ran inside the office to a warm welcome from a woman I’d come to affectionately know as “Uncle Barbara”.

Barbara was short and strong, dressed in khaki with her long gray hair pulled back in an efficient ponytail.  She’d have made an excellent park ranger.  My initial impression of her was that she was very nice for a defrocked vampire who’d come to while away her immortal days in the middle of nowhere.  The reason for the impression that she was a reformed undead was in part because she could have been anywhere from a haggard 45 to an excellent 75 but her youthful spirit made it impossible to tell.  The vampire aspect was inspired by the fact that, on my literal first glance, she seemed not to have any eyeteeth.  Eyeteeth, aka those pointy canines so popular with bears and sharks, are the teeth right below your eyes that people used to think you’d go blind without.  They’re also the chompers that vampires extend when they’re puckish for the spend of a punctured jugular.  Barbara’s easy smile had, I thought, revealed that she had none.  These being necessary to a vampire’s night job, it was logical to conclude that she had been alive for centuries and after committing some sin against her coven the teeth had been pulled, robbing her of her unholy powers.  Naturally, her only option had been to take a job running a Grand Canyon RV campground.

The boring truth was that Uncle Barbara was a mere mortal and only had cute little gaps in her ready smile.  When she was 22, it was probably a crazy cute little flaw that drove men wild.  Her youthful demeanor I attributed to an appreciation for life in general that I honestly hoped to emulate.

After the business aspect of our burgeoning relationship concluded, Barbara noted my reluctance to brave the pouring rain to go set up my tent and expressed confidence that the rain was just one of the daily showers of the season and it would stop soon.  She invited me to hang out until it did and we stepped out on the porch where, without preamble, that lovely woman made me a seductive offer I was very inclined to accept.

To be immodest, what she suggested was an act I found myself to be quite naturally skilled at.  It had been a while since I’d indulged in it with any regularity, but it would always be a happy task I enjoyed.  Still, the offer came out of nowhere and I wondered if I should be offended by the brazenness of it.  Sure, I’m an adventurer, but was there something about me that told her I’d be into it?  Was I putting out some kind of signal?  Perhaps I was.  One can get lonely on the road and social contact of any kind can be intensely alluring.  My heart quickened a beat when she casually reached up into her shirt.  I was shocked at how beautiful she was to me in that instant; shocked too at how my mouth watered at the thoughts this stranger so easily stirred up.  I won’t diminish the moment by feigning any powerlessness to resist the temptation; it was a conscious decision to let myself give in to the pleasures she offered.  Senses alive, I pictured myself reaching out for it right there on the porch, taking it into my mouth, breathing it all in as those first sparks sent us on a journey together that I knew I’d long to repeat.  Yes, when Barbara pulled that pack of cigarettes out of her shirt pocket and offered me one, I greedily accepted.

It had been years since I regularly had what was, at the very worst, a half pack a day habit.  I was never more than a casual on and off smoker but old lady nicotine did get her hooks in me on occasion.   I admit, up until recently I had been smoke free long enough to find it generally disgusting.  I often gave smoking friends grief for the vice in the obnoxious way that only a reformed smoker can.  My past secret to quitting was that if I really, really wanted a cigarette, I’d have one.  Without the nad-shrinking idea of “never” hanging over me, the knowledge that I could smoke if I wanted made it easier to never want to.  After the unfortunate anger and stress before my trip, I’d dived head first into my first pack in years.  Waiting at the checkout stand at that Van Nuys Wal-Mart, I had decided that smoking would be an acceptable evil for the duration of my trip and bought a pack for the road.

Smoking a cigarette is an excellent way to stay awake and alert during the long drives I had ahead of me.  Yes, that’ll do.  Ripping open a pack of delicious little calm sticks, like any vice, is something I believe only becomes a problem when indulged in without a big-picture view and without an end game in sight.  I imagine readers are shaking their heads and self-righteously tsk tsking me as this is read, just as I’d have done a week ago.  Still, I contend that occasionally sparking up an arrow of rich brown tobacco and watching as the flame burns so bright and winks at you like the poet’s Tiger can’t be all that much worse a personal sin than alcohol or caffeine or hydrogenated oils or any of the other poisons that we daily afflict on ourselves without thinking.  It’s not like I’d really get addicted.  Call me delusional, but I believe that breathing deep that magnificent hot, heavy beauty and feeling your brain go numb for a second as your whole body vibrates with pleasure in moderation can be a tool to be made use of on occasion with intelligence.  I’m only talking about 2 months here, so give me all the grief you want if I don’t quit when I’m done with this journey, but for now, I accept this weak desire in myself and I accepted Barbara’s offer of a smoke.

We stood puffing on the front steps of the campground’s office and watched the angry rain slowly peter out to become a ticked-off drizzle.  Barbara was as gregarious as I could have hoped for and seemed genuinely interested in my loosely planed Great American Adventure.  I already liked her enough to tell her she was going in “the book”, which is how I self-importantly referred to these very essays of my compiled adventures.  To me, “the book” sounds a lot better than “the bunch of essays I’m going to post on my blog and hope that people will read.”

Barbara set me up with a nice little tent site on a hilly rise amidst the pines overlooking the rest of the campground.  There was no one else camping up there at the time and it abutted the national forest and miles of nothing but woods, so I was very happy with the spot.  It took significantly less time to set up my tent than it had the night before and I was settled in well before darkness fell.  I plopped down into one of the two folding camp chairs I’d brought because I couldn’t decide between them, popped a Bud Light and wondered what the hell to do next. 

Candy had sworn there wasn’t much to see up at the Canyon past nightfall and after a long day I didn’t relish schlepping up there to potentially spoil my first impression of this natural wonder I had wanted to see for so long already.  Back at home, I’d have vegged in front of the TV and turned my brain to autopilot to let thin mysteries and lowbrow humor fill the time before bed.  Though I wasn’t exactly out in the wilderness yet, I had no such option and felt a compulsion to “do something”.

I channeled my inner Boy Scout and set up a small campfire, but decided not to light it yet so I could sit and listen to the sounds of the forest around me without the competition of the burning crackle or the light to scare off any nearby critters.  I could hear crickets of course, other buzzing bugs and some chirpy things that in the daytime I might have assumed were birds.  I was pretty sure I heard a couple deer, a few hungry bears and at least one supernatural serial killer, but other than that, nothing of note.  I had assumed that depositing myself in a well appointed campsite in the woods and settling in for a good sit like this would fill me with contentment and peace not found in normal life.  As it turned out, I was just antsy. 

My mind reeled with thoughts of the adventures I was going to have and visions of the Canyon that was finally so very close.  The second beer I drank settled my nerves a bit more, but I was still a novice enough camper to think that chilling like that qualified as having nothing to do.

The temptation of that IMAX movie across the street became more and more present in my mind.  I liked the idea that it would give me a unique view of the canyon, but I was afraid that it might tarnish the real experience by doing so.  I decided to go see my new best friend Uncle Barbara, share a smoke and get her opinion.  It’s worth noting that at this point, I only knew her as Barbara.  It wouldn’t be until a few days later when, amidst teary farewells, Barbara would give me her e-mail address, which began with “unclebarbara”.  She explained that she had some nieces or nephews or godkids or something and they already had an Aunt Barbara, so she had been lovingly repurposed to be Uncle Barbara.  Having been named “Boop” by my own godsons, I could relate to the pride one takes in the goofy handles kids stick us with.

