Life on Interstate 90

                                                Life on Interstate 90


         When I was a child I kept mealworms as pet food.  Upon first entering this world, mealworms are blind, slow and unaware.  I began with one hundred larvae and was left with ten by the time their sad, incarcerated lives won my sympathy.  I decided to let the remaining ten to live and grow, with intentions of eventually freeing them.  A month passed and they began to morph into pupae.  In the final moments before hatching into an adult, they are crescent-shaped cocoons with curled and immobile legs.  Looking into the jar, I saw one of the pupae begin to move its legs, and I held it in my hand as it wriggled and hatched.  Immediately after hatching, the darkling beetle’s exoskeleton is white and soft.  As I sat there and marveled at this miracle of nature, it fell off my hand, hit the floor, and promptly died – victim of mass and gravity.
         I am on a great adventure.  Sixty-five miles behind me lies Buffalo, New York.  The road I walk on is Interstate 90, and I am heading due east.  My two week old white sneakers look as if I have worn them for years.  They are covered in a combination of mud, dust and grass.  The soles are riddled with gravel and small shards of glass.  All I carry is a small backpack, which contains matches, a road map, and whatever leftover food I manage to save.  I have no wallet and no money in my pockets.  My hair is a mess, and I am developing an uneven, patchy beard.  It doesn’t take very long to hit rock bottom.
         Believe me when I say, sixty-five miles is a long way to walk.  That isn’t including about 10 miles leaving Buffalo, which took half a day in itself.  I keep to the side of the road, sometimes venturing a little bit into the fields and woods around me.  The road is extremely flat and straight.  I can see in both directions for miles.  Police don’t stand a chance of finding me.  That is, if what I am doing is illegal.  I’m not even sure if it is.  Undoubtedly, they would give me a hassle either way.  I run into the woods every time I think I see a squad car.  Sometimes, I even run from civilian cars and watch them from behind a tree.  I get a strange thrill from these one-way moments, even if only for a few seconds.  Afterwords, they go on living their lives as if nothing had ever happened. 
         Eating is tricky.  Every 20 miles or so, there is a rest stop.  At these rest stops they have a gas station and several fast food stores, usually McDonald's and Dunkin’ Donuts.  If I go into McDonald's late enough at night, sometimes I get free food.  They can only serve certain items on their menu at certain hours.  After midnight they stop serving most of their menu, and I can usually get a free McDonald's version of “apple pie,” or some leftover donuts.  It disgusts me to have to resort to begging for fast food, but I haven’t figured another way yet.  It took me several experimental nights to figure out the method I’m using now.  On my second night, I ate food out of a garbage can.  Things will get better. 
      I keep walking and eventually I get tired.  I leave the road and enter the woods.  I find an oak tree and curl in a ball under it.  I sleep deeply until the sun rises.  Nothing bothers me.

      Early morning on Interstate 90 is truly beautiful.  Traffic is light, and wildlife outnumbers hominids for a short while.  Silent birds flit overhead.  Deer make the bold switch from one side of the road to another, where they will go on to be disappointed that man has colonized that side as well.
         My progress is slow.  If I see something that captures my attention, I stop and look at it for a while.  Yesterday, for example, I found a melted birthday cake on the side of the road.  I take breaks often, and they can last for long periods of time.  I spent what could have been hours looking at a magnificent tree.  It had grown around a very old foundation.  Concrete disappeared into the trunk and reappeared on the other side.  The tree was twisted, with two dominant clumps of branches reaching upwards, roaring in triumph.  I sat and marveled at this champion of nature.  At that moment, I became sure that I’m not in a hurry.
         On Interstate 90, there can be thirty miles between exits.  Today I find an exit ramp and take it.  I find a pub and go inside.  The inhabitants are dirty but I still feel as if I stick out.  I walk up to the barkeep and ask for a cherry coke.
         “Not ‘til I see some cash on the table,” He says, eying me down.
         “How about a water, then?”
         “Do you plan on buying anything?”
         “Well let’s see how your water is, first.”
         He slides over a dirty glass and fills it halfway up in the sink.  I take what I can get.  A fat local notices me and comes over.  He sits down next to me.
         “I can smell you from over there buddy,” He says.
         “Okay.”
         “Maybe you shouldn’t be hanging around a place like this.” 
         “A respectable opinion.”  I start drinking the water faster.
         A short silence.  "Don’t make this hard on yourself.”
         “Is that advice or a threat?”
         He opens his mouth again and I throw my weight into him.  His eyes open wide and he falls backwards out of the chair.  I get up, run out to the street, and head back to the exit ramp.
         I walk another ten miles and start looking for a place to sleep.  For the first couple nights sleep was a tricky thing, but I’ve been getting less and less picky about it.  I move into the woods until the road is out of sight.  After a minute of searching, I find a beautiful willow tree with branches that almost reach the ground.  I push aside the curtain-like boughs and curl up next to the trunk.
         I close my eyes and leap backwards twenty years.  I lay in moist grass and analyze the splotchy purple sky.  Interesting birds flit overhead and swollen clouds clash.  I must be miles from civilization.  Ants crawl over my hands and I pay them no attention.  I wonder how long I can stay here.  As it gets dark I hear my mother calling.

