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Redlands, CA
2/24/2011

I wake up to an empty home. I clean up and get a call from Barnhart sometime before lunch. He’s coming to pick me up; he doesn’t want me or anyone to be around when Gigi’s mom comes back to the house. I ask him why, and he tells me about this time when she walked in on him having a threesome with Gigi in her bedroom. It’s been awkward ever since.

He takes me on a random drive around town. While on the road, he asks me how wild he thought things would get while I’m out here. I didn’t really know what he was getting at. Before we parked the truck on an open strip of road somewhere, Barnhart tells me that Al Gore bought up a bunch of property in this area.

I had to put the pieces together myself, and despite my comfort in drug procurements, meth is not pot, and your average meth dealer is not a cool hippy-type. They’re criminally-charged, deranged, and insecure.

We’re two white guys with North Face jackets and jeans walking through a suburban jungle. Barnhart walks alongside me with his 64-ounce cup of diet coke, telling me about the nature of fear. He must have smelled it on me… He tries to reassure me by saying “you need to control that fear, and not be controlled by it.” As insane as that sounds, walking together through this dangerous neighborhood, I get the idea.

“Look at the pictures on my phone, and go walk down to that red car over there and see if anyone’s inside.” We approach a corner, and he points to the red car with tinted windows at the end of the street, 500 yards away. I ask him “I can’t go in with you?” and he says “No, but I’ll be quick, in and out, before you’re back.”

I take his phone and begin snapping pictures with it. I lose my fear of the neighborhood as my artistic eye dilates. In this neighborhood, many things are worth photographing. An American flag is torn and twisted up in a gated fence, surrounded by tropical brush, palm trees, and overgrown garden décor. I had just snapped a picture of the American flag.

A man who looks like a biker with black sunglasses on appears behind the fence, breaking through the jungle of tree brush that made up his backyard. “Excuse me; are you taking pictures with that phone right here? If you are, you’re gonna’ stop right now.” Barnhart appears from around the front of the house, takes his phone back, and says, laughing, “Dude, you can’t be taking pictures out here.”

“If he takes anymore pictures, I’m gonna’ have to knock his ass out.” Barnhart’s voice flutters as he says “it’s alright, I’m deleting them.” The biker asks me “what are you doing here?” and Barnhart replies for me, “He’s with me.” I say “I’m just along for the ride” and the biker says, “ride’s over; now get the fuck out of here.”

“Don’t ever put me in that position again,” I tell Barnhart when we get back to the truck. We sit there a few minutes to hash out the last ten. He tells me I have nothing to worry about, because “he knows me.” The rest of the ride was relatively quiet, aside from Barnhart’s reassuring comments about drugs in California.

We go back to his place on Olive Street, and I put on a James Bond flick. Barnhart disappears into his bedroom to smoke his meth. I watch him. He digs deep into the folds of his ass to pull out a tiny ball of saran wrap. He carefully cracks it open to examine the product and sets it down on a book while he shuffles round for his pipe. His pipe looks like a ball lollipop, discolored by smoke and resin. The ball is blackened under a point where the meth is deposited. He picks up the delicate collection of white and drops about a third of it into the ball. He shakes it around to make a small island of meth. He sparks a flame, and before he smokes it, says “you might want to try this, it’ll clear your sinuses right up.” He then proceeds to hold the flame for several seconds under the pipe and inhales a thick cloud of white smoke.

He smoked that little island of meth twice, rotating the ball in his hand, burning all the resin inside. And then he proceeded to work on his website. I lost sight of him as I watched the movie and passed out an hour in. I wake up around six, and Barnhart is still plugging away. Without looking away from his laptop, he tells me we’re picking up Gigi after work and going to a place called Eureka!Burger for dinner. My spirits are lifted; I love burger joints. I also feel less sick, so I’m motivated to go out and make the most of it. We pick Gigi up at the hospital a half-hour later.

San Bernardino, CA
2/23/2011

Before I knew it, I was at the train station in San Bernardino, and Barnhart, my host out there, was ten minutes away with his girlfriend, Gigi. “Don’t go exploring, you’re in gang territory,” says Gigi over Barnhart. “Gang territory?” (It kind of felt like a shady place to stick around.) “Yeah, you know, the Bloods and the Crypts do business out there. Don’t wear anything red.” I look down at my red plaid shirt, and I start to panic. “I’m wearing red. Come find me, now.” Gigi takes the phone and says, “Get yourself inside somewhere. We’re on our way,” and before the line cuts off, I hear her say “shit” under her breath.