As I ambled on down to the camp office, I cracked my third beer of the evening and brazenly walked with it out in the open.  This was a rare third solo drink for me.  I am a man who enjoys cocktails with friends once in a while, but I’ve never had a taste for drinking alone.  Though some of the men in my extended family have had poor relationships with alcohol, it isn’t any conscious prudence that keeps my drinking social, it just never occurred to me to drink alone.  Out with friends, I’ll hoist tankards all night long if the mood is there, but being stag somehow changes something.  I’d spent too much of my adult life overweight, and at my height,  overweight means that a few fingers of bourbon would seldom have any affect other than empty calories, so the thought of pouring myself enough drinks to get a buzz going always seemed like far too much sad effort for the debatable return. 

Around the time that Charles Shaw was shaking up the wine industry and bringing besotted joy to winos everywhere with two dollar bottles of good California wines, I tried to stumble onto the bandwagon and get into drinking wine with dinner.  Though “Two Buck Chuck” caught on with reviewers, raging alcoholics and cheap-ass gift givers everywhere, the habit never stuck with me.  Once, as I was eating dinner at home with a half-sipped glass of wine in front of me, my buddy Phil stopped by and before I knew it we were halfway through our second bottle of cabernet.  It’s not like Phil drank more than me, he probably had less, but something about having someone there to enjoy the wine with and gauge the level of goofiness that the imbibement was affording had suddenly flipped a safety switch in my head and we were off to the races. 

So combine that third campsite beer with the cigarettes I had quickly learned to love again, factor in that I was at 7000 feel elevation above my usual sea level and I was well on my way to feeling pretty goofy.

Barbara turned out to be a strong proponent of the IMAX “Grand Canyon Adventure” movie.  She had sent lots of people to see it and none had ever come back complaining.  Her opinion was that it would show me parts of the canyon I’d never get to see in person anyway, and it might show me cool spots that I could get to if provided with the right inspiration.  Her logic won me over.  That, plus I was drunk and she had a coupon.

The movie was nothing short of spectacular.  I didn’t care if I was just like every other tourist who wandered through there paying too much for a movie when they were supposed to be “getting away from it all” on vacation.  The stunning film offered history of the area, reenactments of Major John Wesley Powell’s first brazen rafting trip down the Colorado river to map out the canyon and images from every conceivable angle, some of which were shot from a fast moving ultralight aircraft, which is basically a hang glider wing with a seat and a propeller and something I often fantasize about learning to pilot.  To explain the film in a way that offers the highest compliment I can muster – it made me feel like I was superman flying along the bottom of the Grand Canyon. 

My beer buzz had waned during the movie and that have contributed to the sensation that I had stepped out of a green house and into the abominable snowman’s refrigerator.  And I hadn’t even eaten a Peppermint Pattie.  I hurried back to my site and lit my campfire to fend off the chilly air that I would later learn had plummeted to 35-degrees overnight.  I settled into my chair for a snack before bed.

 

Like the elaborate breakfast I’d made for myself that morning, I had to go all out and whip myself up nice little cheese plate with crackers, pretzels and one last beer.  As the trip progressed, I would become less and less fancy in my culinary efforts, but the cheese and crackers level of effort would rear its delicious head on occasion.  As for the beer, I essentially forgot all about the 12 pack I had in the back of my car and didn’t remember it again until weeks later when I found it behind some firewood and gave it to a girl I spent some time with in Texas as token thanks for the hospitality of her home.

I was well fed, mildly buzzed, had made a new friend and had some cool new experiences already.  Overall, I was really starting to get the hang of this camping thing.

NEXT: The Adventures of Ah Sum and Pho Toh at the Grand Canyon

A surprising number of Los Angelinos seem to think that taking a road trip of any distance further than the local Trader Joe’s, or god forbid the San Fernando Valley, is some sort of mystic journey to find oneself.  While I’m certainly open to the mystic, I’m pretty sure I know where Christopher Fealy is because he tends to show up in my shorts with some degree of regularity.  I’ve found him, I dig him and I know how to get hold of him if I ever need help moving something heavy (as do an unfortunate number of friends, acquaintances and people who see me in Home Depot).  What I sought on The Road wasn’t some elusive sense of self; it was simply a greater wealth of experience.  And though I hoped for as many “touch a piece of the moon” level experiences as I could get, I was also looking for the smaller scale slices of life that many people might find mundane.  As an example of one of those profound early moments, when I was headed out of Bullhead City and the Sanctuary for Horny Birds to start the four hour drive to the Grand Canyon, an actual tumbleweed tumbled across the street in front of me. 

That’s it.  Nothing else. Just a tangle of dead branches and brown weeds bent into a coil and kicked up by a dusty desert wind.  It’s a sight so common in movies and on TV that it’s cliché to the point where I never imagined it really happening.  Can you even picture a young Clint Eastwood without a tumbleweed in the foreground?  Having only ever lived in New York and Los Angeles, I know a prop house where you could rent them by the gross and a garden center that sells man made ones for $49.95 each, but I’d never seen one in person, never mind in action.  It’s not really an experience that would have made my “bucket list”, but it was more than weird enough to earn a much-needed little whoop! of joy out of me and start my drive off with a healthy case of the giggles.

In my zeal to whip out my camera and catch the romanticized hodgepodge of wandering detritus, I missed it completely and snapped this picture of the desert landscape:

I have decided to think that it was the desert telling me “You’re #1! rather than the earth rising up millennia ago in anticipation of flipping me the bird for not taking the it seriously enough.

For a number of reasons, I had gotten a late start from Davis Camp after my morning bike ride and kinky bird-watching adventures.  One delay was my naive insistence on making myself an elaborate breakfast of cereal with banana slices: a whole-wheat bagel topped with grilled ham and cheese and a Mango Mojo Naked Juice.  This may not seem elaborate to some, but my usual version of the most important meal of the day is a cup of coffee and maybe a handful of Cheerios in the car on my drive to work.  This breakfast being the first full meal I’d prepared for myself on the road, I was determined to prove that I could have all the luxuries of home right out of my trunk.  Never mind that they were the luxuries of someone else’s home, inhabited by lumberjacks and their early-rising mom – I still had a point to prove and the novelty of my puissance had yet to wear off.

The other delay was that packing up my tent had taken far longer than it should have.  With a belly full of energy, I made the foolish attempt to get the 700 cubic yards of fabric that comprised the tent back into the matchbox of a bag that it somehow came in.  After much contorting, I got about a third of the material shoved in before my first “road lesson” was learned.  That lesson can best be summed up with the philosophical thesis of: Screw It.  I rolled the tent as tightly as I could and cinched it up in a canvas belt that came free with the shorts I’d bought in my last minute panic trip to the Van Nuys Wal-Mart.  I had no need for the belt because the sole testament to my own vanity I had packed for the trip was 7 or 8 of my very favorite belt buckles from my sizable collection and the 3 buckle-less belts that went with them.  The bound tent was still twice the size that the sadists at Coleman would have me believe it should be, but since it was more than compact enough to fit in the storage egg atop my car, the Screw It philosophy comfortably applied.

When I finally turned off the US 40 to drive that last leg up the US 180 north towards the South Rim, I was more than a little surprised to find myself driving through an arboreal wonderland.  As far as the eye could see, sky scraping Douglas Fir trees and Ponderosa Pines flanked the road, standing as sentinels to monitor the ceaseless approach of we tourists seeking to worship at the altar of the Canyon’s beauty.  I admit to having no great grasp of geography beyond a reliable ability to figure out where north is and a debatable ability to find odd shortcuts past city traffic, but wasn’t the area supposed to a rocky desert, striped in shades of brown and red? 

In what seemed like torturous hours but was probably 30 minutes, one of the helpful brown road signs that would come to be my great assistants on The Road informed me that I was approaching the South Rim Visitor Center.  I expected some quaint log cabin inhabited by an avuncular old gent in a green uniform and a silly hat sitting behind a desk and informing people who it was that could prevent forest fires.  What I arrived at instead was an IMAX theater next door to a Wendy’s.