         I’m not doing this for a woman.  I divorced the only woman I was ever intimate with years ago.  I briefly considered homosexuality, but decided it just wasn’t for me.  I just push people away by nature and that’s the way it’s going to be. 
         I wake up and find a blackberry bush on the way back to the road.  I eat some, and put some in my backpack.  I ate every edible berry on the first berry bush I came across, and was sick for the entire next day.  In nature, things are meant to be shared.
         As I walk east, the sky grows darker.  I hadn’t even been on the road for an hour when the sky suddenly erupts.  Deafening sheets of rain pummel the road and countryside, and I am regrettably drenched.  Wind whips between trees as they rock back and forth in dissatisfaction.  I glare at the sky and shout.  Droplets land in my mouth in response.  I hadn’t thought of a plan for when it rained.  I stand there and shiver while my clothes cling to me in protest.  Water flows freely from my sneakers.  I want to find shelter more than anything, but instead I keep walking.  The rain will stop.  Life will go on.  People don’t die from being wet.  Cars slowly drive by, and I can’t even find the energy to run when they pass.  Hours later, one woman stops beside me and motions for me to get in the car.  I show her my teeth at her and kick at her door.  She leaves.  That night, I would wonder why I acted so strangely. 
         In the afternoon I find a rest stop.  The rain hasn’t given up, and by now I wonder if it ever will.  By now it feels like my clothes have molded into my skin.  As I walk into the food plaza, one of the employees at McDonald's runs up to me.
         “Don’t move one step further!  Get out!”  The guy talking to me is all worked up.  His eyes are wide and he is visibly shaking.
         “Don’t I have a right to be here-” I looked at the pin on his shirt, “Carl?”
         “You’re making a mess, I’m gunna have to clean all this up!”  His voice is rising with every sentence.
         “You know it’s raining out, right Carl?”
         “Don’t be smart with me, just get out!  Before anyone else sees you!”  Later, I would reflect upon this line for some time.
         “Just give me two minutes to warm up; I’m having a pretty rough day.  Carl.”
         “You’re disgusting!  Get out of here before I call the cops.”
         People like Carl aren’t members of the human race.  They are robots in disguise that come to Earth with their mission to make us hate each other.  Some weird alien scheme.  I’ll play for a little longer.
         “How about a bite to eat before you kick me to the curb, Carl?  A man’s gotta eat, right?”
         He ignores this and glares at my bare feet.  "God, are you some kind of nut?”  I had ditched my shoes and socks hours ago, victims of precipitation. 
         I could only think of one response to such a question; “You know... king mealworms can eat their way out of your stomach if you don’t che....”
         With that said, he actually moves forward with his head down, and starts pushing me out the door like a bull.  He keeps saying something but I stop listening at that point.  I push him off me and head back to the road.  I pass a sign saying that I had entered the state of Massachusetts.
         I originally thought that I had left Buffalo purely on impulse.  I had thought that it was just a strange way of dealing with a mid-life crisis, and that I would end up turning back before the day was over.  I am now painfully aware that this can no longer be the case.  A sense of purpose has begun to rear its thorny head.
         The rain stops by nightfall and the clouds clear to reveal one of the most beautiful, star-filled skies I’ve ever seen.  I find a clearing, lie on my back and fall asleep, still soaking wet and shivering.
         I find myself in a room filled with couches and Russians.  At the center couch is the one and only Joseph Stalin.  Advisers sit at both of his sides.  We chat, drink and laugh.  I ask him why he dictates such a harsh regime and he replies, “We must stay on the map, friend.”  Later on, I stand beside him as he delivers a great speech and sends an army to battle.  I look into the soft eyes of the soldiers.  My knowledge of history suggests that they are about to perform a historical massacre.