I waited at the Doughnut King nearby. The nice Asian shop owner gave me some extra doughnuts with my egg, ham, and cheese sandwich order. It was terrible. I picked at it enough to get my fill just as Barnhart and Gigi arrived. I was so glad to be leaving that area; some kids were loitering outside the shop, giving me funny looks. Barnhart was driving a big white truck, holding a 64-ounce cup of diet coke from Circle K. We had a quick hug and shake, and I threw my bags in the backseat. Barnhart had a ruffled look about him, as if hadn’t slept much lately.

Barnhart used to work in real estate back east, but was originally from California. After a two-month solo adventure in Cambodia that almost got him arrested and killed, he returned home to begin more lucrative ventures. He started a delivery business that covers most of the area, and that has been his most recent passion project. For as long as I’ve known him, he has always worn Berkenstock sandals, in every occasion. Even in the midst of winter, he’d wear those sandals.

The drive was comical. Barnhart kept the 64-ounce cup of diet coke in his lap, and while driving with his left hand, he played the drums with a bound bundle of chopsticks in his right. The radio was not on, but still he kept a beat while asking me how things were going. The conversation was nice enough. On occasion he would drift into a separate conversation with Gigi, who sat in the back. The highway drive was dangerous like this, but I didn’t mind. My eyes were too busy looking out at the mountains ahead.

San Bernardino, CA
2/23/2011

I feel a cold coming on. The lack of sleep, water, and nutrition is catching up with me. The last couple weeks have kept my body in a state of fast-moving culture shock, and at last, I’m starting to crack under the pressure. Maybe it’s the air. I was told by a couple people on the train that LA’s pollution can make people sick. It didn’t take long for the microbial bacteria to find another sucker to infect. I felt it give me a sore throat. I tried drinking lots of water while I was on the Metrolink to San Bernardino, but I was distracted by the need to capture the sights I saw. It was not always pleasant to see the transformation.

Mountainous valleys are surrounded by wispy clouds. Lots are full of disassembled cars, parts, steel girders and rusting industrial leftovers. There are graveyards full of junk. Neighborhoods without end are full of track homes and swimming pools. Some of them are crystal clean, and others are murky, green, or bone dry. A lot of good and bad graffiti decorate the walls surrounding these track home neighborhoods. A small playground sandlot is in the middle of a dangerous area. A storage lot the size of several football fields holds a closet full of someone’s life. So monotonous.

A patio table and umbrella rest between two cars in a warehouse parking lot… A Zen rock garden rests next to basketball courts, next to an outdoor hockey rink, next to tennis courts, next to an open field, next to a parking lot, next to a gas station, next to a gentlemen’s club… A man stands around a barrel bonfire, under a tree, surrounded by children’s toys. A junkyard has a special hanger meant solely for car bumpers. A few first-generation trees remain in an empty plot of land. A dead bird cooks on the ceramic tiles of a Spanish shingle roof. I can stare at the sun because the clouds cover it just enough to look like a full moon in a clear night sky.

El Paso, TX
2/22/2011

I don’t think my uncle wanted me to leave. I think he would have benefitted greatly if I stayed a couple months and helped him cope with loss, and possibly expand his business. I’m confident that my brief stay showed him that he has family that loves him in more places than one, and that he’s capable of so much as a bachelor. The sexual element of his freedom is not important; the prestige of independent success is worth fighting for. Again, he will do what he must to reconnect with his family. I’m but a catalyst in a post-divorce return to society, and he welcomed the gift of my presence as much as I welcomed all the things he taught me. Like a ripple effect in a great body of water, he and I made motions that would have never occurred if I didn’t take this journey. The need for our entire family to reconnect has never been more paramount. I left around 5pm, and ate a home-made burrito as the sun went down over New Mexico.