There was a small town called Tusayan at the base of the road that led to the Canyon with all the conveniences one could need, but with all the prices quaintly doubled to remind you that you were still in a tourist trap.  The visitor center was officially called “The National Geographic Visitor Center: Grand Canyon Adventure IMAX Theater”.  I shuddered to think what the clerks had to say when they answered the phone in the on-site Pizza Hut that you had to walk through to get to the Information desk.  By the time they were done telling you where you’d called, they’d be halfway past their 30 minute guarantee.  I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before some clever young executive figures out that if you dig a little on one side and fill in a little on another, you can recarve the Grand Canyon to spell ”Pepsi” when viewed from above. 

I didn’t have a lot of expectations for the kinds of places I was going to find out on the road – the trip was about learning, after all – but I did have some assumptions that, so far, had all been incorrect.  I thought I was going to be getting away from this kind of conspicuous consumption and spend my days hugging trees.  The Grand Canyon was a 15 minute bus ride away!  Why in the world would I want to pay money to see a movie about it?  Sure, it offered a historical perspective on the canyon and maybe it might be cool to see the camera shots taken on an ultralight aircraft of the deepest recesses of the canyon, but I wanted to hike those places for myself.  Then again, it would certainly offer views of places I could never hike to… but no, those images would doubtlessly be doctored.  I wanted the real deal.  I’d rather have an authentic B-level experience than someone else’s prerecorded A-level adventure.  If only those damn posters weren’t so cool…

I snapped out of my IMAX-inspired reverie and realized that with no campsite reservations, I had no real idea of what to do next.  As any kid worth his Junior Ranger badge knows however, if you’re lost in the woods, find a ranger.  It was about 4pm, so the NGVCGCAIT  was alive with tourists and run by all ages, shapes and sizes of people dressed in green uniforms and hats that I suspect I only find silly because I don’t have one.  Yet. 

I finally found a ranger who wasn’t busy pitching the movie or restocking shelves with chocolate candies named after wildlife scat.  The ranger I found was not the rugged, unshaven, backpacking Knight of the Backwoods I’d expected at all.  Rather, she was a gleeful, apple-cheeked redhead who looked like she hadn’t backpacked much further than that convenient Wendy’s for a few Frostees too many.  Her nametag, of course, read “Candy”.  I waited in line for Candy’s attention behind an older German couple and listened to them indignantly demand to know why they couldn’t drive their rented Prius to the bottom of the Canyon to have a look around.  It was a hybrid, after all.  Candy had polite, canned answers ready for them and they finally wandered off mumbling in German – something about filthy American bureaucracy no doubt.  Or maybe sauerkraut.

When it was finally my turn to badger Candy, I told her I was looking for a campsite to pitch my tent, and managed to work in that I was at the start of a cross-country road trip.  Disappointed that she wasn’t the bear-cub-rescuing, poacher-fighting stereotype who would have inspired more confidence, I thought it important to let her know that I wasn’t some big city rube. I confidently informed her that I’d done my research and read about the Mather Campground close to the Canyon and thought my odds of getting a site would be pretty good. 

“Oh sure,” she said kindly in her high pitched, rapid-fire voice.  “What month would you like to set the reservation?  It really opens up in the winter, but there’s still lots of availability in the spring around March.”

March?  But… it’s May.  As it turned out, you can make reservations to stay at that campground and almost any developed campground in the National Park system up to a year in advance.  As it happened, a couple hundred selfish jerks full of “foresight” and “plans” had booked up the campsites ages ago. 

“Um… Aren’t there ever any cancellations from people who can’t make it?” I asked.  “Who could really plan that far ahead?”

Candy smiled broadly.  “I know!  There sure are” she said.  “Would you like me to put you on the waiting list?  There are about dozen people on for tomorrow though, and a lot more for the weekend.”

People had made reservations to be on the waiting list.  Jackasses.  Didn’t they know I’d be passing through one of the top tourist destinations in the world at the start of their busiest season of the year?

“If you’re looking for a site tomorrow, some of them are first-come first-serve.” Candy offered.  What a break.  She saw me start to smile, and wisely didn’t let it get too far.  “There’s usually a line of cars up to the camp office at around 6 or 7am, so you’ll want to get there early to have a decent chance.”

I had hoped to reset my internal clock on this roadtrip to learn to be one of those nigh mythical “Morning People”, but it hadn’t happened yet and I honestly doubt it ever will.  I asked Candy if camping a few hundred feet from the Canyon was really all that special anyway, and she compassionately assured me it was not.

“You can’t see it much at night and the sites are right on top of each other.  There’s an RV park right across the street from here with tent sites, and the bus up to the Canyon stops right outside”

“The bus?” I asked, envisioning the urine soaked hobomobiles I was familiar with from my youth on Staten Island.

“Tourist bus.’  No reaction.  “It’s free.”

Though Candy likely couldn’t have repelled down a mountainside to untangle the horns of some battling mountain goats, the valimaue of her skill set had won me over.  We chatted some more and she suggested some of the great National Parks along my eventual route, and even managed not to be condescending when she handed me a park guide and circled the National Park Service website where I could try to make reservations for future stays.   “Most parks aren’t as booked up as we are” she assured me.

I was eager to visit and/or stay at a number of these parks, so Candy suggested I invest $80 in an “America The Beautiful” annual pass which would allow me free entry to all National Parks.  Normally, I’m that idiot who thinks everything is a scam and doesn’t buy “passes” and “club cards” and such that require too much commitment to actually use them.  More often than not, my hair-trigger interest level wanes in time and I’m right to be a skeptic.  Then Candy put it in terms I could relate to – the Grand Canyon alone was going to run me $25 just to get through the gate, so if I hit three more parks within the next 12 months, and I would, I’d be ahead of the game.  Candy’s rapidly rising cache was unfortunately reduced when, on May 28^th, she punched the “May” spot of the tab rather than spotting me a few days and generously hitting “June” to give me an extra month of park hopping.  But as long as I didn’t fall into the Canyon, land on a thin ledge and need her to jury-rig a rescue harness from donkey hair and coyote spines, I’d still count her as a surprisingly excellent resource.  As it turned out, it was a minor miracle I didn’t end up needing exactly that, or at least a version of it with nylon rope and rescue helicopters, but that’s for future essays.

Feeling very much like a big city rube, I drove across the street to the Grand Canyon Camper Village to try to pitch my tent in time to make it back for the last IMAX show of the day.

NEXT: Vice and Virtue in the Forbidden Crypt of Uncle Barbara

Semi-aimlessly cruising America’s highways on a solo road trip is adventurous, romantic, and dare I egotistically say brave, but at its core it is an act of defenseless selfishness.  I’d qualify that with “at least is for me it is”, but who could possibly argue otherwise?  It’s the removal of yourself not only from the familiar but also from any and all expectations of you beyond survival and general observance of the basic social contract. 

When I was driving away from Barstow trying to remember if pee makes bushes grow or kills them, it occurred to me that I could e-mail my oldest friend in the world, a tree-hugging hippie named Richard.  Not R.J.  Not Richie.  Richard.  He’d know the exact effect of urine on desert plants and probably have a million other useful tidbits that would be good to know on the road.  Or I could call David and ask him to google it for me, he loves that stuff.  At the same time as I realized I didn’t really care at all, I turned my phone off and remembered my plan not to communicate with anyone for a while.  I reveled in thoughts of spending at least the first two weeks wandering the southwest without once checking my e-mail.  I delighted in the fact that I had no reason to reconnect until I wanted to.  Best of all, I wondered eagerly how many days I could go without uttering a single word to another human being.  (It’s harder than you think, but I’ve almost made it to three days if you don’t count a mild expletive that slipped out when some goat-fucking moron in a Humvee cut me off on a dirt road in New Mexico.  No one heard me, so a tree falling in the woods and all that…)

The unexpected side effect of this kind of freedom is that it also removed other people from the expectations I have of them.  When you have so little time and thought to give, when you do give it, you can’t help but have high expectations and be hurt when your efforts and investments seem not to be returned.  I realized that this was certainly a big part of what infuriated me so much about the betrayal by my erstwhile best buddy Jim, so I eventually tried to temper my anger with the thought that maybe I expect too much of people.  In a perfect world, you’d think that things like reliable honesty and canine loyalty wouldn’t be a lot to ask of someone you try to offer the same to, but in the real world, people have flaws and differing perspectives and even different definitions of loyalty, if not exactly honesty.  