         In the morning I am awakened by a mossy stench.  I open my eyes and see a confusing, blurry mess of flesh, teeth and hair.  Without my permission, my mouth emits a pathetic little squeal.  The horrific mound of stinky flesh moves away slightly, revealing a mangy dog.  His fur is a mixture of brown and black, he is terribly skinny and he has clearly been a stray for some time.  Despite his appearance, he stands over me with unmistakable regal pride and even before I sit up, I name him Kingsley.  I have never dealt with stray dogs before, but I can see harmlessness in his eyes.  He looks hungry, so I feed him the crushed berries left in my backpack.  My clothes are still damp and I suspect that I have developed a cold.
         Kingsley proves to be a great companion.  He follows at my side wherever I go and, to my delight, he barks at the cars passing by amicably.  Loneliness is a terrible thing, even when self-induced.  I throw branches into the woods for him to find.  He doesn’t always find them, but I’m not perfect either.
         A car pulls over and I don’t bother running.  A woman rolls down her window and asks if I’m okay.  I tell her I’m fine and ask if she could spare me a bite to eat.  She passes two granola bars out the window and wishes me luck.  Food is getting to be a real problem.  I haven’t had a solid meal in days.  Hunger is a slow grinding machine, always in the back of your mind.  I begin to wonder how I will be able to feed Kingsley too.
         Darkness falls, but we keep moving in order to make it to the next rest stop.  This time, it is just a simple bathroom area with park benches and vending machines.  I find a rock and smash the glass on the food machine.  I grab handfuls of candy bars and chips and fill my backpack with them.  A line of drool falls from my mouth and I take no notice of it.  I also take no notice of the three teenage kids that have crept up behind me.  As a result, I am especially confused when my face unexpectedly rockets forward and smashes into the broken glass in front of me. 
      A piece catches my cheek and tears it open.  My forehead slams into the metal spirals that separate the bags of potato chips and ensure equal distribution per purchase.  My vision swims in and out of darkness and I stumble backwards.  As I try to turn around, my backpack catches on the glass.  It holds me in place as the first punch hits me in the side of the head.  I shout slow, nonsensical gibberish at them and keep turning towards them drunkenly.  Just before I lay eyes on my assailants, another fist comes from nowhere and catches my jaw.  I fall slowly to the floor and just listen to the sounds around me.
         “Get ‘em!  Get ‘em!”
         “We ‘got’ him already, come on.”
         “Oh shit, guys!  This is bad!”
         “We’re fine.  We caught ‘em stealing.”
         “Watch, I'ma cut him.”
         “What are you nuts?”  Then I heard barking and snarling.  I had forgotten about Kingsley.
         “Oh, shit!  It bit me!”  For a few seconds, I only hear scuffling and grunts, and some sort of moaning.
         Suddenly clear voices again: “What if the fucker has rabies?”
         “It isn’t foaming or anything.”
         “Stop crying, dude.”
         “It can still have rabies, man.  We should kill it.”  Apparently the people in Massachusetts aren’t much classier than the people in New York.
         “Let’s just get out of here.”
         Kingsley keeps barking at them until the car pulls away and vanishes down the road.  I lay on the ground for a few minutes before trying to move.  Kingsley comes over and licks my face.  For a moment, I don’t even mind his lethal breath.  I tell him that he’s a good dog and he wags his tail.  I get up, drink some water from the bathroom sink, and find a place in the woods to curl up.  I close my eyes and eventually slip into a merciful sleep.
         I am standing on a candy cane miles high and poking through the evening clouds.  A tiny figure dwarfed by a giant pillar of striped sugar.  I am the king of a pillowy heaven, stranded on my throne.  The thin air makes me grow faint.  It gets late, and I begin to wonder how I will get back down.