El Paso, TX
2/21/2011

My uncle was well enough to work while I drove around El Paso. He suggested the main strip by UTEP, the University of Texas, El Paso. I took the CR-V (he bought two identical models, one for him, one for his ex-wife) on a brief jaunt through back roads that all looked the same. When I reached the UTEP district on North Mesa Drive, the advertising orgy was well underway. Franchise after franchise blocked my view of scenic panoramas. It jaded my experience because nobody seemed to care. The roads and parking lots were full of trucks and sport-utility vehicles and customized muscle cars and hot-wheels. The sidewalks had an occasional young professional or student couple visually swearing off consumer trends. Everything was Spanish; the shops, the colors, the street names, the murals, the music, the food, the fashion.

Kids here adopt a cultural vibe from Mexico, and while their families try to inherit the American Dream, they rebel with tattoos and piercings in tattered clothes and vibrant tributes to gang mentality. In this way, they are breaking the barriers, much like the physical barriers a few miles away. No matter where you go, people will talk about the battles against normalcy while drinking coffee from Starbucks. The great battle of El Paso is advertising your oasis in the desert. If it weren’t for that beautiful Thunderbird mountain with its beautiful colors watching over the valley below, I would lose myself in the expansive pavement terrain of suburban sprawl.

El Paso, TX
2/20/2011

El Paso is an expansive suburban sprawl. Between mountains and valleys are ubiquitous mini mansions built with palm wood, stone, and red clay. The opportunity for unique, independent, interior design is lost in the faceless repetition of homes. Lawns with burnt-yellow grass are redeemed by epic Italian pines that seem anything but indigenous. Everything is spaced out and requires transportation. The roads are unrestricted playgrounds for billboard signage. Driving down I-10, there are as many ads on the highway as there are on the internet. Couple that with aggressive drivers who drink while driving, and I’m not surprised to hear how high the driver-fatality rate is.

But that’s just El Paso and its massive roads. The heart of my experience here belongs to my uncle. While we drive, observe the scene, and see the evolution of his achievements, he is coming to terms with divorce. He talks of mistakes that feel like opportunities left to wilt. Quotations from a former life begin to resonate with us, such as “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and I get the feeling he would give it all up to show his family how good a father he is. Instead, he now belongs to a community of bachelors who have a fringe-like influence on their children.

“You got to teach them how to shave,” I tell him as we drive away from the park where his ex-wife and kids are hanging out with other single mothers and their kids. He and I brought them doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Minutes out of the day belong to bonding experiences shared between him and his two young, impressionable sons. He doesn’t blame his ex-wife. He blames himself. His work and his hobbies filled a void that family simply couldn’t. That was before he realized how important family is. In the absence of love, he would likely say, there is a void. To fill a void, you need a vacuum.

Valentine, TX
2/19/2011

Oceans of brush and rivers of sand exist everywhere out here. There are small dirt roads for dune buggies and motorbikes, but nobody rides on them. A mist covers the land all morning, and the cacti feast and make the most of it. Down the car, a mother scolds her child with threats of punishment that make me sad. There is a road following our train, and outposts every so many miles. Little towns exist near every outpost. A small, malnourished cow eats from a small, withering shrub. Everything misses the water. A small group of cows with visibly tough skin watch our train go by from a distance. There is no farm in sight, and no signs of domestication beyond the ubiquitous wire fencing that follow us on the left.

So many hills surround us on all sides. I imagine a grand body of water once existed here, and those hills were the islands that fostered primitive life. Now, they are the first thing to feel the sun’s hot kiss. Another small group of skinny cows gather around a small cement trough. The beauty in this vast open landscape is lost in the fact that, like a desert, it exists without end. The presence of water is very much like the hope of finding sustainable life. What you may find out here is more insular that you can imagine. A livelihood in the dry brush is a test of endurance. The air is thin, and I can see for miles, and all I see is an empty canvas for artists to paint in red.

Before arriving in El Paso, we stopped in Valentine, Texas. The conductor made a point to tell us Valentine has no grocery store, and yet it has a Prada outlet store. I shook my head in disbelief. You can’t buy food, but you can buy thousand-dollar handbags and designer shoes on a whim. There’s a mattress under a leafless tree nearby, and homes look just as run down as the ones I saw in Baltimore. We would soon move on to richer pastures. There is an abundance of tumbleweeds along the way, and I wonder why they choose to tumble alone when they go so well together.