To recap the ”Things Left Behind” essay in detail: I’d recently come to believe it was a minor miracle that my friend Jim’s pants were not constantly on fire after I accidentally found him blowing me off on my last available night in town so he could hang out with his new life-mate, D-Bag.

D-Bag was a relatively new addition to the fold, moving in our circle for only a year or two, but he was well entrenched.  Kind of like an unattended staph infection – seeming unremarkable to the naked eye, but poisoning everything it touches beneath the surface.  He’d made it clear early on that he had no interest in friendship with me outside of our mutual association with Jim and though I found that a little cold because I’d made a couple efforts, I was content to only be friends-in-law.  I didn’t much care if D-Bag liked me or not because we seemed to get along well enough when he, Jim and I were together, which came to be quite often because D-Bag followed Jim around like a hungry puppy.  In truth, the slick pretty-boy isn’t really someone I’d have ever sought commonality with if we didn’t have Jim in common.  I never did care much for reptiles.

Jim met D-Bag through work and knew him for a for a little while before I met him myself.  In the beginning, his ridiculousness amused me.  From the outset, I couldn’t mention someplace I’d been or something I’d ever done with Jim without D-Bag coming up with a story to one-up me.  If I had a drink with Jim at a bar, D-Bag said they’d gotten hammered out of their minds and vomited there.  If Jim and I bought t-shirts on 3^rdStreet, D-Bag said they’d bought new wardrobes at Fred Segal.  If Jim and I caught a cold around the same time, D-Bag said they’d had their heads fall off at the exact same moment while synchronized swimming in Madonna’s pool.  I usually laughed his rampant insecurities off with the confidence one can only muster when someone is obviously trying to insinuate themselves into a friendship, but you’re so completely confident in your buddy that you know the fool hasn’t got a chance.  Shows what I know.

I don’t mean to imply that I never liked D-Bag, because for quite a while I genuinely did.  When he was first hanging out with Jim and working his way into our circle, he could be cool and charming and fun to be around.  He’d CC me on his endless parade of e-mails with tasteless jokes or pictures of naked chicks, or occasionally, with pictures of Jim.  At times he would even go out of his way to draw me in to conversation by explaining things when he and Jim were on one of their endless rants about finance or their fantasy sports teams or any of the other things they had in common that I had no interest in.

The problem that became apparent with D-Bag is that he is secretly, passionately in love with Jim and grew covetous of his attentions.  There came a point where, if I was meeting Jim somewhere, it was just assumed that D-Bag would be there too, hanging around the periphery like an overly coiffed satellite.  The last time I was in Jim’s house, I couldn’t help but notice that D-Bag keeps more clothing and toiletries in the spare room than I packed for a two-month road trip.  3 different kinds of hair gel at least.  Regularly, I’d have plans to meet Jim somewhere only to arrive and find D-Bag already there.  His frequent reaction was to say nothing at all to me, or gift me with the occasional “Oh, you’re here?” as if we’d randomly run into each other in Antarctica and he feared my presence might mean fewer penguin steaks for him.  Even with all this though, I still considered him at least a casual friend until fairly recently.  A surprising source confided in me that D-Bag had been heard to say some indefensibly nasty things about me for reasons I honestly can’t fathom.  I found it difficult to believe at first, but soon I was seeing things I hadn’t noticed before and it became more and more believeable.  I never realized how much D-Bag must have truly disliked me or been threatened by me, because Jim always defended his pet and swore we were all the best of buddies.  Looking back, I probably should have noticed that Jim rarely seemed to tell either of us when the other would be coming somewhere.

In the interest of fairness, even though D-Bag had a curiously intense affection for his Justin Timberlake DVD and he did once almost lure Jim into the uncool kind of ménage-a-trois with a plastered bimbo (“almost” only because she sobered up and chickened out), it is possible he isn’t madly in love with Jim in the ”who pays for the condoms?” kind of way, so lets just say that he’s curiously obsessed with having Jim all to himself.  A few people have noticed this, with the notable exception of Jim, who must enjoy the attention and has always possessed that enviable ability to think everybody is awesome and we’re all great friends.

A while ago, D-Bag must have started to feel he was winning his unspoken competition for Jim’s friendship because he got cocky about it.  Frequently, he would “accidentally” slip up and reveal some white lie Jim had told me about going to the periodontist or to prison when in fact he and D-Bag were off somewhere fun that my kind apparently wasn’t welcome.  It’s possible that the repeated slips were accidental, but although D-Bag wasn’t much help with a crossword puzzle, I never thought he was actually stupid.  I had never asked Jim to lie to D-Bag on my behalf, so it irked me that the courtesy wasn’t returned.  I expect the slips were designed to make me jealous, and I have to admit that they worked to a degree.  Still, I couldn’t get all that mad at Jim about it because even I thought I should never have found out about the fibs.  I’ve been infatuated with a new friend before too, and I’ve even temporarily slighted my good friends to spend more time with a new one.  Of course that was usually because the new friend got a better tricycle than I had, or had boobs, but still…  it happens.  Sooner or later though, you always come back to your people.

After a few of his slip ups, even I had to notice that D-Bag had dispensed with much of the token friendliness he had spared for me in the past.  I started asking myold pal Jim what was up with him and D-Bag and why I always seemed to be the odd man out.  I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and, like a bawdy limerick, can be offensive to some, no matter how clever and funny I find myself to be.  So in the interest of camaraderie, if I’d done something that made me disagreeable to be around, I wanted to know.  Jim said it was all in my head and assured me again that D-Bag held me in high regard.  I told him point blank once that I’d accept and support him if their relationship had evolved to the point where they’d be moving in together and buying a pair of schnauzers named Whimsy and Taptap, but Jim said he was still as heterosexual as ever and nothing was weird.  When D-Bag would spill the beans about a bigger lie, Jim would apologize for it with some ridiculous extenuating circumstance.  At one point, caught in an undeniable lie of omission, Jim must have run out of excuses because rather than cop to it, he went so far as to tell me I was being paranoid and say he was worried about me.

For much of last year, while Jim and D-Bag were becoming so deeply enamored with each other, I was in the throes of a marathon diet where I was losing 4-7 pounds a week for months.  That kind of physical starvation can’t help but have a strange effect on your head from time to time.  No disco lights flashing in the toilet or magazines trying to steal my chest hair, just some jitters and perhaps an excess of worry.  So I actually doubted my own usually accurate instincts and trusted Jim’s word over the evidence right in front of me.  That’s the kind of friendship I thought we had.  I had been there for him through the worst days of his life and always had his back, regardless of the personal cost.  I once gave up a precious temp job for a week when I didn’t have two cents to rub together to hop on a flight to Wyoming (he paid for it) to help him handle some personal business he couldn’t yet deal with on his own at the time.  That’s not the sort of friend you’d repeatedly tell petty lies to and allow to think that they might have mental problems, right?  So I assured Jim that I genuinely didn’t care if he wanted to hang with D-Bag without me, I just didn’t want to get lied to.  I made a pretty big deal about it and he promised me he wouldn’t lie again.