         I wake up in a good deal of pain and Kingsley is gone.  My head is throbbing.  I touch my cheek and a wave of nausea hits me.  I’m cold and hungry.  I look around for the backpack and remember it ripping on the vending machine glass.  I had left it behind, with all the stolen food.
         I look around for Kingsley and call him but he doesn’t come.  Ugly questions start forming my head.  He could very well have saved my life last night.  I feel terrible just thinking about it, but I have to take care of myself.  My skin is hot.  I think I have influenza. 
         The rest stop is full of people and they all avoid me.  I feel as if I am of a different species than them.  A boy points at me and makes a face to his brother.  I go into the bathroom and wash up.  I do my best to clean out the lacerations on my cheek and bandage them up with paper towels.  When I finish, I head back to the woods and walk around, calling for Kingsley and looking for any signs of him.  Eventually, I give up and head back to the road.
         The day is uneventful and I spend most of it feeling sorry for myself.  I don’t bother running from cars anymore.  Traffic is getting heavier the further I move east.  Boston is less than 20 miles away.  I should be able to make it to my destination tomorrow.  My head is still exploding and Kingsley is still missing.  I wonder if I will ever see him again.
         In the afternoon a police car pulls up next to me.  He says something over a speaker and I spit on his window.  The officer opens his car door and I run away, laughing to myself and happy for the first time that day.  I am constantly surprising myself..  To avoid any further hassle, I continue my progress in the woods rather than the road.  I idly call for Kingsley every now and then, but give up as darkness falls.  It chills me to think that I may never know what happened to him. 
        I come upon the last rest stop on Interstate 90 around what should be dinnertime.  There are dumpsters behind the food plazas so I head back there in hope of some relatively fresh food.  There is a young employee smoking a cigarette and sitting on the steps to a back door of Dunkin’ Donuts.  He waves to me.  I wave back and approach him. 
        “Hey man, you look terrible.”
        “Thanks.  You think you could scrounge up anything inside for me to eat?”
        “Yeah, sure… I’ll be right back.” 
        After a minute or two the kid comes back outside and hands me a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and cup.  Rather than going back inside right away, he lights up another cigarette.
         “So when you get to wherever you’re going, do you really thing that it’ll be any better than the place that you left?”
          I don’t answer right away.  “If different is better, then yes, it will be.”
        “That's a mighty big assumption."
        "I guess so."
        "Well either way, I've gotta say you look like hell."
         “I’ve already seen the other side.”
        I thank him for his time and head into the woods.  The bag contains two bagels and a muffin, and the cup is full of orange juice.  I restrain myself from devouring everything at once.  I eat everything but one bagel and drink all of the orange juice.  I can hardly imagine a better tasting meal.  I find a pine tree with a relatively comfortable bed of needles and drift off to sleep.  I think about Kingsley.
                An old friend appears in my home.  He had left town after high school and traveled to Seattle and Hawaii, then settled in Germany.  He is friendly and always found a way to make ends meet, even if it meant sleeping in the attic of a warehouse where he worked illegally.  He seems different this time.  Standing in front of me, he has one arm.  The other is cut short at the elbow.  He closes his eyes and tells me that he didn’t love the things around him.  I flinch and he vanishes, only to haunt some other place and time with his dopamine-fueled soul.

                I wake up refreshed and eager to get back on the road.  I am running a high fever and my joints ache, but I ignore them.  The morning is crisp and warm.  The sky is clear and I hear wildlife all around me.  I eat the last bagel on the way out of the woods and start walking.  The extra food in my system gives me energy, and I even consider jogging but decide not to.  I had come this far walking and didn’t want to do it any other way.
                Several hours pass.  I come to the tollbooth bordering Boston and sneak around it.  After the toll, I jump back on the road until I enter the city, branch off onto smaller streets, and never see Interstate 90 again.
                Boston is infamous for its design.  Rather than having streets that run parallel to each other to form a grid, the city streets make a sort of messy circle that only the locals truly understand.  I had only been to Boston twice in my life, on business trips, but I knew enough to be able to find the water.  The city was built around the harbor, and most main roads lead to water if you take them long enough.  The air is a strange mix of fish, salt and pollution.  I can literally smell the end of my journey.
                The residents gave me strange looks but mind their own business.  They walk in a slow, drudging way that makes me feel sorry for them.  They walk with strange purpose that only they know.  As I make my way deeper into town, I feel even more estranged.  I take a minute to stop and look at my reflection in the window of an antique store.  I look like a corpse dragged off a battlefield.  My cheek is still torn and is reddened with infection.  The side of my head is covered in bruises.  My skin is radiating heat and I feel nauseous.  My clothes are in tatters and I am still barefoot.  My feet bleed with every step.  My backpack is long gone, probably buried in a landfill by now.  My hair is tangled and matted with dried blood.  I have grown a strange, patchy beard and my teeth are a sickly yellow.  Even my eyes have developed a wild, bloodshot look to them.  I look through the window and see a woman on the other side.  Her mouth is hanging open and she is speaking very quickly.  I take this as a signal to keep moving. 
              On the way here, I had considering poking around town, since I had been on the road for so long.  Looking at myself I realize that I can no longer reasonably mingle with these people.  I decide to stop stalling and move along.
              I walk until I find the Boston Harbor.  I find an isolated spot between an extremely large, white pavilion and a fishing company warehouse.  There is a railing over the water and I lean against it.  I feel as if I should be exhausted but I’m not.  There is a kind of strange pulsing energy moving up and down my body, electrifying me.  The railing I lean against is thirty feet over the slowly moving water.  I take a deep breath.  I turn and look behind me to check for Kingsley, one last time.  Not surprisingly, he isn’t there.
              I climb up onto the railing and spread my arms.  I look up at the sky and can’t think of anything clever to say.  There isn’t anyone around to hear it anymore.  The fall is surprisingly melodramatic, and happens very quickly.  I enter the freezing water and keep diving downwards. 
              As I swim deeper, I enter a strange room.  The walls around me are white, the ceiling is white, and the floor is white.  Mounted in center of the floor is a human brain that appears to be very much alive.  Time passes.  I stand there and gaze at the brain while beautiful birds flit overhead.