New Orleans, LA
2/18/2011

I found an antique store on Frenchman Street. The walls were covered top to bottom in local folk art, wooden chairs, and flare unseen by many outside Louisiana. There was a glass window case with trinkets inside, and it was there I found a mechanical pencil from the early 1920’s. I bought it for $5, satisfied and convinced I got the better end of the bargain. My attention returned to the streets after a brief chat with the shop owner, a nice guy, who told me about the time he found that pencil. It was during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and he went scavenging in the debris. He found it in an old cigar box, along with a speeding ticket from 1916. We laughed at the idea of getting pulled over back then, and I later told him about my trip with candor. He, like many before him, wished me well as I left to collect my things and catch my train for El Paso.

Perhaps I hadn’t noticed it coming into New Orleans, but I noticed it leaving – our country is littered – there’s a lot of wasted space, talent, and resources out here. Only now on the train do I allow myself to reflect on that. “Step out into the world with your head high.” That was a public service announcement advertised on a billboard in the projects outside metro New Orleans. It was a motivational proposal for all those broken by poverty to simply “step out into the world” with a sense of confidence. How many of these people have heeded this advice? How many will ignore it, and resume their no-where, no-way routine? Vice has such a tight grip out here.

A black man is passed out on a train-side bench, his arm hangs off the end of it, as if it’s been there for hours, and a big white police officer approaches cautiously, as if he might walk upon a dead body on duty. Our train slowly observes before switching tracks West for El Paso and beyond.

New Orleans, LA
2/17/2011

The French Quarter of New Orleans is a wild place. It’s certainly not safe for young, solitary explorers like me. The lure of exotic, sensual pleasure does little to mask the danger that really exists out here. Despite all that, people are friendly and good-natured. Bourbon Street during the day has a wholesome attraction, much like the food you can find out there. I was warned not to venture far, so my miles walked were in circles, around the various Rues, each with their own handful of galleries, shops, and locals. Street performers entertain and artists create art in Jackson Square, in the midst of loud music and people, and everything is bubbling with activity.

Eventually I went to the riverfront, where a man was playing a famous blues song I’ve heard so many times before. A full moon was rising behind him, and casting a line of light across the rippling river. It was a perfect moment. I took a picture of it and gave the man a couple dollars, thanking him. A drifter sitting behind him stood up as we began talking about the little beauties of this town, and he said “I’ve lived and grown up here all my life” as he held out his hand to shake mine.

He took my hand and held it with a strong grip, preventing me from letting go. There was a moment when we locked eyes, and his friendly smile took on a more serious tension. I tried to let go. He had my hand and pulled me towards him. My heart was fluttering and I knew I was in danger. The guitar player simply sat there, looking up at me with a sad sort of look on his face that said, “What the hell are you doing, kid?” He didn’t interfere, even when the man exposed a broken glass bottle in his other hand. Things were in slow motion. I aggressively shook my hand free before he had the chance to try anything. Without making a scene, I left the riverfront, making sure I wasn’t followed, and returned to all the tourist attractions.

Greenwood, MS
2/17/2011

My impressions on the train begin to change in each passing mile. As if a picture caption was suffice, every new minute had a different title. We moved across fields of black-water marshlands. Trees grew out of water. Expansive bodies of farmland exist without crops growing; perhaps the harvest has passed. It feels like an underdeveloped Virginia landscape. There’s a unique smell of the swamp – profound and always present. Empty, one-lane roads belong to no one but the townies of rural America. Orange wisps of hair grow out of slivers in the prairie. A single baize horse grazes in a field meant for two.  Next stop, Greenwood, Mississippi.

A goose flies alongside a stretch of submerged electric poles that lead to a Viking warehouse surrounded by cars and trucks. Greenwood, home of unused trains and tracks, home to scores of shoebox homes made of wood and tin, cars on the front yard, barren, uncared for, and people loitering like they did back in the Great Depression. The roads are flat and made of cracked gravel. It’s one of many thru-ways for major American industry; smoke-stack cities in power-line suburbs.