I believed Jim because I had tried a couple times to pull back from our friendship to no avail.  I’m a big fan of direct communication, but I’m still a dude after all, so the inclination when you’ve been getting this sort of mixed signals crap for a while is to just let the friendship die off.  It made me sad to expect we would gradually become the kind of friends who occasionally run into each other at a bar, talk about old times and swear to get together soon, but then you sign up to take a whittling class or start reading to the blind so you won’t have the time to follow through.  I’d stop calling for a while, or not return the odd e-mail, all to create an easy “out” so that if he didn’t want to be buddies anymore he could convince himself it was my fault and let it happen simply by not initiating.  It’s not like I thought that Jim hated me or anything, but there are only so many times you can be walking with people and suddenly realize they’ve headed off in a different direction without you (literally and figuratively) before it feels like crap and you want to walk in your own direction.  But every single time I’d pull away, Jim would be there looking for me, my good old friend who I’d missed so much, eager to go get diner or do some of the things we never seemed to do anymore.  Giving me a little hope.  Sometimes, the renewed vigor would even last for a while.

When I walked into that hipster bar that night, I’d kept over 70 pounds off for over eight months and was in the best shape of my life.  A new man, really.  The fleeting diet jitters had long ago fled, my head was definitely on straight and life in general had been taking a turn for the better.    So when I saw the bright, neon “LIAR!” sign flashing above Jim’s head as he supped with D-Bag, suddenly everything I believed about my good buddy was in question and every blow off or excuse I’d ever heard, most likely a lie.  This wasn’t just one dinner, it was a dozen others that suddenly made sense and I felt so incredibly stupid for ever having believed Jim.  Just like I’d fallen into a stupor with my job, I’d changed the way I looked at myself because I put so much stock in my friendship with Jim that it didn’t occur to me to change the way I looked at him.  If I’d paid more attention, I’d probably have seen the writing on the wall sooner and accepted that the intense friendship we’d once had was forged in a time of need for both of us, and now lacking that kind of need, things had changed.  Our friendship wasn’t dead; it just wasn’t exactly the same brotherhood I’d probably relied on too much to begin with, if it ever was.

As I left the bar for the welcoming embrace of a Camel Light, I texted Jim to let him know I’d arrived early and wondered if he could imagine my surprise when I saw him.  I wished him a good night and called him the name I usually reserve for the friend he’d chosen to dine with.  He replied asking why I hadn’t come to join them and wondered why I was “sneaking around”.  A better man, someone like Cary Grant for instance, might have been able to saunter over to join them and laugh off this hundredth petty slight, slyly looking to the ceiling to check for the balloons and confetti that might fall in celebration of the milestone.  Then again, Cary so seldom seemed filled with homicidal rage, and likely would have told Jim to go fuck himself ages ago.

My biggest regret of the evening was that in my haste to vent vitriol via one last text message, I wrote too quickly and began what I expected would be our final communication with the epithet, “Fick you!”  I noticed the typo too late as my iPhone took its sweet time sending the message, mocking me all the while.  My already roiling stomach turned as I pictured Jim and D-Bag bandying that phrase back and forth for ages, coyly telling each other to fick off or go fick themselves amidst peals of girlish laughter.  I pictured the day, years from now when D-Bag might finally work up the courage to ask Jim to fick him in the ess, but that made me laugh and I wasn’t ready for that yet.  I quickly followed that message up by telling Jim he wasn’t the friend I thought he was and I hoped he had a nice life, so I think my message got across.

I’m clearly incapable of leaving things unsaid, so there would be e-mails in the coming days before I hit the road.  Rage from me at first, explaining why I couldn’t be friends with him any more: apologies and mea culpas from him that I didn’t think quite added up.  The excuse he offered was that Bill and D-Bag had “sensed tension” when the four of us had gone out together and so they thought it best not to have me at dinner.  A reasoning made incredible by the overlooked fact that the four of us had been out together about twice in the past half year, and not recently.  I suppose he didn’t think I’d call Bill directly and believe him when he said it wasn’t his idea, but I did and I do.  Without a better explanation, it’s clear that D-Bag and D-Bag alone has been feeding Jim variations of this “tension” crap without an honest word to me, and inspiring stuff like this for a while.  All I know for sure is that if something I asked a friend to do threatened to destroy another close friendship of his, I’d pick up the phone, bite the bullet and set things straight.  But I’m that kind of guy and I should try to only expect that of myself.

Looking back now with clearer eyes and seeing how eager Jim has been to keep our friendship, even in the face of my intense anger, I believe that he didn’t lie to me out of casual indifference or malice, and I think that’s what I’d been afraid of.  Afraid that the friendship had been a complete lie and not just in need of a tune up.  I don’t excuse Jim for breaking his promise and lying to me – that’s all on him, but there have been more e-mails since my “Things Left Behind” post, and I think we understand each other a little better now.  In one email, Jim asked me to consider that he’s just an imperfect person in an imperfect situation, and that hit home.  That was as much admission of fault and apology as I’ve ever heard him offer anyone.  It’s also what provided me with the odd realization that he was trying to be loyal to me by lying.  It may sound like a load of crap, but if I accept the well documented idea that Jim truly believes a lie is a kindness, and I stop expecting that belief to change just because mine differs, than I have to accept that he didn’t act out of any cowardice, but was just trying to keep everybody happy in the only way he knew how.

Someone else’s expectations are a lot to live up to and we can all make bad decisions to get a ride on a shiny tricycle now and again.  I’m still happy to have left our friendship behind though, because my impression of it may have doomed it anyway.  But now I’m hoping that I left some of the anger at failed expectations behind too, and can return home open to a fresh start. 

On an even footing and without expectations, I think my friendship with Jim is worth another shot, and god help the D-Bag that tries to screw that up.  I’ve got good instincts, and I trust them.

NEXT: Grand Canyon, no The.

Three hours after the Barstow pause, I was at a total of just over 300 miles from home and that seemed a decent distance for my first real stop.  My original goal had been to drive the 7 hours straight through to Grand Canyon on my first day, but the couple subletting my apartment needed to get in a day earlier than planned so they could begin plotting the overthrow of Cuba or something, so I had to rush to pack up and get out.  There was some business that needed tending in LA before I hit the road, so I spent that night in Sherman Oaks at the home of my great friends Phil and Laura.  I didn’t get the early start I’d planed because Laura graciously cooked me up a lumberjack breakfast and I got caught up making monster faces at their impossibly cute little boys, Sam and Joe.  I then made the mistake of going for a “quick stop” at the Van Nuys Wal-Mart, so it wasn’t until after 7pm that I finally programmed my new GPS and took off for points east with Willie Nelson in my CD player reminding me how great it was to be On The Road Again.

 Without anything so banal as a reservation, and knowing that Grand Canyon’s campgrounds would be unmanned if I arrived after 2am, I decided to stop in the town of Bullhead City on the border of Arizona.  I arrived around midnight at a campground called Davis Park that was heartily recommended by the fact that it was the only one in the area I could find.  I still had to face the fact that there would be no one working and I’d have to find a campsite and set up my borrowed tent for the first time in the dark, but being two hours fresher than I’d be if I pressed on to the Canyon made the task less daunting.  Looking back, I’m not sure what streak of audacity lent me either the confidence or the ignorance to arrive someplace I’d never been with equipment I’d never used or even the certain knowledge that I’d be able to enter, but this was to be a balls-out sort of journey.  The city of Laughlin, Nevada was right across the Colorado River from there, so worst case scenario I’d have to drop a few extra dollars and stay at one of the dozen or so riverboat-themed casinos the place was populated with.  If nothing else, that would be an important lesson in preparedness or thrift and likely adjust my measurements of the Luxor’s gaudiness.

 As it turned out, all I had to do was slip $15 in an envelope at the campground’s gate and pick from any of the numerous empty campsites, so luckily no lessons were learned and the Luxor still seems as preposterous as ever.  Those lessons might have served me well further down the road when campgrounds were less accommodating and money got tight, but I have always possessed an ill-advised sense of invulnerability and adaptability regarding such matters, so this first success made those feelings seem less unfounded and me more adventurous. 

I was a fair to middling Boy Scout in my youth, so the tent went up without too much agony.  It was a simple matter of slipping 65 poles into 42 pole spikes.  Once erect, I saw that there were only in fact 2 poles and 4 spikes, but it took a while to get the hang of putting one pole in place without the others making a desperate bid for freedom, so there was lots of circling and cursing and smashing with rocks before all was said and done.   I had a collapsible table and chair that set up far easier and I met my goal of being relaxed in a nicely set campsite before I would have arrived at Grand Canyon if I’d continued driving.  I may have only made it by minutes and only if I would have taken a lengthy pitstop on the way, but I wanted to learn to be more forgiving of the little snags in life while on the road and this seemed as good a time as any to start.

The spirit of forgiveness would have to extend to my first photography efforts as well.  It would be a while before I truly mastered the fine art of self-portraiture, but this first attempt captures my mental state with a startling degree of accuracy: 

 

The impressive view of Laughlin from my new perch on the Arizona side of the river was a more alluring first real subject to shoot (the thermometer photo in Barstow was found online because I didn’t think to snap a pic for camp value and the one of the spot where I peed wasn’t a very complex subject, so neither counts as a first). 

 I was pretty tired at this point, so this may be an accurate depiction of what I saw:

 

Okay, that’s head-injury blurry.  Maybe I was only this tired:

That’s still worth a trip to the ER.  I finally made it to this, where at least there’s reason to suspect I was on planet Earth and not bleeding into my brain:

Alas, I was only up to chapter 43 of my camera’s ponderous instruction manual so you can’t tell from these photos, but there was a distinct line of light erupting from Laughlin to divide the sky.  Above the distant casinos, the sky was brightly washed out with hardly a star to be seen.  Just outside it’s range however, the sky was alive with stars and the mysterious sparkle of distant galaxies.  As fate would have it, the washed out vision was to the west where I’d come from and the unfettered view of the night sky lay to the east, where I was headed.  I knew logically that such a distinction was probably not a message from the forces of the universe that I was headed into a purer, truer world beyond, but I decided to belay my skepticism and just dig it.  A skill I would continue to master in the coming weeks. 

I’ve always had a bit of a sarcastic and cynical streak (no, really) that most people assume bespeaks a pessimistic nature.  In my self-perception at least, nothing could be further from the truth.  At best, I think of myself as a pragmatic realist and at worst, a cockeyed optimist.  Some rough days may have made it tougher to find in myself, but this early in the journey, I was determined to learn to listen closely for the sound of that happy go lucky inner voice that wanted to find joy in little things and imbue coincidences with deeper meaning out of hope rather than desperation.  After some internal negotiation, the scientist in me can allow for the fact that the subconscious looks to interpret a simple thing like gross light pollution as a message to the conscious mind about a healthier way to perceive the world.  That makes enough sense to reconcile the mystic optimist, too.  That, and the relative certainty that some stuff is just plain weird enough to marvel at – Like the way you tell someone about your favorite Simpson’s episode and it ‘s on TV that night, or when some song that always inspires you seems to come on the radio when you’re at a low point (for me that song has been “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake.  It’ll never get played at a baseball game to rally the crowd, but it somehow always boosts my self confidence.)  Either things like that happen to me more than to most, or I just notice them more.  Either way, I’ve “do do do do”ed the Twilight Zone theme with some notable frequency.

Suitably inspired, I went to sleep psyched for the day ahead.  Sleeping on an air mattress proved less awful that I’d feared, morning came quickly and I was up and out of the tent by the semi-respectable hour of 9am.  In the final months of my horrible job, I’d gotten into the habit of staying awake as late as possible so as to put off having to wake up, which meant I’d have to go in to work.  Those late nights had proven a hard habit to break, so another goal of the trip was to learn to greet the morning with eagerness (or at least indifference) rather than dread.  To be honest though, it wasn’t an alarm or newfound joie de vivre that got me up that morning, but the sound of two particularly aggressive mourning doves humping right outside my tent.  They must have been deep in the throes of beaked passion because the sound of the tent zipper opening didn’t faze them at all, nor did my earnest shout of “get some, birdies!”  I had to get up and move towards them before they flew off for the avian equivalent of a cigarette and empty promises to bird-call each other later.

By daylight, the campsite was only somewhat less barren than the darkness had made it seem.  Somehow though, the area was still a romantic hotspot for birds of all feathers.  The next thing I saw that morning was this handsome mallard cruising by my tent site. 

Unfortunately, the first thing he saw was my tent as a potential love shack.  My back was turned to the bagels in my trunk-kitchen for maybe 2 minutes before I returned to see that the web-footed Romeo had called his girlfriend and was headed into my tent for a little morning glory action. 

I’d never begrudge a brother some duck love, but I had a new sleeping bag and I wasn’t about to let Donald and Daisy get some in it before I had.  They were easier to scatter than the doves had been, but only because they hadn’t gotten past foreplay yet. 

I closed the tent, ate my breakfast and hopped on my bike to cruise around the campsite before hitting the road.  The place was much nicer than it seemed from the limited view of my site, so I went off-road along the river.  Eventually, I pedaled through a couple inches of water into a hidden grotto that seemed like a great place to come back to one day.  The thought that I was still so close to home that I could easily come back one day took something away from the moment and I turned back toward my site via a different route.

 I rode through the RV section of the campground and found it populated mostly by couples and families enjoying a few extra days after Memorial Day weekend (or maybe it was Labor Day – whichever one comes first.)  Seeing them gave me an odd rush of mixed emotions.  I wanted to pity them a bit for the fact that they were legally obligated to take vacations together and would never know the joy of hitting the road alone and unfettered.  Then again, part of me envied them that when one of the amorous bird couples in the area 69ed in their RV, they’d have someone to share the story with immediately, rather than posting it to a blog weeks later in the hopes that they sounded more like an insightful wanderer than a lonely perv with a feather fetish.  Should I have wanted to take this trip with someone else?  I honestly didn’t, but if I’m looking for signs from the world around me, shouldn’t I take the horny birds as a portent for me to settle down and mate?

One of the things I was excited about for this trip was seeing all sorts of wildlife that I’d never seen in person before.  Whether or not the answer to my coupling question was quickly delivered with the actual sound of “Meep meep!” I’ll never reveal, but it was delivered by this ballsy loner: 

The first actual roadrunner I’ve ever seen in my life.  Stag.  If he was bold enough to venture out without fear of being single or of being attacked by a coyote on a rocket powered pogo stick, who was I to do any less?  It was, after all, a sign.

The very first time I stopped my car on my Great American Adventure was the stunning and glamorous Barstow, California.  Stunning, because you just can’t believe that people purposely choose to live in the middle of nowhere, and glamorous because the only excuse for its habitation you can conceive is that it must be a big step up for someone who has been living in a Detroit sewer, or in a particularly bad neighborhood in Haiti.  If you’ve heard of Barstow, it’s because it’s that place you stop for gas and cigarettes midway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas when you’re just starting to realize that your idea for a spontaneous weekend at the tables might not have been worth the 6 traffic-snarled hours of driving through 110 degree desert and you don’t really know how to play craps anyway.  Sin City didn’t make my roadtrip itinerary, so I’d be breaking straight east on U.S. 40 from Barstow, rather than northeast to donate money to the casinos.  Having been to Las Vegas several times already, I am confident that there is really no need to go more than twice in your life without benefit of a special occasion.  You go once to bathe in the sheer marvel of such a magnificently decadent spectacle and promise yourself to celebrate every milestone of your life there, and once more to realize what a cheesy money pit it is and be embarrassed at how much you loved it that first time.  So the Barstow pitstop wasn’t a real Stop stop for me, so much as it pulling over to take a leak and deliver a message. 