As we continue southward to New Orleans, more sights manifest in the morning. Little wisps of dust rise off the ground in a parade of soft, white clouds. I see my first alligator, sleeping in greenish-brown waters, alone perhaps, resting among the rocks and algae and fish too proud to care. Small streams of sand lead into small bending rivers. Vast open spaces of prairie are just waiting for a roaming pack of wildlife. In between the seemingly empty stretches are marks of established agriculture. People on the train are friendly and outgoing, ready to tell you about themselves and their stories of travel, life on the move, and subtle abstractions in relation to how things were compared to how they are now.

Chicago, IL
2/16/2011

My exodus from Chicago was bittersweet. I was in love with a new city, and wasn’t ready to leave. I picked up my bags from the hotel after relaxing at the Cultural Center, and walked slowly up West Adams Street to Union Station. My train was waiting for me, and I boarded it like a commuter on a subway. My companion on the trip to New Orleans was a man named Lee. He was a big, portly black man with a sunny disposition and a mild twang in his voice. He told me he was on his way to a funeral somewhere near Jackson, Mississippi. It’s an odd thing; we dress so well to celebrate the passing of loved ones. Our “Sunday Finest” has purpose on the grassy knolls of buried siblings. He was pensive, despite his friendly nature. He listened with quiet, observant eyes and ears to the folks around us, telling their stories and commenting on life. He did a cross-country ride like mine before, when he was younger. Now, he told me, he was doing it out of necessity. He won’t fly in airplanes anymore. He remembers the sacrifices of long-distance travel, but keeps a good mind about it. He was raised in Amish country. He fought in Vietnam – saw some terrible things on those recon boats and helicopters – and came back in one piece, to live his life one day at a time from then on.

Lee had little else to come back to after that war, except for the lucrative jobs that were labor intensive. He went where the wind took him. He worked on a fishing boat for a few days, catching fish, shrimp, whatever the oceans provided, but along the way his experiences at war came back to haunt him. He quickly washed his hands of a life at sea, and became a man of the earth. He worked on a wheat fields in rural America for a while, earning a living with crops, and adjusting to a simpler life. One day, he found a car for sale. It wasn’t for sale; it was free, as long as he could fix the engine. He spent his free time fixing that engine and got it working within weeks. It was an old car with no top, red, and he took it across the country, picking up some of the beatnik generation along the way. I smiled and thought of that conversation I had with Epstein on our way to the Washington Monument. For all I knew, Lee was the one who drove those great minds across the country.

Safe-guarded like a mother’s love,
a concept of peace manifests the dove,
flying free, unscathed by jaded thieves,
un-vexed by life’s little pet peeves.

Freedom to love, learn, live with each other,
a growing body of thoughts we take no bother,
obsessive, compulsive, saturating the wet rags
of liberty and truth, now each in separate bags.

It wasn’t always divided like states,
there were no borders or defining traits.
Things like peace were a simple oath
made to wars with nothing left to loath.

Now it takes miles of red tape
to stick a notion like preventing rape;
permits and privileges to hunt and fight,
reasons absolved like our human rights.

It takes wings and hearts of gold and jade
to fly as that dove whom the heavens made.

A funny thing happened on my train to work today,
Santa Claus sat down to my left, sans the sleigh.
He was wearing a black trench coat, no gloves and/or hat,
and his beard was all trim like an aristocrat.

He was reading a book that was called
“The Fourth Part of the World,” and so I stalled,
telling myself that Santa is still learning,
readying the gifts and the coals that are burning.

He got on my train at Harvard Square,
a historic stop to which none can compare.
He was smiling now as he was back then,
in annals and stories of long back when.

“The Fourth Part of the World” as historians would decree,
is our fair land, America, the land of the free.
I see now the history of its story which is true,
and so Santa has come to see what is new.

He sat to my left, across from a mother and child,
he waved at the child whose response was quite mild.
His cheeks were not rosy as legend foretold,
but round as cherry apples, so very rarely sold.

Perhaps it was due to the lack of cold weather,
a trait that’s most common in the month of December.
Does Santa remember the cold and its sting?
Does Santa have snowfall as a gift he would bring?

While he studies away I imagine a story,
about Santa, his life, and his ultimate glory.
Christmas is only one day;
he lives and dies within it, some say.