Only a paltry 2 hours into the roadtrip, there was no real need to stop.  I was still high on the excitement of anticipating the untold adventures that lay ahead and suffused with deliciously self-righteous indignation from having just ended a long-time close friendship after one painfully petty betrayal too many.  My dromedary-esque bladder wasn’t even making more than token demands despite the Super Big Gulp I’d christened the trip with, for lack of a bottle of Dom Perignon.  I wouldn’t have even slowed down to check the evening’s temperature on Barstow’s claim to fame, “The World’s Biggest Thermometer” (a site that typically causes me to wonder what hypochondriacal giant had created it, and hope that it was intended to be oral) but before I left, my excellent buddy David had asked me to give the town his regards.  Anyone else might have assumed David had a friend in town or at least a favorite haberdashery, but I’ve known David for over 15 years now and I know him to be a man who maintains passionate relationships with a variety of locales.  I was very aware of exactly what kind of regards he intended from the presence of the rakish grin he’s spent the majority of those years perfecting.

The first time David and I had ever been to Barstow was early in our friendship and I hadn’t noticed any strong opinion of the town from him.  That may have been because he was saving it up for when we got to our destination – the absurd pinky ring in the desert’s gaudy costume jewelry that is Las Vegas – the Luxor.  We weren’t two steps through the front door when we were faced with a gargantuan statue of some long dead Egyptian Pharaoh or deity of the non-animal-headed variety.  Without missing a beat, David stopped in his tracks to stare up at the towering plaster mockery of an ancient faith and with all the calm malice he could muster, he said “So, Luxor… we meet again.”

I knew that David had never been to Las Vegas before, but he’s just quirky enough to pull that kind of thing off and leave you wondering if you should laugh openly, ask what the hell he’s talking about or just keep walking and let him explain in his own good time.  I chose the latter, if only to have something to look forward to.

It was while nursing hangovers the next day over plates laden with an inordinate amount of debatably “prime” rib at the Pharaoh’s Pheast Buffet that David explained that the statue was just too damn creepy not to be someone’s archenemy, so he had decided to fill the role.  He’s generous like that.  Through a mouthful of julienned potatoes older than my car, I suggested that a true enemy might prove it by spitting in a statue’s eye.  I learned then and there, as David climbed atop our iridescent purple pleather booth and shimmied his lanky frame up an inclined wall to offer a token gob to Horus or Ra or somebody, that David was a man who committed to a bit. 

That same year, back when we didn’t know each other well enough to forget to get each other birthday presents, I had given David a new briefcase for his birthday in honor of a new job or a promotion or something.  Being hilarious, I put a couple tighy whities in the case as a joke.  “Brief” case.  Get it?  David committed to that bit too and put the briefs on his red head and made goofy faces and even let me take his picture, a mistake I expect he’s about to regret.  He gushed at the thoughtfulness of the blue nylon and Velcro case that I thought bespoke a certain efficiency and professional insouciance he could pull off.  It was some days later when we were walking into a movie that I noticed the fancy pigskin leather briefcase David was toting to carry in the newspaper or books he always kept handy for when conversation with me became too dull to bare.

 “Where’d you get that?” I asked innocently.

 “Oh, this?”  he asked, even more innocently.

“Is that a new briefcase?” I replied, just to be sure it wasn’t an old backup he used because the one I’d given him was far too fine for every day use.

He didn’t even have the good grace to be ashamed.  “Yeah.” He said.  “I brought yours back to Macy’s and used the refund to get this down in Venice.  Nice, huh?”

“Very nice”, I assured him.  “Leather scuffs though, so be careful.”  I left it unsaid that blue nylon rarely scuffs. 

I wasn’t especially mad that he didn’t like the briefcase I’d gotten him, or that he’d returned it without mentioning it, or even that he’d gotten a refund rather than a store credit and bought himself a more expensive one someplace nicer than Macy’s.  We were relatively new pals after all, and our friendship hadn’t yet been elevated to the point where either of us deserved anything from the other that was nicer than Macy’s could provide.  No, I wasn’t mad, but I did tuck the memory away in my mental revenge file to await an appropriate moment to get him back.  Over a decade later, this photograph of David wearing my underpants on his head is that revenge.

I should note that they may have been less “fresh from the package” than I led him to believe at the time.

So now, these many years later when David and I have evolved past Macy’s to that comfortable place where one could just pick up the tab at a dinner and call it a celebration of some event or occasion for the other, I understood exactly what regards he meant for me to give to Barstow before he even added “Spit on it for me.”

Barstow seems a harmless if meaningless town on the surface, so David gave it significance with his enmity.  Always happy to help a friend, I went above and beyond his request and saluted Barstow in the form of roadside urination.  I didn’t even go into The Mad Greek to feign interest in their dubious billboard borne boasts of the “World’s Best Gyro” to get to use their toilet.  I pulled into the dirt beside the US 40, pissed on an anthill and was back in my car so quick that my taillights faded from the spot before the steam did.

Maybe not the most elegant first pause on the journey, but my departure had reminded me that plans, like friendships, tend to evolve, just not always for the better.

The relaxing days leading up to my departure from Los Angeles were truly a blessing.  I spent the majority of the time wandering the sunny beach, deep in personal reflection as I girded my spirit for the solitary days ahead.  A surprisingly small amount of time was needed to map out the journey, to make the efficient arrangements for my mundane affairs during my absence, to confidently pack the minimal needs for the road and to entertain many joyful visits with weepy friends who were loath to see me go, but still thrilled for me and supportive of my bold efforts.  As a perfect send-off, the Friday before I left, my dearest friends surprised me with a massive soiree at my favorite bar where I was feted by well wishers baring practical and humorous gifts to aid in my journey.  I drank heartily, yet retained my faculties with aplomb and held court with friends and strangers alike who swore that they would remember the evening as the best going-away party they’d ever been to.  Even better, many of those gathered took a moment to compliment my newly rippling abdominal muscles and their kind words seemed enough to warm my heart for days to come.  In a wonderful coincidence of timing, Lynda Carter, Bill Clinton, Huey Lewis, and 4 of the 5 original News happened to be in the area and were drawn in by the sound of the revels and begged my welcome to join in the fun.  Bill played sax while Huey belted out the Heart of Rock and Roll with lyrics changed to indicate that I myself was said still-beating Heart.  Lynda, celebrating the recent plastic surgery that had restored her flawlessly to the age of 25, luckily had her famed costume and lasso under her dress and couldn’t resist a seductive striptease to reveal them, gifting me with a tasteful lap-dance and sweaty half hour make out session.  Then Spiderman webbed his way in, told me I was his hero and asked if I’d like to have Green Lantern’s ring because I was just so damn cool.

Hold on.  Give me a minute with that… 

Ahhh.  That was nice.

The truth is, not a word of the above is true.  I don’t even have a favorite bar (and I’m pretty sure Spiderman and Green Lantern have never met).  I did have some casual pre-departure fun with a couple close friends who equaled or bettered my effort to get together before I left, though admittedly my efforts were hampered by other demands.  The short weeks between the departure from my job and actually departing Los Angeles were a crazed rush to plan a ridiculously basic route of must-see locales, get my car checked out, find someone to sublet my apartment and buy crap I’d never use so I could overpack by tons. (All of these efforts have their own stories that may rear their heads at other times, especially the tale of the subletees who I’m still fairly certain are international spies.) 