The suspense and the joy from the start never pause,
commercials and hallmarks seem to mask the true cause.
The story of Santa transforms out of symbol,
a history protected like a thumb by a thimble.

Santa is only alive on this day;
he rests and he dreams while time keeps him at bay.
His memory is clear of all thought of misdeed,
which explains the list he checks twice as a creed.

I’ll assume he lives life in a slumber all year
until Christmas awakens within him good cheer.
In his dreams he’ll make visits to lands lesser known,
and see how much all the little children have grown.

I left him there reading as we entered the city.
Almost everyone ignored him, what a pity.
I will always remember his face,
even after he leaves without a trace.

Here I finally am

… sitting in a windowless room six stories above a downtown parking lot, in a room full of red eyes, loosed ties and security guards all dressed in black. I am poised not to unleash my emotions as the woman calmly speaks to me, she is silently begging me to maintain my composure probably because many before me did not.

I hate the feeling of being in a pivotal moment and not being able to ask the right questions. This is my opportunity to make a bold and enduring statement that will change the minds of many.

I took the liberty of pouring my self a glass of scotch, took a long sip while holding my eyes to hers.  Upon raising my empty glass in front of the calm woman I gently told her to cut to the chase, give me my belongings and send me on my way.  I wanted this to be quick and painless.

Her response was delivered mechanically, undoubtedly from saying the same words to others like me all day long. She conveyed a disconnected pity with her eyes, gesticulating gently while holding my gaze. Yes, it was her gentility which I admired most. Someone younger would have conveyed the wrong impression; she was more like a mother sending her child out on his first day of school. Her words went over my head.

I really admired her, though I must say again, that admiration was partially based in pity.

After collecting my belongings from the security guard I walked outside onto the sidewalk.  It was dark, blustery, cold and raining – perfect really, I thought as I walked through the streets. I wrote goodbye emails as I waited for my train and made a few phone calls effectively ending a stage of my life.

Wow… back to square one.

Riding the rails from Boston to New York I occasionally take a break from my laptop to gaze out the window. Maybe it is because I am looking for it now, but it seems that there is a lot going on in a country, or at least a region, who is supposed to be falling behind. Most of the trip takes me through coastal Connecticut, and all along the shore line there are men and machines building with steel and moving rocks and earth. Sights like this give me hope. I do not fear that that life blood of this country, the men and women who work every day to build and then maintain it, are falling behind, they are just maintaining a vast infrastructure that has suddenly been awaken by an urgency broadcasted from the other side of the globe. I hope that America will be able to put its wreckless ways behind itself and embrace the future by investing in the people and infrastructure that made this countries greatness possible.

On my way to work in the morning, Downtown Crossing, Boston – 7:45am

Here I finally am, standing thirty-six stories above the harbor, in a room full of sport coats, cocktail dresses and inflated ego’s, poised to break the inevitable silence which occurs when a speaker has run out of material and begs for questions from an awkward grouping of entry level associates and seasoned executives.

I hate the feeling of trying to rationalize my self out of being the first person to ask a question of this nature, giving up only feels good for a split second before you realize you just lost out on an opportunity to make a bold statement.

I over dramatized the five second lapse of time in which I pondered what I would say to the speaker. Almost involuntarily I caught the speaker’s eye, raised my glass of Merlot to signal that I wished to put her experience to the test. Fearing a chilly misinterpretation, I unfurled my question in an unwavering tone.

Her response was laced with innuendo, ironically, just as unexpected as I though my words would have been to her. She conveyed more with her eyes than with her words, gesticulating confidently while holding my gaze. Yes, it was her confidence which I admired most, and her commanding posture despite her petite stature; her words seemed to go over everyone else’s head but found meaning in my own.

I really admired her, I must say again.

Had she only been twenty years younger I would have walked over to her and asked her if she wanted a drink, and then proceeded to tell her how fascinating she sounded – of course she would have not had a gleaming rock on her finger, but that is besides the point. I would have told her about my ideas and listened to more of hers. After finishing another glass of Merlot we would have walked out on the patio and delved into more personal matters, and stayed out there until the crowd had dispersed. Parting ways I would have asked her for her business card. When I got into the office the next day I would have sent her an email to arrange lunch.

Wow… back to reality.