I spent an unfortunate amount of time searching my apartment or wandering around stores wondering what all-important gizmo or article of clothing or miscellaneous necessity I’d accidentally leave behind, as I always seem to do on any trip.  Often when I travel I can’t relax until I know what it is I forgot to bring, and it’s eventual revelation comes as merciful relief rather than frustration at whatever the oversightmight havebeen.  Those rare trips where I don’t actually forget anything at all can be truly maddening.

In truth, I didn’t have time and didn’t expect anyone else to make a big bon voyage deal about my departure (No, seriously).  Many people seemed possessed of the preposterous notion that I either wouldn’t really take the trip or wouldn’t be gone for more than a few days.  I was content to allow for such baselessly low expectations, just in case I ended up deciding I either wouldn’t really take the trip or wouldn’t be gone for more than a few days for reasons that would certainly have had nothing to do with whatever inspired the ridiculous assumptions in others.  I would, however, still strongly argue that it is basic human nature to harbor the hope that when you’re going away for 2 or 3 months, your best friends might motivate to join you for a farewell fillet or a bon voyage bourbon, or at least stop by to offer a high five before you pull out of your driveway.  But, as I’ve often said, there’s nothing worse than a little hope…

Rather than any of the joyous events of my fantasy, my big Friday send-off was me going out of my way to make efforts to hang with someone I thought was one of my best friends and being rewarded with the single swiftest kick in the nuts I’ve ever felt.  (I was about to point out that the kick was mercifully only metaphoric, but a literal one would have healed by now and that blow still stings like a sonofabitch.)

It was a situation that, on its own, would not have been a big deal.  Kind of like finding a fly paddling through your soup when you only got the soup because it came free with the entrée.  But since this event served as confirmation of dozens of other suspicious slights, it took on a greater meaning as it explained a lot I’d been unable not to wonder about.  More like finding out you’ve been eating fly soup for months but thought they were a new strain of pinto beans. 

I had just gotten back from a quick trip to New York where I flew to celebrate my precious grandmother’s 95^thbirthday.  It was Friday, so I only had a few days left in Los Angeles to pack up and leave since I planned to hit the road on the coming Monday.  I reached out to that aforementioned friend, who we’ll call “Jim”, to arrange our one last hurrah on the town before I hit the road for who knew how long.  I find it’s difficult to explain my friendship with Jim in light of the events that I am about to unfold, but suffice to say, I once thought we were as close as brothers.  We talked or texted almost every day, we’d hang out not just on weekends, but even randomly during the week just for the hell of it.  We had tons of stupid in-jokes and I’d even developed a taste for his truly painful mastery of the art of the pun.  The kind of close friendship you usually can’t find after a certain age – a real bromance.

It took repeated inquiries before Jim and I could make plans.  I thought nothing of the delay of his responses at the time because I had no reason to think Jim wouldn’t want to hang out, and he often went radio silent and needed prodding to make plans.  In hindsight, I realize that the delay was not because he was busy or because his acute Texter’s Thumbitis was acting up, but because he needed to get his story straight.  What he came up with was that he and a coworker, a mutual friend I’ll call “Bill”, had just been through a rough week meeting a deadline and Bill wanted them to go out and celebrate their week’s accomplishment alone to bond over dinner.  I understood, but knowing that Jim didn’t have the constitution to go out again on Saturday after a Friday night with Bill (few men did), I reminded him that it was the only free night I had and asked if they’d want to meet afterwards for a bon-voyage drink or twelve.  After a while, he suggested that I should try to meet the two of them for drinks after 9:30pm or so at the hipster bar next door to the hipster restaurant where they’d be eating their hipster dinner.  Rare veal and miniature corn with a pinecone salad, I imagined.  It was in Hollywood and it would be a bitch for me to take a cab out there at that hour, fighting the traffic congested by the endless parade of glitter girls venturing forth for a night on the town with only two dollars in their pocket, but two new breasts to buy them drinks.  Luckily, it turned out that another buddy, who we’ll call “David” because that’s his name and he’s a stand-up guy, was going to be in the area as well.  I rallied and arranged to meet David at the bar around 9pm to buy some drinks for some breasts and wait for Jim and Bill to arrive later.

I arrived at the bar before David and was literally one step through the door when someone pulled the rug out from under my feet at the same time a donkey in plate mail boots gave me that kick in the nuts.  The restaurant must have been booked up, because there were Jim and Bill sitting at a table in the bar eating and yukking it up, not in the intimate twosome I was told precluded my presence, but with someone we’ll call “D-Bag”, because he’s an absolute fucking douchebag.  The normal thoughts raced through my head – why did my friend lie to me?  So he could hang out with D-Bag?  He’s a haircut!  When did I become persona non grata?  What were they going to do if I showed up later as expected?  Pretend D-Bag just happened to drop by and keep the lies going?  What kind of a grown man treats his friends like that?  30 seconds earlier, I’d have taken a bullet for Jim, now it was taking all my strength not to hurl myself across the bar and dropkick his lying face through the wall.

This may seem an extreme reaction to an arguably minor slight, but there’s more to it – a lot more, not the least of which is because my dear friend had treated me like this before.  Months earlier, Jim fed me some story where the result was that he didn’t want to go party on Halloween because he didn’t like it that much anyway.  I, personally, love Halloween.  I love the spooky atmosphere, the creepy decorations, the little kids unwittingly engaging in pagan ritual and sacrificing their souls to the Dark Lord for ribbon candy or Violet Gum or whatever it is kids stuff their faces with nowadays.  Most of all, I love the costumes.  In the back of my closet, I have a “disguise kit” I’ve been building since I was about 9 years old.  Two minutes with that kit and I could be unrecognizable, which isn’t easy at 6’4”.  Once, for the hell of it, I walked up to my friend Phil in a neighborhood bar while in disguise and bullied him off of a stool before my uncontrollable giggling gave me away.  That’s the main reason I never became a secret agent.  That, and I never learned to tango. 

I was especially psyched for this particular Halloween because it was also going to be the first one in a long time where I wouldn’t have to be shopping in the XXL section.  I practically begged Jim to come out with me, but he insisted he wanted to stay in.  It wasn’t until a few weeks later when Bill was bombed out of his mind that he let it slip that that he, Jim and D-Bag had been out at a big party on Halloween.  I eventually called Jim on it and he actually blamed Bill for it, saying Bill had insisted I not come with them.  Bill and I have had our ups and downs, so I believed it and it reignited the anger at Bill I’d hoped we had put behind us.  I told Jim that I didn’t care if he wanted to hang out with Bill or D-Bag without me, and I truly didn’t, I just didn’t want to get lied to about it.  Jim promised he wouldn’t lie to me again. 

Oddly, two lies and a broken promise aren’t what made me as mad and hurt as I was that night.  Jim always had a loose relationship with the truth and I knew that about him.  He genuinely believed it was kinder to lie to people and leave them on the hook wondering where they stood than to give them bad news directly.  I found it somewhat cowardly to deny people the right to whatever closure the truth brings, but Jim seemed to believe what he said, so I accepted this aspect of his character.  That, of course, was before I knew just how often I was going to be on the other end of his particularly cruel brand of kindness.  A realization that flooded over me when I walked into the bar and I saw just how good his word was, how little respect he had for me, and who it was that he’d lied for.

Unfortunately for the rest of this story, the Grand Canyon is a 5 minute bus ride from me right now and I don’t have the stomach to sit with these memories for very long, so it will have to keep for another time.  I will say that I never got answers to the questions I had because I left the bar without saying a word, walked across the street and bought my first pack of cigarettes in 5 years.  As I sat on the sidewalk in front of a strip club to try to calm down enough to think straight, I exhaled that first billowing tendril into the neon lit air of Hollywood Boulevard and realized that one good thing was going to come of this.  At least now I knew what I’d be leaving behind.

 —To Be Continued eventually in “Bromantic Triangle”

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